54 Physiochemical Analysis of Fresh Water Sources in District Bhimber, Azad Jammu Kashmir

The present study investigates the physiochemical parameters of drinking water quality in district Bhimber of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The drinking water supplies in the area come from four main sources, streams, springs, hand pumps and boreholes. A total of seventy one (71) samples from all four water sources were taken for determination of physiochemical parameters. The results show considerable variation in water quality parameters of different water sources. However, the data analyses indicate that physiochemical parameters of water samples are well within the permissible limits of drinking water quality. Stream water samples show slightly higher pH values, while two samples from hand-pump have shown marginally higher content of TDS. The mean values of dissolved oxygen in borehole and hand-pump water samples are also slightly below the water quality standard limits. The correlation studies show that pH has a strong negative correlation with calcium and positive relation with sodium in water samples of all four sources. Similarly, the dissolved oxygen has shown negative relationship with temperature and a weak to moderate positive relationship with pH of water. No evidence of pollution and industrial contamination of water was found. The study found that water from all four sources is safe for drinking purpose

Emotional Speech Recognition: A Neural Network Pruning Approach

The aim of the project was to recognize between the emotion of anger and happiness from the speech signal, considering only the nonverbal information using Neural Networks as the principle classifier and Neural Network Pruning for feature selection/reduction. The emotional data base contains 3512 short (approximately 2-4 seconds) utterances portrayed in emotion of anger and happiness by a female actor in English - the emotions most difficult to distinguish in the literature - was used to extract 68 acoustic cues for emotion from the speech signal. The features included 34 prosodic (basic and compound) and 34 quality (formant frequency based, harmonicity based and energy band distribution based) features. An overall recognition rate of 77% was obtained using 14 basic prosodic features. When 8 compound and 12 speech rate prosodic features were added to the 14 prosodic features, the new 34 prosodic features differentiated between 87% of angry and happy speech. An over all recognition rate of 74% was obtained using all 68 features without pruning. Neural Network Pruning reduced the original feature set to 46, giving an overall recognition rate of 90% which shows that Neural Network Pruning has proven to be a good feature reduction/selection method to distinguish between happy and angry speech.Faculty of Technolog

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens RWL-1 as a New Potential Strain for Augmenting Biochemical and Nutritional Composition of Fermented Soybean

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is a good source of natural antioxidants and commonly consumed as fermented products such as cheonggukjang, miso, tempeh, and sufu in Asian countries. The aim of the current study was to examine the influence of novel endophytic bacterial strain, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens RWL-1 as a starter for soybean fermentation. During fermentation, the cooked soybeans were inoculated with different concentrations (1%, 3%, and 5%) of B. amyloliquefaciens RWL-1. The changes in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2′-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) radical scavenging activities, total phenolic contents, isoflavones (Daidzin, Genistin, Glycitin, Daidzein, Glycitein, and Genistein), amino acids (aspartic acid, threonine, serine, glutamic acid, glycine, alanine, cysteine, valine, methionine, isoleucine, leucine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, lysine, histidine, arginine, and proline) composition, and minerals (calcium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, nickel, lead, arsenic, and zinc) were investigated. The level of antioxidants, total phenolic contents, isoflavones, and total amino acids were higher in fermented soybean inoculated with 1% B. amyloliquefaciens RWL-1 after 60 h of fermentation as compared to control, 3% and 5% B. amyloliquefaciens RWL-1. Additionally, fermented soybean inoculated with 5% B. amyloliquefaciens RWL-1 showed the highest values for mineral contents. Changes in antioxidant activities and bioactive compounds depended on the concentration of the strain used for fermentation. From these results, we conclude that fermented soybean has strong antioxidant activity, probably due to its increased total phenolic contents and aglycone isoflavone that resulted from fermentation. Such natural antioxidants could be used in drug and food industries and can be considered to alleviate oxidative stress

Relationship between perceived occupational stress and psychological well-being among secondary school heads in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between perceived occupational stress and psychological well-being among secondary school heads in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A sample of 402 secondary school heads (male n = 260, female n = 142) was selected through multistage sampling technique. A descriptive, quantitative and correlative research design was used. For gathering information from the participants, two standardized tools i.e., "Occupational Stress Index (OSI)" and "Ryff's Psychological Wellbeing Scale (RPWB)" were used for measuring perceived occupational stress and psychological well-being respectively. For statistical analysis, mean, standard deviation, Pearson's product-moment correlation and multiple regression were employed. The findings revealed that there is a strong negative correlation between perceived occupational stress and psychological well-being. Furthermore, moderate negative correlation was found between all the sub-scales of perceived occupational stress and psychological well-being. All the subscales of occupational stress except low status were found significant predictors and have negative effect on psychological well-being of secondary school heads. So, it was suggested that Elementary & Secondary Education Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should have a collaboration with policy makers to formulate a comprehensive strategy for stress reduction management for secondary school heads so that they may develop good psychological well-being and perform their duties effectively

Primary cardiac sarcomas: Risk of brain metastases and management

Primary cardiac neoplasms are very rarely encountered, and the most common type of malignant tumours occurring primarily in the heart are sarcomas. These carry a lethal prognosis on account of their late presentation and aggressive spread. They have a high propensity for cerebral metastases. Such cases are exceptionally uncommon, and till date only a few examples are available. Currently, there is no standard protocol for the management of primary cardiac sarcoma with brain metastase

Assessment of aquifer intrinsic vulnerability using GIS based Drastic model in Sialkot area, Pakistan

The intrinsic vulnerability of a shallow aquifer of Sialkot is assessed using DRASTIC index method. The information required as input for all seven parameters, i.e. depth to water table, net recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography, the impact of vadose zone and hydraulic conductivity data were collected from literature surveys and on field surveys. A cumulative vulnerability map was developed using the indices obtained as a result of DRASTIC methodology. The values obtained from DRASTIC model for the study area were between 112 and 151. The area was dominated by medium and moderate vulnerable zones covering an area of 446 km2 and 442 km2 respectively. An area of 79 km2 was covered by the low vulnerable zone while the high vulnerable zone encompassed a total area of 38 km2. Least covered area i-e., 09 km2 was found in the vicinity of the very high vulnerable zone. The validation of the DRASTIC model using the nitrate distribution revealed that very high and high indices have the lower percentage of reliability than of the low to moderate zones as compared with the nitrate distribution in the groundwater

A novel pathogenic missense variant in CNNM4 underlying Jalili syndrome: Insights from molecular dynamics simulations

BACKGROUND: Jalili syndrome (JS) is a rare cone-rod dystrophy (CRD) associated with amelogenesis imperfecta (AI). The first clinical presentation of JS patients was published in 1988 by Jalili and Smith. Pathogenic mutations in the Cyclin and CBS Domain Divalent Metal Cation Transport Mediator 4 (CNNM4) magnesium transporter protein have been reported as the leading cause of this anomaly. METHODS: In the present study, a clinical and genetic investigation was performed in a consanguineous family of Pakistani origin, showing characteristic features of JS. Sanger sequencing was successfully used to identify the causative variant in CNNM4. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to study the effect of amino acid change over CNNM4 protein. RESULTS: Sequence analysis of CNNM4 revealed a novel missense variant (c.1220G>T, p.Arg407Leu) in exon-1 encoding cystathionine-β-synthase (CBS) domain. To comprehend the mutational consequences in the structure, the mutant p.Arg407Leu was modeled together with a previously reported variant (c.1484C>T, p.Thr495Ile) in the same domain. Additionally, docking analysis deciphered the binding mode of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) cofactor. Furthermore, 60ns MD simulations were carried out on wild type (p.Arg407/p.Thr495) and mutants (p.Arg407Leu/p.Thr495Ile) to understand the structural and energetic changes in protein structure and its dynamic behavior. An evident conformational shift of ATP in the binding site was observed in simulated mutants disrupting the native ATP-binding mode. CONCLUSION: The novel identified variant in CNNM4 is the first report from the Pakistani population. Overall, the study is valuable and may give a novel insight into metal transport in visual function and biomineralization.status: publishe