India's Military Procurement Programs & Economic Capacity: Compatibility & Pragmatism

In a world of Realpolitik, each state in the world always looks for increasing its power; some for the purpose of their survival and some seek to fulfill their hegemonic ambitions. Having a huge population, territory, economy, and military, the states like India usually desire to establish their hegemony; therefore, it is not surprising that India wants to achieve a Great Power status in world politics. Although India has great numbers in each area of strategic significance it lacks qualitative capacity in terms of military strength where the advanced weapon systems are the backbone of a country’s military power. In order to fill this gap, the Indian government has announced very ambitious military modernization programs and is concluding various military procurement programs around the world bearing huge costs while the big arms-exporting countries are getting involved in such ambitious military modernization programs of India. Over the past few years, it has been observed that the Indian economy has not been able to fulfill the costs of military modernization programs and the gap between the estimated costs of military procurements and the budget allocation is continuously increasing. Therefore, this study hypothesized that Indian military procurement programs and Indian economic capacity are not compatible with each other, which shall have perilous effects for the countries involved in such projects. This study provides an analysis of Indian economic growth and its comparison with the costs of India’s military procurements and finds that the stated hypothesis is correct to the extent of compatibility difference between the Indian economic capacity and military procurement cost

Performance evaluation of cardiac troponin I assay: A comparison between the point-of-care testing radiometer AQT90 FLEX and the central laboratory siemens advia centaur analyzer

Background: To validate the point of care testing (POCT) Trop-I analyzer and compare it with a central laboratory-based chemiluminescence immunoassay, in order to evaluate its performance for use in critical care areas. Moreover, for clinical decision-making, it is imperative to know the extent to which patient stratification will differ based on the analytic method being used. In particular, the aim of this study was to evaluate the analytical performance of the point-of-care analyzer and demonstrate the agreement with the central laboratory measurements in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain and suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS).Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed at the section of chemical pathology, department of pathology and laboratory medicine, the Aga Khan University (AKU), Karachi, from October to November 2017. Samples from patients and the quality control material of Trop-I were analyzed for imprecision, linearity, and method comparison on Advia Centaur (Siemens Diagnostics, CA, USA), and the AQT90 FLEX analyzer (Radiometer Medical ApS, Brønshøj, Denmark) with photometric detection at the section of chemical pathology, AKU. Statistical analysis was done using Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Washington, United States) and EP Evaluator version 10.3.0.556 (Data Innovations, LLC, VT, US). Quantitative variables were represented in terms of mean ± SD. For precision, the computed SD was compared with allowable random error. Furthermore, Cohen’s kappa was applied to observe the agreement between the two methods.Results: The Trop-I Precision study on the POCT analyzer showed a coefficient of variation (CV) of 2.4% using a pooled patient sample with a mean Trop-I of 2.15 ± 0.05 ng/ml. Three standards ranging from 0.034 to 1.316 ng/ml were run in triplicate to verify accuracy and linearity. The allowable systematic error (SEa) was 10.0%. The maximum deviation for a mean recovery from 100% was 4.1%. All three of the mean recoveries were accurate and within the allowable error limits. The results were linear with slope 1.04, intercept 0.0. On a method comparison, Trop-I showed good agreement, yielding a kappa value of 0.95.Conclusion: This study has validated the performance of a POCT Trop-I assay against a central laboratory immunoassay and found acceptable results. POCT assays for cTnI should be implanted in emergency settings to ensure the fast triage of patients with chest pain, as well as timely diagnosis

Tritrophic Association between Bt Cotton, Arthropod Pest and Natural Enemies

Benefits and harmful effects of Bt adoption technology are mainly related with cotton production where lot of insecticides are needed for management of arthropod herbivory and possible negative impact of crystalline Bt protein on parasitoids and predators is real. Therefore, current review information was focused that Bt should be selective for natural enemies and information was collected from different sources especially CAB abstracts as well as citations from many review articles and books. Usefulness of integrated pest management was highlighted with updated literature to cover the contents

Green synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles using Abutilon indicum leaf extract: Antimicrobial, antioxidant and photocatalytic dye degradation activitie

Purpose: To synthesize copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles using a ecofriendly technique and evaluate their antimicrobial, antioxidant and photo-catalytic dye degradation potentials.Methods: A superficial method (solution combustion method) was employed for the synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles from an aqueous extract of Abutilon indicum. The CuO nanoparticles were characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopic techniques. The antimicrobial activity of the CuO nanoparticles was determined by agar well diffusion method, while their antioxidant properties were assessed by DPPH radical scavenging, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), total antioxidant, ferric thiocyanate (FTC) and total phenolic content (TPC) assays. The photo-catalytic degradation activity of synthesized CuO nanoparticles was assessed by the degradation of Acid Black 210 (AB) dye under sunlight irradiation.Results: XRD, EDX and SEM results confirmed successful synthesis of CuO nanoparticles, with hexagonal, wurtzite and sponge crystal structure. Photo-catalytic data revealed that the nanoparticles are a good catalyst for effective degradation of Acid Black 210. The nanoparticles also exhibited remarkable antioxidant activity, with IC50 and FRAP values ranging from 40 ± 0.23 to 84 ± 0.32 μg/ml, and 0.65 ± 0.01 to 9.10 ± 0.21 Trolox equivalent/mL, respectively. Significant bactericidal activity was manifested by the CuO nanoparticles against Klebsiella and Bacillus subtilis with zone of inhibition of 14 ± 0.05 and 15 ± 0.11 mm, respectively.Conclusion: The synthesized CuO nanoparticles exhibit antibacterial and antioxidant potential, indicating that they are good candidates for future therapeutic applications.Keywords: CuO nanoparticles, Green synthesis, Photo-catalytic degradation, Antioxidant, Antimicrobia

Synthesis, characterization and evaluation of biological activities of manganese-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles

Purpose: To synthesize, characterize and investigate the antimicrobial properties of pure and manganese-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles.Method: Un-doped and manganese-doped zinc oxide (Mn-doped ZnO) nanoparticles were prepared using co-precipitation method. The synthesized Mn-doped ZnO  nanoparticles were characterized using energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy  (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and x-ray diffraction (XRD)  spectroscopic techniques. Their band gap energies were measured with ultraviolet-visible (UVVis) spectroscopy, while their antioxidant properties were evaluated by ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), DPPH radical-scavenging, ferric  thiocyanate (FTC) and total phenolic content (TPC) assays. The antimicrobial  activities of the nanoparticles against different bacterial strains were determined using agar diffusion method.Result: Results from XRD, SEM, EDX and UV-Vis analyses demonstrated  successful synthesis of undoped and Mn-doped ZnO nanoparticles as seen in their hexagonal, wurtzite structures. The un-doped and Mn-doped ZnO nanoparticles had average grain sizes of 16.72 nm and 17.5 nm, and band gap energies of 3.585 eV and 2.737 eV, respectively. Significant antibacterial activity was manifested by Mndoped ZnO against E. coli, S. aureus, Klebsiella and B. subtilis, with zones of inhibition (ZOIs) of 13 ± 0.09 mm, 14 ± 0.01 mm, 18 ± 0.07 mm and 20 ± 0.10 mm, respectively. The Mn-doped ZnO nanoparticles also exhibited effective and significant antioxidant potential relative to butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and un-doped ZnO nanoparticles.Conclusion: Mn-doped ZnO nanoparticles demonstrate significant antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Thus, the preparation is a good candidate for further development into therapeutic formulations.Keywords: Mn-doped ZnO, Nanoparticles, Properties, Antioxidant, Antibacteria

Automatic Vehicle Checking Agent (VCA)

A definition of intelligence is given in terms of performance that can be quantitatively measured. In this study, we have presented a conceptual model of Intelligent Agent System for Automatic Vehicle Checking Agent (VCA). To achieve this goal, we have introduced several kinds of agents that exhibit intelligent features. These are the Management agent, internal agent, External Agent, Watcher agent and Report agent. Metrics and measurements are suggested for evaluating the performance of Automatic Vehicle Checking Agent (VCA). Calibrate data and test facilities are suggested to facilitate the development of intelligent systems. Keywords: VCA, Agents