ORCID Profile
0000-0002-0895-7312
Current Organisations
University of Antwerp
,
Government College University, Faisalabad
,
Genicap Beheer
,
Geniaal bvba
,
The Antenna Company International BV
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-07-2022
DOI: 10.1111/NYAS.14862
Abstract: Many natural objects exhibit radial or axial symmetry in a single plane. However, a universal tool for simulating and fitting the shapes of such objects is lacking. Herein, we present an R package called ‘biogeom’ that simulates and fits many shapes found in nature. The package incorporates novel universal parametric equations that generate the profiles of bird eggs, flowers, linear and lanceolate leaves, seeds, starfish, and tree‐rings, and three growth‐rate equations that generate the profiles of ovate leaves and the ontogenetic growth curves of animals and plants. ‘biogeom’ includes several empirical datasets comprising the boundary coordinates of bird eggs, fruits, lanceolate and ovate leaves, tree rings, seeds, and sea stars. The package can also be applied to other kinds of natural shapes similar to those in the datasets. In addition, the package includes sigmoid curves derived from the three growth‐rate equations, which can be used to model animal and plant growth trajectories and predict the times associated with maximum growth rate. ‘biogeom’ can quantify the intra‐ or interspecific similarity of natural outlines, and it provides quantitative information of shape and ontogenetic modification of shape with important ecological and evolutionary implications for the growth and form of the living world.
Publisher: Journal of Infection in Developing Countries
Date: 30-04-2022
DOI: 10.3855/JIDC.14990
Abstract: Introduction: Multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is one of the leading causes of death in the world. The resource constraints make it difficult to diagnose and monitor the cases of MDR-TB. GeneXpert is a recognized tool used to diagnose the patients of pulmonary tuberculosis in clinical settings across the globe. Methodology: The present one-year cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the occurrence of MDR-TB in patients with pulmonary TB. A total of 1000 patients suspected of pulmonary tuberculosis were included in this study. A random convenient s ling technique was done to collect the sputum s les (twice) from the patients. S les were processed for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis using conventional detection methods like the Ziehl Nelson staining method and fluorescent microscopy. Additionally, Cepheid GeneXpert was used for molecular detection of MDR-TB in smear-positive s les of pulmonary tuberculosis by lifying the rif icin resistance determining region (RRDR rpoB gene). All the tests were performed in the biosafety level III lab of District Headquarters Hospital Nankana Sahib. Results: It was observed that 103 (10.3%) in iduals were diagnosed as positive for tuberculosis among 1000 patients. Among these 103 TB positive cases, there were 11 (10.7%) patients diagnosed with rif icin resistance gene (RR-Gene) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Conclusions: Overall findings of the study showed that MDR-TB is prevalent in pulmonary TB patients and GeneXpert is the most sensitive technique for early diagnosis of the disease, which may be very helpful in the treatment and control of this public health menace in low and middle-income countries.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 11-11-2022
Abstract: Bamboo is an important component in subtropical and tropical forest communities. The plant has characteristic long lanceolate leaves with parallel venation. Prior studies have shown that the leaf shapes of this plant group can be well described by a simplified version (referred to as SGE-1) of the Gielis equation, a polar coordinate equation extended from the superellipse equation. SGE-1 with only two model parameters is less complex than the original Gielis equation with six parameters. Previous studies have seldom tested whether other simplified versions of the Gielis equation are superior to SGE-1 in fitting empirical leaf shape data. In the present study, we compared a three-parameter Gielis equation (referred to as SGE-2) with the two-parameter SGE-1 using the leaf boundary coordinate data of six bamboo species within the same genus that have representative long lanceolate leaves, with leaves for each species. We s led 2000 data points at approximately equidistant locations on the boundary of each leaf, and estimated the parameters for the two models. The root–mean–square error (RMSE) between the observed and predicted radii from the polar point to data points on the boundary of each leaf was used as a measure of the model goodness of fit, and the mean percent error between the RMSEs from fitting SGE-1 and SGE-2 was used to examine whether the introduction of an additional parameter in SGE-1 remarkably improves the model’s fitting. We found that the RMSE value of SGE-2 was always smaller than that of SGE-1. The mean percent errors among the two models ranged from 7.5% to 20% across the six species. These results indicate that SGE-2 is superior to SGE-1 and should be used in fitting leaf shapes. We argue that the results of the current study can be potentially extended to other lanceolate leaf shapes.
No related grants have been discovered for Muhammad Asif Zahoor.