The Pakistan Agricultural Research System: Present Status and Future Agenda

Alarming food supply and demand deficits are projected to the year 2020 and beyond for Pakistan, based on its current low investment/low growth agricultural sector. Evidence suggests that agricultural productivity growth and increases in production may not keep pace with past growth rates. Part of the problem is an underfunded and poorly managed agricultural research system that can not hope to contribute significantly to increasing agricultural productivity now or in the future. The World Bank-assisted Agricultural Research II Project (ARP-II) was initiated to partially overcome some of the funding problems and provide institutional development in the areas of organisation, planning, and management of the research system at both the federal and provincial levels. A National Master Agricultural Research Plan (NMARP) was one of the principal goals of the ARP-II as part of improving research planning and management. The objective of this paper is to review the reasons why the Pakistan agricultural research system needs to be revitalised, review the status and problems of the present agricultural research system, and outline a future agenda for Pakistan’s agricultural research system based on the plan developed for the NMARP

Bulky household waste management in a UK local authority area: current practice, challenges and improvement opportunities

Charnwood Borough Council (CBC), an English local authority, recently introduced a Zero Waste Strategy encompassing targets for waste minimisation and recycling of household waste above UK Government baselines. To achieve these targets various areas of household waste management need to be amended to improve recycling performance. The bulky waste collection service, collecting large items such as furniture and electrical goods was identified as an area to target for improvement. A case study approach was adopted using data collected on a daily basis by CBC to quantify the number and type of items in the bulky waste stream. Current practices of managing bulky household waste are explored; identifying challenges in dealing with this waste stream such as financial and logistical challenges in identifying, collecting, repairing and storage. However, there is potential to increase recycling of some discarded items, particularly the large numbers of mattresses and some wooden furniture unsuitable for reuse

"Surface epithelial changes" in uterine endometrioid carcinoma mimicking micropapillary serous borderline tumor of ovary: report of two cases and review of the literature

We encountered two cases of endometrioid carcinoma of uterus with extensive surface epithelial changes (SECs) mimicking serous borderline tumor (SBT) of the ovary. The first case was a well-differentiated endometrioid carcinoma arising in a background of complex atypical hyperplasia. The second case was moderately-differentiated endometrioid carcinoma with squamous and mucinous differentiation. The SECs comprised of thin microapapillae without hierarchal branching, lined by cuboidal cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm and mild to moderate nuclear atypia. These areas were reminiscent of SBTs of ovary, micropapillary type. This report expands the existing spectrum of SECs. Serous borderline tumor of ovary like surface epithelial changes could be misleading if present in an endometrial biopsy or curettings. Therefore, knowledge of this morphologic variation is important

EVALUATION OF THE POTENTIAL WEEDINESS AND BIOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF TRANSGENIC RICE WITH GLU-1DX5 GENE

A Glu-1Dx5 allele, encoding for a high molecular weight glutenin sub unit Dx5, has been experimentally proven to be a major determinant for dough elasticity and functionality of bread wheat. Considering its important role, this gene has been successfully transferred to rice cv Fatmawati using particle bombardment. Some promising lines derived from consecutive generations have been obtained, however early biosafety assessment for transgenic plant is required in order to scientifically evaluate the equality of transgenic rice lines to their counterpart.Two promising lines (T3-19 and T3-20) which are supposed to be homozygous were subjected to weediness and biochemical evaluation. The evaluation of invasiveness as a measure of weediness was carried out in biosafety containment of BB Biogen, Bogor by growing a mixture of transgenic and non­transgenic. Biochemical testing was evaluated for nitrogen, carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamin, ash, minerals (Ca and Mg), and 17 amino acids. Weediness testing revealed that competitiveness of transgenic rice plants grown in screen house as well as biosafety containment was equal with those of non transgenic plants, suggesting that transgenic rice plants have not high potency to be invasive. Transgenic rice seed had equal nutritive value with those of counterpart. These results indicate that transgenic rice plants (seeds) are substantially equivalent to non transgenic original lines except for the presence of Glu-1Dx5 gene.Keywords: Glutenin, Invasiveness, Nutrient composition, Transgenic rice

Validating a traffic conflict prediction technique for motorways using a simulation approach

With the ever-increasing advancements in the technology of driver assistant systems, there is a need for a comprehensive way to identify traffic conflicts to avoid collisions. Although significant research efforts have been devoted to traffic conflict techniques applied for junctions, there is dearth of research on these methods for motorways. This paper presents the validation of a traffic conflict prediction algorithm applied to a motorway scenario in a simulated environment. An automatic video analysis system was developed to identify lane change and rear-end conflicts as ground truth. Using these conflicts, the prediction ability of the traffic conflict technique was validated in an integrated simulation framework. This framework consisted of a sub-microscopic simulator, which provided an appropriate testbed to accurately simulate the components of an intelligent vehicle, and a microscopic traffic simulator able to generate the surrounding traffic. Results from this framework show that for a 10% false alarm rate, approximately 80% and 73% of rear-end and lane change conflicts were accurately predicted, respectively. Despite the fact that the algorithm was not trained using the virtual data, the sensitivity was high. This highlights the transferability of the algorithm to similar road networks, providing a benchmark for the identification of traffic conflict and a relevant step for developing safety management strategies for autonomous vehicles

Compact Electronically Reconfigurable WiMAX Band- Notched Ultra-wideband MIMO Antenna

A low-profile electronically reconfigurable WiMAX band-notched dual port multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) antenna design for ultra-wideband application has been presented. The two symmetrical MIMO antenna elements proposed in this work exhibit a good impedance match (VSWR ≤ 2) over frequency band of 3 to 12 GHz, while offering high isolation. The decoupling structure is used to enhance the isolation level above 25 dB over the entire UWB spectrum. The reconfigurable band notch characteristic in MIMO design is achieved by inserting PIN diodes along the filtering Ω-shaped slotted structure in main radiators. Notch appears for WiMAX 3.5 GHz (3.2 - 3.8 GHz) frequency band by switching the PIN diode to ‘ON’ state. The proposed antenna is fabricated and measured, the results suggest its appropriateness for UWB applications where WiMAX band notch characteristics may be desired on-demand

Location Assisted Subcarrier and Power Allocation in Underlay Mobile Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper we perform subcarrier and power allocation for the downlink transmission in a cognitive radio network by exploiting the location information of mobile secondary users. A mixed integer nonlinear problem is formulated which maximizes the aggregate capacity of the secondary network, subject to the constrained interference at the primary user and the maximum transmit power limit of the secondary base station. To solve the formulated problem, an optimal subcarrier allocation is first obtained based on a practical assumption, followed by an optimal power allocation achieved using standard optimization methods. The proposed solution can facilitate to reduce latency and provide high speed communication of big data for mobile secondary users since speed, direction and location are all taken into account for effective allocation of resources. Simulation results verify our design intentions and confirm the efficiency of the proposed resource allocation strategy. © 2018 IEEE

Examining parking choices of connected and autonomous vehicles

Raising parking charges is a measure that restricts the use of private vehicles. With the introduction of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), the demand for parking has the potential to reduce as CAVs may not park at ‘pay to park’ areas as they are able to “cruise” or return home. However, it might not be financially feasible for them to return to their origin if the destination region is far away. Therefore, the question is: how could we develop parking policies in the CAVs era? To determine the best parking strategy for CAVs, four scenarios were tested in this paper: (i) enter and park within the destination area, (ii) enter, drop off, and return to the origin, (iii) enter, drop off, and return to outside parking and (iv) enter and drive around. Since real-world parking demand data for CAVs are not available, a simulation model of the road network in Santander (Spain) was employed to collect data on both CAV operations (e.g., conservative versus aggressive behaviors) and parking choices. Multinomial logistic regression model was used to identify the best parking option for CAVs. Performance indicators such as traffic, emissions, and safety were employed to compare the performance of a range of parking alternatives. It was found that the balanced scenario (i.e., combination of all parking choices) performs better with the greatest change in delay (around 32%). With 100% CAV market penetration, traffic crashes were reduced by 67%. This study will help local authorities formulate parking policies so that CAVs can park efficiently