ABSTRACT No information regarding pathogenic variability among different isolates of Ralstonia solanacearum infecting chili from different agro-ecological zones of Pakistan with varying climatic and edaphic factors is available. Therefore, in the present study, variations were observed in biovar distribution, hypersensitive response, growth and virulence among 114 isolates of R. solanacearum collected from eight agro-ecological zones of Pakistan. Out of 114 R. solanacearum isolates, 81% were identified as Biovar III, while the remaining 19% were recognized as Biovar IV. Of all the 114 isolates of R. solanacearum, 77% showed positive hypersensitive response and mucoid growth, while 23% isolates gave negative hypersensitive response with non-mucoid growth. Out of 114 isolates of R. solanacearum consisting of Biovar III and IV, 22.8% were found avirulent, 25.4% weakly virulent, 29.8% virulent, and the remaining 21.9% were highly virulent. Variations among 114 R. solanacearum isolates were also observed in four provinces of the country. Among 92 R. solanacearum Biovar III isolates, 21.7% were identified as avirulent, 25% weakly virulent, 34.4% virulent, and 22.8% were highly virulent in the eight agro-ecological zones of the country. Similarly, out of 22 R. solanacearum Biovar IV isolates, 27.3% were detected as avirulent, weakly virulent and virulent, while 18.2% isolates were found highly virulent. The isolates having non-mucoid growth and negative hypersensitive response were found avriulent, while those with mucoid growth and positive hypersensitive response were weakly virulent to highly virulent. The information will help design control strategies accordingly and develop resistant cultivars against the bacterium.

ABSTRACT The production of chili is seriously threatened by bacterial wilt incited by Ralstonia solanacearum in Pakistan. As the information about the distribution and prevalence of the disease and the pathogen is scarce, the present study was performed to ascertain the prevalence, occurrence and distribution of R. solanacearum in different regions of chili cultivation. The results showed differences in the incidence and prevalence of bacterial wilt all over the country. Overall, an incidence of 10% and prevalence of 76% of the disease was observed in the country. The highest incidence of bacterial wilt was observed in the province of Sindh whereas it was the lowest in Baluchistan. The prevalence of the disease followed the similar trend in the provinces. As regards agroecological zones, the highest incidence was recorded in Indus delta followed by sandy deserts whereas it was the lowest in western dry mountains. Almost the same tendency was observed regarding prevalence in the eight agroecological zones. In case of districts, the disease incidence was the maximum in Badin while it was the minimum in the district of Loralai. On the other hand, the disease prevalence was the maximum (100%) in the districts of Badin, Mirpurkhas, and Thatta and the minimum (60%) in the districts of Barkhan, Karak, and Loralai. Of the total 114 isolates of R. solanacearum, 81% were confirmed as Biovar 3 whereas the rest 19% isolates were identified as Biovar 4. The findings will help the farmers to design disease management programs accordingly to avert yield losses.

ABSTRACT For proper disease management, accurate diagnosis of the pathogen is essential. Therefore, in the present study Ralstonia solanacearum causing bacterial wilt of chili was characterized to determine the distribution of biovars of the bacterium in the eight agroecological zones with varying climatic conditions and edaphic factors. Among all the 114 isolates of R. solanacearum, 77% showed mucoid growth while 23% isolates gave non-mucoid growth. Similarly, the isolates with mucoid growth were found positive for hypersensitivity response (HR), while those with non-mucoid growth showed negative HR. All the isolates grew well at 37 °C, while none of the isolates produced its colony at 41 °C. All the 114 isolates of R. solanacearum showed positive responses for all the biochemical tests used for confirmation of the bacterium. Out of 114 R. solanacearum isolates, 81% were identified as Biovar III while the remaining 19% were recognized as Biovar IV. Biovar III constituted 37 and 70% in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, respectively, while Biovar IV formed 19 and 30%. On the other hand, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, only Biovar III was recorded. Similarly, Biovar III was observed from all the eight agroecological zones of the four provinces of the country and found to be predominant. On the other hand, Biovar IV was recorded from four agroecological zones located in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. All the isolates yielded a 750-bp band that corresponded to R. solanacearum. It is concluded that Biovar III is widely prevalent in the country warranting stringent control measures.

Workplace spirituality is recognised as the inner state of individuals and an aspect of their working life. In the study reported on here we aimed to unearth the effects of teachers' demographic factors (gender, age, nature of job, academic qualification, marital status, designation, teaching experience, and district) towards workplace spirituality in secondary schools. This study was a descriptive research and a cross-sectional survey research design was applied. The participants were 3,050 secondary school teachers. The participants were selected using stratified proportionate random sampling. The Workplace Spirituality Scale (WPS) developed by Petchsawang and Duchon (2009) was used along with a list of demographic variables to meet the study objectives. Different statistical techniques (t-test, mean, SD, one-way ANOVA and post hoc analysis) were applied for data analysis. The results indicate that teachers were satisfied and agreed with the practices of workplace spirituality in secondary schools. Moreover, the results reveal that the teachers' demographic factors (gender, designation, nature of job, academic qualification, marital status, teaching experience, and district) had significant effects on their workplace spirituality. From the results we recommend that the management of educational institutions should treat teachers equally and fairly without any discrimination for equal nurturing of workplace spirituality among teachers.

Abstract This study was performed to screen out the various species of ‘Cucurbitaceae’ family, musk melon (Kalash and Durga), bottle gourd (Crystal Long and Nuefield) and squash (Green Round, and Squash Malika) against the salt stress. All genotypes were treated with five different levels of NaCl (T0 = control, T1 = 1.5 dS m-1, T2 = 3.0 dS m-1, T3 = 4.5 dS m-1 and T4 = 6.0 dS m-1) and half strength of Hoagland’s nutrients solution as the base nutrient solution. Results showed that the bottle gourd varieties “Nuefield” and “Crystal Long” performed best by maintaining the highest germination (93.2% and 85.6%), number of leaves per plant (4.5 and 5.7), shoot length (16.84 cm and 16.14 cm), root length (13.48 cm and 13.00 cm), plant fresh weight (942.2 g and 918.6 g), plant dry weight (118.4 g and 107.5 g), leaf area (171.2 cm2 and 169.1 cm2), chlorophyll content (3.5 μg/cm-2 and 3.4 μg/cm-2) with low chloride (1.57 ppm and 1.59 ppm) and sodium content (0.47 ppm and 0.51 ppm) under salt stress followed by varieties of Squash (Green Round, and Squash Malika) and musk melon (Kalash and Durga). It was also found that a higher level of salinity (4.5 dS m-1 and 6.0 dS m-1) has more adverse effects on the performance of all selected genotypes. Conclusively, it can be recommended that as compared to all tested species, bottle gourd varieties “Nuefield” and “Crystal Long” have the ability to withstand against salinity stress and should be planted under salt stress conditions.

Abstract: We extend the concept of *-derivations of rings to a certain class of semirings called MA-semirings and establish some results on commutativity forced by the *-derivations satisfying different criteria. We specially focus on the results on certain conditions under which additive mappings become Jordan *-derivations.

Abstract Numerical simulation plays a crucial role in today’s aviation industry. Modern computers with the latest commercial FE codes have fueled the triumph of establishing simulation as a prerequisite of aerostructure part design from micro modeling of materials to large-scale structural analysis. In this current research paper, a Mooney-Rivlin material model of ballistic gelatin with Lagrange code is analyzed as a potential candidate for the computational bird model to simulate bird strike case studies. To investigate the practicability, the model is compared with other established Lagrange and SPH EOS models for both rigid and deformable body impacts along with experimental data found in the literature adopting explicit solver Ansys Autodyn. Despite some discrepancies found during rigid body impacts, deformable plate impacts confirm the robustness of the model with significantly faster computation time. Besides, the biggest criticism of the Lagrange model, mesh distortion problem as fluid during bird strike case studies is efficiently tackled by adopting the node erosion algorithm as an effective technique to solve Lagrange bird models without affecting the outcome of the solutions.

Abstract: Buildings consume one-third of final energy consumption in the world and are graded as the largest sources of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Buildings energy consumption is driven by numerous factors that have direct or indirect effects on it. Identification of such factors could help building designers and architectures in introducing energy efficient designs of various types of buildings. Such studies are indispensable for countries such as Pakistan where a very limited research has been published in this area. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap by investigating the effect of numerous factors on the residential electricity consumption and further, aims to establish an electricity usage intensity (EUI) value for the residential sector of Pakistan. Data were collected from 523 dwellings through site surveys and interviews with residents. Effect of 48 different variables, (five socioeconomic variables, 14 dwelling variables, 22 variables from electric appliances details, five demographic variables and two variables from renewable energy sources) was investigated on the residential buildings annual electricity consumption using SPSS software. It was found that 17 out of 48 variables have significant linear relationship with annual electricity consumption. Further, through a multivariate analysis, it was found that annual electricity usage intensity (EUI) for Pakistan’s residential buildings is 24kWh/m2. Finally, this EUI value is compared with the same of two major South Asian countries. It is observed that mean EUI of Pakistan is almost similar to that of India, i.e. 24kWh/m2 whereas Bangladesh has a higher value of mean EUI, i.e. 32kWh/m2.

Resumen: Los edificios consumen un tercio del consumo final de energía en el mundo y están clasificados como las mayores fuentes de emisiones de dióxido de carbono (CO2). El consumo de energía en los edificios se debe a numerosos factores que tienen efectos directos o indirectos. La identificación de tales factores podría ayudar a los diseñadores y arquitecturas de edificios a introducir diseños de eficiencia energética de varios tipos de edificios. Tales estudios son indispensables para países como Pakistán, donde se ha publicado una investigación muy limitada en esta área. Este estudio intenta llenar este vacío de conocimiento al investigar el efecto de numerosos factores en el consumo de electricidad residencial y, además, tiene como objetivo establecer un valor de intensidad de uso de electricidad (EUI) para el sector residencial de Pakistán. Se recolectaron datos de 523 viviendas a través de encuestas de sitio y entrevistas con residentes. El efecto de 48 variables diferentes (cinco variables socioeconómicas, 14 variables de vivienda, 22 variables de detalles de electrodomésticos, cinco variables demográficas y dos de fuentes de energía renovables) se investigó sobre el consumo anual de electricidad de los edificios residenciales utilizando el software SPSS. Se encontró que 17 de las 48 variables tienen una relación lineal significativacon el consumo anual de electricidad. Además, a través de un análisis multivariado, se encontró que la intensidad anual del uso de electricidad (EUI) para los edificios residenciales de Pakistán es de 24kWh / m2. Finalmente, este valor de EUI se compara con el mismo de dos de los principales países del sur de Asia. Se observa que la media de la EUI de Pakistán es casi similar a la de la India, es decir, 24kWh / m2, mientras que Bangladesh tiene un valor más alto de la media de la EUI, es decir, 32kWh / m2.

Este estudio trata con cartas de control acumuladas basadas en distribuciones Rayleigh y en mixturas de estas mismas. Las cartas se denominan SRCQC y MRCQC, respectivamente. Estas se fundamentan en cartas existentes como la carta de control de cantidades acumuladas (CQC), basada en modelos exponencial y Weibull en la carta de control de conteos acumulados (CCC), soportada en un modelo geométrico. Otra propuesta del estudio es la carta de control de mixtura de conteos acumulados (MCCC). Esta última es muy atractiva en procesos de monitoreo. La estructura de diseño de las cartas propuestas se deriva usando la función de distribución acumulada simple y la mixtura de dos distribuciones acumuladas. Se observa que las cartas propuestas son eficientes para detectar cambios en los parámetros del proceso. La aplicación del esquema propuesto es ilustrada usando un conjunto de datos reales.

This study deals with the cumulative charting technique based on a simple and a mixture of Rayleigh models. The respective charting schemes are referred as the SRCQC-chart and the MRCQC-chart. These are stimulated from existing statistical control charts in this direction i.e. the cumulative quantity control (CQC) chart, based on exponential and Weibull models, and the cumulative count control (CCC) chart, based on the simple geometric model. Another motivation for this study is the mixture cumulative count control (MCCC) chart based on the two component geometric model. The use of mixture cumulative quantity is an attractive approach for process monitoring. The design structure of the proposed control chart is derived by using the cumulative distribution function of simple, and two components of mixture distribution(s). We observed that the proposed charting structure is efficient in detecting the changes in process parameters. The application of the proposed scheme is illustrated using a real dataset.

Background: Protein structural alignment is one of the most fundamental and crucial areas of research in the domain of computational structural biology. Comparison of a protein structure with known structures helps to classify it as a new or belonging to a known group of proteins. This, in turn, is useful to determine the function of protein, its evolutionary relationship with other protein molecules and grasping principles underlying protein architecture and folding. Results: A large number of protein structure alignment methods are available. Each protein structure alignment tool has its own strengths and weaknesses that need to be highlighted. We compared and presented results ofsix most popular and publically available servers for protein structure comparison. These web-based servers were compared with the respect to functionality (features provided by these servers) and accuracy (how well the structural comparison is performed). The CATH was used as a reference. The results showed that overall CE was top performer. DALI and PhyreStorm showed similar results whereas PDBeFold showed the lowest performance. In case of few secondary structural elements, CE, DALI and PhyreStorm gave 100% success rate. Conclusion: Overall none of the structural alignment servers showed 100% success rate. Studies of overall performance, effect of mainly alpha and effect of mainly beta showed consistent performance. CE, DALI, FatCat and PhyreStorm showed more than 90% success rate.

En este artículo propusimos y discutimos la distribución Lindley de dos parámetros. La obtención de este Nuevo modelo está basada en una metodología en dos etapas: mezclar y luego discretizar, y puede ser vista como una generalización de una distribución geométrica. El modelo propuesto demostró tener la menor pérdida de información al ser aplicado a un cierto número de bases de datos (con estructuras de supra y sobredispersión). Los modelos estándar con los que se puede comparar son las distribuciones Poisson, Binomial Negativa, Poisson Generalizado y Gamma discrete.Su clasificación de tiempo de vida, kurtosis, sesgamiento, momentos factorials ascendientes y descendientes, al igual que sus relaciones de recurrencia, momentos negativos, estimación de parámetros via máxima verosimilitud, caracterización y discretización del caso bivariado son presentados.

In this article we have proposed and discussed a two parameter discrete Lindley distribution. The derivation of this new model is based on a two step methodology i.e. mixing then discretizing, and can be viewed as a new generalization of geometric distribution. The proposed model has proved itself as the least loss of information model when applied to a number of data sets (in an over and under dispersed structure). The competing models such as Poisson, Negative binomial, Generalized Poisson and discrete gamma distributions are the well known standard discrete distributions. Its Lifetime classification, kurtosis, skewness, ascending and descending factorial moments as well as its recurrence relations, negative moments, parameters estimation via maximum likelihood method, characterization and discretized bi-variate case are presented.

En este artículo, se presenta el diseño de un plan de muestreo de lotes incluyendo reinspección llamado SkSP-R. Los parámetros del plan propuesto se determinan a través de un problema de optimización no lineal que minimiza el número de muestras promedio óptimo que satisface el riesgo del productor a un nivel de calidad aceptable y el riesgo del consumidor a un nivel de calidad límite. El plan propuesto se desempeña mejor que otros planes de muestreo existentes en términos del número de muestras promedio. Se presenta una aplicación del plan propuesto con la ayuda de tabulados.

In this paper, we present the designing of the skip-lot sampling plan including the re-inspection called SkSP-R .The plan parameters of the proposed plan are determined through a nonlinear optimization problem by minimizing the average sample number satisfying both the producers risk and the consumers risks. The proposed plan is shown to perform better than the existing sampling plans in terms of the average sample number. The application of the proposed plan is explained with the help of illustrative examples.

El análisis bayesiano de una mezcla de tres componentes de una distribución exponencial bajo el esquema de censura a la derecha tipo I se considera en este artículo. Los estimadores de Bayes y los riesgos posteriores de los parámetros desconocidos son derivados bajo una función de perdida de error cuadrático, función de perdida precautelary función de perdida de DeGroot asumiendo a prioris no informativas (uniforme y Jeffreys). Los estimadores de Bayes y los riesgos posteriores seven como una función del tiempo de terminación del test. Un estudio de simulación muestra y compara las propiedades de los estimadores de Bayes.

Bayesian analysis of the 3-component mixture of an Exponential distribution under type-I right censoring scheme is considered in this paper. The Bayes estimators and posterior risks for the unknown parameters are derived under squared error loss function, precautionary loss function and DeGroot loss function assuming the non-informative (uniform and Jeffreys) priors. The Bayes estimators and posterior risks are viewed as a function of the test termination time. A simulation study is given to highlight and compare the properties of the Bayes estimates.

Schiff bases, 2-{[(2-hydroxyphenyl)methylidene]amino}phenol (4) and 2-{[3-4-(dimethylamino)phenyl-2-propenylidene]amino}phenol (5), have been synthesized by the condensation of 2-aminophenol (1) with 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde (2) and 4-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (3), respectively. They showed good lipoxygenase inhibition and antioxidant activities, as compound 4 showed potent antioxidant activity. The products also showed good activities against Gram-positive: S. intermedius, B. subtilis and S. aureus, and Gram-negative: E. coli and S. typhi bacteria, as compounds 5 and 4 are excellent active against B. subtilis and S. typhi, respectively. These good to potent activities may be due to the presence of free hydroxyl and amino groups. They showed non-significant urease inhibition activity.

Uma nova série de 4-amino-5-aril-3H-1,2,4-triazol-3-tionas, tendo vários grupos metoxibenzila e metoxifenila, foi sintetizada através de refluxo de sais de hidrazina carboditioato de potássio em solução aquosa diluída de hidrato de hidrazina. Estes sais foram formados pela reação de hidrazinas ácidas e dissulfeto de carbono em solução de hidróxido de potássio metanólico a 0-5 ºC. 4-Amino-5-aril-3H-1,2,4-triazol-3-tionas foram condensadas com diferentes ácidos aromáticos substituídos para produzir 1,2,4-triazol[3,4-b]1,3,4-tiodiazols 3,6-disubstituídos. As estruturas dos compostos sintetizados foram caracterizadas pelas espectroscopias no infravermelho (IR) e ressonância magnética nuclear (NMR) de ¹H e 13C, análise elementar e espectrometria de massa (MS). Todos os compostos sintetizados foram examinados com relação as suas atividades de inibição de urease, antioxidante e antibacteriana. Alguns compostos mostraram excelente atividade de inibição de urease, mais do que a droga padrão. Outros compostos apresentaram potente atividade antioxidante. Todos os compostos mostraram atividades antibacterianas significativas em comparação com a droga padrão.

A new series of 4-amino-5-aryl-3H-1,2,4-triazole-3-thiones, bearing various methoxybenzyl- and methoxyphenethyl groups, was synthesized by refluxing potassium hydrazinecarbodithioate salts in dilute aqueous solution of hydrazine hydrate. These salts were formed by the reaction of acid hydrazides and carbon disulfide in methanolic potassium hydroxide solution at 0-5 °C. 4-Amino-5-aryl-3H-1,2,4-triazole-3-thiones were condensed with different substituted aromatic acids to yield 3,6-disubstituted-1,2,4-triazolo[3,4-b]1,3,4-thiadiazoles. The structures of the synthesized compounds were characterized by infrared (IR), ¹H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), elemental analysis and mass spectrometric (MS) studies. All the synthesized compounds were screened for their urease inhibition, antioxidant and antibacterial activities. Some compounds showed excellent urease inhibition activity, more than the standard drug. Others exhibited potent antioxidant activity. All the compounds showed significant antibacterial activities as compared to the standard drug.