Waqar Ali - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Waqar Ali

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Molecules

Parthenium hysterophorus L. is a poisonous Asteraceae weed. The phytochemical profile, antioxidan... more Parthenium hysterophorus L. is a poisonous Asteraceae weed. The phytochemical profile, antioxidant activity, total phenolic contents (TPC), total flavonoid contents (TFC), and cytotoxicity of Parthenium hysterophorus L. flower extract were evaluated in this study, and the toxic effects were assessed in rabbits. The HPLC-DAD system was used for phytochemical analysis. The hemolytic and DPPH assays were performed. The effects of orally administering the flower crude extract to rabbits (n = 5) at four different doses (10, 20, 40, and 80 mg/kg) for ten days on hematological and biochemical parameters were investigated. The crude extract of the flower contained phenolic compounds such as Gallic acid, Chlorogenic acid, Ellagic acid, and P Coumaric acid, which were detected at different retention times, according to the HPLC results. With a sample peak of 4667.475 %, chlorogenic acid was abundant. At concentrations of 80 µg, the methanolic extract of flowers had total phenolic contents (89...

African Journal of Biotechnology, Jul 18, 2007

The production of Brassica germplasm with a wider genetic base is essential for using them proper... more The production of Brassica germplasm with a wider genetic base is essential for using them properly in the genetic improvement of rapeseed/mustard. During the present study, different RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA) primers were used to estimate the genetic distances among thirty different genotypes in all possible combinations. Level of genetic polymorphism at DNA level observed during present study varied, but in general it was in the range of 21.54 to 59.36%. The dissimilarity coefficient matrix of these lines based on the data of four RAPD markers using UPGMA method was also used to construct a dendrogram. The dendrogram analysis indicated that the lines UCD-319/2, UCD-310/2 and P34/R3 were genetically apart from other lines that can be exploited in a synergistic way to create wider genetic base in local Brassica germplasm thus augmenting the Brassica breeding program.

Tea is generally prepared by steeping the dried young leaves and buds of Camellia sinensis in a b... more Tea is generally prepared by steeping the dried young leaves and buds of Camellia sinensis in a boiled water. Following water, tea is mostly consuming drink in the world. This research project was designed to evaluate different tea samples for various biological assays. Assays including antibacterial, antifungal, antileishmanial and antioxidant were carried out following standard procedures. Antimicrobial activities were include disc diffusion and micro broth dilution methods, while spectrophotometric method was used for antioxidant and anti-leishmanial assays. Our test samples exhibited considerable antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus with MICs of 3.7 μg ml. Tapal and Tetly showed considerable inhibitory activities against R. solani with 64 ± 3.6 and 76 ± 45% inhibitions respectively at 10 mg ml concentrations. Likewise, Lipton and Tapal showed 76 ± 54 and 76 ± 57% inhibitory activity against A. niger at 10 mg ml concentrations. Tetly was...

Fagonia indica is an important medicinal plant species used traditionally against a variety of di... more Fagonia indica is an important medicinal plant species used traditionally against a variety of diseases. In this study, we initiated callus cultures from healthy stem explants. We observed maximum callus induction frequency (88%) on MS media supplemented with Thidiazuron (1.0 mg/mL). We also examined the callus cultures to determine the impact of iron-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles (Fe-ZnO-NPs) in concentrations (15.62 to 250 µg/mL) on biomass accumulation, secondary metabolism, and antioxidative potential in callus cultures of F. indica. Our results showed that maximum callus biomass (FW = 13.6 g and DW = 0.58 ± 0.01) was produced on day 40 when the media was supplemented with 250 µg/mL Fe-ZnO-NPs. Similarly, maximum TPC (268.36 µg GAE/g of DW) was detected in 40 days old callus added with 125 µg/mL Fe-ZnO-NPs. Maximum TFC (78.56 µg QE/g of DW) was observed in 20 days old callus grown in 62.5 µg/mL Fe-ZnO-NPs containing media. Maximum total antioxidant capacity (390.74 µg AAE/g of ...

The interaction between plants and fluoride occurs due to the contamination by fluoride of air, s... more The interaction between plants and fluoride occurs due to the contamination by fluoride of air, soil, and ground water. Fluoride pollution is worldwide and may cause serious damage to plants and consequently affect both livestock and human beings. Air pollution by fluoride is widespread in Pakistan and affects crop production. The aim of the present study was to examine the impact in maize (Zea mays L.) of 15 days treatment with sodium fluoride (NaF), in concentrations of 0 (control), 10, 20, and 50 mg/L, on germination percentage, root and shoot length, vigor index, total chlorophyll content, and total protein content. The group size was 50 seeds for each analysis. Increasing concentrations of NaF resulted in reductions in the germination percentage, root and shoot length, vigor index, and total protein content. Our finding that the total chlorophyll content increased with a peak at 20 mg/L NaF and a value at 50 mg/L still above the control value was anomalous compared to the liter...

2021 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), 2021

We consider the problem of executing parallel realtime tasks according to gang scheduling on a mu... more We consider the problem of executing parallel realtime tasks according to gang scheduling on a multicore system in the presence of shared resource interference. Specifically, we consider sets of gang-tasks with precedence constraints in the form of a DAG. We introduce the novel concept of a virtual gang: a group of parallel tasks that are scheduled together as a single entity. Employing virtual gangs allows us to tightly bound the effect of shared resource interference. It also transforms the original, complex scheduling problem into a form that can be easily implemented and is amenable to exact schedulability analysis, further reducing pessimism. We present and evaluate both optimal and heuristic methods for forming virtual gangs based on a known interference model and while respecting all precedence constraints among tasks. When precedence constraints are not considered, we also compare our approach against existing response-time analysis for globally scheduled gang-tasks, as well as general parallel tasks. The results show that our approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art multicore schedulability analyses when shared-resource interference is considered. Even in the absence of interference, it performs better than the state-ofthe-art for highly parallel tasksets.

The widespread significance of Android IoT devices is due to its flexibility and hardware support... more The widespread significance of Android IoT devices is due to its flexibility and hardware support features which revolutionized the digital world by introducing exciting applications almost in all walks of daily life, such as healthcare, smart cities, smart environments, safety, remote sensing, and many more. Such versatile applicability gives incentive for more malware attacks. In this paper, we propose a framework which continuously aggregates multiple user trained models on non-overlapping data into single model. Specifically for malware detection task, (i) we propose a novel user (local) neural network (LNN) which trains on local distribution and (ii) then to assure the model authenticity and quality, we propose a novel smart contract which enable aggregation process over blokchain platform. The LNN model analyzes various static and dynamic features of both malware and benign whereas the smart contract verifies the malicious applications both for uploading and downloading proces...

ArXiv, 2019

We propose a virtual-gang based parallel real-time task scheduling approach for multicore platfor... more We propose a virtual-gang based parallel real-time task scheduling approach for multicore platforms. Our approach is based on the notion of a virtual-gang, which is a group of parallel real-time tasks that are statically linked and scheduled together by a gang scheduler. We present a light-weight intra-gang synchronization framework, called RTG-Sync, and virtual gang formation algorithms that provide strong temporal isolation and high real-time schedulability in scheduling real-time tasks on multicore. We evaluate our approach both analytically, with generated tasksets against state-of-the-art approaches, and empirically with a case-study involving real-world workloads on a real embedded multicore platform. The results show that our approach provides simple but powerful compositional analysis framework, achieves better analytic schedulability, especially when the effect of interference is considered, and is a practical solution for COTS multicore platforms.

The Computer Journal, 2021

Privacy protection is one of the key concerns of users in recommender system-based consumer marke... more Privacy protection is one of the key concerns of users in recommender system-based consumer markets. Popular recommendation frameworks such as collaborative filtering (CF) suffer from several privacy issues. Federated learning has emerged as an optimistic approach for collaborative and privacy-preserved learning. Users in a federated learning environment train a local model on a self-maintained item log and collaboratively train a global model by exchanging model parameters instead of personalized preferences. In this research, we proposed a federated learning-based privacy-preserving CF model for context-aware recommender systems that work with a user-defined collaboration protocol to ensure users’ privacy. Instead of crawling users’ personal information into a central server, the whole data are divided into two disjoint parts, i.e. user data and sharable item information. The inbuilt power of federated architecture ensures the users’ privacy concerns while providing considerably a...

The present study was designed to check the prevalence of cancer in residents of District Bannu, ... more The present study was designed to check the prevalence of cancer in residents of District Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Patients' data were collected from three consulted Institutes during the year 2005-09. The data was analyzed for different parameters; year-wise, age-wise prevalence, gender-wise, occupation wise and marital status wise prevalence, addiction status, type of cancer, site affected, diagnostic tests performed and treatment of cancer. Results revealed that during 2005, a high number of cancer patients were present. A total of 172 patients were in the age group of 51-60 years, while only 11 patients were in the age group of 80 plus years. Female patients were more as compared to males. Married people were highly affected than unmarried. Patients addicted to smoking were highly affected than non-addicted patients. Malignancy was high in patients as compared to benign cancer. The most affected site was the blood system. The most affected people occupation wise were house...

Cells, 2020

In this work, we evaluated the effects of alpha linoleic acid (ALA), an omega-3 polyunsaturated f... more In this work, we evaluated the effects of alpha linoleic acid (ALA), an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, on amyloid-beta-induced glial-cell-mediated neuroinflammation, amyloidogenesis, and cognitive dysfunction in mice. After an infusion of Aβ1–42 (Aβ1–42, 5 μL/5 min/mouse, intracerebroventricular injection (i.c.v), and respective treatments of ALA (60 mg/kg per oral for six weeks), neuroinflammation, apoptotic markers, and synaptic markers were evaluated by Western blot and immunofluorescence analyses. According to our findings, the infusion of Aβ1–42 activated Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and ionized calcium adaptor molecule 1 (Iba-1) in the frontal cortices and hippocampi of the Aβ1–42-injected mice to a greater extent than the Aβ1–42 + ALA-cotreated mice. Similarly, there was an elevated expression of phospho-c-Jun-N-terminal kinase (p-JNK), phospho-nuclear factor-kB p65 (p-NF-kB p65 (Ser536)), and tissue necrosis factor (TNF) in the Aβ...

European Journal of Experimental Biology, 2018

Use of inorganic fertilizers have some problems to farmers in terms of high cost and short residu... more Use of inorganic fertilizers have some problems to farmers in terms of high cost and short residual effect. Since use of organic fertilizers have a long residual effect but the nutrient requirement of crops is not fulfill in one season. So, using of combination of different organic manures can not only improve soil properties but also fulfill the nutrients requirement of crops. Therefore, a study was carried out aiming use of combinations of organic manures to improve maize yield and quality at the Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI), Pirsabak District Nowshera, KP, Pakistan during Kharif 2016. Poultry Manure (PM) and Humic Acid (HA) combinations were used as treatments including T1=Control, T2=2.5 tons PM ha-1 +5 kg HA ha-1 , T3=5 tons PM ha-1 +4 kg HA ha-1 , T4=7.5 tons PM ha-1 +3 kg HA ha-1 , T5=10 tons PM ha-1 +2 kg HA ha-1 and T6=12.5 tons PM ha-1 +1 kg HA ha-1. A basic dose of NPK was applied at the rate of 60:40:30 kg N, P and K ha-1. The results showed that highest days number to tasseling (55) and to silking (56) were recorded when PM and HA were applied at the rate of 12.5 tons PM ha-1 +1 kg HA ha-1 as compared with control plots. Highest plant height (185.33 cm), leaf area (411.26 cm 2), cob length (17.0 cm), grains number cob-1 (413), grain yield (4783.3 kg ha-1), 1000 grain weight (413 g) and stover yield (13197 kg ha-1) were produced when PM and HA were applied at the rate of 12.5 tons PM ha-1 and 1 kg HA ha-1 as compared with the control plots. It is recommended that use of HA and PM in blending not only improves crop yield but also has a long term residual effect and improve soil properties as well.

Advances in Crop Science and Technology, 2018

This study is based on survey of the conservation practices adopted by the farmers in various reg... more This study is based on survey of the conservation practices adopted by the farmers in various regions of District Swabi (34°10'23" N, 72°34'80" E), (Pakistan). The surveyed area comprised of 86 zones of the District to assemble farmer's practices for conservation of water and soil. A few reviews demonstrated that over 70% of the world rural areas face direct decline. Water is likewise turning into a rare resource by sedimentation, contaminating with various chemicals. The adoption of a particular conservation practice in any zone seems to have relation with the region's climatic conditions and land relief. For instance, the practices in Baja (with a relatively smaller slope gradient) were different to that adopted in Utla (with higher slope gradient) where stone walled terracing was the most common practice. Additionally, use of conservation practices were also dependent upon the extent of precipitation and wind, and the regions where precipitation was high, conservation practices were for the most part stubble mulching, cover crops, grass strips, field borders and filter strips that can diminish overflow by improving infiltration. Whilst the areas with higher level of wind erosion were, generally, proliferated with wind breaks and trees plantations. From the results it is obvious that farmers adoptive conservation practices in District Swabi were more focused on decreasing the soil loss, ensuring a safe habitat for natural biodiversity, improving soil fertility and increasing bioenergy production which should help increase financial gains of the farming community living in the area.

Journal of Biological Research-Thessaloniki, 2020

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a newly emergent relative of the Flaviviridae family and linked to dengue (D... more Zika virus (ZIKV) is a newly emergent relative of the Flaviviridae family and linked to dengue (DENV) and Chikungunya (CHIVKV). ZIKV is one of the rising pathogens promptly surpassing geographical borders. ZIKV infection was characterized by mild disease with fever, headache, rash, arthralgia and conjunctivitis, with exceptional reports of an association with Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS) and microcephaly. However, since the end of 2015, an increase in the number of GBS associated cases and an astonishing number of microcephaly in fetus and new-borns in Brazil have been related to ZIKV infection, raising serious worldwide public health concerns. ZIKV is transmitted by the bite of infected female mosquitoes of Aedes species. Clarifying such worrisome relationships is, thus, a current unavoidable goal. Here, we extensively described the current understanding of the effects of ZIKV on heath, clinical manifestation, diagnosis and treatment options based on modern, alternative and comple...

Chemosphere, 2019

Green synthesized silver nanoparticles induced cytogenotoxic and genotoxic changes in Allium cepa... more Green synthesized silver nanoparticles induced cytogenotoxic and genotoxic changes in Allium cepa L. varies with nanoparticles doses and duration of exposure, Chemosphere (2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.chemosphere.2019.125430. This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Agrotechnology, 2019

Use of imbalance fertilizers and its application methods may cause reducing crops productivity. T... more Use of imbalance fertilizers and its application methods may cause reducing crops productivity. Therefore the proper level of fertilizers and appropriate methods is required to sustain the productivity of crops and soil fertility. Different levels of Nitrogen and its application methods were used to improve the canola productivity. A field experiment was conducted at University of Agriculture, Peshawar research farm in 2015-16. Randomized complete block design in split plot arrangement was applied with four replicates. Application methods (Broadcast method, rows one side placement, rows both side placement and rows between) were allotted to main plots and N levels (40, 70 and 90 kg ha-1) were allotted to subplots. Experimental results exhibit that all the parameter were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) different; maximum days to emergence (9), maximum number of plant m-2 (32), maximum days to first flowering (97), maximum grain pod-1 (28), maximum 1000 grain weight (3.2 g), maximum grain yield (985 kg ha-1) were noted at plot that fertilized with 70 kg ha-1 N along with both side placement of rows. It can be concluded that N at 70 kg ha-1 and both side placement of rows produce a higher yield and yield attributes of canola.

Periodica Polytechnica Chemical Engineering, 2018

Aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) is an efficient, cost effective, fast, simple and ecofriendly met... more Aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) is an efficient, cost effective, fast, simple and ecofriendly method for the recovery of biomolecules. In the present study, an ATPS composed of polyethylene glycol and ammonium sulphate (NH4)2SO4 was used for the partial purification of proteases from microbial source. The effects of different parameters such as molecular weight of PEG (4000, 6000 and 10000), concentration of PEG (15, 17.5 and 20 %) and concentration of (NH4)2SO4 (7.5, 8.3, 9.1 and 9.9 %) on the partitioning behavior of proteases at room temperature were investigated. Generally, increasing the concentration of PEG and (NH4)2SO4 moved the protease to the top i.e., polymer-rich phase. Increasing the molecular weight of PEG from 4000 to 10000 the partition coefficient decreased subsequently. The highest partition coefficient i.e., 3.32 and maximum activity i.e., 16.06 soxhlet unit was found in an optimum system composed of 20 % PEG 4000 and 9.9 % (NH4)2SO4.

Drug design, development and therapy, 2018

The challenges with current antimicrobial drug therapy and resistance remain a significant global... more The challenges with current antimicrobial drug therapy and resistance remain a significant global health threat. Nanodrug delivery systems are playing a crucial role in overcoming these challenges and open new avenues for effective antimicrobial therapy. While fluticasone (FLU), a poorly water-soluble corticosteroid, has been reported to have potential antimicrobial activity, approaches to optimize its dissolution profile and antimicrobial activity are lacking in the literature. This study aimed to combine an experimental study with molecular modeling to design stable FLU nanopolymeric particles with enhanced dissolution rates and antimicrobial activity. Six different polymers were used to prepare FLU nanopolymeric particles: hydroxyl propyl methylcellulose (HPMC), poly (vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP), poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA), ethyl cellulose (EC), Eudragit (EUD), and Pluronics. A low-energy method, nanoprecipitation, was used to prepare the polymeric nanoparticles. The combination of H...

Agriculture, 2017

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) leaves were studied to assess the potential of apricot leaves for f... more Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) leaves were studied to assess the potential of apricot leaves for future studies and their applications in nutraceutical and bioactive functional ingredients. The changes in the phenolic profile, carotenoids, pigments and antioxidant potential were studied at four maturation stages. Polyphenols and carotenoids were studied using reversed-phase HPLC-DAD. Pigments, total phenolic contents and radical scavenging activity were also measured. Results revealed twelve phenolic compounds in the apricot leaves. The major phenolic compounds were 3-O-caffeoylquinic acid (14.6-49.6 mg/g), 4-O-caffeoylquinic acid (0.56-7.5 mg/g), 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid (5.6-25.7 mg/g) and quercetin-3-O-glucosides (8.6-19.9 mg/g), while others include caffeic acid and derivatives of coumaric acid and kaempferol. Significant changes were observed in polyphenolic compounds during maturation. Lutein (56.7-65.7 µg/g), neoxanthin (0.66-4.79 µg/g), 5,6-epoxy-α-carotene (5.89-7.9 µg/g), and β-carotene (12.3-26.9 µg/g) were the major carotenoids. There were significant variations in the carotenoids, pigment contents, total phenolic contents and radical scavenging activity during maturation. In conclusion, significant variation occurred in the polyphenolic profile, carotenoids contents and antioxidant potential of apricot leaves under the studied conditions.