Burnout among surgeons before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: an international survey

Background: SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had many significant impacts within the surgical realm, and surgeons have been obligated to reconsider almost every aspect of daily clinical practice. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study reported in compliance with the CHERRIES guidelines and conducted through an online platform from June 14th to July 15th, 2020. The primary outcome was the burden of burnout during the pandemic indicated by the validated Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. Results: Nine hundred fifty-four surgeons completed the survey. The median length of practice was 10 years; 78.2% included were male with a median age of 37 years old, 39.5% were consultants, 68.9% were general surgeons, and 55.7% were affiliated with an academic institution. Overall, there was a significant increase in the mean burnout score during the pandemic; longer years of practice and older age were significantly associated with less burnout. There were significant reductions in the median number of outpatient visits, operated cases, on-call hours, emergency visits, and research work, so, 48.2% of respondents felt that the training resources were insufficient. The majority (81.3%) of respondents reported that their hospitals were included in the management of COVID-19, 66.5% felt their roles had been minimized; 41% were asked to assist in non-surgical medical practices, and 37.6% of respondents were included in COVID-19 management. Conclusions: There was a significant burnout among trainees. Almost all aspects of clinical and research activities were affected with a significant reduction in the volume of research, outpatient clinic visits, surgical procedures, on-call hours, and emergency cases hindering the training. Trial registration: The study was registered on clicaltrials.gov "NCT04433286" on 16/06/2020

Estimation of Generalized Logistic Distribution for Financial Data

Risk management of financial assets requires the knowledge of the form of the probability distribution to estimate the probability of extreme price changes. It is not only the shape of the distribution which is important but the methods of estimation also plays a fundamental role to compare the risk-reward tradeoff for different trading strategies with a reasonable adequacy. In the present study the generalized logistic distribution is considered to fit stock market returns of Muscat Securities Market. The extreme quantiles are estimated by the method of probability weighted moments and are compared with that of method of moments.</jats:p

EXPLORING THE DETERMINANTS OF EXTREMISM IN THE UNIVERSITIES OF PAKISTAN

This research explores various enticing factors that help to identify the root causes of extremism among youth, particularly in the higher educational institutions i.e., Universities. This article also addresses the behavioral changing factors of youth studying at the different public sectors universities. Several pieces of previous researches had discussed the extremism, but the relationship between the different variables and factors were unclear. A qualitative method was used to explore the enticing factors of youth extremism and respondents were selected through purposive sampling to examine their belief, views and attitudes towards extremism. Researcher had done twenty focus group discussions (five from each university) with the students of graduate level who were attached with any cartel. The themes were discussed on the bases of information given by respondents about the concepts of extremism, youth extremism, and group extremism in universities. Student groups involved in different activities promoted goals through informal means. Researcher analyses various cases of violent and non-violent incidents in the universities. The study also explored the various factors, which may attract the youth to involve in extreme conflicts. The researcher explores the various factors of youth extremism which encourages youth toward extremism, which are university environment, identity risk and crises, cultural heterogeneity, participation of religious and political groups, ideological crises, students’ psychological issues and bad governance. Keywords: Extremism, University, Cultural Heterogeneity, Identity crisis, Bad Governance</jats:p

A Micellar-Enhanced Spectrofluorimetric Method for the Determination of Ciprofloxacin in Pure Form, Pharmaceutical Preparations and Biological Samples

Abstract A simple, fast and interference free spectrofluorimetric method was developed for the quantification of ciprofloxacin in its pure form, pharmaceutical preparations and in human plasma. The method is based on the enhancement of the weak fluorescence signal of drugs by the addition of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) surfactant micelles in citrate buffer at pH 5.5. Different experimental parameters like buffers, surfactant type and concentration were investigated. The fluorescence intensity of ciprofloxacin was measured at 446 nm (emission) and at 328 nm (excitation). A linear relationship between concentration of ciprofloxacin and fluorescence intensity was found in the range of 0.04 μg/mL–6.0 μg/mL with a correlation coefficient of 0.9946. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were calculated and found to be 3.87 × 10−5 and 1.29 × 10−4 μg/mL respectively. The effect of common excipients and co-administered drugs were also investigated and the method was found free of interferences. The method was successfully applied for the determination of ciprofloxacin in pharmaceutical preparations and human plasma with percentage recoveries of 97.08 % to 99.32 % and 95.00 % to 101.25 % respectively.</jats:p

English Reading Difficulties and Strategies for Improvement at Primary Level: A Phenomenological Study

English is an alien language. The teachers and students are facing difficulties in reading competency regarding, comprehension, speed, shyness, stuttering and stammering, jerks, fluency, pronunciation, accent intonation, and stress. The purpose of the study is to explore the difficulties in English reading competency and to develop strategies for the improvement of reading competency at the primary level. The key objectives of the study were to explore the difficulties in reading competency and to develop strategies for the improvement of reading competency of 5th-grade students at the primary level. These research questions were framed. What are the difficulties in reading competency faced by 5th-grade students? What strategies are needed to develop the reading competency of 5th-grade students? The study was qualitative and phenomenological in nature. The study was carried out through interviews with primary-level teachers and 5th-grade students. The sample was 12 participants, 6 were teachers and 6 were 5th-grade students. The analysis of the gathered data was made with the thematic analysis of Clarke and Braun (2019). Major findings were that students’ lack of interest, mal-recruitment of engineers, MBA degree holders and lack of relevant educational background, adhocism, contract appointment and hiring teachers’ trend, poor and uneducated parents and incompetency of teachers in the subject of English were the key difficulties in reading competency. These strategies were recommended. The teachers may be recruited who have Master's degrees in English with educational qualifications like B.Ed., M.Ed., MPhil, and Ph.D. in English or education. It was recommended that English Language teachers must provide basic reading skills to students to equip themselves with reading strategies for improvement in reading skills. It is also suggested that teachers may be given refresher programs through English experts for the improvement of reading competency.</jats:p

Analysis of Stochastic Patterns of Daily Minimum Extreme Temperature of Karachi in Global Climate Change Perspective

Effects of climate change are a critical and globally accepted phenomenon and gradually becoming inevitable and catching the attention of policymakers around the world. Temperature is a principal climatic factor and is defined as the degree or intensity of heat causing huge consequences on human beings’ lives. This paper suggests some stochastic approaches to do an analysis of the Karachi region’s daily minimum extreme temperature from Jan 1, 2010, to Dec 31, 2014. It is observed that the average daily minimum temperature fits the Markov chain and its limiting probability has reached steady-state conditions after 20 to 87 steps or transitions. The results indicate that after 20 to 87 days the distribution becomes stationary. The smaller steady-state time represents the stationary of the data series, whereas long-term behavior shows non-stationarity in trend behavior in the respective seasonal time series. Furthermore, the overall annual dormancy of 24 o C to 31o C daily minimum temperature was analyzed early part of the summer season. This study can be useful for weather variability forecasting.</jats:p

Challenges for implementing WFME standards for accreditation in health professions education in low and middle-income countries: a scoping review

Abstract&#x0D; The accreditation standards developed by WFME are acknowledged as regulatory mechanism for quality assurance of medical education programs. The scoping review aims to collect all the published and unpublished evidence based on the inclusion criteria, to identify the barriers affecting the implementation of quality curriculum defined by WFME. It summarizes and presents the evidence-based challenges faced by middle and low income countries for accreditation process. The literature was searched using search terms, `challenges of WFME accreditation’, `barriers to accreditation’, `challenges to accreditation in health care system’, `hindrances to WFME accreditation standards’, `barriers to WFME standards’, in PubMed, ERIC, PsycINFO databases and Google scholar (for grey literature) to find the evidence published within last 10 years. This search strategy retrieved 922 publications and only 19 articles fulfill the inclusion criteria. A All those studies, which address the barriers or challenges to implementation of accreditation standards in medical education, were included. The inhibitors to implementation of curriculum in course other than medical education were excluded from the study. The included studies address the barriers to nine areas of WFME standards. The data was charted and QualSyst appraisal tool was used to appraise the quality of studies included in review. The eligibility of selected articles was carried out by using the validated QualSyst checklist to assess the quality of included studies.  The scoping review will inform and lay the foundation for more empirical studies on quality improvement in health professions education particularly in low and middle-income countries.&#x0D; Keywords: Challenges of accreditation,</jats:p

Anti Terrorism Legal Framework in Pakistan and Challenges before the Criminal Justice System

&#x0D; &#x0D; Terrorism is a global problem and it is becoming more complicated over the years. Most countries including Pakistan are adopting new measures to combat terrorism. However, the existing legal regime in Pakistan has several weaknesses and the government faces new challenges in fighting terrorism. This paper examines the anti-terrorism legislation of Pakistan by arguing that it has become unsuccessful to curb the threat of terrorism by fetching the terrorists to justice. This paper also provides analysis of the development of anti-terrorism laws in Pakistan after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US (9/11 attacks) through a broad history of progression as per the varying nature of the hazards faced by the State. Several governments made various legal mechanisms to cope with the criminalities those could not be sought under the ordinary judicial system of the State. Being the primary anti-terrorism legislation, the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 is used to handle the menace of sectarian violence in the State. Due to the 9/11 attack, throughout varying character of the danger caused by the Al-Qaeda or Taliban connected local terrorist Jihadi as well as sectarian organizations, Pakistan needs to amend not just the anti-terrorism procedure, but also required to introduce new related regulations to make the law more effective to aid speedy trials of the involved terrorists. This paper reviews critically the existing anti-terrorism laws, investigation techniques and trial processes adopted in Pakistan and identifies weaknesses and challenges in ensuring the effective implementation of the laws&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;  &#x0D; </jats:p

A SPECIFIC STUDY OF IQBAL’S THOUGHT REGARDING THE ISLAMIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Allama Iqbal is the great philosopher and social scientist of the 20th century who has predicted and depicted many new worlds with his lofty thoughts. He is also persuading the downtrodden and decadent Muslims to set their own objectives and explore their own paths in accordance the norms of the contemporary era. In order to address the serious loss of religious thought and Islamic civilization, Allama Iqbal urged Muslims to advance and promote modern ilm-ul-kalam. This is the way through which the young generation can be saved from the poison of Atheism by correcting the direction of social sciences which has been built on the basis of Atheism and Materialism. Allama Iqbal's concept of self-development imply on individual development while the concept of non-self refers to collective development. Respectively, the first-mentioned is the key chapter of psychology and the second-mentioned is the most important and central subject of sociology. In this research, modern social problems such as individualism and collectivism have been discussed in the context of Iqbal’s thought, so that it can be clear how Allama Iqbal , instead of emphasizing the conflict between the individual and the society, he talked about to be mutually united. It is from which an ideal society can be formed.</jats:p