Innovative Teaching: An Effective Ingredient for Educational Change at University Level

Educational Change gravely needs an effective and innovative teaching methodology in universities. It is voice of the time, the innovative methods in teaching can not only meet the individual needs of the students but can produce high grade quality future professionals.  To review the current status of teaching in universities, a quantitative study has been conducted. A survey based on innovative teaching practices and educational change linked with these practices have been done from the sample of 400 students of BS / MPhil / PhD  and 200 teachers of BS/ MS/ MPhil /PhD level. The results have shown that still there’s a long way to go to encounter the fast changing scenario of education at higher level.  Keywords:  Educational change, Innovative Teaching, Ingredient, University Leve

Association Between Community Transition and Independence and Control Over Life: Analysis of Georgia\u27s Money Follows the Person Program

INTRODUCTION: The growing proportion of the elderly population and individuals with disabilities is increasing the demand for institutional long-term care. The majority of nursing home residents desire to exercise control over their lives and to have independence in activities of daily living, but nursing home care is often associated with loss of control and independence among its residents. Money Follows the Person (MFP) is a rebalancing strategy to contain cost for long-term care and enhance consumer choice for elderly individuals and individuals with disabilities. The MFP program helps qualified individuals living in institutions make the transition to life in the community. AIM: This study is aimed to explore the association of community transitions and the measures of independence and control over life among MFP participants who have relocated from institutions to the community. METHODS: Data from Georgia’s MFP participant survey from 2008 to 2015 were used to examine the association between community transition and measures of control and independence before transition and 12 months after transition. McNemar’s test was used to measure the before and after transition differences. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were reported to determine the correlation of study measures with age, sex and disability type. RESULTS: The analysis for 664 MFP participants (54.4% male and 45.6% female) surveys in the state of Georgia found a significant increase in 13 out of 15 measures of independence and control over life (e.g., being able to pick the place of residence, go to bed when want to, choose the type of food to eat, have privacy to talk on telephone, do paid/voluntary work and others) after transition, attributed to community transitions (p-value DISCUSSION: Results suggested that relocating individuals with disabilities into the community can help increase perceived control and independence and reduce the limitation of choice, providing insight for policy makers to strengthen programs that can have a meaningful impact on cost-containment and quality of life for elderly people and for individuals with disabilities

Tuberculosis of male breast: A rare benign entity.

Granulomatous mastitis is a rare benign condition often seen in young lactating females of reproductive age group. Prepubescent males or elderly women may also be the victim of this infectious disease. Primary infection of the breast may occur through skin abrasions, open wounds or through the lactiferous ducts while secondary spread occurs from an infective focus elsewhere in the body via lymphatic or hematogenous routes. We present a case of breast tuberculosis diagnosed in a 62-year-old man at our institution. The patient presented with a palpable painful mass in the left breast with chronic sinus formation and pus discharge for a month with loss of appetite and weight loss. The etiology was unknown. The imaging features were suggestive of tuberculosis. Histopathology was concordant with imaging and showed chronic granulomatous inflammation with necrosis. The patient received oral anti-tuberculosis therapy for six months with no side effects or any further complications. Breast tuberculosis is a rare entity especially in male breast mimicking carcinoma. The mainstay of treatment is antitubercular therapy if imaging and histopathology confirms the diagnosis. Clinical awareness is necessary during diagnostic workup for establishing the correct diagnosis and treatment

Methanogenic Diversity and Taxonomy in the Gastro Intestinal Tract of Ruminants

To elucidate the microbial dynamics inside rumen of animals of livestock importance and to provide a better ration to them in order to control various metabolic disorders, a better understanding of the rumen microbial ecology is pivotal. The fundamental knowledge of methanogenic population inside gut environment and ruminal fermentation is of considerable importance as it has a significant impact on the various metabolic activities of the animal. The major methanogens isolated and characterized from ruminants like cattle, sheep, steers, goats, reindeers are from the order Methanobacteriales, Methanomicrobiales, Methanococcales, Methanosarcinales and Methanomassiliicoccales. The chapter deals with present knowledge available regarding the methanogenic diversity present in the gastro-intestinal tract of ruminants all over the world primarily through constructing 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and tries to uncover the new genera in ruminant’s microbiome and their adaptations in extreme environment. To get a better idea regarding the composition of methanogen community, further studies are required in relation to the effect of diet and animal species to the rumen methanogens

Leadership Practice among Nurses in Tertiary Care Hospital Lahore

Introduction: The planned role of leadership can be used to examine on how to engage leadership models and use leadership behavior to progress organizational performance. The intangible assets such as leadership styles, culture, skill and competence, and motivation are key sources of strength in firms that can combine people and processes and organizational performance. A need was also observed for nursing leaders to reflect and self-evaluate their leadership considering perceptions from the team on their adopted actions and practices, as the leadership practices are powerful indicators of the performance of the work of the nursing team. Methodology: Leadership Practices - Self assessment and Leadership Practices – Observer: The data collection tool was used for this study is self-assessment scale. It was designed in 1987 to be utilized by a leader to self-evaluate themselves in how frequently they engage in leadership practices. The thirty descriptive statements are given and a Likert scale was used. The head nurses was required indicating their opinions by circle from, rarely or Very Seldom = 1, Once in a While = 2 Sometimes = 3 Fairly Often = 4 Very Frequently or Almost Always = 5. The five practices are identified as challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act, model the way, and encourage the heart same repeatedly question asked from nurses to assess the perception (Posner & Kouzes, 1988). Results: The study revealed that the managers moderately performed the leadership practices. A significantly positive relationship was found between the manager and subordinate's assessment of challenging the process and inspiring a shared vision (p=.045). Discussion: the results of this study support the existence of a relationship between the self-assessment and the subordinate's assessment. This study also indicates that the managers in this study moderately exhibited the leadership practices as identified in Kouzes and Posner's (1987) research. DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/100-03 Publication date:May 31st 202

Dividend Policy and Firm Performance with Moderating Effect of Ownership Structure: Evidence from The Manufacturing Firms in Pakistan

The objective of this paper is to check the impact of dividend policy and firm performance with a moderating effect of ownership structure. Many studies have been made to check the impact of dividend policy on firm performance but there is not a single study that has been made yet to check the impact of dividend policy and firm performance with moderating effect of ownership structure. This research had been carried out on different non-financial sectors of Pakistan covering the firms of automobile assembler and parts manufacturing, cement and chemical manufacturing, fertilizer manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and textile manufacturing etc. The data used in carrying out this research was taken from the companies that was paying dividends and were listen in KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange. Ownership data of the firms were collected by the company’s pattern of shareholding which are published or mentioned in the company’s annual report as per Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) requirements that can be taken from the company’s website. The study shows significant positive relationship between dividend policy and firm performance. The study also shows that there is positive significant relationship between dividend policy and firm performance with moderating effect of ownership structure. Dividend policy can also have implications for a company\u27s investment and growth prospects. In general, firms that retain more of their earnings for reinvestment are likely to have higher levels of capital expenditures and research and development spending. However, dividend payments can also signal to investors that a company has confidence in its future growth prospects

Productivity and Efficiency Analysis of Pakistani Textile Industry using Malmquist Productivity Index Approach

The key purpose of this study is to evaluate the total factor productivity of the textile sector by using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) and also identifying the components which play a significant role in the growth of productivity. This paper examines productivity performance of the Pakistan’s textile manufacturing industry using firm-level panel data of a total of 64 firms for the period 2011-2015. Moreover, the sources of expansion and compression in output are recognized for the whole textile industry as well as for the three sub sectors comprising of 35 firms from spinning, 21 from composite and 8 from weaving textile sector. Empirical results suggest that total factor productivity growth of composite, spinning and weaving textile sectors are not presenting skewed distribution. Moreover, the component of technological change had a negative impact on spinning textile sector. Technical efficiency and technological change, both, had a positive impact on the productivity of composite and weaving textile sectors. Overall, the spinning textile sector has no contribution in the productivity growth. A critical evaluation of the production factors is necessary for the maintenance of the performance of the organization. This paper provides information to the decision makers and policy makers about the allocation, acquisition and anticipation of the resources. To eradicate the industry’s pitfalls, textile sector in combination of subsectors has been selected providing a comparative analysis of the efficiencies adding to the existing body of literature by detecting the primary zones for improving productivity performance in Pakistani textile manufacturing as the pure efficiency component. &nbsp