Leadership Styles and Firms’ Innovation, Mediating Role of Absorptive Capacity: Empirical Evidence from Emerging Economy

This study contends explicitly that leadership styles (transformational and transactional) are positioned as a pylon for firms’ innovation performance. Further, this study contemplates the intermediating inspiration of absorptive capacity (potential and realized) linking leadership styles (transformational and transactional) and firms’ innovation. Data was collected from 301 permanent employees working in Pakistani manufacturing firms (food and tobacco) through the self-administered questionnaires to test the proposed hypothesis of this study. The study's findings demonstrate a positive influence of leadership styles (transformational and transactional) on the firm's innovative performance. Moreover, both absorptive capacity dimensions (potential and realized) mediate the relationship between leadership styles (transformational and transactional) and innovative performance. This study demonstrates that both leadership styles (transformational and transactional) provide phenomenal path routes to augment firms’ innovation. Overall, this study contributed a legitimate illustration of leadership styles strengthening firms’ innovation, specifically transactional leadership style, encouraging results within the developing economy perspective

Federated Alternate Training (FAT): Leveraging Unannotated Data Silos in Federated Segmentation for Medical Imaging

Federated Learning (FL) aims to train a machine learning (ML) model in a distributed fashion to strengthen data privacy with limited data migration costs. It is a distributed learning framework naturally suitable for privacy-sensitive medical imaging datasets. However, most current FL-based medical imaging works assume silos have ground truth labels for training. In practice, label acquisition in the medical field is challenging as it often requires extensive labor and time costs. To address this challenge and leverage the unannotated data silos to improve modeling, we propose an alternate training-based framework, Federated Alternate Training (FAT), that alters training between annotated data silos and unannotated data silos. Annotated data silos exploit annotations to learn a reasonable global segmentation model. Meanwhile, unannotated data silos use the global segmentation model as a target model to generate pseudo labels for self-supervised learning. We evaluate the performance of the proposed framework on two naturally partitioned Federated datasets, KiTS19 and FeTS2021, and show its promising performance.Comment: Camera Ready Version of ISBI2023 Accepted wor

Effectiveness of Grade 1 and 2 Joint Mobilizations with Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDS) in Comparison with NSAIDS alone in Pain Management of Knee Osteoarthritis

To analyze the effectiveness of Grade 1 and 2 joint mobilizations with NSAIDS in comparison with NSAIDS alone in pain management of knee osteoarthritis.Methods: In this randomized controlled trial patients with knee osteoarthritis (n=50) were divided into two groups, 25 patients in each group. Control group received diclofenac salt 50mg in twice daily dose along with quadriceps and knee joint exercises, while experimental group received knee joint mobilizations grade 1 and 2 in addition to the diclofenac salt 50mg twice daily dose and quadriceps and knee joint exercises. Main outcome was moderate, good or excellent control of pain with the intervention. Among secondary parameters were the effect on pain intensity, quality of life, and functionality.Grades of mobilizations used are defined as per Kaltenborn.Results: At the end of six weeks the knee pain with activities improved in the experimental group (mean7.44) compared to control group (mean 11.28) and pain with physical function also showed improvement in experimental (mean 25.84) as compared to control (mean 36.28). The stiffness also showed better mean values in the experimental (mean 2.08) to control (Mean 3.12). Visual analog scale readings also showed improvement in experimental group (mean 5.12) compared to control (mean 6.84).Conclusions: Grade 1 and 2 manual knee joint mobilizations in combination with diclofenac salt are more effective than diclofenac salt alone. Emphasis of this therapy should be given to reduce knee joint pain, stiffness and improvement in physical function on various activities

Impact of different moisture regimes and nitrogen rates on yield and yield attributes of maize (Zea mays L.)

Nitrogen and irrigation, both are essential to determine the yield and quality of maize (Zea mays L.). A field study was accomplished to determine the upshots of different levels of irrigation and varying nitrogen rates on yield, yield contributing attributes and radiation use efficiency (RUE) of maize hybrid on sandy clay loam soil. Different nitrogen rates and moisture regime treatments comprised of N0 = 0, N1 = 100 and N2 = 200kg N ha-1, I1 (25 mm water deficit), I2 (50 mm water deficit), I3 (three irrigations during vegetative development + one irrigation at tasseling stage) and I4 (three irrigations during vegetative development + one irrigation at tasseling stage + one irrigation at silking stage + one irrigation at grain filling stage), respectively. Results showed that maximum grain yield (7.04 t ha-1) was recorded when six irrigations were applied (three irrigations during vegetative development + one irrigation at tasseling stage + one irrigation at silking stage + one irrigation at grain filling stage) coupled with 200 kg N ha-1 (N2 × I4). The lowest grain yield (2.08 t ha-1) was obtained in response to 25 mm water deficits. Overall, N2 × I2 also gave a positive response in terms of yield attributes but highest plant height (160.80 cm), cob length (29.00 cm), number of grains per cob (308.33), 1000-grain weight (294.33 g) and biological yield (25.67 t ha-1) with maximum coefficient of correlation (R2) values (0.9399; 0.8851; 0.9161; 0.8743 and 0.9126), respectively, was attained with N2 × I4 treatment combinations. The superior (RUE) radiation use efficiency (5.33 g MJ-1) with higher R2 value (0.8821) was significantly affected by nitrogen rates and irrigation levels as obtained from N2 × I4 treatment. However, in all treatment combinations, N2 × I4 was superior by producing the highest maize grain yield.Keywords: Moisture regimes, nitrogen rates, deficit irrigation, Zea mays L., radiation use efficiency, maize yiel

Multi-objective optimization of turning titanium-based alloy Ti-6Al-4V under dry, wet, and cryogenic conditions using gray relational analysis (GRA).

In modern manufacturing industries, the importance of multi-objective optimization cannot be overemphasized particularly when the desired responses are differing in nature towards each other. With the emergence of new technologies, the need to achieve overall efficiency in terms of energy, output, and tooling is on the rise. Resultantly, endeavor is to make the machining process sustainable, productive, and efficient simultaneously. In this research, the effects of machining parameters (feed, cutting speed, depth of cut, and cutting condition including dry, wet, and cryogenic) were analyzed. Since sustainable production demands a balance between production quality and energy consumption, therefore, response parameters including specific cutting energy, tool wear, surface roughness, and material removal rate were considered. Taguchi-gray integrated approach was adopted in this study. Multi-objective function was developed using gray relational methodology, and its regression analysis was conducted. Response surface optimization was carried out to optimize the formulated multi-objective function and derive the optimum machining parameters. Concurrent responses were optimized with best-suited values of input parameters to make the most out of the machining process. Analysis of variance results showed that feed is the most effective parameter followed by cutting condition in terms of overall contribution in multi-objective function. The proposed optimum parameters resulted in improvement of tool wear and surface roughness by 30% and 22%, respectively, whereas specific cutting energy was reduced by 4%

Statistical analysis of energy consumption, tool wear and surface roughness in machining of Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) under dry, wet and cryogenic conditions.

Productivity and economy are key elements of any sustainable manufacturing system. While productivity is associated to quantity and quality, economy focuses on energy efficient processes achieving an overall high output to input ratio. Machining of hard-to-cut materials has always posed a challenge due to increased tool wear and energy loss. Cryogenics have emerged as an effective means to improve sustainability in the recent past. In the present research the use of cooling conditions has been investigated as an input variable to analyze its effect on tool wear, specific cutting energy and surface roughness in combination with other input machining parameters of feed rate, cutting speed and depth of cut. Experimental design was based on Taguchi design of experiment. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried out to ascertain the contribution ratio of each input. Results showed the positive effect of coolant usage, particularly cryogenic, on process responses. Tool wear was improved by 33% whereas specific cutting energy and surface roughness were improved by 10% and 9% respectively by adapting the optimum machining conditions

Regeneration of Plantlets from various Explants of Tetraploid watermelon

Micropropagation of tetraploid watermelon is important to cope with high cost of seed. Seeds of tetraploid watermelon were grown in vitro to raise seedlings. Hypocotyl and cotyledonary explants and media supplemented with plant growth regulators (BAP and NAA) was explored for callus induction and organogenesis. Data was collected for callus, shoot and root induction. Maximum callus induction was observed at BAP 5 mgL-1 (76.66%) from cotyledon and (73.33%) from hypocotyls explant. The callus induced from different explants was sub-cultured on the shoot regeneration medium. Higher shoot induction (96.66%) was observed  from cotyledon and hypocotyl explant (76.66%) on MS + 1.0 mgL-1 BAP + 0.2 mgL-1 NAA with maximum number (6.3) of shoot per explant and average shoot length 4.5 cm. Among different types (NAA and IAA) and concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.7, 1.0 mgL-1) of auxins investigated for root induction, maximum frequency of rooting was observed in 0.1 mgL-1 NAA while no root formation was observed at higher levels of auxin (1.0 mgL-1). Similarly in case of number of roots per shoot maximum root (4.3) was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 0.1 mgL-1 NAA. Key Words: Regeneration, Explant, Tetraploid, Water Mello

Natural User Input Management (NUIM) Through Computer Architecture and Operating System in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) takes natural user inputs (NUI), like gestures, motions, voices and produces visual overlays in digital form on top of reality that seen by different user at a time. Today’s Operating Systems don’t provide special support for VR application. As a result, today VR application are built as single hardware, single experiences, where the application itself performs as sensing and user input interpretation with machine hardware. In VR application environment new every inputs and outputs, an operating system that support VR applications needs to re-think every output and display abstraction exposed to exist applications. Disparate mouse, keyboard and other devices, which from explicit, which frequently has sensitive data mixed with user input. So, operating system with machine architecture must learn in VR applications to manage with the inherent noisiness of machine learning for recognizing for access to recognized objects like user face and skeleton in VR applications

Evaluation of seed priming on germination of Gladiolus alatus

Seed priming improves seed performance under environmental conditions. The study was designed to evaluate the effect of different priming treatments on germination behavior of Gladiolus alatus. The experiment was conducted under complete randomized design (CRD) with four replications. Seed priming was done with different concentration of potassium nitrate (KNO3) and hydropriming. All the treatments had significant effect on germination percentage, germination test in growth room, time for 50% germination and mean germination time. Results show that maximum invigoration was observed in seeds osmoprimed at lower concentrations of KNO3 and with hydropriming while minimum invigoration was observed at higher concentration of KNO3-. It was concluded that germination percentage can be increased by using lower concentrations of KNO3 and with hydropriming.Key words: Priming, hydropriming, gladiolus, germination