Prediction of daily COVID-19 cases in European countries using automatic ARIMA model

The recent pandemic (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan city of China and after causing a lot of destruction there recently changed its epicenter to Europe. There are countless people affected and reported cases are increasing day by day. Predictive models need to consider previous reported cases and forecast the upcoming number of cases. Automatic ARIMA, one of the predictive models used for forecasting contagions, was used in this study to predict the number of confirmed cases for next 10 days in four top European countries through R package “forecast”. The study finds that Auto ARIMA applied on the sample satisfactorily forecasts the confirmed cases of coronavirus for next ten days. The confirmed cases for the four countries show an increasing trend for the next ten days with Spain with a highest number of expected new confirmed cases, followed by Germany and France. Italy is expected to have lowest number of new confirmed cases among the four countries

Impact of working environment on employee’s productivity: A case study of Banks and Insurance Companies in Pakistan

Work environment plays an important role in an organization. Most of the problems faced by employees are related to working environment. The level of productivity can be increased through developing a conducive working environment in the organization. The basic objective of this study is to  measure   the impact of working environment on productivity of employees. The organizations like banks and insurance companies were selected for conducting this research study. A closed ended questionnaire was developed to get feedback from target audience and different statistical methods were used to derive results from the collected data. It was observed   that the factors like supervisor support, relation with co-workers, training and development, attractive and fast incentives and recognition plans, adequate work load at work place are helpful in developing a working environment that has positive impact on employee’s level of productivity in the organizations. Key Words: working environment, workers’ productivity, recognition plan

The cascading role of leader-induced defensive cognitions and citizenship pressures in navigating employee silence

Purpose - The study aims to attain insights into the impact of destructive leadership and citizenship pressures in inducing employee silence through the lens of social exchange and the conservation of resources theory. The research further relies on Friedkin’s attitude-behaviour linkage framework (2010), while taking into account the role of employees’ defensive cognitive evaluations, as against the previously accented emotion-focused explanations.Design/methodology/approach – In order to corroborate the pertinence and contextual relevance of the framework, a survey-based study was conducted with a purposively selectedsample of 133 full-time employees from the systemically important banks. The sample size was determined through an a-priori power analysis using G*Power, and the hypothesized serial mediation model was tested using PLS-SEM in SmartPLS v_4.0.Findings – The findings accentuate the significance of destructive leadership in navigating employees’ silence directly and serially through continuance commitment and compulsorycitizenship behaviours. The study also underlines that rather than being portrayed as unidimensional outcomes centered on attitudes, employee behaviours ought to be consideredcontingent retorts under attitude-behaviour cascades.Originality/value - The study contributes to strategic human resource management literature by offering a cognition based explanation for employees’ silence, taking Pakistan’s culturaland contextual orientation into cognizance. Extending on the attitude-behaviour linkage framework, the study provides that attitudes shaped by defensive cognitive evaluations mayconcurrently foster involuntary (citizenship) as well as voluntary (silence) behaviours.<br/

Employee disengagement:The catalytic role of leader-induced defensive cognitions and perceptual politics

Purpose - The study aims to attain insights into the role of destructive leadership and perceived organizational politics as catalysts for employee disengagement through the perspective of social identity theory. The research further considers employees’ defensive cognitions for a comprehensive understanding of these interrelated phenomena in the workplace.Design/methodology/approach – In order to ascertain the pertinence and contextual relevance of the proposed framework, literary review was complemented by a survey-based study encompassing 114 full-time employees purposively selected from the six systemically important banks of Pakistan.Findings – The findings accentuate the significance of destructive leadership in inducing withdrawal behaviours among employees directly and indirectly through continuance commitment. The results also underline perceptions of politics as a significant work environment impediment amplifying employees’ propensity to undergo psychological withdrawal.Originality/value - The study contributes to strategic human resource management literature by offering an identity-based explanation for employees’ disengagement, considering Pakistan’s power-distant and collectivist orientation. The research further introduces an empirical novelty by postulating a total effect moderation model

Electron emission characterization of laser-induced gaseous plasma

Laser induced hydrogen plasma has been investigated as a source of electrons. The energy, temperature and flux of the electrons have been determined by using two different temporal detectors; Faraday cup and Rogowski coil. The energy, temperature and flux were measured from the electrons extracted from laser induced hydrogen plasma. The Rogowski coil has been used for measurement of flux and current whereas Faraday cup has been used to determine the current density in laser induced plasma. The energy and temperature of the electrons are measured by the time of flight method in the range of 1.23 - 5.04 keV and 2516.26 eV, respectively. The flux of the electrons has been measured ≈ 1015 by Rogowski coil and the maximum current has been measured to be 39.6 kA. The current density has been measured by the Faraday cup ranges from 20 Am-2 to 23 Am-2

Firm Positionality and Strategic Communication:Analyzing the Value of Informativeness for Managers

This study explored the moderating effects of price informativeness on the relationship between brand value and firm positionality. We argued that major effects for price informativeness are not confined to its direct effects on a firm’s market position or value, but in its moderating effects on brand-firm relationship. At the same time, the analysis confirmed that price informativeness can negatively moderate brand value’s influence on firm positionality. This study has significant implications for firms to strategically position and implement their communication strategies in a better way as to rapidly respond to fluctuations in the firm’s positionality

Limits of UK Counterterrorism Policy and its Implications for Islamophobia and Far Right Extremism

The UK Government has recently announced a new Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 to facilitate tackling the threat of violent extremism. In light of this and previous initiatives, this paper provides a critical assessment of UK counterterrorism policy. This policy has created a notion of ‘suspect communities’ such that it has alienated young Muslims at the community engagement level, conceivably and empirically, potentially further exacerbating concerns government and communities have over questions of radicalisation, extremism, and the associated political and criminal violence. This paper argues that such policies can lead to the institutionalisation of Islamophobia, acting as an echo chamber for far right extremism to flourish. Significant gaps in government policy in this area can only be addressed by fostering effective relations between communities and policy makers, with enablers such as police officers, youth workers, activists and faith leaders empowered to formulate nuanced approaches in various local area settings. Given the social, cultural and political situation regarding British Muslim youth, including those presently thought to be fighting in parts of Iraq and Syria, as well as ongoing threats on UK soil presented as imminent and dangerous by UK government, there remain acute challenges with limited opportunities

Performance Comparison of DSR and AODV Routing Protocols for Soft Delay Deadlines in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network

Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSN) is a collection of the vast amount of different types of sensors like camera sensor, video and scalar sensors which are involved in retrieving multimedia data from the large environment. The real-time sending of video and audio content to the destination before a strict playout deadline has been necessary for multimedia environment. Otherwise, it will be dropped at the destination. In WMSN sending real time multimedia data with soft play deadlines is a challenging task to solve this challenge, routing protocols play an important role in WMSN. Routing demands of multimedia content of WMSNs need to be perfect routing protocols to optimize path selection and guarantee communication. This paper presents a performance comparison between two reactive routing protocols; namely AODV and DSR, with soft delay deadlines and efficient utilization of resources in WMSN. The objective is to assess the real-time behavior of these two protocols upon sending multimedia content. Here, we evaluate the performance with respect to the use of these matrices like latency, Average jitter, Average delay and throughput and factors includes are CBR and multimedia traffic with varying packet size and bandwidth. DSR perform better as compared to AODV routing protocol since it discovers the routes more efficiently. AODV is better in term of Jitter than DSR. NS-2 simulator tool used for the purpose of this comparison

Mode of coronary revascularization and short term clinical outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease

Abstract BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery are two alternative methods for coronary revascularization, but it remains controversial as which one is associated with lower risks of worse clinical outcomes for chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. We determined the mode of coronary revascularization (PCI vs. CABG) which is associated with lower risk of mortality and morbidity in CKD patients. METHODS: In this cross sectional study, 159 patients with CKD were enrolled from single center of coronary revascularization at Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi between January 2012 and August 2013. All patients with CKD underwent PCI or CABG. The primary outcome was in-hospital composite of death, myocardial infarction (MI), or stroke. We evaluated which mode of coronary revascularization was associated with reduced risks of clinical outcomes. RESULTS: Out of 159 patients with CKD, 85 (53.5%) received PCI and 74 (46.5%) received CABG. The primary finding of this study is that more patients with moderate to severe CKD underwent PCI and more patients with mild to moderate CKD underwent CABG. In both these categories, no difference was observed in clinical outcomes. There are few factors like age, ST- elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) and number of coronary artery disease predicted PCI as treatment strategy in patients with moderate to severe CKD. CONCLUSION: Patients with moderate to severe CKD have similar rates of short term clinical outcomes whether they underwent PCI or CABG. Therefore, PCI can be acceptable and less invasive treatment option alternative to CABG, particularly in patients with moderate to severe CKD

Modified flower pollination algorithm for an off-grid solar photovoltaic system

This Operating the solar photovoltaic (PV) system at its maximum power point (MPP) under numerous environmental conditions to extract the maximum power is a challenging task. The challenge is to track the MPP, especially under partial shading conditions (PSC), where the formation of multiple MPP occurs in the characteristic curve of a PV array. Nevertheless, achieving this would benefit us with optimal power production, reducing the payback time and initial cost of the PV system. To perform this duty, an electronic circuit ruled by an algorithm is employed. The MPP tracking (MPPT) algorithms can be categorized into conventional and nature inspired. The conventional algorithms can successfully track the MPP under uniform weather conditions (UWC), and unable to identify the global MPP (GMPP) under PSC. However, the nature inspired algorithms possess the ability to perform efficiently under all weather conditions. Considering this strength of nature inspired algorithms, one of the top performing algorithms named as Flower pollination algorithm (FPA) is selected based on its brilliant searching strategy in adjacent and distant locations. In this paper, some structural modifications have been proposed in the FPA to further improve its searching capability and get more quick, accurate and efficient results for the MPPT of solar PV system. Results have proven the superiority of the proposed Modified FPA (MFPA) over the FPA in terms of efficiency, accuracy, tracking speed, energy conservation, economic saving, and payback time. Simulation is performed in MATLAB/Simulink