Thermal, Mechanical and Flammability Studies of Flame-retardant Polymer Nanocomposites

Polymers are widely used in our day-to-day lives and we are often oblivious to the fire hazard imposed by these hydrocarbon-based materials. The current study introduces the application of fire retardant nanofillers for enhanced flame retardancy as a potential remedy against flame spread. With the objective of understanding how the flame retardant nanofillers work; the thermal, mechanical and fire reaction properties have been investigated. For this purpose, neat polystyrene (PS), PS-silica and PS-montmorillonite (MMT) have been prepared via in-situ polymerization method. The thermal degradation mechanism of the neat polymer and polymer nanocomposites and the effect of nanoparticle loading on thermal properties have been investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) equipment. TGA and corresponding derivative TG (DTG) results show that there has been improvement in thermal stability for the nanocomposites in terms of higher onset temperature of degradation and 72-87% more char yield with respect to neat PS. The mechanical test revealed that increased loading reduces hardness for the nanocomposites compared to the neat polystyrene. To obtain the full scenario of the performance of the flame-retardant polymer nanocomposite system, it is important to explore the aspect of a real fire scenario in cone calorimeter. According to the fire reaction properties as measured in the cone calorimeter, both neat polystyrene and polystyrene nanocomposites have shown the trend of a thermally thick charring polymer in the heat release rate over time data. The nanocomposites had an overall better flame retardancy than the neat polystyrene in terms of lower peak heat release rate, lower average mass loss rate and enhanced char formation. The nanocomposites had also reduced smoke emission with lower CO and CO2 yield compared to the neat polystyrene. It was concluded that the addition of nanosilica and nanoclay in small loading can significantly improve thermal stability, fire reaction properties and mechanical properties; however, higher loading may result in agglomeration and reduction in hardness

Comparison of Sublingual Misoprostol and Manual Vacuum Aspiration for the Treatment of Incomplete Abortion in First Trimester in Terms of Frequency of Decreased Haemoglobin Levels

Background: To compare efficacy of manual vacuum aspiration with sublingual misoprostol for the treatment of incomplete abortion in terms of frequency of blood loss and decreased haemoglobin.Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, patients with incomplete abortion, open cervical os, vaginal bleeding, history of vaginal bleeding during this pregnancy and uterine size of less than or equal to 12wks menstrual period were included. Consenting women were randomized to either Group A who received a single dose of 600 microgram of sublingual misoprostol or Group B who underwent manual vacuum aspiration for evacuation of retained products of conception. Both groups comprised of 150 patients each. Pre and post (after 48 hours) treatment haemoglobin levels were measured.Results: Mean fall in haemoglobin level <1g/dl from baseline level was seen in misoprostol group while a mean fall of <0.5g/dl from baseline level was observed in MVA group (p<0.001, 95% CI, t=1.64, eta squared=0.006). A significant association was found with haemoglobin level, parity and age, with p=0.001, p= 0.05, p=0.02 respectivelyConclusion: The efficacy of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) is indicated by lower level of blood loss (Hb<0.5g/dl from baseline) as compared to 600μg sublingual misoprostol. MVA is associated with less complications than misoprostol

I am a teacher who is also a student

All of us are.....all good teachers are ones who are good students....always on the lookout to learn new facts and new ways of handling students. That’s what keeps them on their toes and makes their job interesting

Knowing How You Are Feeling Depends on What’s on My Mind: Cognitive Load and Expression categorisation

The ability to correctly interpret facial expressions is key to effective social interactions. We are well rehearsed and generally very efficient at correctly categorising expressions. However does our ability to do so depend on how cognitively loaded we are at the time? Using repeated measures designs we assessed the sensitivity of facial expression categorisation to cognitive resources availability by measuring people’s expression categorisation performance during concurrent low and high cognitive load situations. In Experiment1 participants categorised the six basic upright facial expressions in a 6-AFC response paradigm whilst maintaining low or high loading information in working memory (N= 40; 60 observations per load condition). In Experiment 2 they did so for both upright and inverted faces (N= 46; 60 observations per load and inversion condition). In both experiments expression categorisation for upright faces was worse during high versus low load. Categorisation rates actually improved with increased load for the inverted faces. The opposing effects of cognitive load on upright and inverted expressions are explained in terms of a cognitive load related dispersion in the attentional window. Overall the findings support that expression categorisation is sensitive to cognitive resources availability and moreover suggest that, in this paradigm, it is the perceptual processing stage of expression categorisation that is affected by cognitive load

Sufism as an Attempt to Replace the Extremism in the Contemporary World: A Socio-Political Analysis

This paper belongs to the category of Applied Political Science dealing with the contemporary and alive issue of terrorism, which has destroyed world peace and humanity. The paper is a practical effort to suggest some concrete solutions. Tasawwuf, or Sufism, is the ignored or overlooked factors by the local and international community. It must be brought back to its actual position in order to push back the artificial people who wrongly interpret Islam for their ulterior political motives. The paper also deals with psychological aspects of the people. It also suggests how to use communication skills for training the people to rescue the world with the help of Sufism. Keywords: Tasawwuf, Sufism, Extremism, Fanatic Behavior, Peace and Tolerance

Skin Changes in Newly Diagnosed Cases of Hypothyroidism

Introduction: Thyroid disorders are frequent in our population that leads to variety of cutaneous manifestations. Aim of our study was to determine the frequencies of skin changes of hypothyroidism and their association with gender. Methodology: This observational study was conducted at RIHS Islamabad (Ist Jun to 31st Dec 2019) after ethical approval. 105 patients (>18years age) of both genders. Confirmed to have hypothyroidism on the basis of thyroid function tests were included. Secondary hypothyroidism, sick thyroid disease, pregnant women, receiving thyroxin therapy, carcinoma of thyroid, critically ill cases, post-thyroidectomy and iatrogenic thyroid cases were excluded. After informed consent, demographic details were documented. Patients were clinically evaluated and examined in detail including dermatological examination for cutaneous manifestations. Various skin findings are studies with respect to gender. Data was analysed by SPSS version 21 with Chi-square test as a test of significance, significant p<0.05. Results: Among 105 cases of hypothyroidism (62% females and 38% males, mean age was 38.04+12.61 years. Mean TSH level was found to be 32.08 + 33.96 (mean TSH was 35.31+37.31 in females Vs. 26.96 + 27.19 in males; p=0.001). Common skin findings were dry skin in 69.5%, diffuse hair loss in 58%, coarse skin in 57%, pruritis in 51.4%, madarosis 37%, seborrheic dermatitis 34%, coarse scalp hairs 27% and slow nail growth in 23%. The brittle nails, alopecia areata, chronic urticaria, acanthosis nigricans, ivory yellow skin, purpura ecchymosis, ichthyosis, herpes simplex and certain other findings were found in <20% cases. Obesity was observed in 53(50.5%) cases, Type 2 diabetes in 20(19%), hypertension in 23(21.9%), dyslipidaemia in 12(11.4%) and anaemia in 9(8.6%). Obesity, diabetes, dyslipidaemia had no association with gender (p>0.05). However, hypertension and anaemia were significantly frequent amongst females (p<0.05). The dry, coarse skin, diffuse hair loss and seborrheic dermatitis were associated with female gender (p>0.05). Slow nail growth, brittle nails, acne vulgaris, acrochordons, vitiligo, xanthelasma were more common in males however the difference wasn’t statistically significant. Conclusion: Skin acts as an important diagnostic window to diseases affecting internal organs including thyroid disorders. Authors recommend screening for thyroid functions, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, obesity and anaemia in patients presenting with suggestive dermatological manifestations irrespective of age and gender. KEYWORDS:  Hypothyroidism.  Thyroid Diseases.  Skin Changes. Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. Thyroid Gland

Comparative Study of Local Government with Reference to Pakistan and Turkey Relationship

This article is about long lasting Pakistan and Turkey relationship. The bond between Pakistan and Turkey is considered to be long before than the independence of the state and the history reveals that Muslims of subcontinent always had a soft corner in their hearts filled with compassions regarding Sultan of Turkey. This sentiment of belonging prevailed in the Muslims even after the downfall of Sultan and emergence as an independent state. The article for the sake of understanding has been classified as a timeline that depicts the details of the relationship between the two nations under the governance of different political parties and leaders. This article includes the major and noteworthy events, ceremonies and treaties specially designed to cement the ties of Pakistan and Turkey. Since the independence Turkey has made special efforts to maintain a positive atmosphere between the two states. This resulted in Baghdad Pact (which later changed to Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and the Regional Co-operation for Development (RCD) (which later changed its name into the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). The two states have initially worked together in the defense domain and signed different treaties that would promote peace and security not only in their respective regions but also to support world peace. These treaties were also aimed to show good will with the western countries and to gain their trust in war against terrorism. Turkey has also played as a negotiator and facilitator when Pakistan was at cold war with Afghanistan and India. Both Pakistan and Turkey has always support each other in the issues like Kashmir dispute and Cyprus Issue. During the mid-1980s, the communication between the two nations got weakened when RCD lost its enthusiasm. There came a phase when Turkey and Pakistan bond got distressed primarily because of the support of Pakistani government to Taliban. The cold war remained intact when the mutually signed treaties lost its zest and failed to perform up to the expectations, until the Musharraf era. Musharraf due to his keen interest and intense appreciation in the leadership of modern turkey made special efforts to revitalize the broken links between Pakistan and Turkey. It is right to be said that he became very successful in rejuvenating the connection. Due to his supreme respect for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, President Musharraf started the consensual high-level official visits. President Musharraf also honored to make the first ever address to the Turkish parliament as a Pakistani leader. Currently in 2015, Pakistan and Turkey with the much stronger ties than ever before, is planning for economic advancement by availing the trade opportunities along with the redefined defense strategies

The Administration of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Its Impact on the Contemporary States

This paper aims to analyze the administration during the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and illustrate its importance in today’s times. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) had introduced basic norms of Public Administration and practically presented an administrative model for the experts of Management Sciences disciplines. Many of the rules and regulations he (PBUH) laid out, in accordance to the Quranic command, ended up coinciding with the contemporary policies used today in many nations and even in the United Nations. He (PBUH) commanded his nation with honor, justice, equality, peace, and respect to humanity. All of these principles were practiced by him (PBUH) centuries before the contemporary world attempted to rule politics in a similar way. Thus, it can be said that many western countries have borrowed these basic principles of governmental rule from the first Islamic Welfare State of Madina. Keywords: Islamic Public Administration, Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Islamic State, Madina, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a rule

IMPROVING CORONARY HEART DISEASE PREDICTION BY OUTLIER ELIMINATION

Nowadays, heart disease is the major cause of deaths globally. According to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization, almost 18 million people die of heart diseases (or cardiovascular diseases) every day. So, there should be a system for early detection and prevention of heart disease. Detection of heart disease mostly depends on the huge pathological and clinical data that is quite complex. So, researchers and other medical professionals are showing keen interest in accurate prediction of heart disease.  Heart disease is a general term for a large number of medical conditions related to heart and one of them is the coronary heart disease (CHD). Coronary heart disease is caused by the amassing of plaque on the artery walls. In this paper, various machine learning base and ensemble classifiers have been applied on heart disease dataset for efficient prediction of coronary heart disease. Various machine learning classifiers that have been employed include k-nearest neighbor, multilayer perceptron, multinomial naïve bayes, logistic regression, decision tree, random forest and support vector machine classifiers. Ensemble classifiers that have been used include majority voting, weighted average, bagging and boosting classifiers. The dataset used in this study is obtained from the Framingham Heart Study which is a long-term, ongoing cardiovascular study of people from the Framingham city in Massachusetts, USA. To evaluate the performance of the classifiers, various evaluation metrics including accuracy, precision, recall and f1 score have been used. According to our results, the best accuracy was achieved by logistic regression, random forest, majority voting, weighted average and bagging classifiers but the highest accuracy among these was achieved using weighted average ensemble classifier.&nbsp