Efficient energy management for the internet of things in smart cities

The drastic increase in urbanization over the past few years requires sustainable, efficient, and smart solutions for transportation, governance, environment, quality of life, and so on. The Internet of Things offers many sophisticated and ubiquitous applications for smart cities. The energy demand of IoT applications is increased, while IoT devices continue to grow in both numbers and requirements. Therefore, smart city solutions must have the ability to efficiently utilize energy and handle the associated challenges. Energy management is considered as a key paradigm for the realization of complex energy systems in smart cities. In this article, we present a brief overview of energy management and challenges in smart cities. We then provide a unifying framework for energy-efficient optimization and scheduling of IoT-based smart cities. We also discuss the energy harvesting in smart cities, which is a promising solution for extending the lifetime of low-power devices and its related challenges. We detail two case studies. The first one targets energy-efficient scheduling in smart homes, and the second covers wireless power transfer for IoT devices in smart cities. Simulation results for the case studies demonstrate the tremendous impact of energy-efficient scheduling optimization and wireless power transfer on the performance of IoT in smart cities

Organizational Intelligence and Employee Performance: The Mediating Role of Distributive Justice

Abstract: A well thriving education system, initiate and promotes innovation along research, is a key to the performance, productivity and sustainability in the august world class universities, colleges and schools. Globalization and digital revolution are creating new strategic competition and advancement as, a result innovative knowledge and learning’s are driving our economic system. Both public and private organizations are forced to adopt these innovative and technical reforms in order to survive in a competitive environment, which can be possible through spiraling education system by research and innovative techniques. This study intends to investigate the mediating effects of distributive justice on relationship between organizational intelligence and employee performance in education sector. Based on a sample of 113 employees and using structural equation modeling approach, the organizational intelligence is found to have positive effects on distributive justice. The findings of the study suggest that the effects of organizational intelligence on employee performance are fully mediated by distributive justice. This study provides a strapping foundation for all educational institutes to analyze whether they are implementing strategic management practices or not. Systematic and assertive implementation of these practices will not only uplift the quality and standards of educational institutions but also essential for better performance of every industry

A Novel Method for Compact Listing of All Particular Solutions of a System of Boolean Equations

Any system of ‘big’ Boolean equations can be reduced to a single Boolean equation . We propose a novel method for producing a general parametric solution for such a Boolean equation without attempting to minimize the number of parameters used, but instead using independent parameters belonging to the two-valued Boolean algebra B2 for each asserted atom that appears in the discriminants of the function . We sacrifice minimality of parameters and algebraic expressions for ease, compactness and efficiency in listing all particular solutions. These solutions are given by additive formulas expressing a weighted sum of the asserted atoms of , with the weight of every atom (called its contribution) having a number of alternative possible values equal to the number of appearances of the atom in the discriminants of . This allows listing a huge number of particular solutions within a very small space and the possibility of constructing solutions of desirable features. The new method is demonstrated via three examples over the ‘big’ Boolean algebras, , , and , respectively. The examples demonstrate a variety of pertinent issues such as complementation, algebra collapse, incremental solution, and handling of equations separately or jointly

The Economic Impact of Lower Extremity Amputations in Diabetics. a Retrospective Study From a Tertiary Care Hospital of Faisalabad, Pakistan

Background: Among the various complications of diabetes, lower-extremity amputation due to diabetic foot is a common problem. In Pakistan, 6-7% of patients with diabetes suffer from diabetic foot ulceration. Objectives: Our primary objective was to explore the frequency of diabetic foot amputations, and the secondary objective was to calculate the economic burden of these preventable surgeries on the health budget of the provincial government. Materials & Methods: It was a retrospective cross-sectional observational study conducted after obtaining approval from the Ethical Review Committee of Allied hospital, Faisalabad Medical University. The data of diabetic foot patients who underwent amputations between July 2017 and December 2017 were retrieved from three Surgical Units (I, II & III), using a purposive sampling technique. All amputations carried out for reasons other than diabetic foot were excluded. The direct medical cost of one diabetic foot amputation was calculated via a local survey of the various private hospitals of Faisalabad. The indirect costs in terms of loss of productivity and disability costs, transport costs, rehabilitation costs were not included in this study. The data were evaluated by using SPSS Version 23. Results: A total of 85 patients were included in our study. The male to female ratio was 2.7 to 1. The mean direct treatment cost for minor amputation was PKR 46926.00 ± 11730.90 ($382.35 ± 95.58), and the mean direct treatment cost for major amputation was PKR 53720.00 ± 12401.24 ($437.71 ± 101.40). Out of 85 amputations, 63 (74%) were major amputations, and the remaining 22 (26%) were minor amputations. The total cost for 63 major amputations was PKR 3,384,360 ($27568.91) and for 22 minor amputation was PKR 1,032,372 ($8409.67). The net cost came out to be PKR 4,416,732 ($35978.59) for all the 85 cases being reported in a tertiary care hospital of Faisalabad for six months. Conclusion: Diabetic foot, a preventable complication of long-term diabetes mellitus, has an economic burden on the hospital budget, which, if adequately addressed via primary prevention programme, can yield not just economical but medical benefits as well

MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT CRISES IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A CASE STUDY OF PESHAWAR CITY

Due to the speedy increase in population, the solid waste management issues are becoming a challenge for the developing countries. Unhealthy collection, improper transportation and open dumping of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is causing a serious threat to the environment and the people residing in the surroundings. In Pakistan, unsustainable way of solid waste management, lack of the authorities to deal with effectively with the MSW and least vision of the society towards the emerging issues of the solid waste is depicting the worst situation in the country. To highlight the significant Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) issues in the developing countries of the world, Peshawar city has been selected as a case study. Peshawar city is experiencing serious environmental issues due to speedy urbanization pace, rapid industrialization, deficiency of the authorities to manage the solid waste issues properly and lack of public awareness towards the challenging issue. Open dumping of the MSW on the open lands, utilized as dumping sites are responsible for the environmental problems increasing day by day. The research findings clearly reveal the MSWM crises in the city. Improper MSWM practices are not only creating air, land and water pollution but it also causes the blockage of open drains, smaller canals and ruining the aesthetics of the city

Performance Analysis of the IOTA Chrysalis on Heterogeneous Devices

Existing Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) based models like blockchain pose scalability and performance challenges for IoT systems due to resource-demanding Proof of Work (PoW), slow transaction confirmation rates, and high costs. Against a need to adopt a viable approach, especially for low-power IoT devices, IOTA emerges as a promising technology, leveraging the Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) based approach called Tangle for IoT-focused applications. In this paper, we design a system enabling secure data exchange between IoT devices on IOTA Chrysalis, the latest version. We perform extensive experiments on two machines, a Workstation PC and Raspberry Pi, to demonstrate the performance gap between powerful and low-power devices. Our findings show that even low-power devices, such as Raspberry Pi, perform well with small payload sizes on the Chrysalis network but face challenges with larger payloads. We observe that variation in transmission time increases as payload size grows, indicating the impact of PoW complexity, but it still is feasible for Raspberry Pi. We further validated our experimental setup to ensure the validity and accuracy of our approach through discussions with the IOTA Foundation’s technical team

Does NICU Intervention Improve Survivability in Consanguineous Trisomy 13?

Patau Syndrome is a fatal autosomal trisomy ,usually seen because of Meiotic nondisjunction due to maternal advanced age. It is observed at a higher frequency in non-consanguineous union.Trisomy has a prevalence of : 2,000– : 29,000 in newborns. ,Also known as Patau Syndrome, it is a rare and lethal autosomal trisomy 3 with a survivability of only 7- 0 days.Only an estimated 9% to 4% of live births survive beyond year of life and are associated with mosaicism. Severity of associated malformations also plays a key role in prognosis and survival.It presents with a wide array of dysmorphic features including microphthalmia, cutis aplasia, polydactyly, cleft lip, cleft palate, various congenital heart disease, omphalocele, holoprosencephaly and urogenital abnormalities. There is an intense discussion as to whether timely NICU interventions do play a role in improving mortality in the neonate and long term better prognosis and survivability as a result , especially in VLBW(Very Low Birth Weight) infants. There is a higher reporting frequency of Trisomy’s in non-consanguineous marriages one example of which is Down Syndrome. Currently diagnosis is based on increasing maternal age, sonographic findings, serum markers and amniocentesis followed in many cases by pregnancy termination as in the West. Risk increases with increasing maternal age with an average of age of 3 years

The roles of self-efficacy and metacognition in reading comprehension among Saudi EFL learners

The reading comprehension of Saudi learners is generally unsatisfactory when they enroll in universities. However, empirical research on the relationship between self-efficacy sources and reading comprehension is scarce in the EFL context. Furthermore, there is limited research on the relationship between metacognitive reading strategies and reading comprehension using reading self-efficacy as a mediator. This study aimed to identify the hierarchical order of self-efficacy sources and metacognitive reading strategies. Additionally, it intended to determine the level of reading self-efficacy and reading comprehension. Moreover, this study proposed that reading self-efficacy beliefs might mediate the relationship between self-efficacy sources, metacognitive reading strategies, and reading comprehension. The current study employed a mixed-methods correlational research design in which quantitative data using questionnaires was collected by employing proportionate stratified random sampling from 383 Saudi EFL learners. Besides, qualitative data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with six Saudi EFL learners using homogeneous purposeful sampling. Findings indicated that ‘mastery experience’ was the most reported self-efficacy source, whereas ‘physiological state’ was least reported. Furthermore, ‘global strategies’ was the most reported metacognitive reading strategy, in contrast to ‘support strategies’ which was least reported. Additionally, the majority of the students had a higher level of reading self-efficacy. Also, regarding the reading comprehension level, most of the learners were ‘above average’ readers. Reading self-efficacy beliefs mediated the relationship between all the self-efficacy sources and reading comprehension except ‘physiological state’. Moreover, reading self-efficacy beliefs mediated the relationship between metacognitive reading strategies and reading comprehension. The qualitative findings revealed several factors that were responsible for the influence of self-efficacy sources/metacognitive reading strategies on reading comprehension such as the role of teachers, competitive environment, confidence, time constraints, skimming, visualising, and notes-taking. The findings offer several implications for EFL teachers and policy makers which could prove beneficial for EFL learners in terms of increasing their self-efficacy and improving their metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension