Foeto-placental weight relationship in normal pregnancy and pregnancies complicated by pregnancy induced hypertension and abruption of placentae

Background: The aim of this study was to study the effects of pregnancy induced hypertension and abruption of placenta on foeto-placental weight ratio and its comparison with normal group.Methods: In this comparative study hundred and twenty placentae were collected from labor room and gynecology operation theatre of Liaquat University hospital. Forty placentae from parturient that had pregnancy induced hypertension & forty placentae from parturient with history of Abruption of placenta & forty cases belonged to normal pregnancy (Control group). Fetal weights in all groups were taken along with the weights of placentae and foeto-placental weight was calculated in all groups.Results: Placental parameter weight and diameter of placenta in abruption of placentae and PIH group when compared with control group show highly significant (P <0.001) difference. The weight of the new born in abruption of placentae and PIH group also differs from control group significantly (P = 0.001). The feto-placental ratio is also significant statically in abruption of placentae but not in PIH.Conclusion: Both PIH and abruption of placentae are associated with remarkable changes in placenta such as small placental weight and diameter and as a result low birth weight babies and so altered feto-placental ratio.

Students' Feedback of Written Examination: A Public Sector Medical University Experience

Objective: To determine the students’ perceptions regarding the examination in a public sector medical university. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University Islamabad. An examination feedback proforma was developed to collect the feedback from students appearing for the written exam for MD/MS/MTA during 2015. Multiple variables were assessed and descriptive analysis was done. Results: The feedback proforma was distributed to 98 candidates with response rate was 68.36%. Overall feedback from students about the examination was positive. Majority of the students were satisfied with the process and arrangements of the examination. However a large number of students did not comment on some important issues. Conclusion: Collecting students’ feedback about examination was a good effort to identify our deficiencies and indication for areas of improvement. This study revealed a positive response from students regarding overall management of the examination process

The Role of Radiology (X-Ray versus Computed Tomography) in Medicolegal Cases Presented at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Pakistan

Objectives:&nbsp;&nbsp;A prospective observational study was aimed to assess the role of plain radiographs and computed tomography in detecting head injuries presented at the medicolegal office at the Forensics and Radiology Departments, Gambat Medical Hospital, Sindh. Material and Methods:&nbsp;&nbsp;All cases referred from the Medicolegal Office (MLO) with head injury were included. All victims underwent X-ray head and computed tomography skull was done with 1 or 1.5 cm thick axial sections without administration of intravenous contrast. The radiological reports of X-ray head and CT scans were documented and comparatively evaluated. Results:&nbsp;&nbsp;Mean age was 38.63 ± 3.91 years. In 51 (45.13%) cases, X-ray was able to detect skull fracture, while CT scan detected 64(56.64%) skull fractures. There were 54 (84.3%) true positives, 3 (2.6%) false positives, 10(8.8%) false negatives, and 40 (40.7%) true negatives. The accuracy of X-ray to detect skull fracture was 88.50%. Conclusion:&nbsp;&nbsp;X-ray had a sensitivity and specificity of 84.38% and 93.88%, respectively. It is a reliable tool to detect skull fractures in victims of assault in comparison with CT scans. X-ray is also associated with low dose radiation exposure as compared with CT scan which delivers 70 times more exposure than the former

A novel HGBBDSA-CTI approach for subcarrier allocation in heterogeneous network

In recent times, Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) achieves the capacity and coverage for indoors through the deployment of small cells i.e. femtocells (HeNodeBs). These HeNodeBs are plug-and-play Customer Premises Equipment’s which are associated with the internet protocol backhaul to macrocell (macro-eNodeB). The random placement of HeNodeBs deployed in co-channel along with macro-eNodeB is causing severe system performance degradation. Thereby, these HeNodeBs are suggested as the ultimate and the most significant cause of interference in Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple-Access based HetNets due to the restricted co-channel deployment. The CTI in such systems can significantly reduce the throughput, and the outages can rise to the unacceptable limit or extremely high levels. These lead to severe system performance degradation in HetNets. This paper presents a novel HGBBDSA-CTI approach capable of strategically allocate the subcarriers and thereby improves the throughput as well as the outage. The enhanced system performance is able to mitigate CTI issues in HetNets. This paper also analyses the time complexity for the proposed HGBBDSA algorithm and also compares it with the Genetic Algorithm-based Dynamic Subcarrier Allocation (DSA), and Particle Swarm Optimization-based DSA as well. The key target of this study is to allocate the unoccupied subcarriers by sharing among the HeNodeBs. The reason is also to enhance the system performance such as throughput of HeNodeB, the average throughput of HeNodeB Users, and outage. The simulation results show that the proposed HGBBDSA-CTI approach enhances the average throughput (92.05 and 74.44%), throughput (30.50 and 74.34%), and the outage rate reduced to 52.9 and 50.76% compare with the existing approaches. The result also indicates that the proposed HGBBDSA approach has less time complexity than the existing approaches

Validation of verbal autopsy tool for ascertaining the causes of stillbirth

Objective: To assess performance of the WHO revised verbal autopsy tool for ascertaining the causes of still birth in comparison with reference standard cause of death ascertained by standardized clinical and supportive data.Methods: All stillbirths at a tertiary hospital in Karachi, Pakistan were prospectively recruited into study from August 2006- February 2008. The reference standard cause of death was established by two senior obstetricians within 48 hours using the ICD coding system. Verbal autopsy interviews using modified WHO tool were conducted by trained health workers within 2- 6 weeks of still birth and the cause of death was assigned by second panel of obstetricians. The performance was assessed in terms of sensitivity, specificity and Kappa.Results: There were 204 still births. Of these, 80.8% of antepartum and 50.5% of intrapartum deaths were correctly diagnosed by verbal autopsy. Sensitivity of verbal autopsy was highest 68.4%, (95%CI: 46-84.6) for congenital malformation followed by obstetric complication 57.6%, (95%CI: 25-84.2). The specificity for all major causes was greater than 90%. The level of agreement was high (kappa=0.72) for anomalies and moderate (k=0.4) for all major causes of still birth, except asphyxia.Conclusion: Our results suggest that verbal autopsy has reasonable validity in identifying and discriminating between causes of stillbirth in Pakistan. On the basis of these findings, we feel it has a place in resource constrained areas to inform strategic planning and mobilization of resources to attain Millennium Development Goal

Transurethral Resection in benign Prostatic Hyperplasia; An Observational Study Highlighting the Correlation of the Resected Tissue with Electrolytes and Hemoglobin

OBJECTIVE: To determine the correlation of serum sodium and potassium levels before and after transurethral resection of the prostate with weight of resected tissue in BPH patients. METHODOLOGY: A prospective observational study was conducted on 75 male patients aged 40-70 years, presenting with benign prostatic hyperplasia and undergoing transurethral resection of the prostate at Department of Urology, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro. Ethical permission was taken before conducting this study from the university. Blood samples were obtained before and 24 hours after surgery for assessment of sodium and potassium levels. SPSS version 20.0 was used for data analysis. Pearson Correlation was applied for inferential analysis whereas p-value of < 0.05 was taken as significant. RESULTS: No correlation exist between baseline sodium level before resection(r=0.116 p=0.304) and 24 hours after the resection of prostate (r=0.219, p=0.051) and between baseline potassium level before resection (r=0.059, p=0.604) and 24 hours after the resection of prostate (r=-0.058, p=0.611) whereas moderate negative correlation (r=-0.310, p=0.005) exist between changes in potassium level with respect to weight of resected tissue. No correlation exist between exist between pre-operative hemoglobin level with respect to weight of resected tissue. (r=0.182, p=0.106). Moderate negative correlation (r=-0.309, p=0.005) exist between post-operative hemoglobin level whereas strong positive correlation (r=0.690, p=0.001) exist in operative time with weight of tissue resected. CONCLUSION: The results of the study showed that moderate negative correlation exists between changes in potassium level and post-operative hemoglobin level and strong positive correlation exists in operative time with respect to weight of resected tissue

Parameters extraction of photovoltaic cells using swarm intelligence based optimization technique: research on single diode model and double diode model

Solar-energy is a clean source of energy and photovoltaic (PV) panels are constructed from solar cells (SC) which convert energy of light into electricity without any environmental effect. The researchers and policy makers focus on the huge scale adoption of solar panels due to its cleaner production. However, there is non-linear behavior in current-voltage characteristics of solar panels and shortage of data in manufacturer’s datasheet. In order to enhance the efficiency of solar panels it is mandatory to develop the PV panels scheme accurately by extracting the basic parameters. In this research study a mathematical model of two different solar cell models is used such as Single Diode Model (SDM) and Double Diode Model (DDM). The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to extract the five and seven unknown parameters of SDM and DDM. The algorithm runs with one thousand iterations to minimize the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) where the RMSE is the vector of five unknown parameters for SDM and seven for DDM. The superiority of proposed PSO algorithm is proved by the optimized results of unrevealed parameters with minimized RMSE of up to 10-3. Optimum parameter values for the solar cell models are applied on the real time data of a 55 mm diameter commercial RTC-France SC. Finally, the results reveal that P-V and I-V curves exhibit smallest deviation between estimated and real time values. The results reveal that the proposed PSO converges to optimal solution with least number of iterations compared to the existing metaheuristic algorithms