Improvising Goethe’s Faust Part One in two Berlin high school theatre classes for cross-cultural dialogue among Turkish-German students

By taking a prototypical German text i.e. Goethe’s Faust Part One to two high-school theatre-classes in Berlin, I explored how Turkish-German students engage performatively with the idea of German identity. Through an improvisational treatment of the play, students performed activities based on the text which revealed their cultural identity. Emerging themes of the research show cross-cultural exchanges of students on issues of religion, politics, the role of family, socio-economic status, sexuality and Leitkultur. This is an interdisciplinary study and the findings of the research contribute to approaches within the field of post-migrant theatre in Germany and debates on Turkish-German cultural integration. The project showed that issues related to Turkish-German cultural integration must be understood emotionally and psychologically. The results of the study showed that over and above everything, lack of compassion and open-heartedness featured strongly as a prototypical German characteristic. Regardless of progressive and conservative values, in all performances, a German person was identified as Faust, someone cold-hearted and lacking warmth. My students also reflected on the character of Gretchen and found similarities with her dilemmas and those of women in Turkish-German households. Hence, what emerged from the performances were self-reflective and honest dialogues on how Turkish-German students relate to German culture at large. Instead of addressing the issues of cultural integration from a lens of identity politics, migration policy makers need to consider and focus on emotional differences between the two communities. Theatre in diverse classrooms can provide embodied engagements with individuals, whose voices need to be heard loud and clear on how they perceive the ‘other’

Stroke: Are Women Worse Off?

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Although the age standardized rates of stroke have fallen, the absolute number of strokes continue to rise, particularly in the low and middle income countries. It was long recognized that women have a lower age-standardized incidence of stroke. This understanding has been challenged by the Global burden of Disease Study 2019 which highlights that although the total number of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) from stroke were higher in males compared to females, the number of incident and prevalent strokes were higher in females. In addition, the study did not find significant difference in the age-standardized incidence rates between males and females.1 Yet another study recently found that beyond 75 years of age women have a higher stroke incidence compared to men.2 Additionally, women below 40 years in some South East Asian countries showed an increase in ischemic stroke incidence from 0.5% to 11.4% between 1990 and 2015.3 This finding is duplicated in other studies, and a recent systematic review concluded that there were 44% more women than men with ischemic stroke in the under 35 years age group.4 Risk of aneurysmal rupture has also recently been shown to be higher in women compared to their male counterparts

Distributed PC Based Routers: Bottleneck Analysis and Architecture Proposal

Recent research in the different functional areas of modern routers have made proposals that can greatly increase the efficiency of these machines. Most of these proposals can be implemented quickly and often efficiently in software. We wish to use personal computers as forwarders in a network to utilize the advances made by researchers. We therefore examine the ability of a personal computer to act as a router. We analyze the performance of a single general purpose computer and show that I/O is the primary bottleneck. We then study the performance of distributed router composed of multiple general purpose computers. We study the performance of a star topology and through experimental results we show that although its performance is good, it lacks flexibility in its design. We compare it with a multistage architecture. We conclude with a proposal for an architecture that provides us with a forwarder that is both flexible and scalable.© IEE

Stroke in women: burden, challenges and future for pakistan

The burden of stroke is increasing around the world in both men and women. South Asia is home to 20% of the world’s population but harbors almost 80% of world strokes. Previously sex specific data on stroke incidence, prevalence, severity and mortality was not available. Now over recent years this aspect has received attention. A systematic review in 2009 concluded that although stroke in women is less common compared to men, it has a greater severity and case fatality. Although this kind of data is not available from Pakistan, some preliminary reports suggest that this might be the case in this country also. Despite being under-represented in hospital based stroke registries, there is evidence to suggest that we see higher age specific prevalence rates of stroke in Pakistani women

I-V Curve Tracer Communication Protocol

This thesis aims at developing a communication protocol for an I-V Curve Tracer. The IV Curve Tracer consists of a Raspberry Pi as the central unit to which a Source Measuring Unit (SMU) and a Relay Board is connected via USB and Ethernet, respectively. The SMU measures the I-V curve by generating a voltage sweep and measuring the resulting current. The relay board enables testing of multiple specimens. We include an Arduino Mega in this set up to accelerate the communication interface between the Relay modules and the Raspberry Pi. Therefore, our project aims to address the challenge of a scalable, low latency communication between the Pi-Arduino-Relay interface. Each Arduino is connected to one or multiple relay modules that are used to configure the interconnection between a single measurement device and various combinations of multiple PV cells in a current-voltage curve tracer (IVCT) testbed. This is significant because the time taken to complete a battery of tests using previous methods is over 15 minutes. However, an initial timing analysis found that the majority of the testing interval was spent on the communication to setup the relay configuration, not on the actual measurement process and hence, caused the relay boards to be slow to respond. This significantly limited the ability of the IVCT to scale-up in number of DUTs and complexity of interconnections tested. Our project seeks to overcome limitations of the current technology by significantly reducing the packet size of the transmitted data and eliminating the bloated and slow IoT platform. The expected outcome is a lightweight communication platform that is flexible and scalable with fast messaging not just for the IVCT testbed but also suitable for other research laboratory automation and control

Elements of Supermarket Image Influencing the Purchase Intentions of Youth in Pakistan

This study investigated the influence of various elements of store image on the purchase intention of youth  in Pakistan. The store image elements include: atmospherics; convenience; product quality; employee service; and physical facilities. This study employed quantitative technique of survey questionnaire for collecting data. A statistical evaluation was made of various store image elements affecting the purchase intention of youth in making purchases from supermarkets in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad in Pakistan. The study sample population comprised 400 customers. The data was analyzed through SPSS software. Descriptive statistics, Regression model, bivariate correlation analysis and OLS regression were undertaken to compute the data. The findings showed that all the observed elements of supermarket strongly influence the purchase intention of young customers and effective supermarket image building measures can help supermarkets in increasing their sales, profits and reputation in Pakistan. Keywords: atmospherics, convenience, product quality, employee service, physical facilities, purchase intention, youth

New oral anticoagulants (noacs) for cerebral Venous thrombosis

Cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) is a relatively rare condition that results from thrombosis of the superficial or deep venous sinuses of the brain. The first ever reported case of the condition was back in 1825 and this was diagnosed at autopsy. It took more than 150 years before imaging modalities were developed that could diagnose cases earlier. With the advent of CT and MR venogram, the diagnosis has become much easier and is contributing to a larger number of cases being picked up. Despite that the incidence in Western literature stays low at 1.3-1.6 cases per 100,000 people. Middle Eastern and Asian countries seem to have a larger burden of CVT, possibly because of higher rates seen with infections and pregnancies