Comparison of De Vaga Versus Ring Annuloplasty in Patients with Moderate to Severe Tricuspid Regurgitation

Background: To compare outcome of Tricuspid Regurgitation (TR) between De Vaga technique and ring annuplasty in term of achieving adequate pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and functional outcome. Methods: In this comparative study adult patients(n=100) who underwent Mitral valve surgery with Tricuspid repair were enrolled and divided into two groups .Group A underwent MVR and TR repair using DEVAGA Technique (n=50) and group B had MVR with Tricuspid Repair Ring Annuloplasty (n=50). In the De Vega annuloplasty technique, 2 pledgeted parallel running 4-0 polypropylene stitches are placed at 3-4-mm intervals in a semicircular manner from the postero-septal to the antero-lateral commissure and tied. A valve gauge appropriate to the body surface area was used to determine the amount of anterior and posterior annular constriction. Results: Females were predominant in this study. The duration of surgery was found out to be 66.4 minutes in group A compared to 71.0 minutes in group B(statistically not significant). Stay in the ICU and overall hospital stay was also found similar in both groups (p-value, 0.68). There was no statistically significant difference in postoperative functional capacity distribution (PAP) according to the surgical technique (p-value, 0.19). Conclusion: Devaga repair is as durable as prosthetic ring annuloplasty with added benefits of simple, cost effective and time saving technique

Using a Model-driven Approach in Building a Provenance Framework for Tracking Policy-making Processes in Smart Cities

The significance of provenance in various settings has emphasised its potential in the policy-making process for analytics in Smart Cities. At present, there exists no framework that can capture the provenance in a policy-making setting. This research therefore aims at defining a novel framework, namely, the Policy Cycle Provenance (PCP) Framework, to capture the provenance of the policy-making process. However, it is not straightforward to design the provenance framework due to a number of associated policy design challenges. The design challenges revealed the need for an adaptive system for tracking policies therefore a model-driven approach has been considered in designing the PCP framework. Also, suitability of a networking approach is proposed for designing workflows for tracking the policy-making process.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, Proc of the 21st International Database Engineering & Applications Symposium (IDEAS 2017

Conservation of Sulaiman Markhor and Afghan Urial by Local Tribesmen in Torghar, Pakistan

Chapter 1 of the book Lessons Learned: Case Studies in Sustainable Use. This chapter describes the events that led to the creation of STEP (Society for Torghar Environmental Protection), its achievements, and outlines its future plans. The paper demonstrates that by involving local communities in conservation projects, both wildlife and communities benefit. Torghar lies in the district of Killa Saifullah within the province of Balochistan, Pakistan. The Pathan tribe, the largest of the Kakar group, have been living in this area for several generations. Several sub-tribes exist for whom hunting is a tradition. Before the Afghanistan War began in 1979, primitive weapons and the scarcity of ammunition limited the number of animals killed. As the pace of the war increased, automatic weapons and ammunition became readily available. Seasonal migrants and local residents began hunting indiscriminately and population numbers of wild animals dwindled rapidly. Populations of Sulaiman Markhor (Capra falconeri jerdoni) and Afghan Urial (Ovis orientalis cycleros) -- keystone species in the area -- became critically low. In 1984, representatives of the North America-United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) arrived in Balochistan to explore opportunities for wildlife conservation. Tribesmen from Torghar expressed an interest in wildlife conservation and a self-supporting conservation programme was established: The Torghar Conservation Programme (TCP), later the Society for Torghar Environmental Protection (STEP), whose design was based on the principles of sustainable use, local tribe involvement, and conservation biology. Today the numbers of Sulaiman Markhor and Afghan Urial have increased significantly. The capacities of local tribes have also increased and the economic and social infrastructure of the area has developed positively

Delivering Access to Safe Drinking Water and Adequate Sanitation in Pakistan

Provision of safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and personal hygiene are vital for the sustainable environmental conditions and reducing the incidence of diarrhoea, malaria, trachoma, hepatitis A & B and morbidity levels. Not having access to water and sanitation is a courteous expression for a form of deprivation that threatens life, destroys opportunity and undermines human dignity. Thus, investing in the provision of safe water supply and adequate sanitation is not only a development oriented strategy in itself, it can also yield other socio-economic benefits in terms of improved health status, quality of labour force and reduced burden-of-disease. Water and Sanitation is the neglected sector in Pakistan. Most of the households in Pakistan do not have access to safe drinking water and lack toilets and adequate sanitation systems. These poor people, mostly living in rural areas or urban slums, are not only deprived of financial resources, but they also lack admittance to basic needs such as education, health, safe water supply and environmental sanitation facilities. As of 2005, approximately 38.5 million people lacked access to safe drinking water source and approximately 50.7 million people lacked access to improved sanitation in Pakistan. By year 2015, if this trend continues, 52.8 million people will be deprived of safe drinking water and 43.2 million people will have no access to adequate sanitation facilities in Pakistan. It is not to calculate what percentages of population have access to a particular service so far and how much numbers of beneficiaries will be added by year 2015; it is to investigate that even if we meet the national and/or regional targets in Pakistan, how much population will still be deprived of these most basic human needs.Drinking Water, Sanitation, Solid Waste, Waste Water, Public Policy, Public Expenditure, Hygiene

Matching/Mismatching of Teaching and Learning Styles; and Its Effect on Students’ Academic Achievement at Tertiary Level

The overall purpose of the study was to explore the effect of matching/mismatching of teaching and learning styles on academic achievement in higher education. The study was causal comparative in nature to study the cause and effect relationships between matching/mismatching of teaching learning styles and students’ academic achievement. The sample for this study, selected through multistage sampling design, consisted of 120 teachers and 240 students of BS-4 year program in four disciplines (Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Mathematics) from six public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Felder-Solomon Index of Learning Style (FSILS) was used for the identification of   learning styles of students while Teaching Style Instrument developed by Letele et al. (2011) was used to identify teachers’ teaching styles. These styles of students and teachers were then analyzed to see if they matched or mismatched.  The results showed that Visual learning style was the most favorite learning style followed by Balanced and Sensing learning style. Teaching style analysis showed that Visual teaching style was the most favorite style followed by Abstract and Sequential teaching styles. Group statistics indicated 42.75% matched cases and 57.25% mismatched cases. T-test for independent samples revealed that the students with matched learning styles performed significantly better than students with mismatched learning styles. In the light of these results, recommendations were forwarded for teachers, students, educationists, researchers and policy makers. Keywords: Matching, Mismatching, Teaching Style, Learning Style, Academic Achievemen

Undervoting and Overvoting in the 2002 and 2006 Florida Gubernatorial Elections

In a participatory democracy where every vote counts, voters expect that every vote will be counted. The voting machine is the instrument with which the voting public records its intent and appoints its representatives. In order for the democratic process to function, voting machines must properly function. Do electronic voting systems that rely on touchscreens work better at reducing undervote and overvote counts than optical scan systems? To answer this question, an analysis of undervote and overvote counts in the 2002 and 2006 Florida Gubernatorial elections was conducted. The undervote and overvote counts across county, voting system, system manufacturer, and election cycle were compared. Mean comparison analyses suggest that counties that primarily used touchscreen technology on Election Day had lower voter error rates than counties using optical scan technology in the 2006 election. Touchscreen technology is associated with less overvoting. Overall, voter error rates were found to be higher in the 2006 election than in the 2002 election for optical scan ballots but not for touchscreen systems

Social Democratic Reform Proposals and the Future of Capitalism

This paper seeks to present an analysis of some issues raised in the debate on the future of capitalism by influential social democrats in recent years [Agleitta (1999); Habermas (1999); Rorty (1998)]. We begin with a brief description of capitalism's genesis, its characteristics and its need for moral legitimising and proceed to a slightly more extended discussion of capitalist processes at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The paper concludes with an assessment of initiatives proposed by social democratic thinkers such as Agleitta, Habermas and Rorty to strengthen capitalism and realise social democratic objectives—the universalisation of freedom and the promotion of liberal justices in rights centric societies.

Technological Capability Building in South Korea: Some Lessons for Pakistan

Recent economic upheavals raise important questions about the nature of the transformation that has taken place in the East Asian economics. Are these economics really catching up with the West? Is there growth process sustainable? Or will they suffer the type of systemic disintegration experienced by the East European countries during the 1990s—Paul Krugman (1994) and Young (1994) had demonstrated similarities in the East Asian and East European growth paths some time ago. Technological upgrading is an important element in the development of a sustainable growth strategy. This paper seeks to describe policies and initiatives taken by the South Korean government to stimulate technological learning during 1960–1990—the decades during which the South Korean economy achieved a “miraculous” transformation. The description relics mainly on Korean sources and is based on our own field research in that country. Section one describes the technological learning processes and Section Two presents a discussion of the policies that facilitated this learning. Section Three briefly addresses the question: Did this type of technological learning make a contribution towards enhancing the sustainability of Korean development processes? The concluding section briefly reflects on the lessons that seem relevant for Pakistan.