Dissection and Dynamics of the Salary: The Case of Bangladeshi Private Tutors

The demand side of private supplementary tutoring has been and is being researched rigorously while the supply side of this globally spreading phenomenon is remaining unobserved comparatively. This paper attempts to unveil the factors lying behind the determination of wage or salary of the tutors agreed to be given by the households. A set of university students who provide private tuition were surveyed. The findings reveal that the type of institution of the tutees makes an immense influence on the salary of the tutors. If the tutees are students of such academic institutions where the medium of instruction is English, giving tuition to them in private, tutors are more likely to get a salary above the market average rate of that. Transportation cost is the other feature contributing to the increased likelihood of getting the above-average salary. Academic background of the tutors, devoted hours to tuition and the minimum level of expected salary have no vital control over manipulating the salary of the tutors. This paper, in another way, establishes the fact that affluent households spend more money on private tutoring than their counterparts. Keywords: Private Supplementary Tutoring, Shadow Education, Salary, English Medium, Private Tutor

Ratings of performance in multisource feedback: Comparing performance theories of residents and nurses

Background: Multisource feedback (MSF) is increasingly being used to assess trainee performance, with different assessor groups fulfilling a crucial role in utility of assessment data. However, in health professions education, research on assessor behaviors in MSF is limited. When assessing trainee performance in work settings, assessors use multidimensional conceptualizations of what constitutes effective performance, also called personal performance theories, to distinguish between various behaviors and sub competencies., This may not only explain assessor variability in Multi Source Feedback, but also result in differing acceptance (and use) of assessment data for developmental purposes. The purpose of this study was to explore performance theories of various assessor groups (residents and nurses) when assessing performance of residents.Methods: A constructivist, inductive qualitative research approach and semi-structured interviews following MSF were used to explore performance theories of 14 nurses and 15 residents in the department of internal medicine at Aga Khan University (AKU). Inductive thematic content analysis of interview transcripts was used to identify and compare key dimensions in residents\u27 and nurses\u27 performance theories used in evaluation of resident performance.Results: Seven major themes, reflecting key dimensions of assessors\u27 performance theories, emerged from the qualitative data, namely; communication skills, patient care, accessibility, teamwork skills, responsibility, medical knowledge and professional attitude. There were considerable overlaps, but also meaningful differences in the performance theories of residents and the nurses, especially with respect to accessibility, teamwork and medical knowledge.Conclusion: Residents\u27 and nurses\u27 performance theories for assessing resident performance overlap to some extent, yet also show meaningful differences with respect to the performance dimensions they pay attention to or consider most important. In MSF, different assessor groups may therefore hold different performance theories, depending on their role. Our results further our understanding of assessor source effects in MSF. Implications of our findings are related to implementation of MSF, design of rating scales as well as interpretation and use of MSF data for selection and performance improvement

HETEROTIC ESTIMATION AND ADAPTABILITY OF TOMATO HYBRIDS FOR FRUIT YIELD AND ITS RELATED TRAITS IN PAKISTAN.

Current study is emphasizing on the estimation of heterosis for different yield attributing traits and adaptability of tomato hybrids. It was performed in the research area of VCRP, HRI, NARC Islamabad during 2018-2019. Crossing was completed among six parents followed by line × tester. The analyzed data depicted significant differences (P ≤ 0.01) among all the characters.Due to desirable high negative heterotic values hybrids Peto-86 × Nagina and Riograndi × Roma were found suitable for breeding early maturing hybrids. For plant height maximum positive heterosis was observed in Riograndi × Nagina, for no. of cluster/plant in Naqeeb × Roma, for traits like flower cluster-1, fruit cluster-1, fruit length & width and single fruit weight in Naqeeb × Continental while for yield Riograndi × Continental showed maximum heterosis. Therefore among 9 tested hybrids Naqeeb × Continental was found to be highly preferable and recommended for utilization in different breeding programmes

Chemical composition and pharmacological bio-efficacy of Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana (Decne) Rehder for anticancer activity

Consistent STAT3 (Single transducer and activator of transcription 3) activation is observed in many tumors and promotes malignant cell transformation. In the present investigation, we evaluated the anticancer effects of Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana methanol fraction (PJM) on STAT3 inhibition in HCCLM3 and MDA-MB 231 cells. PJM suppressed the activation of upstream kinases i.e. JAK-1/2 (Janus kinase-1/2), and c-Src (Proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase c-Src), and upregulated the expression levels of PIAS-1/3 (Protein Inhibitor of Activated STATs-1/3), SHP-1/2 (Src-homology region 2 domain-containing phosphatase-1/2), and PTP-1β (Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1 β) which negatively regulate STAT3 signaling pathway. PJM also decreased the levels of protein products conferring to various oncogenes, which in turn repressed the proliferation, migration, invasion, and induced apoptosis in cancer cell lines. The growth inhibitory effects of PJM on cell-cycle and metastasis were correlated with decreased expression levels of CyclinD1, CyclinE, MMP-2 (Matrix metalloproteinases-2), and MMP-9 (Matrix metalloproteinases-9). Induction of apoptosis was indicated by the cleavage and subsequent activation of Caspases (Cysteine-dependent Aspartate-directed Proteases) i.e. caspase-3, 7, 8, 9, and PARP (Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase) as well as through the down-regulation of anti-apoptotic proteins. These apoptotic effects of PJM were preceded by inhibition of STAT3 cell-signaling pathway. STAT3 was needed for PJM-induced apoptosis, and inhibition of STAT3 via pharmacological inhibitor (Stattic; SC-203282) abolished the apoptotic effects. Conclusively, our results demonstrate the capability of PJM to inhibit cancer cell-proliferation and induce apoptosis by suppressing STAT3 via upregulation of STAT3 inhibitors and pro-apoptotic proteins whereas the down-regulation of upstream kinases and anti-apoptotic protein expression. In future, one-step advance studies of PHM regarding its role in metastatic inhibition, immune response modulation for reducing tumor, and inducing apoptosis in suitable animal models would be an interesting and promising research area

Peak MSC—Are We There Yet?

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are a critical raw material for many regenerative medicine products, including cell-based therapies, engineered tissues, or combination products, and are on the brink of radically changing how the world of medicine operates. Their unique characteristics, potential to treat many indications, and established safety profile in more than 800 clinical trials have contributed to their current consumption and will only fuel future demand. Given the large target patient populations with typical dose sizes of 10's to 100's of millions of cells per patient, and engineered tissues being constructed with 100's of millions to billions of cells, an unprecedented demand has been created for hMSCs. The fulfillment of this demand faces an uphill challenge in the limited availability of large quantities of pharmaceutical grade hMSCs for the industry—fueling the need for parallel rapid advancements in the biomanufacturing of this living critical raw material. Simply put, hMSCs are no different than technologies like transistors, as they are a highly technical and modular product that requires stringent control over manufacturing that can allow for high quality and consistent performance. As hMSC manufacturing processes are optimized, it predicts a future time of abundance for hMSCs, where scientists and researchers around the world will have access to a consistent and readily available supply of high quality, standardized, and economical pharmaceutical grade product to buy off the shelf for their applications and drive product development—this is “Peak MSC.

Genomic landscape of prominent XDR Acinetobacter clonal complexes from Dhaka, Bangladesh

Background: Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-A. baumannii (ACB) complex pathogens are known for their prevalence in nosocomial infections and extensive antimicrobial resistance (AMR) capabilities. While genomic studies worldwide have elucidated the genetic context of antibiotic resistance in major international clones (ICs) of clinical Acinetobacter spp., not much information is available from Bangladesh. In this study, we analysed the AMR profiles of 63 ACB complex strains collected from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Following this, we generated draft genomes of 15 of these strains to understand the prevalence and genomic environments of AMR, virulence and mobilization associated genes in different Acinetobacter clones. Results: Around 84% (n = 53) of the strains were extensively drug resistant (XDR) with two showing pan-drug resistance. Draft genomes generated for 15 strains confirmed 14 to be A. baumannii while one was A. nosocomialis. Most A. baumannii genomes fell under three clonal complexes (CCs): the globally dominant CC1 and CC2, and CC10; one strain had a novel sequence type (ST). AMR phenotype-genotype agreement was observed and the genomes contained various beta-lactamase genes including blaOXA-23 (n = 12), blaOXA-66 (n = 6), and blaNDM-1 (n = 3). All genomes displayed roughly similar virulomes, however some virulence genes such as the Acinetobactin bauA and the type IV pilus gene pilA displayed high genetic variability. CC2 strains carried highest levels of plasmidic gene content and possessed conjugative elements carrying AMR genes, virulence factors and insertion sequences. Conclusion: This study presents the first comparative genomic analysis of XDR clinical Acinetobacter spp. from Bangladesh. It highlights the prevalence of different classes of beta-lactamases, mobilome-derived heterogeneity in genetic architecture and virulence gene variability in prominent Acinetobacter clonal complexes in the country. The findings of this study would be valuable in understanding the genomic epidemiology of A. baumannii clones and their association with closely related pathogenic species like A. nosocomialis in Bangladesh. 2022, The Author(s).This work was funded by North South University Conference Travel and Research Grants (NSU CTRG) Committee under the grant number: NSU-RP-18-042.Scopu

OpenSession: SDN-based cross-layer multi-stream management protocol for 3D teleimmersion

Abstract—Video conferencing applications pose fundamentally different service requirements than traditional data traffic on the Internet. Strong real-time interactivity is very important among participants unlike video streaming in VoD applications. Requirements are even more stringent in multi-stream and multi-site teleimmersive applications due to strong dependencies across geographically distributed streams. In this paper, we propose OpenSession, a cross-layer session-network control protocol for multi-stream multi-site 3D teleimmersion (3DTI) that improves interactivity, resource utilization and scalability. OpenSession decouples application layer data and control plane functionalities, and partially offloads the data plane functionalities to network layer switches. To control network layer switches during the session run-time, OpenSession leverages support from Software Defined Networking (e.g., OpenFlow). Through extensive evalua-tion with multi-stream 3D teleimmersion among four distributed sites and PlanetLab-based larger 3DTI setup, we show that OpenSession improves 3DTI interactivity and resource usage at the data plane. Furthermore, OpenSession keeps data plane robust against host failures and frequent route updates. I

Reasons for refusing orthognathic surgery by orthodontic patients: a cross-sectional survey

Objectives: To find out the most common reasons for refusing orthognathic surgery and to compare the responses along gender lines and in terms of open-ended and closed-ended approaches. Method: The cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted from August to December 2020 at the Orthodontics Department of Bahria University Medical and Dental College, Karachi, Pakistan, and comprised of patients who were planned for but refused orthognathic surgical treatment between January 2018 and July 2020. Data was collected through telephone-based interviews to record reasons of avoiding orthognathic surgery. The data-collection tool had both open-ended and closed-ended questions. Data was analysed using SPSS 23. Results: Of the 60 patients, 42(70%) were females and 18(30%) were males with a mean age range of 23.25±2.19years. Overall, 19(31.7%) patients avoided surgery due to additional expense, while post-operative pain was cited as a reason by 35(58.3%) patients. Males were 9 times more concerned about their dental alignment compared to females (p=0.005). Fear of tooth injury (p<0.0001) and intra-operation and post-operation bleeding (p<0.0001) were found twice in males than females. Conclusion: The most common reasons for refusal to have orthognathic surgery were increased cost and post-operative pain. Males were more concerned about dental alignment and had higher fear of post-surgical tooth injury and intra- and post-operative bleeding compared to the females. Key Words: Orthognathic surgery, Maxillo-mandibular surgery, Jaw abnormalities, Intraoperative complications, Post-operative complications, Post-surgical pain, Haemorrhage