Distribution of Common Coot (Fulica atra) Collected from Wet Lands of Punjab, Pakistan

Population survey was conducted to evaluate the population of common coot (Fulicaatra) and ten years population trend at Chashma Barrage (29883±6458), Taunsa Barrage (4198±515), Ucchali Lake (7253±1466), Head Qadirabad (2789±785), Head Marala (3226±984), Head Rasool (3261±84)), Khabbeki Lack (1486±230), Head Sulaimanki (1809±180), Jhalar Lake (526±206) and Head Islam (1779±257). The population atChashma barrage was statistically highly significant as compared to other wetlands. The overall year wise abundance and relative abundance of different wet lands were recorded. To evaluate the food preference, total weight of gut (63.98±3.946), total weight of gizzard (26.99 ± 1.325), weight of food material (3.59±0.187), gizzard weight without food material (23.39± 1.244), weight of seed (1.24± 0.075), weight of vegetation (1.65±0.103) and weight of other material (0.69±0.067) were calculated. The comparison between male and femalegave results that the total weight of gut, total weight of gizzard, weight of food material, Gizzard weight without food material and weight of other material was statistically highly significant and weight of seed, weight of vegetation was statistically significant.The richness, abundance, Shannon’s variety list, Simpson’s variety record and evenness for gizzard contents were calculated. Among the 40 samples, 19 samples were found infected in by parasites of seven types of Gastro-intestinal parasites were distinguished and recorded as Amidostomum anseris, Capillaria contorta, Strongyloides avium, Echinoparyphium recurvatum, Notocotylus attenuatus, and Giardia sp. D. balacea was recorded among the six wetlands. S. avium and N. attenuates wererecorded among the four wetlands, A. anseris, E. recurvatum and Giardia sp. wererecorded among the three wetlands, and C.contortawererecorded among the two wetlands.The current study provides the information for the management planning, conservation and improvement of habitat of common coot. The knowledge of parasites can be helpful to grasp the host-parasite interactions and give important standard data to the assessment of fitness and wellbeing status of this species

Determine the Severity of Acute Respiratory Infections by Using Pediatric Respiratory Severity Score (PRESS) in Children Visiting Federal Govt. Polyclinic hospital, Islamabad

Objective: To determine the severity of acute respiratory infections in children by using Pediatric Respiratory Severity Score (PRESS). Methodology: This descriptive cross sectional study was conducted at the outpatient and emergency paediatric department of the Federal Govt. Polyclinic hospital, Islamabad, from October 2017 to December 2019. One hundred and seventeen children with acute respiratory infections were enrolled in the study by a non-probability sampling technique. Epidemiologic variables of interest included age, sex, and breastfeeding or not. Clinical variables of interest included respiratory rate, use of accessory respiratory muscle, wheeze on auscultation, and oxygen saturation at room air.  PRESS assessed tachypnea, wheezing, accessory muscle use, SpO2 and feeding difficulties with each component given a score of 0 or 1, and the total score were categorized as a mild(0-1), moderate (2-3) or severe(4-5). Results: Out of 117 children, 98 (83.8%) belonged to the age group > 2 months– 12 months, while 19 (16.2%) belonged to the age group > 12 months– 24 months. Among them, 17 (14.5%) were mild, 53 (45.3%) were moderate, and 47 (40.2%) were severe according to their severity of respiratory distress. The hospitalization rate for moderate infection was 84.9% while 100% for severe infection and none of the patient with mild infection was hospitalized (p<0.001). Conclusion: Early assessment by simple bedside technique will help in managing the respiratory distress according to its severity, reducing the undue investigation and improving the outcome of illness. Moreover it can be easily administered at primary health care facilities for triage of pediatric patients with respiratory distress

Modeling, Quantifying and Visualizing Media Bias on Twitter

News media garner a lot of attention regarding the subjectivity of their reporting. News media bias is of immense interest to various individuals, as the systematic preference of an entity can invoke its support and public actions. These inclinations, although apparent, hinder the true facts. The identification and quantification of media bias is one of the most important metrics in reference to bias assessment in media and general public. In this paper, we present a principled approach to quantify media bias along with insightful visualizations for popular media sources using their tweets. We use the concept of a mini-world of N $\times$ M matrix to model the sources and entities of interest, where the tweet counts and respective polarities over a specified time period are the values. Direct comparisons between these two are not as meaningful due to the neglection of inherent characteristics of sources and entities. Thus, we define coverage and statement scores as properly normalized measures of tweet counts and polarity rates. Furthermore, we present a statistically consistent model of neutral tweet counts and polarity rates, using which we define the absolute coverage and statement bias of each source-entity pair. We illustrate our approach on two data sets capturing tweets on 1) Prime minister candidates of top political parties of Pakistan in the 2018 general election 2) Paris and Beirut bombings in 2015 by different news sources. The results indicate that our model is generalizable i.e. it can be applied to different entities/sources and in consistent with previous studies

Risk factors for dengue shock syndrome in children admitted in Federal Govt. Polyclinic Hospital.Islamabad

Objective:  To determine the risk factors for dengue shock syndrome in children admitted in Federal Govt. Polyclinic Hospital (FGPC) Islamabad.Methodology:  It is a descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in Pediatric ward and Intensive care unit of Pediatric department of Federal Govt. Polyclinic hospital, Islamabad from August 2019 to October 2019. Children from1month to 12 years of age with dengue fever (DF) were enrolled in the study by non-probability sampling technique. We took history, did examination and investigation in 102 children reported at Pediatric department, polyclinic hospital Islamabad between August’ 2019 to October ‘2019. Epidemiologic variables of interest included age and sex. Clinical variables of interest included fever, duration of fever, petechiae, spontaneous bleed, melena, hematuria, gum bleed, rash, pleural effusion, ascites, hepatomegaly and duration of stay. Pathological variable included complete Blood Count (CBC) and dengue NS1Antigen. Result: A total of 102 patients were enrolled in the study, there were 63 (61.8%) males and 39 (38.2%) females with mean age of 91.55±36.7 to 96.17±35.94 months. Out of 102 patients admitted with dengue fever (DF)/dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), 13 (12.7%) developed ascites, pleural effusion and capillary refill time of more than 3 seconds, were labelled as experiencing dengue shock syndrome (DSS). Patients with capillary refill time of more than 3 seconds were found to be 2.44 times more likely to develop dengue shock syndrome (OR=2.44, 95% CI 1.47 – 4.03, p<0.001). Similarly, patients with thrombocytopenia (platelet count less than 150x103 cells) and leukocytopenia (TLC less than 4000x103 cells) were found to be at increased risk of developing dengue shock syndrome as compared to others (OR=1.28, 95% CI 1.12 – 1.48, p=0.001 and OR=1.6, 95% CI 1.12 – 5.21, p=0.01 respectively). Out of 13(12.7%) patients with DSS 1 patient (7.7%) died but no mortality observed in DHF. Conclusion: The univariate analysis revealed increased capillary refill time, thrombocytopenia and leukocytopenia to be significant predictors of dengue shock syndrome (DSS)

Gastrointestinal parasites of Common Teal (Anas crecca) in the wetlands of Punjab, Pakistan

During the present study total 40 samples (20♂ 20♀) were collected from different six wetlands of Punjab Pakistan. Among these samples total 17 samples (08% ♂, 09% ♀) were found infected with different gastro- intestinal parasites. The parasitic load was almost equally shared by the bird sampled from different sites (Chashma Barrage 37.50; Taunsa Barrage and Head Marala 40% both; waterlogged area of Bahawalnagar 44.4% and Head Sulaimanki and waterlogged areas of Faisalabad 50% both. The frequency of distribution in two sexes vary at different sampling sites, parasitic load was almost equally shared by both sexes (40% ♂, 45% ♀), and difference of both sexes were statistically non-significant (P>0.05). The total seven species of Gastrointestinal parasites were identified which belongs to four classes/phylum (Nematode, Trematodes, Cestodes and protozoan) and five families (Dioctophymidae, Echinostomatidae, Hymenolepidiae, Hexamitidaeand Cryptosporidiidae), in which Nematodes 15%, Trematodes 32%, Cestodes 23% and Protozones 30 %. The total seven species of parasites which were recorded as Hystrichis tricolor, Echinostoma revolutum, Hypoderaeum conoideum, Hymenolepis  longicirrosa, Diorchis  stefanski, Giardia sp. and Cryptosporidium sp.There is inadequate information on the parasites of wild migratory birds and this study will help to understand host-parasite interaction and provides valuable base line information for the evaluation of strength and health status of this species