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The ballistic resistance and failure pattern of a bi-layer alumina 99.5% - aluminium alloy 1100-H12 target against steel 4340 ogival nosed projectile has been explored in the present experimental cum numerical study. In the experimental investigation, damage induced in the ceramic layer has been quantified in terms of number of cracks developed and failure zone dimensions. The resultant damage in the backing layer has been studied with variation in the bulge and perforation hole in the backing layer with the varying incidence velocity. The discussion of the experimental results has been further followed by three dimensional finite element computations using ABAQUS/Explicit finite code to investigate the behaviour of different types of bi-layer targets under multi-hit projectile impact. The JH-2 constitutive model has been used to reproduce the behaviour of alumina 99.5% and JC constitutive model has been used for steel 4340 and aluminium alloy 1100-H12. The total energy dissipation has been noted to be of lesser magnitude in case of sub-sequential impact in comparison to simultaneous impact of two projectiles. The distance between the impact points of two projectiles also effected the ballistic resistance of bi-layer target. The ballistic resistance of single tile ceramic front layer and four tile ceramic of equivalent area found to be dependent upon the boundary conditions provided to the target.

The experiment was carried out on mango cv. Dusehri to investigate the effect of N, P and K fertilizers on vegetative, reproductive growth, yield and fruit quality. Eight different fertilizer combinations such as T1 (control), T2 (N), T3 (P), T4 (K), T5 (NP), T6 (NK), T7 (PK) and T8 (NPK) were used. Individual or combine fertilizer application of N (1000 g), P (750 g) and K (750 g) were applied during growing season in February and August. All the treatments significantly influenced on vegetative growth, flowering, fruiting, yield and other physiochemical attributes of mango as compared to control. Least effect was observed with individual fertilizer application while combine fertilizer treatments enhanced most of the investigated parameters. Especially, qualitative traits showed nonsignificant differences between treated and untreated mango trees. However, among the different treatments T8 (NPK) showed significance for fruiting aspects such as maximum size of growth flushes (177.51 mm), total number of panicles/tree (845), total number of flowers/panicle (974), sex ratio (69.18%), fruit retention (13.85%), total number of fruits/tree (379), yield (82 kg/tree), fruit weight (197.5 g), pulp weight (135.5 g) and physiochemical parameters namely TSS (24.53), Vit. C (57.63 mg/100 mL) and total sugar (20.84%). In general, combine application of NPK (T8) were the most effective in enhancing fruiting aspects, yield, physiochemical characteristics as well as improved fruit quality of mango trees.

Very little is known about the malacofauna in district Swat of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, situated in the Northern part of Pakistan. The Swat valley possesses a variety of suitable environmental conditions, providing different types of habitats for both flora and fauna. Taken into consideration these points, the present study was conducted to explore the terrestrial snails diversity in agricultural and non-agricultural fields in the lower Swat valley. A total of 417 shells were collected from three sites: Kokarai, Kanju Township, and Deolai. Based on conchological features, three families: Bradybaenidae, Hygromiidae, and Zonitidae were identified using different terrestrial snail keys. In Kokarai and Deolai, shells of members of all the above-mentioned families were found from agricultural fields. In Kanju Township, shells of members of the family Bradybaenidae and Zonitidae were found. From these findings, it was concluded that district Swat possesses a significant malacofauna which was unexplored before and aided more to the existing literature on malacofauna. It also supports the idea that the agroecosystem is rich in species diversity. Further in-depth and extensive study is recommended to be carried out for a detailed taxonomy of the described terrestrial gastropod families.

The present study reports the existence of cliff racer, Platyceps rhodorachis from the plains of Punjab, Pakistan. A total of 10 specimens were captured during the field surveys from June to September, 2018 from different sites of Punjab. Platyceps rhodorachis was identify on the basis of morphology and confirmed through COI gene sequences. The obtained DNA sequences have shown reliable and exact species identification. Newly produced DNA sequences of Platyceps rhodorachis were submitted to GenBank and accession numbers were obtained (MK936174.1, MK941839.1 and MT790210.1). N-J tree based on COI sequences of Platyceps rhodorachis clearly separated as out-group with other members of family Colubridae based on p-distance. The intra-specific genetic variation ranges from 12% to 18%. The DNA sequences of Platyceps rhodorachis kashmirensis, Platyceps rhodorachis ladacensis, Platyceps ventromaculatus, Platyceps ventromaculatus bengalensis and Platyceps ventromaculatus indusai are not available at NCBI to validate their taxonomic positions. In our recommendations, a large scale molecular based identification of Pakistan's herpetofauna is required to report more new or subspecies from country.

Food security assurance to meet the demands of increased population growth requires a proportional increase in milk and meat production which, in turn, depends on animal nutrition. Assessing foliar application of micronutrients for production of substantive quantities of good quality forage must be a goal of modern, profit-oriented, sustainable agriculture and plants with better competitive ability as compared to weeds. This meta-analysis made a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the impact of foliar feeding of micronutrients (iron, zinc, copper, sulfur and boron) on forage crops under varying pedo-climatic conditions. Weighted and unweighted meta-analyses were performed on 139 studies to evaluate 19 independent variables (9 qualitative, 5 qualitative, 5 economic) in comparison to no spray of micronutrients. Foliar feeding through application of one, two or more micronutrients with single or multiple sprays positively influenced agronomic and physiological traits, which led to significantly higher green forage (7-19%) and dry matter biomass. Nutritional quality, particularly crude protein (1.9-11.0%) and digestibility (8-17%), was improved by foliar spraying of micronutrients. Economic outputs were also increased as additional benefits rendered by foliar applied micronutrients surpassed their expenditures. For this data set, it is concluded that foliar feeding of micronutrients has the potential to boost forage yield, nutritional quality and revenue of cereals, legumes and non-conventional forage crops (quinoa and medick) depending on soil fertility status, concentration of applied micronutrients, number of foliar sprays, crop growth stage for foliar feeding and specific agro-environmental conditions.

A search for decays to invisible particles of Higgs bosons produced in association with a top-antitop quark pair or a vector boson, which both decay to a fully hadronic final state, has been performed using proton-proton collision data collected at s = 13 Te V by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb - 1 . The 95% confidence level upper limit set on the branching fraction of the 125 Ge V Higgs boson to invisible particles, B ( H → inv ) , is 0.54 (0.39 expected), assuming standard model production cross sections. The results of this analysis are combined with previous B ( H → inv ) searches carried out at s = 7 , 8, and 13 Te V in complementary production modes. The combined upper limit at 95% confidence level on B ( H → inv ) is 0.15 (0.08 expected).

We have studied the effect of 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE), an α-helix inducer, versus methyl cyanide (MeCN), a β-sheet inducer, on acid-denatured human serum albumin (HSA) using far-UV circular dichroism, intrinsic fluorescence, 1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonate binding, and acrylamide quenching studies. Interestingly, at pH 2.0, where the recovery and resolution of the protein in reverse phase chromatography is high, its secondary structure remains unchanged even in the presence of very high concentration (76% v/v) of MeCN. Gain of 23 and 34% α-helicity was observed in the presence of 20 and 50% TFE, respectively. At pH 7.3, HSA aggregates in the presence of 40% MeCN, but it remains soluble up to 75% MeCN at pH 2.0. The results seem to be important for HSA isolation and purification.

Wearable devices have found numerous applications in healthcare ranging from physiological diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and muscle disorders to neurocognitive disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other psychological diseases. Different types of wearables are used for this purpose, for example, skin-based wearables including tattoo-based wearables, textile-based wearables, and biofluidic-based wearables. Recently, wearables have also shown encouraging improvements as a drug delivery system; therefore, enhancing its utility towards personalized healthcare. These wearables contain inherent challenges, which need to be addressed before their commercialization as a fully personalized healthcare system. This paper reviews different types of wearable devices currently being used in the healthcare field. It also highlights their efficacy in monitoring different diseases and applications of healthcare wearable devices (HWDs) for diagnostic and treatment purposes. Additionally, current challenges and limitations of these wearables in the field of healthcare along with their future perspectives are also reviewed.