Creating Scholarship from Your Daily Work – Tips for Increasing Scholarly Output during Medical Training

Medical training is a rewarding but challenging time in a physician’s career. Balancing clinical work, staying up-to-date with literature, and managing personal life is time-consuming. To add to this, for those who want to pursue a career as a physician-scientist or conduct outcomes research, it is even more challenging, and the word “research” can sometimes sound intimidating. Therefore, in clinical training programs we now often use the world scholarly activity. Scholarly activity is an essential part of medical training and encompasses many pursuits such as case reports, retrospective studies, quality improvement work, educational curriculum development, patient safety projects, meta-analyses and systematic reviews, prospective studies, and randomized controlled trials. While there are several approaches to maximize your scholarly output during medical training, here we review some tips on how to create scholarship from your day-to-day work Saw an interesting case:  During your training, if you saw an interesting case or a unique presentation of a common clinical presentation or notice a few similar cases, this is an opportunity to publish a case report or case series.1 Several journals also have “image of the month” sections so if there is a striking clinical image, endoscopic, radiographic, or pathological image, you can consider publishing in those sections as well. Core lecture: As part of your clinical training, you are often asked to review a topic or give a lecture on a topic pertaining to your training. In preparation for that, you review extensive literature and prepare a systematic approach to managing or approaching a clinical problem. Since you have already performed an extensive review of literature, this is an opportunity to convert your work into a review article. Partnering with an expert mentor or colleague will likely provide valuable feedback which will improve the chances of a publication. See room for improvement in your clinical work or workflow:  During our daily work, we often notice opportunities in the clinical work itself or the related workflow, where there is room for improvement. This is a good opportunity to conduct a quality improvement project.2The classic quality improvement project revolves around the PDSA cycle (plan-do-study-act). There could be several PDSA cycles before improvement is seen. Quality improvement work can both be presented at regional, national, and international meetings as well as can be published. Questions about a recent article you read:We all read and review recent articles. If there are any questions or points that you need clarification on, this is an opportunity to write a “letter to the editor” to the journal.3 Created or implemented a new curriculum, module, or examination system: The development or implementation of a new curriculum, module or examination, or teaching system falls under the umbrella of educational innovation.4 Systematically sharing your experience at your local institution and lessons learned while implementing it is an opportunity to publish your work and ideas as education-related research.5  Notice a clinical pattern not described in the literature: This provides an opportunity for retrospective research where you can highlight your observations. Oftentimes, these retrospective research projects provide the hypothesis for future clinical trials and prospective studies.  In summary, there is no one way to succeed in maximizing your scholarly output during clinical training. The above-mentioned strategies provide some suggestions on how you can convert your day-to-day work into clinical scholarship. This allows you to make your work count twice and in the process, one has the opportunity to refine the skills that will eventually help in conducting future clinical research, i.e. using reference manager software, medical writing, and editing, formatting articles to journal formats and most importantly develop critical thinking.

A study on the potential of doing business in Malaysia by Jordanian entrepreneurs

Malaysia is a country on the move. From a country dependent on agriculture and primary commodities in the sixties, Malaysia has today become an export-driven economy spurred on by high technology, knowledge-based and capital-intensive industries. Aware of the importance of foreign investments for the economic development of Malaysia, the project identified the motivations and concerns of Jordanian investors for investing in Malaysia and for exploring opportunities that Malaysia offers. In addition, this project examined the potential of doing business in Malaysia by Jordanian entrepreneurs. On the other hand, to make these opportunities in Malaysia known to individual businessmen in Jordan who may wish to trade in Malaysia

Fluorescence Lifetime Measurement using Time Correlated Single Photon Counting

A time correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) setup is built to measure the fluorescence decay of samples, such as solar cell materials. TCSPC is a sensitive technique for measuring fluorescence decays on nanosecond time scale and longer. The principle of TCSPC is based on the precise registration of the arrival time of fluorescence photons from a sample. A fluorescence decay curve is constructed from the TCSPC measurement, this curve is used to extract the fluorescence lifetime. The setup is novel with respect to the conventional method of collecting a fluorescence signal. It is a simplified setup as there is no need of complex geometry of optics to focus the excitation beam or to image the fluorescence on to the detector. Instead, the excitation beam is unfocused and the sample is placed as close to the detector as possible. This approach allows for the usage of low excitation density of photons. The low level of light that this setup could detect made it very sensitive for measuring samples with low emission. The setup is characterised with two different samples: Coumarin-152 (7-N,N-dimethylamino-4-trifluoromethyl-1,2-benzopyrone) and APFO3 (poly[2,7-(9,9-dioctylfluorene)-alt-5,5-(4,7′-di-2-thienyl-2′,1′,3- benzothiadiazole)]). Coumarin-152 is a commercial laser dye and APFO3 is a polymer solar cell material. These measurements reveal that the single and non exponential curves could be obtained using this setup. The verification of the setup is further carried out by classifying different errors that can influence the measurements.Popular Science Abstract This thesis is about the construction and demonstration of time correlated single photon counting (TSCPC) setup. The technique is essentially digital and is based on detection and counting of single photon, recognizing quantum nature of light. The time is measured between excitation pulse and detected photons and is stored in histogram with x-axis corresponding to time interval. The sample is excited repeatedly and resulting histogram of intensity versus time called as fluorescence decay curve. Generally speaking, fluorescence or emission spectroscopy is one of the fundamental spectroscopic techniques. This is the study of fluorescence phenomenon which is the emission of photons from singlet excited state. The emission is red shifted relative to absorption maxima due to loss of energy as heat during relaxation process. In the time resolved fluorescence decay experiment, the sample is excited with pulse of laser light, it starts with high intensity and then decays, rapidly. Later on from appropriate fitted functions, type of decay, lifetime and amplitudes are calculated. In case of photon counting, the measured data is in form of discrete time function. But still the fitted functions provide the same information. Then question arises about additional advantage of our TCSPC technique over other life time measurements. The additional benefits come from simplicity of integrated setup i.e. lack of focussing lenses and very low excitation density is required. The setup has been characterized by measuring the fluorescence decay from organic dye and polymer solar cell material. The data has been fitted with exponential functions and fluorescence life times are calculated with good accuracy. Other than life time measurements, the technique is being successfully used for single molecule detection, TCSPC imaging, and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy in combination with fluorescence microscopy etc

Geotechnical Evaluation of Limestones from Cape Monze and Adjoining Areas, Karachi, Pakistan for Their Utilization as Road Aggregate

Limestone samples (n = 19) were collected from outcrops of Nari and Gaj formations for the determinationof physicochemical and mechanical characteristics. Compressive strength of Nari and Gaj formations varied in therange of 29-63 and 94-32 MPA with mean of 44 and 58 MPA respectively. Density of Gaj Formation (range: 2364-3264; mean: 2893 Kg/m3) is relatively higher than Nari Formation (range: 2321-3284; mean: 2565 Kg/m3). Meanspecific gravity of both Nari and Gaj formations is 2.5. Absorption of Nari Formation (mean: 2.64) is higher than theGaj Formation (mean: 1.78). Mean Sulphate soundness of Nari Formation (8.7%) is slightly higher than Gaj Formation(8.5%). Abrasion values of both formations are within the AASHTO reference range (< 40%) where mean value ofLoss Angles for Nari Formation is 34% and Gaj Formation is 26%. Crushing values of both Nari (10-50%) and Gaj(10-25%) formations where mean of Nari (27%) is double the mean of Gaj (13%) Formation. Mean water-solublesulphate and chloride of both formations is same (0.1% and 0.04% respectively). Both formations have alkaline pH(8.1±). Mean TOC content of Nari and Gaj formations is 0.4%. Carbonate% of Nari and Gaj formations is < 46%. Claylumps and friable particles in both formations are highly variable but the mean values are within permissible range (<1%). Elongation Index of both formations is double (30) the standard EI value (15%) set by National HighwayAuthority, Pakistan. Mean Flakiness value of both formations is 20%

An Educational Module Highlighting the Efficacy of Intravenous Ascorbic Acid in Attenuating Hemodynamic Fluctuations Associated with Tourniquet-Induced Ischemic Reperfusion Injury in Patients Undergoing Lower Extremity Orthopedic Surgery: A Quality Improvement Project

Tourniquets are often used in orthopedic surgery because empirical data suggests that they significantly reduce blood loss and transfusion requirements, facilitate the identification of critical anatomical structures, and provide an optimum operating field. In ischemic limbs, tourniquet inflation increases arterial pressures and results in hypoxia, acidosis, and hyperkalemia.1-3 When a tourniquet is removed, metabolites produced from ischemic areas enter the systemic circulation, resulting in hypotension and hypoxia. Excessive oxygen-free radicals are produced during reperfusion and oxygenation, contributing to leucocytic activation and endothelial damage in blood vessels.2,4 The excess oxygen-free radicals peroxide polyunsaturated fatty acids in membrane and plasma lipoproteins directly inhibit mitochondrial respiratory chain enzymes, affecting major organ functions. As a result, oxygen-free radicals play a crucial role in developing significant cardiovascular complications following reperfusion injury.1-4 These complications are especially problematic in patients with preexisting cardiovascular disease undergoing orthopedic procedures such as total knee replacement (TKR) with tourniquet application. 5,

Variability in the Effectiveness of Psychological Interventions based on Machine Learning in STEM Education

This manuscript presents a framework to investigate the variability in the effectiveness of psychological interventions supported by Machine Learning (ML) based early-warning systems (EWS) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. It emphasizes the importance of investigating the resulting variability and suggests that effective EWS cannot be designed without a deeper understanding of the variability. The framework uses an ML-based model to predict students’ academic performance early in the semester for a Sophomore-level Computer Science course at a public university in the United States. The students were given psychological interventions by sending their end-of-term performance forecast thrice during the semester. A randomized control trial was designed to determine whether interventions made an overall positive impact on students’ academic performance and whether there was variability in its impact. Results suggested that although interventions improved academic performance, they were not equally effective at different performance levels and that students at the same level reacted differently to these interventions

Optical properties derived from the refractive index dispersion of alkyl-imidazolium based ionic liquids

Ionic liquids are advanced materials with great potential to take part in optical applications such as optical imaging, ultrafast optics, laser technology and so on. In view of this, a precise knowledge of their optical behavior is necessary to ensure the optimal performance of a device. In this work, the chromatic dispersion of a set of alkyl-imidazolium-based ionic liquids is characterized in a quasi-continuous spectral interval comprising wavelengths between 400 and 1000 nm. A model based on the Sellmeier equation is fitted to the data; this model allows the identification of behaviors and trends related to the structure of the material or environmental conditions (temperature). The model is also used to calculate other dispersive magnitudes derived from the refractive index such as the Abbe number, group index, group velocity dispersion, third-order dispersion