A cross-sectional study to determine sex-wise prevalence of obesity in adults of Kashmiri population

Background: Aim of current study was to determine the prevalence of obesity in both sexes in persons aged 18-45 years.Methods: Multistage and multiphasic sampling technique was utilized in this study to screen the obese subjects of  both males and females based on WHO classification of obesity according to BMI of 18-45 years of age. Each household was visited and only the subjects having age of 18-45 years were included in this study and this comprised of 5107 subjects, then identified obese cases with the help of height and weight techniques. Only those people who had simple obesity were included in the study. People having secondary obesity, drug induced obesity and pregnant ladies were excluded from this study. The data was collected and analysed using statistical software and chi square and proportional statistical test were applied.Results: Out of 5107 screened population, 2652 were males and 2455 were females and the prevalence of male obesity in study population is 6.41% and that of females is 7.74%.Conclusion: The sex has a significant impact on obesity. We reported in our study a prevalence of obesity is more in females as compared to males. A lack of physical activity as well as low frequency of employment makes females more susceptible to obesity.

Traversable wormholes in the extended teleparallel theory of gravity with matter coupling

This study explores the Gaussian and the Lorentzian distributed spherically symmetric wormhole solutions in the $f(\tau, T)$ gravity. The basic idea of the Gaussian and Lorentzian noncommutative geometries emerges as the physically acceptable and substantial notion in quantum physics. This idea of the noncommutative geometries with both the Gaussian and Lorentzian distributions becomes more striking when wormhole geometries in the modified theories of gravity are discussed. Here we consider a linear model within $f(\tau,T)$ gravity to investigate traversable wormholes. In particular, we discuss the possible cases for the wormhole geometries using the Gaussian and the Lorentzian noncommutative distributions to obtain the exact shape function for them. By incorporating the particular values of the unknown parameters involved, we discuss different properties of the new wormhole geometries explored here. It is noted that the involved matter violates the weak energy condition for both the cases of the noncommutative geometries, whereas there is a possibility for a physically viable wormhole solution. By analyzing the equilibrium condition, it is found that the acquired solutions are stable. Furthermore, we provide the embedded diagrams for wormhole structures under Gaussian and Lorentzian noncommutative frameworks. Moreover, we present the critical analysis on an anisotropic pressure under the Gaussian and the Lorentzian distributions.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, submitted for publicatio

Phytotoxic, Antibacterial and Haemagglutination activities of the aerial parts of Myrsine africana L.

The crude methanolic extract and various fractions derived from the aerial parts of Myrsine africana were screened in vitro for possible phytotoxic, antibacterial and haemagglutination activities. Moderate phytotoxic activity (31.25 %) was observed against Lemna minor L at 1000 μg/ml by chloroform fraction (CHCl3). The crude methanolic extract and CHCl3 fraction showed good antibacterial activity against Klebsiella pneumoniae (MIC50 = 2.45 and 2.1 mg/ml respectively). The crude methanolic extract and other fractions showed moderate activity against tested bacterial strains. The CHCl3 and aqueous fractions showed no activity against Escherichia coli. Similarly, the ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and butanol (BuOH) fractions were found to be non active against Bacillus pumilus and Enterobacter aerogenes, respectively. Moderate haemagglutination activity was observed against human red blood cells (RBCs) of blood group AB- by crude methanolic extract and CHCl3 fraction and against AB+ by aqueous fraction, respectively. The plant specie can be a source of antibacterial agent(s) and phytolectins.Keywords: Myrsine africana, phytotoxicity, haemagglutination, antibacterial and MIC5

Compact quad-element high-isolation wideband mimo antenna for mm-wave applications

This paper presents a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system for millimeter-wave 5G wireless communication services. The proposed MIMO configuration is composed of four antenna elements, where each antenna possesses an HP-shaped configuration that features simple configuration and excellent performance. The proposed MIMO design can operate at a very wideband of 36.83-40.0 GHz (measured). Furthermore, the proposed MIMO antenna attains a peak gain of 6.5 dB with a maximum element-isolation of -45 dB. Apart from this, the MIMO performance metrics such as envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain, and channel capacity (CCL) are analyzed, which demonstrate good characteristics across the operating band. The proposed antenna radiates efficiently with a radiation efficiency of above 80% at the desired frequency band which makes it a potential contender for the upcoming communication applications. The proposed design simulations were performed in the computer simulation technology (CST) software, and measured results reveal good agreement with the simulated one

Design of a Dual Band SNG Metamaterial Based Antenna for LTE 46/WLAN and Ka-Band Applications

The non-existing properties of the metamaterial surfaces can be utilized to improve the antenna radiation characteristics. In this article, a design and performance analysis of a Single Negative (SNG) metamaterial based antenna is imparted for LTE 46/WLAN and Ka-band (like in satellite communication for the receiving side) applications. The unit cell of the metamaterial surface exhibits negative permittivity and positive permeability; yielding a high magnitude positive refractive index, is used to improve and analyze the performance of the proposed monopole antenna element. The proposed SNG based antenna covers a -10 dB bandwidth from 5.35-5.69 GHz (LTE 46/WLAN) and 17.81-20.67 GHz (Ka-band). The total size of the proposed antenna element is 20.2 x 28 .4 mm(2) while a 2 x 3 SNG metamaterial surface is used at the back of the antenna element which improves the gain from 4.52 dB to 9.13 dB for the desired Ka band and 1.17 to 5.04 dB for the LTE 46/WLAN band. Furthermore, for the LTE 46/WLAN frequency band, the impedance matching also gets better, resulting in the return loss improvement from -11 dB to -32.4 dB. Moreover, the radiation efficiency is also improved by more than 10 % for the Ka band after employing the SNG metamaterial surface. The measured results fall in good agreement with the simulated one and make the proposed SNG metamaterial based antenna design competent for the LTE 46/WLAN and Ka-band (like in satellite communication for the receiving side) applications

Metasurface-Based Wideband MIMO Antenna for 5G Millimeter-Wave Systems

This paper presents a metasurface based multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna with a wideband operation for millimeter-wave 5G communication systems. The antenna system consists of four elements placed with a 90 degree shift in order to achieve a compact MIMO system while a 2 x 2 non-uniform metasurface (total four elements) is placed at the back of the MIMO configuration to improve the radiation characteristics of it. The overall size of the MIMO antenna is 24 x 24 mm(2) while the operational bandwidth of the proposed antenna system ranges from 23.5-29.4 GHz. The peak gain achieved by the proposed MIMO antenna is almost 7dB which is further improved up to 10.44 dB by employing a 2 x 2 metasurface. The total efficiency is also observed more than 80% across the operating band. Apart from this, the MIMO performance metrics such as envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain (DG), and channel capacity loss (CCL) are analyzed which demonstrate good characteristics. All the simulations of the proposed design are carried out in computer simulation technology (CST) software, and measured results reveal good agreement with the simulated one which make it a potential contender for the upcoming 5G communication systems

SDN-Enabled Adaptive and Reliable Communication in IoT-Fog Environment Using Machine Learning and Multiobjective Optimization

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, backed by resourceful fog computing, are capable of meeting the requirements of computationally-intensive tasks. However, many existing IoT applications are unable to perform well, due to different Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements, while communicating with the fog server. Besides, constantly changing traffic demands of applications is another challenge. For example, the demand for real-time applications includes communicating over a path that is less prone to delay, and applications that offload computationally intensive tasks to the fog server need a reliable path that has a lower probability of link failure. This results in a tradeoff between conflicting objectives that are constantly evolving, i.e., minimizing end-to-end delay and maximizing the reliability of paths between IoT devices and the fog server. We propose a novel approach that takes advantage of machine learning (ML) and multiobjective optimization (MOO)-based techniques. The reliability of links is evaluated using an ML-based algorithm in an software-defined network (SDN)-enabled multihop scenario for the IoT-fog environment. By considering the two conflicting objectives, the MOO algorithm is used to find the Pareto-optimal paths. Our experimental evaluation considers two applications with different QoS requirements-a real-time application (App-1) using UDP sockets and a task offloading application (App-2) using TCP sockets. Our results show that: 1) the tradeoff between the two objectives can be optimized and 2) the SDN controller was able to make adaptive decision on-the-fly to choose the best path from the Pareto-optimal set. The App-1 communicating over the selected path finished its execution in 13% less time than communicating over the shortest path. The App-2 had 41% less packet loss using the selected path compared to using the shortest path

Complete Chloroplast Genomes of Anthurium huixtlense and Pothos scandens (Pothoideae, Araceae) : Unique Inverted Repeat Expansion and Contraction Affect Rate of Evolution

The subfamily Pothoideae belongs to the ecologically important plant family Araceae. Here, we report the chloroplast genomes of two species of the subfamily Pothoideae:Anthurium huixtlense(size: 163,116 bp) andPothos scandens(size: 164,719 bp). The chloroplast genome ofP. scandensshowed unique contraction and expansion of inverted repeats (IRs), thereby increasing the size of the large single-copy region (LSC: 102,956 bp) and decreasing the size of the small single-copy region (SSC: 6779 bp). This led to duplication of many single-copy genes due to transfer to IR regions from the small single-copy (SSC) region, whereas some duplicate genes became single copy due to transfer to large single-copy regions. The rate of evolution of protein-coding genes was affected by the contraction and expansion of IRs; we found higher mutation rates for genes that exist in single-copy regions as compared to those in IRs. We found a 2.3-fold increase of oligonucleotide repeats inP. scandenswhen compared withA. huixtlense, whereas amino acid frequency and codon usage revealed similarities. The ratio of transition to transversion mutations was 2.26 inP. scandensand 2.12 inA. huixtlense. Transversion mutations mostly translated in non-synonymous substitutions. The phylogenetic inference of the limited species showed the monophyly of the Araceae subfamilies. Our study provides insight into the molecular evolution of chloroplast genomes in the subfamily Pothoideae and family Araceae.Peer reviewe

Collapsing cylindrically symmetric filamentary stellar object

This work investigates the collapsing behavior of filamentary objects under the influence of dark matter. For this purpose, we use f(R, T) gravity as a candidate for dark matter. The collapse equation is obtained by imposing the Darmois junction condition at the collapsing boundary. At the collapsing boundary, it is observed that the radial pressure is non-zero and is proportional to the field time-dependent component. Finally, we check the relationship between gravitational waves and dark source terms. It is concluded that the dark source terms disrupt the propagation of gravitational waves