U-Pb geochronology and petrogenesis of peraluminous granitoids from northern Indian plate in NW Pakistan: Andean type orogenic signatures from the early Paleozoic along the northern Gondwana

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe pre-Himalayan peraluminous magmatic event along the northern margin of Indian plate in north-western Pakistan has been investigated leading to a correlation with the magmatic evolution in other Himalayan and northern Gondwana regions. The two mica granites from Utla and Mansehra regions of NW Pakistan are dominantly megacrystic, strongly peraluminous (A/CNK > 1.1) and intruded by aplitic dykes and quartz rich veins. U-Pb zircon dating by SIMS reveals their emplacement during the early Paleozoic, ranging from 476 Ma to 480 Ma. These granites are enriched in light rare-earth elements (LREEs) and show similar REE patterns with negative Eu anomalies. Geochemical modelling indicates that these granites were derived mainly from the partial melting of pelitic sources followed by the evolution of melt via fractional crystallization of feldspars, biotite, muscovite, apatite, and/or zircon, with the aplite dykes representing the very last fractionation product. Based on their compositions, source rock characteristics and U-Pb geochronology, we assign these to the regional association of other Cambro-Ordovician granitoids from the Himalayas and northern Gondwana terranes. Due to these similarities alongside other metamorphic, stratigraphic and geochemical evidence, an early Paleozoic Andean-type orogenic event is proposed for the genesis of these granitoids where the process could have been initiated by the subduction of the Proto-Tethys oceanic lithosphere beneath the northern Gondwana continental margin.The principal author acknowledges the financial assistance provided by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, United Kingdom

Use of health related quality of life tools in upper gastrointestinal surgery

The objective of this article is to review the literature and discuss the various tools used in upper gastrointestinal surgery for the measurement of health related quality of life (HR-QOL) and highlights various outcome variables that affect the HR-QOL among patients of common upper gastrointestinal disorders. The paper reviews HR-QOL articles published in the last 25 years on different upper gastrointestinal curative or palliative procedures. The paper used an HR-QOL method, which is a questionnaire, which is utilized to assess the changes in the health status of patients after a surgical intervention. These surveys are of increasingly importance, as health care providers are challenged to justify treatment approaches and rationale for any surgical intervention. These HR-QOL tools are very helpful for the evaluation of subjective outcome of common upper gastrointestinal surgical procedures like Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index (GIQLI) and Quality of life in reflux and dyspepsia (QOLRAD) for Nissen fundoplication, Spitzer\'s QOL index for gastrectomy, Short Form 36 (SF-36) for achalasia and GIQLI for peptic ulcer disease. The paper concludes that use of validated and reliable health instruments in upper gastrointestinal surgery is directed at measuring the impact in a reproducible and valid fashion. Curative or palliative procedures should be offered to the patients of upper gastrointestinal disorders after the assessment by HR-QOL tools. As the impairment of functions that may occur after different operations vary considerably, an operation-specific assessment of HR-QOL for each type of surgical procedure is becoming an essential principle to follow in a successful healthcare system.African Journal of Health Sciences Vol. 15 (1&2) 2008: pp. 14-2

Energy conservation and climate change mitigation potential of improving efficiency of room air conditioners in Pakistan

The present study predicts the energy savings, carbon emissions reduction and economic benefits for Pakistan through energy efficiency improvements for room air conditioners under different policy scenarios. The simulation model assumes that room air conditioner stock will increase from 2.7 million for year 2020 to 4.9 million for year 2030. A market average energy efficiency ratio of 2.95 is assumed for year 2020. The impact of improvement in energy efficiency ratio is analyzed for business as usual and four other different scenarios: continuous improvement (5-years and 2-years cycles) and accelerated improvement (5-years and 2-years cycles). The model dynamically incorporates the retiring of old stock and addition of new stock every year. Our results show that annual national electricity consumption for this sector is projected to increase from 7.3 TWh in 2020 to 12.6 TWh in 2030 under the business as usual scenario. The cumulative energy consumption and carbon emissions are 103.5 TWh and 63.1 MtCO 2. However, implementing energy efficiency policies can result in electricity savings of 11.6 TWh over the ten years or savings nearly 7 million barrels of oil import. Policy recommendations aimed at promoting energy labeling, minimum energy performance standards, regulatory policies, and further country-specific studies for variety of appliances are provided. © 2022 The Author(s

Development of an enhanced single point milling procedure to screen metalworking cutting fluid performance in terms of tool wear when machining aerospace alloys

Metalworking fluids (MWFs) can greatly improve the machinability of materials and increase cutting tool life. There are a range of MWF products available on the market, however there are very few reliable low cost machining based fluid screening tests which can help select the most suitable candidate. This study developed a novel and rigorous single point milling (SPM) procedure carried out under controlled conditions, which would provide fluid performance differentiation for a range of typical aerospace alloys. The use of a single insert with a controlled geometry reduced machining variance and ensured performance repeatability. Tool life curves were used to determine optimum machining surface speeds for Inconel 718 (In718) of 80 m/min and Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) of 160 m/min. Carrying out trials using five different cutting fluid products within a controlled tool life window clearly demonstrated that the SPM machining test was able to differentiate performance on both In718 and Ti64 material. Overall a 65% and 53% performance difference in tool life behaviour was observed between the best and worst performing fluids for In718 and Ti64, respectively

Untargeted Metabolomics Analysis on Kidney Tissues from Mice Reveals Potential Hypoxia Biomarkers

Chronic hypoxia may have a huge impact on the cardiovascular and renal systems. Advancements in microscopy, metabolomics, and bioinformatics provide opportunities to identify new biomarkers. In this study, we aimed at elucidating the metabolic alterations in kidney tissues induced by chronic hypoxia using untargeted metabolomic analyses. Reverse phase ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy/mass spectroscopy (RP–UPLC–MS/MS) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC)–UPLC–MS/MS methods with positive and negative ion mode electrospray ionization were used for metabolic profiling. The metabolomic profiling revealed an increase in metabolites related to carnitine synthesis and purine metabolism. Additionally, there was a notable increase in bilirubin. Heme, N-acetyl-L-aspartic acid, thyroxine, and 3-beta-Hydroxy-5-cholestenoate were found to be significantly downregulated. 3-beta-Hydroxy-5-cholestenoate was downregulated more significantly in male than female kidneys. Trichome Staining also showed remarkable kidney fibrosis in mice subjected to chronic hypoxia. Our study offers potential intracellular metabolite signatures for hypoxic kidneys

Article a novel algorithm for capacitated vehicle routing problem for smart cities

Smart logistics is an indispensable building block in smart cities development that requires solving the challenge of efficiently serving the demands of geographically distributed customers by a fleet of vehicles. It consists of a very well-known NP-hard complex optimization problem, which is known as the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP). The CVRP has widespread real-life applications such as delivery in smart logistics, the pharmaceutical distribution of vacancies, disaster relief efforts, and others. In this work, a novel giant tour best cost crossover (GTBCX) operator is proposed which works stochastically to search for the optimal solutions of the CVRP. An NSGA-II-based routing algorithm employing GTBCX is also proposed to solve the CVRP to minimize the total distance traveled as well as to minimize the longest route length. The simulated study is performed on 88 benchmark CVRP instances to validate the success of our proposed GTBCX operator against the nearest neighbor crossover (NNX) and edge assembly crossover (EAX) operators. The rigorous simulation study shows that the GTBCX is a powerful operator and helps to find results that are superior in terms of the overall distance traveled, length of the longest route, quality, and number of Pareto solutions. This work employs a multi-objective optimization algorithm to solve the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP), where the CVRP is represented in the form of a two-dimensional graph. To compute the values’ objective functions, the distance between two nodes in the graph is considered symmetric. This indicates that the genetic algorithm complex optimization algorithm is employed to solve CVRP, which is a symmetry distance-based graph

Homozygosity mapping reveals novel and known mutations in Pakistani families with inherited retinal dystrophies.

Inherited retinal dystrophies are phenotypically and genetically heterogeneous. This extensive heterogeneity poses a challenge when performing molecular diagnosis of patients, especially in developing countries. In this study, we applied homozygosity mapping as a tool to reduce the complexity given by genetic heterogeneity and identify disease-causing variants in consanguineous Pakistani pedigrees. DNA samples from eight families with autosomal recessive retinal dystrophies were subjected to genome wide homozygosity mapping (seven by SNP arrays and one by STR markers) and genes comprised within the detected homozygous regions were analyzed by Sanger sequencing. All families displayed consistent autozygous genomic regions. Sequence analysis of candidate genes identified four previously-reported mutations in CNGB3, CNGA3, RHO, and PDE6A, as well as three novel mutations: c.2656C > T (p.L886F) in RPGRIP1, c.991G > C (p.G331R) in CNGA3, and c.413-1G > A (IVS6-1G > A) in CNGB1. This latter mutation impacted pre-mRNA splicing of CNGB1 by creating a -1 frameshift leading to a premature termination codon. In addition to better delineating the genetic landscape of inherited retinal dystrophies in Pakistan, our data confirm that combining homozygosity mapping and candidate gene sequencing is a powerful approach for mutation identification in populations where consanguineous unions are common

Novel B(Ar')2(Ar'') hetero-tri(aryl)boranes: a systematic study of Lewis acidity

A series of homo- and hetero-tri(aryl)boranes incorporating pentafluorophenyl, 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl, and pentachlorophenyl groups, four of which are novel species, have been studied as the acidic component of frustrated Lewis pairs for the heterolytic cleavage of H2. Under mild conditions eight of these will cleave H2; the rate of cleavage depending on both the electrophilicity of the borane and the steric bulk around the boron atom. Electrochemical studies allow comparisons of the electrophilicity with spectroscopic measurements of Lewis acidity for different series of boranes. Discrepancies in the correlation between these two types of measurements, combined with structural characterisation of each borane, reveal that the twist of the aryl rings with respect to the boron-centred trigonal plane is significant from both a steric and electronic perspective, and is an important consideration in the design of tri(aryl)boranes as Lewis acids

WiseEye: next generation expandable and programmable camera trap platform for wildlife research

Funding: The work was supported by the RCUK Digital Economy programme to the dot.rural Digital Economy Hub; award reference: EP/G066051/1. The work of S. Newey and RJI was part funded by the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS). Details published as an Open Source Toolkit, PLOS Journals at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169758Peer reviewedPublisher PD