Policy Input on Human Rights Issues by the Supreme Judiciary in Pakistan: Application of Stage Model of Public Policy

 The researches have revealed the legislature as the policy or law-making body and the executive branch as the policy implementing body whereas the third pillar of the state, the judiciary, is considered as a legal institute working as an arbitrator in all legal matters. However, the increasing pieces of evidence depict that the judiciary not only acts as an arbitrator in all legal controversies but also plays a role in public policymaking and politics. It is one of the official actors that plays its role in policy processes. This paper examines the role of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) in generating policy input at different stages of policy making. Content and thematic analysis methods have been used on all judicial verdicts given by the SCP on Human Rights Cases (HRCs). The time period ranges from 2009 to 2019. Purposive sampling technique is utilized to draw a sample containing HRCs from the population of judicial verdicts given by SC during the last ten years. The analysis reveals that the Supreme Judiciary provides its policy input and impacts policy process. It has the power to play its significant role in policymaking by giving policy input in problem identification and agenda-setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, and policy evaluation. The policy input given by SCP should be utilized in an effective way to reduce human rights issues and alleviate the infringement of fundamental rights of the citizens of Pakistan

On Online Banking Authentication for All: A Comparison of BankID Login Efficiency Using Smartphones Versus Code Generators

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Inguinal lymph node metastases from a testicular seminoma: a case report and a review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>We report the case of a true hermaphrodite with testicular seminoma with resulting metastases to the inguinal lymph nodes eight months after radical orchidectomy. This is an unusual presentation of testicular cancer and, to the best of our knowledge, the first report of this kind in the literature.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 45-year-old Caucasian true hermaphrodite, raised as a male, developed a testicular seminoma. He had undergone a left orchidopexy at the age of 10 for undescended testes. Metastases from testicular tumors to inguinal lymph nodes are a rare occurrence. It has been suggested that previous inguinal or scrotal surgery may alter the pattern of nodal metastasis of testicular cancer. We review the literature to evaluate the incidence of inguinal lymph node involvement in early stage testicular cancer and discuss possible routes of metastases to this unusual site. We also discuss the management of the inguinal lymph nodes in patients with testicular tumors and a previous history of inguinal or scrotal surgery, as this remains controversial.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Inguinal lymph node metastases from testicular cancer are rare. A history of inguinal or scrotal surgery may predispose involvement of the inguinal nodes. During radical inguinal orchidectomy, the surgeon should be careful to minimize the handling of the testis and ensure high ligation of the spermatic cord up to the internal inguinal ring to reduce the risk of inguinal lymph node metastasis.</p

Src Dependent Pancreatic Acinar Injury Can Be Initiated Independent of an Increase in Cytosolic Calcium

Several deleterious intra-acinar phenomena are simultaneously triggered on initiating acute pancreatitis. These culminate in acinar injury or inflammatory mediator generation in vitro and parenchymal damage in vivo. Supraphysiologic caerulein is one such initiator which simultaneously activates numerous signaling pathways including non-receptor tyrosine kinases such as of the Src family. It also causes a sustained increase in cytosolic calcium- a player thought to be crucial in regulating deleterious phenomena. We have shown Src to be involved in caerulein induced actin remodeling, and caerulein induced changes in the Golgi and post-Golgi trafficking to be involved in trypsinogen activation, which initiates acinar cell injury. However, it remains unclear whether an increase in cytosolic calcium is necessary to initiate acinar injury or if injury can be initiated at basal cytosolic calcium levels by an alternate pathway. To study the interplay between tyrosine kinase signaling and calcium, we treated mouse pancreatic acinar cells with the tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor pervanadate. We studied the effect of the clinically used Src inhibitor Dasatinib (BMS-354825) on pervanadate or caerulein induced changes in Src activation, trypsinogen activation, cell injury, upstream cytosolic calcium, actin and Golgi morphology. Pervanadate, like supraphysiologic caerulein, induced Src activation, redistribution of the F-actin from its normal location in the sub-apical area to the basolateral areas, and caused antegrade fragmentation of the Golgi. These changes, like those induced by supraphysiologic caerulein, were associated with trypsinogen activation and acinar injury, all of which were prevented by Dasatinib. Interestingly, however, pervanadate did not cause an increase in cytosolic calcium, and the caerulein induced increase in cytosolic calcium was not affected by Dasatinib. These findings suggest that intra-acinar deleterious phenomena may be initiated independent of an increase in cytosolic calcium. Other players resulting in acinar injury along with the Src family of tyrosine kinases remain to be explored. © 2013 Mishra et al

Improving model predictions for RNA interference activities that use support vector machine regression by combining and filtering features

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>RNA interference (RNAi) is a naturally occurring phenomenon that results in the suppression of a target RNA sequence utilizing a variety of possible methods and pathways. To dissect the factors that result in effective siRNA sequences a regression kernel Support Vector Machine (SVM) approach was used to quantitatively model RNA interference activities.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eight overall feature mapping methods were compared in their abilities to build SVM regression models that predict published siRNA activities. The primary factors in predictive SVM models are position specific nucleotide compositions. The secondary factors are position independent sequence motifs (<it>N</it>-grams) and guide strand to passenger strand sequence thermodynamics. Finally, the factors that are least contributory but are still predictive of efficacy are measures of intramolecular guide strand secondary structure and target strand secondary structure. Of these, the site of the 5' most base of the guide strand is the most informative.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The capacity of specific feature mapping methods and their ability to build predictive models of RNAi activity suggests a relative biological importance of these features. Some feature mapping methods are more informative in building predictive models and overall <it>t</it>-test filtering provides a method to remove some noisy features or make comparisons among datasets. Together, these features can yield predictive SVM regression models with increased predictive accuracy between predicted and observed activities both within datasets by cross validation, and between independently collected RNAi activity datasets. Feature filtering to remove features should be approached carefully in that it is possible to reduce feature set size without substantially reducing predictive models, but the features retained in the candidate models become increasingly distinct. Software to perform feature prediction and SVM training and testing on nucleic acid sequences can be found at the following site: <url>ftp://scitoolsftp.idtdna.com/SEQ2SVM/</url>.</p

PHYSICAL ABUSE IN PAKISTANI TELEVISION DRAMAS: PERCEPTIONS OF WOMEN AND VICTIMS

The study was conducted to find out the perceptions of women regarding physical abuse in Pakistani TV dramas. The purpose was to observe the consumption patterns and level of awareness of female viewers about women rights through physical abuse in TV dramas. It also aimed to study perceptions of women victims about physical abuse in TV dramas. Social learning theory was used as theoretical framework. A sample of 300 women was surveyed from Lahore and questionnaire was developed to collect data after pretesting. Six victims of physical abuse were also interviewed to understand their perceptions and experiences regarding physical abuse in TV dramas. The findings of the study revealed that consumption of TV dramas regarding physical abuse increased level of awareness about women rights among female viewers

Supine percutaneous nephrolithotomy in horseshoe kidney

نقدم حالة لمريض عمره ٤٥ عاما، يشتكي من ألم متكرر في الخاصرة اليسرى لمدة ثلاثة أشهر. أظهرت الأشعة المقطعية للبطن والحوض كلية حذوية مع وجود حصاتين في الكأس الوسطى والسفلى للكلية اليسرى، قياس كل حصاة تقريبا ١٫٥سم. لدى المريض تاريخ مرضي لعدة محاولات غير ناجحة لتفتيت الحصوات بالصدمات خارج الجسم في نفس الجهة. وعولج المريض بنجاح باستخراج حصوات الكلية عن طريق الجلد في وضعية الاستلقاء ونتج عنها إزالة الحصوات بالكامل. نقدم في هذا التقرير طريقة قصيرة وتحتاج إلى إقامة أقصر من المعدل في المستشفى مع عدم وجود مضاعفات أثناء أو بعد العملية