Organizational culture on employees ethical behavior within an organization

The following research study is to understand the construct of organization ethics within the organization as well as to identify and understand the various factors within the organization that influence ethical behavior within the organization. In order to do so, two main independent variables that have been chosen for the research study are the aspect of organizational leadership and the aspect of organizational culture and the study involved undertaking secondary and primary research to understand how the aspects of leadership and culture influences ethical behavior of employees within the organization. The roles of the seniors and the management as well as certain key aspects associated with the organizational culture were evaluated to determine the degree of influence that it had upon ethical employee behavior and conduct

Mutational Analysis Among Patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Background and objective: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is caused by mutations in dystrophin gene that include deletion, duplication and small mutations. Introduction to newer drug therapies in DMD is based on the type of mutation. The objective of this study was to assess distribution and percentage of different mutations among DMD patients. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in Pediatric Neurology department of UCHS & Children Hospital Lahore. All the cases of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy confirmed through genetic analysis from January 2022 to June 2022 through MLPA method were enrolled in the study. Data was recorded on detailed history and physical examination of the subjects and all lab investigations along with genetic study was reviewed to collect the data on given Performa. All the collected data was saved for final analysis. Results: Total 60 patients were enrolled in the study. The most common mutation was deletion, detected in 32 (56%) cases, duplication was detected in 10 (17.5%) cases and genetic study of 15 (26.5 ) patients was turned out to be normal. The most common deletion was found to be at 45-52 (43%) exons. Conclusion: The most common mutation among genetically confirmed cases of DMD was found to be deletion at 45-52 exons. This mutational evaluation is the first step toward trial of new medicines while treating DMD, as mechanism of action of new drugs is based on the type of mutation

LAPAROSCOPIC CHOLECYSTECTOMY: OUTCOME OF FIRST 202 CASES IN A DISTRICT HOSPITAL IN GILGIT

BACKGROUND: The incidence of gall stone disease is on the rise in Gilgit Baltistan. The objectives of the study were to assess the outcome of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in terms of conversion rate and postoperative morbidity, in The Aga Khan Medical Centre Gilgit. METHODS: It was descriptive case series. All patients that underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy between June 2009 to May 2014 were included. The data was collected prospectively. Demographic features, operative time, and hospital stay were studied. Postoperative complications were documented and evaluated according to outcome measures (bile duct injuries, morbidity, mortality, conversion rates, wound infections). RESULTS: A total of 202 consecutive patients were enrolled with a mean age of 49±15 years. There were 164 (81%) female and 38(19%.) male patients. Twenty nine (15%) patients had hypertension, 51 (25%) patients had diabetes mellitus as comorbid conditions. The mean operative time was 54±21 minutes. The operative time was longer in 52 (26%) patients. Three patients (1.5%) required conversion to open cholecystectomy due to obscured anatomy in the area of Calot\u27s triangle, and empyema gallbladder. The mean hospital stay was 2±0.7 days. No common bile duct injury, solid organ or bowel injury occurred in this study. The mean follow up duration was 30±15 months. Postoperative complications include, port site infection in 8 (2%) patient, chest infection in 5 (2.4%) patients, and one (0.5%) patient had myocardial infarction. There was no mortality reported in this group of patients. CONCLUSION: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a safe procedure with advantages of decreased wound infection, less pain, decreased hospital stay, and early recovery

Classification of Failures in the Perception of Conversational Agents (CAs) and their Implications on Patient Safety

The use of Conversational agents (CAs) in healthcare is an emerging field. These CAs seem to be effective in accomplishing administrative tasks, e.g. providing locations of care facilities and scheduling appointments. Modern CAs use machine learning (ML) to recognize, understand and generate a response. Given the criticality of many healthcare settings, ML and other component errors may result in CA failures and may cause adverse effects on patients. Therefore, in-depth assurance is required before the deployment of ML in critical clinical applications, e.g. management of medication dose or medical diagnosis. CA safety issues could arise due to diverse causes, e.g. related to user interactions, environmental factors and ML errors. In this paper, we classify failures of perception (recognition and understanding) of CAs and their sources. We also present a case study of a CA used for calculating insulin dose for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) patients. We then correlate identified perception failures of CAs to potential scenarios that might compromise patient safety

Categories and Institutional Change: Contesting the Uncontested Space Through National Rankings

The current study aims to examine how and why actors contest the business education field through rankings. Inspired by the field structuration process and field level change, we argue that categorization systems, in this case, rankings, construct boundaries of the business education field and redefine authority and elites for the field. Ten highly ranked Pakistani business schools were selected through a purposive sampling method. For the thematic analysis adopted in the current study, we collected empirical evidence mainly through interviews with the directors of accreditation and ranking bodies, deans, and marketing directors of business schools. The interview data was also supplemented by secondary data such as internal student surveys, business school’s annual reports, and other relevant sources of data. The current study showed institutional work in the business education field. Through categorization systems, actors use their authority to challenge the existing social order and define the uncontested space of the business education field in developing countries. Actors then populate the uncontested space with new members thus legitimizing new rules and standards for the field and promoting new elites for the field thus creating new social order

Ultrasonic-Assisted Extraction of Toxic Acidic Components from Acidic Oil Using 1,8-Diazobicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene-Based Ionic Liquids

[Image: see text] Ionic liquids (ILs) show remarkable performance in enhancing the naphthenic acid extraction efficiency and decreasing the extraction time. However, the ultrasonic-assisted IL-based extraction of naphthenic acid is merely addressed previously. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of essential ultrasonic parameters, including amplitude and time, on naphthenic acid extraction using different ILs, and the system was optimized for maximum extraction. The IL 1,8-diazobicyclo[5.4.0]-undec-7-ene (DBU) with thiocyanate anions revealed the highest efficiency in extracting naphthenic acid from a model oil (dodecane) at optimized conditions, and the experimental liquid–liquid equilibrium data were obtained at atmospheric pressure for the mixture of dodecane, [DBU], thiocyanate, and naphthenic acid. In addition, the influence of the chain length of the cation (hexyl, octyl, or decyl) on the extraction efficiency was also evaluated by determining the distribution coefficients, and the conductor-like screening model for real solvents (COSMO-RS) study was carried out at infinite dilution. It was found that [DBU-Dec] [SCN] gives the best extraction efficiency and has a distribution coefficient of 9.2707 and a performance index of 49.48. Based on these values, ILs can be ordered as follows: [DBU-Dec] [SCN] > [DBU-Oct][SCN] > [DBU-Hex][SCN] in the decreasing order of performance index 49.48, 41.58, and 28.13. Moreover, non-random two liquid and Margules thermodynamic models were employed to investigate the interaction parameters between the components. Both models showed excellent agreement with the experimental results and could successfully be used for ultrasonic-assisted IL extraction of naphthenic acid

Hybrid Workload Enabled and Secure Healthcare Monitoring Sensing Framework in Distributed Fog-Cloud Network

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) workflow applications have been rapidly growing in practice. These internet-based applications can run on the distributed healthcare sensing system, which combines mobile computing, edge computing and cloud computing. Offloading and scheduling are the required methods in the distributed network. However, a security issue exists and it is hard to run different types of tasks (e.g., security, delay-sensitive, and delay-tolerant tasks) of IoMT applications on heterogeneous computing nodes. This work proposes a new healthcare architecture for workflow applications based on heterogeneous computing nodes layers: an application layer, management layer, and resource layer. The goal is to minimize the makespan of all applications. Based on these layers, the work proposes a secure offloading-efficient task scheduling (SEOS) algorithm framework, which includes the deadline division method, task sequencing rules, homomorphic security scheme, initial scheduling, and the variable neighbourhood searching method. The performance evaluation results show that the proposed plans outperform all existing baseline approaches for healthcare applications in terms of makespan

Significantly elevated levels of plasma nicotinamide, pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine phosphate levels in obese Emirati population : a cross-sectional study

Water-soluble vitamins like B3 (nicotinamide), B6 (pyridoxine), and B9 (folic acid) are of utmost importance in human health and disease, as they are involved in numerous critical metabolic reactions. Not surprisingly, deficiencies of these vitamins have been linked to various disease states. Unfortunately, not much is known about the physiological levels of B6 vitamers and vitamin B3 in an ethnically isolated group (such as an Emirati population), as well as their relationship with obesity. The aim of the present study was to quantify various B6 vitamers, as well as B3, in the plasma of obese and healthy Emirati populations and to examine their correlation with obesity. A sensitive and robust HPLC-MS/MS-based method was developed for the simultaneous quantitation of five physiologically relevant forms of vitamin B6, namely pyridoxal, pyridoxine, pyridoxamine, pyridoxamine phosphate, and pyridoxal phosphate, as well as nicotinamide, in human plasma. This method was used to quantify the concentrations of these vitamers in the plasma of 57 healthy and 57 obese Emirati volunteers. Our analysis showed that the plasma concentrations of nicotinamide, pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine phosphate in the obese Emirati population were significantly higher than those in healthy volunteers (p < 0.0001, p = 0.0006, and p = 0.002, respectively). No significant differences were observed for the plasma concentrations of pyridoxine and pyridoxal phosphate. Furthermore, the concentrations of some of these vitamers in healthy Emirati volunteers were significantly different than those published in the literature for Western populations, such as American and European volunteers. This initial study underscores the need to quantify micronutrients in distinct ethnic groups, as well as people suffering from chronic metabolic disorders

Planarian toxicity fluorescent assay: a rapid and cheap pre-screening tool for potential skin irritants

Here we report a new planarian (Dugesia lugubris) fluorescent assay as a rapid and cheap pre-screening tool to predict strong skin irritants. Our aim was to provide a simple and cost-effective in vivo method that avoided use of higher vertebrates. Adapting previously reported methods for planaria mobility alongside an acute toxicity assay, different irritants at five concentrations (0.1%, 0.05%, 0.025%, 0.01% and 0.005% w/v) were tested but both methods failed to discriminate the irritation potential of the test compounds. Therefore, a new alternative fluorescence assay was developed, hypothesising that increasing damage from the irritant to the planarian outer protective membrane will increase accumulation of sodium fluorescein in the flatworm. Fourteen test chemicals were selected representing strong, moderate, mild and non-irritants. In general, results showed increasing sodium fluorescein accumulation within planaria following acute exposure to increasingly strong skin irritants; on exposure to the strong irritants, benzalkonium chloride, citronellal, methyl palmitate, 1-bromohexane and carvacrol, fluorescence within the planaria was significantly greater (P < 0.05) than the negative controls and the common non-irritants PEG-400, dipropylene glycol and isopropyl alcohol; fluorescence values of planaria tested with negative controls and non-irritants were not significantly different. For all test compounds, Fluorescence Intensity of the planaria was compared with literature Primary Irritation Index data and generated a statistically significant (P < 0.005) Pearson correlation (r) of 0.87. Thus, the planarian fluorescent assay is a promising tool for rapid early testing of potential strong skin irritants, and non-irritants, and avoids use of higher vertebrate models

The significance of ternary hybrid cross bio-nanofluid model in expanding/contracting cylinder with inclined magnetic field

Significance: Bio-nanofluids have achieved rapid attention due to their potential and vital role in various fields like biotechnology and energy, as well as in medicine such as in drug delivery, imaging, providing scaffolds for tissue engineering, and providing suitable environments for cell growth, as well as being used as coolants in various energy systems, wastewater treatment, and delivery of nutrients to plants.Objective: The present study proposes a novel mathematical model for the ternary hybrid cross bio-nanofluid model to analyse the behaviour of blood that passes through a stenosed artery under the influence of an inclined magnetic field. The model considers the effect of expanding/contracting cylinder, infinite shear rate viscosity, and bio-nanofluids.Methodology: The considered model of the problem is bounded in the form of governing equations such as PDEs. These PDEs are transformed into ODEs with the help of similarity transformations and then solved numerically with the help of the bvp4c method.Findings: The results show that the flow rate and velocity decrease as the inclination angle of the magnetic field increases. Additionally, research has found that the presence of nanoparticles in the bio-nanofluid has a significant impact on the velocity and flow rate. Therefore, the flow rate decreases, in general, as the stenosis becomes more severe.Advantages of the study: The results obtained from this study may provide insights into the behaviour of blood flow in stenosed arteries and may be useful in the design of medical devices and therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases