IntroductionChildhood tuberculosis (TB), although estimated to account for a major proportion of the global TB disease burden, has a lower public health priority. Reliable research and surveillance data on childhood TB is limited in most regions of the world. This study was conducted to assess the burden of childhood TB among the household contacts of new TB patients in Karachi, Pakistan.MethodsA retrospective analysis of children (<15 years) who were household contacts of new adult TB patients presenting to Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center (MALC) clinics in Karachi during the period of 2008 to 2010 was conducted.ResultsOf the household children contacts (n = 6613) screened, 317 were suspected and 121(1.8%) diagnosed with TB. These included 89 (73.6%) with pulmonary and 32 (26.4%) with extra-pulmonary disease. Smear positivity rate in pulmonary cases was 32.6%. Mean age of children diagnosed with TB was 11.7 (±2.8) years. Within the child-contacts screened, disease was found to be significantly higher among females (2.3%) in comparison to males (1.2%) (p-value <0.01). The commonest relationship of source cases to diagnosed children was the mother (n = 51, 42.1%). The source case was a female for 66.1% (n = 76) of the children.ConclusionA smear positivity rate of 32.6% amongst pulmonary cases suggests their potential to spread disease and emphasizes a need to review the contribution of children in transmission of TB within communities. Greater vulnerability of the female child and considerable role of mother in disease transmission highlights a need to increase focus on females in TB control programs in Pakistan.

Mueller matrix polarimetry along with polar decomposition algorithm was employed for the characterization of ex vivo normal and adenocarcinoma human colon tissues by polarized light in the visible spectral range (425-725 nm). Six derived polarization metrics [total diattenuation (DT ), retardance (RT ), depolarization(ΔT ), linear diattenuation (DL), retardance (δ), and depolarization (ΔL)] were compared for normal and adenocarcinoma colon tissue samples. The results show that all six polarimetric properties for adenocarcinoma samples were significantly higher as compared to the normal samples for all wavelengths. The Wilcoxon rank sum test illustrated that total retardance is a good candidate for the discrimination of normal and adenocarcinoma colon samples. Support vector machine classification for normal and adenocarcinoma based on the four polarization properties spectra (ΔT , ΔL, RT ,and δ) yielded 100% accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, while both DTa nd DL showed 66.6%, 33.3%, and 83.3% accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, respectively. The combination of polarization analysis and given classification methods provides a framework to distinguish the normal and cancerous tissues.

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The effectiveness of electronic resources and services in select campuses of Fiji National University Library on the basis of users' satisfaction is evaluated. A survey method was employed to conduct this research. Out of sixteen campus libraries of FNU, the researcher selects eight libraries from different division of Fiji in the user's survey. 150 well-structured questionnaires were distributed to gather information related to uses of electronic resources and services. The 140 filled questionnaireswere collected from students and faculty members and analysed, classified and tabulated by employing simple statistical methods. The study reveals that majority of the users of FNU libraries keep themselves abreast of developments in electronic resources, services and their proper utilisation in the field of academic and research. The result showed a growing interest in e-resources among the users and also found that slow downloading and blockage of website is the hurdle in proper utilisation of electronic resources. The survey further reveals that the majority of respondents are aware of the usage of e-resources and services.

Purpose This study aims to examine the publishing and citation trends on library service quality (LSQ) in the past five decades (1972–2020). Additionally, this bibliometric study investigates the top authors, countries, organizations, journals, nature of collaboration, highly cited articles and LSQ sub-areas. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric analysis has been used to extract data from the Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) databases. A comprehensive search strategy was devised to extract relevant data from both data sources. Finally, 341 Scopus and 212 WOS records were selected. Data analysis has been performed using VOS viewer software, Biblioshiny, Cite Space and Excel. Findings It was found that a total of 443 items were published in Scopus (n = 341) and WOS (n = 212) during this period. The largest number of studies were published in the year 2019 (n = 29), and the USA was found to be the most productive country, with the most productive organizations, authors and author collaborations. The Texas A&M University in Texas, USA, had the top three most productive authors (Cook C, Thompson B and Heath F) and was the most productive organization. The Performance Measurement and Metrics Journal is on the top of the list. The single author was the prevailing authorship pattern, followed by the two-authors pattern. The most collaborating countries were identified as the UK, Japan, Spain and Bangladesh. The keyword analysis informed that the published literature on LSQ mainly concentrated on academic libraries, Therefore, there is a need further to examine other types of libraries including public, national, special libraries. Originality/value To the best of the knowledge, this seems to be the first comprehensive bibliometric study that combined productivity and citations, citation impact to present a holistic picture of the LSQ literature.