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Background and Objective:Both Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are rapidly spreading in the developing countries. Both of them are blood borne and are transmitted through un-screened blood transfusion, inadequately sterilized needles and equipment. According to WHO’s criteria of endemicity, Pakistan has high disease burden of Hepatitis B and C. The present study was planned to determine the frequency and to identify the risk factors of hepatitis B and C virus in the general community of Farash town.Methods:This descriptive study was carried out in Al Nafees Medical Hospital Lab, from January 2013 to December 2013. Both the genders and all age groups were included in the study. All the patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria had given a written consent. Data was collected through questionnaire and was analyzed on Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.Results:Three-hundred and forty five patients were studied. Among these 92 (27%) were males and 253(73%) were female, 33% of them had hepatitis C, 9% had hepatitis B. History of injections was reported in all of the patients. Visit to community barbers was present in 58.6% and 41% cases of hepatitis B and C. History of dental procedures was obtained in 7(24%) and 15(13%) patients of hepatitis B and C.Conclusion:Major contributors for Hepatitis B and C in Farash town are use of unsterilized therapeutic injections and visit to community barbers. Education of the barbers regarding sterilization may help in reducing the burden of infection in this community.

A significant increase is expected in video and multimedia traffic in Beyond 5G networks. The inclusion of a huge number of IoT nodes in Beyond 5G networks further complicates the design of such networks. These futuristic networks are expected to deal with this increased traffic and number of nodes while ensuring that network delays do not exceed a certain threshold. In such networks, Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning has become vital, not only to guarantee certain key performance indicators but also to improve user experience. This paper proposes a hybrid approach for end-to-end QoS provisioning, involving both clients and controllers to address these challenges. Each client tries to satisfy its own access QoS requirements by choosing optimal access device(s) and makes decisions based on locally available view. Controllers are then responsible for finding optimal paths in the core network to satisfy client core QoS requirements. Experimental results show that the proposed approach provides better QoS guarantees than several other access device selection and routing schemes.

The energy crisis in Pakistan has crippled the country’s economy with an energy shortfall reaching up to 6000 MW. Fortunately, Pakistan lies close to the Sun Belt and therefore receives very high irradiation. To this end, in the beginning of 2014 the Pakistani government sanctioned a solar photovoltaic project namely Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park which was rated at 1000 MW. In this study, a cost benefit analysis for the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park has been developed. The model uses RETScreen software. In fact, a literature review pointed out that most of the previous research work with reference to cost benefit analysis for solar projects has been mainly carried out on smaller power plants. The outcome of the study shows promising results with the simple payback period coming out at 5.6 years. Furthermore, this analysis can serve as guideline for future solar photovoltaic projects in Pakistan and can help in the development and utilization of the huge solar potential of the country, thus aiding in the reduction of energy shortage. In its proposal, our research is unique and innovative in the Pakistani context. The results aim to serve as a guideline for decision makers and researchers interested in this topic.

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Background: Human P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is a transmembrane protein that belongs to the ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) transporters family. Physiologically, it exports toxins out of the cell, however, its over-expression leads to the phenomena of MultidrugResistance (MDR) by exporting a diverse range of compounds, which are structurally and chemically different from each other, thus creating a hurdle in the treatment of various diseases including cancer. The current study was designed to screen benzophenone sulfonamide derivatives as a class of inhibitors and potential anticancer agents for P-gp. Methods: A total number of 15 compounds were evaluated. These compounds were screened in daunorubicin efflux inhibition assays using CCRF-CEM Vcr1000 cell line that overexpressed human P-gp. Cytotoxicity assay was also performed for active compounds 14, 11 and 13. These scaffolds were then docked in the homology model of human P-gp using mouse P-gp as a template (PDB ID: 4MIM) and the recently published Cryo Electron Microscopy (CEM) structure of human mouse chimeric P-gp to find their interactions with specified residues in the binding pocket. Analysis was performed using Labview VI and Graph pad prism version 5.0. Results: Results revealed the potency of all these compounds in low nanomolar range whereas, compound 14 was found to be most active with IC50 value of 18.35nM ± 4.90 followed by 11 and 13 having IC50 values of 30.66nM ± 5.49 and 46.12nM ± 3.06, respectively. Moreover, IC50 values calculated for 14, 11 and 13 in cytotoxicity assay were found to be 22.97µM ± 0.026, 583.1µM ± 0.027 and 117.8µM ± 0.062, respectively. Docking results showed the interaction of these scaffolds in transmembrane helices (TM) where Tyr307, Tyr310, Tyr953, Met986 and Gln946 were found to be the major interaction partners, thus they might play a significant role in the transport of these scaffolds. Conclusion: Benzophenone sulfonamide derivatives showed IC50 values in low nanomolar range comparable to the standard inhibitor Verapamil, therefore they can be good inhibitors of P-gp and can serve as anticancer agents. Also, they have shown interactions in the transmembrane region sharing the same binding region of verapamil and zosuquidar.

This research work addresses the performance deterioration challenges of dielectric embedded patch antenna. Antennas installed on the surface of high speed aerial vehicles are usually surrounded by dielectric coating to cater for the environmental effects like friction and humidity, the presence of dielectric in the surrounding encourages the propagation of strong surface waves causing the pattern deterioration and increase in return loss. The surface waves are suppressed in two stages first with the help of substrate integrated waveguide cavity created on the back of patch antenna to reduce the leakage currents. Secondly the remaining surface waves which propagate in the dielectric are suppressed by simply placing an array of modified complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) on the surface of surrounding dielectric. CSRR is known to offer band-gap characteristics thus it ensures complete blockage of the fundamental mode of surface waves without any additional fabrication complexity. The radiation pattern is restored and the return loss is reduced using the proposed techniques. The measured results from the fabricated prototype authenticate the proposed concept. Figure 1 SIW cavity backed antenna embedded in dielectric (a) Side view (b) Top view, the dimensions are L P 5 50 mm, W p 5 30.4 mm, h dc 5 12 mm, L dc 5 200 mm, W dc 5 200 mm, L sub 5 80 mm, W sub 5 50 mm, L SIW 5 67 mm, W SIW 5 44 mm, d 5 3 mm, p 5 5 mm. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]ABSTRACT: A K-band differential cross-coupled inductance-capacitance (LC) voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is implemented in 0.18lm CMOS process. To accomplish high quality (Q) factor LC-tank at Kband, a slab inductor with high Q is adopted. The VCO can be tuned from 23.1 to 23.38 GHz and the core dc power consumption is 11.33 mW from 1 V power supply. The phase noise is 2109.04 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset, and the calculated figure of merit (FoM) is 2185.79 dBc/ Hz. At low supply voltage mode of 0.65 V, the phase noise is 2106.015 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset and the FoM is 2189.76 dBc/Hz. V C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 59:362-366, 2017; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.

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