Frequency and Severity of Perineal tears among women during vaginal delivery

Objective: to arbitrate the frequency and severity of perineal tears among the patients of Vaginal delivery. Study Design: A Cross-sectional Study.Place and Duration of study: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Nishtar Hospital Multan and Allied Hospital, Faisalabad from 29 December 2016 to 28 June 2017.  Methodology: the study was conducted after obtaining the approval of ethical committee for collecting data from patients. The patients aged 20-40 years were included in the study, both multipara and  primipara. An examination was performed on the perineum, vulva, vagina, and cervix at the third stage of labor in order to discover any tears or injuries. All the informations were collected on per designed Performa. Collected data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS software. Results: the incidence of perineal tears was calculated to be 79.89%. The most commonly observed injury was the first-degree perineal tear. it accounted for 101(68.70%) cases. while the second-degree perineal tear was found to be 39(26.53%) cases. third and fourth degree perineal tear remained the least in observed frequency as in 2.72% and 2.04% of cases respectively. Conclusion: The observations of our study concluded that majority of patients delivered vaginally experienced perineal tear, among those first degree perineal tear was more prevalent. KEY WORDS: Perineal tear, perineal trauma, severity of perineal tears

Factors of E-Learning System Affecting Students’ Satisfaction: Empirical Evidence from Virtual Campuses of Southern Punjab

The advancements in technology are very rapid, the education and training are shifting from traditional classroom learning to Information Communication Technology (ICT) based, requiring self-organized, collaborative learning, with flexible timings, and consisting of  the facilitators, learners and experts community. Use of internet technologies for improvement of knowledge and working performance is also included in the scenario of E-Learning. By these technologies the contents, sequence of learning, learning place and timings along-with media can be controlled, which allows them to enhance their expertise and exposure in order to meet the objectives of individual learning. In order to administer the view of resources and learning of the E-Learners technical standardization is done that creates multiple learning opportunities for researchers, faculty members to meet with continuing challenges of the world. Rapid changes in the world and new trends and innovations in E-Learning directly highlight the revolution in education that allows collaborative as well as adaptive learning that changes the task of instructors. The combination of E-Learning with education can enhance the application of learning theory for adults. It is expected that the educators was more involved in facilitation of learning and supporters of competency rather than the distributors and servers of content. In order to boost the performance as well as knowledge the emerging technologies of internet are providing a vast range of solutions. The educators of medical can also use E-Learning for enhancement of effectiveness and efficiency for emerging social, scientific challenges. In the past decade E-Learning has achieved esteem as eminent from the previous studies. However the   use of E-Learning has been inconsistent amongst clinical clerkships as well as in basic sciences. Web based, computer assisted, online, internet and distributed learning all are the other names of E-Learning. However, the computer assisted learning and distance learning are termed to be two E-Learning modes as shown by the studies of the past decade. Learning assisted by computers facilitates the learners by the help of computers in the distribution of packages of multimedia in teaching and learning. Whereas, distance learning provides knowledge to the learners at remote areas from a central location

Seismic damage mechanism of weak beam-column joint frames

The use of old building design codes and improper execution of recent seismic design practices resulted in substandard and vulnerable reinforced concrete building stock, the majority of which is built with weak beam-column joint connections (i.e. joint panels having no transverse reinforcement and built in low strength concrete). In order to understand the seismic response and damage behavior of recent special moment resisting frame (SMRF) structures with the defect of weak beam-column joints, shake table tests were performed on two 1:3 reduced scale two storey and one bay RC frame models. Reference code design and weak beam-column joint frame models were subjected to unidirectional dynamic excitation of increasing intensities using the natural record of 1994 Northridge Earthquake. The input scaled excitation were applied from 5 % to 130 % of the maximum input peak ground acceleration record, to force the test models from elastic to inelastic stage and then to fully plastic incipient collapse stage. The weak beam-column frame experienced flexural cracking of the columns, longitudinal bar-slip in beam members, cover concrete spalling and severe damageability of the joint panels under multiple dynamic excitations. The deficient frame was able to resist only 40 % of the maximum acceleration record as compared to the code design frame, which was able to resist up to130 %. Based on the experimental observations, a drift-based damage scale was developed for different performance limits states that can be employed for the global performance assessment of deficient weak beam-column joint RC frames

How to cope with dengue in the developing countries like Pakistan?

A viral disease like dengue lacking a specific form of treatment is a high menace to human health. Situation becomes worse in developing countries like Pakistan because of poor health care services and facilities. Using data from earlier works and analyzing them, this review aims to explore the disease epidemiology. Dengue Virus (DENV) destroys the immune system and causes health problems like headache, inflammation, bleeding, hypertension and mental disorders. Death also can be caused through dengue because of its adverse effects on liver which also may result in hepatitis. Dengue spread can be controlled through many ways like modulating the environment and devastating its vector. Biological control appears as potentila pproach to control its vector, especially the use of "Wolbachia". Currently, no vaccines are available against this virus and antiviral drugs are also not significantly effective. Phytochemical studies revealed that apple, papaya, lemon are rich source of carotenoids, esters, flavonoids, phenolic acid, terpene and vitamins. Apple was found to have a number of antiviral compounds like phytoestrogens, procyanidins and rosmarinic acid. Although there are few reports of antiviral compound obtained from papaya but it has been reported to have evocative beneficial effects on immune system. The phytochemicals behave as strong anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory agents which can help the body against dengue-induced inflammation and oxidant stresses. Several other features are also found in these reviewed phytochemicals that can protects the human body from the adverse effects of dengue infection. In nutshell, the consuming of papaya and apple should be incorporated in daily routine life especially during the season when this disease appears in its epidemic form

Benefit Cost Ratio of Buds Chips Planting and its Effects on Yield and Quality of Sugarcane

Background: High price and poor quality of seed material is a great concern to Farmers. Sugarcane seed is 20% of total cost of production. Cane Growers used setts having 2-3 buds with 8-10 t ha-1 cane stalk as Seed. The large quantity of seed carriages a great problematic in handling, transport, seed treatment for diseases, storage ,  viability of buds and their germination. The use of bud chips is less bulky, easily handling in seed treatment, storage and transportation.Methods: In this view, a research experiment was designed at Sugarcane Research Institute, Faisalabad during 2016 and 2017, to study the feasibility of bud chips as an alternate to conventional planting in sugarcane crop. The experiment was planted with sugarcane variety CPF-252 in randomized complete block design with split plot arrangement having three replications.Results: The results of study revealed that setts planting on 15 April gave maximum cane (61 t ha-1) and sugar yield (7.15 t ha-1). While bud chips sown on 15 April produced higher yield. The benefit cost ratio (BCR) was high in bud chips planting (1.63) than setts planting of sugarcane.Conclusion: The study concludes that bud chip planting on 15 April is an improved technique with greater potential to provide disease free seed, improve the yield with minimum quantity of seed than conventional planting.Keywords: Bud chips; Seedling; Setts; Benefit cost rati

Ecology, Biology, Damage, and Management of Sucking and Chewing Insect Pests of Citrus

Citrus are important commodities for human and animal nutrition but these crops are attacked by a plethora of dangerous agents, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and invertebrates that decrease the yield significantly. Within invertebrates, insects are the more prevalent citrus pests causing plant damage or act as diseases vector. In this chapter, we focused in the insect pests with worldwide distribution in citrus orchards, including sap sucking Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri, citrus mealybug Planococcus citri, citrus whitefly Dialeurodes citri, thrips representatives such as Scirtothrips citri and Pezothrips kellyanus, and chewing citrus leafminer Phyllocnistis citrella and lemon butterfly Papilio demoleus. These pests are distributed across various regions of different continents such as in Asia-pacific, Americas, Africa, and Oceana. We presented detailed data from these pests’ biology, ecology, damage, and methods for control. The pest incidence and biology is affected by various biotic and abiotic factors thus providing the opportunity to use these factors as method of intervention to disturb pest life cycle. In this context, several IPM techniques such as cultural, physical, biological, and chemical methods were elaborated, which could help to reduce the pest status below damaging levels

Evaluation of Silkworm Lines against Variations in Temperature and RH for Various Parameters of Commercial Cocoon Production

Eleven inbred silkworm lines (M-101, M-103, M-104, M-107, Pak-1, Pak-3, Pak-2, Pak-4, PFI-1, PFI-2, and S-1) were evaluated for various parameters of cocoon production under different temperature and relative humidity conditions (25±1, 30±1, and 35±1 °C in combination with 55, 65, and 75% RH for three hrs during 4th and 5th instar. The experiment was laid out in factorial design with three replications. Significant variations in the performance of silkworm lines were noticed due to influence of temperature and RH treatment on 4th and 5th instar larvae. The silkworm lines performed significantly better when the larvae were reared at 25±1 °C with 70–80% RH while almost all the silkworm lines showed poor performance at higher temperature exposures for 3 hrs. Exposures to lower humidity (55%) during larval rearing in 4th and 5th instar at different temperatures (25±1, 30±1, and 35±1 °C) resulted in lowering the cocoon production. The cumulative evaluation index values for different traits showed that Pak-4 (61.42) was the best line followed by M-101 (59.15), Pak-2 (56.37), Pak-3 (52.83) PFI-I (52.62), and M-107(50.03). The study clearly underlines the importance of optimization of environmental conditions during larval rearing in relation to commercial cocoon production. The investigations strongly recommend that temperature and relative humidity in the range of 25-26 °C and 70–80%, respectively, are mandatory for excellent results of cocoon production and Pak-4, M-101, Pak-2, Pak-3, PFI-I, and M-107 were suitable for commercial rearing

Personalized wearable electrodermal sensing-based human skin hydration level detection for sports, health and wellbeing

Personalized hydration level monitoring play vital role in sports, health, wellbeing and safety of a person while performing particular set of activities. Clinical staff must be mindful of numerous physiological symptoms that identify the optimum hydration specific to the person, event and environment. Hence, it becomes extremely critical to monitor the hydration levels in a human body to avoid potential complications and fatalities. Hydration tracking solutions available in the literature are either inefficient and invasive or require clinical trials. An efficient hydration monitoring system is very required, which can regularly track the hydration level, non-invasively. To this aim, this paper proposes a machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) enabled hydration tracking system, which can accurately estimate the hydration level in human skin using galvanic skin response (GSR) of human body. For this study, data is collected, in three different hydration states, namely hydrated, mild dehydration (8 hours of dehydration) and extreme mild dehydration (16 hours of dehydration), and three different body postures, such as sitting, standing and walking. Eight different ML algorithms and four different DL algorithms are trained on the collected GSR data. Their accuracies are compared and a hybrid (ML+DL) model is proposed to increase the estimation accuracy. It can be reported that hybrid Bi-LSTM algorithm can achieve an accuracy of 97.83%