Ethical Perception of University Students about Academic Dishonesty in Pakistan: Identification of Student\u27s Dishonest Acts

The current research work aims to explore major activities performed by the university students during academic misconducts and their perception regarding such activities. The study further explores the ethical limits drawn by the students about academic dishonesty. Case study methodology is utilized in this research. Sixty-one post graduate and doctoral students were interviewed. Pattern analysis is conducted to analyze the information received through structured interviews of the participants. Study founds the key activities through which students are involved in such misconducts and make a comprehensive agreement on academic dishonesty that has become the normal part of life in education system of Pakistan. Furthermore, students opined that these activities are ethically wrong habits and may be avoided

Impact Of Job Analysis On Job Performance: Analysis Of A Hypothesized Model

The manuscript entitled Impact of Job Analysis on Job Performance: Analysis of a Hypothesized Model was retracted on December 17, 2015. Please contact our office at [email protected] for more information

A Compact Size Implantable Antenna for Bio-medical Applications

Implantable antennas play a vital role in implantable sensors and medical devices. In this paper, we present the design of a compact size implantable antenna for biomedical applications. The antenna is designed to operate in ISM band at 915 MHz and the overall size of the antenna is 4×4×0.3mm3. A shorting pin is used to lower the operating frequency of the antenna. For excitation purpose a 50-ohm coaxial probe feed is used in the design. A superstrate layer is placed on the patch to prevent the direct contact between the radiating patch and body tissues. The antenna is simulated in skin layer model. The designed antenna demonstrates a gain of 3.22 dBi while having a -10 dB bandwidth of 240 MHz with good radiation characteristics at 915 MHz. The simulated results show that this antenna is an excellent candidate for implantable applications

An Electro-Optical Technique For The Measurement Of Temperature Of High Potential Bodies.

In this paper we have presented a low cost, simple and robust mechatronic system for the measurement of temperature in extreme conditions. It is specially designed for the protection of high potential parts of power transformers and switch gears under faulty operating conditions

Gaussian mixture model based probabilistic modeling of images for medical image segmentation

In this paper, we propose a novel image segmentation algorithm that is based on the probability distributions of the object and background. It uses the variational level sets formulation with a novel region based term in addition to the edge-based term giving a complementary functional, that can potentially result in a robust segmentation of the images. The main theme of the method is that in most of the medical imaging scenarios, the objects are characterized by some typical characteristics such a color, texture, etc. Consequently, an image can be modeled as a Gaussian mixture of distributions corresponding to the object and background. During the procedure of curve evolution, a novel term is incorporated in the segmentation framework which is based on the maximization of the distance between the GMM corresponding to the object and background. The maximization of this distance using differential calculus potentially leads to the desired segmentation results. The proposed method has been used for segmenting images from three distinct imaging modalities i.e. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), dermoscopy and chromoendoscopy. Experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method giving better qualitative and quantitative results when compared with the current state-of-the-art. INDEX TERMS Gaussian Mixture Model, Level Sets, Active Contours, Biomedical Engineerin

Decentralized document version control using ethereum blockchain and IPFS

In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based solution and framework for document sharing and version control to facilitate multi-user collaboration and track changes in a trusted, secure, and decentralized manner, with no involvement of a centralized trusted entity or third party. This solution is based on utilizing Ethereum smart contracts to govern and regulate the document version control functions among the creators and developers of the document and its validators. Moreover, our solution leverages the benefits of IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) to store documents on a decentralized file system. The proposed solution automates necessary interactions among multiple actors comprising developers and approvers. Smart contracts have been developed using Solidity language, and their functionalities were tested using the Remix IDE (Integrated Development Environment). The paper demonstrates that our smart contract code is free of commonly known security vulnerabilities and attacks. The code has been made publically available at Github

Analysis of channel uncertainty in ARQ relay networks

Several power allocation algorithms for cooperative relay networks are presented in the literature. These contributions assume perfect channel knowledge and capacity achieving codes. However in practice, obtaining the channel state information at a relay or at the destination is an estimation problem and can generally not be error free. The investigation of the power allocation mechanism in a wireless network due to channel imperfections is important because it can severely degrade its performance regarding throughput and bit error rate. In this paper, the impact of imperfect channel state information on the power allocation of an adaptive relay network is investigated. Moreover, a framework including Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) mechanism is provided to make the power allocation mechanism robust against these channel imperfections. For this framework, the end-to end SNR is calculated considering imperfect channel knowledge using ARQ analytically. The goal is to emphasize the impact of imperfect channel knowledge on the power allocation mechanism. In this paper, the simulation results illustrate the impact of channel uncertainties on the average outage probability, throughput, and consumed sum power for different qualities of channel estimation. It is shown that the presented framework with ARQ is extremely robust against the channel imperfections

Evaluation of Prognostic response in HIV positive patients after Antiretroviral Therapy

Objective: The present study was aimed to monitor the prognostic response of antiretroviral therapy in HIV positive patients. Methodology: The study was conducted on confirmed HIV positive patients registered at HIV treatment and care centre, PIMS. Islamabad from January 2013 to December 2015.. Among all HIV positive patients,276 adult cases were selected. There were 263 patients on first-line antiretroviral (ARV) therapy and 13 patients were shifted to 2nd line ARV therapy.CD4 cell counts and viral load (Polymerase chain reaction) monitoring was done after one year of starting ARV therapy. Results: Out of 276 adult patients,  75%(n=207) were male and 25%(n=69) were females. Among 276 adult cases, 95.3% (n=263) patients were on first line ARV therapy. Patients on first line ARV therapy showed good prognostic response. There  were 15.5%(n=40) patients having  CD4+cells less than 350cells/µL. There were 84.5%(n=223) patients having  CD4 +cells count greater than 350cells/µL There were 69%(n=182) patients having viral load <50copies/ml and 31%(n=81) patients who had viral load >50copies/ml. Conclusion: First line ARV therapy given to HIV positive patients proved itself best both in respect of increasing the immunity of HIV positive patients by increasing the number of CD4 cells and also results in effective viral load suppression

A design of turnover intention antecedents and their relation on work design for firms

Most of the time Employees turnover intentions has been examined with the level of Human Resource Practices (HRP) in previous studies. Present study added social and Job characteristic study of 214 employees and managers from a fast food – outlet of Pakistan retail food service. Employee’s turnover intention was significantly associated at firm level and individual level factors and demonstrates the upgrading of food quality and service in the chain. The regression analysis was used to measure the relationship and significance among the observed constructs using SPSS 26. Job characteristics explains within-store variance. The hypothesis statement of the study projected that turnover intention has significantly affected due to individual level and firm level constructs setting in this situation. Outlet variance is described in adding to compensation, transformational leadership among employees in perspective of age and tenure similarity in the firm employees. Further research, limitation are managerial implication and theoretical framework can be discussed in detail