Abid Hussain

Cement production has been one of the most energy intensive processes in the world. Kilns serve as an integral part to produce clinker which is a tool to measure capacity of system. The temperature inside the kiln rises to 1400-1600 C while its surface temperature is between 200-400 C. The thermal efficiency of a kiln is about 55-60% and the remaining heat is lost in the form of flue gases and radiated from the surface. The current study has been carried out at a cement plant in Pakistan for the assessment of waste energy recovery from the surface of a rotary kiln. An experimental setup of small scale waste heat recovery with water heat exchanger has been fabricated at the plant site equipped with necessary instrumentation. Measurements of heat recovery are carried out at different water mass flow rates, surface temperatures, and transverse and radial distances of kiln. Results revealed that maximum water temperature achieved was 25 C at 1.8 kg/min mass flow rate of water at kiln su...

The present study determined the prevalence and antibiotic sensitivity of Staphylococcus aureus causing mastitis in buffaloes around Lahore, Pakistan. Clinical mastitis was diagnosed on the basis of physical examination of the udder, teat and the physical appearance of the milk. Subclinical mastitis was diagnosed on the basis of the California Mastitis Test. Among a total of 598 buffaloes, 332 were found to have mastitis (55.5%). A total of 449 mastitic milk samples from different animal quarters were collected from different livestock farms from peri-urban area of Lahore of which 16% (71/449) and 84% (378/449) were clinical and subclinical, respectively. The animal prevalence of mastitis was 55.5% with 95% Confidence interval of 51.5 to 59.4, while prevalence per quarter was 18.7% with 95% Confidence interval of 17.4 to 20.3. From these 449 milk samples, 257 isolates of Staphylococci were obtained. A Staphytect plus test confirmed 65% (95% CI 58.9 to 70.6) isolates as coagulase pos...

Five upland cotton cultivars were crossed in a complete diallel crossing system to investigate inheritance pattern and combining ability of parents for different fiber quality traits like staple length, fiber strength, fineness and uniformity. The study was carried out in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during the years 2005-07. Highly significant differences were found among the genotypes for all the traits under study. Genetic analysis of the data also revealed highly significant effects due to general as well as specific combining ability (P ≤ 0.01) for all the fiber quality characters. The magnitude of variance due to dominance was greater than that of additive effects for all the traits which showed that these traits were controlled by non-additive gene action. The parent CIM-707 showed best general combining ability for staple length and fiber strength, FH-1000 for fiber fineness and LA17801 for fiber uniformity. The best sp...

The entomopathogenic fungus, Cordyceps fumosorosea is a potential eco-friendly biocontrol agent. The present study revealed the entire course of infection of P. xylostella by C. fumosorosea with particular reference to cuticular penetration. Comparative studies on the infection of Plutella xylostella larvae by two strains of C. fumosorosea with different pathogenicity were carried out using light, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy. We found that C. fumosorosea tended to adhere to the cuticle surfaces containing protrusions. Although conidia of the lower pathogenic strain IFCF-D58 germinated, they failed to penetrate and complete the development cycle. In contrast, the higher pathogenic strain IFCF01 began to germinate within 4 h and attached to the cuticle by a thin mucilaginous matrix within 8 h post-inoculation. After 24 h post-inoculation, germ tubes and penetrating hyphae reached the cuticular epidermis and began to enter the haemocoel. Within 36 h post-inoculation,...

With the inception of high voltage (HV), requisites on the insulating permanence of HV equipment is becoming increasingly crucial. Mineral/synthetic oil liquid insulation—together with solid insulation materials (paper, pressboard)—is the fundamental insulation constituent in HV apparatuses; their insulation attributes perform a substantial part in a reliable and steady performance. Meanwhile, implications on the environment, scarcity of petroleum oil supplies and discarding complications with waste oil have stimulated investigators to steer their attention towards sustainable, renewable, biodegradable and environmentally friendly insulating substances. The contemporary insulating constituent’s evolution is driven by numerous dynamics—in particular, environmental obligations and other security and economic issues. Consequently, HV equipment manufacturers must address novel specifications concerning to these new standards. Renewable, sustainable and environmentally friendly insulatin...

In this research work effect of embedment of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the physical and mechanical properties of medium density fiberboard (MDF) have been investigated. The MWCNTs were embedded in urea formaldehyde resin (UF) at 0, 1.5%, 3% and 5% concentrations by weight for the manufacturing of nano-MDF. The addition of these nanoparticles enhanced thermal conductivity by 24.2% reduced curing time by 20% and controlled formaldehyde emission by 59.4%. The internal bonding (I.B), modulus elasticity (MOE), modulus of rupture (MOR), thickness swelling (Ts) and water absorption (WA) properties were improved significantly by 21.15%, 30.2%, 28.3%, 44.8% and 29% respectively as compared to controlled MDF.

Natural pathogen pressure is an important factor that shapes the host immune defense mechanism. The current study primarily aimed to explore the molecular basis of the natural immune defense mechanism of a sporadic pest, Gryllus bimaculatus, during swarming by constructing cDNA libraries of the female mid-gut, male mid-gut, testes, and ovaries. The Illumina HiSeq platform generated an average of 7.9 G, 11.77 G, 10.07 G, and 10.07 G bases of outputs from the male mid-gut, female mid-gut, testes, and ovaries and libraries, respectively. The transcriptome of two-spotted field crickets was assembled into 233,172 UniGenes, which yielded approximately 163.58 million reads. On the other hand, there were 43,055 genes in common that were shared among all the biological samples. Gene Ontology analysis successfully annotated 492 immune-related genes, which comprised mainly Pattern Recognition Receptors (62 genes), Signal modulators (57 genes), Signal transduction (214 genes), Effectors (36 gen...

The survival and foraging of Coptotermesformosanus Shiraki in a microbe-rich environment reflect the adaptation of an extraordinary, sophisticated defense mechanism by the nest-mates. We aimed to explore the host pathogen interaction by studying caste-specific volatile chemistry and genes encoding the antioxidant defense of winged imagoes, nymphs, soldiers and workers of Formosan subterranean termites. Qualitative analyses of C.formosanus Shiraki performed by HS-SPME/GC-MS showed considerable variations in the chemical composition of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their proportions among all the castes. Winged imagoes produced the most important compounds such as naphthalene and n-hexanoic acid. The antifungal activity of these compounds along with nonanal, n-pentadecane, n-tetradecane, n-heptadecane and methyl octanoate against the conidial suspensions of Metarhiziumanisopliae and Beauveriabassiana isolates enable us to suggest that the failure of natural fungal infection in...

A biofilm anode acclimated with growth media containing acetate, then acetate+methane, and finally methane alone produced electrical current in a microbial electrochemical cell (MxC) fed with methane as the sole electron donor. Geobacter was the dominant genus for the bacterial domain (93%) in the biofilm anode, while methanogens (Methanocorpusculum labreanum and Methanosaeta concilii) accounted for 82% of the total archaeal clones in the biofilm. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) imaging clearly showed a biofilm of mixed bacteria and archaea, suggesting a syntrophic interaction between them for performing anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) in the biofilm anode. Measured cumulative coulombs were linearly correlated to the methane-gas concentration in the range of 10-99.97% (R(2)≥0.99) when the measurement was sustained for at least 50min Thus, cumulative coulombs over 50min could be used to quantify the methane concentration in gas samples.

As more and more people use social media to communicate their view and perception of elections, researchers have increasingly been collecting and analyzing data from social media platforms. Our research focuses on social media communication related to the 2013 election of the German parlia-ment [translation: Bundestagswahl 2013]. We constructed several social media datasets using data from Facebook and Twitter. First, we identified the most relevant candidates (n=2,346) and checked whether they maintained social media accounts. The Facebook data was collected in November 2013 for the period of January 2009 to October 2013. On Facebook we identified 1,408 Facebook walls containing approximately 469,000 posts. Twitter data was collected between June and December 2013 finishing with the constitution of the government. On Twitter we identified 1,009 candidates and 76 other agents, for example, journalists. We estimated the number of relevant tweets to exceed eight million for the period from July 27 to September 27 alone. In this document we summarize past research in the literature, discuss possibilities for research with our data set, explain the data collection procedures, and provide a description of the data and a discussion of issues for archiving and dissemination of social media data.

Diarrhoea was induced to three groups of 6 newborn buffalo calves with oral administration of enteropathogenic E. coli. Six buffalo calves were uninfected controls. Infected animals were treated with rehydration solution and kanamycin, kanamycin alone or rehydration solution alone ...

Distorhabditis poonchiana n. gen., n. sp. from humus in Jammu and Kashmir, India, is described and illustrated. The new genus is characterized by a small body; slightly setoff labial region; long tubular gymnostom; prominently cuticularized cheilostom; absence of glottoid apparatus; monoprodelphic reproductive system; vulva (V) = 81 to 84; spicules with trifurcated distal ends, simple gubernaculum, peloderan bursa with eight pairs of bursal papillae arranged in 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 arrangement.

Panton-Valentine leukocidin expressing Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia, an infection that affects predominantly young people, has a mortality rate of > 70% despite aggressive conventional management. Little information is available on the management of patients with Panton-Valentine leukocidin expressing S. aureus pneumonia with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. As a large extracorporeal membrane oxygenation center, we reviewed our experience and outcomes with Panton-Valentine Leukocidin expressing S. aureus pneumonia. Locally held register of all extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients at Glenfield Hospital. Retrospective study including all patients with sputum-positive Panton-Valentine leukocidin expressing S. aureus pneumonia managed with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support at a single extracorporeal membrane oxygenation center. On review of our database held from September 1989 until date, there were four patients with sputum-confirmed Panton-Valentine leukocidin expressing S. aureus pneumonia managed with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Refractory hypoxemia and/or uncompensated hypercapnia despite optimal conventional management were the indications for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. After varying periods on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation with appropriate antibiotic and ancillary care, all four patients were discharged home. Panton-Valentine leukocidin expressing S. aureus pneumonia can cause severe, necrotizing pneumonia associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome, which can be particularly challenging to manage. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support permits low pressure lung ventilation, avoiding barotrauma to lungs made friable by Panton-Valentine leukocidin expressing S. aureus infection. Although this is a small number of patients, the results are encouraging.

Objective: To determine the 30 days outcome measured in terms of morbidity and mortality in cases of ventricular septal defect (VSD) with increased pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) managed with double flap patch closure. Study design: Case series. Place and duration of study: Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC/NIHD), Rawalpindi, from December 2005 to December 2008. Methodology: Forty patients with VSD having PVR 9.58 + 4.33 wood units underwent double flap patch closure. The patch was fenestrated as one half of the expected aortic annulus diameter. A separate flap patch 5 mm larger than fenestration was attached to superior upper one third margins of fenestration. The patch was placed with flap to open towards the left ventricular apex. Modified ultra filtration (MUF) was employed in every case and sildenafil was given postoperatively. Results: The age of patients ranged from 1 to 28 years with a mean of 6.66 + 5.70 years. There were 22 males and 18 females. All patients were weaned off from inotropic and ventilatory support as earlier as possible postoperatively with intensive care unit (ICU) stay of 77.15 + 54.56 hours. Postoperative pulmonary artery pressures were reduced to 42.63 + 10.86 mmHg as compared to pre-operative pulmonary artery pressures of 88.3 + 15.2 mmHg. Postoperatively 11 patients with suprasystemic pulmonary artery pressures and desaturation went into pulmonary hypertensive crisis in which immediate 2D echo evidenced the functioning flap valve with right to left shunt. There was only one death (early) out of 40 patients with an overall mortality of 2.5% along with limited morbidity. Conclusion: Double flap patch is an inexpensive, easy to construct technique with low morbidity and mortality in cases of VSD with raised PVR.

The unprecedented increase of wireless devices is now facing a serious threat of spectrum scarcity. The situation becomes even worse due to inefficient frequency distribution protocols, deployed in trivial Wi-Fi networks. The primary source of this inefficiency is static channelization used in wireless networks. In this work, we investigate the use of dynamic and flexible channelization, for optimal spectrum utilization in Wi-Fi networks. We propose optimal spectrum sharing algorithm (OSSA) and analyze its effect on exhaustive list of essential network performance measuring parameters. The elementary concept of the proposed algorithm lies in the fact that frequency spectrum should be assigned to any access point (AP) based on its current requirement. The OSSA algorithm assigns channels with high granularity, thus maximizing spectrum utilization by more than 20% as compared to static width channel allocation. This optimum spectrum utilization, in turn, increases throughput by almost ...

This paper presents a state-of-the art visual analytics dash-board, Social Set Visualizer (SoSeVi), of approximately 90 million Facebook actions from 11 different companies that have been mentioned in the traditional media in relation to garment factory accidents in Bangladesh. The enterprise application domain for the dashboard is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the targeted end-users are CSR researchers and practitioners. The design of the dashboard was based on the "social set analytics" approach to computational social science. The development of the dash-board involved cutting-edge open source visual analytics libraries from D3.js and creation of new visualizations (ac-tor mobility across time, conversational comets etc). Evaluation of the dashboard consisting of technical testing, usability testing, and domain-specific testing with CSR students and yielded positive results.

CibaVision, Diagnostic Lens SBU, GA, USA, angelika.domschke@cibavision.novartis.com Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, s.kabilan@biotech.cam.ac.uk CibaVision, Diagnostic Lens SBU, GA, USA, rita.anand@cibavision.novartis.com ...

Robot-assisted radical cystectomy (RARC) is an alternative approach for treatment of bladder cancer. We provide a critical review of the current status of RARC and pelvic lymph node dissection with a focus on feasibility, safety and oncological efficacy of the procedure. The PubMed literature database was reviewed for RARC series that have been reported in the English language until the present time. Surgical technique, operative parameters, pathologic outcome, complications and quality of life were examined. RARC is progressing steadily. With nearly 500 published cases worldwide, RARC proves to be technically feasible and oncologically effective. It is associated with less blood loss, shorter hospital stay, and improved postoperative quality of life. Intracorporeal urinary diversion is still in the experimental phase, and effort is needed to make it technically easier and widely accepted. With the worldwide rapid spread of robot-assisted surgeries, RARC is evolving as a reliable minimally invasive alternative to standard open surgery. Awaiting long term oncological results, adequately powered prospective randomized trials comparing open, laparoscopic and robotic approaches are urgently needed.

Ocinara varians Walker is considered as an important pest of Ficus microcarpa and other ornamental plants. The present study explained the pathogenic effect of Metarhizium anisopliae on the growth (body weight), mortality, development and various growth indices on newly moulted (III-V) instar larvae at a concentration of 1 × 10 7 spores/ml. Our laboratory experiments showed that there was no difference in the susceptibility of the different larval stages tested in terms of effectiveness on O. varians. These fungal spores retarded the larval growth (35%-76%), which resulted in a prolonged developmental time of the infected larvae. Food consumption (21-27%), relative consumption rate (31-48%), efficiency of conversion of ingested food (18-69%), efficiency of conversion of digested food (26-70%), and relative growth rate (42-84%) values declined significantly, but concurrently a significant increase in approximate digestibility (3-36%) was observed. These results suggest that M. anisop...

Prevalence of poultry diseases in Punjab province of Pakistan was investigated by analyzing data from 8 regional and one central disease diagnostic laboratory of the directorate of Poultry Research Institute, Rawalpindi. The post mortem- examinations were conducted during June 2011 to July 2012 and data is presented quarterwise starting from July 2011. For important diseases like Newcastle (ND), avian influenza (AI), salmonellosis, mycoplasmosis postmortem findings were supported by laboratory investigations in certain cases. Avian Influenza and Newcastle disease viruses were cultrured on embroynated eggs from tissue samples of the suspected cases and then confirmed by using specific antisera. Serum samples were also processed for haemaglutination inhibition (HI) test to monitor antibody titers against ND and AI. Salmonella were isolated on differential media and identified by either biochemical tests or through PCR. In day old chicks or chicks of fewer than 10 days, serum was teste...

Laboratory bioassays were designed on the strains of Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana to check the feasibility of using "trap and treat" method for controlling Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae). Different percentages of exposed C. formosanus workers 100%, 50%, 25% and 1% were then allowed to mingle with unexposed termites 0%, 50%, 75% and 99%, respectively. The mortality of combined group suggested that as the number of exposed individuals decreased, capacity of the workers to resist disease through mutual grooming was increased. Lower percentage of exposed individuals (1%), could not transfer inoculum resulting very low mortality (<3%) in any studied fungus. The strains of M. anisopliae were better than B. bassiana in producing epizootics in the experimental units because these strains produced more directly penetrating appressoria (62-67%), compared to B. bassiana (43-52%). These directly penetrating appressoria might be related t...

Synthetic pesticides remained the mainstay of Red Palm Weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) control over 50 years. However, insecticide resistance, pest resurgence and concerns over human health and environmental pollution by insecticides have encouraged researchers for the development of environmentally benign strategies for pest control including the use of entomopathogenic fungi. Entomopathogenic fungi form the largest single group of insect pathogens. Such insect killing fungi are fast growing microorganisms to be recognized as disease causing agents in insects. Recent developments have revealed that successful invasion of pathogens to cause infection among insect populations relied on many fitness factors. Their failure or attenuation led to the development of disease resistance. The main purpose of this chapter is to highlight the interaction between virulence factors responsible for pathogen invasion and host defense mechanism to eradicate p...

ABSTRACT The political debate on poverty reduction has become more intense in the developing countries, and the conception of poverty has broadened beyond monetary measures such as income and consumption to include broader socio-economic dimensions of human wellbeing, such as health, education, housing, access to infrastructure and services etc., which together define human freedoms. Multidimensional Poverty (MDP)–that encompasses capability failures and social exclusion–is a holistic and more comprehensive yet incomplete concept that has gained currency recently but only with handful applications for policy making. To advance the MDP model further, this study examine the regional variations and temporal shifts of poverty in 26 regions of Pakistan for five time periods, i.e. 1998-99, 2001-02, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2007-08, using the multidimensional poverty approach based on education, health, and housing facilities. Standard methodological procedure developed by Alkire and Foster (2008) and recognized by UNDP (2010) was employed. Temporal analysis shows that the MDP was higher in rural areas; declined by 7% in 2007-08 in rural areas compared to 1998-99 but merely by 1% in urban areas. Among the urban regions, Bahawalpur, Malakand, D. I. Khan, Mardan and Makran revealed a significant declining shift of 9%, 11%, 10%, 12% and 9% respectively in 2007-08 compared to 1998-99. Likewise, the rural areas in Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Malakand, Kohat, Hazara and Sibbi showed a substantial decrease of 8%, 10%, 15%, 13%, 11% and 9% respectively in 2007-8 compared to 1998-99. Notably, Bahawalpur and Malakand showed higher temporal decline in MDP in both urban and rural areas, thereby showing a significant development in the provision of health, education and housing facilities to the people of respective rural-urban areas. However, the trend was inconsistent over time due probably to the haphazard development policies and political instability in the country resulting in higher socioeconomic deprivations. Regional analysis shows that considering both rural and urban areas, Kalat, Makran and Zhob lagged behind and remained among the poorest regions in all periods. Conversely, Karachi and Rawalpindi had least poverty in urban and rural areas. Pakistan's development trajectory is a classic case of economic growth and lagging human development. This study suggests the need for adopting an integrated approach to improve the socio-economic dimensions to meet the international standards of wellbeing such as the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. It further calls for tackling socio-economic deprivations through development interventions including improved schooling, access to technical education, non-farm enterprises, and more robust agriculture sector. Besides contributing to formulate above policy instruments conducive to poverty alleviation, findings of this study will also supplement theoretical and empirical studies on multidimensional poverty in other developing countries of Asia.