JOINT DOCTRINE OF INDIAN ARMED FORCES AND ITS HINDUTVA INTERLACE

Joint Doctrine of Indian Armed Forces, unveiled in 2017, is the all-encompassing strategic design that outlines the core philosophy, concepts, principles, and ideals that are being pursued by the Indian Armed Forces for the attainment of India’s strategic objectives. This paper employs a constructivist theoretical approach to assess the Joint Doctrine of Indian Armed Forces’ connection with Hindutva beliefs and ideals as well as its reflection of India’s incumbent government’s strategic objectives of Hindu revivalism and expansionist ambitions, while formally shedding off its decades-old garb of so-called secularism. Through the analysis of Joint Doctrine of Indian Armed Forces’ core ideas and concepts, this paper examines the Indian Armed Forces’ institutional choice of this doctrine to pursue Hindutva ideals coupled with its likely implications in terms of regional instability and insecurity.   Bibliography Entry Rafique, Shakaib. 2020. "Joint Doctrine of Indian Armed Forces and Its Hindutva Interlace." Margalla Papers 24 (2): 16-28

Management and outcomes of intramedullary spinal cord tumors: A single center experience from a developing country

Background: Intraoperative neurophysiology, high magnification microscopes, and ultrasonic aspirators are considered essential aid for the safe resection of intramedullary spinal cord tumors (IMSCTs). Most centers in developing countries such as Pakistan still lack these facilities. The purpose of this study was to review the management of IMSCTs at our hospital and to determine factors associated with the outcomes of surgery.Methods: This was a retrospective review of medical records of adult patients undergoing surgery for IMSCT over 12 years. The institutional ethical review committee approved this study. Data were collected regarding demographics, clinical and radiological features, and surgical details. Modified McCormick Scale was used to grade patients\u27 neurological status at admission, discharge, and follow-up. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22.Results: Forty three cases were reviewed. Mean age was 33.8 ± 15.1 years whereas median follow-up was 5 months (range: 0.25-96 months). Most patients had ependymoma (n = 16; 73%). Cervical region was the most commonly involved (n = 15; 34.9%). Gross total resection (GTR) was achieved in 30 cases (69.8%). The preoperative McCormick grade was significantly associated with follow-up McCormick grade (P value = 0.002). Eight patients (18.6%) underwent intraoperative electrophysiological monitoring, out of which GTR was achieved in all cases, and none had disease progression or recurrence. Ten patients received postoperative radiotherapy. Thirty five patients (81.4%) had progression free survival at last follow-up.Conclusions: We achieved a GTR rate of 68.9% for IMSCTs with limited resources. In few cases, where intraoperative electrophysiology was used, the rate of GTR was 100%. Preoperative neurological status was associated with better postoperative McCormick score

Refractive Errors: Prevalence and Pattern among Rural Population of Islamabad, Pakistan

Background: Refractive error is the most common cause of correctable visual loss worldwide. Decreased vision due to refractive error can be easily corrected with the help of spectacles, contact lenses and refractive surgery. However, there are 42% of uncorrected refractive errors all over the world. The present study aimed to evaluate different kinds of refractive errors, its prevalence and pattern in patients from rural areas who visited our hospital in the last five years. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 2,138 patients, who visited eye OPD at Rawal Institute of Health Sciences, Islamabad during a period of five years i.e. from September, 2013 to September, 2018. Patients having only refractive error with an age of five years and above were included in the study.  All patients had objective refraction with automated refractometer followed by subjective refraction. Data was entered and analyzed in SPSS version 20.0. Chi-square test was used for comparing groups with a P-value of <0.05 considered as statistically significant. Results: Compound myopic astigmatism was the most common error found in our study population (n=575; 26.9%). The second most frequent complaint was simple myopia (n=501; 23.4%) followed by presbyopia (n=441; 20.6%) and mixed astigmatism (n=235; 11%). Patients with more than one refractive error included 178 (8.3%) with mixed astigmatism and presbyopia and 78 (3.6%) with simple myopia and presbyopia. Compound myopic astigmatism was more prevalent in younger ages compared to older age groups (46.4% vs 19.9%) (P <0.001). Mixed astigmatism (12.4% vs 8.9%), simple myopia (23.8% vs 22.9%) and presbyopia (21.3% vs 19.5%) were slightly greater in females than males (P=0.07), respectively. Conclusions: The prevalence of myopia is significantly higher among female population and young individuals. Mixed astigmatism combined with presbyopia is more common among elderly population. Key words: Astigmatism, Hypermetropia, Myopia, Presbyopia, Refractive error

AMC: Advanced Multi-accelerator Controller

The rapid advancement, use of diverse architectural features and introduction of High Level Synthesis (HLS) tools in FPGA technology have enhanced the capacity of data-level parallelism on a chip. A generic FPGA based HLS multi-accelerator system requires a microprocessor (master core) that manages memory and schedules accelerators. In a real environment, such HLS multi-accelerator systems do not give a perfect performance due to memory bandwidth issues. Thus, a system demands a memory manager and a scheduler that improves performance by managing and scheduling the multi-accelerator’s memory access patterns efficiently. In this article, we propose the integration of an intelligent memory system and efficient scheduler in the HLS-based multi-accelerator environment called Advanced Multi-accelerator Controller (AMC). The AMC system is evaluated with memory intensive accelerators, High Performance Computing (HPC) applications and implemented and tested on a Xilinx Virtex-5 ML505 evaluation FPGA board. The performance of the system is compared against the microprocessor-based systems that have been integrated with the operating system. Results show that the AMC based HLS multi-accelerator system achieves 10.4x and 7x of speedup compared to the MicroBlaze and Intel Core based HLS multi-accelerator systems.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Anaesthetic Management in a Child with Goldenhar Syndrome

Goldenhar syndrome is a congenital disorder involving deformities of the face. It usually affects one side of the face only and poses significant challenges in the airway management. We herein, report an 8-year boy, known case of Goldenhar syndrome, who presented to our radiology suite for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain, followed by a computed tomography (CT) scan brain. The boy had various features of Goldenhar syndrome, e.g. cleft palate, absent right eye and ear, right mandibular hypoplasia, micrognathia, and preauricular tags. His developmental milestones were delayed. Airway evaluation showed Mallampati class II with limited movements of head and neck, which suggested possibility of difficult laryngoscopy and intubation. He had no vertebral anomalies or cardiac disease. A difficult airway continues to be a major cause of anaesthesia-related morbidity and mortality; and maintaining spontaneous breathing remains a vital technique in its management. Lack of anaesthesia-related complications with supraglottic devices encouraged us to present the advantage of utilising a laryngeal mask airway (LMA) under anaesthesia for successful management of predicted difficult airway

Social Media Adoption by the Academic Community: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence From Developing Countries

The paper investigates the impact of virtual environmental characteristics such as collaboration, communication, and resource sharing on social media adoption by the academic community at the university level. Building on the social constructivist paradigm and technology acceptance model, we propose a conceptual model to assess social media adoption in academia by incorporating collaboration, communication, and resource sharing as predictors of social media adoption, whereas perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness act as mediators in this relationship. Structural equation modeling serves to estimate the proposed conceptual model on a sample of 661 respondents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The findings suggest that an individual’s propensity toward social media features (i.e., collaboration, communication, and resource sharing) acts as a stimulus to their social media adoption. Moreover, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness mediate the relationship between these stimuli and their outcomes (i.e., social media adoption). The paper concludes with the discussion on the findings and recommendations for the academicians and the practitioners of social media in the higher education institutions

Effects of Personality on Impulsive Buying Behavior: Evidence from a Developing Country

Normally impulse buying is considered to take place in the presence of extrinsic factors which lure customers into unplanned buying. The role of intrinsic factors in generating impulse buying remains under-researched, especially in the context of a developing country like Pakistan. This study aims to study the impact of personality on impulse buying behavior. The effect of personality on impulse buying is measured through five personality traits, namely Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism-also known as the OCEAN Model. It is an explanatory research study involving 400 people of diverse backgrounds and wide age brackets. Results indicated significant effects of Openness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism and insignificant effect of Agreeableness on Impulse Buying Behavior. This study has valuable implications for Practitioners as well as Academics

The role of integrated offline/online social activity and social identification in Facebook citizenship behaviour formation

Purpose<: Drawing on social identity theory and prosocial behaviour research, this study explores how people's integration of their offline and online social activities through Facebook cultivates their Facebook citizenship behaviour (FCB). It also offers further insight into the underlying mechanism of offline and online social activity integration - FCB relation by investigating people's social identification with their offline and online social groups as possible mediators. Design/methodology/approach: Based on social identity theory (SIT) literature, community citizenship behaviour and offline-online social activity integration through Facebook, we developed a conceptual model, which was empirically tested using data from 308 Facebook users Findings: The results confirm that the participants' offline-online social activity integration via Facebook is positively linked to their FCB. Further, the integration of offline and online social activity through Facebook positively affects how a person identifies with their offline and online social groups, which in turn causes them to display FCB. In addition, offline/online social identification mediates the integration – FCB relation. Practical implications: In practice, it is interesting to see people's tendency towards altruistic behaviours within groups they like to associate themselves with. Those who share their Facebook network with their offline friends can use such network to seek help and support. Originality/value: From a theoretical perspective, unlike past research, this study examines how individuals' offline-online social activity integration via Facebook helps them associate with groups. In addition, this study investigates social identification from an offline and online perspective

An investigation of the drivers of social commerce and e-word-of-mouth intentions: Elucidating the role of social commerce in E-business

Building on social commerce (s-commerce) perspectives and the trust transfer theory, this study develops a theoretical model that explains the indirect effects of two types of s-commerce attributes (community and platform) on behavioral outcomes (s-commerce intentions and e-Word-of-Mouth (e-WOM) intentions) through trust in community and platform. We analyze data collected from s-commerce users on travel booking websites using structural equation modeling technique. Results confirm that s-commerce intentions and e-WOM intentions are contingent upon s-commerce community and platform attributes. Moreover, the results provide evidence for the mediating effects of trust in community and platform on the relationship between s-commerce attributes and behavioral outcomes. The study provides further insights about the impact of s-commerce experience on s-commerce intention and e-WOM intention. Moreover, this study contributes to s-commerce research and practice by developing and validating the role of s-commerce community and platform attributes in forming consumers’ s-commerce behavioral outcomes

Exploring the Determinants of Digital Content Adoption By Academics: The Moderating Role of Environmental Concerns and Price Value

The study investigates the underlying motives facilitating users’ continuance intention for digital content in academic settings. Extending the expectation confirmation model of IS continuance (ECM-ISC), the study proposes a conceptual model by incorporating personal and technological antecedents of users’ continuance intention for digital content. In addition, users’ environmental concerns and price value are considered as potential moderators in the relationship between their satisfaction and continuance intention for digital content. An online survey was used to collect data from 311 digital content users of a large public university in Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships in the conceptual model. The results obtained from SmartPLS 3.2 confirm that compatibility, convenience, self-efficacy, and facilitating conditions are the predictors of confirmation and usefulness of digital content. The confirmation of expectations and perceived usefulness result in greater satisfaction with the digital content, which in turn leads to users’ continuance intention. In addition, the article provides empirical evidence for the impact of environmental concerns on the satisfaction–continuance intention relationship, thus opening a novel research debate. The study is expected to offer new insights both for academicians and managers of digital content