Externalizing tacit knowledge for improving leadership practices: Experiences from leadership programmes under ESRA

This paper draws upon the experiences gained from a leadership development course held at AKU-IED that included participants from 9 districts from Sind and Balochistan provinces. It describes the attempt, by the course planners, to conceptualize and deliver the course with a focus on externalizing participants’ tacit knowledge. The paper shares strategies used during the course, and describes successes and challenges in this respect, and the subsequent impact on participants’ learning and practices. Based on the outcome of the course, the paper suggests that the design of leadership and management development courses should focus clearly on strategies that capture and build upon the tacit knowledge of participants. The paper asserts that this approach helps to add more energy and interaction to the sessions and consequently increases the chances of impacting leadership practices of participants

Challenges & barriers for neuro rehabilitation In developing countries

People with disabilities especially neurological disabilities have many unmet health and rehabilitation needs, face barriers in accessing mainstream health-care services, and consequently have poor health. There are not sufficient epidemiological studies from Pakistan which assess barriers to neurorehabilitation and ways to counter it

Augmenting Machine Learning with Information Retrieval to Recommend Real Cloned Code Methods for Code Completion

Software developers frequently reuse source code from repositories as it saves development time and effort. Code clones accumulated in these repositories hence represent often repeated functionalities and are candidates for reuse in an exploratory or rapid development. In previous work, we introduced DeepClone, a deep neural network model trained by fine tuning GPT-2 model over the BigCloneBench dataset to predict code clone methods. The probabilistic nature of DeepClone output generation can lead to syntax and logic errors that requires manual editing of the output for final reuse. In this paper, we propose a novel approach of applying an information retrieval (IR) technique on top of DeepClone output to recommend real clone methods closely matching the predicted output. We have quantitatively evaluated our strategy, showing that the proposed approach significantly improves the quality of recommendation

Attitude and perception of physical therapists towards multidisciplinary team aproach in stroke rehabilitation

Stroke is a long term disability in developing countries which is considered as major economic burden on part of Health care system. In developing countries multidisciplinary team approach for stroke rehabilitation is emerging in tertiary care hospitals and has considerably increased the chance of early independence, fast recovery and maximum outcome in daily activities of life. Objective: Objective of the study was to evaluate the attitude and perception of physical therapists towards multidisciplinary team approach working in stroke rehabilitation

Impact of guillain barre syndrome on psychosocial functionings of patients in islamabad

GuillainBarre Syndrome (GBS) is a rare autoimmune disease of unknown causes that affects peripheral nervous system. Objectives: To review the impacts of the GuillainBarre Syndrome on the psychosocial functioning of the patients and to assess the relationship between GuillainBarre Syndrome and the psychosocial functioning Methodology: Comparative cross sectional survey was conducted on 100 participants (50 GBS patients from Shifa International Hospitals and 50 normal participants from Islamabad in 6 months time from February to July 2013. Data collected through Structured Questionnaire in hospital settings for GBS patients and normal persons from Islamabad through Psychosocial functioning scale and social functioning scale and analyzedby using SPSS version 17

Autonomy and school success: A case study from Pakistan

This paper reports on a case investigated as a part of several case studies conducted under ANTRIEP (Asian Network of Research and Training Institute for Educational Planning) in seven different countries. (India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Nepal and Bangladesh) to look into the management of successful schools. Three cases studies were conducted in three different school systems in Pakistan: public school, private school and AKES (Aga Khan Education Services) managed schools. In this paper the case study of public and cross case analysis based on the findings of the three schools is reported. The findings reveal that school autonomy, delegation of authority, management of physical resources, community participation and proper monitoring system are critical for school success. On the basis of the findings the paper argues against the traditional and bureaucratic model of school management for develoved management structure (more autonomy to school) that can potentially transform schools into learning communities

Effectiveness of stretching of the flexor retinaculum with ultrasonic therapy in the management of carpal tunnel syndrome

Aims & Objective: The objective of study was to compare the effectiveness of manual stretching of the flexor retinaculum with or without ultrasonic therapy. Methods: The study was started by selecting the 50 patients from the out patients department of Al-nafees Hospital AlipurFarash and National institute of Rehabilitation Medicine Islamabad with history of carpal tunnel syndrome. The 25 patients in experimental group were treated with manual stretching of flexor retinaculum and ultrasound and 25 patients of control group were treated with manual stretching of flexor retinaculum. Every session was started by assessment of improvement of the symptoms in each patient. Data was collected through Numeric pain rating scale, point Paresthesia assessment scale and muscle strength by hydraulic hand dynamometer. Independent sample t-test was used to analyze the data with p ≤ 0.05. Results: The mean age of subjects was 1.78±0.64 and 41 subjects have CTS of Right hand remaining 9 subjects were left handed. After the completion of the treatment program it was observe that there was no difference in the effectiveness of manual Stretching of flexor retinaculum with ultra sound therapy and manual stretching of flexor retinaculum alone. The NPRS, paresthesia and muscle stretch showed p≥0.05 between experimental and control groups. Conclusion: This study proved that manual stretching of the flexor retinaculum along with ultra sonic therapy have same affects as manual stretching of the flexor retinaculum alone

Hypoxia-inducible factor in thyroid carcinoma.

Intratumoural hypoxia (low oxygen tension) is associated with aggressive disease and poor prognosis. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 is a transcription factor activated by hypoxia that regulates the expression of genes that promote tumour cell survival, progression, metastasis, and resistance to chemo/radiotherapy. In addition to hypoxia, HIF-1 can be activated by growth factor-signalling pathways such as the mitogen-activated protein kinases- (MAPK-) and phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinases- (PI3K-) signalling cascades. Mutations in these pathways are common in thyroid carcinoma and lead to enhanced HIF-1 expression and activity. Here, we summarise current data that highlights the potential role of both hypoxia and MAPK/PI3K-induced HIF-1 signalling in thyroid carcinoma progression, metastatic characteristics, and the potential role of HIF-1 in thyroid carcinoma response to radiotherapy. Direct or indirect targeting of HIF-1 using an MAPK or PI3K inhibitor in combination with radiotherapy may be a new potential therapeutic target to improve the therapeutic response of thyroid carcinoma to radiotherapy and reduce metastatic burden

Seasonal variation of AM fungal colonization in Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) plants suffering from Ratta Roag (Red rot) disease

In a survey conducted to assess the AM infections of sugarcane plants suffering from Ratta Roag (Red Rot), from various sugarcane-fields in and around District Jhang four categories of plants for disease incidence were identified as healthy, partially diseased, diseased, and severely diseased. A significant change in pattern of AM infection was recorded. Percentage frequencies of arbuscules, vesicles, intra-matricular mycelium and external spores exhibited a gradual increase from initial to final stages of the studies. Various AM structures showed a significant variation with the passage of time in the extent of infection. The diseased plants showed a significant difference in AM infection as compared to normal plants