Trends and Analysis of Cancer Incidence for Common Male and Female Cancers in the Population of Punjab Province of Pakistan during 1984 to 2014

Masood, Khalid,Masood, Andleeb,Zafar, Junaid,Shahid, Abubaker,Kamran, Mujahid,Murad, Sohail,Masood, Misbah,Alluddin, Zafar,Riaz, Masooma,Akhter, Naseem,Ahmad, Munir,Ahmad, Fayyaz,Akhtar, Javaid,Naeem, Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2015 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.16 No.13

Background: The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Cancer Registry (PAECCR) program has made availability of a common cancer incidence database possible in Pakistan. The cancer incidence data from nuclear medicine and oncology institutes were gathered and presented. Materials and Methods: The cancer incidence data for the last 30 years (1984-2014) are included to describe a data set of male and female patients. The data analysis concerning occurrence, trends of common cancers in male and female patients, stage-wise distribution, and mortality/follow-up cases is also incorporated for the last 10 years (2004-2014). Results: The total population of provincial capital Lahore is 9,800,000. The total number of cancer cases was 80,390 (males 32,156, females 48,134). The crude incidence rates in PAECCR areas were 580.8/$10^5$ during 2010 to 885.4/$10^5$ in 2014 (males 354.1/$10^5$, females 530.1/$10^5$). The cancer incidence rates for head and neck (15.70%), brain tumors (10.5%), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL, 9.53%) were found to be the highest in male patients, whereas breast cancer (46.7%), ovary tumors (6.80%), and cervix (6.31%) cancer incidence rates were observed to be the most common in female patients. The age range distribution of diagnosed and treated patients in conjunction with the percentage contribution of cancer patients from 15 different cities of Punjab province treated at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology, Lahore are also included. Leukemia was found to be the most common cancer for the age group of 1-12 years. It has been identified that the maximum number of diagnosed cases were found in the age range of 51-60 years for males and 41-50 years for female cancer patients. Conclusions: Overall cancer incidence of the thirty years demonstrated that head and neck and breast cancers in males and in females respectively are the most common cancers in Punjab province in Pakistan, at rates almost the highest in Asia, requiring especial attention. The incidence of brain, NHL, and prostate cancers among males and ovarian and cervix cancers among females have increased rapidly. These data from a major population of Punjab province should be helpful for implementation of appropriate planning, prevention and cancer control measures and for determination of risk factors within the country.

Implementation of User Authentication as a Service for Cloud Network

Masood Shah,Abdul Salam Shah,Imran Ijaz 보안공학연구지원센터 2016 International Journal of Grid and Distributed Comp Vol.9 No.10

There are so many security risks for the users of cloud computing, but still the organizations are switching towards the cloud. The cloud provides data protection and a huge amount of memory usage remotely or virtually. The organization has not adopted the cloud computing completely due to some security issues. The research in cloud computing has more focus on privacy and security in the new categorization attack surface. User authentication is the additional overhead for the companies besides the management of availability of cloud services. This paper is based on the proposed model to provide central authentication technique so that secured access of resources can be provided to users instead of adopting some unordered user authentication techniques. The model is also implemented as a prototype.

Efficiency Improvement of Organic Solar Cells Using Two-step Annealing Technique

Masood, Bilal,Haider, Arsalan,Nawaz, Tehsin The Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic 2016 Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Material Vol.17 No.3

The fullerene solar cells are becoming a feasible choice due to the advanced developments in donor materials and improved fabrication techniques of devices. Recently, sufficient optimization and improvements in the processing techniques like incorporation of solvent vapor annealing (SVA) with additives in solvents has become a major cause of prominent improvements in the performance of organic solar cell-based devices . On the other hand, the challenge of reduced open circuit voltage (V_oc) remains. This study presents an approach for significant performance improvement of overall device based on organic small molecular solar cells (SMSCs) by following a two step technique that comprises thermal annealing (TA) and SVA (abbreviated as SVA+TA). In case of exclusive use of SVA, reduction in V_oc can be eliminated in an effective way. The characteristics of charge carriers can be determined by the measurement of transient photo-voltage (TPV) and transient photo-current (TPC) that determines the scope for improvement in the performance of device by two step annealing. The recovery of reduced V_oc is linked with the necessary change in the dynamics of charge that lead to increased overall performance of device. Moreover, SVA and TA complement each other; therefore, two step annealing technique is an appropriate way to simultaneously improve the parameters such as V_oc, fill factor (FF), short circuit current density (J_sc) and PCE of small molecular solar cells.

Highly Efficient Hybrid Solar Cell Using ZnO Nanorods and Assessment of Changes in Cell Performance by Varying the Growth Period

Masood Mehrabian,Sonya Aslyousefzadeh,M. Hadi Maleki 한국물리학회 2015 THE JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY Vol.66 No.10

Zinc oxide nanorod arrays (ZnO NRs) were grown from ZnO seed-coated substrates in an aqueous solution by using the hydrothermal method for different growth periods varying from 5 min to 1 hour. The influence of the growth period of the ZnO nanorods on photovoltaic applications was studied in detail. Experimental results showed that utilization of the nanorod arrays lead to an enhanced the cell performance by increasing of light absorption and creation of a vertical direction for electron transport in the solar cells. A power conversion efficiency of 3.33% with an opencircuit voltage of VOC = 0.58 V, a short-circuit current of JSC = 10.05 mA/cm2 and a fill factor of FF = 54.35% was achieved for solar cells based on ZnO NRs with growth period of 20 min. Such solar cells with an optimal growth period are effective in light trapping, which leads to a significant enhancement in the absorption of light, and thereby, show an obvious increase in the power conversion efficiency.

Predicting the combined effect of TiO2 nano-particles and welding input parameters on the hardness of melted zone in submerged arc welding by fuzzy logic

Masood Aghakhani,Mohammad Reza Ghaderi,Maziar Mahdipour Jalilian,Ali Ashraf Derakhshan 대한기계학회 2013 JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Vol.27 No.7

Submerged arc welding (SAW) is a high-quality arc welding process used in heavy industries for welding thick plates. In this process,selecting appropriate values for the input parameters is required for high productivity and cost effectiveness. A very important weld quality characteristic affected by welding input parameters is the hardness of melted zone (HMZ). This paper reports the applicability of fuzzy logic (FL) to predict HMZ in the SAW process which is affected by the combined effect of TiO2 nano-particles and welding input parameters. The arc voltage, welding current, welding speed, contact tip-to-plate distance, and TiO2 nano-particles were used as input parameters and HMZ as the response to develop FL model. A five-level five-factor central composite rotatable design (CCRD) was used in the experiments to generate experimental data. Experiments were performed, and HMZs were measured. The predicted results from FL were compared with the experimental data. The correlation factor value obtained was 99.99% between the measured and predicted values of HMZ. The results showed that FL is an accurate and reliable technique for predicting HMZ because of its low error rate.

An Empirical Study of Correlations between Function Points and Software Defects

Masood Uzzafer 보안공학연구지원센터 2016 International Journal of Hybrid Information Techno Vol.9 No.7

Software defects prediction research is converging on the use of function point elements for software defect predictions. Studies on the nature and behavior of the function point elements are expanding. Previous studies have analyzed the correlation between the function point elements. This paper presents correlation analysis between function point elements and the software defects. It is observed that external input count and external inquiry count function point elements show some correlation with software defects. Different data subsets were analyzed, where 4GL projects shows strong correlation with defects over 3GL and ApG/other projects, while enhancement software projects show more correlation with defects over new software projects.

Nonlinear kinetic Alfvén waves with non-Maxwellian electron population in space plasmas

Masood, W.,Qureshi, M. N. S.,Yoon, P. H.,Shah, H. A. American Geophysical Union 2015 JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH. SPACE PHYSICS Vol.120 No.1

<P>The present work discusses the effects of non-Maxwellian electron distributions on kinetic Alfven waves in low-beta plasmas. Making use of the two-potential theory and employing the Sagdeev potential approach, the existence of solitary kinetic Alfven waves having arbitrary amplitude is investigated. It is found that the use of non-Maxwellian population of electrons in the study of kinetic Alfven waves leads to solutions corresponding to solitary structures that do not exist for Maxwellian electrons. The present investigation solves the riddle of plasma density fluctuations associated with strong electromagnetic perturbations observed by the Freja satellite. The present findings can also be applied to regions of space where various satellite missions have observed the presence of suprathermal populations of plasma species and where the low assumption is valid</P>

A Risk Classification Scheme for Software Projects

Masood Uzzafer 보안공학연구지원센터 2013 International Journal of Software Engineering and Vol.7 No.1

Optimal Design Parameters of Stiffeners for Improving Seismic Performance of Links in EBFs

Masood Mojarad,Maryam Daei,Mehrdad Hejazi 한국강구조학회 2020 International Journal of Steel Structures Vol.20 No.5

In eccentrically braced frames (EBFs), the link beam is the main factor determining the behavior of this type of system. In order to enhance the ductility and delaying the web and fl ange buckling, the link beam is reinforced using intermediate web stiff eners to improve its performance and energy dissipation capacity. The web stiff eners spacing criteria is based on short links under pure shear, which have been applied without considering the bending eff ect on intermediate links. In this paper, fi rst the eff ects of stiff ener details and section geometry on the link behavior are investigated using fi nite element modeling, and then by proposing an optimization model, new spacing is proposed for stiff eners of intermediate links that is also consistent with bending distribution, and enhances the performance of intermediate links signifi cantly. To further investigate the results of the optimization model and sensitivity analyses results, the behavior of a total of 52 short, intermediate and long links with diff erent lengths and sections is simulated and investigated under cyclic loading based on ANSI/AISC 341-10 (Seismic provisions for structural steel buildings, Chicago, American Institute of Steel Construction, 2010) using ABAQUS. The results show that the section geometry in W-beams aff ects the stiff eners spacing and thereby, the behavior of intermediate and long links. According to the obtained results in short links, stiff eners spacing are very conservative and can be increased, and for intermediate links, adjusting the stiff eners spacing based on the proposed optimization model can signifi cantly enhance the performance of the link beam.

Synthesis and Exploitation in Solar Cells of Hydrothermally Grown ZnO Nanorods Covered by ZnS Quantum Dots

Masood Mehrabian,Hossein Afarideh,Kavoos Mirabbaszadeh,Li Lianshan,Tang Zhiyong 한국광학회 2014 Current Optics and Photonics Vol.18 No.4

Improved power conversion efficiency of hybrid solar cells with ITO/ZnO seed layer/ZnO NRs/ZnS QDs/P3HT/PCBM/Ag structure was obtained by optimizing the growth period of ZnO nanorods (NRs). ZnO NRs were grown using a hydrothermal method on ZnO seed layers, while ZnS quantum dots (QDs) (average thickness about 24 nm) were fabricated on the ZnO NRs by the successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique. Morphology, crystalline structure and optical absorption of layers were analyzed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-Visible absorption spectra, respectively. The XRD results implied that ZnS QDs were in the cubic phase (sphalerite). Other experimental results showed that the maximum power conversion efficiency of 4.09% was obtained for a device based on ZnO NR10 under an illumination of one Sun (AM 1.5G, 100 mW/cm2).