Investigation of thermal, antibacterial, antioxidant and antibiofilm properties of PVC/ABS/ZnO nanocomposites for biomedical applications

Muhammad Shabbir Shakir,Muhammad Kaleem Khosa,Khalid Mahmood Zia,Muhammad Saeed,Tanveer Hussain Bokhari,Muhammad Abid Zia 한국화학공학회 2021 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.38 No.11

The Present study deals with synthesis of PVC/ABS/ZnO nanocomposites with Zinc oxide nanoparticles of particle size less than 50 nm by sonication and solution casting techniques. After characterization, such nanocomposite materials were subjected to thermal study, antibiofilm, antibacterial and antioxidant screening. Nanocomposites films showed higher thermal stability than pure polymer matrix loaded with different ZnO-Nps concentration with homogeneous distribution. Antibacterial studies were carried out against selected gram-positive bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus and gram-negative bacteria: Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Selective antibiofilm activity was studied against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which showed a higher to lower activity as a model pathogenic strains (~93 and ~89 at 160 g/ml concentration, respectively), while free radical scavenging capacity was assessed by DPPH, ABTH·+ and FRAP methods. PVC/ABS/ZnO nanocomposite showed larger zones of inhibition and higher antibiofilm and antioxidant activity than PVC/ABS polymer matrix. PVC/ABS/ZnO nanocomposite showed enhanced thermal stability and biological properties that qualify them for different biomedical and industrial applications.

Macromolecular Prodrugs of Aspirin with HPMC: A Nano Particulate Drug Design, Characterization, and Pharmacokinetic Studies

Muhammad Ajaz Hussain,Khawar Abbas,Muhammad Sher,Muhammad Nawaz Tahir,Wolfgang Tremel,Mohammad Saeed Iqbal,Muhammad Amin,Munair Badshah 한국고분자학회 2011 Macromolecular Research Vol.19 No.12

This article presents the synthesis of novel hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC)-aspirin (ASP) conjugates,i.e. macromolecular prodrugs, through the reaction of HPMC with ASP after its in situ activation by 4-methylbenzenesulfonyl chloride. The highly pure ASP prodrugs obtained by this homogeneous and elegant esterification method were characterized using different spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques. Nanoparticulate drug design was successfully achieved by the conversion of free hydroxyls of the polymer into acetates. Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy showed nanoparticle formation with the major population size distribution of around 450 nm. Nevertheless, the pharmacokinetics of the HPMC conjugates were studied using high performance liquid chromatography. The pharmacokinetic data indicated that a single dose of 132.6 mg of HPMC-ASP was well tolerated in animal studies without any adverse effects. The maximum plasma concentration (C_max) of HPMC-ASP was found to be 14.6 μg·L^-1 with a t_max of 1 h. The plasma half-life and clearance and the volume of HPMC-ASP distribution were 4.6 h, 3.23 L·h^-1, and 21.8 L·kg^-1, respectively. The elimination of HPMC-ASP followed first-order kinetics with r^2 of 0.9643. The results presented in this paper show the great potential of HPMCASP as a more effective, safe, and stable prodrug.

H<SUB>∞</SUB> based centralized disturbance attenuation controller for DC Microgrid

Muhammad Mehdi(무하마드 메디),Saeed Zaman Jamali(사이드 자만 자말리),Muhammad Omer Khan(무하마드 오마르 칸),Raza Haider(라자 하이더),Muhammad Saeed Uz Zaman(무하마드 사이드 우주 자만),C.H. Kim(김철환) 대한전기학회 2018 대한전기학회 학술대회 논문집 Vol.2018 No.11

Sentiment Analysis for COVID-19 Vaccine Popularity

( Muhammad Saeed ),( Naeem Ahmed ),( Abid Mehmood ),( Muhammad Aftab ),( Rashid Amin ),( Shahid Kamal ) 한국인터넷정보학회 2023 KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Syst Vol.17 No.5

Social media is used for various purposes including entertainment, communication, information search, and voicing their thoughts and concerns about a service, product, or issue. The social media data can be used for information mining and getting insights from it. The World Health Organization has listed COVID-19 as a global epidemic since 2020. People from every aspect of life as well as the entire health system have been severely impacted by this pandemic. Even now, after almost three years of the pandemic declaration, the fear caused by the COVID-19 virus leading to higher depression, stress, and anxiety levels has not been fully overcome. This has also triggered numerous kinds of discussions covering various aspects of the pandemic on the social media platforms. Among these aspects is the part focused on vaccines developed by different countries, their features and the advantages and disadvantages associated with each vaccine. Social media users often share their thoughts about vaccinations and vaccines. This data can be used to determine the popularity levels of vaccines, which can provide the producers with some insight for future decision making about their product. In this article, we used Twitter data for the vaccine popularity detection. We gathered data by scraping tweets about various vaccines from different countries. After that, various machine learning and deep learning models, i.e., naive bayes, decision tree, support vector machines, k-nearest neighbor, and deep neural network are used for sentiment analysis to determine the popularity of each vaccine. The results of experiments show that the proposed deep neural network model outperforms the other models by achieving 97.87% accuracy.

Characterization of Poly(methyl methacrylate)-tin (IV) Chloride Blend by TG-DTG-DTA, IR and Pyrolysis-GC-MS Techniques

Muhammad Arshad,Khalid Masud,Muhammad Arif,Saeed ur Rehman,Aamer Saeed,Jamshed Hussain Zaidi 대한화학회 2011 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.32 No.9

Thermal behavior of poly (methyl methacrylate) was analyzed in the presence of tin (IV) chloride. Five different proportions − polymer to additive − were selected for casting films from common solvent. TG, DTG and DTA were employed to monitor thermal degradation of the systems. IR and py-GC-MS helped identify the decomposition products. The blends start degrading at a temperature lower than that of the neat polymer and higher than that of the pure additive. Complex formation between tin of additive and carbonyl oxygen (pendent groups of MMA units) was noticed in the films soon after the mixing of the components in the blends. The samples were also heated at three different temperatures to determine the composition of residues left after the expulsion of volatiles. The polymer, blends and additive exhibited a one step, two-step and three-step degradation, respectively. T_0 is highest for the polymer, lowest for the additive and is either 60 ^oC or 70 ^oC for the blends. The amount of residue increases down the series [moving from blend-1 (minimum additive concentration) to blend-5 (maximum additive concentration)]. For blend-1, it is 7% of the original mass whereas it is 16% for blend-5. Tmax also goes up as the concentration of additive in the blends is elevated. The complexation appears to be the cause of observed stabilization. Some new products of degradation were noted apart from those reported earlier. These included methanol, isobutyric acid, acid chloride, etc. Molecular-level mixing of the constituents and “positioning effect” of the additive may have brought about the formation of new compounds. Routes are proposed for the appearance of these substances. Horizontal burning tests were also conducted on polymer and blends and the results are discussed. Activation energies and reaction orders were calculated. Activation energy is highest for the polymer, i.e., 138.9 Kcal/mol while the range for blends is from 51 to 39 Kcal/mol. Stability zones are highlighted for the blends. The interaction between the blended parts seems to be chemical in nature.

Pyridoxine Refractory Sideroblastic Anemia: Diagnosis and Misdiagnosis

Muhammad Matloob Alam,Abdulrhman Alathaibi,Ruwayd Adel Attar,Muhammad Kashif,Hamdan Saeed Al-Ghamdi,Sultan Abdulaziz Alharthi,Abdulmohsen Bokhary,Muteb Althomali 대한소아혈액종양학회 2022 Clinical Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Vol.29 No.2

We report the case of a 7-year-old girl who was originally diagnosed at the age of 6 months with transfusion-dependent red cell aplasia based on a combination of se-vere anemia, reticulocytopenia and bone marrow findings. Since early infancy due to severe microcytic/hypochromic anemia she received multiple packed RBCs transfusions. She subsequently developed hepatomegaly, hypothyroidism, diabetes, liver cirrhosis and latterly, a severe cardiomyopathy due to significant iron overload refractory to regular chelating agents. Genetic study was offered, confirmed the pres-ence of SLC25A38 gene mutation and her diagnosis was revised to pyridoxine re-fractory sideroblastic anemia (PRSA). It is a non-syndromic, autosomal recessive dis-order, characterized by severe microcytic anemia since infancy and increased serum ferritin, which is not responsive to pyridoxine. Since the clinical course of this dis-order is very similar to that of thalassemia major and other red cell aplasia. Prompt recognition and initiation of appropriate treatment are important to reduce the de-velopment of secondary disease complications due to iron overload. Given the poten-tial for misdiagnosis and delay in the recognition of sideroblastic anemia, a careful bone marrow examination and genetic study should be included while investigating children with unexplained anemia.

Frequency Profile Improvement of a Microgrid under Abnormal Conditions via a Demand Response Program

Muhammad Saeed uz Zaman,Raza Haider,Syed Basit Ali Bukhari,Yun-Sik Oh,Min-Sung Kim,Muhammad Mehdi,Chul-Hwan Kim 한국조명·전기설비학회 2017 조명·전기설비학회논문지 Vol.31 No.10

The frequency deviation of an electric power system from its nominal range is a significant indicator of the system’s instability. This issue is further highlighted when the system is incorporated with intermittent renewable energy resources. In this work, the frequency regulation of a microgrid is achieved by a demand response program. The proposed plan is implemented in a central controller that has two control sections. The frequency deviation is controlled by manipulating responsive loads. In the case of higher frequency deviation, the command of the first control section is proportional to the magnitude of frequency deviation and a large amount of responsive loads is manipulated to restore the frequency to its nominal range quickly. The other section of the central controller addresses minor frequency deviations. The proposed plan is implemented on a test system and outperforms the conventional methods in terms of frequency restoration. The improvement in voltage profile is also observed during abnormal conditions after the proposed plan is implemented.

Evaluating the importance of different computed tomography scan-based factors in predicting the outcome of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy for renal stones

Muhammad Waqas,Imad-ud-din Saqib,Muhammad Imran Jamil,Mohammad Ayaz Khan,Saeed Akhter 대한비뇨의학회 2018 Investigative and Clinical Urology Vol.59 No.1

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of various computed tomography scan-based parameters of renal stones on the outcome of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL). Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of patients who underwent ESWL for renal stones (sized 5–20 mm) from January 2013 to December 2016. We evaluated body mass index, location of the stone, skin-to-stone distance (SSD), stone attenuation value (SAV), stone diameter, Hounsfield density, stone area, and stone volume. Statistical analysis was done and significance was confirmed by multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: Of the 203 patients 122 (60.1%) had successful clearance of the stone. The presence of a double J stenting, a lower pole location, a higher SAV, higher Hounsfield density, larger stone area, larger stone diameter, and higher stone volume were negative predictors of ESWL outcome. When these parameters were analyzed with multivariate logistic regression analysis, stone location, SSD, and SAV were the only significant independent predictors of the outcome of ESWL. Conclusions: Stone location, SSD, and SAV are reliable and strong predictors of ESWL outcome for the treatment of renal stones.

Effect of Customer Relationship Management on Customer Satisfaction, Retention, Acquisition, and Loyalty: A Case of Istanbul Restaurants in a Dynamic Business Environment

Muhammad SAEED,Laiba ASIF,Bassma AKHRIF,Abdul Wajid MOROOJO Korea Distribution Science Association 2023 Asian journal of business environment Vol.13 No.3

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to examine the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and its impact on customer-centric factors such as customer satisfaction, customer acquisition, customer retention, and customer loyalty within the restaurant sector of Istanbul, Turkey. Research design, data, and methodology: The questionnaire was used to collect information using a descriptive methodology. Using a " stratified sampling method," 520 customer responses were gathered. The questionnaire was written clearly and concisely, and responses were marked on a 5-point Likert scale. Results: Based on the data, it is clear that CRM has a significant positive effect on the customer-centric characteristics that contribute to organizations' successful and sustainable performance in the modern, competitive market. We found that CRM has positive effects on customer satisfaction (β=0.362, p=0.000), customer acquisition (β=0.310, p=0.000), customer retention (β=0.246, p=0.000), and customer loyalty (β=0.292, p=0.000). Conclusion: This paper makes a noteworthy contribution by addressing the gap in knowledge through its focus on CRM and other relevant factors. It will aid marketing managers and customer relationship officers in effectively administering the CRM system to uphold customer loyalty, retention, and acquisition.

Media Framing on Coverage of Motorway Rape Incident: A Study of Cable Channels in Pakistan

Muhammad Riaz Raza,Muhammad Usman Saeed,Zafar Ali 숙명여자대학교 아시아여성연구원 2023 Asian Women Vol.39 No.2

Sensitive issues, such as rape, need to be handled with special care in the media, as the media's framing impacts how the audience perceives an event. Using framing theory, this study investigated the coverage of the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Incident on four leading news channels: Geo News, ARY News, Dunya News, and Express News. Content analysis was performed to analyze the data collected from 26 programs of 4 primetime talk shows on the selected channels. The study's findings reveal that Geo News provided the most extensive coverage of the incident. Altogether, seven significant themes were identified, the most dominant thematic frame being blaming the police. It concludes that the media's coverage of the incident was responsible and objective in relation to the victim and avoided the use of sensational language.