Decision Aids for Airborne Intercept Operations in Advanced Aircrafts

A tactical decision aid (TDA) for the F-14 aircrew, i.e., the naval flight officer and pilot, in conducting a multitarget attack during the performance of a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) role is presented. The TDA employs hierarchical multiattribute utility models for characterizing mission objectives in operationally measurable terms, rule based AI-models for tactical posture selection, and fast time simulation for maneuver consequence prediction. The TDA makes aspect maneuver recommendations, selects and displays the optimum mission posture, evaluates attackable and potentially attackable subsets, and recommends the 'best' attackable subset along with the required course perturbation

RCD: Rapid Close to Deadline Scheduling for Datacenter Networks

Datacenter-based Cloud Computing services provide a flexible, scalable and yet economical infrastructure to host online services such as multimedia streaming, email and bulk storage. Many such services perform geo-replication to provide necessary quality of service and reliability to users resulting in frequent large inter- datacenter transfers. In order to meet tenant service level agreements (SLAs), these transfers have to be completed prior to a deadline. In addition, WAN resources are quite scarce and costly, meaning they should be fully utilized. Several recently proposed schemes, such as B4, TEMPUS, and SWAN have focused on improving the utilization of inter-datacenter transfers through centralized scheduling, however, they fail to provide a mechanism to guarantee that admitted requests meet their deadlines. Also, in a recent study, authors propose Amoeba, a system that allows tenants to define deadlines and guarantees that the specified deadlines are met, however, to admit new traffic, the proposed system has to modify the allocation of already admitted transfers. In this paper, we propose Rapid Close to Deadline Scheduling (RCD), a close to deadline traffic allocation technique that is fast and efficient. Through simulations, we show that RCD is up to 15 times faster than Amoeba, provides high link utilization along with deadline guarantees, and is able to make quick decisions on whether a new request can be fully satisfied before its deadline.Comment: World Automation Congress (WAC), IEEE, 201

The influence of advertisements and religious factors on condom use intentions among married male Muslims in Pakistan

Despite government measures to control birth rate in Pakistan and spreading awareness about family planning through advertisements, Pakistani population growth rate is still high. In Pakistan, advertisements of contraceptives are cursed because advertisements are labeled as indecent, immoral, anti-cultural and anti-religion. For instance, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) banned advertisements of “Josh condom” because of the complaints and pressure of the Pakistani people as they argued that the advertisements disregard to their religious values. However, facts revealed that Josh condom sale recorded a sharp increase after the ban of the advertisements. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of condom advertisements on attitude toward advertisements of condoms (AtAc) and behavioral intentions of Pakistani married male Muslims to use condoms (BI). Religious factors namely religious beliefs (RB), religious leaders (RL), religiosity (REL) and subjective norms (SN) were also incorporated into the study because of their relevancy in an advertising context. The mediating role of AtAc and the moderating role of REL was also the focus of the study. Data were collected from the Pakistani married male Muslims using a cross-sectional study design. The study adopted snowball sampling and gathered data from 213 respondents through the personally-administered method. Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the study hypotheses. Findings of the study show that PF, RB, SN, and AtAc are important factors in influencing condom use intentions of Pakistani married male Muslims. Results also revealed that AtAc significantly mediates between the relationship of PF and BI and religiosity significantly moderates between the relationship of PF, RL, and BI. Conclusively, this research has added valuable contributions, both practically and theoretically in the advertising field. It also contributed to the Theory of Planned Behavior by adding variables which are significant in determining the behavioral intention. It is also beneficial for those who want to advertise products especially controversial products in Pakistani medi

Handling the Mishandling: The Role of Entrepreneurial Training in Women's Social Equity

This research investigates the complex correlation between women's entrepreneurial education and social equity, specifically emphasising the moderating influence of microfinance credits, savings, and loans within the Pakistani setting. This study utilises primary data obtained from women entrepreneurs and microfinance banking clients through a Likert scale questionnaire. The research performs correlation and regression analyses to derive statistically significant findings. The results demonstrate a strong and positive correlation between women's participation in entrepreneurial training programs and the promotion of social equity. This confirms the significant impact of education and skill development on empowering women in the field of entrepreneurship. Significantly, this study sheds light on the crucial moderating function of microfinance services. This finding illustrates that the provision of microfinance credit, savings, and loans plays a crucial role in enhancing the favourable effects of entrepreneurship training on women's social equality results. This statement highlights the crucial role played by microfinance institutions in promoting financial inclusion and empowering women economically. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of the interplay among entrepreneurship, microfinance, and gender studies. The practical consequences of this research are relevant to policymakers, microfinance institutions, and groups focused on women's empowerment. The findings provide valuable insights that may be utilised to improve training programs and financial services

Impact of Exposure to Political Campaigns of Major Political Parties (PML-N, PTI & PPP) on Viewers’ Participation in Electoral Process

The General Elections 2013 in Pakistan under much tensed circumstance have utmost importance not only for Pakistan but also have vital significance for the major active players of the world. This study was designed to explore and document the exposure to political campaigns launched through television during general elections 2013 and its impact on viewers’ political participation. Survey research design was adopted to find out the viewers’ use of mass media and explore the factors behind a specific voting decision on them. The population-the whole university students-- was divided into two strata: natural sciences vs social sciences. From each strata 160 students, male and female students from BS and MA programs were taken as the unit of analysis. Stratified method for the specification of the demographic characteristics was adopted. 320 viewers were interviewed by using purposive sampling method through the questionnaire. The results figured out that most respondents (50.5%) used to watch television very frequently. Findings reveal that 54.5% viewers usually preferred to watch GEO TV. Results demonstrate that a significant number of viewers (60.5%) prefer to watch Discussions programs on TV during political campaigns. Viewers point of view reveal that 41% viewers think PML(N) launched most effective political campaign on television. Findings show that 45% respondents casted vote in favor of PML (N) and followed by PTI (32%), PPP (17%) and others (6%). Keywords: Politics, Election Campaigns, Television, Electoral Proces