Chili is an important spice and used as salad, complementary dish, medicine, industrial product, or as decoration. It is consumed as fresh, dry, powder, paste or as sauce. It enhances food palatability, inducing the consumption of other foods. It is a rich source of Vitamin A & C. In Asia, chili is an important component in the cropping system. In terms of area, it is ranked first in Asia and third in the world as most important vegetable. Chilies are subject to various pest and disease constraints to optimal production. The contamination of the crops with mycotoxins from the growth of Aspergillus flavus and/or Aspergillus parasiticus is one of the most serious problems. Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites of fungi. Due to the widespread distribution of fungi in the environment, mycotoxins are considered to be one of the most important contaminants of foods and feeds. Aflatoxins are important class of mycotoxins. The toxins can be produced in the field prior to harvest, or alternatively, can arise due to fungal growth under poor storage conditions. Mycotoxins can produce both in temperate and tropical regions of the world, depending on the species of fungi. The extraction, clean up and analysis methodology for aflatoxins in chilies were validated and found it efficient and good in respect of recovery, reproducibility, repeatability, resolution and cost-effective. The collected chili samples from Faisalabad Division, Pakistan exhibited high level of aflatoxins but after treatment with γ-irradiation, more than 95% reduction in AFB 1 and ≥ 97% in Total (∑AFB 1 + AFB 2 +AFG 1 + AFG 2 ) were observed at a dose of 6 kGy. Citric acid was effective for the reduction of AFs in chilies and reduced 89% AFB 1 and 90% total AFs in contaminated chilies. Propionic acid is also used for the reduction of AFs in red chilies and it reduced 80% AFB 1 and 76% total AFs in chilies. Antioxidants like butylated hydroxyl-anisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxyl-toluene (BHT) were effective to reduce fungal load and the of (20:20 mM) of BHA and BHT were inhibit 100% of fungal load in malt extract agar of chilies. From the results it is evident that among aflatoxin reduction techniques, γ-irradiation is a good technology to remove contaminants like AFs from chilies. The food quality of irradiated cereals was evaluated to study any chemical change in vitamin E and fungal biomass. The total biomass (CFU g -1 ) showed linear behavior as increasing the dose level of gamma irradiation. In some samples of chilies, no microflora (fungi) was observed after 72 h. of incubation. From the results however, it is revealed that with increasing γ-irradiation doses a decrease in vitamin E content was observed in chilies but this decrease is not significant (p > 0.05). In the present study, phenolics, flavonoids and antioxidant activity of chilies and selected spices (cloves, turmeric, oregano, black pepper and cinnamon) have been evaluated in the Department of Food Science, Cornell University, USA. From the results, it has been evident that chilies and spices are good source of antioxidants. Special attention is urgently needed to create awareness of the high level of AFs contamination in chilies, among farmers, consumers, and traders. Special emphasis should also be given to adopt GHP and GSP in order to minimize the toxin in chilie
Almighty Allah revealed the Holy Qur’an for guidance of the mankind. This guidance cannot be acquired without pondering over the meanings of this book. Different scholars dedicated their lives for understanding and then spreading the message of the Almighty Allah. This book is a study of the work on translations and tafasīr of Holy Qur’an. In Sub-Continent, a large number of religious scholars dedicated themselves for the service of Holy Qur’an. Their vision was broad and they elaborated meanings of the Holy Qur’an according to their own mental approach They were appreciated and criticized by scholars of different sects of the society. There is a dire need to understand and spread the teachings of the Holy book. Hopefully this work will encourage the readers to be aware of the research of theologians. Shāh Walī Allāh is the most important religious figure of Sub-Continent. He and his sons played very important role in spreading the message of Qur’an. Brief services of this family are elaborated in this book. Scholars of Sindh have contributed in writing translations and commentaries of Holy Qur’an. Some of their contributions are highlighted. The reader will also find introduction of well-known translations and tafasīr of the 20th century. But this introduction is restricted to the Sub-continent. Through this book. the writer wants only to motivate people for learning the Holy Book. It is not claimed that services of all the Qur’anic theologians of Sub-continent are highlighted. This is a matter of pride for the author that things are discussed without any prejudice. The readers are the best judges. Suggestions regarding the improvement will be welcomed. I am thankful to Prof. Dr. Shams-ul-Basar and Dr. Zohaib Ahmad for guidance and Co-operation regarding the publication of this work. May Allah Almighty shower blessings on them. If...
South Asia and Indian subcontinent have historically been regions of geo-strategic importance. They have been the most sought-after territories for every major World Player in each era. As a result of independence from the British in 1947, Pakistan and India emerged as two sovereign states, however, at loggerheads with each other since their very inception. The two countries have fought four deadly wars (1947-48, 1965 & 1971), including one (Kargil) after attaining the status of nuclear powers. One commonality in all these wars has been the unresolved Kashmir Issue, which remains the sorest point in the Pak-India ties to-date. These wars and many others military conflicts have resulted in the breach of peace for the region causing a much-feared nuclear threat, economic losses, disruption of social and cultural ties etc. For greater world peace, Pakistan and India need to resolve their differences/issues through bilateral negotiations, as war is no solution to any problem. For this purpose, political leadership of both the countries will have to intelligently carve out a plan to achieve the objective of peace and tranquility in the region. Both the countries need to realize that neighbours cannot be wished away. Peace in South Asia is synonymous to peace in the world.
In a complete financial market we consider the discrete time hedging of the American option with a convex payoff. It is well-known that for the perfect hedging the writer of the option must trade continuously in time which is impossible in practice. In reality, the writer hedges only at some discrete time instants. The perfect hedging requires the knowledge of the partial derivative of the value function of the American option in the underlying asset, explicit form of which is unknown in most cases of practical importance. At the same time several approxima- tion methods are developed for the calculation of the value function of the American option. We establish in this thesis that, having at hand any uniform approximation of the American option value function at the equidistant discrete rebalancing times it is possible to construct a discrete time hedging portfolio the value process of which uniformly approximates the value process of the continuous time perfect delta-hedging portfolio. We are able to estimate the corresponding discrete time hedging error that leads to complete justification of our hedging method for the non-increasing convex payoff functions including the important case of the American put. It is essentially based on a recently found new type square integral estimate for the derivative of an arbitrary convex function by Shashiash [23]. We generalize the latter square integral estimate to the case of the family of the weight functions, satisfying certain conditions.