Performance Enhancement of Wearable Antenna Using High Impedance Surfaces

This paper presents a novel textile wearable antenna that has been designed to operate at Wi-Fi bands of 2.4GHz & 5.8GHz. Antenna performance in free space environment showed Gain of 1.8dBi at 2.4GHz and 4.5dBi at 5.8GHz. However, performance deteriorated when antenna was operated near human body which is lossy and complex in nature. For mitigating the human body effect on antenna performance, high impedance surface (HIS) was designed and integrated with this textile antenna. Due to shielding effect of HIS, antenna Gain increased to 8dBi at 2.4GHz and 9dBi at 5.8GHz. The SAR values were also reduced to 0.682W/Kg at 2.4GHz and 0.0692W/Kg at 5.8GHz for 10g tissue. The proposed antenna was also tested under bending and crumpling conditions. It was observed that antenna performance was not significantly deteriorated. The proposed textile antenna can have exciting applications in emerging wearable technologies

Determining the Role of Transformational Leadership on Firm Performance through Organizational Innovation and Technological Innovation Capabilities

This study aims to address the influential role of TL on FP through organizational innovation and technological capabilities innovation. The unit of analysis in study is individual employees working in software industry of Pakistan. The proposed research method for this study is Quantitative method. Research design of this study is administrative survey method. The current study is performed in the software marketplace which is incredibly energetic industry in Pakistan. Moreover, respondents are chosen randomly from different software companies for avoiding to any kind of biasness. A total of 395 survey questionnaire were collected from the software houses in Pakistan and 370 responses were completed. This study also uses statistically techniques such as reliability and structural equation model techniques for data analysis through AMOS and SPSS software. The empirical results show positive and significant influence of TL on FP. In addition, the findings of this study will help the firms to improve their business performance and improvements of new technological capabilities as well

Determining the Role of Transformational Leadership on Firm Performance through Organizational Innovation and Technological Innovation Capabilities

This study aims to address the influential role of TL on FP through organizational innovation and technological capabilities innovation. The unit of analysis in study is individual employees working in software industry of Pakistan. The proposed research method for this study is Quantitative method. Research design of this study is administrative survey method. The current study is performed in the software marketplace which is incredibly energetic industry in Pakistan. Moreover, respondents are chosen randomly from different software companies for avoiding to any kind of biasness. A total of 395 survey questionnaire were collected from the software houses in Pakistan and 370 responses were completed. This study also uses statistically techniques such as reliability and structural equation model techniques for data analysis through AMOS and SPSS software. The empirical results show positive and significant influence of TL on FP. In addition, the findings of this study will help the firms to improve their business performance and improvements of new technological capabilities as well

Effects of Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Supplementation on the Growth Performance, Serum Metabolites, Meat Quality, and Jejunal Basal Morphology in Broilers

Simple Summary: Iron is a necessary micronutrient in animal feed. Iron is an important component of hemoglobin, myoglobin, and the enzymes participating in redox reactions. The aim of the current study was to assess the effects of iron oxide nanoparticle supplementation on production performance, organ development, blood biochemistry, redox status, meat quality, and jejunal histology in broilers. The results indicated that iron oxide nanoparticle supplementation improved the feed conversion ratio, pectoral muscle, and jejunal histology. However, iron oxide nanoparticle supplementation showed no effects on visceral organ development, blood metabolites, redox status, and carcass traits. Abstract: The current research aimed to evaluate the supplemental effects of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) on production performance, viscera development, blood metabolites, redox status, meat quality, and jejunal histology in broilers. A total of 300 day-old broilers were randomly divided into six groups with five replicates per group. Birds were fed on a corn soybean-based diet supplemented with 0, 20, 40, 60, or 80 mg/kg IONPs or 80 mg/kg of FeSO4 for 35 days. The feed conversion ratio (FCR) was improved in birds supplemented with 60 mg/kg IONPs. The pH24h was lower in birds supplemented with 40 mg/kg IONPs compared to that of the bulk group. Pectoral muscle fascicle diameter and fiber density were significantly increased in 20 mg/kg IONP-supplemented birds compared to those of the bulk group, respectively. The muscle fiber diameter was higher in 40 mg/kg IONP-supplemented birds compared with the bulk group. The jejunal villus height, crypt depth, and villus surface area were significantly increased with 60 mg/kg IONP supplementation, whereas villus width was decreased in birds supplemented with 40 mg/kg IONPs. The villus-height-to-crypt-depth ratio was lower in IONP-supplemented birds compared to the bulk group. IONP supplementation improved the FCR, jejunal, and pectoral muscle morphology without affecting the carcass characteristics and redox status of broilers

Visual Speaker Identification Using Lip and Body Movements

Speaker identification has been studied in many fields such as image processing, audio processing, artificial intelligence and speech recognition. Two of these areas are integrated together in order to identify the speaker. This research will focus on two main approaches which are lip movements and body movements. We will work on the two approaches to achieve the speaker identification. The expected outcome of this study will be to identify the speaker in different scenarios, if there is a single speaker or if there is multiple speakers in the video or if the speaker’s lips are not in view

An Agent-based CBIR System for Medical Images

The growing number of image acquisition and storage systems in the digital world demand for the new retrieval methods. Most of the existing retrieval methods use textual information, which has been mainly entered manually for every image in the image collection. In order to access the images of interest, user gives textual input against which images are retrieved from the image collection. Sometimes, this results in garbage retrieval due the human involvement in the image annotation process. So more efficient image retrieval mechanism is needed. To overcome the issue, other approach which is generally considered is content-based image retrieval (CBIR). CBIR depends on the automatically extracted features for every image in the image collection as well as their storage and comparison upon a query. Therefore, feature extraction technique and their storage space are important aspects of CBIR. In this paper, we design and develop agent-based CBIR system for image retrieval and suggest the best feature extraction technique in terms of less storage space and more accurate search results. Although the proposed image retrieval technique can be used for any type image collection, our work focuses on the medical images

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Impact of Different Pollutant Sources on Human Health Using Solid Aerosol’s Elemental Analysis

Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) was used in this study to find out the metal constituents and concentration for Seven (7) trace metals in the atmosphere of Faisalabad. The maximum elemental constituents and concentration for Zn, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, Mg and Cd in ppm were found to be Cadmium Cd(1) in amounts ranging between (2.596→1.95475) in Pool (5→3), Chromium Cr(2) in amounts ranging between (0.0145→0.01125) in Pool (2→3), Nickel Ni(3) in amounts ranging between (0.9925→0.35575) in Pool (5→3), Lead Pb(4) in amounts ranging between (1.33675→0.2632) in Pool (2→3), Zinc Zn(5) in amounts ranging between (2.515→1.38825) in Pool (4→5), Magnesium Mg(6) in amounts ranging between (1.22125→1.15875) in Pool (4→5), Calcium Ca(7) in amounts ranging between (11.46725→3.53875) in Pool (4→3) respectively. Following pool wise trend pattern of identified elements in solid aerosols is given in Table 1 & 2. The comparison of results reported in literature with the obtained results showed some differences in concentrations which could be explained on the basis of climatological and meteorological set up of different pools under investigations. Furthermore, the health hazards due to identified trace metals were also investigated and were found that the metals were highly toxic and generating serious health hazards

Identification of Organic Compounds in Solid Aerosols Related to Faisalabad Environment Using XRD Technique

Abstract: Faisalabad is a big industrial city with huge air quality problems, being one of the most polluted cities in the world. Although public policies have developed to minimize atmospheric aerosol pollution, there is a lack of adequate knowledge and poor characterization of these aerosols. In this study we sampled 100 aerosol samples from different pools covering almost all the aspects of Faisalabad environment. The results obtained from an investigation of solid aerosols in the Industrial city of Faisalabad (Pakistan) are reported and analysed in this paper. X-ray diffraction studies of the various solid aerosols pools (residential, industrial, transportational, commercial and mix pools) showed that nonclay organic compounds such as GB-Naphthylbismuth dioxide, Sodium hippurate, Sodium-GA-naphthylamine-4-sulfonate tetrahydrate, Potassium phenoxide, Bismuth salicylate, Cadmium salicylate hydrate, Barium phenolsulfonate are contained in most of the samples in almost comparable amounts.The results of Solid aerosols collected from various pools show that the sources of GB-Naphthylbismuth dioxide, Sodium hippurate, Sodium-GA-naphthylamine-4-sulfonate tetrahydrate, Potassium phenoxide, Bismuth salicylate, Cadmium salicylate hydrate, Barium phenolsulfonate in the Solid aerosols are both local and remote. No doubt the main objective of this study was not to investigate the human health hazards however; an attempt has been made to correlate health hazards on behalf of their size distribution