The Influence of Epidural Steroids on Postoperative Pain and Hospital Stay in Patients Having a Single-Level Lumbar Discectomy

Objective:   In this study, we looked at how intra-operative epidural steroids affected postoperative pain and stay duration in patients with unilateral single-level lumbar discectomy. Material & Methods:  A randomized control trial was conducted at Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad. Group A (n = 30) was given intraoperative epidural methylprednisolone, while group B (n = 30) was given normal saline only. The outcome was measured between the two groups in terms of postoperative pain (visual analog scale), time of mobilization, length of hospital stay, and duration to return to work. Results:  At discharge, the VAS score in group A was 0.40 compared to 2.4 in group B (p = 0.000). At 2 weeks follow-up, the mean VAS score was 1.10 in group A in contrast to 1.4 in group B (p = 0.001). Patients who received local epidural methylprednisolone were mobilized after an average of 1 day, stayed for an average of 1.16 days, and returned to work following 18.2 days, whereas patients in the control group were mobilized after an average of 1.2 days, stayed for an average of 1.86 days and returned to work following 25.9 days. An incidental Dural tear occurs in 2 cases. Conclusion:  Intra-operative epidural steroid is beneficial in reducing post-operative pain, hospital stay, and time to return to work. It allows early mobilization with enhanced recovery and few complications

Comparison of One vs. Two Burr Hole Craniostomy in Chronic Subdural Hematoma Recurrence

Introduction/Objective:  Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) is most frequent neurosurgical conditions. To find the recurrence rate of chronic subdural hematoma in patients who underwent one vs. two burr craniostomy. Material And Methods:  A randomized controlled trial was conducted at the Neurosurgery department, Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad. In the current study, a total of 76 (38 in each group) patients were observed. ASA-I, ASA-II, ASA III patients, symptomatic radiologically proven Chronic subdural hematoma. Patients were randomly allocated into two groups of 38 patients each. randomization with blocks. Group A was treated with intraoperative epidural methylprednisolone while Group B was treated with normal saline only. Clinical information was recorded on a pre-designed proforma. Results:  Mean age was 54 years in group A, and 56 years in group B. In group A, 74% were male and 26% of patients were female. In Group B, 76% were male and 24% were female. The group A, 5% of patients had recurrence while in Group B, 13% of patients had a recurrence. There existed a significant difference between effectiveness and not-effectiveness of one/two burr hole craniostomy among patients who were less than 40 years. Conclusion:  The recurrence rate of chronic subdural hematoma is higher in patients undergoing two burr hole craniostomy as compared to one burr craniostomy

Energy analysis for replacing fossil fuel energy source of electricity wtih solar cells in the UK and Kurdistan, Iraq

Energy is a vital resource required for the operation of any business. Currently, the vast majority of businesses use electricity derived for non-renewable fossil fuels, which are expected to run out at its current rate of expenditure and causing substantial environmental damage threatening the future generations. In the UK if the current energy source used by small and medium enterprises (SME’s) could be replaced by solar energy then damage to the environment can be prevented and reduce costs as solar cells become more efficient. Solar cells involve harnessing the energy from the sun to generate electricity. In this study a methodology has been developed to compare a model micro-business in Manchester, UK and Kurdistan, Iraq. The comparison shows quantatively that even though Kurdistan, Iraq is abundant in oil and gas its climatic conditions favour the implementation of solar cells. Therefore, it is more feasible to replace the existing non-renewable fossil fuel sources with solar cells in Iraq due to greater solar radiation striking the earth’s surface. Our research suggests that solar cells can replace a reasonable amount of the energy requirements even in Manchester, UK and a much higher proportion in Kurdistan, Iraq. Using existing 20% efficient silicon solar cells we can replace 28% and 88% of the energy requirements of the micro business in UK and Kurdistan, Iraq respectively

Impact of Bank Profitability on Default Risk: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

This empirical study investigates the effect of the bank-specific determinants of bank profitability on the default risk of the banks listed on the Stock Exchange of Pakistan. For this purpose, the study considers balanced panel data covering the period 2009-2018 for the 20 selected commercial banks of Pakistan, and the probability of default is used to measure the default risk of these banks. The bank profitability is measured using bank-specific determinants such as the net interest margin, non-interest income to total assets, return on assets, return on equity, and spread ratios. The empirical findings of the fixed effects model reported that net interest margin, non-interest income, and spread ratio are the significant determinants of default risk. The findings highlight that the bank profitability determinants can act as early warning signs of a bank’s deteriorating stability level. The study recommended that the central bank of Pakistan should guide the commercial banks to disclose the probability of default values in their financial reports. The study also suggested that the risk management department of a bank should consider these bank-specific determinants of profitability to manage default risk

A Comprehensive Survey on Word Representation Models: From Classical to State-Of-The-Art Word Representation Language Models

Word representation has always been an important research area in the history of natural language processing (NLP). Understanding such complex text data is imperative, given that it is rich in information and can be used widely across various applications. In this survey, we explore different word representation models and its power of expression, from the classical to modern-day state-of-the-art word representation language models (LMS). We describe a variety of text representation methods, and model designs have blossomed in the context of NLP, including SOTA LMs. These models can transform large volumes of text into effective vector representations capturing the same semantic information. Further, such representations can be utilized by various machine learning (ML) algorithms for a variety of NLP related tasks. In the end, this survey briefly discusses the commonly used ML and DL based classifiers, evaluation metrics and the applications of these word embeddings in different NLP tasks

Premedication in Surgical Day Care Patients

The purpose of this audit was to find out the efficiencyof our system in providing premedication to surgical daycare patients. This audit was conducted in the Surgical DayCare (SDC) Unit of a University Hospital. All patientsanaesthetised in the SDC unit on day care basis were includedin this audit. Nursing notes and preoperative orders of allpatients to be anaesthetised were checked to see whetherpremedication was given or not and was the timing accordingto the orders written. The result showed that out of 205patients scheduled, twenty (9.7%) patients did not receivepremedication. Only 37.2% of our patients were receivingpremedication according to the orders. The majority of theerrors noted in our audit were system errors related to cancellation,rescheduling and admitting the outpatient in theinpatient ward

Food Habits and Helminth Parasites of Skittering Frog (Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis) in the Lower Dir, Pakistan

A total of 30 specimens of Skittering frog (Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis),(Anura: Dicroglossidae) were captured from seven selected localities inthe Dir Lower, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan from Aprilto August 2016. They were euthanized with the help of Chloroform(CHcl3) solution. The biometry of each specimen was measured, thendissected to examine for helminth parasites and foodstuff. All helminths were isolated, washed with normal saline at room temperature,and then preserved in 70% GL ethyl alcohol. Later on, the parasiteswere classified and studied under the electric compound microscope. Ina total of 30 specimens, 17(56.66%) were found infected with 62 helminths parasites belongs to four different species. Among four species,one was Cestodes Nematotaenia dispar species and remaining threewere Nematodes i.e. Cosmocerca species, Cosmocercoides (Raillietnema species) and Strongyloides species. Cosmocerca with a percentageof 56.45% was the most dominant. In the total of 30 specimens’ alimentary canal, 10 were found empty, containing nothing while in remaining20 were full of 9 types of food materials which included insects i.e.Ants, Beetles, Wasps, Spiders, Mosquito larvae and cockroaches, andnon-living things like stone pebbles and mollusks shells. Among the serial, flies and snails were in the lowest prevalence and ants were recorded the most important component of the frog diet. Among the insects,ants have occurred in higher prevalence 44.50% and flies 1.15% withthe lowest prevalence. The results emphasize the significance of furtherexpected studies in the Dir Lower to get a good understanding of thehelminth parasites with the ecological relations of their hosts

Exploring the Link between Poverty-Pollution-Population (3Ps) in Pakistan: Time Series Evidence

The relationship between poverty, population growth and environment has been widely debated inside the academic circles. There is a general consensus that poverty is a major cause of population growth and environmental degradation and reversely population growth is the major cause of poverty and environmental degradation. The present study examines the impact of poverty on environment (air pollution) and population and reversely the impact of population on environment (air pollution) and poverty in the specific context of Pakistan during a period of 1975-2009. Data is analyzed using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression method and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL)-bounds testing approach to examine the linkage. The results of the OLS test show that rapid population and air pollution has a significant contributor to poverty in Pakistan. However, the results nullify the conventional view that poverty is a major cause of environmental degradation (or air pollution), while the result supports the hypothesis that population have a deleterious impact on increasing poverty. The results of bounds test show that there is a stable long-run relationship between population, poverty and pollution in Pakistan. On the other hand, results of the causality test show that there is a unidirectional causal flow from population to carbon dioxide emission. The post reform period is observed with the estimated coefficient of the poverty dummy variable (POVDUM) which shows that poverty in Pakistan has increased due to deprived performance of federal policies on pro-poor reforms in Pakistan. The post reform period is observed with the population dummy variable (POPDUM) reflecting that population growth has increased significantly during the said reform period. Keywords: Population, Air Pollution, Poverty, Headcount Ratio, Population Dynamics, Carbon Dioxide Emission, Time Series, Bounds Test, Pakistan

Forensic investigation of Cisco WebEx desktop client, web, and Android smartphone applications

Digital forensic analysis of videoconferencing applications has received considerable attention recently, owing to the wider adoption and diffusion of such applications following the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In this contribution, we present a detailed forensic analysis of Cisco WebEx which is among the top three videoconferencing applications available today. More precisely, we present the results of the forensic investigation of Cisco WebEx desktop client, web, and Android smartphone applications. We focus on three digital forensic areas, namely memory, disk space, and network forensics. From the extracted artifacts, it is evident that valuable user data can be retrieved from different data localities. These include user credentials, emails, user IDs, profile photos, chat messages, shared media, meeting information including meeting passwords, contacts, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) keys, keyword searches, timestamps, and call logs. We develop a memory parsing tool for Cisco WebEx based on the extracted artifacts. Additionally, we identify anti-forensic artifacts such as deleted chat messages. Although network communications are encrypted, we successfully retrieve useful artifacts such as IPs of server domains and host devices along with message/event timestamps

Nutraceutical Exploration of Wild Edible Fruits of District Tor Ghar, Nothern Pakistan

The present study deals with the exploration of wild edible fruits consumed by indigenous tribes in district Tor Ghar for curing different ailments. Wild edible fruits are potential source of nutrition and medicine. This is the first ethno-nutraceutical investigation of wild edible fruits of Tor Ghar. Local wisdom was interrogated by group discussions and semi structured interviews to assess the role of wild fruits in healthcare system of the region. Informants were randomly selected from five tribes of the district. It was found that the wild fruits have a great socioeconomic significance owing to their high nutritional and medicinal values. In the current study thirty eight wild edible fruits belonging to 29 genera and 22 families were documented for their ethno-nutraceutical importance. The study also revealed that general body weakness and digestive disorders are mostly cured by consuming wild edible fruits. The highest number of wild edible fruits belong to family Rosaceae (8 plant species). Popularity of wild edible plants among different tribes of Tor Ghar was assessed quantitatively by a statistical relation Fidelity level %age. Fidelity level index shows values for each species in descending order from Jugalans regia( 74.4%) to Buxus wallichiana (17.4%). The most popular wild edible fruit species was found Jugalans regia that scores highest fidelity level value