71 research outputs found
Spatial distribution of dust-bound trace elements in Pakistan and their implications for human exposure
No full textHuman exposure to trace metals and arsenic via consumption of fish from river Chenab, Pakistan and associated health risks
No full textAn evaluation of using transformer networks for ECG Analysis
No full textElectrocardiogram (ECG) is a simulated recording of heart activity in electrical signals. It carries essential clinical information in the form of amplitude and timing. It is used to monitor and analyze the functionality of the cardiovascular system by doctors in the health care department. The high potential for human error due to skills, knowledge, and workload stress in manual analyzing ECG can lead to morbidity and mortality in patients. Therefore, automatic aids are required that can overcome human errors, eases the load on doctors, and help doctors in the diagnosis of heart diseases. Artificial intelligence-integrated systems for ECG analysis are trained on millions of datasets and have seen more ECGs than doctors can see in their entire careers. Furthermore, it provides results in seconds, and no other factors like environment, workload stress, etc. affect the accuracy of the results. Therefore, AI-integrated ECG analysis are more accurate, quick, and reliable than doctors' manual analysis. Recently, deep learning-based tools have been the great attention as an aid to doctors towards accurate analyzing, annotation, and interpretation of ECG data. In deep learning models, Transformer Networks have become reference models with superior performance on different natural language processing and vision tasks. In this work, an evaluation of transformer networks is provided for the analysis of ECG. For this, two end-to-end deep learning frameworks are implemented for measuring the relevant intervals and amplitudes from the ECGs. The frameworks incorporated the transformer network and the multi-layer perceptron to attend to the information stored in ECG signals and predict the relevant (amplitudes and intervals) values. However, both frameworks use different variants of the structure of the transformer to each other.The first framework utilizes the encoder-only structure while the second utilizes the encoder-decoder structure of the transformer network. To overcome the problem of privacy issues (collecting and sharing among researchers) in health care, the implemented framework is evaluated over a realistic synthetic ECG dataset called DeepFake ECG. According to the training results, the performance of encoder-only beat the performance of encoder-decoder in ECG analysis. This deep learning model can aid doctors to perform heart disease diagnosis and improve the health care system's efficiency.publishedVersio
Characterization of spliceosome assembly in cyanidioschyzon merolae.
No full textPre-mRNA splicing is the removal of intervening sequences from pre-messenger RNA in a reaction catalyzed by the spliceosome, which contains five small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) and more than 100 proteins. Assembly of the spliceosome occurs in a highly ordered manner, making the spliceosome a very complex and dynamic particle. The spliceosome has been studied in yeast and humans but a simpler system would simplify splicing studies. Cyanidioschyzon merolae (Cm) has been shown to have a simpler spliceosome. The goal of this study was to characterize the Cm spliceosome beginning with the question of how large it is. To measure the size of the Cm spliceosome I used glycerol gradient centrifugation and assembly gels to study the assembly pathways. Lastly an attempt was made to study the components of Cm spliceosome by developing an assay in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) where small molecule inhibitors were used to stall the spliceososme, which could then be purified and its composition studied. --Leaf ii.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b197654
Laughing with an Iranian American Woman: Firoozeh Dumas\u27s Memoirs and the (Cross-) Cultural Work of Humor
No full textThis essay critically analyzes Firoozeh Dumas\u27s humorous memoirs and situates them in the multiple contexts of post-9/11 Muslim American responses to Islamophobia, women\u27s humor, and Iranian American women\u27s life writing. Drawing on philosophical, feminist, ethnic, and contemporary scientific theories of humor and the methods of literary criticism, the author argues that Dumas employs the beneficial and inclusive (not malign and exclusive) positive mode of humorous personal storytelling to build connection through laughter via the emotional and cognitive shifts structurally central to humor. Dumas addresses multiple audiences and engages in important (cross-) cultural work in a particularly fraught political and cultural climate of anti-Muslim sentiment and tense Iran-U.S. relations
Colonizing Kashmir: state-building under Indian occupation Colonizing Kashmir: state-building under Indian occupation , by Hafsa Kanjwal, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2023, xiii + 366 pp., $32, ISBN 978-1-5036-3603-3
No full textKashmiri life is expendable for the Indian state. While the love for the land is close to national imaginaries, the people have been subjected to decades of abuse and violence, and infringement of their basic human rights. In this book, Hafsa Kanjwal delves into the history of Kashmir, tracing the role of two pivotal political figures – Sheikh Abdullah (1947–1953) and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (1953–1963) – and their relationship with the Indian project of state-building in Kashmir. The author characterizes this as the ‘politics of life’ (9), where the Indian government and client regimes in Kashmir have normalized occupation with the propagation of ‘development, empowerment and progress’ along with bureaucratic integration and the forging of affective intimate relationships with the people of the state. However, the politics of life and appeals to emotions did not mean that there was an absence of coercive measures used by the Indian state to shape conforming and confronting subjectivities
Role of GIS in Crime Mapping & Analysis
No full textIn most recent years, crime analysis has turned into a broad- spectrum term that needs a considerable measure of research on crime investigation and crime mapping. Study about crime with respect to its spatial and temporal distribution is important because data about crime incident is one of the most urgent need to fight against crime. Crime mapping and analysis plays an integral role in essentially advanced form of crime representation, visualization and respond satisfactorily to the problem of criminality. It also let the analysts to figure out how crimes are spread evenly over the zone. GIS plays an effective role in mapping of crime. This paper puts on the diverse utilities of GIS to recognize the hotspots in addition to encourage the advancement of investigation inclination strategy for policing. The functional approach in the present investigation for crime mapping can be successfully applied for improvement of user-interfaces stage for the advancement of safe city strategies
Comparative study of the effect of two small group discussion teaching methods (Tutorial vs Jigsaw) on academic motivation and achievement of undergraduate dental students – a preliminary study
No full textAbstract Background Academic Motivation forces students to work harder to achieve their educational goals and increases their academic achievement. Teaching methodologies are one of the ways to cater learning needs of students and improve academic motivation. However, there is a paucity of literature comparing the two small group discussion methods for their effect on academic motivation and the academic achievement. This study aims to analyze which small group discussion teaching method (between jigsaw and tutorial) is more effective in improving the academic motivation and achievement of undergraduate dental students. . Methods This experimental study was conducted at Shifa College of Dentistry, randomly sampling the BDS 1st year students into two teaching groups (Jigsaw and Tutorial). Three teaching sessions were conducted within the module to teach the same topics to both groups. Multiple Choice Questions and a shorter version of the Academic Motivation Scale were administered to both groups before and after the intervention, to compare differences in scores. Data was analyzed using SPSS-26. Results The data of 46 students was included in the study (22 students in the Tutorial Group and 24 in the Jigsaw group). The mean pre-test scores of the academic achievement test for the control (tutorial) group was 16.86 ± 2.997 and for the experimental (jigsaw) group was 16.58 ± 3.296 (p-value=0.765). The mean post-test scores were 17.32 ± 3.859 and 19.50 ± 3.162 for the control and experimental group respectively (p-value=0.041). The control group and the experimental group had mean academic motivation scores of 56.05 ± 15.32 and 59.83 ± 10.09 respectively, before the intervention (p-value=0.324). Post intervention, the two groups had mean academic motivation scores of 57.66 ± 11.87(control group) and 72.17 ± 12.42 (experimental group). There was a statistically significant difference in the mean scores on the academic motivation scale (p value=0.000) between the two groups after intervention. Conclusion The jigsaw method is more effective in improving academic motivation and achievement of undergraduate dental students
Nurse teachers’ conceptions and practices of written feedback in Karachi.
No full textBackground:
Written Feedback (WFB) plays a significant role in student’s learning in terms of improvement of their academic writing skills. However, the quality of WFB may be affected by various personal and contextual factors. This study aimed to identify nurse teachers’ conceptions and practices of WFB on written assignments in nursing degree offering institutions in Karachi, Pakistan.
Methods:
A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used to answer the study questions. The study was conducted at 11 nursing schools in Karachi by recruiting those teachers who were teaching in nursing degree programs. The sample size of the study consists of 80 teachers. Universal sampling technique was used to select the subjects of the study.
Results:
The study result consists of demographic information of the participants, teachers’ conceptions and their practices of WFB. Although majority (92%) of the teachers believed that WFB is important for students’ learning, they acknowledged that they were not able to provide WFB at optimum level to their students. This gap in practice is attributed to various personal, contextual, and organizational factors; among them, the highest reported factors were teachers’ lack of training for provision of WFB (84%), distraction in the environment (78%), and constraints of time due to teacher’s workload (74%).
Conclusions:
The importance of WFB for students’ learning is well established in the literature. However, the preparation of teachers and an enabling environment to facilitate teachers for optimum practices of WFB needs considerable attention by educational institutions
Role of GIS in Crime Mapping & Analysis
No full textIn most recent years, crime analysis has turned into a broad- spectrum term that needs a considerable measure of research on crime investigation and crime mapping. Study about crime with respect to its spatial and temporal distribution is important because data about crime incident is one of the most urgent need to fight against crime. Crime mapping and analysis plays an integral role in essentially advanced form of crime representation, visualization and respond satisfactorily to the problem of criminality. It also let the analysts to figure out how crimes are spread evenly over the zone. GIS plays an effective role in mapping of crime. This paper puts on the diverse utilities of GIS to recognize the hotspots in addition to encourage the advancement of investigation inclination strategy for policing. The functional approach in the present investigation for crime mapping can be successfully applied for improvement of user-interfaces stage for the advancement of safe city strategies.</jats:p
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