target individual panel with if conditional

Is there a way to target an individual panel or panel region on the panel page from mycustom.module
targeting the url alone works fine but I cant seem to target an individual panel-pane or region or panel-machine-name via php if

if (substr(request_uri(), 0, 16) == '/search_content/' && panel_region == top) {
  // then set a search result parameter
  $params['rows'] = 30;
}

I have used dsm(page_manager_get_current_page()) but it needs to be run from the panel page and does not return anything when run from mycustom.module

any help would be much appreciated.