Shell-Model Description of Rotational Motion in Odd-Mass Nuclei.

An algebraic shell-model realization of a quantum rotor for integral and half-integral angular momenta is introduced. The underlying symmetry of the theory is the SU(3) $\supset$ SO(3) group structure. The algebraic model reproduces the eigenvalues of the quantum rotor hamiltonian well for normal shell-model configurations; the mapping is exact for small values of the angular momentum in large SU(3) representations. A shell-model hamiltonian using this algebraic realization of the quantum rotor and other non-central one-body interactions is used to reproduce the experimental spectra of representative even and odd-mass ds-shell nuclei

Learning approaches and academic performance of undergraduate medical students in Pakistan

Objective: To classify undergraduate medical students according to their learning approaches and to correlate the learning approaches with their academic achievements.Materials and Methods: A questionnaire to appraise learning approaches of undergraduate medical students was administered and collected at the end of the regular certifying examinations. The responses were analysed through the principal component factor analysis.Results: The results did not depict formation of demonstrable learning approaches during academic years. However, increased self-awareness about the approaches was indicated by the responses of final year students as compared to the third year students. The correlation of the learning approaches with the scores of the certifying examination and a mock test (consisting of specially developed integrated questions), through multivariate analysis depicted statistically insignificant results.Conclusion: There was a non-significant relationship between the learning approaches and academic performances and a weak statistical significance between achievement, orientation and performance in certifying examination. It is essential that along with changes in the instructional and assessment strategies awareness should be created in students about various learning approaches

Framework for examination of software quality characteristics in conflict: A security and usability exemplar

© 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. Standards and best practices for software quality guide on handling each quality characteristic individually, but not when two or more characteristics come into conflict such as security and usability. The objectives of this paper are twofold: (a) to argue on the importance of handling the conflicts between quality characteristics in general; (b) to formulate a framework for conflict examination of the software quality characteristics, we do so while considering the specific case of security and usability. In line with the objectives, a framework called Pattern-oriented Design Framework (PoDF) was formulated. The PoDF provides a mechanism for identification of the conflicts, modeling the conflicts to illuminate the reason for their occurrence, and eliciting the suitable trade-offs between the conflicting characteristics. The suitable trade-offs are thus documented as design patterns. The patterns can assist developers and designers in handling the conflicts in other but similar context of use. To validate and instantiate the PoDF, two studies were conducted. Usable security patterns discovered as a result of the studies are also presented in the paper

Psychomotor skills for the undergraduate medical curriculum in a developing country--Pakistan

Objective: To identify essential psychomotor skills for all the medical graduates of an undergraduate programme in Pakistan.Materials and Methods: Twenty-five physicians practising in a tertiary care centre and ninety primary care physicians used a Likert\u27s scale, ranging from very essential to not required at all , to mark 99 psychomotor skills in the undergraduate medical curriculum in Pakistan.Results: Overall the opinions of both the groups about the essential skills matched except for a few areas.Conclusion: This study provides baseline data about psychomotor skills that a medical graduate in developing countries should be able to perform. Further studies will be undertaken by involving other stakeholders to identify and incorporate these skills in the undergraduate medical curriculum, thereby enabling graduates to practice in all the settings in Pakistan

Development and testing of an assessment tool for integrated learning

Objective: Development of integrated questions for undergraduate medical students and assessing students’ capability to retain and apply basic concepts in an integrated way. Method: Multiple choice questions, attempting to probe understanding and application of different concepts, affiliated with different subjects and topics, were developed. As a pilot these were administered to the students of third year and final year at the end of their certifying examinations as a mock test. The following year these questions were introduced in the continuous assessments and subsequently the certifying examinations (in third year) as 33% of the whole examination. Difficult indices, item analysis and internal consistency (alpha) were calculated for all the questions. Results: The difficulty indices of integrated questions indicated that students found the integrated questions difficult. Conclusion: There was a significant change of distribution in terms of scoring for the integrated questions. Students’ power to integrate showed reliable improvement when tested in the certifying examinations (JPMA 51:384,2001)

Childhood acute iymphoblastic leukaemia: Experience from a single tertiary care facility of Pakistan

Objective: To evaluate the demographic features, outcome and prognostic factors seen in children with acute lymphoplastic leukaemia at a tertiary care hospital.Methods: The retrospective descriptive study was conducted at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, comprising data related to children below 15 years of age and treated between January 1997 and December 2006. Kaplan Meir survival curves were used to describe overall and event-free survival rates. Cox Proportional Hazards model was used to describe factors associated with death and relapse. SPSS 16 was the main statistical tool.Results: Of the total 121 children diagnosed with the condition, 79 (65.3%) were males; 86 (71.1%) patients were between 1-9 years of age; Immunophenotyping was done in 99 (81.81%) patients: 86 (87%) cases had precursor B and 13 (13.13%) had precursor T. Of the total, 106 (87.6%) patients opted for treatment, while 15 (11.6%) were lost to follow-up. Besides, 26 (21.7%) patients had at least one relapse; the most common site being bone marrow in 13 (50%) followed by central nervous system in 9 (36.6%). There were 20 (16.5%) deaths in the sample. Infection was the most frequent cause of death. The event-free survival and overall survival was 63% (n = 76) and 65% (n = 79) respectively.Conclusion: Through the clinical characteristics of children with acute lymphoblastic leukamia were similar to those reported in literature, the outcomes were inferior. The high rate of infections and relapse warrant better supportive care and risk-based approach

Impact of Brand Loyalty on Brand Extension

The key objective of this study is to explore the effects of different dimensions of brand loyalty towards the original brand on the evaluation of brand extensions. This was a primary research and questionnaire was distributed among 200 respondents and 183 were processed for analysis. The target respondents were the students of different universities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The scale was taken from the existing research (Hem and Iversen, 2003). SPSS was used to analyze the data. The result finds that there is positive and significant relationship between brand loyalty and brand extension. So on the bases of these results that all the hypotheses (H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5) are proved positively and significantly and affect the evaluation of brand extension. Keywords: Brand Loyalty, Brand Extension, original bran