The pillars of school: a case study of middle leaders in four private secondary schools in Islamabad, Pakistan

This is a qualitative case stiudy of four private secondry schools in Islamabad in Pakistan. This study focuses on roles, responsibilities and challenges of the middle leaders who work as subject heads, coordinaotrs and head of departments in schools. The middle leaders are involved in multitasking to upgrade the quality of schools but their efforts are not recognized. Through their attitudes, behaviour and leadership practices, they evolve traditional leadership of Pakistan

The pillars of school: A case study of middle leaders in four private secondary schools in Islamabad Pakistan

This study unveils the roles, responsibilities and challenges faced by middle leaders in private secondary schools in Pakistan. The study also focused on their contribution to schools in order to bring democratic changes in thinking, attitudes and behavior of school leadership system in a developing country. This was a case study which used interviews to collect data from four coordinators working in four different private schools in Islamabad. Four semi structured interviews were used as research instrument. The data revealed that coordinators work between senior management and teachers. Their role is multidimensional and multifunctional as teachers, mentors, monitors, administrators and managers. Their responsibilities were diversified in accordance to their roles. Carrying a significant set of responsibilities in relation with senior management, teachers, support staff, students and parents, middle leaders positively perform their duties by creating a culture of collaborative learning communities and fulfilling the trust of senior management. The study indicated that middle managers’ perceptions of their diversity of roles within a hierarchal structure resulted in multiple challenges for them, for example unrealistic demands of senior management, teachers and parents, staff lacking seriousness and passion for work, and external pressures from stake holders. Conclusions were drawn that middle leaders exerted effective leadership through their hard work, vigour, motivation, creativity, positivity, flexibility and strong sense of commitment. They were involved in teaching, coordination, event management, decision making, knowledgeability and capacity building of staff, developing collegiality by shared vision for social cohesion, using their mediation and interpersonal skills for public satisfaction

Spectroscopic Ivestigation of Azobenzene based self-assembled monolayer on Gold, Sio2 and on water

This study was concerned with the investigation of photo-induced molecular switching processes of azobenzene based self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on surfaces. The rational design of such surfaces, which often hold the potential for practical application, require a thorough understanding of the factors that control surface assembly into highly ordered architectures as well as photoswitching efficiency. The latter is often limited by steric hindrance, i.e., the lack of free volume in the molecular monolayer. This work further aimed at a demonstration of the capability of Sum Frequency Generation spectroscopy (SFG) to investigate diverse functionalized surfaces including reflective gold and transparent quartz substrates as well as monolayers at water-air interfaces. SFG analysis of Azobenzene (AB) on gold as well as on quartz and Azobenzenecholesterol/ Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (AzoChol/ DPPC) on water was used to confirm the formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on the substrate, to depict the morphology of these SAMs and to check their photoisomerizing ability. Characteristic spectra confirmed the adsorption of molecules on the surfaces with vibrational signatures of different CH units

Middle leaders and trust: a mixed method study of two private secondary schools in Islamabad in Pakistan

This is a case study of two private Secondary schools in Islamabad. The focus of school A is profit-based and commercial whereas School B provides quality and values-based education. This study explored the phenomenon of middle management with reference to their leadership roles in schools. Also this enquiry measured the level of relational trust among the principal, middle leaders, teachers and clients (students and parents) from faculty perspective by using the grounded theory of five facets of trust: benevolence, competence, reliability, open communication and honesty. This study is more qualitative in nature. Questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used as research instruments. The findings revealed that middle leaders practice Transformational leadership and play multifunctional roles such as teachers, coordinators, managers, curriculum developers, mentors, monitors, trainers, event organizers and advisors. Their leadership roles extend to the whole school development. High level of trust was found among middle leaders, teachers and colleagues due to teachers’ participation in planning activities, friendly and fear free work climate, healthy and productive work relations. It was found that school A was multilayered with bureaucratic hierarchy system, power conscious, commercial mind set with low level of trust than School B. In both schools it was found that middle managers were not given autonomy and authority by the principal. Although private schools follow the western model of leadership based on democracy but the traditional elements of delegation, control and uncertainty are still present

Examining Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Counterproductive Work Behavior: A Moderated Mediated Model

Despite various attempts to know the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB), the findings are inconsistent and offer a varying degree of associations. The present study examines the underlying mechanism by hypothesizing impression management (IM) as a mediator to address the element of equivocality in the subject matter. Furthermore, it tests the moderating role of self-esteem (SE) on the impression management to counterproductive work behavior relationship. A representative sample of 398 employees was collected from different organizations of Pakistan. The results confirmed the intervening role of impression management between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behavior. Furthermore, the employees high on self-esteem showed lesser tendencies to involve in counterproductive work behavior. Theoretical and practical implications have also been discussed

Electronic Health Record System Clinical Notes Usage Usability Evaluation – An Ethnographic study

Background: A significant gap exists between current Electronic Health Record (EHR) usability and potential optimal usability, which is often attributed to poor incorporation of a user-cantered approach during the Graphical User Interface (GUI) design process. Objectives: To evaluate usability strengths and weaknesses of two widely implemented EHR GUIs for critical clinical note usage tasks using data collected from real users observed in their actual inpatient work environments.Methods: Twelve Internal Medicine resident physicians were observed by two usability evaluators while interacting with one of two EHR systems (Epic at University of Minnesota Medical Center and CPRS at Veterans Affair Hospital Care Systems), employing an ethnographic approach. User comments and observer findings were analyzed for two critical tasks: (i) clinical note entry and (ii) related information-seeking tasks, and from two standpoints: (a) usability references categorized by usability evaluators as positive, negative or equivocal and (b) usability impact of each feature measured through a seven-point severity rating scale. Findings were also validated by user responses to a post-observation questionnaire.Results: For clinical note entry, Epic surpassed CPRS with more positive (26% vs. 12%) than negative (12% vs. 34%) usability references. Greatest impact features on EHR usability (severity score after each feature) for clinical note entry were auto-population (6), screen options (5.5), communication (5), copy pasting (4.5), error prevention (4.5), edit ability (4) and dictation & transcription (3.5). Neither system did better for information-seeking tasks with CPRS having more positive (28% vs. 14%) but also more negative (41% vs. 34%) references. Features pertaining to information–seeking tasks with greatest impact on EHR usability were navigation for notes (7) and others (e.g., looking for ancillary data) (5.5). Ethnographic observations were also supported by follow-up questionnaire responses.Conclusion: This study provides usability specific insights of two widely used EHR systems that could help with future design of EHR interfaces better aligned with a user- centered approach

Fekete-Szegö Problem of Functions Associated with Hyperbolic Domains

In the field of Geometric Function Theory, one can not deny the importance of analytic and univalent functions. The characteristics of these functions including their taylor series expansion, their coefficients in these representations as well as their associated functional inequalities have always attracted the researchers. In particular, Fekete-Szegö inequality is one of such vastly studied and investigated functional inequality. Our main focus in this article is to investigate the Fekete-Szegö functional for the class of analytic functions associated with hyperbolic regions. Tofurther enhance the worth of our work, we include similar problems for the inverse functions of these discussed analytic functions

Evaluation of nephrotoxic potential of iyengaria stellata

ABSTRACT The development of renal injury by use of xenobiotics is very prevalent. Iyengaria stellata (Børgesen) is a brown sea weed belongs to the class Phaeophyceae and family Scytosiphonaceae and its effects on renal function has been determined after 30 days once daily dosing to rabbits and the level of urea and creatinine was measured which showed increased level of urea after prolonged administration of Iyengaria stellata however this increase is insignificant and decrease in creatinine level after 30day ingestion of Iyengaria stellata, lead to the conclusion that Iyengaria stellata has nephroprotective effect