International Research Journal of Education and Innovation
This study aimed to compare the Prospective Teachers’ (PTs) instructional practices and students’... more This study aimed to compare the Prospective Teachers’ (PTs) instructional practices and students’ academic performances based on the practice of Lesson Study (LS) model and traditional methods of teaching. This study also evaluated the effectiveness of LS model in improving PTs’ instructional practices and students’ academic performance. It was a quantitative study and a post-test-only control group design was utilized in this research. 19 Prospective Teachers (PTs) of the BS (Hons) education program and 2576 students of 6th and 7th grade (1288+1288) constituted the population of the study. A stratified sampling technique was used to select 4 institutions. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 4 sections (of grades 6th and 7th) and the total number of students in these sections was 134. The purposive sampling technique was used to select eight PTs for the experimental group (4+4) and two PTs for the control group (1+1) keeping in view the similarity of subject and c...
PurposeThis systematic literature review provides an overview of the entrepreneurship education r... more PurposeThis systematic literature review provides an overview of the entrepreneurship education research, by outlining the recent trends of research on entrepreneurship education. This research study has two primary goals. First one is the identification and categorization of the entrepreneurship education in scientific research by providing sequential distribution of published articles, and the research output of scientific journals, authors, and different countries. Another goal is to recognize the themes of research that are most developed and examined by the researchers.Design/methodology/approachThis research systematically examines published scientific documents on entrepreneurship education taken from Scopus database ranging from 1950 to 2021. A total of 1,531 articles were selected for final analysis after a systematic process of elimination based on specific criteria. VOSviewer was used for bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence, distance based mapping, clustering, a...
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENDORSING HEALTH SCIENCE RESEARCH (IJEHSR)
To Determine Diagnostic accuracy Of MRI in differentiating non-muscle invasive from muscle invasi... more To Determine Diagnostic accuracy Of MRI in differentiating non-muscle invasive from muscle invasive bladder carcinoma taking Histopathological staging as a standard. The data of 53 patients with bladder tumor who previously confirmed by cystoscopy were examined at 1.5 T, images were obtained and analyzed by radiologist without knowledge of the tumor stage. T2-weighted spin-echo or turbo-spin-echo, and dynamic Ti-weighted fast gradient-echo sequences were used. Histopathological grading served as standard of reference. Compared with the results submitted from the histopathology unit and using more detailed TNM classification, the sensitivity, specificity, and percent accuracy of MRI was 91%, 86%, 85% respectively. This data confirms the under-staging of the bladder tumor invasion done histopathologically while MR is a promising, non-invasive technique for the detection of bladder lesions with a high diagnostic performance.
When genetic variants in a gene cluster are associated with a disease outcome, the causal pathway... more When genetic variants in a gene cluster are associated with a disease outcome, the causal pathway from the variants to the outcome can be difficult to disentangle. For example, the chemokine receptor gene cluster contains genetic variants associated with various cytokines. Associations between variants in this cluster and stroke risk may be driven by any of these cytokines. Multivariable Mendelian randomization is an extension of standard univariable Mendelian randomization to estimate the direct effects of related exposures with shared genetic predictors. However, when genetic variants are clustered, a Goldilocks dilemma arises: including too many highly-correlated variants in the analysis can lead to ill-conditioning, but pruning variants too aggressively can lead to imprecise estimates or even lack of identification. We propose multivariable methods that use principal component analysis to reduce many correlated genetic variants into a smaller number of orthogonal components that are used as instrumental variables. We show in simulations that these methods result in more precise estimates that are less sensitive to numerical instability due to both strong correlations and small changes in the input data. We apply the methods to demonstrate the most likely causal risk factor for stroke at the chemokine gene cluster is monocyte chemoattractant protein-1.
BACKGROUND Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a reliable tool for the identification a... more BACKGROUND Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a reliable tool for the identification and differentiation of two different human pathological conditions sharing the same symptomology, typhoid and tuberculosis (TB). OBJECTIVES To explore the potential of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for differentiation of two different diseases showing the same symptoms and analysis by principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square discriminate analysis (PLS-DA). METHODS Serum samples of clinically diagnosed typhoid and tuberculosis infected individuals were analyzed and differentiated by SERS using silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) as a SERS substrate. For this purpose, the collected serum samples were analyzed under the SERS instrument and unique SERS spectra of typhoid and tuberculosis were compared showing notable spectral differences in protein, lipid and carbohydrates features. Different stages of the diseased class of typhoid (Early acute and late acute stage) and tuberculosis (Pulmonary and extra-pulmonary stage) were compared with each other and with healthy human serum samples, which were significantly separated. Moreover, SERS data was analyzed using multivariate data analysis techniques including principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) and differences were so prominent to observe. RESULTS SERS Spectral data of typhoid and tuberculosis showed clear differences and were significantly separated using PCA. SERS spectral data of both stages of typhoid and tuberculosis were separated according to 1st principle component. Moreover, by analyzing data using partial least square discriminate analysis, differentiation of two disease classes were considered more valid with a 100 % value of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. CONCLUSION SERS can be employed for identification and comparison of two different human pathological conditions sharing same symptomology.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2021
In the current pandemic scenario, sustainable green products particularly antiviral, antioxidant,... more In the current pandemic scenario, sustainable green products particularly antiviral, antioxidant, and antibacterial in nature are gaining worldwide fame in almost every walk of life. Cassia obovata ( C. obovata ) has been valorized as a source of yellow natural dye for nylon dyeing. For the isolation of dye extracts and for surface tuning, nylon fabrics were treated with microwave rays up to 10 min. For getting new shades with good to excellent fastness characteristics, sustainable bio-mordants in comparison with chemical mordants have been used at 60 °C, 70 °C, and 80°C. It has been found that for getting effective colorant yield, acidic extract should be exposed to MW ray treatment up to 6 min, and for getting improved fastness rating, bio-mordants have given excellent color characteristics. Statistical optimization of dyeing variable shows that application of 40 mL of C. obovata acidic extract of RE of 6 p H containing 3 g/100 mL of salt when employed at 55 °C for 45 min has given excellent results onto irradiated nylon fabric (RNF). It is inferred that Cassia obovata has an excellent potential for coloration of surface-modified fabrics, where the application of low amount of bio-mordants under statistical optimized conditions has made process more ecological, economical, and sustainable. Graphical abstract
An agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) framework and algorithm named HOSil based on a new... more An agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) framework and algorithm named HOSil based on a new linkage metric optimized by the average silhouette width (ASW) index is proposed. A conscientious investigation of various clustering methods and estimation indices is conducted across a diverse verities of data structures for three aims: a) clustering quality, b) clustering recovery, and c) estimation of number of clusters. HOSil has shown better clustering quality for a range of artificial and real world data structures as compared to k-means, PAM, single, complete, average, Ward, McQuitty, spectral, model-based, and several estimation methods. It can identify clusters of various shapes including spherical, elongated, relatively small sized clusters, clusters coming from different distributions including uniform, t, gamma and others. HOSil has shown good recovery for correct determination of the number of clusters. For some data structures only HOSil was able to identify the correct n...
Bt genes were detected on metaphase c hromosomes of transgenic Basmati rice in order to find out ... more Bt genes were detected on metaphase c hromosomes of transgenic Basmati rice in order to find out the effects ofcopy numberand locationof transgene(s) on important agronomic traits of transgenic Bt rice . Phenotypic traits of transgenic plantshighlyvaried from control. The transgeni c plants were shorter in height andinternodallength and wereearly maturing. Awns were totally absent in transgenic plants containing two Bt genes. Integration of the Bt genes on thehost genome and their copy number was determined through Fluorescen cein situhybridization. No correlation was found between presence of Bt genes on different chromosomes and phenotypic traits. However, transgene copy number was foundnegativelycorrelated with agronomic traits. With the incre ase in copy number of transgene (s) , the plant height, internodal length and days to maturity were decreased. Positive correlation was found between the Bt protein concentration and transgene copy number. The concentration of Bt protein wa...
In this paper, we propose a unified clustering approach that can estimate number of clusters and ... more In this paper, we propose a unified clustering approach that can estimate number of clusters and produce clustering against this number simultaneously. Average silhouette width (ASW) is a widely used standard cluster quality index. We define a distance based objective function that optimizes ASW for clustering. The proposed algorithm named as OSil, only, needs data observations as an input without any prior knowledge of the number of clusters. This work is about thorough investigation of the proposed methodology, its usefulness and limitations. A vast spectrum of clustering structures were generated, and several well-known clustering methods including partitioning, hierarchical, density based, and spatial methods were consider as the competitor of the proposed methodology. Simulation reveals that OSil algorithm has shown superior perform in terms of clustering quality than all clustering methods included in the study. OSil can find well separated, compact clusters and have shown bet...
Introduction : Healthcare-associated infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand ... more Introduction : Healthcare-associated infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand hygiene is regarded as the most effective method of prevention but is poorly performed by health workers. Maintaining adequate hand hygiene remains amongst the three requisites of good health. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge regarding different hand sanitation techniques and various factors responsible for non-compliance among students of Peshawar Medical College. Material and Methods: It was a cross-sectional survey based on self-administered questionnaire carried out at Peshawar Medical College. Self-designed questionnaire was distributed and responses obtained from students after their informed consents. SPSS 15 was used for analyzing data. Results : Response rate of the students was 51.6%. In total 87(56.1%) students were male and 68(43.9%) were female. Prevention in transmission of resistant microbes among patients in clinical settings was reported negative by the...
COVID-19 has swept globally and Pakistan is no exception. To investigate the initial introduction... more COVID-19 has swept globally and Pakistan is no exception. To investigate the initial introductions and transmissions of the SARS-CoV-2 in Pakistan, we performed the largest genomic epidemiology study of COVID-19 in Pakistan and generated 150 complete SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences from samples collected before June 2, 2020. We identified a total of 347 mutated positions, 31 of which were over-represented in Pakistan. Meanwhile, we found over 1000 intra-host single-nucleotide variants (iSNVs). Several of them occurred concurrently, indicating possible interactions among them or coevolution. Some of the high-frequency iSNVs in Pakistan were not observed in the global population, suggesting strong purifying selections. The genomic epidemiology revealed five distinctive spreading clusters. The largest cluster consisted of 74 viruses which were derived from different geographic locations of Pakistan and formed a deep hierarchical structure, indicating an extensive and persistent nation-wide transmission of the virus that was probably attributed to a signature mutation (G8371T in ORF1ab) of this cluster. Furthermore, 28 putative international introductions were identified, several of which are consistent with the epidemiological investigations. In all, this study has inferred the possible pathways of introduction and transmissions of SARS-CoV-2 in Pakistan, which could aid ongoing and future viral surveillance and COVID-19 control.
Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 2021
Hepatitis B is a contagious liver disorder caused by hepatitis B virus and if not treated at an e... more Hepatitis B is a contagious liver disorder caused by hepatitis B virus and if not treated at an early stage, it becomes chronic and results in liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma which can even lead to death. In present study, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is employed for the analysis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products of DNA extracted from hepatitis B virus (HBV) infected patients in comparison with healthy individuals. SERS spectral features are identified which are solely present in the HBV positive samples and consistently increase in intensities with increase in viral load which can be considered as a SERS spectral marker for HBV infection. For sake of understanding, these various levels of viral loads in this study are classified as low (1-1000 IU), medium (1000-10,000 IU), high (above 10,000 IU) and negative control (>1). In order to explore the efficiency of SERS for discrimination of SERS spectral datasets of different samples of varying viral loads and healthy individuals, principal component analysis (PCA) is applied. PCA is used for comparison of these classes including low, medium and high levels of viral loads with each other and with healthy class. Moreover, partial least square discriminant analysis and partial least square regression analysis are employed for the classification of different levels of viral loads in the HBV positive samples and prediction of viral loads in the unknown samples, respectively. PLS-DA is applied for validity of classification and its sensitivity and specificity was found to be 89% and 98% respectively. PLSR model was constructed for prediction of viral loads on the bases of SERS spectral markers of HBV infection with goodness value of 0.9031 and value of root means square error (RMSE) 0.2923. PLSR model also proved to be valid for prediction of blind sample.
BACKGROUND Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for the robust, reliable and rapid detectio... more BACKGROUND Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for the robust, reliable and rapid detection and discrimination of bacteria. OBJECTIVES To develop a rapid and sensitive technique based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) with multivariate data analysis tools for discrimination among carbapenem resistant and susceptible E. coli strains. METHODS SERS was employed to differentiate different strains of carbapenem resistant and susceptible E. coli by using silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) as a SERS substrate. For this purpose, four strains of carbapenem resistant and three strains of carbapenem susceptible E. coli were analyzed by comparing their SERS spectral signatures. Furthermore, multivariate data analysis techniques including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) and Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) were performed over the spectral range of 400‒1800 cm‒1 (fingerprint region) for the identification and differentiation of different E. coli strains. RESULTS The SERS spectral features associated with resistant development against carbapenem antibiotics were separated by comparing each spectrum of susceptible strains with each resistant strain. PCA and HCA were found effective for the qualitative differentiation of all the strains analysed. PLS-DA successfully discriminated the carbapenem resistant and susceptible E. coli pellets on the strain level with 99.8 % sensitivity, 100 % specificity, 100 % accuracy and 86 % area under receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve. CONCLUSION SERS can be employed for the rapid discrimination among carbapenem resistant and susceptible strains of E. coil.
The purpose of this study is to recognize the key issues in engineering construction management (... more The purpose of this study is to recognize the key issues in engineering construction management (ECM) under OBOR in Pakistan, to assess their impact on success of ECM projects and to draw suggestions about solutions to these issues. Three major issues named as "time-related issues, budget-related issues and employee-related issues" are recognized in ECM projects and then their impact on success of ECM projects is assessed. Data were collected from 202 CPEC officials through structured questionnaire and analysis was run to check the hypotheses of current study. The findings revealed that there is significant negative impact of employee-related issues, budget-related issues and time-related issues on the ECM project success as these issues create different managerial problems in projects, which causes delay the completion of projects and hampers the success of projects. The solution of these problems is provided in current study. This study is first of its type that has identified and analyzed these three key issues in ECM projects under OBOR in Pakistan in terms of their effect on success of those projects. The current study has noteworthy implications in theoretical and practical terms.
Humanity has been blessed by nature with brilliant and eye-catching colors of eco-friendly origin... more Humanity has been blessed by nature with brilliant and eye-catching colors of eco-friendly origin [1-2]. These natural gifts of colors have always been used by humans to dye clothing and other items. A considerable decline in the utilization of natural colorants has been observed since the discovery of the first synthetic dye [3-4]. There is an increasing awareness that natural dyes are a good alternative to synthetic dyes due to their biodegradability and sustainability, as well as soothing nature [7-8]. Hence, the demands for
International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science, 2016
Lfts (liver function tests) and Rfts (renal functions tests) values of patients show abnormalitie... more Lfts (liver function tests) and Rfts (renal functions tests) values of patients show abnormalities and it is confirmed swelling of liver and poor filtration rate of kidneys. So, drinking water treatment is most needed. All the blood samples were taking under controlled environment to keeping the good quality and standards that support real data for final analysis. LFTs tests are taking by drawing blood samples from infected persons with the help of testing machines, it shows average value of ALT and SGOT is very high as 50 u/l and 53u/l that is not good sign for liver health due to high value of toxins in human blood stream which is confirmed by toxins medical laboratory tests. All these problems is mainly due to taking bio contaminated food and unsafe drinking water, so if we make assure the security and safety about our taking the food as essential component of life.
International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science, 2016
Water is a very important nutrient and responsible to maintain good health as well as proper perf... more Water is a very important nutrient and responsible to maintain good health as well as proper performing the body functions, Water can remove the harmful toxins from the body. Infective disease produced by pathogenic microbes like bacteria, parasites and viruses including their metabolites as toxins are the known as most common and common health risk which connected with unsafe drinking water. It is expected; around 1.1 billion people worldwide have to drink unsafe drinking water per day. More than 95 % of these deaths are possible in low-income countries, where numerous causes like malnutrition, poor hygiene and sanitation create the immune deficiencies and specially factor such as unsafe drinking of water strongly affected on it. In the present study, C. Botulinum as bacterial specious and its related toxin botulinum toxins are detected in samples of ground water, water storage tanks and canal water but low values of toxins present in ground water sample and high values find in canal water sample.Coagulation process is used for removing the Botulinum toxins from drinking water source and giving the amazing results as show 92-97% toxins removes from drinking water samples by using the coagulant aluminium sulphate.
International Research Journal of Education and Innovation
This study aimed to compare the Prospective Teachers’ (PTs) instructional practices and students’... more This study aimed to compare the Prospective Teachers’ (PTs) instructional practices and students’ academic performances based on the practice of Lesson Study (LS) model and traditional methods of teaching. This study also evaluated the effectiveness of LS model in improving PTs’ instructional practices and students’ academic performance. It was a quantitative study and a post-test-only control group design was utilized in this research. 19 Prospective Teachers (PTs) of the BS (Hons) education program and 2576 students of 6th and 7th grade (1288+1288) constituted the population of the study. A stratified sampling technique was used to select 4 institutions. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 4 sections (of grades 6th and 7th) and the total number of students in these sections was 134. The purposive sampling technique was used to select eight PTs for the experimental group (4+4) and two PTs for the control group (1+1) keeping in view the similarity of subject and c...
PurposeThis systematic literature review provides an overview of the entrepreneurship education r... more PurposeThis systematic literature review provides an overview of the entrepreneurship education research, by outlining the recent trends of research on entrepreneurship education. This research study has two primary goals. First one is the identification and categorization of the entrepreneurship education in scientific research by providing sequential distribution of published articles, and the research output of scientific journals, authors, and different countries. Another goal is to recognize the themes of research that are most developed and examined by the researchers.Design/methodology/approachThis research systematically examines published scientific documents on entrepreneurship education taken from Scopus database ranging from 1950 to 2021. A total of 1,531 articles were selected for final analysis after a systematic process of elimination based on specific criteria. VOSviewer was used for bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence, distance based mapping, clustering, a...
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENDORSING HEALTH SCIENCE RESEARCH (IJEHSR)
To Determine Diagnostic accuracy Of MRI in differentiating non-muscle invasive from muscle invasi... more To Determine Diagnostic accuracy Of MRI in differentiating non-muscle invasive from muscle invasive bladder carcinoma taking Histopathological staging as a standard. The data of 53 patients with bladder tumor who previously confirmed by cystoscopy were examined at 1.5 T, images were obtained and analyzed by radiologist without knowledge of the tumor stage. T2-weighted spin-echo or turbo-spin-echo, and dynamic Ti-weighted fast gradient-echo sequences were used. Histopathological grading served as standard of reference. Compared with the results submitted from the histopathology unit and using more detailed TNM classification, the sensitivity, specificity, and percent accuracy of MRI was 91%, 86%, 85% respectively. This data confirms the under-staging of the bladder tumor invasion done histopathologically while MR is a promising, non-invasive technique for the detection of bladder lesions with a high diagnostic performance.
When genetic variants in a gene cluster are associated with a disease outcome, the causal pathway... more When genetic variants in a gene cluster are associated with a disease outcome, the causal pathway from the variants to the outcome can be difficult to disentangle. For example, the chemokine receptor gene cluster contains genetic variants associated with various cytokines. Associations between variants in this cluster and stroke risk may be driven by any of these cytokines. Multivariable Mendelian randomization is an extension of standard univariable Mendelian randomization to estimate the direct effects of related exposures with shared genetic predictors. However, when genetic variants are clustered, a Goldilocks dilemma arises: including too many highly-correlated variants in the analysis can lead to ill-conditioning, but pruning variants too aggressively can lead to imprecise estimates or even lack of identification. We propose multivariable methods that use principal component analysis to reduce many correlated genetic variants into a smaller number of orthogonal components that are used as instrumental variables. We show in simulations that these methods result in more precise estimates that are less sensitive to numerical instability due to both strong correlations and small changes in the input data. We apply the methods to demonstrate the most likely causal risk factor for stroke at the chemokine gene cluster is monocyte chemoattractant protein-1.
BACKGROUND Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a reliable tool for the identification a... more BACKGROUND Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a reliable tool for the identification and differentiation of two different human pathological conditions sharing the same symptomology, typhoid and tuberculosis (TB). OBJECTIVES To explore the potential of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for differentiation of two different diseases showing the same symptoms and analysis by principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square discriminate analysis (PLS-DA). METHODS Serum samples of clinically diagnosed typhoid and tuberculosis infected individuals were analyzed and differentiated by SERS using silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) as a SERS substrate. For this purpose, the collected serum samples were analyzed under the SERS instrument and unique SERS spectra of typhoid and tuberculosis were compared showing notable spectral differences in protein, lipid and carbohydrates features. Different stages of the diseased class of typhoid (Early acute and late acute stage) and tuberculosis (Pulmonary and extra-pulmonary stage) were compared with each other and with healthy human serum samples, which were significantly separated. Moreover, SERS data was analyzed using multivariate data analysis techniques including principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) and differences were so prominent to observe. RESULTS SERS Spectral data of typhoid and tuberculosis showed clear differences and were significantly separated using PCA. SERS spectral data of both stages of typhoid and tuberculosis were separated according to 1st principle component. Moreover, by analyzing data using partial least square discriminate analysis, differentiation of two disease classes were considered more valid with a 100 % value of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. CONCLUSION SERS can be employed for identification and comparison of two different human pathological conditions sharing same symptomology.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2021
In the current pandemic scenario, sustainable green products particularly antiviral, antioxidant,... more In the current pandemic scenario, sustainable green products particularly antiviral, antioxidant, and antibacterial in nature are gaining worldwide fame in almost every walk of life. Cassia obovata ( C. obovata ) has been valorized as a source of yellow natural dye for nylon dyeing. For the isolation of dye extracts and for surface tuning, nylon fabrics were treated with microwave rays up to 10 min. For getting new shades with good to excellent fastness characteristics, sustainable bio-mordants in comparison with chemical mordants have been used at 60 °C, 70 °C, and 80°C. It has been found that for getting effective colorant yield, acidic extract should be exposed to MW ray treatment up to 6 min, and for getting improved fastness rating, bio-mordants have given excellent color characteristics. Statistical optimization of dyeing variable shows that application of 40 mL of C. obovata acidic extract of RE of 6 p H containing 3 g/100 mL of salt when employed at 55 °C for 45 min has given excellent results onto irradiated nylon fabric (RNF). It is inferred that Cassia obovata has an excellent potential for coloration of surface-modified fabrics, where the application of low amount of bio-mordants under statistical optimized conditions has made process more ecological, economical, and sustainable. Graphical abstract
An agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) framework and algorithm named HOSil based on a new... more An agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) framework and algorithm named HOSil based on a new linkage metric optimized by the average silhouette width (ASW) index is proposed. A conscientious investigation of various clustering methods and estimation indices is conducted across a diverse verities of data structures for three aims: a) clustering quality, b) clustering recovery, and c) estimation of number of clusters. HOSil has shown better clustering quality for a range of artificial and real world data structures as compared to k-means, PAM, single, complete, average, Ward, McQuitty, spectral, model-based, and several estimation methods. It can identify clusters of various shapes including spherical, elongated, relatively small sized clusters, clusters coming from different distributions including uniform, t, gamma and others. HOSil has shown good recovery for correct determination of the number of clusters. For some data structures only HOSil was able to identify the correct n...
Bt genes were detected on metaphase c hromosomes of transgenic Basmati rice in order to find out ... more Bt genes were detected on metaphase c hromosomes of transgenic Basmati rice in order to find out the effects ofcopy numberand locationof transgene(s) on important agronomic traits of transgenic Bt rice . Phenotypic traits of transgenic plantshighlyvaried from control. The transgeni c plants were shorter in height andinternodallength and wereearly maturing. Awns were totally absent in transgenic plants containing two Bt genes. Integration of the Bt genes on thehost genome and their copy number was determined through Fluorescen cein situhybridization. No correlation was found between presence of Bt genes on different chromosomes and phenotypic traits. However, transgene copy number was foundnegativelycorrelated with agronomic traits. With the incre ase in copy number of transgene (s) , the plant height, internodal length and days to maturity were decreased. Positive correlation was found between the Bt protein concentration and transgene copy number. The concentration of Bt protein wa...
In this paper, we propose a unified clustering approach that can estimate number of clusters and ... more In this paper, we propose a unified clustering approach that can estimate number of clusters and produce clustering against this number simultaneously. Average silhouette width (ASW) is a widely used standard cluster quality index. We define a distance based objective function that optimizes ASW for clustering. The proposed algorithm named as OSil, only, needs data observations as an input without any prior knowledge of the number of clusters. This work is about thorough investigation of the proposed methodology, its usefulness and limitations. A vast spectrum of clustering structures were generated, and several well-known clustering methods including partitioning, hierarchical, density based, and spatial methods were consider as the competitor of the proposed methodology. Simulation reveals that OSil algorithm has shown superior perform in terms of clustering quality than all clustering methods included in the study. OSil can find well separated, compact clusters and have shown bet...
Introduction : Healthcare-associated infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand ... more Introduction : Healthcare-associated infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand hygiene is regarded as the most effective method of prevention but is poorly performed by health workers. Maintaining adequate hand hygiene remains amongst the three requisites of good health. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge regarding different hand sanitation techniques and various factors responsible for non-compliance among students of Peshawar Medical College. Material and Methods: It was a cross-sectional survey based on self-administered questionnaire carried out at Peshawar Medical College. Self-designed questionnaire was distributed and responses obtained from students after their informed consents. SPSS 15 was used for analyzing data. Results : Response rate of the students was 51.6%. In total 87(56.1%) students were male and 68(43.9%) were female. Prevention in transmission of resistant microbes among patients in clinical settings was reported negative by the...
COVID-19 has swept globally and Pakistan is no exception. To investigate the initial introduction... more COVID-19 has swept globally and Pakistan is no exception. To investigate the initial introductions and transmissions of the SARS-CoV-2 in Pakistan, we performed the largest genomic epidemiology study of COVID-19 in Pakistan and generated 150 complete SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences from samples collected before June 2, 2020. We identified a total of 347 mutated positions, 31 of which were over-represented in Pakistan. Meanwhile, we found over 1000 intra-host single-nucleotide variants (iSNVs). Several of them occurred concurrently, indicating possible interactions among them or coevolution. Some of the high-frequency iSNVs in Pakistan were not observed in the global population, suggesting strong purifying selections. The genomic epidemiology revealed five distinctive spreading clusters. The largest cluster consisted of 74 viruses which were derived from different geographic locations of Pakistan and formed a deep hierarchical structure, indicating an extensive and persistent nation-wide transmission of the virus that was probably attributed to a signature mutation (G8371T in ORF1ab) of this cluster. Furthermore, 28 putative international introductions were identified, several of which are consistent with the epidemiological investigations. In all, this study has inferred the possible pathways of introduction and transmissions of SARS-CoV-2 in Pakistan, which could aid ongoing and future viral surveillance and COVID-19 control.
Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 2021
Hepatitis B is a contagious liver disorder caused by hepatitis B virus and if not treated at an e... more Hepatitis B is a contagious liver disorder caused by hepatitis B virus and if not treated at an early stage, it becomes chronic and results in liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma which can even lead to death. In present study, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is employed for the analysis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products of DNA extracted from hepatitis B virus (HBV) infected patients in comparison with healthy individuals. SERS spectral features are identified which are solely present in the HBV positive samples and consistently increase in intensities with increase in viral load which can be considered as a SERS spectral marker for HBV infection. For sake of understanding, these various levels of viral loads in this study are classified as low (1-1000 IU), medium (1000-10,000 IU), high (above 10,000 IU) and negative control (>1). In order to explore the efficiency of SERS for discrimination of SERS spectral datasets of different samples of varying viral loads and healthy individuals, principal component analysis (PCA) is applied. PCA is used for comparison of these classes including low, medium and high levels of viral loads with each other and with healthy class. Moreover, partial least square discriminant analysis and partial least square regression analysis are employed for the classification of different levels of viral loads in the HBV positive samples and prediction of viral loads in the unknown samples, respectively. PLS-DA is applied for validity of classification and its sensitivity and specificity was found to be 89% and 98% respectively. PLSR model was constructed for prediction of viral loads on the bases of SERS spectral markers of HBV infection with goodness value of 0.9031 and value of root means square error (RMSE) 0.2923. PLSR model also proved to be valid for prediction of blind sample.
BACKGROUND Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for the robust, reliable and rapid detectio... more BACKGROUND Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for the robust, reliable and rapid detection and discrimination of bacteria. OBJECTIVES To develop a rapid and sensitive technique based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) with multivariate data analysis tools for discrimination among carbapenem resistant and susceptible E. coli strains. METHODS SERS was employed to differentiate different strains of carbapenem resistant and susceptible E. coli by using silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) as a SERS substrate. For this purpose, four strains of carbapenem resistant and three strains of carbapenem susceptible E. coli were analyzed by comparing their SERS spectral signatures. Furthermore, multivariate data analysis techniques including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) and Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) were performed over the spectral range of 400‒1800 cm‒1 (fingerprint region) for the identification and differentiation of different E. coli strains. RESULTS The SERS spectral features associated with resistant development against carbapenem antibiotics were separated by comparing each spectrum of susceptible strains with each resistant strain. PCA and HCA were found effective for the qualitative differentiation of all the strains analysed. PLS-DA successfully discriminated the carbapenem resistant and susceptible E. coli pellets on the strain level with 99.8 % sensitivity, 100 % specificity, 100 % accuracy and 86 % area under receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve. CONCLUSION SERS can be employed for the rapid discrimination among carbapenem resistant and susceptible strains of E. coil.
The purpose of this study is to recognize the key issues in engineering construction management (... more The purpose of this study is to recognize the key issues in engineering construction management (ECM) under OBOR in Pakistan, to assess their impact on success of ECM projects and to draw suggestions about solutions to these issues. Three major issues named as "time-related issues, budget-related issues and employee-related issues" are recognized in ECM projects and then their impact on success of ECM projects is assessed. Data were collected from 202 CPEC officials through structured questionnaire and analysis was run to check the hypotheses of current study. The findings revealed that there is significant negative impact of employee-related issues, budget-related issues and time-related issues on the ECM project success as these issues create different managerial problems in projects, which causes delay the completion of projects and hampers the success of projects. The solution of these problems is provided in current study. This study is first of its type that has identified and analyzed these three key issues in ECM projects under OBOR in Pakistan in terms of their effect on success of those projects. The current study has noteworthy implications in theoretical and practical terms.
Humanity has been blessed by nature with brilliant and eye-catching colors of eco-friendly origin... more Humanity has been blessed by nature with brilliant and eye-catching colors of eco-friendly origin [1-2]. These natural gifts of colors have always been used by humans to dye clothing and other items. A considerable decline in the utilization of natural colorants has been observed since the discovery of the first synthetic dye [3-4]. There is an increasing awareness that natural dyes are a good alternative to synthetic dyes due to their biodegradability and sustainability, as well as soothing nature [7-8]. Hence, the demands for
International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science, 2016
Lfts (liver function tests) and Rfts (renal functions tests) values of patients show abnormalitie... more Lfts (liver function tests) and Rfts (renal functions tests) values of patients show abnormalities and it is confirmed swelling of liver and poor filtration rate of kidneys. So, drinking water treatment is most needed. All the blood samples were taking under controlled environment to keeping the good quality and standards that support real data for final analysis. LFTs tests are taking by drawing blood samples from infected persons with the help of testing machines, it shows average value of ALT and SGOT is very high as 50 u/l and 53u/l that is not good sign for liver health due to high value of toxins in human blood stream which is confirmed by toxins medical laboratory tests. All these problems is mainly due to taking bio contaminated food and unsafe drinking water, so if we make assure the security and safety about our taking the food as essential component of life.
International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science, 2016
Water is a very important nutrient and responsible to maintain good health as well as proper perf... more Water is a very important nutrient and responsible to maintain good health as well as proper performing the body functions, Water can remove the harmful toxins from the body. Infective disease produced by pathogenic microbes like bacteria, parasites and viruses including their metabolites as toxins are the known as most common and common health risk which connected with unsafe drinking water. It is expected; around 1.1 billion people worldwide have to drink unsafe drinking water per day. More than 95 % of these deaths are possible in low-income countries, where numerous causes like malnutrition, poor hygiene and sanitation create the immune deficiencies and specially factor such as unsafe drinking of water strongly affected on it. In the present study, C. Botulinum as bacterial specious and its related toxin botulinum toxins are detected in samples of ground water, water storage tanks and canal water but low values of toxins present in ground water sample and high values find in canal water sample.Coagulation process is used for removing the Botulinum toxins from drinking water source and giving the amazing results as show 92-97% toxins removes from drinking water samples by using the coagulant aluminium sulphate.
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