Making it internally persuasive: Analysis of the conspiratorial discourse on COVID-19.

This study attempts to generate new insights into the wide spread online and offline conspiratorial discourse on COVID-19. Twofold analytical lens consisted of narrative interrelations framework and content analysis showed how the linguistic resources and conversational such as popular socio-religious discourses, hypothetical narratives, personal narratives, personal mental archives, and interpolated arguments are integrated in the interpretation of intertextual Bases such as Bill Gates' TED talk 2015 (26%); Nematullah Wali's predictions (32%); 'End of Days' book by Sylvia Browne (14.9%); and 'The Eyes of Darkness' novel by Dean Koontz (22%) by which the conspiracists in Pakistan construct an internally persuasive discourse promoting conspiracy theories on COVID-19. Several linguistic resources such as mood, modality, topicalization, insinuation, and intertextuality emerged as the main tools of making the conspiracy theories internally persuasive.

Utilization of humor and application of learning theory: Perspective of nursing students.

BACKGROUND: Humor is one of the teaching strategies that is least utilized by the Nursing teaching faculty that involve the students in active learning with fun and fruitful learning. There are different ways of utilization of humor in the classroom like jokes, cartoons, amusing stories, comedy, and the use of animated pictures. OBJECTIVE: To explore the perceptions of nursing students regarding the use of humor as a teaching strategy in the classroom. And, to what extent the cognitive and affective theories are related to the humor strategy. STUDY DESIGN: Qualitative explorative design. SETTING OF THE STUDY: The study was conducted in a private college of nursing in Islamabad, Pakistan. PARTICIPANTS OF THE STUDY: The participants of the study were students of Bachelor of Science nursing. METHODOLOGY: Through purposive sampling, eight participants were interviewed until the data saturation. Each interview was of 20 to 35 min duration. Conventional content analysis was used for data analysis. RESULT: The four main categories that emerged from this study include: Experiences of different types of humor, Cognitive impacts of humorous activities, Affective impact of humorous activities, and suggestions for faculty to use Humor as a Strategy. CONCLUSION: It is clear that the usage of humor as a teaching strategy enhances the cognitive and affective level of complexity that enables students to be more relaxed, developed interest, and paid more attention in class to create a positive atmosphere.

Synthesis and anti-nociceptive potential of isoxazole carboxamide derivatives.

BACKGROUND: Isoxazole is an important pharmacophore in medicinal chemistry with a wide range of pharmacological activities. The present study deals with the synthesis and evaluation of antinociceptive potential of nine novel 3-substituted-isoxazole-4-carboxamide derivatives. SYNTHESIS: In the first step, respective oxime was prepared and further treated with ethylacetoacetate and anhydrous zinc chloride followed by hydrolysis of ester to furnish 3-substituted isoxazole-4-carboxylic acid. The respective carboxylic acids were converted to acid chlorides and condensed with aromatic amines to get the target carboxamide derivatives (A1-A5 and B1-B5). These compounds were characterized by FTIR, 1HNMR, 13CNMR and elemental analysis data and screened for their analgesic activity using acetic acid-induced writhing assay and hot plat test in mice and compared with the standard centrally acting analgesic, tramadol. RESULTS: All the synthesized carboxamide derivatives showed low to moderate analgesic activity. Among the synthesized derivatives B2 having methoxy (OCH3) showed high analgesic activity as compared to tramadol both in acetic acid-induced writhing assay and hot plate assay at dose of 6 mg/kg. To examine the involvement of opioidergic mechanism in the mediation of analgesic effects of isoxazole derivatives animals were further treated with non-selective opioid analgesic, naloxone (0.5 mg/kg). The results showed that compounds A3 and B2 follow a non-opioid receptor pathway in the mediation of analgesic effects. Synthesized compounds A3 and B2 were docked against non-opioid receptors COX-1 (3N8X), COX-2 (1PXX) and human capsaicin receptor (HCR, 3J9J) to analyze their binding interactions. They showed binding energies in the range of - 7.5 to - 9.7 kcal/mol. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicated that isoxazole carboxamide derivatives possess moderate analgesic potential especially compounds A3 and B2 can be considered as lead molecules and explored further for pain management with fewer side effects.