Energy security and renewable energy policy analysis of Pakistan

Sustainable energy supply is an important factor for continued economic growth of any society. Pakistan is among those developing countries which are facing severe shortages of energy now-a-days. The current and past governments in the country have designed various energy policies to fulfill energy demands but could not fill the demand-supply gap; there has been a shortage of about 5000 MW of electrical supply during summer 2016. A policy for development of renewable energy was framed in 2006 which was aimed to supply sustainable energy to all consumers including those households which have not been supplied electricity and natural gas in rural and far-flung areas. The policy was extended for implementation in 2011 and is still in use. The basis of this policy rests on energy security and self-sufficiency, social equity and economic benefits. This study aims at analyzing renewable energy policy of Pakistan and examining and finding the ways to secure energy supplies in future using LEAP. Four Scenarios, business-as-usual, green Pakistan, nuclear and optimization, have been developed to assess the validity of the energy plans. The study concludes that green Pakistan scenario employing renewable energy technologies, having minimum operation and externality costs, is the most suitable option in future

Torsion of the gallbladder: a case report

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Fe3+ @ ZnO/polyester based solar photocatalytic membrane reactor for abatement of RB5 dye

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordHeterogeneous photocatalysis, employing semiconductor metal oxides, especially at nano scale is a promising technique to mortify the dye residues from effluent. The photocatalysts on doping with a suitable dopant can be modified to enhance the photocatalytic activity. In this study, undoped and series of Fe3+ doped ZnO have been grown on polyester fabric through low temperature hydrothermal method to generate photocatalytic membrane reactors (PMRs). The material grown on the surface of fabric was characterized by XRD, EDX, SEM, TEM, STEM, AFM, XPS, ICP-MS, DRS and PL studies. For ZnO/PMR and Fe3+@ZnO/PMR photocatalytic activity was determined and examined to increase for Fe3+@ZnO/PMR in the solar region due to the reduction of band gap from 3.2 to 2.6 eV on Fe3+doping. The surface properties of PMRs were also determined by zeta potential and contact angle. The characterized ZnO and Fe3+@ZnO nano discs based PMRs have been used to degrade RB5 reactive dye on irradiating with artificial sunlight (D65, 72 W). The reaction parameters i.e. initial dye and oxidant concentration, pH and irradiation time have been optimized by Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The extent of dye degradation has been evaluated by UV/vis spectroscopy and FTIR. The maximum degradation achieved was 88.89% for ZnO/PMR and 98.34% for Fe3+@ZnO PMR in 180 min. The photocatalytic efficiency of Fe3+@ZnO PMR was investigated for 15 batches, with a slight gradual decrease in activity after eight batches.Endowment Fund Secretariat of University of Agriculture Faisalaba

Lambda and Antilambda polarization from deep inelastic muon scattering

We report results of the first measurements of Lambda and Antilambda polarization produced in deep inelastic polarized muon scattering on the nucleon. The results are consistent with an expected trend towards positive polarization with increasing x_F. The polarizations of Lambda and Antilambda appear to have opposite signs. A large negative polarization for Lambda at low positive x_F is observed and is not explained by existing models.A possible interpretation is presented.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force recommendations for a veterinary epilepsy-specific MRI protocol

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurological diseases in veterinary practice. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is regarded as an important diagnostic test to reach the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy. However, given that the diagnosis requires the exclusion of other differentials for seizures, the parameters for MRI examination should allow the detection of subtle lesions which may not be obvious with existing techniques. In addition, there are several differentials for idiopathic epilepsy in humans, for example some focal cortical dysplasias, which may only apparent with special sequences, imaging planes and/or particular techniques used in performing the MRI scan. As a result, there is a need to standardize MRI examination in veterinary patients with techniques that reliably diagnose subtle lesions, identify post-seizure changes, and which will allow for future identification of underlying causes of seizures not yet apparent in the veterinary literature. There is a need for a standardized veterinary epilepsy-specific MRI protocol which will facilitate more detailed examination of areas susceptible to generating and perpetuating seizures, is cost efficient, simple to perform and can be adapted for both low and high field scanners. Standardisation of imaging will improve clinical communication and uniformity of case definition between research studies. A 6–7 sequence epilepsy-specific MRI protocol for veterinary patients is proposed and further advanced MR and functional imaging is reviewed

Measurement of CP-violation asymmetries in D0 to Ks pi+ pi-

We report a measurement of time-integrated CP-violation asymmetries in the resonant substructure of the three-body decay D0 to Ks pi+ pi- using CDF II data corresponding to 6.0 invfb of integrated luminosity from Tevatron ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The charm mesons used in this analysis come from D*+(2010) to D0 pi+ and D*-(2010) to D0bar pi-, where the production flavor of the charm meson is determined by the charge of the accompanying pion. We apply a Dalitz-amplitude analysis for the description of the dynamic decay structure and use two complementary approaches, namely a full Dalitz-plot fit employing the isobar model for the contributing resonances and a model-independent bin-by-bin comparison of the D0 and D0bar Dalitz plots. We find no CP-violation effects and measure an asymmetry of ACP = (-0.05 +- 0.57 (stat) +- 0.54 (syst))% for the overall integrated CP-violation asymmetry, consistent with the standard model prediction.Comment: 15 page

The European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation (EuroSCORE) is not appropriate for withholding surgery in high-risk patients with aortic stenosis: a retrospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation (EuroSCORE) is a widely used risk assessment tool in patients with severe aortic stenosis to determine operability and to select patients for alternative therapies such as transcatheter aortic valve implantation. The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of the EuroSCORE in predicting mortality following aortic valve replacement (AVR).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The logistic EuroSCORE was determined for all consecutive patients that underwent conventional AVR between 1995 and 2005 at our institution. Provincial Vital Statistics were used to determine all-cause mortality. The accuracy of the prognostic risk prediction provided by logistic EuroSCORE was assessed by comparing observed and expected operative mortality.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the study period, a total of 1,421 patients underwent AVR including 237 patients (16.7%) that had a logistic EuroSCORE > 20. Among these patients, the mean predicted operative mortality was 38.7% (SD = 18.1). The actual mortality of these patients was significantly lower than that predicted by EuroSCORE (11.4% vs. 38.7%, observed/expected ratio 0.29, 95% CI 0.15–0.52, P < 0.05). The EuroSCORE overestimated mortality within all strata of predicted risk. Although medium-term mortality is significantly higher among patients with EuroSCORE > 20 (log rank P = 0.0001), approximately 60% are alive at five years.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Actual operative mortality in patients undergoing AVR is significantly lower than that predicted by the logistic EuroSCORE. Additionally, medium-term survival following AVR is acceptable in high-risk patients with EuroSCORE > 20. More accurate risk prediction models are needed for risk-stratifying patients with severe aortic stenosis.</p

Studying the Underlying Event in Drell-Yan and High Transverse Momentum Jet Production at the Tevatron

We study the underlying event in proton-antiproton collisions by examining the behavior of charged particles (transverse momentum pT > 0.5 GeV/c, pseudorapidity |\eta| < 1) produced in association with large transverse momentum jets (~2.2 fb-1) or with Drell-Yan lepton-pairs (~2.7 fb-1) in the Z-boson mass region (70 < M(pair) < 110 GeV/c2) as measured by CDF at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy. We use the direction of the lepton-pair (in Drell-Yan production) or the leading jet (in high-pT jet production) in each event to define three regions of \eta-\phi space; toward, away, and transverse, where \phi is the azimuthal scattering angle. For Drell-Yan production (excluding the leptons) both the toward and transverse regions are very sensitive to the underlying event. In high-pT jet production the transverse region is very sensitive to the underlying event and is separated into a MAX and MIN transverse region, which helps separate the hard component (initial and final-state radiation) from the beam-beam remnant and multiple parton interaction components of the scattering. The data are corrected to the particle level to remove detector effects and are then compared with several QCD Monte-Carlo models. The goal of this analysis is to provide data that can be used to test and improve the QCD Monte-Carlo models of the underlying event that are used to simulate hadron-hadron collisions.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.

Precision measurement of the top quark mass from dilepton events at CDF II

We report a measurement of the top quark mass, M_t, in the dilepton decay channel of $t\bar{t}\to b\ell'^{+}\nu_{\ell'}\bar{b}\ell^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\ell}$ using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of p\bar{p} collisions collected with the CDF II detector. We apply a method that convolutes a leading-order matrix element with detector resolution functions to form event-by-event likelihoods; we have enhanced the leading-order description to describe the effects of initial-state radiation. The joint likelihood is the product of the likelihoods from 78 candidate events in this sample, which yields a measurement of M_{t} = 164.5 \pm 3.9(\textrm{stat.}) \pm 3.9(\textrm{syst.}) \mathrm{GeV}/c^2, the most precise measurement of M_t in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, version includes changes made prior to publication by journa

Measurement of the Ratios of Branching Fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) and B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi)

Using 355 pb^-1 of data collected by the CDF II detector in \ppbar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron, we study the fully reconstructed hadronic decays B -> D pi and B -> D pi pi pi. We present the first measurement of the ratio of branching fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) = 1.05 pm 0.10 (stat) pm 0.22 (syst). We also update our measurement of B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi) to 1.13 pm 0.08 (stat) pm 0.23 (syst) improving the statistical uncertainty by more than a factor of two. We find B(Bs -> Ds pi) = [3.8 pm 0.3 (stat) pm 1.3 (syst)] \times 10^{-3} and B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) = [8.4 pm 0.8 (stat) pm 3.2 (syst)] \times 10^{-3}.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure