Introduction: Indigenous people in a far-flung mountainous area without basic facilities, mainly rely on medicinal plants to cope with various veterinary health problems. Objective: The present study was carried out to explore the traditional knowledge of ethnoveterinary practices in Kaghan Valley, district Mansehra, Western Himalayas-Pakistan. Method: Ethnoveterinary data were collected between February to October 2014 from nine villages of the Kaghan Valley by involving 80 local people include traditional healers using a semi-structured interview. Results: A sum of 41 plant taxa of ethnoveterinary medicinal plants was documented for treating livestock ailments. Out of which, herbaceous plants were recorded with high percentage (27 species, 65.8 %). Most of the species were used to treat gastrointestinal diseases (12 taxa), followed by health improvement (7 taxa). The widely used part of plants for livestock aliments was the whole plant (9 species) followed by leaves (7 species), and preparation were paste (18 species) followed by powder with 10 species. The highest used values were recorded for Arisaema costatum (0.82), Primula denticulata (0.76), and high relative frequency citations for Berberis lyceum and Dryopteris ramosa with 0.37 each. Among the plant species Skimmia laureola, Thymus linearis and Phytolacca latbenia were among the taxa with cent fidelity level. Conclusion: The flora used in traditional remedies of the valley was found mostly endemic due to excessive utilization. Thus, further chemical investigation, better utilization and conservation of indigenous use of the reported species should be considered for future work.

Background The utilization of plants and plant resources for various ethnobotanical purposes is a common practice in local towns and villages of developing countries, especially in regard to human and veterinary healthcare. For this reason, it is important to unveil and document ethnomedicinal plants and their traditional/folk usage for human and livestock healthcare from unexplored areas. Here we advance our findings on ethnomedicinal plants from Haripur District, Pakistan, not only for conservation purposes, but also for further pharmacological screenings and applied research. Methodology Information of ethnomedicinal plants was obtained using a carefully planned questionnaire and interviews from 80 local people and traditional healers (Hakims) in Haripur District, Pakistan, from 2015 to 2017. Informed consent was obtained from each participant before conducting the interview process. Quantitative ethnobotanical indices, such as relative frequency of citation (RFC), use value (UV) and Jaccard index (JI), were calculated for each recorded species. Correlation analysis between the RFC and UV was tested by Pearson’s correlation, SPSS (ver. 16). Results A total of 80 plant species (33 herbs, 24 trees, 21 shrubs and 2 climbers) belonging to 50 families were being used in the study area to treat livestock and human diseases. Lamiaceae was the most dominant family with 7 species (8.7%), followed by Fabaceae with 6 species (7.5%), and Moraceae with 5 species (6.2%). Local people used different methods of preparation for different plant parts; among them, decoction/tea (22 species) was the popular method, followed by powder/grained (20 species) and paste/poultice (14 species). It was observed that most of the species (~ 12 to 16 species) were utilized to treat human and livestock digestive system-related problems, respectively. The Jaccard index found that plant usage in two studies (District Abbottabad and Sulaiman Range) was more comparable. Local people mainly relied on folk medicines due to their rich accessibility, low cost and higher efficacy against diseases. Unfortunately, this important traditional knowledge is vanishing fast, and many medicinal plants are under severe threat. The most threats associated to species observed in the study area include Dehri, Garmthun, Baghpur, Najafpur and Pharala. Conclusion The study has indicated that local people have higher confidence in the usage of ethnomedicinal plants and are still using them for the treatment of various ailments. Comparative analysis with other studies may strongly reflected the novel use of these plants, which may be due to the deep-rooted and unique socio-cultural setup of the study area. However, awareness campaigns, conservation efforts and pharmacological and applied research are required for further exploration and may be a step in the right direction to unveil prospective pharmaceuticals.

Wounds, burns, cuts, and scarring may cause a serious problem for human health if left untreated, and medicinal plants are identified as potentially useful for wound healing. Therefore, the study focused on ethnophytotherapy practices for wound healing from an unexplored area, Pakistan. Ethnophytotherapeutic information was collected through well-planned questionnaire and interview methods by targeting 80 informants (70 males and 10 females), in the study area. Data was analyzed through quantitative tools like use value (UV) and credibility level (CL). A total of forty wound healing plant species, belonging to twenty-nine families, were being used in forty-six recipes. Herbs constitute (35%), shrubs (30%), trees (30%), and climbers (5%) in the treatment of multiple human injuries. For remedies preparations, leaves were most frequently utilized (52%) followed by whole plant, flowers, twigs, roots, bulb, bark, rhizome, resin, oil, leaf gel, latex, gum, and creeper. The most form of herbal preparation was powder (34.7%) and poultice (32.6%), followed by decoction, bandaged and crushed, in which 40% internally and 60 % externally applied. The drugs from these plants seem to be widely used to cure wounds: Acacia modesta, Aloe barbadensis, Azadirachta indica, Ficus benghalensis, Nerium oleander, and Olea ferruginea with higher use values (0.75). Local people are still connected with ethnophytotherapies practices for curing wounds for several reasons. This ethnomedicine and the wound healing plants are under severe threats; thus conservation must be considered. Further research should be directed towards implementing pharmacological activity on these invaluable botanical drugs.

The research work proposed herein addresses and emphasizes a design methodology to design and optimize Finocyl Grain configurations considering particular test case for which the Average thrust and constraints have been given. A parametric solid model of the grain has been developed which enables automatic volume calculation of the grain void and solid propellant at each web increment thereafter burning area has been calculated. The motor performance is calculated using a simplified ballistic model, steady state pressure is calculated by equating mass generated in chamber to mass ejected through nozzle throat. Genetic algorithm has been employed for conducting optimization thereby achieving the design and performance objectives while adhering to design constraints. Latin hypercube sampling is used for better design space exploration and thus creating initial population to decrease computation time. Sensitivity Analysis of the optimized solution has been conducted using Monte Carlo method to evaluate the effects of uncertainties in design parameters caused by manufacturing variations.

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