POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND AFFECTING FACTORS IN PREGNANT WOMEN IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) causes adverse obstetric outcomes in pregnants. COVID-19 pandemic can cause PTSD symptoms in pregnant women. This descriptive study aims to determine the post-traumatic stress disorder and affecting factors in pregnant women in the COVID-19 pandemic. Subjects and methods: A total of 445 pregnant women completed “Data Collection Form” and “DSM-5 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5)”. Results: The mean total PCL-5 score of the pregnant women was found to be 57.27±17.90. There was a significant difference between PCL-5 and gestational week, parity, the idea that the COVID-19 outbreak would cause a problem in childbirth, the presence of a COVID-19 in one of the family members/a loved one, the status of following COVID-19 -related developments (p<0.05). Conclusions: It is important for health professionals to evaluate the psychological effects of the pandemic in pregnants during antenatal period

Why Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) Should Not Be Privatized

There is so much criticism of this decision of government to privatize the OGDCL. Motivated by this scenario that either OGDCL should be privatized or not, this research was conducted.  Purpose of this research was to estimate and predict the future performance of OGDCL. In this research, major focus was on the historical financial and operational performance of the oil and gas development corporation of the Pakistan in the last decade. Different analysis on OGDCL like financial ratio analysis, competitor analysis, horizontal analysis, vertical analysis, common size analysis and trend analysis have been conducted. Although oil and gas industry is a growing and emerging industry in Pakistan and oil and gas companies are earning very attractive profit, but government of Pakistan wants to privatize the oil and gas development corporation of Pakistan limited (OGDCL).With the help of previous data and analysis, it is concluded that oil and gas development corporation of Pakistan should not be privatized as it will be not in the favor of the state as a whole and it may affect the impressive performance of OGDCL. This study provides information that why organizations which are performing well like OGDCL, should not be privatized. It also recommends that what other measures should adopt to sustain performance of such companies. Keywords: OGDCL, PPL, financial analysi

Laparoscopic approach to hysterectomy

Modern laparoscopic surgery is widely used throughout the world as it offers greater advantages than open procedures. The laparoscopic approach to hysterectomy has evolved over the last 20 years. Hysterectomies are performed abdominally, vaginally, laparoscopically or, more recently, with robotic assistance. Indications for a total laparoscopic hysterectomy are similar to those for total abdominal hysterectomy, and most commonly include uterine leiomyomata, pelvic organ prolapse, and abnormal uterine bleeding. When hysterectomy is going to be performed, the surgeon should decide which method is safer and more cost-effective. This paper aims to make a review of the indications, techniques and advantages of laparoscopic hysterectomy as well as the criteria to be used for appropriate patient selection

Relationship between Terrorism and Foreign Direct Investment FDI in Pakistan

This article examines the relationship between Net Inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (NIFDI) and Number of Terrorism Attacks (NTA) in Pakistan. We collect secondary data of past fourteen (14) years (2000 to 2013) NIFDI and NTA. The multiple regression technique is used to test the relationship of two variables. The Result shows that there is a negative relationship between the NTA and NIFDI in Pakistan. NIFDI is decreased due to increase of NTA and therefore is a reason of negative interest foreign investors in Pakistan. Keywords: Net Inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (NIFDI), Number of Terrorism Attacks (NTA)

Kodak Stunning Journey of Fortune to Misfortune (A Case Study - Financial Analysis)

How an organization that had been fortunate over a century with a dominant position in the market, led to briskly misfortune and bankruptcy within short span of time. The entire case study emphasizes the stunning bankruptcy of Kodak. The gloomy journey of market giant, that had a lion’s share of imaging world industry and that had positioned the name of photography to its recognition “Kodaking”, has been over to ouster from the market. The general purpose of the research is to analyze the financial position of a company by applying financial analysis tools and check the consistency of results. The specific purpose of the research is to conclude the critical issues that have caused organization downfall by evidential support. Data collection has been made in this study on empirical basis and by the use of company annual reports, results &amp; conclusions have been drawn. The prior segment of report shows the financial results and post segment represents the issues regarding failure of Kodak and suggests recommendations to rebuild the company. The research is significantly shown consistent results and reasons. It is widespread useful for business institutions especially for graduate professionals &amp; organizations to envision the vision and insight about financial operations and consequences. It can be helpful to forecast future objectives and drives for sustainability and profitability of an organization. Keywords: Kodak, Canon, Bankruptcy, Ratio Analysis, DuPont’s system of analysis, Trend Analysis

Editorial – Digital Transformation in Higher Education Institutions in a Limited-resource Setting: A Luxury or a Must Despite Challenges?

This is an Editorial and does not have an abstract. Please download the PDF or view the article HTML.&nbsp

The Failure of Thermal Barrier Coatings at Elevated Temperatures

In this study, the current state of the art thermal barrier coating (TBC) systems (heavy grit blasted Pt aluminide and NiCoCrAlY Bond Coats with EBPVD TBCs) were investigated first followed by TBC systems which were modified based upon the results obtained on the failure of the state of the art TBC systems. The specimens were subjected to cyclic oxidation testing, mostly at 1100„aC in a bottom loading furnace in laboratory air. Optical and scanning electron microscopy ( SEM) were used for characterization of the as-processed and failed specimens.The state of the art TBC systems with NiCoCrAlY bond coats failed in the presence of defects which were identified as TBC defects, transient oxides, surface defects and reactive element (RE) rich oxide protrusions. On the other hand, the failure of the state of the art TBC systems with Pt aluminide bond coats were due to deformation of the bond coat by a mechanism known as ratcheting. The stored strain energy in the TGO was also a factor that contributed to the failure of both systems. Most of the modifications performed on the state of the art TBC systems improved their lives to some extent. In the case of NiCoCrAlY systems, elimination or at least minimization of the identified defects was responsible for the improvements whereas the prevention of the ratcheting type of failure was the main reason for the improvement in lives in the case of Pt aluminide systems. On the other hand, other issues such as slower growth of the TGO as well as improved interfacial toughnesses with some of the modifications were observed to be contributing factors in the improved lives.Based on the observations on the failure of both the state of the art as well as the modified TBC systems, the surface condition of the bond coats as well as the morphology of the TBCs close to the TGO were found to have a first order effect on the failure of TBC systems. The characteristics of the TGO, such as composition, growth rate and adherence both to the bond coat and the TBC, as well as the characteristics of the bond coats were also observed to have an effect on the failures. Recommendations for future work that should be pursued to better define the conditions necessary for optimized TBC performances are given

The Interplay Of Syntactic Parsing Strategies And Prosodic Phrase Lengths In Processing Turkish Sentences

Many experiments have shown that the prosody (rhythm and melody) with which a sentence is uttered can provide a listener with cues to its syntactic structure (Lehiste, 1973, and since). A few studies have observed in addition that an inappropriate prosodic contour can mislead the syntactic parsing routines, resulting in a prosody-induced garden-path. These include, among others, Speer et al. (1996) and Kjelgaard and Speer (1999) for English. The studies by Speer et al. and Kjelgaard and Speer (SKS) showed that misplaced prosodic cues caused more processing difficulty in sentences with early closure of a clause (EC syntax) than in ones with late closure of a clause (LC syntax). One possible explanation for these results is that when prosody is misleading about the syntactic structure, the parser may ignore it and resort to a syntactic Late Closure strategy, as it does in reading where there is no overt prosodic boundary to inform the parser about the syntactic structure of the sentence. Augurzky\u27s (2006) observation of an LC syntax advantage for prosody-syntax mismatch conditions in her investigation of German relative clause attachment ambiguities provides support for this explanation. An alternative explanation considers the possibility that constituent lengths could have influenced the perceived informativeness of overt prosodic cues in these studies, as proposed in the Rational Speaker Hypothesis of Clifton et al. (2002, 2006). The Rational Speaker Hypothesis (RSH) maintains that prosodic breaks flanking shorter constituents are taken more seriously as indicators of syntactic structure than prosodic breaks flanking longer constituents, because the former cannot be justified as motivated by optimal length considerations. To test these two alternative hypotheses, four listening experiments were conducted. There was an additional reading experiment preceding the listening experiments to explore potential effects of the Late Closure strategy and constituent lengths in reading where there is no overt prosody. In all cases the target materials were temporarily ambiguous Turkish sentences which could be morphologically resolved as either LC or EC syntactic constructions. Constituent lengths were systematically manipulated in all target materials, such that the length-optimal prosodic phrasing was associated with LC syntax in one condition, and with EC syntax in the other. Experiment 1 employed a missing morpheme task developed for this study. In the missing morpheme task, underscores (length-averaged) replaced the disambiguating morphemes and participants had to insert them as they read the sentences aloud. Results revealed significant effects of phrase lengths in readers\u27 syntactic interpretations as indicated by the morphemes they inserted and the prosodic breaks they produced. Experiments 2A and 2B employed an end-of-sentence `got it\u27 task (Frazier et al., 1983), in which participants listened to spoken sentences and indicated after each one whether they understood or did not understand it. Sentences in Experiment 2A had phrase length distribution similar to the SKS English materials. Experiment 2B manipulated lengths in reverse. The stimuli had cooperating, conflicting or neutral prosody. Response time data supported an interplay of both syntactic Late Closure and RSH. Thus it was concluded that constituent lengths can indeed have a significant effect on listeners\u27 parsing decisions, in addition to the familiar syntactic parsing biases and prosodic influences. Experiments 3A and 3B used a lexical probe version of the phoneme restoration paradigm employed by Stoyneshka et al. (2010). In the phoneme restoration paradigm, the disambiguating phonemes (in the verb, in these materials) are replaced with noise (in this study, pink noise). In the lexical probe version of this paradigm (developed for this study) participants listened to the sentences with LC, EC or neutral prosody, and at the end of the sentence they were presented with a visual probe (one of the two possible disambiguating verbs, complete with all phonemes) that was congruent or incongruent or compatible with the prosody of the sentence they had heard. Their task was to respond to the visual probe either `yes\u27 (i.e., `I heard this word in the sentence I have just listened to\u27) or `no\u27 (i.e., `I didn\u27t hear this word\u27). Response time to the probe word indirectly taps which of the disambiguating morphemes on the verb the listener mentally supplies when it has been replaced by noise. The materials for Experiments 3A and 3B were identical to those used in Experiments 2A and 2B respectively except that the disambiguating phonemes were noise-replaced. Results of Experiments 3A and 3B showed that listeners were highly sensitive to the sentential prosody as revealed by their phoneme restoration responses and response time data, confirming Stoyneshka et al.\u27s findings establishing the reliability of the phoneme restoration paradigm in investigating effects of prosody in ambiguity resolution. Response time data showed a pattern similar to what SKS observed for English (except for one condition in Experiment 3A, with incongruent probes): despite the phrase length reversal in Experiment 3B, there was no influence of phrase length distribution on ambiguity resolution. This has a natural explanation in light of the difference between the `got it\u27 task with disambiguating morphology within the sentence stimulus, and the phoneme restoration task in which the listener can project onto the verb whatever morphology is compatible with the heard prosody. LC and EC were processed equally well for congruent probes, and there was an LC advantage in the incongruent and compatible probe conditions. Overall results support the hypothesis that syntactic Late Closure becomes evident in listening when prosody is absent or misleading, and also that phrase lengths can play a significant role

DETERMINATION OF ATTITUDE AND STRESS LEVELS OF MIDWIVES, NURSES AND PHYSICIANS WORKING IN OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY CLINICS REGARDING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Background: This study aimed to determine the attitude and stress levels of midwives, nurses and physicians working in gynecology and obstetrics clinics towards the COVID-19 pandemic. Subjects and methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 134 healthcare workers in obstetrics and gynecology clinics. The Personal Information Form, the Attitude form for the COVID-19 pandemic and the Perceived Stress Scale were used for collecting the data. Results: It was found that the total average score of the healthcare workers\u27 attitude scale was 55.61+-5.97. The total score average of healthcare workers on the perceived stress scale was found to be 28.28+-7.43. Conclusion: It was determined that the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards the COVID-19 pandemic and the perceived stress for the COVID-19 pandemic were at moderate levels

DETERMINATION OF ATTITUDE AND STRESS LEVELS OF MIDWIVES, NURSES AND PHYSICIANS WORKING IN OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY CLINICS REGARDING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Background: This study aimed to determine the attitude and stress levels of midwives, nurses and physicians working in gynecology and obstetrics clinics towards the COVID-19 pandemic. Subjects and methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 134 healthcare workers in obstetrics and gynecology clinics. The Personal Information Form, the Attitude form for the COVID-19 pandemic and the Perceived Stress Scale were used for collecting the data. Results: It was found that the total average score of the healthcare workers\u27 attitude scale was 55.61+-5.97. The total score average of healthcare workers on the perceived stress scale was found to be 28.28+-7.43. Conclusion: It was determined that the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards the COVID-19 pandemic and the perceived stress for the COVID-19 pandemic were at moderate levels