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In the current study, we investigate the dynamic association of tourism, renewable energy, income, foreign direct investment (FDI), and carbon dioxide (CO2e) for Pakistan over 1990–2017. We established four plausible hypotheses and verified by employing the autoregressive distributed lags model and Granger causality based on vector error correction model (VECM). Considering the cointegration relationship between the variables, the outcomes of autoregressive distributed lags suggested that tourism increases economic growth, and economic growth induces tourism in the long-run, thus confirming tourism-led development, and growth-led tourism hypothesis; similarly, the tourism generates CO2e emissions, which supported the tourism-led emission hypothesis. The role of renewable energy consumption found to be a significant moderator, thus helping to enrich tourism, accelerating economic growth, and combating CO2e in the country. VECM causal results indicated the significant bidirectional causal linkages between tourism and economic growth—another causality found between tourism and CO2e. There is one-way causality from FDI and renewable energy towards income simultaneously. Overall, the designers of policies will find this study useful for policymaking at government levels for smooth economic growth, investment, and sustainable tourism sector.

The use of glass fiber in ordinary and standard concrete had been extensively investigated. Not much research work had been done on high-strength concrete with glass fiber. This research work deals with experimental investigations on the performance of alkali-resistant glass fiber of 12 mm standard cut length with varying percentages of 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0, and 2.4 by weight of cement in high-strength concrete. Investigations are conducted on fresh concrete for workability and hardened concrete specimens for compressive and tensile strengths, NDT, percent voids and sorptivity after 7 and 28 days of normal curing. It has been observed that the effect of the dose of the fiber on the workability of high strength concrete is similar to its effect on ordinary and standard grade concretes but different for compressive strength. The lower percentage of glass fiber significantly enhances strains without contributing to strength. The higher percentage of the fiber decreases the strength with a lesser increase in corresponding strain than GFRC with a lower percentage of the fiber. The percentage of the fiber which enhances its compressive strength imparts maximum tensile strength to the fibrous concrete after 28 days by 12.24, 13.13, 17.31, 15.82, and 11.94% for the fiber content of 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0, and 2.4% than non-fibrous concrete. The addition of glass fiber ranging from 0.8% to 2.4% increases the cumulative rate of water absorption and coefficient of sorptivity by 50.0, 54.9, 69.8, 92.1, and 90.6%, and 12.9, 36.3, 34.7, 55.6, and 95.1%, respectively as compared to non-fibrous concrete.

The strength of concrete is affected by several factors, such as water to binder ratio, quality and the ratio of coarse to fine aggregates, ambient temperature, method of curing, and curing age. This research work aims to study the impact of curing age on NDT and crushing strength of concrete with different industrial wastes under loaded and unloaded conditions. Three different types of wastes were utilized in high-strength concrete, grade M60. In the first mix, the fine aggregate was substituted by the crushed waste glass with various percentages of 0, 10, 20, 30, and 40 by weight. In the second mix, the cement was substituted by aluminum waste with different percentages of 0, 2, 4, 7, and 12%, and LDPE was added by weight of cement with 3.5, 7, 12.5, and 21%. To study the role and effect of LDPE waste only on strength of concrete and NDT results, the third mix LDPE with varying percentages of 0, 3.5, 7, 12.5, and 21 was added by cement weight. A precise experimental program was conducted to investigate the response of specimens by applying ultrasonic pulse velocity and surface hardness under unloaded conditions and loading conditions with 25% of the ultimate crushing strength. The findings of unloaded and loaded conditions for UPV and surface hardness found from concrete specimens of various waste at stipulated ages have been associated with their compressive strength. Increased surface hardness and pulse velocity test results of the concrete with varying substitution levels of the wastes after 210 and 270 days of curing are discussed. It was found that the industrial wastes used in this study with different substitution levels reduce the ultrasonic pulse velocity under unloading conditions at the age of 28, 210, and 270 days. The findings related to UPV and surface hardness for all type of wastes under loaded conditions are found lower than that of unloading conditions.

Spatial information has gained more attention in natural language processing tasks in different interdisciplinary domains. Moreover, the spatial information is available in two forms: Absolute Spatial Information (ASI) e.g., Paris, London, and Germany and Relative Spatial Information (RSI) e.g., south of Paris, north Madrid and 80 km from Rome. Therefore, it is challenging to extract RSI from textual data and compute its geotagging. This paper presents two strategies and the associated prototypes to address the following tasks: 1) extraction of relative spatial information from textual data and 2) geotagging of this relative spatial information. Experiments show promising results for RSI extraction and tagging.

Autoimmune limbic encephalitis is a rare autoimmune disease characterised by inflammation of the limbic system of the brain. The disease runs a sub-acute course with cognitive impairment, memory loss and seizures. These patients have been underdiagnosed in Pakistan. Here, we present a case of a middle-aged male, who presented to our Department after having multiple visits to different psychiatrists for his symptoms. The patient had been put on multiple psychiatric and antiepileptic medications, but his condition gradually declined. At our Department, he was thoroughly assessed and then diagnosed as limbic encephalitis on the basis of the typical history, positive anti-leucine-rich-glioma-inactivated 1 (LGI1) antibodies and MRI findings. The patient responded to plasmapheresis and immune modulating therapy and is being followed up. Emphasis is made on early diagnosis; and earlier treatment of such cases, as it holds a substantial importance in management and makes a difference in future outcome. Key Words: Autoimmune limbic encephalitis, Voltage-gated potassium channels, Cognitive dysfunction.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of district-level public libraries in West Bengal, India. The study focused on staff as well as services against the backdrop of collection development policy. It also investigated the problems faced by librarians and suggested measures to overcome these difficulties. The researchers used a mixed-methods approach – quantitative and qualitative methods – to obtain the data. However, the primary means of data collection was a survey method using a structured questionnaire. Additionally, interviews were carried out with librarians in order to bring more subjectivity to the results. The findings suggest that no selection committees have taken place to recruit new staff in different public libraries; hence, libraries have been suffering from a shortage of staff. Due to severe shortage of library staff, book database has not been completed in Libsys library management software in any surveyed library. Public libraries are established to provide a variety of services to their users. Thus, services are the main product of the public library system. The findings reveal that different kinds of services – such as children’s, career guidance and community information services – are provided by the surveyed libraries to benefit their user communities.

In general, the blast-induced ground shock excites the foundation of the structure prior to the air-blast pressure because of the obvious reasons of difference in wave propagation velocities. Howev...

Study design Case report. Objective Since this is the first ever case of a male patient with Klippel-Feil syndrome (KFS) with anterior cervical meningomyelocele and syringomyelia. All four previously reported cases were female patients. This makes this case unique. Summary of background data KFS with auxiliary anterior cervical meningomyelocele is a rare entity. To the best of our knowledge so far only four cases are reported. Methods A 22-year-old male patient was presented to neurology outpatient department with 2-year history of left hand paresthesia and progressive weakness. The diagnostic evaluation showed KFS with auxiliary anterior cervical meningomyelocele and thoracic syringomyelia. Results Patient was sent to neurosurgery department for intervention. After discussing the possible risks and complications of intervention he opted for conservative therapy and declined the surgery. Conclusion The paucity of data is the key reason for any recommended protocol for management of such patients but the available literature recommends neurosurgical intervention in symptomatic patients. Level of evidence 5.

A series of 2-amino-4-aryl-5-oxo-4,5-dihydropyrano[3,2-c]chromene-3-carbonitrile (4a–m) were synthesized via a one-pot three component condensation reaction between 4-hydroxy-2H-chromen-2-one, various aryl aldehydes and malononitrile in the presence of piperidine as a catalyst in ethanol under microwave irradiation conditions, with good to excellent yields. The structure elucidations of all the synthesized compounds were accomplished by spectral data, IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, MS, and elemental analyses. The targeted compounds were assessed for their in vitro anticancer activity against mammary gland breast cancer cell line (MCF-7), human colon cancer (HCT-116), and liver cancer (HepG-2) by using sulphorhodamine B assay (SRB) method, while doxorubicin, was utilized as standard reference drug. The cancer cells were treated with the synthesized compounds at differentiable dosages, and cell viability was determined. Compounds 4e, 4f, and 4m exhibited excellent antitumor activity versus all cancer cell lines with IC50 values ranging from 0.2 to 1.7 μM. The cell cycle arrest behavior of compounds 4e, 4f, and 4m was investigated. The results illustrated that the potent cytotoxic compounds 4e, 4f, and 4m induce cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phases and trigger apoptosis in the different tested cancer cells. Finally, the structure activity relationship (SAR) survey highlighted the antitumor activity of the new molecules that was remarkably influenced by the hydrophilicity of certain substituents at certain positions.

Abrasive water jet cutting is an advanced machining process where the material is removed by the erosion of rough abrasive particles mixed high pressure of water jet velocity for hard metals and composite materials. In this study, the cutting of glass fiber reinforced polymer is carried out where the machining parameters are stand-off distance, water jet pressure, abrasive mass flow rate and traverse rate are considered for the machining operation. The outcomes of the experiment are material removal rate, kerf width and kerf taper angle. The graphs are plotted between the machining parameters and the outcomes, to study the significant, parameters for the better machining of the composite materials.

The study is aimed to evaluate the protective impact of banana peel extract (BPE) following noise induce behavioral deficits in male mice. Animals were separated into two groups (control and test, 12 in each). Control mice were given drinking water, at the same time test group was given BPE (400 mg/kg; oral administration). Animals have received their respective treatment for 14 days. Mice were subdivided (n=6) into unstressed and stressed groups on day 15. Noise stress was given to the respective group for 4-h. Behavioral activities were monitored 24-h after the 4-h noise stress. Forced-swim-test, Elevated-plus-maze and light-dark-activity-box tests were performed for depression/anxiety-like behaviors respectively. Morris-water-maze assessment was used for memory. After behavioral tests animals were sacrificed and brain was detached for biochemical estimations and histopathological studies. In the present study, BPE produced anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects and enhanced memory. Activity of antioxidant enzymes increased while levels of AChE and MDA decreased in BPE treated animals. Histopathological alterations induced by noise stress were also normalized by BPE. It is concluded that supplementation/administration of banana peel has preventive effects against anxiety, depression and memory impairment via its strong antioxidant potential following NS.

Landslide events in Karakorum ranges are frequent and have already damaged local infrastructures and roads. In the hilly regions, landslide characterization and predicting its deposition pattern are essential for accurate engineering hazard assessment. To this end, numerical simulation models are commonly used tools. However, appropriate model parameters are often not available to predict and generate real landslide scenarios. This work describes the use of multidisciplinary techniques to estimate the model parameters for a slope prone to landslide and simulate the hazard level. The first important parameter, landslide boundary, and dynamics were estimated from temporal satellite images by identifying the areas with prominent deformations using the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technique. The susceptible subsurface strata volume and the possible landslide initiation depth were determined with the electrical resistivity method. In addition, voxel 3D electrical resistivity models were created to present the depth of the existing rupture and the nature of subsurface strata. The soil mechanical parameters were calculated during field visits and laboratory tests. The parameters adopted from different techniques helped simulate the susceptible landslide volume and initiation depth. These parameters are a critical factor in developing an accurate high-speed landslide model through numerical simulation. The applied methodology is vital to understand the dynamics of a particular slope and perform accurate engineering hazard assessment with numerical simulation. The results are essential to predict the potential deposition areas of the landslide event accurately, minimize the risk level, and take proactive mitigation measures.

Cement concrete is the material, construction industries using it most all over the world in spite of its inherent weakness to carry tension which is supplemented by the reinforcing bars added to it. All kind of gravity loads such as gradually, suddenly acting, or impacting are carried by the slabs of a structure. But the slab is generally designed to carry quasi-static loads for a Limit State of Serviceability and Collapse. Being a thin flexural member, it has a minimum percentage of reinforcement as compared to other members of a structure which makes it substantially ductile but poor resilient to carry impact energy. Landslip hazards in mountainous regions particularly cause the direct impact of soil mass or boulders onto the slab. Therefore, it is meaningful if somehow impact resistance of the slab is improved without increasing its cost. In the present study, it has been investigated how best the impact performance of the slab can be enhanced by maneuvering with layout orientation of the re-bars (from 90°/180° to 45°/135°), reduction of re-bar spacing (from 100mm to 50mm), and substituting welded wire mesh in lieu of the conventional re-bars. For this purpose, a 3-D numerical model of the slab, 1000mm x 1000mm x 75mm, with 90/180° re-bar layout tested by Sadraie et al. (2019) under low-velocity drop load impact is validated. The impact on the slab at its center is simulated in ABAQUS software with explicit module by dropping a 105kg cylindroconical impact mass having a 40mm flat nose diameter from 2500mm height. Degradation of stiffness, strain-rate effects, and material nonlinearity are considered using Concrete-Damage-Plasticity and Johnson-Cook models. The study shows that 45/135° re-bar orientation with 50mm spacing in the slab reduces the damage severity from extensive to a less moderate level and alters the failure mode from punching to flexure.

Explosions are continually occurring in many parts of the world endangering human lives and seriously affecting the health of infrastructures and facilities. Low-rise buildings having a height of fewer than 13 m are load-bearing structures generally made of unreinforced masonry (URM), particularly in semi-urban areas, villages, and war-prone border areas. Many structures of importance including buildings constructed in the pre- and post-independence era of courts, monuments, etc., are masonry load-bearing structures. URM is also used as non–load-bearing partition walls and compound/boundary walls. Such walls are susceptible to out-of-plane blast loading. Under such loadings, these walls fail to survive and thus either get severely damaged or collapsed, jeopardizing the stability of the entire structure. Resistance of masonry walls against blast loading is vital for the safety of the building and its users as injuries sustained and casualties are generally not caused due to explosion, but by the brittle dynamic fracture and fragments of masonry walls, window glass panes shattering, and other secondary objects propelled as missiles by the blasts. In general, buildings are not designed for blast loading. For the safety of the building users, it is imperative that the walls must withstand such short-duration high-magnitude extreme loadings without not only undergoing catastrophic collapse but also not producing deadly fragments which could cause grievous injuries to the users. To protect URM walls from high-intensity blast waves, an out-of-box wall protecting technique using foams of polymer (e.g., polyurethane) and metals namely; aluminum and titanium, is considered on the face of the wall exposed to the blast pressure. This study describes a numerical technique implemented in ABAQUS/Explicit software to predict the overall anti-blast performance of URM wall strengthened externally with the above three different crashworthy foams. For this purpose, a braced URM wall made of clay bricks, with two transverse bracing walls one at each end on the same side, tested experimentally by Badshah et al. in the year 2021 under the chemical explosive loads of 4.34 kg and 7.39 kg-TNT, respectively, at scaled distances 2.19 m/kg1/3 and 1.83 m/kg1/3 is considered as the reference model and is validated against the test observations. Explosion load is modeled with ABAQUS built-in ConWep simulation program to simulate the wall-explosion wave interactions in the free field. Material nonlinearities of the brickwork have been attributed to bricks, joint-mortar, and brick-mortar interfaces through constitutive laws considering strain-rate effects. The foams are modeled using ABAQUS’s inbuilt Crushable Foam Plasticity Hardening model considering foam hardening and rate-dependent schemes. Results show that the higher Young’s modulus and inelastic stiffness of the foams contribute to dissipating more explosion energy and improve the resistance of the walls from savage explosions.

Nanotechnology is a field of science that consists of atoms, molecules and supramolecular molecules that create nanoparticles ranging in size from 1-100nm. Silver nanoparticles are widely used that are considered as effective antimicrobial agents. In this paper, the antioxidant activity of biosynthesized SNPs were analyzed by the DPPPH activity, hydrogen peroxide activity, hydroxyl RSA, TAC, TFC; their results confirmed that the phenolic compounds of this plant peels extracts enhanced the antioxidant and antiglycation activity with respect to silver nanoparticles. Biosynthesized nanoparticles of this plant extracts also showed strong zone of inhibition against the different Xanthomas, Pseudomonas and E. coli. This study concluded that biosynthesized nanoparticles of Mukia maderaspatna (M.M) plant peels extracts have the great biological activities i.e. antiglycation, antioxidant and antibacterial. More research is needed to know the exact dose rate and to compare the different dose combination of the plant with the strong antibiotic agents against these bacteria.

Reserpine (Res)-induced depletion of monoamines and altered neurotransmission and produces oxidative stress. Tryptophan (TRP) regulated the serotonin neurotransmission. Because systemically injected Res induced behavioral deficits and oxidative stress, while, dietary components prevented these adverse effects, we used TRP a pharmacological tool to prevent Res- induced changes in behavior, memory impairments, oxidative stress and regulation of serotonin neurotransmission in rats. Anxiolytic, antidepressant, cognitive functions, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant enzymes serotonin metabolism were studied in Res and vehicle treated animals following administration of 50 and 100 mg/ml/kg of tryptophan. Following administration of TRP [50 and 100mg/ml/kg], Res induced anxiety-and/or depression like behaviors normalized. Res-induced impaired cognitive function and increased acetylcholinesterase activity also improved following administration of TRP at both doses. Res induced increased brains' malondialdehyde (MDA) and decreased antioxidant enzymes activity also normalized by TRP. Res-induced decreased 5-HT metabolism also regulated by administration of TRP at both doses. In conclusion it can be recommended that administration/supplementation of TRP in daily life can aid in battling the anxiety, depression, modulating serotonergic activity and oxidative stress. Study also exhibits the anti-acetylcholinesterase role of TRP which may be possible reason for improved cognition following stress situation.

Recent explosion of the stored ammonium nitrate at Beirut port was of devastating nature caused serious damage to the structures to the extent of the collapse of even single-story dwelling houses. This disastrous explosion led to a large number of deaths (≈200) in addition to grievous injuries, and many more. To replicate the effect of devastating explosion on ordinary unreinforced masonry load-bearing residential structure, single-story finite element (FE) dwelling unit model, with the conventional reinforced concrete slab with M20 concrete and Fe500 steel designed to carry the gravity loads, have been developed using the ABAQUS/Explicit program. With the objective to correlate the damage that occurred to similar structures in Beirut, the model is subjected to an explosive load of 2750 tons of Ammonium Nitrate (≈2300 tons of TNT) at standoff distances of 300 and 500 m. The effect of the air-blast pressure has been studied on the load-bearing masonry wall and the supported singly RCC slab of the model under the considered high explosive charge. Concrete-damaged plasticity (CDP) model for concrete and brick masonry available in employed software has been utilized. Damage has been simulated to evaluate the damage dissipation energy and geometric damage parameters of cracks such as average spacing of cracks and their average depth. Macro-modeling has been considered to model the masonry wall and the slab. Stresses have been found out and are compared with those available in the Indian Standard Code of Practice for Structural Use of Unreinforced Masonry, IS 1905: 1987. This research work provides insight into damage to ordinary dwelling structures subjected to explosions produced by a high explosive charge.

Catastrophic failure of the RCC slab under explosive-induced blast loading could be disastrous for other elements in the structure. In the present work, a finite element model of one-way-reinforced cement concrete slab tested under blast loading for which experimental results/observations are available in the literature has been developed with respect to concrete cover, thickness, re-bar diameter, spacing, and concrete strength via Abaqus/explicit. The analysis of the slab has been done by applying different peak overpressures produced from the TNT explosive charges at different standoff distances in free air, and the results are validated. Through finite element simulations, the design parameters likely to influence the blast performance of the slabs such as cover to reinforcement, reinforcement ratio, and strength of concrete have been considered in the modeling, and their results have been comprehensively investigated. Three thicknesses of the concrete cover such as 10, 15, and 20 mm have been considered keeping the overall depth of the slab constant. The concrete strength of 30, 40, and 50 MPa following Indian Standard Criteria for Blast Resistant Design of Structures for Explosions Above Ground (IS: 4991–1968) and the reinforcing steel with strength 600 MPa have been considered. The longitudinal reinforcement ratio is varied from 0.39 to 2.24% by an increment of 0.37% keeping the concrete cover, concrete/steel strength, and transverse reinforcement ratio constant. Concrete-damaged plasticity (CDP) model has been utilized to simulate the damage and to evaluate geometric parameters of cracks. The effects of the respective parameter on the results obtained from the simulations have been compared and discussed.