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The current research aimed to evaluate in vitro biological activities of green-synthesized silver nanoparticles using the Allium sativum clove extract. The stability of green-synthesized silver nanoparticles was evaluated via storage at 4°C, room temperature (37°C), and calcined at 300°C, 500°C, and 700°C. The antibacterial effect was evaluated using agar well, spread plate, biofilm reduction, and cell proliferation inhibition assays. The cytotoxic and antidiabetic effects were determined via brine shrimp lethality, protein kinase inhibition, and α-amylase inhibition assays. DPPH scavenging, iron-chelating, anticoagulant, and hemolytic effects were evaluated. The highest inhibition of Klebsiella pneumoniae was observed when freshly prepared, calcined (300°C), and stored nanoparticles (4°C and 37°C) were applied (9.66, 9.55, 7.33, and 6.65 mm) against freshly prepared and calcined at 700°C which showed the highest inhibition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (8.55 and 7.66 mm). Cell viability assay, biofilm reduction assay, and spread plate method showed a significant antibacterial effect of freshly prepared silver nanoparticles. Freshly prepared and calcined nanoparticles at 300°C and 500°C possessed strong antioxidant and iron-chelating activity. Among all the synthesized silver nanoparticles, freshly prepared and calcined nanoparticles (300°C and 500°C) increases the prothrombin time. Silver nanoparticles possessed significant anticoagulant properties and less toxic at least concentration toward human RBCs. In brine shrimp lethality assay, freshly prepared nanoparticles showed a stronger toxic effect and caused high mortality of larvae. Protein kinase inhibition assay revealed that freshly prepared nanoparticles had the highest zone of inhibition (18.0 mm) at 50 µg/disc. Green-synthesized nanoparticles would be used as potential therapeutic agents to overcome both infectious and noninfectious diseases.

In this paper, the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on economic growth in South Asian countries is investigated during 1990–2014. For this purpose, the newly developed panel data estimation method Dynamic Seemingly Unrelated Regression (DSUR) is applied. According to the results, the impact of ICTs on economic growth remains positive in South Asian economies. In addition, education stimulates economic growth; however, foreign direct investment does not contribute to economic growth. The newly acquired result would guide policymakers and government officials to focus on the advancement of ICT for maintaining the sustainable economic growth. The findings imply that South Asian countries should raise the ICT level with proper technology education level to achieve the desired economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Human male infertility has a lot of known molecular components that have an accurate diagnosis, such as Y chromosome deletion and monogenic causes. Only 4% of all infertile males are diagnosed with genetic causes, while 60–70% of infertile men remain without an accurate diagnosis and are classified as unexplained. Oligospermia is a major cause of human male infertility. Its etiology and pathogenesis are linked to genetic abnormalities. The majority of genetic causes related to human male infertility remain unclear. Results: Generally, we found a significant association between the specific type of disease and gender (p = 0.003), and the regression value (R2) for this association was 0.75. Association of the type of disease with body mass index was not significant (p = 0.34). There was no statistically significant difference (p = 0.40) among disease types with patients occupations. All explored mutations are listed for primary and secondary infertility in relation to the oligospermia condition. p.Arg286X is the outcome of a mismatch mutation in which the nucleotide change resulted in the substitution of Arg (arginine) amino acid with X (any amino acid) at position 286 in the Hyal3 gene of primary infertile patients having oligospermia. In primary infertile patients with the p.Arg286X mutation, a frameshift deletion mutation was also found just after the 25 nucleotide sequences of the Hyal3 genes of the second mutated exon. This deletion mutation was only detected in patients with primary infertility and was not found in people with secondary infertility or healthy controls. The other mutations in secondary infertile patients with oligospermia were: p.Lys168Ser, replacement of lysine (Lys) with serine (Ser) at position 168; p.Lys168The, replacement of lysine (Lys) with threonine (The) at position 168; p.His113X, substitution of histidine (His) with an unknown amino acid (X) at position 113; p.Pro162X, substitution of proline (Pro) with an unknown amino acid (X) at position 162; and p.Phe157X, phenylalanine (Phe) substitution with an unknown amino acid (X) at position 157. Conclusion: This study clarifies the site of novel mismatch and frameshift deletion mutations in the Hyal3 gene in primary infertile oligospermia patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship of destination image on tourist delight with moderating effect of the travel attributes included, affordability and accessibility on the above relationship. This study is related with the mountain tourism and targets different tourist destinations of Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa Pakistan. Data is collected through questionnaires and stratified convenient sampling technique is use to select the sample. This sample is a comprised respondent from three main regions/strata which consists of the Malakand division, the Mansehra division, and the Galiyat region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the causal relationship between variables of the study on Smart PLS 4 because Smart PLS is a robust application for analyzing the complex model with several constructs and structural paths without enforcing distributional assumptions on the data. This study evaluates the strong relationship between destination image and tourist delight and founds insignificant effect of moderating variable. Although, this research focuses on mountain tourism in Pakistan. The future studies can be conduct on other types of tourism such as sports tourism, cultural tourism, shopping tourism and religious tourism etc. Moreover, variables used in this study may also be investigated in future research endeavors. This study will provide a broad picture of the tourist delight concept and literature will demonstrate more information on tourist delight. Oliver's theory of tourist delight and Gartner's destination image theory is adopted for theoretical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1552-6569.2007.00206.x Byline: Omar Khan (1), Yimin Shen (1), Fen Bao (1), Christina Caon (1), Alexandros Tselis (1), Zahid Latif (1), Imad Zak (1) Keywords: Multiple sclerosis; neuroprotection; glatiramer acetate; MR spectroscopy; imaging Abstract: ABSTRACT Glatiramer acetate (GA) has several putative mechanisms of action with the potential of limiting sublethal axonal injury in the central nervous system (CNS). Brain proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy [(.sup.1]H-MRS) allows in vivo examination of axonal integrity by quantifying the neuronal marker N-acetylaspartate (NAA), often expressed as a ratio to creatine (Cr). We showed that treatment with GA led to improvement in NAA/Cr over a 2-year period. We now report the results of this ongoing study after 4 years of annual brain 1H-MRS examinations. Compared to baseline, at year 4, patients receiving continuous GA therapy showed a 12.7% increase in NAA/Cr and (P= .03) in the multivoxel brain volume of interest (VOI) studied and by 9.6% (P= .04) in the normal-appearing white matter within the VOI. Three patients in the control group who began therapy with GA during the course of the study showed similar increases in NAA/Cr after the first year of therapy. These data support the long-term effect of GA on maintaining axonal metabolic function and protection from sublethal injury as well as the feasibility of employing brain 1H-MRS in long-term investigative studies in MS. Author Affiliation: (1)From the Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Research Center, Department of Neurology and The Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan (OK, FB, CC, AT); MR Research Center and Department of Radiology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan (YS, ZL, IZ). Article History: Acceptance: Received September 12, 2007, and in revised form September 12, 2007. Accepted for publication September 22, 2007. Article note: Correspondence: Address correspondence to Omar Khan, MD, Department of Neurology, 4201 St. Antoine, 8D-UHC, Detroit, MI 48201. E-mail: okhan@med.wayne.edu.

Globalization has integrated the world through interaction among countries and people with the help of information and telecommunication technology (ICT). The rapid mode of globalization has put a new life in ICT and economic sector. The key focus of this study is to examine the nexus among the globalization, ICT and economic growth. This study uses autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL), vector error correction model (VECM) and econometric method spanning from 1990 to 2015. The empirical result highlights that the globalization stimulates economic growth of a country. In addition, both the internet penetration and the mobile phone usage contribute to the economic growth. Lastly, this article contributes important policy lessons on strengthening the economy by utilizing ICT with the rapid globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is a rare autosomal recessive inherited disorder with distinctive clinical feature such as obesity, degeneration of retina, polydactyly, and renal abnormalities. The study was aimed at finding out the disease-causing variant/s in patients exhibiting clinical features of BBS. Methods. The identification of disease-causing variant was done by using whole exome sequencing on Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform involving the SeqCap EZ Exome v3 kit (Roche NimbleGen). The identified variant was further validated by Sanger sequencing. Results. WES revealed a novel homozygous missense mutation (NM_031885: c.443A>T:p.N148I) in exon 3 of the BBS2 gene. Sanger sequencing confirmed this variant as homozygous in both affected subjects and heterozygous in obligate parents, demonstrating autosomal recessive inheritance pattern. To the best of our knowledge, this variant was not present in literature and all publically available databases. The candidate variant is predicted to be pathogenic by a set of in-silico softwares. Conclusion. Clinical and genetic spectrum of BBS and BBS-like disorders is not completely defined in the Pakistani as well as in Kashmiri population. Therefore, more comprehensive genetic studies are required to gain insights into genotype-phenotype associations to facilitate carrier screening and genetic counseling of families with such disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the nexus between financial development, access to electricity, and CO2 emissions in Pakistan over the period from 1990 to 2015, incorporating the role of natural resources and population growth. We checked the stationarity of the data by using three different unit root tests (ADF, Phillip Pesaran, and DG‐FLS). Long‐ and short‐run elasticities have been determined through auto‐regressive distributive lag (ARDL) method. The empirical results confirmed that financial development and access to electricity increase CO2 emissions and deteriorate the environmental quality. In addition, the population growth is responsible for growing CO2 emissions in Pakistan, while natural resources have insignificant relation with CO2 emissions. Furthermore, bidirectional causality exists between population growth and natural resources, whereas unidirectional causality is detected among financial development and CO2 emissions, natural resources and population growth, and financial development and population growth. The newly developed findings suggest helpful policy implications to adequately address the issue of CO2 emissions without compromising economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted to get more information about the genome and locate the taxonomic position of Schizothorax niger in Schizothoracinae through mitochondrial 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs). These PCGs for S. niger were found to be 11409 bps in length ranging from 165 (ATPase 8) to 1824 bps (NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5) and encode 3801 amino acids. In these PCGs, 4 genes overlap on the similar strands, while one shown on the opposite one: ATPase 6+8 and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4+4L overlap by 7 nucleotides. Similarly, ND5-ND6 overlap by 4 nucleotides, while ATP6 and COIII overlap by 1 nucleotide. Similarly, four commonly used amino acids in S. niger were Leu (15.6 %), Ile (10.12 %), Thr (8.12 %), and Ala (8.7 %). The results presented that COII, COIII, NDI, ND4L, and Cytb had substantial amino acid conservation as compared to the COI gene. Through phylogenetic analysis, it was observed that S. niger is closely linked with S. progastus, S. labiatus, S. plagiostomus, and S. nepalensis with high bootstrap values. The present study provided more genomic data to know the diversity of the mitochondrial genome and its molecular evolution in Schizothoracinae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]