Mainstreaming LSENs in a Regular Classroom: A Scoping Review

This study aims to generate thorough and comprehensive review of the teacher’s perspective and hands-on experience in mainstreaming LSENs in a regular classroom, including teachers’ attitudes and perceptions, challenges encountered, and teaching approach in handling mainstreamed classrooms. A scoping review framework by Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) systematically analyzed the data of the different articles conducted by various scholars. Through scrupulous and through selection of related studies, 10 articles were included in the review from 6 different countries across the globe. The articles included were conducted from 6 countries and various databases. The study highlighted that: 1) teachers have positive and negative attitudes towards mainstreaming, 2) teachers experienced various challenges in handling a mainstream classroom, and 3) learner-centered approach to learning is used in the classroom. Mainstreaming LSENs in a regular classroom has pros and cons among teachers, regular students, and the LSENs themselves. Hence, a daunting responsibility for the teachers. Nevertheless, it is imperative to support teachers by giving seminars and training, especially to those non-special education majors, to be fully equipped to handle mainstreamed classrooms.

Prevalence of Ticks and Tick-Borne Pathogens from Punjab, Pakistan.

Ticks are the second to mosquitoes as vectors of a number of human and animals pathogens like viruses, spirochetes, bacteria, rickettsia, protozoa and filarial nematodes etc. Important tick borne diseases are Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, anaplasmosis, theileriosis and babesiosis that cause mortality in humans and animals. So, this study was carried out to check the prevalence of ticks and tick borne diseases in the Punjab, Pakistan. Three districts were selected from each of four zones of Punjab. The total 120 livestock farms were randomly selected from 12 districts, 10 farms (05 urban and 05 rural) from each district. Tick species were collected in morning and evening during 2016 to 2017 systematically from head to tail directions with the help of small steel forceps. The tick samples were taken to research laboratory in clean and dry appropriately labeled plastic bottles with muslin at the top for proper aeration. In the laboratory, the process of preservation was carried out by keeping ticks into 70% methanol. On the basis of morphology the collected ticks were distinguished microscopically with the help of dichotomous key. For molecular studies, ticks from each species were individually used for the extraction of DNA. Extracted DNA of ticks was stored at ‒20⁰C. The tick pathogens were confirmed by PCR using specific primers. Different acaricides and plant extracts were used to control ticks. Prevalence of tick and tick-borne pathogens were tested by χ2 tests and multiple logistic regressions model which was performed in SPSS 21. To calculate the percent mortality the data were analyzed by probit analysis using Minitab-15 statistical software. The total prevalence of tick-infected animals was 36.52% (4382/12,000). The prevalence of tick was significantly least in the Northern zone (33.47%) as compared to the Southern (36.33%), Western (35.83%) and Central zones (40.43%). The total ten tick species i.e. Hylomma (Hy.) anatolicum (25.92%), Hy. marginatum (14.05%), Hy. dromedarii (5.62%), Hy. truncatum (2.44%), Hy. rufipes (1.79%), Rhipicephalus (Rh.) sanguineus (16.33%), Rh. appendiculatus (12.39%), Boophilus (B.) microplus (14.2%), B. decolratus (5.15%) and Argus percicus (2.02%) were identified. Hy. anatolicum and Hy. marginatum were the most abundant ticks spcies in all selected zones. Argas percicus was found only in Central zone. The overall prevalence of ticks infestation in all animals were 36.52% and it was significantly different in all animal species, like buffaloes (37.53%), cows (42.41%), goats (36.14%) and sheep (29.00%). The prevalence of overall evaluations of tick-borne pathogens in all agro-ecological zones was significantly different. Highest prevalence was found in Ehrlichia spp. (16%) followed by Anaplasma spp. (9.1%), Theileria spp. (9.03%) and Babesia spp. (4.14%). It was concluded that there is wider variety of ticks and tick-borne pathogens in Pakistan. In case of control experiments, extracts of selected plant (Calotropis procera, Citrullus colocynths, Brasica rapa, Solanum nigrum and Trigonella foenum-graceum) also showed promising results along with acaricides.