Cognitive Learning Theory and Development: Higher Education Case Study

Cognitive skills facilitate thinking, reading, and learning, as well as retaining information, reasoning, and responding. Theories of cognitive development attempt to explain how humans develop and change from infancy to old age. Cognitive control suppresses inappropriate habitual actions simultaneously by choosing thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to meet task demands. This chapter is a compilation of major theories on cognitive development, both earlier and contemporary. A longitudinal study was conducted at Mazoon College, Sultanate of Oman. Six different sections of the authors’ own classes were chosen as subjects of study to include 176 students (mixed ability learners) who were taking preparatory English language courses for bachelor’s degrees. Over three semesters, 14 months of data were collected. During reading and writing exercises, learners were required to abstract, think, hypothesize, and draw conclusions. Experimental and control groups were compared in this study. The results of the research found that it is beneficial for learners to take courses that link to their cognitive abilities, as this will help them to develop more positively. Study results confirm that studying provides opportunities to develop new skills and broaden one’s knowledge base. Student thoughts on learning and achievement are evoked by English as a second language

Outcome of Surgical Treatment for Lumber Disc Herniation Causing Painful Incomplete Foot-Drop

Objective:  To determine the outcome of surgical treatment for lumder disc herniation causing the painful incomplete foot drop. Material and Methods:  This retrospective observational study was conducted at the Department of Neurosurgery Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar. Both Male and female patients with lumbar disc disease causing unilateral incomplete painful foot drop were included in our study. Patients with complete or painless foot drop, bilateral foot-drop, Multiple level disc prolapse, cauda equina syndrome or sciatic neuropathy due to injection injury were excluded. Patients were followed was post-operatively in terms of power in foot dorsiflexion, medical research council (MRC) grade and pain relief  on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) after 1 month and then after 6 months. Results: Total number of patients included were 43. Age was ranging from 18 years to 54 years and mean age was 33 years. Before surgery,  power of MRC grade 3 or less, but greater than 1 in dorsiflexion was noted in all patients. The pain was scaled using VAS. Post peratively, at 1 month follow up, the foot-drop improved to MRC grade 4 or 5 along with pain relief of ≥ 2 points on VAS in 81. 4% (n = 35) patients and at 6 month follow-up, the figure rose to 93% (n = 40). Conclusion:  Lumbar disc disease can cause a debilitating foot-drop and pain. Improving or restoring a neurology early surgical intervention has proven benefits

Filtering Dishonest Trust Recommendations in Trust Management Systems in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Trust recommendations, having a pivotal role in computation of trust and hence confidence in peer to peer (P2P) environment, if hampered, may entail in colossal attacks from dishonest recommenders such as bad mouthing, ballot stuffing, random opinion etc. Therefore, mitigation of dishonest trust recommendations is stipulated as a challenging research issue in P2P systems (esp in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks). In order to cater these challenges associated with dishonest trust recommendations, a technique named “intelligently Selection of Trust Recommendations based on Dissimilarity factor (iSTRD)” has been devised for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks.  iSTRD exploits  personal experience of an “evaluating node” in conjunction with majority vote of the recommenders. It successfully removes the recommendations of “low trustworthy recommenders” as well as dishonest recommendations of “highly trustworthy recommenders”. Efficacy of proposed approach is evident from enhanced accuracy of “recognition rate”, “false rejection” and “false acceptance”.  Moreover, experiential results depict that iSTRD has unprecedented performance compared to contemporary techniques in presence of attacks asserted

Pakistani Elite Press and Public Agenda: The Case of Women Social Issues

This study attempts to find the correlation between the coverage of social issues of women by Pakistani elite press and the preferences of its readers regarding the coverage. The results show that Pakistani elite press has its own policy to give space and prominence by covering social issues of women in its contents and its readers are not agreed with its policy. The policy adopted by both dailies is different from each other. The News did not give more space and prominence to the issues in its coverage. The issues of murder and rape are on the top in the list of the agenda of The News. On the other hand, The daily Dawn has a policy to highlight the issues by covering them with more space and prominence. The issues of murder and women rights are on the top in the list of the agenda of Dawn. While in perspective of audience characteristics, the readers those higher in age, education, belong to social sciences, female, and married comparatively have more correspondence with the agenda of the dailies. The issues of murder, rape, and women rights have received maximum coverage by Pakistani elite press in overall coverage. Keywords: Elite, Newspapers, Women, Social, Issues, Dawn, New

Capacity Dimensioning of HSDPA Urban Network

To launch a cellular network, prelaunch capacity dimensioning is performed which includes coverage estimation and throughput prediction. Cellular companies in developing countries like Pakistan are only providing 2G services, while 3G services are yet to be launched. Although a lot of research has been done on 3G services in developed countries but there is very little knowledge regarding practical aspects of planning and optimization of 3G networks in third world countries like Pakistan. This research paper includes a thorough analysis of factors that affect capacity of 3G networks, including radio propagation models. Various propagation models are studied and propagation constants of Standard Propagation Model are tuned according to topography of Islamabad. The performance analysis of these propagation models is done using Matlab and results are verified through planning tool Atoll and field measurements. Based on analysis of these results capacity dimensioning, in terms of number of sites, is carried out for an urban network of Islamabad

Long-term clinical outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention in saphenous vein grafts in a low to middle-income country

Background: Revascularization of saphenous vein grafts (SVGs) is challenging and debated for the last few decades. The percutaneous revascularization of SVGs was reported to have poorer long-term outcomes than native coronary artery revascularization.Purpose: We aim to study the peri-procedural complications and long-term outcomes of the percutaneous revascularization of SVGs in a low-middle-income country.Methods: In this retrospective study, we included 110 patients who underwent percutaneous revascularization from January 2011 to March 2020 and followed them retrospectively for long-term outcomes and major adverse cardiovascular events.Results: The mean age was 71 ±9, and 81% were male. The most common reason for the presentation was non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) (46%). The mean follow-up period of the study was 48±27 months. The most common comorbidity was hypertension (86%). A drug-eluting stent (80%) was placed in most of the patients, followed by a bare-metal stent (BMS) (14%) and percutaneous balloon angioplasty (POBA) (6%). We did not find any significant difference in major adverse cardiac events (MACE) (P=0.48), target vessel revascularization (TVR) (p=0.69), and target lesion revascularization (TLR) (p=0.54) with drug-eluting stent (DES) as compared to either BMS or POBA. The mean period from coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) to SVG percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was 15± 5.5 years. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) event, stroke, and female sex were independently associated with MACE.Conclusion: The long-term outcomes of SVG PCI are not affected by the types of stents. Female gender, ACS, and stroke are the independent predictors of MACE after SVG PCI, and statin therapy has a positive impact on the long-term outcomes of SVG PCI

Deep learning applications in neuro-oncology

Deep learning (DL) is a relatively newer subdomain of machine learning (ML) with incredible potential for certain applications in the medical field. Given recent advances in its use in neuro-oncology, its role in diagnosing, prognosticating, and managing the care of cancer patients has been the subject of many research studies. The gamut of studies has shown that the landscape of algorithmic methods is constantly improving with each iteration from its inception. With the increase in the availability of high-quality data, more training sets will allow for higher fidelity models. However, logistical and ethical concerns over a prospective trial comparing prognostic abilities of DL and physicians severely limit the ability of this technology to be widely adopted. One of the medical tenets is judgment, a facet of medical decision making in DL that is often missing because of its inherent nature as a black box. A natural distrust for newer technology, combined with a lack of autonomy that is normally expected in our current medical practices, is just one of several important limitations in implementation. In our review, we will first define and outline the different types of artificial intelligence (AI) as well as the role of AI in the current advances of clinical medicine. We briefly highlight several of the salient studies using different methods of DL in the realm of neuroradiology and summarize the key findings and challenges faced when using this nascent technology, particularly ethical challenges that could be faced by users of DL

Reorganising for COVID-19 pandemic: A review of structural modifications by the department of internal medicine in low to middle-income countries

Scientists classified the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a novel coronavirus on January 7, 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged the SARS-CoV-2 outburst a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020. Since its origin, this virus has disrupted the best healthcare systems, economies, and strained financial resources; and for underdeveloped countries\u27 healthcare systems, the virus has become a crisis. To tackle the potential hazards from this virus, our Department restructured the services that not only helped us to cope with the pandemic, but also provided an example to copy for other contemporary institutes. This article aims to describe the measures and structural changes undertaken by the Internal Medicine Department, Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Karachi, Pakistan. Key Words: COVID-19, Internal medicine, Structural modifications, Pandemic

Perforated appendix! An experience of a Public teaching hospital

Introduction  The most common cause of non-traumatic acute abdominal pain as well as the most common acute abdominal condition presenting to Surgical Emergency is none other than Acute Appendicitis hence it becomes the most common entity undergoing surgery in Emergencies all over the world. The lifetime risk for someone to develop acute appendicitis is 8.6% and 6.7% for males and females respectively, with 90% found in children and young adults and 10% in patients over 60 years of age.1 Increasing age or in other words decreasing immunity does affect the incidence of perforated appendix as we see the  the perforation rate in acute appendicitis is approximately 20~30%  but as the age goes beyond 60 years it inclines to  32-72%.2 Delay in the diagnosis caused by indefinite  history and physical examination  tends to contribute to higher incidence of perforated appendix as reported by Siripong et al. In another study the risk factors that were found to be associated with perforated appendicitis were male sex, fever ≥ 38°C, anorexia, and duration of pain in the pre-admission period.3 In one of the the study pre-hospital delays were exceeding related to perforation as compared to in-hospital delays which was explainable because of a linear relationship present among the pathological grade  to hospital interval ratio , thus leading to increased risk of perforation.4 As far as the blood work was concerned , an increase in Total Leucocyte count with majority being polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN), and raised C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were found to be responsible for substantial increment in the  risk and gravity of complications in appendicitis. Presence of comorbid diseases didn't show any significant affect on perforation rate.5