A simple method to reduce infection of ventriculoperitoneal shunts Clinical article

Object: Postoperative shunt infection is the most common and feared complication of ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt placement for treatment of hydrocephalus. The rate of shunt infection is highest in the 1st postoperative month. The most common organisms responsible for shunt infection include coagulase-negative Staphylococcus and Staphylococcus aureus. This suggests a transfer of Patient\u27s skin flora via the surgeons\u27 glove as a possible means of infection. The authors conducted a study to determine if the rate of postoperative shunt infections could be reduced simply by changing gloves before handling the shunt catheter. Methods: A total of 111 neonates born with congenital hydrocephalus requiring a VP shunt were enrolled retrospectively and divided into 2 groups: a control group of 54 neonates treated with standard protocol VP shunt placement (Group A) and a treatment group of 57 neonates in whom, after initially double gloving, the outer pair of gloves was removed before handling the shunt catheter (Group B). Shunt infection rates were compared up to 6 months postoperatively. Results: There was a statistically significant reduction of infection rate from 16.33% in Group A (control) to 3.77% in Group B (p = 0.0458). Conclusions: The study shows that a changing of gloves before handling the shunt catheter may be a simple and cost-effective way to reduce the burden of postoperative shunt infections

Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability Governance and Sustainable Performance: A Preliminary Insight

This conceptual paper aims to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) practises in the tourism sector. Drawing on the existing literature, this study conceptualises the linkage between CSR, sustainability governance, and sustainable performance. Moreover, this study conceptualises three sub-dimensions of CSR. The integration of CSR in the tourism sector is significant and novel. An analytical review is conducted to present conceptual linkage and research implications. The finding implies that CSR positively influences the sustainable performance of organisations and sustainable governance plays a mediating role between relationships. This study provides important implications that help tourism industry practitioners to realise the significance of reducing environmental and social problems, which cause by tourism activities. Further, this study obtains support from institutional theory to explain the relationships of governance mechanism and CSR that leads to economic performance as well as create value for nature and the local community. Additionally, the future direction of research is provided that highlights some important avenues in the sustainability fiel

Factors influencing intention to create new venture among young graduates

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that are influencing the young graduates for intention to create new venture. The study further highlights how the attraction, networking support, entrepreneurial capabilities, self-independence and self-reliance influence the young students to initiate their new businesses. The sample size of this study was 255 final semester students of various disciplines in different universities from Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The survey based questionnaire was used for data collection. Based on findings this study concludes that all variables, included in the study, play a vital role in new venture creation. Therefore, on the basis of findings this study concludes that young students are more motivated towards new venture creation and start their own businesses.Influencing factors, new venture creation, different disciplines, young graduates, motivation

PLANNED BEHAVIOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INTENTION TO CREATE A NEW VENTURE AMONG YOUNG GRADUATES

This paper attempts to investigate whether young graduates possess the leadership style that is pre-requisite to become entrepreneur. The paper further examines the role of higher education towards the desire of new venture creation among young graduates in developing economies specially. This study analyzed the response of 225 final-semester students at different universities in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore. A questionnaire based survey instrument was used. Result of the present study shows that education and new venture creation are positively and significantly correlated. The results further indicate that all variables used in this study are significantly correlated with intention to create a new venture. The limitation of this study is that it includes business and economics discipline students only. Further studies may investigate and examine the possibilities of similar outcomes among students of other disciplines including science, engineering, medicine, agriculture and law etc. The present study will, however, provide insight to future policy makers and planners to consider strategies for optimally utilizing the expertise and potentials of the young graduates. The academicians, educators, and university authorities have rethink what to teach? How to teach? In order to effectively prepare-young generation for the forthcoming challenges.entrepreneurship, leadership style, new venture creation, planned behavior, young graduates.

RF MEMS Based Tunable Bowtie Shaped Substrate Integrated Waveguide Filter

A tunable bandpass filter based on a technique that utilizes substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) and double coupling is presented. The SIW based bandpass filter is implemented using a bowtie shaped resonator structure. The bowtie shaped filter exhibits similar performance as found in rectangular and circular shaped SIW based bandpass filters. This concept reduces the circuit foot print of SIW; along with miniaturization high quality factor is maintained by the structure. The design methodology for single-pole triangular resonator structure is presented. Two different inter-resonator couplings of the resonators are incorporated in the design of the two-pole bowtie shaped SIW bandpass filter, and switching between the two couplings using a packaged RF MEMS switch delivers the tunable filter. A tunning of 1 GHz is achieved for two frequency states of 6.3 and 7.3 GHz. The total size of the circuit is 70mm x 36mm x 0.787 mm (LxWxH)

Robust Smoothing for Estimating Optical Phase Varying as a Continuous Resonant Process

Continuous phase estimation is known to be superior in accuracy as compared to static estimation. The estimation process is, however, desired to be made robust to uncertainties in the underlying parameters. Here, homodyne phase estimation of coherent and squeezed states of light, evolving continuously under the influence of a second-order resonant noise process, are made robust to parameter uncertainties using a robust fixed-interval smoother, designed for uncertain systems satisfying a certain integral quadratic constraint. We observe that such a robust smoother provides improved worst-case performance over the optimal smoother and also performs better than a robust filter for the uncertain system.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings of the 2014 European Control Conference, pp. 896-90

A Corrugated SIW Based Slot Antenna for Terahertz Application

This paper proposes a Corrugated Substrate Integrated Waveguide (CSIW) based slot antenna for THz application. A CPW to CSIW transition is realized and the antenna operates around 0.9 THz. The antenna uses Cyclo Olefin Copolymer (COC) as a dielectric material which exhibit a loss tangent of 0.0007 at THz frequencies. The proposed slot antenna has realized gain of 5.9 dB when using Gold. The radiation, as well as total efficiency of the antenna, is around 50% using Gold which increases to 85% with a gain of 7.6 dB by replacing it with Graphene