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In 2016, a Colorado-based American non-profit organization working on providing free education to children living in the slum areas of Sheikhupura, Pakistan initiated a PenPal program between middle-schoolers at a Carbondale community school, a charter school in a middle to upper-class income neighborhood with middle-schoolers at the Sheikhupura non-profit school for underprivileged children. Volunteering with the organizations, the author initiated a co-construct story program between each student pair at the schools as a way to examine how children engage in meaning-making through shared symbols and narrate through their created characters and scenarios the personal experiences of their cultural environments. This paper is a content analysis of the co-constructed stories to highlight themes of sense of self, cultural capital, cultural influences, and conflict resolution in children’s narratives.

A school is a site where various class, ethnic, racial and ideological concerns of the students, administrators and teachers meet to produce various social subjectivities (Bourdieu 1990, Apple 2004). However, studies on Islamic schooling, particularly in Pakistan, are focused on orthodox religious seminaries (madrasas) and there is the assumption that the schooling process creates a homogeneous religious subjectivity that is fundamentally extremist, anti-modern and anti-secular in nature (Rahman 1998, Hussain 2008, Jones 2003, Esposito 2003). In this dissertation, I have argued against this limited analysis of Islamic education by presenting my participant-observation based on long-term fieldwork conducted in Karachi, Pakistan from June 2007–June 2008 inside private Islamic schools (PIS) or private parochial schools. The PIS are an emergent educational phenomenon in the urban centers of Pakistan that combine the secular and Western O-level educational system of private schools, which are a mark of status and prestige in the society, with the traditional Islamic educational system of the madrasas. I present observations collected by sitting in on pre-primary through 10th grade level classrooms and through interviews with administrators, teachers, students and parents in various PIS to highlight the way in which Pakistani urbanites are using the schools to define Islamic tradition in accordance with their various professional, class, sectarian, sub-sectarian, political and ethnic and linguistic identities. PIS are not only a growing phenomenon in diasporic communities, but in the post-9/11 political environment they are becoming increasingly relevant in South Asian Muslim communities (Hefner and Zaman 2007). In this dissertation, I have highlighted how Pakistani urbanites are using PIS as a response to the state's inability to provide affordable means of professionally promising secular and religious education, to the state's changing policy on Islamic practice and education, to the scandalization of traditional Islamic education in the international community, and as an alternative engagement with modernity and secular knowledge. Through this ethnographic study, I have argued for a more diverse and nuanced approach to examining the Islamic schooling by examining them in relation to the students, parents, teachers and entrepreneurs' socioeconomic and political dynamics.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) made of electron-acceptor and electron-donor materials have significantly developed in the last decade, demonstrating their enormous potential in cutting-edge optoelectronic applications. Consequently, we designed seven novel non-fused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) (BTIC-U1 to BTIC-U7) using synthesized electron-deficient diketone units and reported end-capped acceptors, a viable route for augmented optoelectronic properties. The DFT and TDDFT approaches were used to measure the power conversion efficiency (PCE), open circuit voltage (Voc), reorganization energies (λh, λe), fill factor (FF), light harvesting efficiency (LHE) and to evaluate the potential usage of proposed compounds in solar cell applications. The findings confirmed that the photovoltaic, photophysical, and electronic properties of the designed molecules BTIC-U1 to BTIC-U7 are superior to those of reference BTIC-R. The TDM analysis demonstrates a smooth flow of charge from the core to the acceptor groups. Charge transfer analysis of the BTIC-U1:PTB7-Th blend revealed orbital superposition and successful charge transfer from HOMO (PTB7-Th) to LUMO (BTIC-U1). The BTIC-U5 and BTIC-U7 outperformed the reference BTIC-R and other developed molecules in terms of PCE (23.29% and 21.18%), FF (0.901 and 0.894), normalized Voc (48.674 and 44.597), and Voc (1.261 eV and 1.155 eV). The proposed compounds enclose high electron and hole transfer mobilities, making them the ideal candidate for use with PTB7-Th film. As a result, future SM-OSC design should prioritize using these constructed molecules, which exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties, as superior scaffolds.

Background: Stipa tenacissima L. (S. tenacissima), called Esparto grass, is a cultivated species used for industrial purposes, including textile production. This species has never been studied for its medical potential before, nor has it been used in traditional medicines. It is thus fitting that the present study aimed to investigate the pharmacological potential of S. tenacissima. To achieve this goal, this work was conducted to study the chemical composition, antioxidant properties, and antiproliferative effects of S. tenacissima against cancerous cell lines, including the human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line (HT-29) and human breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MDA-MB-231). Fractionation and characterization of S. tenacissima extract showed the presence of promising bioactive fractions. The fractions obtained from S. tenacissima extract exhibited interesting antioxidant properties, with IC50 values ranging from 1.26 to 1.85 mg/mL. All fractions, such as F1, F2, F3, and F4, induced an important antiproliferative effect on the cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231, scoring IC50 values ranging from 63.58 ± 3.14 to 99.880 ± 0.061 µg/mL. These fractions (F1, F2, F3, and F4) also exhibited a potent antiproliferative effect versus HT-29 cell lines, with IC50 values ranging from 71.50 ± 4.97 to 87.500 ± 1.799 µg/mL. Therefore, S. tenacissima could constitute a new natural source of bioactive compounds that can be used for therapeutic purposes to fight cancer and free radical damage.