Search results for: Faheem Shahzad Baloch

Authors: Faheem Ur Rehman, Muhammad Khalil Khan, Miao Qing

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This study investigated the asymmetric links and portfolio strategies between green bonds and the markets of three different cryptocurrencies, i.e., green, Islamic, and conventional, using data from January 1, 2018, to April 8, 2022, and employing asymmetric TVP-VAR model to quantify risk spillovers in the network analysis. In addition, we use the minimum variance, minimum correlation, and minimum connectedness methodologies to assess the portfolio implications. The results of the asymmetric dynamic connectedness index (TCI) model show that by adopting cryptocurrencies for digital finance, risk spillovers are found to be reduced. The findings of net directional connectedness demonstrate that during the study period, green bonds consistently get return spillovers from all other network variables. Positive return spillovers are bigger in magnitude than negative ones. These results imply that the influence of the green bond market on the cryptocurrency markets is decreasing. Positive return spillovers generate higher connectedness values for (HG, BNB, and TRX) coins and persistent net recipients in the specific network. On the other hand, Cardano and ADA coins are persistent net transmitters in the system. XLM and MIOTA's responsibilities shift over time, and there is evidence of asymmetry when both positive and negative returns are considered. According to the pairwise portfolio weights, BNB vs. BTC has the largest portfolio weights in the system, followed by BNB vs. Ethereum, suggesting the best investment strategies in the network.

Keywords: asymmetric TVP-VAR, global sustainable index, cryptocurrency, portfolios

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Authors: Farrukh Shahzad

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The rich Islamic resources related to religious text, Islamic sciences, and history are widely available in print and in electronic format online. However, most of these works are only available in Arabic language. In this research, an attempt is made to utilize these resources to create interactive web applications in Arabic, English and other languages. The system utilizes the Pattern Recognition, Knowledge Management, Data Mining, Information Retrieval and Management, Indexing, storage and data-analysis techniques to parse, store, convert and manage the information from authentic Arabic resources. These interactive web Apps provide smart multi-lingual search, tree based search, on-demand information matching and linking. In this paper, we provide details of application architecture, design, implementation and technologies employed. We also presented the summary of web applications already developed. We have also included some screen shots from the corresponding web sites. These web applications provide an Innovative On-line Learning Systems (eLearning and computer based education).

Keywords: Islamic resources, Muslim scholars, hadith, narrators, history, fiqh

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Authors: Madiha Khan, Sidrah Ramzan, Seemab Khan, Shahzad Hassan, Kamran Saeed

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Measuring semantic similarity between texts is calculating semantic relatedness between texts using various techniques. Our web application (Measuring Relatedness of Concepts-MRC) allows user to input two text corpuses and get semantic similarity percentage between both using WordNet. Our application goes through five stages for the computation of semantic relatedness. Those stages are: Preprocessing (extracts keywords from content), Feature Extraction (classification of words into Parts-of-Speech), Synonyms Extraction (retrieves synonyms against each keyword), Measuring Similarity (using keywords and synonyms, similarity is measured) and Visualization (graphical representation of similarity measure). Hence the user can measure similarity on basis of features as well. The end result is a percentage score and the word(s) which form the basis of similarity between both texts with use of different tools on same platform. In future work we look forward for a Web as a live corpus application that provides a simpler and user friendly tool to compare documents and extract useful information.

Keywords: Graphviz representation, semantic relatedness, similarity measurement, WordNet similarity

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Authors: Ahmed Mateen, Zhu Qingsheng, Faisal Shahzad

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Requirement Engineering (RE) is a part being created for programming structure during the software development lifecycle. Software product line development is a new topic area within the domain of software engineering. It also plays important role in decision making and it is ultimately helpful in rising business environment for productive programming headway. Decisions are central to engineering processes and they hold them together. It is argued that better decisions will lead to better engineering. To achieve better decisions requires that they are understood in detail. In order to address the issues, companies are moving towards Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) which helps in providing large varieties of products with minimum development effort and cost. This paper proposed a new framework for software product line and compared with other models. The results can help to understand the needs in SPL testing, by identifying points that still require additional investigation. In our future scenario, we will combine this model in a controlled environment with industrial SPL projects which will be the new horizon for SPL process management testing strategies.

Keywords: requirements engineering, software product lines, scoping, process structure, domain specific language

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Authors: Muhammad Imran, Faheem Khadija, Zahoor Hussain, Raheel Anwar, M. Nawaz Khan, M. Raza Salik

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Amongst citrus species, sweet orange (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) occupies a dominant position in the orange producing countries in the world. Sweet orange is widely consumed both as fresh fruit as well as juice and its global demand is attributed due to higher vitamin C and antioxidants. Fruit quality is most important for the external appearance and marketability of sweet orange fruit, especially for fresh consumption. There are so many factors affecting fruit quality, tree age is the most important one, but remains unexplored so far. The present study, we investigated the role of tree age on fruit quality of different cultivars of sweet oranges. The difference between fruit quality of 5-year young and 15-year old trees was discussed in the current study. In case of fruit weight, maximum fruit weight (238g) was recorded in 15-year old sweet orange cv. Sallustiana cultivar while minimum fruit weight (142g) was recorded in 5-year young tree of Succari sweet orange fruit. The results of the fruit diameter showed that the maximum fruit diameter (77.142mm) was recorded in 15-year old Sallustiana orange but the minimum fruit diameter (66.046mm) was observed in 5-year young tree of sweet orange cv. Succari. The minimum value of rind thickness (4.142mm) was noted in 15-year old tree of cv. Red blood. On the other hand maximum value of rind thickness was observed in 5-year young tree of cv. Sallustiana. The data regarding total soluble solids (TSS), acidity (TA), TSS/TA, juice content, rind, flavedo thickness, pH and fruit diameter have also been discussed.

Keywords: age, cultivars, fruit, quality, sweet orange (Citrus Sinensis L. Osbeck)

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Authors: Mumtaz Ali Baloch

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This article aims at to review the policies and gaps including the socioeconomic and institutional factors that affected the enrollment of disabled children and caused drop-outs. It provides insights to scrutinize the gaps in policies, socioeconomic, and institutional factors with the specific concern in enrollment and drop out of disabled children in Pakistan, and Balochistan in particular. The findings of this study revealed that the old-age centralized policies and a number of socio-economic and institutional factors seemed to have significantly affected the enrollment and quality education in the case of physically disabled children. There were only a few schools functional in entire Balochistan. For example, an entire province (Balochistan) there are only two schools for disabled children, established in Quetta city. In the other 31 districts, an estimated population of 300,000 people of each district there were no schools for the disabled children. The findings of this study revealed that there is a great distinction between the policy and practice in the case of physically disabled children in Quetta, Balochistan. Consequently, such children seemed to have been out of schools. Dropout after the class eighth grade is almost 100%, as there are no high schools available for physically/disabled children, in Balochistan. The concerned organizations and authorities need to develop and ratify specific policies, provide required) facilities to the schools including sufficient budget, streamline the academic planning, and an effective monitoring and evaluation system. Only awareness and motivation could not help in improving the enrollment rate and decreasing the dropout in the case of physically disabled children. There is an urgent need to provide the required facilities to the schools. Almost all students needed assistive equipment, effective physical therapy as well as regular medical facilities. Such measures can improve the enrolment and rehabilitation of children.

Keywords: education policy, practices, physically disabled children, challenges, Balochistan, Pakistan

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Authors: Malik Shahzad Shabbir, Muhammad Saarim Ghazi, Amir Khalil ur Rehman

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This study examines the factors which influence and contribute towards the financial viability of Islamic finance and its impact on global financial stability. However, the purpose of this paper is to differentiate the practical implications of both Islamic and conventional finance on global financial stability. The Islamic finance is asset backed financing which creates wealth through trade, commerce and believes in risk and return sharing. Islamic banking is asset driven as against to conventional banking which is liability driven. In order to introduce new financial products for market, financial innovation in Islamic finance must be within the Shari’ah parameters that are tested against the ‘Maqasid al-Shari’ah’. Interest-based system leads to income and wealth inequalities and mis-allocation of resources. Moreover, this system has absence of just and equitable aspect of distribution that may exploit either the debt holder or the financier. Such implications are reached to a tipping point that leaves only one choice: change or face continued decline and misery.

Keywords: viability, global financial stability, practical implications, asset driven, tipping point

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Authors: Sana Abbasa, Shahzad Bhattiab, Nadir Khan

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Sargassum siliquastrum is brown seaweed with traditional claims for some medicinal properties. This research was done to investigate the methanol extract of S. siliquastrum for antiproliferative activity against human cervical cancer cell line, HeLa and its mode of cell death. From methylene blue assay, S. siliquastrum exhibited antiproliferative activity on HeLa cells with IC50 of 3.87 µg/ml without affecting non-malignant cells. Phase contrast microscopy indicated the confluency reduction in HeLa cells and changes on the cell shape. Nuclear staining with Hoechst 33258 displayed the formation of apoptotic bodies and fragmented nuclei. S. siliquastrum also induced early apoptosis event in HeLa cells as confirmed by FITC-Annexin V/propidium iodide staining by flow cytometry analysis. Cell cycle analysis indicated growth arrest of HeLa cells at G1/S phase. Protein study by flow cytometry indicated the increment of p53, slight increase of Bax and unchanged level of Bcl-2. In conclusion, S. siliquastrum demonstrated an antiproliferative activity in HeLa cell by inducing G1/S cell cycle arrest via p53-mediated pathway.

Keywords: sargassum siliquastrum, cervical cancer, P53, antiproleferation

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Authors: Rameesha Javaid

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Balochistan, the largest landmass named after and dominated by the 55% Baloch population, which has had a difficult anti-center history like their brothers the Kurds of Middle East, reluctantly acceded to Pakistan in 1947. The region, which attained the status of a province after two decades of accession, has lagged behind in social development and economic growth as compared to the other three federating units. The province has seen the least financial autonomy and administrative decentralization both in autocratic and democratic dispensations under geostrategic and security considerations. Significant corrections have been recently made in the policy framework through changing the formula for intra-provincial National Finance Award, curtailing the number of subjects under federal control, and reactivating the Council of Common Interests. Yet policymaking remains overwhelmingly bureaucratic under a weak parliamentary oversight. The provincial coalition governments are unwieldy and directionless. The government machinery has much less than the optimal capability, character, integrity, will, and opportunity to perform. Decentralization further loses its semblance in the absence of local governments for long intervals and with the hold of hereditary tribal chiefs. Increased allocations failed to make an impact in the highest per capita cost environment due to long distances and scattered settlements. Decentralization, the basic ingredient of federalism has remained mortgaged to geo-strategic factors, internal security perceptions, autocratic and individualistic styles of governments, bureaucratic policymaking structures, bad governance, non-existent local governments, and feudalistic tribal lords. This suboptimal federalism speaks for the present underdevelopment in Balochistan and will earmark the milestones in the future.

Keywords: Balochistan, economic development, federalism, political economy

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Authors: Aamir Shahzad, Hubert Roth

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This paper is presenting the bilateral telecontrol of AutoMerlin Mobile Robot having communication delay. Passivity Observers has been designed to monitor the net energy at both ports of a two port network and if any or both ports become active making net energy negative, then the passivity controllers dissipate the proper energy to make the overall system passive in the presence of time delay. The environment force is modeled and sent back to human operator so that s/he can feel it and has additional information about the environment in the vicinity of mobile robot. The experimental results have been presented to show the performance and stability of bilateral controller. The results show the whenever the passivity observers observe active behavior then the passivity controller come into action to neutralize the active behavior to make overall system passive.

Keywords: bilateral control, human operator, haptic device, communication network, time domain passivity control, passivity observer, passivity controller, time delay, mobile robot, environment force

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Authors: Qurratulain Faheem

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The human body often serves as a reference point to analyse the notions of self and society. Situating on Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu theories of embodiments, this research explores the notions around the human body and its influence on the ethical considerations in regards to organ transplantation among the Muslim communities in Pakistan. The context of Pakistan makes an intriguing case study as cadaveric organ transplantation is not in practise. Whereas living organ transplantation is commonly is practised between family membersonly. These contradictory practices apparently rests on the ideologies around the human body and religious beliefs as well the personal judgements and authority of healthcare professionals. This research is a year-long ethnographic study carried out as part of doctoral studies. An anthropological approach towards organ transplantation in Pakistan brought forward various socio-cultural notions around the human body and selfhood that serve as a framework around biomedical ethical issues in various societies. Further, it surface the contradictions and issues associated with organ transplantation that makes it a dilemma situated in a nexus of various socio-cultural and political factors rather seeing it as an isolated health concern. This research is a novel study on the subject of organ transplantation in the context of Pakistan but also put forward ethnographic data that could serve as a reference in other religious societies. Further, the ethnographic data bring forward experiences and stories of organ receivers, organ donors, religious leaders, healthcare professionals, and the general public, which aspire to encourage biomedical ethicists and social-scientists to consider ethnography as a research methodology and rely upon people’s lived experiences while establishing policies and practices around biomedical ethical issues.

Keywords: organ transplantation, ethics, pakistan, gender, islam, muslims, living organ donation

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Authors: Illahi Bakhsh Marghazani, Nasrullah, Masood Ul Haq Kakar, Abdul Hameed Baloch, Ahmad Nawaz Khoso, Behram Chacher

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Protein sources are the major part of ration fed to dairy buffaloes in Pakistan however, the limited availability and lack of judicious use of protein resources are further aggravating the conditions to enhance milk and meat production. In order to gain maximum production from limited protein source availability, it is necessary to balance feed for rumen degradable and rumen undegradable protein fractions. This study planned to know the rumen degradable and rumen undegradable fractions in all vegetable protein sources with (formaldehyde and heat treatment) and without treatments. Samples of soybean meal, corn gluten meal 60%, maize gluten feed, guar meal, sunflower meal, rapeseed meal, rapeseed cake, canola meal, cottonseed cake, cottonseed meal, coconut cake, coconut meal, palm kernel cake, almond cake and sesame cake were collected from ten different geographical locations of Pakistan. These samples were also subjected to formaldehyde (1% /100g CP of test feed) and heat treatments (1 hr at 15 lb psi/100 g CP of test feed). In situ technique was used to know the ruminal degradability characteristics. Data obtained were fitted to Orskove equation. Results showed that both treatments significantly (P < 0.05) decreased ruminal degradability in all vegetable protein sources than untreated vegetable protein sources, however, of both treatments, heat treatment was more effective than formaldehyde treatment in decreasing ruminal degradability in most of the studied vegetable protein sources.

Keywords: formaldehyde and heat treatments, in situ technique, rumen degradable and rumen undegradable fractions, vegetable protein sources

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Authors: Abdul Khalique Baloch, Ali Okatan

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The quality analysis of food and vegetable from image is hot topic now a day, where researchers make them better then pervious findings through different technique and methods. In this research we have review the literature, and find gape from them, and suggest better proposed approach, design the algorithm, developed a software to measure the quality from images, where accuracy of image show better results, and compare the results with Perouse work done so for. The Application we uses an open-source dataset and python language with tensor flow lite framework. In this research we focus to sort food and vegetable from image, in the images, the application can sorts and make them grading after process the images, it could create less errors them human base sorting errors by manual grading. Digital pictures datasets were created. The collected images arranged by classes. The classification accuracy of the system was about 94%. As fruits and vegetables play main role in day-to-day life, the quality of fruits and vegetables is necessary in evaluating agricultural produce, the customer always buy good quality fruits and vegetables. This document is about quality detection of fruit and vegetables using images. Most of customers suffering due to unhealthy foods and vegetables by suppliers, so there is no proper quality measurement level followed by hotel managements. it have developed software to measure the quality of the fruits and vegetables by using images, it will tell you how is your fruits and vegetables are fresh or rotten. Some algorithms reviewed in this thesis including digital images, ResNet, VGG16, CNN and Transfer Learning grading feature extraction. This application used an open source dataset of images and language used python, and designs a framework of system.

Keywords: deep learning, computer vision, image processing, rotten fruit detection, fruits quality criteria, vegetables quality criteria

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Authors: Khurram Shahzad, Muhammad Usman

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The main aim of this study is to examine the direct and interactive effects of job insecurity and Islamic work ethics on employee’s attitude towards change and organizational citizenship behavior. Design/methodology/approach: The data was collected from 171 male and female university teachers of Pakistan. Self administered, close ended questionnaires were used to collect the data. Data was analyzed through correlation and regression analysis. Findings: Through the analysis of data, it was found that job insecurity has a strong negative effect on the attitude towards change of university teachers. On the contrary, job insecurity has no significant effect on organizational citizenship behavior of university teachers. Our results also show that Islamic work ethics does not moderate the relationship of job insecurity and attitude towards change, while a strong moderation effect of Islamic wok ethics is found on the relationship of job insecurity and organizational citizenship behavior. Originality/value: This study for the first time examines the relationship of job insecurity with employee’s attitude towards change and organizational citizenship behavior with the moderating effect of Islamic work ethics.

Keywords: job security, islamic work ethics, attitude towards change, organizational citizenship behavior

Procedia PDF Downloads 449

Authors: Qurratulain Faheem

Abstract:

The human body often serves as a reference point to analyse the notions of self and society. Situating on Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu theories of embodiments, this research explores the notions around the human body and its influence on the ethical considerations in regards to organ transplantation among the Muslim communities in Pakistan. The context of Pakistan makes an intriguing case study as cadaveric organ transplantation is not in practise. Whereas living organ transplantation is commonly is practised between family members only. These contradictory practices apparently rests on the ideologies around the human body and religious beliefs as well the personal judgements and authority of healthcare professionals. This research is a year-long ethnographic study carried out as part of doctoral studies. An anthropological approach towards organ transplantation in Pakistan brought forward various socio-cultural notions around the human body and selfhood that serve as a framework around biomedical ethical issues in various societies. Further, it surface the contradictions and issues associated with organ transplantation that makes it a dilemma situated in a nexus of various socio-cultural and political factors rather seeing it as an isolated health concern. This research is a novel study on the subject of organ transplantation in the context of Pakistan but also put forward ethnographic data that could serve as a reference in other religious societies. Further, the ethnographic data bring forward experiences and stories of organ receivers, organ donors, religious leaders, healthcare professionals, and the general public, which aspire to encourage biomedical ethicists and social-scientists to consider ethnography as a research methodology and rely upon people’s lived experiences while establishing policies and practices around biomedical ethical issues.

Keywords: Gender, organ transplantation, muslims, pakistan, organ donation, bioethics, culture and religion, gender

Procedia PDF Downloads 80

Authors: Muhammad Babar Shahzad

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The purpose of our study is to investigate the relationship between perceived job autonomy and turnover intention in sales & marketing staff. Perceived job autonomy is considered one of most studied dimension of Job Characteristic Model. But still there is a confusion in scholars about predictive role of perceived job autonomy in turnover intention. In line of more complex research on this relation, we investigated the relationship between perceived job autonomy and turnover intention. Did nature of job have any impact on this relationship. On the call of different authors we take interactive effect of perceived job autonomy and procedural justice on turnover intention. Predictive role of distributive justice to employee outcomes is not deniable. But predictive role of distributive justice will be prone in different contextual influences. Interactive role of distributive justice and perceived job autonomy is also not tested before. We collected date from 279 marketing and sales managers working in financial institution, FMCG industries, Pharamesutical Industry & Bank. Strong and direct negative relation was found in perceived job autonomy, distributive justice & procedural justice on turnover intention. Distributive and procedural justice is also amplifying the negative relationship of perceived job autonomy and turnover intention. Limitation and future direction for research is also discussed.

Keywords: perceived job autonomy, turnover intention, procedural justice, distributive job

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Authors: Z. M. Iqbal, M. Abdullah, K. Javed, M. A. Jabbar, A. Haque, M. Saadullah, F. Shahzad

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The current study was conducted to set the appropriate concentrate level for Nili-Ravi buffalo heifers. Twenty seven buffalo heifers were randomly divided into three different groups A, B and C having nine animals in each group. All the heifers were given free access to chopped green fodder and fresh water. In addition, heifers of group A, B and C were given concentrate at the rate of 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of their body weight. The average daily dry matter intake was 2.69, 3.06 and 3.83 kg with average daily gain of 456.09, 398.56 and 515.87 gm in group A, B and C, respectively. The feed conversion ratio of heifers of these groups was 5.89, 7.74 and 7.52, respectively. There was non-significant (P>0.05) difference in the body measurements (height at wither, body length and heart girth), final body condition and scoring and blood serum (glucose, total protein and cholesterol) of heifers of all the three groups. The results of current study shows that there is non-significant (P>0.05) difference in the growth rate of Nili-Ravi heifers at varying levels of concentrate so, it is cost effective to raise 6-8 month calves by offering concentrate at the rate of 0.5% body weight along with free access of green fodder.

Keywords: concentrate level, buffalo heifer, body measurement, green fodder

Procedia PDF Downloads 397

Authors: Amir Shafiq, Asif Shahzad, Shabbar Mehmood, Muhammad Saeed, Hamid Mustafa

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Legislation includes the law or the statutes which is being reputable by a sovereign authority and generally can be implemented by the courts of law time to time to accomplish the objectives. Historically speaking upon the emergence of Pakistan in 1947, the intact laws of the British Raj remained effective after ablution by Islamic Ideology. Thus, there was an intention to begin the statutes book afresh for Pakistan's legal history. In consequence thereof, the process of developing detailed plans, procedures and mechanisms to ensure legislative and regulatory requirements are achieved began keeping in view the cultural values and the local customs. This article is an input to the enduring discussion about implementing rule of law in Pakistan whereas; the rule of law requires the harmony of laws which is mostly in the arrangement of codified state laws. Pakistan has legal plural civilizations where completely different and independent systems of law like the Mohammadan law, the state law and the traditional law exist. The prevailing practiced law in Pakistan is actually the traditional law though the said law is not acknowledged by the State. This caused the main problem of the rule of law in the difference between the state laws and the cultural values. These values, customs and so-called traditional laws are the main obstacle to enforce the State law in true letter and spirit which has caused dissatisfaction of the masses and distrust upon the judicial system of the country.

Keywords: consequences, implement, law, Pakistan

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Authors: Mohammad Faheem, M. Tabish Rehman, Mohd Danishuddin, Asad U. Khan

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The worldwide dissemination of CTX-M type β-lactamases is a threat to human health. Previously, we have reported the spread of blaCTX-M-15 gene in different clinical strains of Enterobacteriaceae from the hospital settings of Aligarh in north India. In view of the varying resistance pattern against cephalosporins and other β-lactam antibiotics, we intended to understand the correlation between MICs and catalytic activity of CTX-M-15. In this study, steady-state kinetic parameters and MICs were determined on E. coli DH5α transformed with blaCTX-M-15 gene that was cloned from Enterobacter cloacae (EC-15) strain of clinical background. The effect of conventional β-lactamase inhibitors (clavulanic acid, sulbactam and tazobactam) on CTX-M-15 was also studied. We have found that tazobactam is the best among these inhibitors against CTX-M-15. The inhibition characteristic of tazobactam is defined by its very low IC50 value (6 nM), high affinity (Ki = 0.017 µM) and better acylation efficiency (k+2/K9 = 0.44 µM-1s-1). It forms an acyl-enzyme covalent complex, which is quite stable (k+3 = 0.0057 s-1). Since increasing resistance has been reported against conventional b-lactam antibiotic-inhibitor combinations, we aspire to design a non-b-lactam core containing b-lactamase inhibitor. For this, we screened ZINC database and performed molecular docking to identify a potential non-β-lactam based inhibitor (ZINC03787097). The MICs of cephalosporin antibiotics in combination with this inhibitor gave promising results. Steady-state kinetics and molecular docking studies showed that ZINC03787097 is a reversible inhibitor which binds non-covalently to the active site of the enzyme through hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. Though, it’s IC50 (180 nM) is much higher than tazobactam, it has good affinity for CTX-M-15 (Ki = 0.388 µM). This study concludes that ZINC03787097 compound can be used as seed molecule to design more efficient non-b-lactam containing b-lactamase inhibitor that could evade pre-existing bacterial resistance mechanisms.

Keywords: ESBL, non-b-lactam-b-lactamase inhibitor, bioinformatics, biomedicine

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Authors: Sumaira Saleem, Sajjad Hussain, Asma Kashif Shahzad, Hina Shaheen

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This study aims at exploring the relationship between language and ideology and how such relationships are represented in the analysis of spoken texts, following Van Dijk’s Socio Cognitive Model (2002). In this study, it is tried to show that political Talk shows broadcast by Private TV channels are working apparatuses of ideology and store meanings which are not always obvious for readers. This analysis was about the situation created by Arslan Iftkhar, the son of ex-Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudry and PTI Chief Imran Khan. Arslan Iftikhar submitted an application against Imran Khan that he is not able to become a member of parliament of Pakistan. In the application, he demanded the documents, which are submitted by Imran Khan at the time of Election to the Election Commission of Pakistan. Murad Ali from PTI also submitted an application against PM Nawaz Sharif to the Election Commission of Pakistan for providing the copies. It also suggests that these talk shows mystify the agency of processes by using various strategies. In other words, critical text analyses reveal how these choices enable speakers to manipulate the realizations of agency and power in the representation of action to produce particular meanings which are not always explicit for all readers.

Keywords: ECP, CDA, socio cognitive model, ideology, TV channels, power

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Authors: Muhammad Faheem Khakhi, Jian Yu Wang, Salman Muhammad, Muhammad Faisal Shabir

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Population growth and Chinese two-child policy will boost pharmaceutical market, and it will continue to maintain the growth for a period of time in the future, the traditional pharmacy dispensary has been unable to meet the growing medical needs of the peoples. Under the strong support of the national policy, the automatic transformation of traditional pharmacies is the inclination of the Times, the new type of intelligent pharmacy system will continue to promote the development of the pharmaceutical industry. Under this background, based on PLC control, the paper proposed an intelligent storage and automatic drug delivery system; complete design of the lower computer's control system and the host computer's software system has been present. The system can be applied to dispensing work for Chinese herbal medicinal and Western medicines. Firstly, the essential of intelligent control system for pharmacy is discussed. After the analysis of the requirements, the overall scheme of the system design is presented. Secondly, introduces the software and hardware design of the lower computer's control system, including the selection of PLC and the selection of motion control system, the problem of the human-computer interaction module and the communication between PC and PLC solves, the program design and development of the PLC control system is completed. The design of the upper computer software management system is described in detail. By analyzing of E-R diagram, built the establish data, the communication protocol between systems is customize, C++ Builder is adopted to realize interface module, supply module, main control module, etc. The paper also gives the implementations of the multi-threaded system and communication method. Lastly, each module of the lower computer control system is tested. Then, after building a test environment, the function test of the upper computer software management system is completed. On this basis, the entire control system accepts the overall test.

Keywords: automatic pharmacy, PLC, control system, management system, communication

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Authors: Majid Habib Khan, Jinwei Zhao, Xinhong Hei, Liu Jiedong, Rana Shahzad Noor, Muhammad Imran

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Deep learning is increasingly employed in image classification, yet the scarcity and high cost of labeled data for training remain a challenge. Limited samples often lead to overfitting due to biased sample distribution. This paper introduces a dynamic distribution calibration method for few-shot learning. Initially, base and new class samples undergo normalization to mitigate disparate feature magnitudes. A pre-trained model then extracts feature vectors from both classes. The method dynamically selects distribution characteristics from base classes (both adjacent and remote) in the embedding space, using a threshold value approach for new class samples. Given the propensity of similar classes to share feature distributions like mean and variance, this research assumes a Gaussian distribution for feature vectors. Subsequently, distributional features of new class samples are calibrated using a corrected hyperparameter, derived from the distribution features of both adjacent and distant base classes. This calibration augments the new class sample set. The technique demonstrates significant improvements, with up to 4% accuracy gains in few-shot classification challenges, as evidenced by tests on miniImagenet and CUB datasets.

Keywords: deep learning, computer vision, image classification, few-shot learning, threshold

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Authors: M. Umar Hafeez, Furqan Khursheed Hashmi, Nadeem Irfan Bukhari, Shahzad Ali, Muzammil Ali

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The trend of self-medication is increasing due to various factors and is associated with a large number of complications. A cross-sectional study was aimed to investigate self-medication trend in an urban community and its correlates such as level of education, gender and behavior of using psychoactive medicines. A validated questionnaire was used to collect the data from different locations of Lahore, provincial capital of Punjab, Pakistan. The trend of self-medication was noted in reference to difference in educational level and in gender. This study showed that total 110 respondents, all literate,were found to be self-medicating, and their educational status was as 73.13% primary, 63.15% secondary, 61.12% higher secondary and 62.15% university going. In this sample 74.99% were males and 48.00%were females. Twenty nine (26.36%) of the total sample were found to be using psychoactive agents without consulting the physician. The trend of self-medication was 10% higher in individuals having primary level education, whereas there was not much difference of self-medication trend in other levels of education. The main reasons involved in self-medication trend were socio-economic status, medicine accessibility, religious and cultural beliefs, lack of awareness about risks associated with medicine, non-prescription sale of medicines and previous medication experience. The trend of self-medication of psychotropic agents is quite significant.

Keywords: self-medication, educated community, psychotropic drugs, education levels

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Authors: Muhammad Imran Hussain, Ramisha Ibtisam, Tayyaba Fatima, Huba Khalid, Ayesha Aziz, Khansa, Adan Sitara, Anam Shahzad, Aymen Jabeen

Abstract:

Vitamin D supports the immune system fight TB by inhibiting Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) and lowering host inflammation. The purpose of the research was to see if giving the vitamin D supplements to TB patients affected their prognosis. A randomized placebo control study of 200 TB patients was performed among which 106 received 400,000 IU of injectable vitamin D3 and 94 received placebo for 2 doses. Assessment was carried out at the end of every month for 3 months. IFN-γ responses to whole blood stimulation generated by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis sonicate (MTBs) antigen and early secreted and T cell activated 6 kDa (ESAT6) were assessed at 0 and 12 weeks. The statistical analysis used descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), Friedman's test and Fisher's test. The vitamin D group gained significantly more weight (+3.90 pounds) and had less persistent lung disease on imaging (1.33 zones vs. 1.84 zones). They also had a 50% decrease in cavity size. Additionally, patients with low baseline serum concentrations of 25-(OH)D had a significant increase in MTB-induced IFN-γ production after taking vitamin D supplements. Vitamin D administration in large amounts can hasten the recovery of TB patients. The findings point is a therapeutically useful activity of Vitamin D's in the management for tuberculosis.

Keywords: tuberculosis, vitamin D, interferon gamma, protein, infection

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Authors: Sabir Hussain, Mujtaba Hassan, Kashif Rasool, Asif Shahzad

Abstract:

Fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) was collected in Islamabad from November 2022 to January 2023, at urban sites. The average mass concentrations of PM2.5 varied, ranging from 90.5 to 133 μg m−3 in urban areas. Environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) analysis revealed that Islamabad's PM2.5 comprised soot aggregates, ashes, minerals, bio-particles, and unidentified particles. Results from inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) indicated a gradual increase in total elemental concentrations in Islamabad PM2.5 in winter, with relatively high levels in December. Significantly different elemental compositions were observed in urban PM2.5. Enrichment factor (EF) analysis suggested that elements such as K, Na, Ca, Mg, Al, Fe, Ba, and Sr were of natural origin, while As, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, Mn, Ni, and Se originated from anthropogenic sources. Plasmid DNA assays demonstrated varying levels of potential toxicity in Islamabad PM2.5 collected from urban sites, as well as across different seasons. Notably, the urban winter PM2.5 sample exhibited much stronger toxicity compared to other samples. The presence of heavy metals in Islamabad PM2.5, including Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, Cr, Mn, and Ni, may have synergistic effects on human health.

Keywords: islamabad particulate matter pm2.5, scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy(sem-eds), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(ftir), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy(icp-oes)

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Authors: Sanjeev Kumar Shukla, Govind Singh, Prabhat Pant Shahzad Ahmad

Abstract:

Background: Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disorder with a genetic predisposition, and CD40 plays a pathogenic role in various autoimmune diseases. A single nucleotide polymorphism at position –1 of the Kozak sequence of the 5 untranslated regions of the CD40 gene of exon 1 has been reported to be associated with the development of Graves’ Disease. Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether CD40 gene polymorphism confers susceptibility to Graves’ disease in the Kumaon region. CD40 gene polymorphisms were studied in Graves’ Disease patients (n=50) and healthy control subjects without anti-thyroid autoantibodies or a family history of autoimmune disorders (n=50). Material and Method: CD40 gene polymorphisms were studied in fifty Graves’ Disease patients and fifty healthy control subjects. All samples were collected from STG Hospital, Haldwani, Nainital. A C/T polymorphism at position –1 of the CD40 gene was measured using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Results: There was no significant difference in allele or genotype frequency of the CD40 SNP between Graves’ Disease and control subjects. There was a significant decrease in the TT genotype frequency in the Graves’ Disease patients who developed Graves’ Disease after 40 years old than those under 40 years of age. These data suggest that the SNP of the CD40 gene is associated with susceptibility to the later onset of Graves’ Disease. Conclusion: The CD40 gene was a different susceptibility gene for Graves’ Disease within certain families because it was both linked and associated with Graves’ Disease.

Keywords: autoimmune diseases, pathogenesis, diagnosis, therapy

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Authors: Abro Zain-Ul-Aabdin, Naheed Baloch, Khuhro Niaz Hussain, Waseem Akbar, Noor Abid Saeed

Abstract:

The Melon Fruit Fly Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coq.) belongs to family: Tephritidae order: Diptera and is distributed throughout the vegetable growing areas of Pakistan. The B. cucurbitae is injurious pest of more than 125 species of the vegetables throughout the world. In the present studies we investigated the population of this important pest in cucurbit crops and influence of abiotic parameters such as: temperature, relative humidity and rainfall. The study was carried out at two different locations of District, Hyderabad. The locations were Jeay Shah and Dehli farm where three cucurbit vegetable crops, such as bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) and ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula) were grown. The traps were baited with Cue-lure and deployed at three meter height in the all locations from 01.01.2015 and up to 30.06.2015. Results revealed that overall significantly higher (P < 0.05) population was recorded on L.acutangula, M.charantia and L.siceraria (130.64, 127.21, and 122.91), respectively. However, significantly higher (P < 0.05) population was observed on L. acutangula (339.4±22.59) during the 4th week of May 2015 followed by M. charantia (334.6±22.76) L. siceraria (333.2±20.13). Whereas; lowest population was recorded on L. siceraria (5.8±1.39) followed by L. acutangula and M. charantia (6.8±0.80g, 8.0±1.30) respectively during the 4th week of January. The population of B. cucurbitae was significantly correlated with the temperature while negatively correlated with relative humidity. Meanwhile in the parasitism preference experiment pupal parasitoid Dirhinus giffardii showed significantly higher (P<0.05) parasitization when the pupae of B.cucurbitae were reared on Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) (24.8±0.48) and also female were yielded from pupae reared on C.sativus under no choice experiment. Similarly higher parasitization and female were recovered when pupae were supplied C. sativus under free choice experiment. Results of the present investigation would be useful in developing a sustainable pest management strategy in the vegetable agro-ecosystem.

Keywords: Dirhinus giffardii, Bactrocera cucurbitae Cucumis sativus, diptera, free choice, parasitization

Procedia PDF Downloads 338

Authors: Arfan Ali Nagra, Tariq Shahzad, Meshal Alharbi, Khalid Masood Khan, Muhammad Mugees Asif, Taher M. Ghazal, Khmaies Ouahada

Abstract:

Gene selection is an essential step for the classification of microarray cancer data. Gene expression cancer data (DNA microarray) facilitates computing the robust and concurrent expression of various genes. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) requires simple operators and less number of parameters for tuning the model in gene selection. The selection of a prognostic gene with small redundancy is a great challenge for the researcher as there are a few complications in PSO based selection method. In this research, a new variant of PSO (Self-inertia weight adaptive PSO) has been proposed. In the proposed algorithm, SIW-APSO-ELM is explored to achieve gene selection prediction accuracies. This new algorithm balances the exploration capabilities of the improved inertia weight adaptive particle swarm optimization and the exploitation. The self-inertia weight adaptive particle swarm optimization (SIW-APSO) is used to search the solution. The SIW-APSO is updated with an evolutionary process in such a way that each particle iteratively improves its velocities and positions. The extreme learning machine (ELM) has been designed for the selection procedure. The proposed method has been to identify a number of genes in the cancer dataset. The classification algorithm contains ELM, K- centroid nearest neighbor (KCNN), and support vector machine (SVM) to attain high forecast accuracy as compared to the start-of-the-art methods on microarray cancer datasets that show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: microarray cancer, improved PSO, ELM, SVM, evolutionary algorithms

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Authors: Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad, Muhammad Zakaria, Mobeen Ur Rehman, Saniya Khaild

Abstract:

This study examines the co-movement between the Pakistan, Indian, S&P 500 and Nikkei 225 stock markets using weekly data from 1998 to 2013. The time-frequency relationship between the selected stock markets is conducted by using measures of continuous wavelet power spectrum, cross-wavelet transform and cross (squared) wavelet coherency. The empirical evidence suggests strong dependence between Pakistan and Indian stock markets. The co-movement of Pakistani index with U.S and Japanese, the developed markets, varies over time and frequency where the long-run relationship is dominant. The results of cross wavelet and wavelet coherence analysis indicate moderate covariance and correlation between stock indexes and the markets are in phase (i.e. cyclical in nature) over varying durations. Pakistan stock market was lagging during the entire period in relation to Indian stock market, corresponding to the 8~32 and then 64~256 weeks scale. Similar findings are evident for S&P 500 and Nikkei 225 indexes, however, the relationship occurs during the later period of study. All three wavelet indicators suggest strong evidence of higher co-movement during 2008-09 global financial crises. The empirical analysis reveals a strong evidence that the portfolio diversification benefits vary across frequencies and time. This analysis is unique and have several practical implications for regional and international investors while assigning the optimal weightage of different assets in portfolio formulation.

Keywords: co-movement, Pakistan stock exchange, S&P 500, Nikkei 225, wavelet analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 338

Authors: Muhammad Shahzad Iqbal, Zobia Sarwar, Salah-ud-Din

Abstract:

Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) belongs to the genus Tospoviruses (family Bunyaviridae). It is one of the most devastating pathogens of tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum) and heavily damages the crop yield each year around the globe. In this study, we retrieved 329 mature miRNA sequences from two microRNA databases (miRBase and miRSoldb) and checked the putative target sites in the downloaded-genome sequence of TSWV. A consensus of three miRNA target prediction tools (RNA22, miRanda and psRNATarget) was used to screen the false-positive microRNAs targeting sites in the TSWV genome. These tools calculated different target sites by calculating minimum free energy (mfe), site-complementarity, minimum folding energy and other microRNA-mRNA binding factors. R language was used to plot the predicted target-site data. All the genes having possible target sites for different miRNAs were screened by building a consensus table. Out of these 329 mature miRNAs predicted by three algorithms, only eight miRNAs met all the criteria/threshold specifications. MC-Fold and MC-Sym were used to predict three-dimensional structures of miRNAs and further analyzed in USCF chimera to visualize the structural and conformational changes before and after microRNA-mRNA interactions. The results of the current study show that the predicted eight miRNAs could further be evaluated by in vitro experiments to develop TSWV-resistant transgenic tomato plants in the future.

Keywords: tomato spotted wild virus (TSWV), Solanum lycopersicum, plant virus, miRNAs, microRNA target prediction, mRNA

Procedia PDF Downloads 123