Breast Self Examination Practice and Awareness about Breast Cancer

To assess females’ awareness about breast cancer and self-reported practice of breast self-examination.Methods: In this population-based cross sectional study data was collected via a structured questionnaire containing questions on demographic status, family history of breast cancer, subjective knowledge about breast cancer covering its symptoms, the screening methods and practice of breast self-examination (BSE).Results: A total of 1500 women were interviewed. The mean age of respondents was 36 + 16.1 years. Majority (76.1%) were married. In 90.9% there was no family history of carcinoma breast. Familiarity about breast cancer was found in 15.1%. Only a few (3.2%) knew about breast cancer screening programs and most indicated that electronic media (television 8.3% and radio 4.9%) were their source of information. Only 1.9% of women said that they were conducting occasional breast self-examination. The main reason for women not doing breast self-examination was due to the fact that they did not know how to do it (97.5%).Conclusion: Women’s knowledge about breast cancer warning signs and effective screening methods i.e. breast self examination, and mammography were insufficien

Evaluation of liver function test abnormalities in patients having COVID-19 according to severity of disease

Background: COVID-19 infection affects all major organs of body in addition to lungs. Damage done to liver varies from being hepatocellular, obstructive or mix pattern. The aim of the study was to evaluate abnormalities of LFTs, in COVID-19 patients according to disease severity in our population.Methods: A cross sectional study, conducted at GTTH and Surgimed Hospital Lahore, on 100 patients who presented with COVID-19 in between October 2020 and September 2021. According to Symptoms, patients were marked as having mild, moderate or severe disease. Bilirubin, Albumin, ALP, ALT, AST, GGT, LDH and prothrombin time were checked at admission and subsequently. Data was analyzed using SPSS v23.  Laboratory values were computed in each severity category and SD values, odds ratio, 95% confidence intervals were studied in logistic regression models. P value<0.05 were considered statistically significant.Results: Among studied patients, 66% were male, 34% were female, mean age of 44.68±9.36 and range of 29-68 years. 29% were with mild disease, 40% with moderate disease, and 21% with severe disease level. 80% cases with rural background had moderate/severe disease levels while only 14.3% cases with severe levels were from urban areas. Only direct bilirubin showed a statistical significance with p value<0.05 in all severity groups. Other LFT’s didn’t show any significance between different severity groups.Conclusions: Among Liver function markers only bilirubin was related to COVID-19 disease and proportional to severity of disease.

SocialRec: A Context-Aware Recommendation Framework With Explicit Sentiment Analysis

In recent years, recommendation systems have seen significant evolution in the field of knowledge engineering. Usually, the recommendation systems match users’ preferences based on the star ratings provided by the users for various products. However, simply relying on users’ ratings about an item can produce biased opinions, as a user’s textual feedback may differ from the item rating provided by the user. In this paper, we propose SocialRec, a hybrid context-aware recommendation framework that utilizes a rating inference approach to incorporate users’ textual reviews into traditional collaborative filtering methods for personalized recommendations of various items. We apply text-mining algorithms on a large-scale useritem feedback dataset to compute the sentiment scores. We propose a greedy heuristic to produce ranking of items based on users’ social similarities and matching preferences. To address challenges resulting from cold start and data sparseness, SocialRec introduces pre-computation models based on Hub-Average (HA) inference. Rigorous evaluations of SocialRec (on large-scale datasets) demonstrate high accuracy, especially in comparison with previous related frameworks

Inclusion of Blend of L-lysine, DL-Methionine and Vitamins D3, E in Diets for Broiler; Effects on Growth Performance, Feed Intake and Conversion and Water Intake

The blend comprising of L-lysine, DL-methionine and vitamins D3, E in diets evaluated for growth performance, water intake, feed consumption and conversion ratio and live body weight in broiler was investigated. The study was performed on 360 day old broiler chickens and divided into four groups i.e. A (control), B,C and D (30 chickens in each group) randomly. The birds were fed blend in the diets; group B (40gm / 50 kg feed), group C (80 gm / 50 kg feed) and group D (120 gm / 50 kg feed). The growth parameters of broilers were significant (

Inclusion of Blend of L-lysine, DL-Methionine and Vitamins D3, E in Diets for Broiler; Effects on Growth Performance, Feed Intake and Conversion and Water Intake.

The blend comprising of L-lysine, DL-methionine and vitamins D3, E in diets evaluated for growth performance, water intake, feed consumption and conversion ratio and live body weight in broiler was investigated. The study was performed on 360 day old broiler chickens and divided into four groups i.e. A (control), B,C and D (30 chickens in each group) randomly. The birds were fed blend in the diets; group B (40gm / 50 kg feed), group C (80 gm / 50 kg feed) and group D (120 gm / 50 kg feed). The growth parameters of broilers were significant (

Comparative Study on Growth and Conformation of Male Teddy Kids under Two Management Systems

An experiment was conducted to compare the growth and conformation of male Teddy kids (3 months age), under two management systems during the year 2014. The kids were kept at the livestock experimental station, | department of Livestock Management, Faculty of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences, Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam. A total of twelve (12) Teddy kids were randomly divided into two groups i.e. A and B having six kids each. The kids of group A were reared under semi intensive management system (concentrates and open grazing) whereas kids of group B were kept under intensive management system (concentrates and green fodder). The duration of the experiment was eight (8) weeks and the observations for growth and conformation traits (girth, height and length) were recorded on weekly basis. The result revealed that the average body weight of kids in group A (8.29 kg) had significantly higher (

Prospective observational cohort study on grading the severity of postoperative complications in global surgery research

Background The Clavien–Dindo classification is perhaps the most widely used approach for reporting postoperative complications in clinical trials. This system classifies complication severity by the treatment provided. However, it is unclear whether the Clavien–Dindo system can be used internationally in studies across differing healthcare systems in high- (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods This was a secondary analysis of the International Surgical Outcomes Study (ISOS), a prospective observational cohort study of elective surgery in adults. Data collection occurred over a 7-day period. Severity of complications was graded using Clavien–Dindo and the simpler ISOS grading (mild, moderate or severe, based on guided investigator judgement). Severity grading was compared using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Data are presented as frequencies and ICC values (with 95 per cent c.i.). The analysis was stratified by income status of the country, comparing HICs with LMICs. Results A total of 44 814 patients were recruited from 474 hospitals in 27 countries (19 HICs and 8 LMICs). Some 7508 patients (16·8 per cent) experienced at least one postoperative complication, equivalent to 11 664 complications in total. Using the ISOS classification, 5504 of 11 664 complications (47·2 per cent) were graded as mild, 4244 (36·4 per cent) as moderate and 1916 (16·4 per cent) as severe. Using Clavien–Dindo, 6781 of 11 664 complications (58·1 per cent) were graded as I or II, 1740 (14·9 per cent) as III, 2408 (20·6 per cent) as IV and 735 (6·3 per cent) as V. Agreement between classification systems was poor overall (ICC 0·41, 95 per cent c.i. 0·20 to 0·55), and in LMICs (ICC 0·23, 0·05 to 0·38) and HICs (ICC 0·46, 0·25 to 0·59). Conclusion Caution is recommended when using a treatment approach to grade complications in global surgery studies, as this may introduce bias unintentionally