Book Review: Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Storied Lives of Immigrant Muslim Women

Review of Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Storied Lives of Immigrant Muslim Women by Parin Doss

Framework for peace pathways and conflict transformation for conflict in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan

Conflict in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan stayed on the margins of the ‘waron terror’ throughout the period following the events of 11 September 2001. This conflict is embedded inthe narratives of occupation as well as historical grievances, terrorism, developmental discrimination, andidentity crises – all of which have helped perpetuate it. With the shifting of the Al Qaeda leadership fromAfghanistan to the tribal areas after the US-led war on Afghanistan in October 2001, meta-narratives havebeen employed to advance local grievances. This paper develops the framework of peace pathways andconflict transformation which involves an in-depth analysis of conflict and reasons for its intractability,taking into account not only socio-political and economic needs and interests, but also addressing the rootcause (or causes) of the conflict

The rights of women in Islam: The question of ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres for women’s rights and empowerment in Muslim societies

The question of women rights and empowerment in Islam are one of the most controversial issueswithin the Islamic schema of human rights. The rights of women as given in the Qura’n and the traditionsof Prophet Muhammad were a revolutionary step in the 7th century Arabia. However, the context drivenreforms of rights of women in Islam is subject to many challenges in the traditional Muslim societies. Thispaper examines the question of women rights in Islam based on ‘public’ and ‘private’ sphere of life and itsimpact on the question of women empowerment. Drawing on hermeneutic–relativist approach, the articlereveals the dialectical nature of interpretation of rights of women in Islam. The article also examines thequestion of classical and reformist understanding of rights and empowerment and suggest an approachfor understanding of ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of life according to the cultural context of the Muslimsocieties

Cystic Fibrosis - An Ever Evolving Challenge

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease that results from mutations in a large single gene located on chromosome 7. More than 2000 different mutations in the gene have been identified to have caused the disease. Most of these mutations are exceedingly rare and therefore not a part of CF screening or all testing panels. This case discusses an adult female with a history of asthma, bronchiectasis, pseudomonas colonization, and respiratory failure on chronic oxygen who presented to the ED with sudden onset shortness of breath, fever, chills, body aches, nonproductive cough, and headache. The patient\u27s condition clinically improved with treatment and was discharged on day three. The patient had previously undergone a laboratory evaluation of bronchiectasis. Due to the patient\u27s history of bronchiectasis and pseudomonas colonization, there was a decision to reconsider the possibility of CF. The patient underwent a routine cystic fibrosis genetic testing panel which subsequently confirmed a CFTR mutation. The discussion highlights the importance of remaining vigilant for signs of CF, to remain open to the possibility of CF or CFTR related disorders, when patients have had evaluations for such that predate current testing standards or capabilities

Exploring Empathy In A Dentist-Patient Relationship. Conclusions From Qualitative Exploratory Research Of Practicing Dentists

Objective: This study explored the factors influencing the development of empathy in a dentist-patient relationship. Design: An exploratory qualitative study. Place and duration of the study: Khyber Medical University KPK, Pakistan October 2019 to April 2020.was conducted during 2019-2020 Methodology: This exploratory qualitative study was conducted during 2019-2020. It was conducted on 12 dental surgeons, recruited from four major dental clinical specialties. A purposive sampling technique was used. In-depth interviews were conducted through a semi-structured format. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed, using the thematic analysis framework. Results: Three themes were extracted from data. 1) Institutionalization of empathy, indicating a need for incorporating empathy in undergraduate and postgraduate dental curriculum, 2) Barriers in the path of empathetic attitude, including a variety of factors hampering the development of empathy in a dentist-patient relationship and 3) Cultivating a Culture of empathy for better health care provision, indicating a need for changing the collective attitude of all health care professionals, administrative staff, and students. The participants of the study observed that development of empathy in a dentist-patient relationship includes a wide range of factors, ranging from curricular, personal, social, organizational, and cultural. These factors elaborate that empathy is a multidimensional phenomenon with roots deeply entrenched in professional and personal domains

Distributed mining of convoys in large scale datasets

Tremendous increase in the use of the mobile devices equipped with the GPS and other location sensors has resulted in the generation of a huge amount of movement data. In recent years, mining this data to understand the collective mobility behavior of humans, animals and other objects has become popular. Numerous mobility patterns, or their mining algorithms have been proposed, each representing a specific movement behavior. Convoy pattern is one such pattern which can be used to find groups of people moving together in public transport or to prevent traffic jams. A convoy is a set of at least m objects moving together for at least k consecutive time stamps where m and k are user-defined parameters. Existing algorithms for detecting convoy patterns do not scale to real-life dataset sizes. Therefore in this paper, we propose a generic distributed convoy pattern mining algorithm called DCM and show how such an algorithm can be implemented using the MapReduce framework. We present a cost model for DCM and a detailed theoretical analysis backed by experimental results. We show the effect of partition size on the performance of DCM. The results from our experiments on different data-sets and hardware setups, show that our distributed algorithm is scalable in terms of data size and number of nodes, and more efficient than any existing sequential as well as distributed convoy pattern mining algorithm, showing speed-ups of up to 16 times over SPARE, the state of the art distributed co-movement pattern mining framework. DCM is thus able to process large datasets which SPARE is unable to.SCOPUS: ar.jDecretOANoAutActifinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

k/2-hop: Fast Mining of Convoy Patterns With Effective Pruning

With the increase of devices equipped with location sensors, mining spatio-temporal data for interesting behavioral patterns has gained attention in recent years. One of such well-known patterns is the convoy pattern which can be used, e.g. to find groups of people moving together in public transport or to prevent traffic jams. A convoy consists of at least m objects moving together for at least k consecutive time instants where m and k are user-defined parameters. Convoy mining is an expensive task and existing sequential algorithms do not scale to real-life dataset sizes. Existing sequential as well as parallel algorithms require a complex set of data-dependent parameters which are hard to set and tune. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new fast exact sequential convoy pattern mining algorithm \k/2-hop" that is free of data-dependent parameters. The proposed algorithm processes the data corresponding to a few specific key timestamps at each step and quickly prunes objects with no possibility of forming a convoy. Thus, only a very small portion of the complete dataset is considered for mining convoys. Our experimental results show that k/2-hop outperforms existing sequential as well as parallel convoy pattern mining algorithms by orders of magnitude, and scales to larger datasets which existing algorithms fail on.SCOPUS: cp.pDecretOANoAutActifinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Comparison of percutaneous nephrostomy and double j stent in early normalization of renal function tests in patients with obstructive uropathy due to urolithiasis

Objective:  To compare the mean normalization period of serum levels of urea and creatinine after placement of PCN tube or a DJ stent as emergency management for obstructive uropathy due to urolithiasis. Methodology: A randomized controlled trial study is conducted in the Institute of Kidney Diseases, Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar from March 2018 - March 2019. The total sample of 416 was divided into two groups by the lottery method. Group A comprising of 208 patients who underwent Percutaneous Nephrostomy (PCN) and Group B Comprising of 208 in who underwent Double J Stenting for the relief of the obstructive uropathy respectively.  Serum levels of urea and creatinine were recorded at 24, 96 and 144 hours post-operatively. Results: The mean age of Group A 35.6 ± 8.4 years and the Mean age in Group B was 38.2± 10.4 years. The majority (76.6%) participants were male, including 70% were from PCN group and 79% were from DJ group. The time taken for normalization of serum urea level was 97.654 hours (4.068 days) and 106.453 hours (4.435 days) in the PCN and DJ stenting groups respectively. The normalization time of serum creatinine level was 95.4375 hours (3.98 days) and 104.8125 hours (4.36 days) in the patients undergoing PCN and DJ stenting respectively. The differences of normalization time in both groups were not statistically significant with p-values of 0.064 and 0.061 for normalization of serum urea and creatinine levels respectively. Conclusion: Both the PCN and DJ stenting methods were equally effective in stone management in obstructive uropathy patients for normalization of elevated serum urea and creatinine levels

Making of a “dental surgeon” in COVID-19 pandemic; a qualitative study exploring undergraduate dental students perspective

Background: The closure of educational institutes in Pakistan due to COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a spontaneous shift from traditional to digital teaching and learning. The present study explores the perception of undergraduate dental students regarding its advantages and limitations. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted from December 2020 to February 2021. Utilizing non-probability sampling technique 12 students from three dental colleges of Rawalpindi participated in the study. Three focus group interviews, each with four students were carried out. Data was transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis done. Result: The advantages include becoming a self-directed learner, ease and accessibility.  The online teaching was perceived well and participants agreed it saved their time and enhanced time utility. However the challenges included technical issues, behavioral issues and learning compromised clinical skills. Students in their preclinical years were more satisfied with online teaching as compared to those in their clinical years. Conclusion: The present study support the use of online teaching and learning. This mode of teaching allowed the continuation of medical and dental education during these uncertain times. Hence rigorous effects be made to maximize the promising potential benefits of online teaching. Reevaluating the dental curriculum, by incorporating online teaching within traditional dental education will strengthen the curricula and enable future dentist to have an impact in the community. Keywords: COVID-19, Dental education, Dental students, Online teaching, Undergraduat

Assessment of Some Habits and Practices related to Complete Denture Wearing – A Survey of Subjects Reporting to Watim Dental Hospital

Objective: To assess some habits and practices related to denture wearing among subjects reporting to Watim Teaching Dental Hospital, Rawalpindi. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted at Watim Dental College, Rawalpindi, from December 2018 to August 2019. Using a pre-structured questionnaire, data were collected from 155 subjects having used complete dentures for a minimum of 6-months. The questionnaire consisted of information including the type of dentures, duration and frequency of denture wearing, and denture cleaning habits. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: Out of 155 participants, 80 (51.6%) were male and 75 (48.4%) were females. 89 (57.4%) patients use toothbrushes and soap for denture cleaning. 139 (89.7%) participants didn’t wear dentures while sleeping and soaked them in water. 98 (63.2%) respondents were not using antiseptic oral rinse and were casual in mouth-cleaning. Conclusion: From this study, it is concluded that 65 (41.9%) subjects were cleaning their dentures once a day. The study also reveals that 65 (41.9%) edentulous participants were not able to clean their oral cavity. Dentists should emphasize the importance of recall visits to evaluate the status of denture hygiene along with mucosal surface examination. Patient motivation to follow hygiene instructions and informing them about the harmful effects of overnight wearing of dentures should be part of delivering the prostheses to them. &nbsp