A brief report of research activities of Indus Institute of Higher Eduction (IIHE) Karachi, Pakistan 2007-2010 (August)

An attempt has been made to summarize the past performance of “Indus Institute of Higher Education” (IIHE) relating to research work already done or being done in its different faculties. In fact this Institute is actively involved in research activities but never reflected them in any correspondence. This Institute is regularly publishing its academic journal with contribution from within the country and qualified researchers from abroad. Four active researchers, of this Institute, are registered and contributing articles in research journals and MPRA working paper series at national and international level. For the students of Bachelors and Masters Research Projects are mandatory for award of Degrees. The Institute has already started M.Phil and Ph.D programs and from the first batch of M.Phil a few students have already submitted their Thesis. The 2nd batch of M.Phil [16 students) is doing its thesis writing. As per HEC’s requirements every faculty have to contribute at least 2 articles at national and international level. In this respect the IIHE has planned to publish one working paper series and four e-journals in the field of textile, engineering and technology, education and economics. The management has decided to make it mandatory for every faculty to contribute at least two research papers/reports per annum. To achieve this objective Research Office has decided to train all the faculty members of the Institute through workshops etc. in order to creating awareness in Faculty members as well as students of MBA, BBA, M.Ed. and B.S.T. to use research-based structure and methodologies that are requisite for M.Phil. Or Ph.D students.Research Activities; IIHE, Cell; RePEc; Journal

Redistributive Effects of Fiscal Policy across the Income Groups in the Urban-Rural Areas of Pakistan

There exist a large number of studies related to the estimates of government budgetary redistributive effects and its related problems with regard to different countries of the world.1 Studies of the impacts of government expenditures and taxes in Pakistan have been conducted within the framework of either incidence of taxes or the impact of expenditures across the income groups. The studies carried out by Azfar (1972); Jeetun (1978); Alauddin and Raza (1981) Malik and Saqib (1985, 1989) cover different aspects of taxation—tax incidence, progressivity or regressivity of the tax system across the income groups/individuals and regions. These studies did not discuss the expenditure side of the budget. Shirazi (1996) analysed the impact of government transfer programmes (Zakat and Ushr) across the income deciles. Ghaus (1989) studied the incidence of provincial and municipal government service-related expenditure benefits in Karachi metropolitan and therefore, the scope of her study was limited to one city only. Despite the existence of a rich bibliography on the subject of government redistrbutive budgetary effects and its related problems, no study is available which covers the overall redistributive impacts of government budgetary policy in Pakistan. This study explores the impacts of government expenditures and taxes on the distribution of income across various income groups along with net fiscal impacts in the urban-rural areas of Pakistan. The rest of our study is organised as follows. In the following section, Part II, we describe the methodology and data set. In Part III, the results of the study are presented. The Part IV concludes the paper

Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation of the Water-Flow Mechanics in a Cotton Plant

Soil Scienc

TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROTATING NONLOCAL NANOBEAMS SUBJECT TO A VARYING HEAT SOURCE AND A DYNAMIC LOAD

In this article, the influence of thermal conductivity on the dynamics of a rotating nanobeam is established in the context of nonlocal thermoelasticity theory. To this end, the governing equations are derived using generalized heat conduction including phase lags on the basis of the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. The thermal conductivity of the proposed model linearly changes with temperature and the considered nanobeam is excited with a variable harmonic heat source and exposed to a time-dependent load with exponential decay. The analytic solutions for bending moment, deflection and temperature of rotating nonlocal nanobeams are achieved by means of the Laplace transform procedure. A qualitative study is conducted to justify the soundness of the present analysis while the impact of nonlocal parameter and varying heat source are discussed in detail. It also shows the way in which the variations of physical properties due to temperature changes affect the static and dynamic behavior of rotating nanobeams. It is found that the physical fields strongly depend on the nonlocal parameter, the change of the thermal conductivity, rotation speed and the mechanical loads and, therefore, it is not possible to neglect their effects on the manufacturing process of precise/intelligent machines and devices

A brief report of research activities of Indus Institute of Higher Eduction (IIHE) Karachi, Pakistan 2007-2010 (August)

An attempt has been made to summarize the past performance of “Indus Institute of Higher Education” (IIHE) relating to research work already done or being done in its different faculties. In fact this Institute is actively involved in research activities but never reflected them in any correspondence. This Institute is regularly publishing its academic journal with contribution from within the country and qualified researchers from abroad. Four active researchers, of this Institute, are registered and contributing articles in research journals and MPRA working paper series at national and international level. For the students of Bachelors and Masters Research Projects are mandatory for award of Degrees. The Institute has already started M.Phil and Ph.D programs and from the first batch of M.Phil a few students have already submitted their Thesis. The 2nd batch of M.Phil [16 students) is doing its thesis writing. As per HEC’s requirements every faculty have to contribute at least 2 articles at national and international level. In this respect the IIHE has planned to publish one working paper series and four e-journals in the field of textile, engineering and technology, education and economics. The management has decided to make it mandatory for every faculty to contribute at least two research papers/reports per annum. To achieve this objective Research Office has decided to train all the faculty members of the Institute through workshops etc. in order to creating awareness in Faculty members as well as students of MBA, BBA, M.Ed. and B.S.T. to use research-based structure and methodologies that are requisite for M.Phil. Or Ph.D students

A brief report of research activities of Indus Institute of Higher Eduction (IIHE) Karachi, Pakistan 2007-2010 (August)

An attempt has been made to summarize the past performance of “Indus Institute of Higher Education” (IIHE) relating to research work already done or being done in its different faculties. In fact this Institute is actively involved in research activities but never reflected them in any correspondence. This Institute is regularly publishing its academic journal with contribution from within the country and qualified researchers from abroad. Four active researchers, of this Institute, are registered and contributing articles in research journals and MPRA working paper series at national and international level. For the students of Bachelors and Masters Research Projects are mandatory for award of Degrees. The Institute has already started M.Phil and Ph.D programs and from the first batch of M.Phil a few students have already submitted their Thesis. The 2nd batch of M.Phil [16 students) is doing its thesis writing. As per HEC’s requirements every faculty have to contribute at least 2 articles at national and international level. In this respect the IIHE has planned to publish one working paper series and four e-journals in the field of textile, engineering and technology, education and economics. The management has decided to make it mandatory for every faculty to contribute at least two research papers/reports per annum. To achieve this objective Research Office has decided to train all the faculty members of the Institute through workshops etc. in order to creating awareness in Faculty members as well as students of MBA, BBA, M.Ed. and B.S.T. to use research-based structure and methodologies that are requisite for M.Phil. Or Ph.D students

Radioprotective effect of a combination of melatonin and metformin on mice spermatogenesis: A histological study

Background: The spermatogenesis system includes highly radiosensitive cells. Hence, this system is a potential target for toxic effects of ionizing radiation during radiotherapy of abdomen and pelvis cancers, as well as after accidental radiation events. Accordingly, metformin and melatonin are two important radioprotectors that have shown an ability to prevent cell death through neutralization of free radicals and stimulating DNA damage responses. Objective: To evaluate the radioprotective effects of melatonin and metformin on mice spermatogenesis when administered alone or as a combination. Materials and Methods: In this histological Study, 40 (6-8 wk, 30 gr) NMRI mice were divided into 8 groups (n = 5/each) as control, metformin, melatonin, melatonin + metformin, radiation, radiation + melatonin, radiation + metformin, and radiation + melatonin + metformin. 37 days after the irradiation, the testicular tissues were collected for histological evaluation. Results: Single administration of melatonin could ameliorate effectively radiation toxicity in mice testis. Metformin showed radioprotective effects on some parameters such as the numbers of spermatogonia and mature sperms. Interestingly, the melatonin and metformin combination reversed the reduced number of sperms rather than single drug administration. Conclusion: The combination of melatonin with metformin can protect mice spermatogenesis against ionizing radiation more effectively compared to the single forms of these drugs. Key words: Radiation, Testis, Leydig cells, Melatonin, Metformin, Spermatogenesis

A high-content neuron imaging assay demonstrates inhibition of prion disease-associated neurotoxicity by an anti-prion protein antibody

There is an urgent need to develop disease-modifying therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases which pose increasing challenges to global healthcare systems. Prion diseases, although rare, provide a paradigm to study neurodegenerative dementias as similar disease mechanisms involving propagation and spread of multichain assemblies of misfolded protein ("prion-like" mechanisms) are increasingly recognised in the commoner conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. However, studies of prion disease pathogenesis in mouse models showed that prion propagation and neurotoxicity can be mechanistically uncoupled and in vitro assays confirmed that highly purified prions are indeed not directly neurotoxic. To aid development of prion disease therapeutics we have therefore developed a cell-based assay for the specific neurotoxicity seen in prion diseases rather than to simply assess inhibition of prion propagation. We applied this assay to examine an anti-prion protein mouse monoclonal antibody (ICSM18) known to potently cure prion-infected cells and to delay onset of prion disease in prion-infected mice. We demonstrate that whilst ICSM18 itself lacks inherent neurotoxicity in this assay, it potently blocks prion disease-associated neurotoxicity

Synthesis of 4-aryl-6-indolylpyridine-3-carbonitriles and Evaluation of Their Antiproliferative Activity data files

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/pharmacy_data/1001/thumbnail.jp

Metaplastic breast carcinoma: Clinicopathological parameters and prognostic profile

Introduction: Metaplastic breast carcinoma (MBC) is defined as breast cancer with a heterologous non-glandular component. MBC is considered a special type of breast cancer with a prognosis that is worse than invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) of the breast. MBC is the most common breast cancer with a triple-negative profile. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the clinicopathological parameters, recurrence and survival of MBC in our population.Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study in the Department of Histopathology at Prince Faisal Oncology Centre, Buraidah, Saudi Arabia, over a period of five years. All cases diagnosed as MBC were included in the study. Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed on representative tissue blocks.Results: Total 183 cases of MBCs were included in the study, out of which 120 cases were excision specimens. The mean age of the patients was 48.84±12.99 years, and the most common age group was between 36 and 50 years of age. Most of the cases were tumor (T) stage T3 (50%), and nodal metastasis was present in 40% of cases. Most cases were grade III (78.7%). ER, PR and HER2/neu positivity was noted in 15.8%, 13.1%, and 9.8% cases, respectively. Follow-up data were available for 70 cases, with a median follow-up period of 4 (1-7) years. Tumor recurrence was noted in 31.4% cases, with a survival rate of 71.4%. Squamous, chondroid, spindle cell differentiation, and matrix production were noted in 70.5%, 7.1%, 13.7%, and 2.2% cases, respectively. A significant association of squamous differentiation was noted with HER2/neu positivity. An inverse association of spindle cell differentiation was seen with axillary metastasis. Survival analysis by Kaplan-Meier revealed a significant association of survival with tumor recurrence.Conclusion: MBC is an important subtype of breast cancer, histopathological identification of which is challenging, owing to varied histological differentiation. We found squamous differentiation to be the most common in MBC, which was associated with HER2/neu positivity. A high recurrence rate of MBC was also observed in our study that was significantly associated with survival