485 research outputs found
The tadpoles of Murree Hills Frog Nanorana vicina (Anura: Dicroglossidae)
No full textGill, Sumbul, Rais, Muhammad, Saeed, Muhammad, Ahmed, Waseem, Akram, Ayesha (2020): The tadpoles of Murree Hills Frog Nanorana vicina (Anura: Dicroglossidae). Zootaxa 4759 (3): 440-442, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4759.3.1
FIGURE 1 in The tadpoles of Murree Hills Frog Nanorana vicina (Anura: Dicroglossidae)
No full textFIGURE 1. Tadpoles of Murree Hills Frog (Nanorana vicina). Lateral (A), dorsal (B), ventral (C) views, and detail of the oral disc (D).Published as part of Gill, Sumbul, Rais, Muhammad, Saeed, Muhammad, Ahmed, Waseem & Akram, Ayesha, 2020, The tadpoles of Murree Hills Frog Nanorana vicina (Anura: Dicroglossidae), pp. 440-442 in Zootaxa 4759 (3) on page 441, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4759.3.11, http://zenodo.org/record/374212
The Reflection of Islamic Culture and Beliefs in the Stories of Dr. Akram Osman
Get PDFThe sacred religion of Islam encompasses its own distinct principles, laws, and worldview, as presented through the Holy Quran, a divine guide for humanity. This guidance shapes the beliefs, actions, and morals of Muslims according to an Islamic perspective. Islam is a comprehensive and complete religion that addresses all aspects of individual, familial, social, economic, political, and cultural life. It provides everything necessary for human guidance and prosperity, as conveyed to humanity by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the savior of mankind, who is the final prophet, and Islam is the ultimate and final religion. In Islamic societies, the responsibility of promoting and conveying Islamic teachings was not limited to religious scholars alone. Muslim poets and writers also undertake this significant mission, using their literary talents in both poetry and prose to inspire individuals and societies with the values and teachings of this sacred religion. The late Dr. Mohammad Akram Osman, a distinguished author from Afghanistan, made remarkable contributions to storytelling that not only enriched the world of literature but also served as a guide for humanity in learning and understanding Islamic culture and beliefs. This article aims to explore the reflection of Islamic culture and beliefs in the stories of Dr. Mohammad Akram Osman, highlighting his ability to intertwine Islamic teachings with literary expression
Neutralisation state driven single-agent search strategy for solving constraint satisfaction problem / Saajid Akram Ahmed Abuluaih
Get PDFIn the past seven decades, Constraint Satisfaction (CS) has been extensively studied and remarkably evolved to where the scientific community perceives it as the centre of the intelligent behaviour. Therefore, most of the recent research in the field is devoted to improving the problem solvers that utilize search strategies and techniques. Since Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) is an NP-complete problem, brute-force search algorithms such as Backtracking algorithm (BT) are required as the guarantee to find a solution, when there is one. Moreover, since the establishment of the field, AI pioneers and specialists have setup instructions and guidelines on how to solve this type of problems back in the seventies of the last century and have not been changed or improved. For example, the framework of solving CSP imposes a complete permutation of assignments to all remaining variables in order to derive a valid model. The author argues in this study that the problem can be neutralised and it is not necessary to perform brute-force searching all the time if a search strategy could have guided the process to the level where the values of the remaining variables can be determined implicitly, creating what the author calls Solo-Path of assignments in the problem search tree
Clinical characteristics of critically ill patients infected with COVID-19 in rasoul akram hospital in Iran: A single center study
Get PDFBackground: Knowledge about clinical features of critically ill patients with COVID-19 still lacks adequate information up to now. Objectives: We aimed to describe and compare the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of critically ill patients with COVID-19 in Rasoul Akram Hospital. Methods: In this case series, 70 critically ill patients with COVID-19 admitted in ICU wards of Rasoul Akram Hospital, Tehran, Iran, from 29 February to 25 April 2020 were enrolled. Demographic and clinical characteristics, laboratory data, and outcomes of the patients were all collected and compared between deceased and recovered patients. Results: Fifty-six cases had died of COVID-19, and 14 patients had fully recovered and discharged. The median age of the patients was 68 years old, ranging from 22 to 91 years, 66 were men, 80 had one or more comorbidities, and hypertension was the most common comorbidities (45 of deceased cases). The most common signs and symptoms at the onset of illness were SPO2 depression (92) and dyspnea (90). Dyspnea was significantly more common in deceased patients (95) than recovered patients (70) (P = 0.048). Most patients had lymphopenia (80). The number of patients who needed mechanical ventilation in the deceased patients was 53 (95), which was significantly more than the recovered patients (10 70%) (P = 0.048). Conclusions: The mortality rate of critically ill patients with COVID-19 is very high, and the patients with dyspnea and required mechanical ventilation are at higher risk for death. © 2020, Author(s)
Akram Khan, Lloyd Newson, and the Challenges of British Multiculturalism
Get PDFIn a climate riven by national insecurities, anti-immigration movements and competing visions of a post-Brexit future, this paper examines the contentious space multiculturalism has inhabited in 21st-century British choreography. It analyses acclaimed works by Akram Khan and Lloyd Newson to explore starkly differing perspectives on cultural diversity in the UK. Khan’s contribution to the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony (Abide with Me) emphasised the nation’s post-imperialist and cosmopolitan profile. By contrast, Newson’s contemporaneous work Can We Talk about this? (2011/12) was highly critical of current models of multiculturalism and in particular attitudes towards Islam. This paper compares the two choreographies using a theoretical framework that draws on both political thought and dance analysis, to evaluate their contributions to debates around culture, tolerance and diasporic identities and illustrate the broader entanglement between British dance and contemporary politics.@ 2018, Edinburgh University Press. The attached document is an author produced version of a paper accepted for publication in Dance Research, uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. Once published, we suggest you refer to the final published version (Version of Record) should you wish to cite from it
Functional characterisation of the flax rust AvrP effector protein
No full textAvrP is an effector protein from the flax-rust fungus (Melampsora lini) that is translocated into host plant (Linum usitatissimum) cells to facilitate infection. AvrP is a zinc-binding protein that possess an elongated zinc-finger-like structure. The aim of this research was to characterise the function of AvrP. To investigate the role of AvrP, interacting proteins were identified via a yeast two hybrid (Y2H) cDNA library screen. The putative interactors included flax phosphoglucomutases (LuPGM1, LuPGM2 and LuPGMcp), peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase (LuFKBP12) and DEAD-box RNA helicase 56 (LuDRH56). These were further tested for interaction with AvrP using full-length proteins. AvrP was shown to interact with full-length flax PGM1 in planta by co-immunoprecipitation and bimolecular fluorescence complementation. The interacting complex was localised in the cytosol of the cell. Y2H analysis was used to show that AvrP targets the phosphate-binding domain of LuPGM1. AvrP interacts with other isoforms of phosphoglucomutase, and other alleles of AvrP, including AvrP123, interact with LuPGM1. In an in vitro enzymatic assay, purified AvrP protein was able to modulate the activity of purified LuPGM1 protein to increase the conversion of glucose-1-phosphate to glucose 6-phosphate. The interaction between AvrP and full-length LuFKBP12 appeared to be weak in yeast but an in planta bimolecular fluorescence complementation assay confirmed this interaction. Purified flax FKBP12 protein showed little or no prolyl isomerase activity in an in vitro enzymatic assay, which made it impossible to test for any effect of AvrP on its activity. AvrP was shown to interact with full-length flax DRH56 in planta by co-immunoprecipitation and bimolecular fluorescence complementation. The interacting complex was localised inside the plant cell nucleus. Co-expression of AvrP and flax DRH56 in leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana resulted in cell death. Mutational disruption of LuDRH56 ATPase activity did not abolish its interaction with AvrP nor their combined ability to induce cell death. However, mutational disruption of the RNA-binding ability of LuDRH56 abolished the cell death response and changed the localisation of the interacting complex within the plant cell nucleus. Y2H analysis showed that AvrP interacts with conserved motifs involved in the RNA binding and helicase activities of LuDRH56. In in vitro enzymatic assays, purified AvrP protein was able to inhibit the ATPase and helicase activities of purified LuDRH56 protein. An RNA sequencing experiment was performed to test what effect the modification of sugar and RNA metabolism would have on the flax transcriptome. Many differentially expressed genes were identified in agroinfiltrated flax leaves expressing AvrP, indicating that it had a highly disruptive effect on the flax transcriptome. Overall, these results suggest that AvrP is a multifunctional effector able to affect both glucose and RNA metabolism by manipulation of flax cytosolic phosphoglucomutases and inhibition of LuDRH56, respectively. Interaction between AvrP and LuFKBP12 may also contribute to a disruptive effect on RNA metabolism and translation by potentially interfering with RNA methylation. AvrP may therefore be able to affect multiple metabolic pathways by interfering with both sugar metabolism and RNA processing
Adaptation or Historical Anomaly?: Partition Narratives and Their Visual Counterparts
No full textThis research accentuates the presence of multi-layered histories within partition literature and its adaptations as a historiographic mise en abyme— an interpretive multiplicity of historical narratives. The aim is to highlight, probe and eventually determine the significance of addressing multivocality within sensitive historical accounts when told through the aesthetic mediums of fiction and film. In the context of this research, the traditional narrative of the partition of the Subcontinent includes political and nationalistic attitudes on both sides of the divide. The research sets out to explore the extent to which these overreaching accounts and wide-ranging versions of the partition empower the concerned entities to give subjective meanings to their partition experiences. Gurinder Chadha’s film Viceroy’s House (2017), which is partly based on the memoirs of Louis Mountbatten, documented in Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (1976) is taken as the case study, with reference to its source text. The primary trigger of this research is the debate between the Traditionalist and Revisionist school of Historiography, as it seeks to examine the inherent problematic nature of revisionist partition history on text and on screen. This research presents the textual and film narratives of partition as alternative archives, whose authenticity and validity is yet to be established, in comparison with the historical documents/texts. It advocates the necessity to constantly re-evaluate and reinterpret history in the light of new facts; however, all attempts to revise history in the name of aesthetics, without merit and evidence, should be recognized as subjective versions
A comparison of global surgery tariffs and the actual cost of bills at Hazrate Rasoole Akram educational and medical center
Get PDFBackground: The health service tariff is an appropriate policymaking tool and the financial leverage of the health system control which affects quality, availability, cost, efficiency, equity and accountability of health services. Global surgeries include 91 common cases of general and specialized surgeries in hospitals; fixed tariffs are annually defined for these surgeries, and insurance companies must pay medical centers based on these tariffs. The aim of this study was to examine and compare hospital bills with global surgery tariffs at Hazrate Rasoole Akram Educational and Medical Center in 2017. Methods: This descriptive-Analytic study was conducted retrospectively and compared the global and actual costs of global surgeries performed in the third quarter of the year 2017 at Hazrate Rasoole Akram Educational and Medical Center. Required data on the actual costs of surgeries was collected through the Hospital Information System (HIS) and patients' records. Information on the global costs was obtained from the Annual Circulars of Insurance Council for the studied period about the cost of global surgeries. Linear regression (STATA13 software) was used to investigate the effect of items on tariff and invoice differences; concerning other calculations, EXCEL software was used. Results: The highest frequency of global surgeries was related to ophthalmic surgery which accounted for approximately half of total surgeries performed at Hazrate Rasoole Akram Hospital. The most significant difference between global tariff and invoice was also related to ophthalmic surgery (188709.3 Dollar a year).Overall, the actual hospital bills were much higher than the tariffs approved for global surgeries, and the total difference was 461805.5 Dollar. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between some of the items such as the cost of operating rooms, anesthesia and other services. Conclusions: Referral hospitals which are at the level three of referral networks usually treat more complex patients; this should be taken into account when defining surgery tariffs of these centers. On the other hand, hospitals need to control the costs and reduce the end cost of these surgeries by improving clinical management and cost management. In addition, prospective and case-based payment methods can control health costs. © 2020 The Author(s)
Transformation function tests
No full textEconometric models usually relate a known function of a dependent variable, Y , with some observable covariates X. A misspeci ed transformation function, however, can cause inconsistency. The estimated parameters will be biased and inconsistent. The marginal e ects and the elasticities calculated using these estimated parameters can be far from the truth and any inference based on them will be misleading. The problem of misspeci cation can be resolved simply by estimating the transformation function. There are di erent methods of estimating the model based on the parametric assumptions on the transformation function, or the distribution of the error term, or both. In a completely parametric setup, both the transformation function and the distribution of the error term are known up to a vector of parameters. The Box-Cox transformation is a good example of using parametric transformation functions. It is also possible, however, to estimate the transformation function without parametric assumptions. In this dissertation two Hausman tests for transformation functions are proposed where validity does not depend on distributional assumptions. These tests compare estimators that remain consistent regardless of the transformation function to an estimator whose consistency depends on the transformation function. The properties of these test statistics are studied in nite sample and under di erent designs. The behavior of these test statistics is studied both when the adopted transformation function is correct and when the true transformation function deviates from the hypothesized one. This dissertation applies the semiparametric transformation function test to study reported crimes in the U.S. metropolitan areas. Most studies in this literature adopt a logarithmic transformation of reported crimes. There is no theoretical justi cation for this speci c function. In addition, it is likely that city level crime is misreported (underreported). Therefore, testing is particularly relevant. I show that, although for particular types of crimes the log function is appropriate, the same log function cannot be used for broadly de ned categories of crimes.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Kaveh Akra
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