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Despite the significant research on environmental issues, there has not been considerable investigation on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the MENA nations using both CO2 emissions (CO2e) and ecological footprint (EF) environmental indicators in the same setting. Therefore, the primary goal of this research is to re-examine the EKC hypothesis in 18 MENA nations from 1990 to 2018 using a panel data model labeled the pooled mean group autoregressive distributed lags (PMG-ARDL). We employ CO2e and EF as environmental quality proxies to deal with all types of pollutants, not only air pollution, as well as the demand side of environmental assets. The outcomes of the econometric study revealed the absence of the EKC hypothesis using CO2e in contrast to EF where the hypothesis is held in the entire group and both oil-exporting and importing countries. Moreover, population and non-renewable energy significantly harm the environment in the three sub-sample groups of countries in this study. This is what requires the governments of these countries to strive more toward achieving environmental sustainability by preserving the environmental capacity of the region and reducing emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This study aimed to assess the impact of routine histological examination of stapled colorectal anastomotic doughnuts in patients undergoing rectal cancer surgery (RCS). Justification of biopsy examination could form part of the strategies of NHS net zero practice with effort to reduce wastage and carbon footprint. Method. A data analysis of all patients undergoing RCS during 2019–2021 at our institute was performed. We also analysed the cost of preparing and reviewing histology slides. Results. 52 patients underwent anterior resection during the aforementioned period. Doughnuts were sent in 37 (71%) patients. 23 (62%) patients were male, and 14 (38%) were female. The median age at diagnosis was 68 (range 54–84) years. All resected specimens were adenocarcinomas. Of the 37 patients, 18 (49%) underwent low anterior resection and 19 (51%) underwent high anterior resection. Proximal doughnuts were sent in 26 (70%) patients, whereas distal doughnuts were sent in all cases. Mean distal microscopic resection margin from tumour was 22 mm (range 6–45 mm). Each doughnut required 3 slides, each costing £50 and requiring 82 minutes to fix and read. This incurred a cost of £13,650 and required 19,656 hours of preparation time. All of the doughnuts as well as resection margins were negative for malignancy. Conclusion. Routine histopathological examination of doughnuts is time and cost‐intensive however provides little or no clinical value (particularly analysis of the proximal doughnut). Distal doughnuts should only be sent for histological examination in exceptional circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ad-hoc wireless sensor networks face challenges of optimized node deployment for maximizing coverage and efficiently routing data to control centers in post disaster events. These challenges impact the outcome for extending the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. This study presents a uav assisted reactive zone based EHGR (energy efficient hierarchical gateway routing protocol) that is deployed in a situation where the natural calamity has caused communication and infrastructure damage to a major portion of the sensor network. EHGR is a hybrid multi layer routing protocol for large heterogeneous sensor nodes (smart nodes, basic nodes, user handheld devices etc.) EHGR is tailored to meet two important concerns for a disaster hit wsn ie. optimized deployment and energy efficient routing. The first part of EGHR focuses on maximized coverage during node deployments. Maximized coverage is an important aspect to be considered during the event of disaster since most of the nodes loose coverage and are detached from the wireless sensor network. The first part of EHGR uses state of the art game theory approach to build a model that maximizes the coverage of nodes during the deployment phase from all participating entities i.e. nodes and uavs. Rather than fixing the cluster head as is the case in traditional cluster-based approaches EHGR uses the energy centroid nodes. Energy centroid nodes evolve on the basis of aggregated energy of the zone. This approach is superior to simply electing cluster head nodes on the basis of some probability function. The nodes that fail to achieve any successful outcome from the game theory matching model fail to get any association. These nodes will use multi hop d2d relay approach to reach the energy centroid nodes. Gateway relay nodes used with the game theory approach during the deployment of the uav assisted wsn improves the overall coverage by 25% against traditional leach based hierarchical approaches. Once the optimum deployment phase is completed the routing phase is initiated. Aggregated data is sent by the energy centroid nodes from the ECN nodes to the servicing micro controller enabled un manned aerial vehicles. The routing process places partial burden of zone formation and data transmission to the control center for each phase on the servicing uavs. Energy centroid nodes engage only in the data aggregation process and transmission of data to servicing uav. Servicing-uavs reduce energy dissipated of the entire zone which result in gradual decrease of energy for the zone thus increasing the network lifetime. Node deployment phase and the routing phase of EHGR utilize the computations provide by the mirco controller enabled unmanned aerial vehicles such that the computationally intensive calculations are offloaded to the servicing uav. Experiment results indicate an increase in the first dead node report, half dead node report, and last dead node report. Network lifetime is extended to approximately 1800 rounds which is an increase by ratio of 100% against the traditional leach approach and increase by 50% percent against the latest approaches as highlighted in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the last decade radio frequency (RF) sensing has emerged as an alternative in‐home monitoring and tracking technology because of its inherent device‐free and privacy‐preserved features over camera and wearable technologies. In this work, contrary to conventional radar‐based sensing and WiFi‐based setups which require line‐of‐sight (LoS) to process and collect the RF signals for monitoring, it is shown for the first time in literature the potential of using RF sensing for vitals, that is, heartbeat detection in the non‐line‐of‐sight (NLoS) using an in‐house‐developed reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), that is, wireless on the walls. The developed RIS is the world's first prototype which consists of "4096 elements". The unit cell elements are individually controlled via PIN diodes, 1‐bit, operating at 3.75 GHz specified for the fifth‐generation (5G) network. Near‐field beam steering is demonstrated, with a switching speed of 15 ms. For the first time in the literature its is demonstrated that RIS can assist in the detection of microactivities including the human heartbeat in NLoS indoor complex environment, a limitation with the existing RF sensing technologies to date. In addition, it is experimentally verified that the RIS can potentially reduce the e‐field magnitude at the user's by regulating the gain at the user terminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For a molecular graph, a numeric quantity that characterizes the whole structure of a graph is called a topological index. In the studies of quantitative structure--activity relationship (QSAR) and [...]

The metric on a connected graph G is a mapping which assigns to each pair (u,v) of vertices in G the length of a shortest path between u and v. In this article, we consider the linear dependence graph associated with a finite dimensional vector space and determine its metric properties, namely, the center, the periphery, metric‐degree sequence, metric‐degree polynomial, metric dimension, connected metric dimension, local metric dimension, strong metric dimension, and the metric polynomial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a widespread metabolic disorder with a yearly 6.7 million deaths worldwide. Several treatment options are available but with common side effects like weight gain, cardiovascular diseases, neurotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, and nephrotoxicity. Therefore, ethnomedicine is gaining the interest of researchers in the treatment of DM. Ethnomedicine works by preventing intestinal absorption and hepatic production of glucose as well as enhancing glucose uptake in muscles and fatty tissues and increasing insulin secretion. A variety of plants have entered clinical trials but very few have gained approval for use. This current study provides an evaluation of such clinical trials. For this purpose, an extensive literature review was performed froma database using keywords like "ethnomedicine diabetes clinical trial", "clinical trials", "clinical trial in diabetes", "diabetes", "natural products in diabetes", "ethno-pharmacological relevance of natural products in diabetes", etc. Clinical trials of 20 plants and natural products were evaluated based on eligibility criteria. Major limitations associatedwith these clinical trialswere a lack of patient compliance, doseresponse relationship, and an evaluation of biomarkers with a small sample size and treatment duration. Measures in terms of strict regulations can be considered to achieve quality clinical trials. A specific goal of this systematic review is to discuss DM treatment through ethnomedicine based on recent clinical trials of the past 7 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance and the network lifetime of cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) infrastructure-based cognitive radio (CR) networks are hugely affected by the energy consumption of the power-constrained CR nodes during spectrum sensing, followed by data transmission and reception. To overcome this issue and improve the network lifetime, clustering mechanisms with several nodes inside a single cluster can be employed. It is usually the cluster head (CH) in every cluster that is responsible for aggregating the data collected from individual CR nodes before it is being forwarded to the base station (BS). In this article, an energy-efficient fuzzy logic-based clustering (EEFC) algorithm is proposed, which uses a novel set of fuzzy input parameters to elect the most suitable node as CH. Unlike most of the other probabilistic as well as fuzzy logic-based clustering algorithms, EEFC increments the fuzzy input parameters from three to four to obtain improved solutions employing the Mamdani method for fuzzification and the Centroid method for defuzzification. It ensures that the best candidate is selected for the CH role by obtaining the crisp value from the fuzzy logic rule-based system. While compared to other well-known clustering algorithms such as low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH), CH election using fuzzy logic (CHEF), energy-aware unequal clustering using fuzzy logic (EAUCF), and fuzzy logic-based energy-efficient clustering hierarchy (FLECH), our proposed EEFC algorithm demonstrates significantly enhanced network lifetime where the time taken for first node dead (FND) in the network is improved. Moreover, EEFC is implemented in the existing history-assisted energy efficient infrastructure CR network to analyze and demonstrate the overall augmented energy efficiency of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel embedded helix dielectric rod antenna is presented for high gain radiation with circular polarization (CP) and low side lobe levels for IoT Applications. Different from the conventional dielectric rod antennas, this proposed antenna is an integrated structure that combines the advantages of the helix and dielectric rod antennas. The presented antenna mainly consists of three parts: a tapered helix as primary feeding for CP, a dielectric rod with printed loops embedded for higher directivity, and a dielectric rod end for improving the gain further. After studying and analyzing the working principles of each part, an optimum design operating at 8–9.7 GHz is carried out as an example. A prototype is also fabricated and tested. The measured results show that the prototype can provide 18.41 dB maximum gain within the length of 7.7 λ. The side lobe level is below −20 dB, and the axial ratio is better than 1.14 dB in the whole frequency band. Compared with the traditional helix antenna and dielectric rod antenna with the same electric length, the presented antenna has a higher gain with a lower side lobe level and with good polarization purity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-commuting graph associated to a group has non-central elements of the graph as vertices and two elements x and y do not form an edge if and only if x y = y x. In this paper, we consider non-commuting graphs associated to dihedral and semidihedral groups. We investigate their metric properties such as center, periphery, eccentric graph, closure and interior. We also perform various types of metric identifications on these graphs. Moreover, we generate metric and metric-degree polynomials of these graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most abundant type of epithelial lung cancer being diagnosed after 40% of invasions of excrescence in pulmonary tissues. According to WHO, 30% of NSCLC patients can be cured if diagnosed and treated early. Mutations play an important role in advanced stage NSCLC treatment, which includes critical proteins necessary for cellular growth and replication. Restricting such mutations may improve survival in lung cancer patients. Newer technologies include endoscopic bronchial ultrasonography and esophageal ultrasonography. Currently, policymaking or decision-making for treatment regimens merely depends on the genomic alterations and mutations. DNA sequencing, methylation, protein, and fragmented DNA analysis do NSCLC screening. Achievement of these goals requires consideration of available therapeutics in current anticancer approaches for improving quality of life and treatment outcomes for NSCLC patient. The specific goals of this review are to discuss first-line and secondline therapies for advanced-stage NSCLC and molecularly targeted therapy including thoughtful discussion on precise role of treatment strategies in specific tumors. Also, concerned diagnostics, new clinical trial designs, and pursuing appropriate combinations of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy with biological therapy for exceptional cases considering resistance mechanisms and palliative care will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 is a new paradigm of digitalization and automation that demands high data rates and real-time ultra-reliable agile communication. Industrial communication at sub-6 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) bands has some serious impediments, such as interference, spectral congestion, and limited bandwidth. These limitations hinder the high throughput and reliability requirements of modern industrial applications and mission-critical scenarios. In this paper, we critically assess the potential of the 60 GHz millimeter-wave (mmWave) ISM band as an enabler for ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) in smart manufacturing, smart factories, and mission-critical operations in Industry 4.0 and beyond. A holistic overview of 60 GHz wireless standards and key performance indicators are discussed. Then the review of 60 GHz smart antenna systems facilitating agile communication for Industry 4.0 and beyond is presented. We envisage that the use of 60 GHz communication and smart antenna systems are crucial for modern industrial communication so that URLLC in Industry 4.0 and beyond could soar to its full potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The addition of massive machine type communication (mMTC) as a category of Fifth Generation (5G) of mobile communication, have increased the popularity of Internet of Things (IoT). The sensors are one of the critical component of any IoT device. Although the sensors posses a well-known historical existence, but their integration in wireless technologies and increased demand in IoT applications have increased their importance and the challenges in terms of design, integration, etc. This survey presents a holistic (historical as well as architectural) overview of wireless sensor (WS) nodes, providing a classical definition, in-depth analysis of different modules involved in the design of a WS node, and the ways in which they can be used to measure a system performance. Using the definition and analysis of a WS node, a more comprehensive classification of WS nodes is provided. Moreover, the need to form a wireless sensor network (WSN), their deployment, and communication protocols is explained. The applications of WS nodes in various use cases have been discussed. Additionally, an overlook of challenges and constraints that these WS nodes face in various environments and during the manufacturing process, are discussed. Their main existing developments which are expected to augment the WS nodes, to meet the requirements of the emerging systems, are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thirteen papers in this special section focus on antenna considerations for future millimeter-wave and terahertz wireless sytems. Recent developments in data-intensive applications and emergence of Internet-of-Things (IoT) have exponentially increased the wireless data traffic. IoT also requires fusion of multiple sensors and wireless devices operating in real time. These papers present state-of-the-art research on a wide range of antenna technologies, analysis techniques, and application scenarios in millimeter-wave and terahertz regimes. The 13 letters of this cluster are categorized in five groups based on the type of the antenna/broader focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design of a multiband circularly polarized antenna is proposed in this article. The antenna has a simple and compact form factor by employing single‐feed stacked patch structure. It exhibits good performance at the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) frequency bands of L1, L2, and L5 and cellular communications frequency band of 2.3 GHz. The antenna has a 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1.1%, 1.0%, 4.1%, and 1.5% at the four operating bands of L1 (1.575 GHz), L2 (1.227 GHz), L5 (1.176 GHz), and 2.3 GHz. The antenna also achieves a gain of more than 2.2 dBiC and efficiency of more than 70% at the four frequencies. A detailed parametric study is carried out to investigate the importance of different structural elements on the antenna performance. Results are verified through close agreement of simulations and experimental measurements of the fabricated prototype. Good impedance matching, axial ratio bandwidth, and radiation characteristics at the four operating bands along with small profile and mechanically stable structure make this antenna a good candidate for current and future GNSS devices, mobile terminals, and small satellites for 5G/Beyond 5G (5G/B5G) applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypopnea syndrome is a chronic respiratory disease that is characterized by repetitive episodes of breathing disruptions during sleep. Hypopnea syndrome is a systemic disease that manifests respiratory problems; however, more than 80% of Hypopnea syndrome patients remain undiagnosed due to complicated polysomnography. Objective assessment of breathing patterns of an individual can provide useful insight into the respiratory function unearthing severity of Hypopnea syndrome. This paper explores a novel approach to detect incognito Hypopnea syndrome as well as provide a contactless alternative to traditional medical tests. The proposed method is based on S-Band sensing technique (including a spectrum analyzer, vector network analyzer, antennas, software-defined radio, RF generator, etc.), peak detection algorithm and Sine function fitting for the observation of breathing patterns and characterization of normal or disruptive breathing patterns for Hypopnea syndrome detection. The proposed system observes the human subject and changes in the channel frequency response caused by Hypopnea syndrome utilizing a wireless link between two monopole antennas, placed 3 m apart. Commercial respiratory sensors were used to verify the experimental results. By comparing the results, it is found that for both cases, the pause time is more than 10 s with 14 peaks. The experimental results show that this technique has the potential to open up new clinical opportunities for contactless and accurate Hypopnea syndrome monitoring in a patient-friendly and flexible environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel study on monitoring and analysis of the debilitating condition of patients suffering from the neurological disorder is presented. Parkinson’s disease is characterized by limited motor ability of a patient. Freezing of gait is a major nonmotor condition among aging patients and its evaluation can reduce the chances of any secondary disorders. In this paper, amplitude and phase information of the radio signals observed for a fixed period of time are used to differentiate the motor and nonmotor symptoms. The amplitude information is classified using a support vector machine, while the linear transformation is applied to obtain sanitized phase information for detection. The proposed method is very handy with the minimum deployment overhead. The analysis shows that this method also offers a high-accuracy level of around 99% based on the observation of a number of patients. These features make it an attractive solution for real-time patient monitoring systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing prevalence of dementia has posed several challenges for care-givers. Patients suffering from dementia often display wandering behavior due to boredom or memory loss. It is considered to be one of the challenging conditions to manage and understand. Traits of dementia patients can compromise their safety causing serious injuries. This paper presents investigation into the design and evaluation of wandering scenarios with patients suffering from dementia using an S-band sensing technique. This frequency band is the wireless channel commonly used to monitor and characterize different scenarios including random, lapping, and pacing movements in an indoor environment. Wandering patterns are characterized depending on the received amplitude and phase information of that measures the disturbance caused in the ideal radio signal. A secondary analysis using support vector machine is used to classify the three patterns. The results show that the proposed technique carries high classification accuracy up to 90% and has good potential for healthcare applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a miniaturized implantable antenna with the dimensions of 8×8×1 mm³ has been studied for continuous monitoring of Blood Glucose Levels (BGL). The antenna performance is analyzed numerically for both the free space and implanted operation. The results show that the works excellently in both the scenarios. The antenna has the lowest resonant frequency of 3.58 GHz in free space with a gain 1.18 GHz while it operates at 2.58 GHz with a gain of 4.18 dBi. Good performance, small size and resilience to the human body effects make the antenna to have a good potential use in future implantable glucose monitoring devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]