Temporary epicardial pacing wires in isolated coronary artery bypass graft: Necessity or force of habit?

Objective: To determine the frequency of Temporary epicardial pacing wires usage and its predictors in the immediate postoperative period in isolated coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Methods: The longitudinal study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from September 2019 to August 2020, and comprised adult patients of either gender who underwent isolated coronary artery bypass graft in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Demographic, peri-operative and post-operative Temporary Epicardial Pacing Wires use data was extracted from patient\u27s files and the institutional electronic database. Logistic regression models were built to explore predictors of Temporary epicardial pacing wires usage. Data was analysed using SPSS 22. Results: Of the 322 cases evaluated, 27(8.4%) required the use of Temporary Epicardial Pacing Wires. Mean age of the patients requiring temporary epicardial pacing wires was 66.3±8.9 years compared to 58.7±8.9 years in those who did not require it (p\u3c0.001), while the left ventricular ejection fraction percentage was 44.1±12.8 and 48.9±12.8 respectively (p=0.032). After adjusting for clinically plausible demographics and peri-operative variables, increasing age and low left ventricular ejection fraction were significantly associated with the use of temporary epicardial pacing wires in post-operative period of isolated coronary artery bypass graft patients (p\u3c0.05). Conclusions: The frequency of temporary epicardial pacing wires usage in the post-operative period of coronary artery bypass graft was found to be low

Donut-Shaped mmWave Printed Antenna Array for 5G Technology

This article presents compact and novel shape ring-slotted antenna array operating at mmwave band on central frequency of 28 GHz. The proposed structure designed at 0.256 mm thin Roggers 5880 is composed of a ring shape patch with a square slot etched at the top mid-section of partial ground plane. Through optimizing the ring and square slot parameters, a high bandwidth of 8 GHz is achieved, ranging from 26 to 32 GHz, with a simulated gain of 3.95 dBi and total efficiency of 96% for a single element. The proposed structure is further transformed in a 4-element linear array manner. With compact dimensions of 20 mm 22 mm for array, the proposed antenna delivers a high simulated gain of 10.7 dBi and is designed in such a way that it exhibits dual beam response over the entire band of interest and simulated results agree with fabricated prototype measurements

Secrecy performance by power splitting in cooperative dual-hop relay wireless energy harvesting

In wireless communication systems, for secure communication between a transmitter and receiver over the communication channel, the physical layer security is widely utilized. The paper presents a dual-hop wireless full-duplex relay (FDR) network with a source relay and destination relay between two nodes and listening devices. The relay and source use energy harvesting to gain energy from power beacon. Two cooperative techniques are utilized to investigate the amplify-forward (AF) and decode-forward (DF) secrecy capacity in the energy harvesting power splitting system. It is shown that the secrecy performance of an AF relay is better than the secrecy performance of a DF relay in the given form. At 40-meter distance between the relay and the eavesdropper in an energy harvesting system, the AF relay outperforms the DF relay. The simulation is performed using the Monte-Carlo method in MATLAB

Infinity shell shaped mimo antenna array for mm-wave 5g applications

In this paper, a novel single layer Multiple Input–Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna for Fifth-Generation (5G) 28 GHz frequency band applications is proposed and investigated. The proposed MIMO antenna operates in the Ka-band, which is the most desirable frequency band for 5G mm-wave communication. The dielectric material is a Rogers-5880 with a relative permittivity, thickness and loss tangent of 2.2, 0.787 mm and 0.0009, respectively, in the proposed antenna design. The proposed MIMO configuration antenna element consists of triplet circular shaped rings surrounded by an infinity-shaped shell. The simulated gain achieved by the proposed design is 6.1 dBi, while the measured gain is 5.5 dBi. Furthermore, the measured and simulated antenna efficiency is 90% and 92%, respectively. One of the MIMO performance metrics—i.e., the Envelope Correlation Coefficient (ECC)—is also analyzed and found to be less than 0.16 for the entire operating bandwidth. The proposed MIMO design operates efficiently with a low ECC, better efficiency and a satisfactory gain, showing that the proposed design is a potential candidate for mm-wave communication.National Natural Science Foundation of Chin

Lung Nodules Localization and Report Analysis from Computerized Tomography (CT) Scan Using a Novel Machine Learning Approach

A lung nodule is a tiny growth that develops in the lung. Non-cancerous nodules do not spread to other sections of the body. Malignant nodules can spread rapidly. One of the numerous dangerous kinds of cancer is lung cancer. It is responsible for taking the lives of millions of individuals each year. It is necessary to have a highly efficient technology capable of analyzing the nodule in the pre-cancerous phases of the disease. However, it is still difficult to detect nodules in CT scan data, which is an issue that has to be overcome if the following treatment is going to be effective. CT scans have been used for several years to diagnose nodules for future therapy. The radiologist can make a mistake while determining the nodule’s presence and size. There is room for error in this process. Radiologists will compare and analyze the images obtained from the CT scan to ascertain the nodule’s location and current status. It is necessary to have a dependable system that can locate the nodule in the CT scan images and provide radiologists with an automated report analysis that is easy to comprehend. In this study, we created and evaluated an algorithm that can identify a nodule by comparing multiple photos. This gives the radiologist additional data to work with in diagnosing cancer in its earliest stages in the nodule. In addition to accuracy, various characteristics were assessed during the performance assessment process. The final CNN algorithm has 84.8% accuracy, 90.47% precision, and 90.64% specificity. These numbers are all relatively close to one another. As a result, one may argue that CNN is capable of minimizing the number of false positives through in-depth training that is performed frequently

Lung Nodules Localization and Report Analysis from Computerized Tomography (CT) Scan Using a Novel Machine Learning Approach

A lung nodule is a tiny growth that develops in the lung. Non-cancerous nodules do not spread to other sections of the body. Malignant nodules can spread rapidly. One of the numerous dangerous kinds of cancer is lung cancer. It is responsible for taking the lives of millions of individuals each year. It is necessary to have a highly efficient technology capable of analyzing the nodule in the pre-cancerous phases of the disease. However, it is still difficult to detect nodules in CT scan data, which is an issue that has to be overcome if the following treatment is going to be effective. CT scans have been used for several years to diagnose nodules for future therapy. The radiologist can make a mistake while determining the nodule’s presence and size. There is room for error in this process. Radiologists will compare and analyze the images obtained from the CT scan to ascertain the nodule’s location and current status. It is necessary to have a dependable system that can locate the nodule in the CT scan images and provide radiologists with an automated report analysis that is easy to comprehend. In this study, we created and evaluated an algorithm that can identify a nodule by comparing multiple photos. This gives the radiologist additional data to work with in diagnosing cancer in its earliest stages in the nodule. In addition to accuracy, various characteristics were assessed during the performance assessment process. The final CNN algorithm has 84.8% accuracy, 90.47% precision, and 90.64% specificity. These numbers are all relatively close to one another. As a result, one may argue that CNN is capable of minimizing the number of false positives through in-depth training that is performed frequently

A Novel Expert System for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Heart Disease

The diagnosis of diseases in their early stages can assist us in preventing life-threatening infections and caring for them better than in the last phase because prevention is better than cure. The death rate can be very high due to the unapproachability of diagnosed patients at an early point. Expert systems help us to defeat the problem mentioned above and enable us to automatically diagnose diseases in their early phases. Expert systems use a fuzzy, rule-based inference engine to provide forward-chain methods for diagnosing the patient. In this research, data have been gathered from different sources, such as a hospital, by performing the test on the patients’ age, gender, blood sugar, heart rate, and ECG to calculate the values. The proposed expert system for medical diagnosis can be used to find minimum disease levels and demonstrate the predominant method for curing different medical diseases, such as heart diseases. In the next step, the diagnostic test at the hospital with the novel expert system, the crisp, fuzzy value is generated for input into the expert system. After taking the crisp input, the expert system starts working on fuzzification and compares it with the knowledge base processed by the inference engine. After the fuzzification, the next step starts with the expert system in the defuzzification process converting the fuzzy sets’ value into a crisp value that is efficient for human readability. Later, the expert physician system’s diagnosis calculates the value by using fuzzy sets, and gives an output to determine the patient’s heart disease. In one case, the diagnosis step was accomplished, and the expert system provided the yield with the heart disease risk level as “low”, “high”, or “risky”. After the expert system’s responsibilities have been completed, the physician decides on the treatment and recommends a proper dose of medicine according to the level the expert system provided after the diagnosis step. The findings indicate that this research achieves better performance in finding appropriate heart disease risk levels, while also fulfilling heart disease patient treatment due to the physicians shortfalls

Donut-shaped mmWave printed antenna array for 5G technology

This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Antenna Systems: Challenges, Developments, and Applications.This article presents compact and novel shape ring-slotted antenna array operating at mmWave band on central frequency of 28 GHz. The proposed structure designed at 0.256 mm thin Roggers 5880 is composed of a ring shape patch with a square slot etched at the top mid-section of partial ground plane. Through optimizing the ring and square slot parameters, a high bandwidth of 8 GHz is achieved, ranging from 26 to 32 GHz, with a simulated gain of 3.95 dBi and total efficiency of 96% for a single element. The proposed structure is further transformed in a 4-element linear array manner. With compact dimensions of 20 mm × 22 mm for array, the proposed antenna delivers a high simulated gain of 10.7 dBi and is designed in such a way that it exhibits dual beam response over the entire band of interest and simulated results agree with fabricated prototype measurements

A Novel Hook-Shaped Antenna Operating at 28 GHz for Future 5G mmwave Applications

To address atmospheric attenuation and path loss issues in the mmwave portion of the spectrum, high gain and narrow beam antenna systems are essential for the next generation communication networks. This paper presents a novel hook-shaped antenna array for 28 GHz 5G mmwave applications. The proposed antenna was fabricated on commercially available Rogers 5880 substrate with thickness of 0.508 mm and dimensions of 10 × 8 mm2. The proposed shape consists of a circle with an arc-shaped slot on top of it and T-shaped resonating lengths are introduced in order to attain broad band characteristics having gain of 3.59 dBi with radiation and total efficiency of 92% and 86% for single element. The proposed structure is transformed into a four-element array with total size of 26.9 × 18.5 mm2 in order to increase the gain up to 10.3 dBi at desired frequency of interest. The four-element array is designed such that it exhibits dual-beam response over the entire band of interest and the simulated results agree with fabricated prototype measurements. The proposed antenna array, because of its robustness, high gain, and dual-beam characteristics can be considered as a potential candidate for the next generation 5G communication systems.This work was partially supported by RTI2018-095499-B-C31, Funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Gobierno de España (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE)

Soil Fertility, N2 Fixation and Yield of Chickpea as Influenced by Long-Term Biochar Application under Mung–Chickpea Cropping System

A research study was established at the research farm of the University of Agriculture, Peshawar during winter 2018–2019. Commercial biochars were given to the experimental site from 2014 to summer 2018 and received 0.95, 130 and 60 tons ha−1 of biochar by various treatments viz., (Biochar1) BC1, (Biochar2) BC2, (Biochar3) BC3 and (Biochar4) BC4, respectively. This piece of work was conducted within the same study to find the long-term influence of biochar on the fertility of the soil, fixation of N2, as well as the yie1d of chickpea under a mung–chickpea cropping system. A split plot arrangement was carried out by RCBD (Randomized Complete Block Design) to evaluate the study. Twenty-five kilograms of N ha−1 were given as a starter dosage to every plot. Phosphorous and potassium were applied at two levels (half (45:30 kg ha−1) and full (90:60 kg ha−1) recommended doses) to each of the four biochar treatments. The chickpea crop parameters measured were the numbers and masses of the nodules, N2 fixation and grain yield. Soil parameters recorded were Soil Organic Matter (SOM), total N and mineral N. The aforementioned soil parameters were recorded after harvesting. The results showed that nodulation in chickpea, grain yield and nutrient uptake were significantly enhanced by phosphorous and potassium mineral fertilizers. The application of biochar 95 tons ha−1 significantly enhanced number of nodules i-e (122), however statistically similar response in terms of nodules number was also noted with treatment of 130 tons ha−1. The results further revealed a significant difference in terms of organic matter (OM) (%) between the half and full mineral fertilizer treatments. With the application of 130 tons ha−1 of biochar, the OM enhanced from 1.67% in the control treatment, to 2.59%. However, total and mineral nitrogen were not statistically enhanced by the mineral fertilizer treatment. With regard to biochar treatments, total and mineral N enhanced when compared with the control treatment. The highest total N of 0.082% and mineral nitrogen of 73 mg kg−1 in the soil were recorded at 130 tons ha−1 of biochar, while the lowest total N (0.049%) and mineral nitrogen (54 mg kg−1) in the soil were recorded in the control treatment. The collaborative influence of mineral fertilizers and biochars was found to be generally non-significant for most of the soil and plant parameters. It could be concluded that the aforementioned parameters were greater for treatments receiving biochar at 95 tons or more per hectare over the last several years, and that the combination of lower doses of mineral fertilizers further improved the performance of biochar