The Role of Gender in Employee Retention: A Study of Private Hospitals in Karachi

The retaining and draining talent has been the most perplexing saga for the organizations. The corporate arena remained the battlefield between these two positive and negative challenges. In this regard, several strategies are devised by offering lucrative benefits to the talent to stick around with the organization. The objective of this study was to analyse the role of Gender in retention, with specific reference to the private hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. The study further intended to answer if Private hospitals inclined more to retain male or female employees. Employee’s retention policies are planned to increase the employment agreement and decrease the ample expenses concerned with recruiting and training the employees. After implementing managerial behaviour concepts organization can improve retention charges and reduce the related expenses of high turnover. A descriptive, causal study was carried out using purposive sampling to conduct an interview with 50 employees with the help of a structured questionnaire. Data were analysed through SPSS applying Regression model to identify key factors influencing employee retention. The two leading hospitals were the focus of the study. The study found the health care organizations had a particularly subjective approach while allocating salaries among male, female employees.  Therefore, it recommends to all organizations whether services or industrial, that the improved job setting by no inequity lead to rises the efficiency of the workers as well as of a business

An Assorted Design for Joint Monitoring of Process Parameters: An Efficient Approach for Fuel Consumption

Due to high fuel consumption, we face the problem of not only the increased cost, but it also affects greenhouse gas emission. This paper presents an assorted approach for monitoring fuel consumption in trucks with the objective to minimize fuel consumption. We propose a control charting structure for joint monitoring of mean and dispersion parameters based on the well-known max approach. The proposed joint assorted chart is evaluated through various performance measures such as average run length, extra quadratic loss, performance comparison index, and relative average run length. The comparison of the proposed chart is carried out with existing control charts, including a combination of X and S, the maximum exponentially weighted moving average (Max-EWMA), combined mixed exponentially weighted moving average-cumulative sum (CMEC), maximum double exponentially weighted average (MDEWMA), and combined mixed double EWMA-CUSUM (CMDEC) charts. The implementation of the proposed chart is presented using real data regarding the monitoring of fuel consumption in trucks. The outcomes revealed that the joint assorted chart is very efficient to detect different kinds of shifts in process behaviors and has superior performance than its competitor charts.Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, King Fahd University of Petroleum and MineralsScopu

Histomorphological changes in gonads of Clupisoma naziri during spring and summer season

Present study was conducted to analyse the effect of breeding and non-breeding seasons on histomorphological changes in gonads of Clupisoma naziri. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Punjab, Pakistan, 43 mature fish of both sexes were gathered from the Indus River and its tributaries. In the non-breeding season (spring), both testis and ovaries went through a preparatory phase, with thick tunica albuginea and fast spermatogenesis in testes and the formation of cortical alveoli or yolk vesicles in the cortex of the cytoplasm in ovaries. The testicular lobules were loaded with spermatozoa and some spermatogenic cells during breeding season (summer), while the ovaries were filled with mature ovarian follicles. The breeding season is marked by spermatozoa leaking freely from testes and ovaries brimming with completely mature eggs. The gonadosomatic (GSI) results are consistent with the histomorphological results of gonads, as their values peak during breeding season and drop during non-breeding season. C. naziri breeds once a year during the summer season, according to the current study, and this information will aid aqua breeders in the culturing of this commercially significant catfish in Pakistan

Correlating CT Chest with RT-PCR in Diagnosing COVID-19: Experience at a Tertiary Health Care Hospital in Pakistan

Objective: To establish the accuracy of computed tomography(CT) chest in the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia by taking reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) as a reference standard and to analyze discordant CT chest and RT-PCR results. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study of patients presented to a tertiary health care hospital in Punjab, Pakistan for CT examination with suspicion of COVID-19 from April 1, to June 30, 2020. Each CT chest was categorized as positive/negative for COVID-19 pneumonia and the results were compared with the RT-PCR test. Discordant CT chest and PCR results were also investigated. Results: The study population had a mean age of 48 years ± 6.6 years with 54.5% males and 45.4% females. Sensitivity(Sn), specificity (Sp), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and diagnostic accuracy of CT in diagnosing COVID-19 pneumonia taking RT- PCR as the gold standard was 92.5%, 46.6%%, 82.2%, 70%, and 80% respectively. Conclusion: CT chest has high sensitivity but modest specificity in the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia. It can be employed as an adjunctive screening and diagnostic test for early diagnosis of disease in places where disease prevalence is high

Surgical Outcome of Microvascular Decompression for Trigerminal Neuralgia in Terms of Pain Control Using Visual Analogue Scale

Objective:  The aim of conducting this study was to evaluate the outcome of a Micro vascular Decompression procedure for the definitive treatment of Trigeminal Neuralgia in our setup. Material and Methods:  This observational prospective study was carried out in Neurosurgery unit Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar. A total of 50 patients operated for micro vascular decompression surgeries were enrolled in the study, both genders and any age were in inclusion criteria. Patients previously operated for trigeminal neuralgia were excluded from the study. Post operatively all patients were followed for 1year to calculate the outcome in terms of pain control using visual analogue score (VAS). Immediate pain relief during the first post-operative week and trigeminal neuralgia pain at 1 year post op were recorded and  graded into three categories based on Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) such as Excellent: 0-2 , Good: 3-6, Fail/Poor: 7 – 10. Results:  50 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria. 22 were male & 28 were female with an age range from 42-78 years. Average duration of disease was 5 years. In 30 patients, clinically v2-v3 were predominantly involved, in remaining 14 patient v1-v2 were involved & only in 6 patients all three branches were involved. Among all operated 50 patients 18(36%) had excellent pain relief, 26 (52%) had good pain relief & 6 (12%) had fail/poor pain relief. Conclusion:  From this data it was concluded that micro vascular decompression is an effective surgical procedure in relieving pain of trigeminal neuralgia in patients who are refractive to medical treatment

Antioxidant, antimicrobial studies and characterisation of essential oil, fixed oil of Clematis graveolens by GC-MS

The GC-MS, antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of Clematis graveolens was assessed to explore its medicinal importance. Medicinal importance of its genus plants encourages us to undertake the comprehensive investigation of the essential oil and fixed oil of the leaves and stem. GC-MS analysis of essential and fixed oils showed the presence of many compounds in the leaves and stem parts of the plant like 2,2 dimethoxy butane (15.16%) flouroethane (45.14%) undecane (5.16), 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid (18.35), 3,8,12-tri-O-acetoxy-7-desoxyingol-7-one (12.74), propanoic acid, 2-(3-acetoxy-4,4,14-trimethylandrost-8-en-17-yl)- (9.14) and vitamine E acetate (4.38). The antimicrobial activity of the essential and fixed oil was resolute by disc diffusion and MIC (Minimum inhibitory concentration) assay and plant showed potent activity. Furthermore the antioxidant potential of essential and fixed oil was assessed by the DPPH, Reducing power and by percentage inhibition in linoleic acid system

On designing an assorted control charting approach to monitor process dispersion: an application to hard-bake process

The monitoring of process variability is an important feature to get optimal output from a process. Control charts are vital tools used for efficient process monitoring. The commonly used types of charts include Shewhart, cumulative sum and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts. This study focuses on dispersion control charts using some efficient transformation for small and medium instabilities. We intend to propose an assorted method to monitor a range of disturbances in process dispersion, using the well-known max approach. We have used several measures to evaluate the suggested assorted control chart. Based on these measures, we have compared the proposed assorted method with many existing charts. The study proposal outperforms the existing counterparts in detecting various amounts of shifts in process dispersion. Finally, a real-life application of the proposed chart is demonstrated to monitor the flow width measurements in a hard-bake process.The work was partially sponsored by Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, through project # IN171007. Authors Nasir Abbas, Usman Saeed and Muhammad Riaz are thankful to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals for providing excellent research facilities.Scopu

Antioxidant, haemolytic activities and GC-MS profiling of Carissa carandas roots

The antioxidant potential of the plant Carissa carandas roots extracted with different polarity based solvents was assessed. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by the measurement of total phenolic contents (TPC), total flavonoid contents (TFC), reducing power, DPPH radical scavenging, IC50 and antioxidant activity in linoleic acid system. The plant material contained the TPC (1.79-4.35 GAE mg/g of dry extract), TFC (1.91-3.76 CE mg/g of dry extract), DPPH radical scavenging activity, IC50 (12.53-84.82 %) and % inhibition of peroxidation in linoleic acid (41.0-89.21 %) system respectively. Furthermore the antioxidant effectiveness of extracts was assessed using corn oil (CO) as the oxidation substrate. The oxidative alterations were evaluated by the measurement of conjugated diene (CD), conjugated triene (CT), p-anisidine, free fatty acid (FFA) and peroxide values (PV). The cytotoxicity of  the plant extracts were assessed against human red blood cells (RBCs) and the % lysis was found to be in the range of 1.01-6.10 %. The GC-MS analysis of n-hexane extract was also profiled.  It was concluded that extracts of plant roots may be used as potential source of antioxidant agents in food industries

Patterns of coronary artery vessel disease on diagnostic angiography in a south asian population

Objective: The objective was to establish patterns of diseased vessels amongst the study population.Methodology: This retrospective descriptive study analyzed the data of 396 patients who underwent diagnostic angiographies at a large tertiary care public hospital in Islamabad, from January-2018 till October 2018. All data was coded and recorded in SPSS and was quantitatively run to find percentages and tests of significance were done.Results: We found that single vessel disease was the most common at 31.6%, and that the left anterior descending was the most commonly involved vessel with the most significant coronary artery disease, 86.6% and 71.4% respectively. Conclusion: Hypertension and diabetes has a great burden on our South Asian population and contribution to the development of coronary artery disease. Severe disease present in one vessel should alert physicians to the possibility of multi-vessel involvement and multi vessel progression in the disease progress.  Delineation of the vessel involvement pattern in South Asians forms the basis for formulating local guidelines and strategies for tackling coronary artery disease.Keywords: Angiography, CAD, patterns