How the Students’ Competitive and Collaborative Styles of Learning are Affected by Personality Traits at the University Level

Investigating how personality traits affect competitive and collaborative learning is the goal of the current study. When examining the influence of personality traits on learning styles, Big Five Theory was employed. Two hundred students were casually picked using the non-probability selection approach for this descriptive study design. After translation into the native language, a large-scale portfolio and the Grasha-Riechmann Scales of Student Learning Skills were utilized. Cronbach's alpha provided proficient estimation, pilot testing, and consistency, which all confirmed the instrument’s validity (α = 0.94). Five elements correlated with students' learning styles, including their personality traits. Students may benefit from a teaching approach that considers their unique characteristics and learning styles. Social training, academic achievement, and collaborative chances influenced personality traits and learning

New Onset Refractory Status Epilepticus as an Unusual Presentation of a Suspected Organophosphate Poisoning

New onset refractory status epilepticus (NORSE) is a new entity in medical literature. It has different infectious and noninfectious etiologies showing a devastating impact onto the clinical outcome of patients. Therapy with anaesthetic and antiepileptic agents often fails to improve the condition, unless the primary cause is rectified. Here is presented the case of a young female with a history of depression who after a recent bereavement came to the Emergency Department of Aga Khan University Hospital with complaints of drowsiness that lasted for few hours. Though she had no history of organophosphate poisoning, her physical examination and further investigations were suggestive of the diagnosis. During her hospital stay, she developed refractory status epilepticus. Her seizures did not respond to standard antiepileptic and intravenous anesthetic agents and subsided only after intravenous infusion of atropine for a few days. Organophosphate poisoning is a very common presentation in the developing world and the associated status epilepticus poses a devastating problem for emergency physicians. In patients with suspected organophosphate poisoning with favoring clinical exam findings, the continuation of atropine intravenous infusion can be a safe option to abate seizures

Frequency and mortality associated with hyperglycemia in critically Ill children

Objective: To determine the frequency of hyperglycemia in critically ill children admitted in PICU of a tertiary care hospital of Karachi and to compare the mortality of critically ill children with and without hyperglycemia. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Paediatrics Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of National Institute of Child Health (NICH), Karachi, from November 2011 to April 2012. Methodology: One hundred fifty critically ill children admitted to PICU were included. Patients who had fasting blood sugar levels more than 126 mg/dl within 48 hours of admission were included in the hyperglycemic group. The normoglycemic and hyperglycemic groups were followed till 10 days to determine the mortality associated with hyperglycemia. Results: Out of 150 patients, 82 (54.7%) had hyperglycemia. Mortality rate was 48.7% (n=73/150). However, mortality rate was significantly high 57.3% (n=47) in hyperglycemic patients than non-hyperglycemic patients (p=0.019). Conclusion: The presence of stress-induced hyperglycemia in critically ill patients is a well established marker of poor outcome, and a very high mortality rate. Normoglycemia was associated with favorable outcomes in terms of hospital stay and mortality

Association of Big Data with Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Online Retail Segment: A Serial Mediation Model for Relating Big Data with Strategic Management Tools

Purpose: Big-Data is one of the most studied and researched topics of recent times. The tool has been studied vastly in the western world. However, the domains were either related to science and technology, although there is a need to relate Big Data to strategic management and competitive advantage to remove the lack of research in that vein. Methodology: This study is systematically conducted to explore the effect of big data on the attainment of business improvement in the online retail segment. The model has been developed through an in-depth literature review to relate the resource-based view with the attainment of sustainable competitive advantage through serial mediation of big-data analytics knowledge and innovative capabilities. Data was collected through non-probability sampling from IT managers and specialists associated with the online retail segment and analysis was conducted through SMART-PLS. Findings: Results indicated that big data is for the improvement of business for the online retail segment. However, data availability is a must for applying big-data analytics toward sustainable competitive advantage. Conclusion: This study concludes that all the relations and indicates that Bug-Data is fruitful for booting advanced knowledge and innovative capabilities. However, the onlin IT sector needs to have some other elements like advanced IT skills to legitimize the relationshi

Estimation of Consumption Functions: The Case of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

The study uses annual data from 1971 to 2013 and appliesKeynesian Consumption Function (KCF) and the PermanentIncome Hypothesis (PIH) in order to estimate consumption functionsof SAARC countries. The empirical results show that in the shortrun, the difference between KCF and PIH under Marginal Propensityto Consume (MPCs) is quite large. This difference, therefore,indicates that in the short run consumers’ consumption decisionare based on current income. However, another point worth notingis that, in the short run smaller values of MPCs under the PIHindicate that consumers are unable to anticipate their future incomein developing countries, like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistanand Sri Lanka. Moreover, the study also estimates the MPCs underthe PIH in the long run. The results demonstrate that in the long runthe values of MPCs are higher than the MPCs while using PIH,which indicates that in the long run consumers anticipate theirfuture income and accordingly make consumption decisions on thebasis of permanent income

Association of Big Data with Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Online Retail Segment: A Serial Mediation Model for Relating Big Data with Strategic Management Tools

Purpose: Big-Data is one of the most studied and researched topics of recent times. The tool has been studied vastly in the western world. However, the domains were either related to science and technology, although there is a need to relate Big Data to strategic management and competitive advantage to remove the lack of research in that vein. Methodology: This study is systematically conducted to explore the effect of big data on the attainment of business improvement in the online retail segment. The model has been developed through an in-depth literature review to relate the resource-based view with the attainment of sustainable competitive advantage through serial mediation of big-data analytics knowledge and innovative capabilities. Data was collected through non-probability sampling from IT managers and specialists associated with the online retail segment and analysis was conducted through SMART-PLS. Findings: Results indicated that big data is for the improvement of business for the online retail segment. However, data availability is a must for applying big-data analytics toward sustainable competitive advantage. Conclusion: This study concludes that all the relations and indicates that Bug-Data is fruitful for booting advanced knowledge and innovative capabilities. However, the onlin IT sector needs to have some other elements like advanced IT skills to legitimize the relationshi

Prevalence of Oral Manifestations of Systemic Diseases in Patients Visiting the Dental Outpatient Department of Sindh, Pakistan

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study was to evaluate the awareness of oral health workers in identifying the prevalence of oral manifestations of systemic diseases in patients visiting the Dental Out-Patient Department of Sindh, Pakistan. METHODOLOGY A descriptive, cross-sectional survey-based study was conducted in Karachi, Pakistan, from October to December 2021. The study was conducted in various institutes from all over Sindh, Pakistan. An online, well-structured questionnaire was designed using Google Forms and distributed to the participants through social media platforms in the dental community. Using the Open-Epi software regarding a parent article, the sample size of this study was calculated. Keeping the confidence interval at 95% and the desired percentile at 50, the total sample size was calculated to be 100. Around 175 questionnaires were given out to the candidates. RESULTSThe results showed that  81% male and 19% female participated, including 45% postgraduate trainees, 30% house officers, and 25% general dentists. 80% detected 2-3 systemic diseases in a patient, with 75% observing oral manifestations preceding systemic illness diagnosis. The majority favoured treating underlying ailments (75%), and prevalent conditions included hypertension (90%), diabetes (80%), anaemia (75%), and lichen planus (40.7%). CONCLUSION Oral health workers play a vital role in the initial and early identification and multidisciplinary medical management of various systemic diseases. A coordinated approach between physicians and dentists in diagnosing and managing these conditions is necessary to achieve optimal clinical outcomes

Impact of a multifaceted intervention on physicians' knowledge, attitudes and practices in relation to pharmaceutical incentivisation: protocol for a randomised control trial.

INTRODUCTION: In settings where the private sector constitutes a larger part of the health system, profit-gathering can take primacy over patients' well-being. In their interactions with pharmaceutical companies, private general practitioners (GPs) can experience the conflict of interest (COI), a situation whereby the impartiality of GPs' professional decision making may be influenced by secondary interests such as financial gains from prescribing specific pharmaceutical brands. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This study is a randomised controlled trial to assess the impact of a multifaceted intervention on GPs' medical practice. The study sample consists of 419 registered GPs who own/work in private clinics and will be randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. The intervention group GPs will be exposed to emotive and educational seminars on medical ethics, whereas control group GPs will be given seminars on general medical topics. The primary outcome measure will be GPs' prescribing practices, whereas the secondary outcome measures will be their knowledge and attitudes regarding COI that arises from pharmaceutical incentivisation. In addition to a novel standardised pharmaceutical representatives (SPSR) method, in which field researchers will simulate pharmaceutical marketing with GPs, presurvey and postsurvey, and qualitative interviewing will be performed to collect data on GPs' knowledge, attitudes and practices in relation to COI linked with pharmaceutical incentives. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses will be performed to measure a change in GPs' knowledge, attitudes and practices, while qualitative analysis will add to our understanding of the quantitative SPSR data. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval has been obtained from the Pakistan National Bioethics Committee (# 4-87/NBC-582/21/1364), the Aga Khan University (# 2020-4759-1129) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (# 26506). We will release results within 6-9 months of the study's completion. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN12294839

Urban forests and their contribution to sustainable urban development in a global context: a case study of Multan, Pakistan

Currently, cities and towns are home to over half of the global population, and this percentage will rise over the coming decades. Cities can be wonderful homes to live in if planned and maintained properly, but most urban developments have noticeably caused environmental destruction, which in turn results in issues like urban heat islands, flooding, and air pollution. Cities require forests as their breathing organs. The study refers to the case of Multan City, where the climate is deteriorating at an alarming rate due to rapid urbanization and the lack of vegetation. The study aims to provide an urban green infrastructure (UGI), which abides by the key proactive resilience principles of effectiveness, diversity, dependence, durability, versatility, autonomy, planning, and adaptability. A strategic literature review has been done to study the effects of urban forests, and various studies were reviewed as per the methodology adopted worldwide. The policy frameworks of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) were considered while selecting sites for implementing urban forests. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed for the participation of the community nearby. Ten different sites were selected in the city based on ownership and feasibility, irrespective of SDG, NUA, and community opinions. The study concludes with the design suggestion of one site as a prototype in the given context

"Caught In Each Other's Traps": Factors Perpetuating Incentive-Linked Prescribing Deals Between Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Industry.

BACKGROUND: Despite known adverse impacts on patients and health systems, 'incentive-linked prescribing', which describes the prescribing of medicines that result in personal benefits for the prescriber, remains a widespread and hidden impediment to quality of healthcare. We investigated factors perpetuating incentive-linked prescribing among primary care physicians in for-profit practices (referred to as private doctors), using Pakistan as a case study. METHODS: Our mixed-methods study synthesised insights from a survey of 419 systematically samples private doctors and 68 semi-structured interviews with private doctors (n=28), pharmaceutical sales representatives (n=12), and provincial and national policy actors (n=28). For the survey, we built a verified database of all registered private doctors within Karachi, Pakistan's most populous city, administered an electronic questionnaire in-person and descriptively analysed the data. Semi-structured interviews incorporated a vignette-based exercise and data was analysed using an interpretive approach. RESULTS: Our survey showed that 90% of private doctors met pharmaceutical sales representatives weekly. Three interlinked factors perpetuating incentive-linked prescribing we identified were: gaps in understanding of conflicts of interest and loss of values among doctors; financial pressures on doctors operating in a (largely) privately financed health-system, exacerbated by competition with unqualified healthcare providers; and aggressive incentivisation by pharmaceutical companies, linked to low political will to regulate and an over-saturated pharmaceutical market. CONCLUSION: Regular interactions between pharmaceutical companies and private doctors are normalised in our study setting, and progress on regulating these is hindered by the substantial role of incentive-linked prescribing in the financial success of physicians and the pharmaceutical industry employees. A first step towards addressing the entrenchment of incentive-linked prescribing may be to reduce opposition to restrictions on incentivisation of physicians from stakeholders within the pharmaceutical industry, physicians themselves, and policymakers concerned about curtailing growth of the pharmaceutical industry