Assessment of significant variables to improve admission and teaching learning processes in a medical school.

Introduction: Current selection methods in medical schools emphasize academic competence only, somewhat to the detriment of other essential competencies. Academic grades are frequently considered as the predictors of good academic performance in medical schools and therefore many medical schools still select applicants predominantly on this basis. Objective: To assess this long-standing trend in order to point out the lacunae associated with it and to explore this effect with a view to improve teaching and learning process. Methodology: During this retrospective longitudinal study, we studied the students (n=539) admitted to the college of medicine, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia, between 2006 and 2011. During these years study conditions (i.e. admission procedure, study program and assessment) remained unchanged. The scores of higher school certificate (HSC) were correlated with study duration (number of semesters) and grade point average (GPA). Pearson’s correlation and regression analysis were carried out using effect model. Results: The results of this study do not demonstrate a correlation between HSC scores and study duration (r = -.018). The relationship bet ween HSC scores and cumulative GPA was moderate positive (r = .476). The HSC scores were found to be poor predictors of the subsequent academic performance (R2 = .273). Conclusions: The HSC score is a poor predictor of the subsequent academic performance. Our intuition, and perhaps our experience, suggests that study time should be positively associated with grades. However, it is not always the case as study duration-grade association may not be true.   Keywords: School admission criteria, Medical education, Students, Undergraduate

Comparative Study of the Dynamics of Cosmic Rays for the Pakistan and China Atmospheric Regions

This paper presents an analysis of cosmic ray intensity in Pakistan air space using spatial interpolation, comparing it with Chinese cosmic ray records from 1984 to 1993. The Exploratory Data Analytic (EDA) approach was applied to compare the cosmic ray fluctuations in both countries. The time series plot of the monthly cosmic rays showed relatively flatter counts in Pakistan than in China. The cosmic ray data for the years 1984 to 1993 fell within Solar Cycle 22, which lasted from 1986 to 1996, with its maximum phase in 1989 to 1991. The cosmic radiation varies between the atmospheric regions of Pakistan and China due to modulations in intensity that are accessible accordingly. It can be explained by purely astrophysical phenomena: (1) the source of emission of cosmic radiation may be different, (2) the rate at which emanation takes place depends on bursts of deep space dynamical objects from their sources that may be affected by solar wind and other solar radiations. Therefore, modulations in intensity are not only due to different geophysical locations. This study will help government organizations to predict and forecast cosmic rays values

Agent for Automating Educational Institutes as a Single Entity: Schools' Coordination System

Services and processes require much effort for executing in manual ways. Customized-Service Oriented Architecture is currently a very large source for automating services of different organizations. Educational Institutes and Schools, which are the part of the original nature of man to live, cooperate and grow with others. Transfer of parents becomes a major problem for children education. School's services required a system which can connect all branches on different places to remove transferring problem for a person. SCS (School Coordination System) is a CSOA based application which can provide different services (letter transaction, lecture plane, transfer of student from one branch to other branch with in no time). So student gets feel free after migrating the school. SCS will also provide a medium between parents and school to check the progress of his chil

Low Temperature Stress Induced Changes in Biochemical Parameters, Protein Banding Pattern and Expression of Zat12 and Myb Genes in Rice Seedling

Low temperature stress is one of the main abiotic factors that reduce the productivity of many crops in hilly areas around the world. In this study, rice seedling were exposed to low temperature stress (control, 0°C, -2°C, -4°C and -6°C) for 2 hr to observe its effect on two rice varieties (Basmati-385 and Shaheen Basmati) through ion and proline contents, photosynthetic pigments, total protein content, protein banding pattern and expression of Zat12 and Myb genes. Resulted showed different patterns of accumulation of Na+ K+ and Ca+2 ions with the decrease in temperature in both varieties. Proline accumulation was gradually increased in both varieties with the decrease in temperature. Photosynthetic pigments (Chlorophyll (Chl) a, b and carotene) were negatively affected by low temperature stress in both varieties, however, carotene content was much affected than Chl a and b. Nonsignificant variation in protein contents was observed at all levels of low temperature, but the effects of low temperature stress on protein banding pattern of Basmti-385 and Shaheen Basmati were different at different treatments. RT-PCR results indicated that ZAT12 was upregulated by short term low temperature stress while OsMYB show slight upregulation at -2°C as compared to the other treatments. This study identified that ZAT12 and OsMYB function as a positive regulator to mediate tolerance of rice seedlings at low temperature stress

Green Production and Structural Evaluation of Maize Starch–Fatty Acid Complexes Through High Speed Homogenization

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. The current study describes the production of maize starch–fatty acid complexes through high speed homogenization, a novel field of research, without heat or any chemical treatment. The starch–fatty acid complexes were produced with three different fatty acids, i.e. stearic acid (T1), palmitic acid (T2) and lauric acid (T3). The complexes were analyzed through various techniques. The results reveal that the complexing index (CI), swelling power (SP) and solubility (S) for T1 were significantly higher compared to T2 and T3. In X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies, relatively lower crystalline (V-type pattern) structures were obtained for the samples T1–T3, where T2 showed the highest crystallinity amongst all. Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectra showed characteristic bands i.e., OH, C=O, C–O and long-chain CH2 functionalities thus confirming the overall incorporation of acids into glycoside moieties. The Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed sub-crystalline matrix structures with fewer or no spherulites indicating the overall incorporation of acids in starch. The samples showed relatively low thermal stability in the thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) in the range of 180 to 280 °C. These results suggest that high speed homogenization had the potential for the development of green and biocompatible maize starch–fatty acid complexes

BrAPI-an application programming interface for plant breeding applications

Motivation: Modern genomic breeding methods rely heavily on very large amounts of phenotyping and genotyping data, presenting new challenges in effective data management and integration. Recently, the size and complexity of datasets have increased significantly, with the result that data are often stored on multiple systems. As analyses of interest increasingly require aggregation of datasets from diverse sources, data exchange between disparate systems becomes a challenge. Results: To facilitate interoperability among breeding applications, we present the public plant Breeding Application Programming Interface (BrAPI). BrAPI is a standardized web service API specification. The development of BrAPI is a collaborative, community-based initiative involving a growing global community of over a hundred participants representing several dozen institutions and companies. Development of such a standard is recognized as critical to a number of important large breeding system initiatives as a foundational technology. The focus of the first version of the API is on providing services for connecting systems and retrieving basic breeding data including germplasm, study, observation, and marker data. A number of BrAPI-enabled applications, termed BrAPPs, have been written, that take advantage of the emerging support of BrAPI by many databases

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Effects of antibiotic resistance, drug target attainment, bacterial pathogenicity and virulence, and antibiotic access and affordability on outcomes in neonatal sepsis: an international microbiology and drug evaluation prospective substudy (BARNARDS)

Background Sepsis is a major contributor to neonatal mortality, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). WHO advocates ampicillin–gentamicin as first-line therapy for the management of neonatal sepsis. In the BARNARDS observational cohort study of neonatal sepsis and antimicrobial resistance in LMICs, common sepsis pathogens were characterised via whole genome sequencing (WGS) and antimicrobial resistance profiles. In this substudy of BARNARDS, we aimed to assess the use and efficacy of empirical antibiotic therapies commonly used in LMICs for neonatal sepsis. Methods In BARNARDS, consenting mother–neonates aged 0–60 days dyads were enrolled on delivery or neonatal presentation with suspected sepsis at 12 BARNARDS clinical sites in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa. Stillborn babies were excluded from the study. Blood samples were collected from neonates presenting with clinical signs of sepsis, and WGS and minimum inhibitory concentrations for antibiotic treatment were determined for bacterial isolates from culture-confirmed sepsis. Neonatal outcome data were collected following enrolment until 60 days of life. Antibiotic usage and neonatal outcome data were assessed. Survival analyses were adjusted to take into account potential clinical confounding variables related to the birth and pathogen. Additionally, resistance profiles, pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic probability of target attainment, and frequency of resistance (ie, resistance defined by in-vitro growth of isolates when challenged by antibiotics) were assessed. Questionnaires on health structures and antibiotic costs evaluated accessibility and affordability. Findings Between Nov 12, 2015, and Feb 1, 2018, 36 285 neonates were enrolled into the main BARNARDS study, of whom 9874 had clinically diagnosed sepsis and 5749 had available antibiotic data. The four most commonly prescribed antibiotic combinations given to 4451 neonates (77·42%) of 5749 were ampicillin–gentamicin, ceftazidime–amikacin, piperacillin–tazobactam–amikacin, and amoxicillin clavulanate–amikacin. This dataset assessed 476 prescriptions for 442 neonates treated with one of these antibiotic combinations with WGS data (all BARNARDS countries were represented in this subset except India). Multiple pathogens were isolated, totalling 457 isolates. Reported mortality was lower for neonates treated with ceftazidime–amikacin than for neonates treated with ampicillin–gentamicin (hazard ratio [adjusted for clinical variables considered potential confounders to outcomes] 0·32, 95% CI 0·14–0·72; p=0·0060). Of 390 Gram-negative isolates, 379 (97·2%) were resistant to ampicillin and 274 (70·3%) were resistant to gentamicin. Susceptibility of Gram-negative isolates to at least one antibiotic in a treatment combination was noted in 111 (28·5%) to ampicillin–gentamicin; 286 (73·3%) to amoxicillin clavulanate–amikacin; 301 (77·2%) to ceftazidime–amikacin; and 312 (80·0%) to piperacillin–tazobactam–amikacin. A probability of target attainment of 80% or more was noted in 26 neonates (33·7% [SD 0·59]) of 78 with ampicillin–gentamicin; 15 (68·0% [3·84]) of 27 with amoxicillin clavulanate–amikacin; 93 (92·7% [0·24]) of 109 with ceftazidime–amikacin; and 70 (85·3% [0·47]) of 76 with piperacillin–tazobactam–amikacin. However, antibiotic and country effects could not be distinguished. Frequency of resistance was recorded most frequently with fosfomycin (in 78 isolates [68·4%] of 114), followed by colistin (55 isolates [57·3%] of 96), and gentamicin (62 isolates [53·0%] of 117). Sites in six of the seven countries (excluding South Africa) stated that the cost of antibiotics would influence treatment of neonatal sepsis