An Integrated Approach for Future RAN Architecture

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Worldview-2 and Landsat 8 Satellite Data for Seaweed Mapping along Karachi Coast

Seaweed is a marine plant or algae which has economic value in many parts of the world. The purpose of this study is to evaluate different satellite sensors such as high-resolution WorldView-2 (WV2) satellite data and Landsat 8 30-meter resolution satellite data for mapping seaweed resources along the coastalwaters of Karachi. The continuous monitoring and mapping of this precious marine plant and their breeding sites may not be very efficient and cost effective using traditional survey techniques. Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) can provide economical and more efficient solutions for mapping and monitoring coastal resources quantitatively as well as qualitatively at both temporal and spatial scales. Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVI) along with the image enhancement techniques were used to delineate seaweed patches in the study area. The coverage area of seaweed estimated with WV-2 and Landsat 8 are presented as GIS maps. A more precise area estimation wasachieved with WV-2 data that shows 15.5Ha (0.155 Km2)of seaweed cover along Karachi coast that is more representative of the field observed data. A much larger area wasestimated with Landsat 8 image (71.28Ha or 0.7128 Km2) that was mainly due to the mixing of seaweed pixels with water pixels. The WV-2 data, due to its better spatial resolution than Landsat 8, have proven to be more useful than Landsat8 in mapping seaweed patche

The Determinants that Influence Household Debt Case in Malaysia

The level of household debt in Malaysia may in turn cause another financial crisis as it is at worrying stage. Therefore, the aims of this study is to identify the relationship between household debt and its determinants as well as to determine the most significant factor that affect the household debt. The mode of empirical investigation is Ordinary Least Square Method with the multiple regressions which are applied to monthly time series data spanning from 2012 to 2016 for four variables such as Interest Rate, Inflation, Unemployment Rate and Consumption. Data collected from Eikon Thomson Reuters and Monthly Statistical Bulletin. The study implies that interest rate, unemployment rate and consumption are positive and significantly related with household debt whereas the result illustrates an insignificant yet positive relationship between inflation and household debt. As a conclusion, these findings bear important implications for Malaysian policymakers.     Keywords: Interest Rate, Inflation, Unemployment Rate and Consumption

A CNN-LSTM Hybrid Model for Wrist Kinematics Estimation Using Surface Electromyography

Convolutional neural network (CNN) has been widely exploited for simultaneous and proportional myoelectric control due to its capability of deriving informative, representative and transferable features from surface electromyography (sEMG). However, muscle contractions have strong temporal dependencies but conventional CNN can only exploit spatial correlations. Considering that long short-term memory neural network (LSTM) is able to capture long-term and non-linear dynamics of time-series data, in this paper we propose a CNN-LSTM hybrid model to fully explore the temporal-spatial information in sEMG. Firstly, CNN is utilized to extract deep features from sEMG spectrum, then these features are processed via LSTM-based sequence regression to estimate wrist kinematics. Six healthy participants are recruited for the participatory collection and motion analysis under various experimental setups. Estimation results in both intra-session and inter-session evaluations illustrate that CNN-LSTM significantly outperforms CNN, LSTM and several representative machine learning approaches, particularly when complex wrist movements are activated

Cancer Patterns in Karachi Division (1998-1999)

Objective: A minimal cancer incidence data for Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan, is being presented here, for the years 1998-1999. The city has a population of 9,802,134; males 5,261,712 (52.6%) and females 4,540,422 (47.4%); census 19981. Methodology: A predominantly mixed (passive and active) registration system has evolved in Karachi, the data sources being the hospitals within the Karachi Division. The reported/retrieved cancer data sets at the Karachi Cancer Registry are checked, coded, computerised in an analytical format and analysed. Results: The incident cancer cases registered in Karachi, during the 2-year period, 1st January 1998 to 31st December 1999 were analysed. The age-standardised incidence rate (ASR) of cancer, all sites was 132.4/100,000 for the males. Cancer of the lung 10.8%; ASR 17.3 was the most frequently recorded malignancy, followed by oral cavity 10.5%; ASR 13.2 and larynx 5.0%; ASR 7.4. The age-standardised incidence rate (ASR) of cancer, all sites was 133.0/100,000 in the females. Cancer of the breast, 32.0%; ASR 40.7 was the most frequently recorded malignancy, followed by oral cavity 8.1%; ASR 11.7 and gall bladder 3.6%; ASR 5.5. Conclusion: The present data has been calculated with an estimated 15-20% probable under ascertainment. Tobacco-associated cancers in Karachi were responsible for 38.3% of the tumours diagnosed amongst the males. Two principal cancers, breast and oral cavity were responsible for 40.1% of the cancers in females. A rare finding was the high incidence of gall bladder cancer in the females. At present it is difficult to determine whether this indicates a genuine high risk or a selection bias. A continuous process of cancer registration to study the trends in the incidence and an adequate cancer control program are possible and essential for Pakistan and can be based on the pattern being practiced in Karachi

Nalidixic acid screening test in detection of decreased fluoroquinolone susceptibility in salmonella typhi isolated from blood

OBJECTIVE: To determine the validity of nalidixic acid screening test in the detection of high MICs of fluoroquinolone against Salmonella(S.) typhi isolated from blood and correlate zone diameters of ofloxacin with that of MIC value for nalidixic acid sensitive and resistant strains. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analytical study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Clinical Microbiology Laboratory of the Aga Khan Hospital, Karachi from January 2002 to December 2003.METHODS: Two hundred S. typhi isolates from blood were included for nalidixic acid screening and ofloxacin susceptibility. Antibiotic susceptibilities for both the antibiotics were obtained by disc diffusion method whereas MICs were determined by standard agar dilution method as recommended by NCCLS guidelines. Sensitivity, specificity and correlation between both antimicrobial susceptibility methods were calculated and results expressed as scattergrams.RESULTS: The results broadly classify S. typhi isolates into nalidixic acid resistant strains with no zone of inhibition around 30 mug nalidixic acid disc and nalidixic acid sensitive strains with mean zone of inhibition of 24.9 mm. All S. typhi isolates with ofloxacin MIC of capital ZHE, Cyrillic 0.125 microg/ml were found to be nalidixic acid resistant (MIC capital ZHE, Cyrillic32 microg/ml) whereas the isolates with ofloxacin MIC 0.06 microg/ml were nalidixic acid sensitive (MIC 8 microg/ml). Screening for nalidixic acid resistance was found to be 100% sensitive and 97% specific in identifying S. typhi strains with reduced susceptibility to fluoroquinolone (MIC capital ZHE, Cyrillic 0.125 microg/ml).CONCLUSION: Nalidixic acid resistance as a screening method is proved to be significant in identifying S. typhi isolates with reduced susceptibility to fluoroquinolones. It is also suggested that inhibition zone of 25 mm around 5 microg ofloxacin disc is appropriate as a selection criterion to detect S. typhi isolates with reduced susceptibility to fluoroquinolones

Numerical Investigation on Reduced Moment Resistance and Increased Reinforcement Spacing in Reinforced Concrete Wall Subjected to Blast Load

Numerical investigation becomes a highly demanding tool for the best design in engineering. With one validated numerical result available, further investigation is possible to conduct. Especially, for the expensive and limited access for civilian to conduct the test like a blast experiment. With the capability of Arbitrary Lagrange Euler (ALE) solver coupling approach between structure and air in AUTODYN, a detail three-dimensional assessment for RC wall on reduced moment resistance and increased reinforcement spacing are conducted. The RC wall has a cross-sectional dimension of 1829 mm x 1219 mm with wall thickness of 305 mm thickness of strip footing. It is subjected to 13.61 kg Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosive at 1.21 m standoff distance from the centre. The numerical blast impact on RC wall indicated, although the horizontal and vertical flexural reinforcements are reduced from one of the simulated RC walls, it is capable of demonstrating an equivalent strength to the RC wall tested in the experiment

Fabrication and characterization of crystalline cupric oxide (CUO) films by simple immersion technique

Cupric oxide (CuO) is one of the most promising p-type semiconducting materials used in p-n junction solar cells. Most of the researchers use electrochemical deposition (ECD) to deposit CuO film. However, it always requires a conductive substrate and the resulting film is porous. In this work, we demonstrated a simple method using an immersion technique to deposit nanostructured CuO for p-n solar cell application. Compared to ECD which end up with only pyramid-like structure, an immersion technique offers flexibility on the CuO nanostructures such as spheres, particles, diamond etc. This technique also offers higher deposition rate which allow deposition at thicker thickness. The adherence to the substrate can be manipulated depending on the pH of the solution. The resuling film was tested into a p-n solar cell using configuration of Au/ZnO/Cuo/ITO/glass. Although there is no efficiency obtained under the solar radiation, it shows a solar cell characteristic with open circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.5

Multiple urological problems in young age: a case report

Renal stone disease has been regarded as an uncommon problem in children as compared to adult population. The incidence varies in different parts of continent. Posterior urethral valve is also regarded as uncommon urological problem in pediatric population. The incidence is about 1 per 8,000 to 25,000 life births. A combination of renal calculi, posterior uerthral valve and vesicoureteric reflux in any given case is extremely rare especially in pediatri