The maximum number of minimal codewords in an [n,k]−[n,k]-code

Upper and lower bounds are derived for the quantity in the title, which is tabulated for modest values of $n$ and $k.$ An application to graphs with many cycles is given.Comment: 6 pp. Submitte

Voice: economic empowerment of low-income Egyptian women

This research sets out to examine the enablers and constraints of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programmes in Egypt. The purpose of the research is to explore and identify the factors that hinder women in the Middle East and Africa region (MENA) from participating in Women’s Economic Empowerment programmes to inform future planning for such programmes. The research is particularly interested in contributing to the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals (UNGSDG) by setting a case to work towards achieving at least 7 of the 17 Goals set by the UN. These will be further clarified on the following page. By looking into the enablers and constraints of WEE programs in Egypt, this research will establish a base to step up towards contributing and promoting those important goals. Using an auto-ethnographic lens, through group gatherings with women from three different regions in Egypt, narrative contributions were collected and analysed to extract data and draw results. These group gatherings were conducted in sessions, where each group consisted of around five women. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the sessions were conducted remotely via zoom. A local facilitator physically was present with each group. Thematic analysis was conducted to find out the enablers and the constraints. The main findings illustrated that women were bound to household activities as their core responsibility, female decision making is highly impacted by husbands, and factors enabling them to work are education, family situation, infrastructure, and financial needs. There are shifting contextual factors, such as engagement with employers, that the WEE programs need to address. This would involve employees’ rights legislation, such as birth-related leave and availability of funded or subsidised nurseries, as well as training. To bring about effective change for women beyond a first steppingstone requires the involvement of local, regional, and global actors if WEE programmes are to have an impact on the health and well-being of communities and countries facing what could be catastrophic futures due to global factors

Synthesis and antibacterial effects of cobalt–cellulose magnetic nanocomposites

© The Royal Society of Chemistry. Green synthesis is employed to prepare cobalt/cellulose nanocomposites with cubic (α-cobalt) cobalt as a main component with antibacterial and magnetic properties. An in situ reduction of aqueous solutions of cobalt ions on a model cellulose substrate surface using hydrogen gas affords spherical, cellulose-stabilised cobalt nanoclusters with magnetic properties and an average diameter of 7 nm that are distributed evenly over the surface of the cellulose fibres. These cobalt/cellulose nanocomposites exhibit good antibacterial action against opportunistic pathogens both Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli, A. baumannii and P. aeruginosa), with zones of inhibition up to 15 mm, thereby encouraging the deployment of these advanced materials for the treatment of wastewater or within medical dressings. This method of preparation is compared with the analogous in situ reduction of cobalt ions on a cellulose surface using sodium borohydride as reducing agent

Cerebellar lobules and dentate nuclei mirror cortical free-related-BOLD responses: beyond all (linear) expectations

The relationship between the BOLD response and an applied force was quantified in the cerebellum using a power grip task. To investigate whether the cerebellum responds in an on/off way to motor demands or contributes to motor responses in a parametric fashion, similarly to the cortex, five grip force levels were investigated under visual feedback. Functional MRI data were acquired in 13 healthy volunteers and their responses were analyzed using a cerebellum-optimized pipeline. This allowed us to evaluate, within the cerebellum, voxelwise linear and non-linear associations between cerebellar activations and forces. We showed extensive non-linear activations (with a parametric design), covering the anterior and posterior lobes of the cerebellum with a BOLD-force relationship that is region-dependent. Linear responses were mainly located in the anterior lobe, similarly to the cortex, where linear responses are localized in M1. Complex responses were localized in the posterior lobe, reflecting its key role in attention and executive processing, required during visually guided movement. Given the highly organized responses in the cerebellar cortex, a key question is whether deep cerebellar nuclei show similar parametric effects. We found positive correlations with force in the ipsilateral dentate nucleus and negative correlations on the contralateral side, suggesting a somatotopic organization of the dentate nucleus in line with cerebellar and cortical areas. Our results confirm that there is cerebellar organization involving all grey matter structures that reflect functional segregation in the cortex, where cerebellar lobules and dentate nuclei contribute to complex motor tasks with different BOLD response profiles in relation to the forces

Designing Albaha Internet of Farming Architecture

Up to now, most farmers in Albaha, Saudi Arabia are still practicing traditional way, which is not optimized in term of water usage, quality of product, etc. At the same time, nowadays ICT becomes a key driver for Innovation in Farming. In this project, we propose a smart Internet of farming system to assist farmers in Albaha to optimize their farm productivity by providing accurate information to the farmers the right time prediction to harvest, to fertilize, to watering and other activities related to the farming/agriculture technology. The proposed system utilizes wireless sensor cloud to capture remotely important data such as temperature, humidity, soil condition (moisture, water level), etc., and then they are sent to a storage servers at Albaha University cloud. An adaptive knowledge engine will process the captured data into knowledge and the farmers can retrieve the knowledge using their smartphones via the Internet