Staff Development Needs In Pakistan Higher Education

Staff development is very significant for the achievement of overall goals of higher education in Pakistan. The success of innovations depends largely upon the skills of instructors; but in Pakistan, the people with a simple masters degree (without any pedagogical training) are  inducted as teaching staff at the university level, so it is time to explore whether or not the inducted teachers feel the need for training. Further to be explored are areas in which they are interested in being trained. Therefore, the objectives of study were 1) to explore the training needs for university teaching staff, 2) to identify the areas in which development is needed by the teaching staff of the universities in Pakistan, and 3) formulation of recommendations for staff development in Pakistan to improve education at the higher level.  The sample comprised of 20% randomly-selected teaching staff of ten selected universities, degree-awarding institutions from the public sector, and 40% teaching staff of ten selected universities from the private sector. A self-developed questionnaire, consisting of 41 items to be responded to on a five-point Likert scale and two open-ended questions, was used to collect data.  The principal researcher approached all the respondents personally by repeated visits and got the completed questionnaires, so this questionnaire also served the purpose of an interview. The analysis of data revealed that the university teachers need training in the following areas: philosophy of education, Islamic philosophy of education, educational psychology, research techniques, professional trends, professional competencies, professional attitude, professional ethics ,global innovations in teaching strategies, classroom management, counselling and guidance, student discipline, communication skills, learning theories, and supervision. Therefore, it is recommended that they may be included in the training curriculum of university teachers

Assessment of potential drug–drug interactions and its associated factors in the hospitalized cardiac patients

AbstractDrug–drug interactions (DDIs) may result in the alteration of therapeutic response. Sometimes they may increase the untoward effects of many drugs. Hospitalized cardiac patients need more attention regarding drug–drug interactions due to complexity of their disease and therapeutic regimen. This research was performed to find out types, prevalence and association between various predictors of potential drug–drug interactions (pDDIs) in the Department of Cardiology and to report common interactions. This study was performed in the hospitalized cardiac patients at Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad, Pakistan. Patient charts of 2342 patients were assessed for pDDIs using Micromedex® Drug Information. Logistic regression was applied to find predictors of pDDIs. The main outcome measure in the study was the association of the potential drug–drug interactions with various factors such as age, gender, polypharmacy, and hospital stay of the patients. We identified 53 interacting-combinations that were present in total 5109 pDDIs with median number of 02 pDDIs per patient. Overall, 91.6% patients had at least one pDDI; 86.3% were having at least one major pDDI, and 84.5% patients had at least one moderate pDDI. Among 5109 identified pDDIs, most were of moderate (55%) or major severity (45%); established (24.2%), theoretical (18.8%) or probable (57%) type of scientific evidence. Top 10 common pDDIs included 3 major and 7 moderate interactions. Results obtained by multivariate logistic regression revealed a significant association of the occurrence of pDDIs in patient with age of 60years or more (p<0.001), hospital stay of 7days or longer (p<0.001) and taking 7 or more drugs (p<0.001). We found a high prevalence for pDDIs in the Department of Cardiology, most of which were of moderate severity. Older patients, patients with longer hospital stay and with elevated number of prescribed drugs were at higher risk of pDDIs

Challenges and practices identification in complex outsourcing relationships: A systematic literature review

Complex IT outsourcing relationships aptitude several benefits such as increased cost likelihood and lowered costs, higher scalability and flexibility upon demand. However, by virtue of its complexity, the complex outsourcing typically necessitates the interactions among various stakeholders from diverse regions and cultures, making it significantly more challenging to manage than traditional outsourcing. Furthermore, when compared to other types of outsourcing, complex outsourcing is extremely difficult because it necessitates a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which proportionally increases the risk of project failure. In order to overcome the failure of projects in complex outsourcing relationships, there is a need of robust systematic research to identify the key challenges and practices in this area. Therefore, this research implements systematic literature review as a research method and works as a pioneer attempt to accomplish the aforementioned objectives. Upon furnishing the SLR results, the authors identified 11 major challenges with 67 practices in hand from a total of 85 papers. Based on these findings, the authors intend to construct a comprehensive framework in the future by incorporating robust methodologies such as AHP and fuzzy logic, among others.Qatar National Library and Qatar University - grant No. IRCC- 2021-010

The evaluation of various soil conditioners effects on the amelioration of saline-sodic soil

The soil salinity and sodicity collectively are the major problems in the soils of Pakistan and proved a continuous threat for the sustainability of agriculture.  A pot study was planned to ameliorate such problematic soils and for this purpose different soil conditioners were used viz. gypsum @ 39.078 g pot-1 soil gypsum requirement, Citric acid (CA) @ 29.067 g pot-1, H2SO4 @ 11.24 ml pot-1 and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) @ 19.98 g pot-1 and control without any amendment and wheat was grown as a test crop. The results showed that maximum decrease in pH and SAR were 8.31 and 12.04 (mmol L-1)1/2 by application of H2SO4 and citric acid respectively. Similarly H2SO4 and citric acid treatment show significant results related to crop growth and yield. The maximum plant height (63.33cm), number of tillers (4.63), photosynthetic rate ((2.83 µmolm-2s-1), transpiration rate (0.63 molm-2s-1), stomata conductance (0.53 molm-2s-1), were by application of H2SO4. while the results related to grain yield were as maximum grain yield by H2SO4 was (15.67 g) and minimum grain yield was observed with control (6.73g). Moreover the decrease in grain yield was as H2SO4 (9.98 g) &gt; citric acid (8.33 g) &gt; PVA (7.36 g) &gt; gypsum (6.12 g) &gt; control (5.53g). From this experiment it was concluded that H2SO4 showed quick impact on soil physicochemical properties and growth parameters but gypsum and citric acid were long term and sustainable source to reclaim and to make saline-sodic soils more productive as compare to other soil conditioners. Keywords: soil conditioners, amelioration, saline-sodic soi

A study on the effects of social media advertisement on consumer’s attitude and customer response

Given that Social Media Advertising put significant impact on Consumer’s attitude and shapes Customer’s buying behavior, so the managers of manufacturing industries of Pakistan should use the social media platform for their marketing activities. Concisely, we’ve got validated that Social media is becoming highly significant also as convenient for the businesses and helping them in using it as a tool for marketing, external promotions, customer management, and as an inside channel for employee communications. The study was involved with survey and analysis was conducted based on a total of 500 responses whereas most of the respondents were students who had experience in business sector and linked industry. The analysis used structural equation modeling to test the research model and hypothesis. The findings imply that Social Media Advertisement had significant impact on Consumer Attitude and Customer Response in business success, so the managers of manufacturing/business industries of Pakistan should use the social media platform for their marketing activities. As far as delimitations are concerned, this research focused on Social Media Advertising effects on consumer’s attitude and shapes customer buying behavior irrespective of other marketing tools. However, the data was collected from limited number of respondents, the study may contain biasness/unfairness because the results are self-reported and respondents may have answered inaccurately which may make the results less convincing

Laparoscopy Versus Laparotomy in the Management of Ectopic Pregnancy

Objective: To compare the outcome of laparoscopy with laparotomy in the management of ectopic pregnancy (EP), both ruptured and un-ruptured. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Department of obstetrics and gynecology at multiple centers in Sahiwal, Bahawalpur and Multan, during the period from January 2015 to June 2017. Total no. of 167 patients of ectopic pregnancy were included in our study. Of these 167 patients, 32 came with ruptured ectopic pregnancy and other 135 with un-ruptured EP. Following outcome variables were collected; operative time, complications, estimated blood loss and postoperative hospital stay. Mean and standard deviation was calculated for demographic variables while frequency and percentage was calculated for outcome variables and association of these variables with groups was checked using computer software SPSS version 16. p value &lt; 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: Out of total 167 patients, ruptured EP was found in 19.2% and non-ruptured in 80.8% patients. Regarding blood transfusion and need of analgesia, significant association (p=0.000) was found between laparoscopy and laparotomy. As compared to laparotomy, during laparoscopy large number of patients did not require blood transfusion ((95.3%) and analgesia (64.1%). Regarding total operating time, duration of hospital’s stay and estimated blood loss, significant difference (p=0.000) was found between the two groups. Conclusion: Postoperative outcomes suggested that laparoscopy proved to be more efficient regarding blood loss, need for blood transfusion, need for analgesia and duration of postoperative hospital stay as compared to laparotomy.&nbsp

Toxicities, kinetics and degradation pathways investigation of ciprofloxacin degradation using iron-mediated H\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e based advanced oxidation processes

© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers Ciprofloxacin (CIP) is a widespread emerging water pollutant and thus its removal from aquatic environment is vital. The use of Fe3+/H2O2 and Fe2+/H2O2 resulted in 38 and 64% removal of CIP (8.0 ppm), respectively, within 80 min reaction time (pH 5.8, [H2O2]0 = 80 ppm, and [iron]0 = 20 ppm). Low pH, high temperature, high dose of H2O2 and Fe2+, and low CIP concentration facilitated removal of CIP. The radical scavenger studies proved in situ generated [rad]OH to be involved primarily in the removal of CIP. The effect of temperature was used to estimate enthalpy and activation energies of the removal of CIP. At 800 min reaction time, the Fe2+/H2O2 resulted in 54% mineralization of CIP using 16.0 ppm [CIP]0, 320.0 ppm [H2O2]0, and 40.0 ppm [Fe2+]0. The potential degradation pathways of CIP established from the degradation of CIP by [rad]OH and products evolved was found to be initiated at C6 through the loss of fluoride ion. The acute and chronic toxicities of CIP and its degradation products were estimated with the final product found to be non-toxic. The results suggest that Fe2+/H2O2-mediated AOPs have high potential for degradation as well as toxicity elimination of CIP and its degradation products

QUALITY CONTROL ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF DIFFERENT MARKET BRANDS OF CIPROFLOXACIN

Dose structures are basically pharmaceutical items in the structure in which they are showcased for use, normally including a blend of dynamic medication parts and nondrug segments (excipients), alongside other non-reusable material that may not be considered either fixing or bundling, (for example, a container shell, for instance). The term unit measurements can now and then envelop non-reusable bundling too (particularly when every medication item is exclusively packaged. Different measurements structures might exist for a solitary specific medication, since various medicinal conditions can warrant distinctive courses of organization. For instance, steady queasiness and heaving might make it hard to utilize an oral dose structure, and in such a case, it might be important to use a backup course of action, for example, inhalational, buccal, sublingual, nasal, suppository or parenteral. The primary objective was in vitro comparative study of 5 different brands of Ciprofloxacin Tablets available in markets of Pakistan by The in vitro comparative study of 5 different brands of Ciprofloxacin Tablets available in markets of Pakistan Weight variation Test, Disintegration Test, Hardness Test, Chemical Assay and In vitro dissolution study was conducted. After conducting color, friability, weight variation, hardness test and disintegration tests of various brands of Ciprofloxacin, the results were found under the acceptance range. The hardness showed variation among the tablets of various brands but there was no significant variation of hardness among the tablets of same brand. The Axcin indicated maximum drug potency (102%) and (101%) respectively while minimum potency was 93.07%. The in-vitro evaluation of 5 different F.P.Ps of Ciprofloxacin HCl film coated tablets available in the pharmaceutical market of Pakistan showed that all of brands of Ciprofloxacin satisfied the USP potency specifications and showed evidences of satisfactory initial in-vitro dissolution behavior