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The present research is a qualitative exploration of teacher stress faced by private school teachers in Lahore, Pakistan. We identified the professional and domestic stressors of teachers working in private schools in Lahore, Pakistan using thematic analysis. Digging into the forms of stress, three focus group interviews were conducted on three different school premises. Each focus group has eight participants, private school teachers having age ranges between 25 and 45 years, with inclusion criteria of being married and having at least three years of teaching experience in private sector. Professional and domestic themes such as workload, psychological challenges, consequences, and familial and personal factors were generated. Results confirmed some themes in previous research, such as administrative tasks, Coping strategies, classroom management, parenting issues, physical health, and emotional well-being. However, this research holds an exclusive aspect in exploring new themes such as meeting unrealistic deadlines, emotional labor, uncomfortable workstations, and unsupportive families. Implications were discussed.

Matematika fani tabiat va jamiyatdagi barcha sohalar bilan chambarchas bog’liq hisoblanadi. U nafaqat aqlni charxlabgina qolmay, xotirani kuchaytirish va aqliy kasalliklar bilan kasallanish foizini ham kamaytiradi. Ushbu maqolada matematika fanining boshqa ijtimoiy fanlar bilan bog’liqligi haqida batafsil bayon qilinadi.

Ushbu maqolada suitsidal xulqni psixokorrekiya qilish usullari berilgan bo’lib, shaxs shakllanishi va rivojlanishi masalalariga ham alohida e’tibor berilgan.

A fifth order gap-coupled resonator loaded ultra-wide band (UWB) filtenna is proposed in this research article. The band-stop butterworth filter is designed at the ISM frequency of 5.8 GHz and an ultra-wideband circular shaped microstrip patch is integrated with the extended end of the filter. The filter is designed using the concept of the gap coupled microstrip stub sections with a metallic via connected at the end producing all the necessary capacitive and inductive effects to show its band-stop property at the ISM band. It produces a sharp narrow--band notch at 5.8 GHz and helps the antenna to utilize all the available frequency bands by eliminating the possibility for the antenna to interfere with only 5.8 GHz ISM band.

Gender inclusion and female participation in STEM courses have always been challenging in a patriarchal country like Pakistan. Women are often underrepresented in engineering fields, as engineering fields are usually considered manly. Female students confront many challenges, be it workplace or educational institutes. Some of the self-perceived and determined challenges are discussed in this study. As determined through this research study, factors affecting female participation are low STEM confidence, Gender disparity, Social and Academic Support, and Learning Environment. Empirical Evidence is collected using a questionnaire with 25 items based on the Likert scale. The dependent variables are STEM Confidence and Learning Environment, whereas the independent variables are Social and Academic Support. Participants included 170 female UG and PG engineering students from 4 universities in Pakistan. Data were collected through the Questionnaire, which included an online survey. Correlation method and statistical test MANOVA were applied, using SPSS 21 to determine the effect of social and academic support on the STEM confidence of female students and to find a relationship between the variables. Results indicate a positive correlation between the variables STEM confidence and social and academic Support and Learning environment, whereas a slight correlation has been observed between social Support and LE. MANOVA results indicated a significant effect of Social and Academic Support on the STEM confidence of female students. Empirical Evidence shows that Social and academic support can affect the STEM of female engineering students, and the LE of females can also be affected by social and academic Support.

Despite modern vehicles having the necessary advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for autonomous operation, current implementations rely solely on sensor information from the surrounding environment or data from smart infrastructure. However, shortcomings in current implementations and standards around cost-effective variable latency and data rate have prevented widespread adoption of the technology to enable autonomous operation. This paper presents a proof-of-concept (PoC) reconfigurable design and performance of a hybrid high-ultra-high bands [i.e., millimetre-Wave (mmWave)-light fidelity (Li-Fi)] fifth generation (5G) architecture for autonomous vehicular communication applications. The hybrid multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system architecture design is mathematically modelled and presented. The reported prelim PoC validation focuses on the Li-Fi experiment and results. The proposed hybrid system’s effectiveness was evaluated using the open-source “Model-based Autonomous Traffic Simulation” (MOBATSim). The simulation results of a potential Li-Fi system and a PoC prototype are presented to demonstrate the role of the Li-Fi system in the proposed hybrid mmWave-Li-Fi 5G architecture. Three models of LED/lamp and two models of photodiode were simulated at three different vehicle speeds to ascertain the potential of the system. Promising results are reported at low speeds with received power values of up to -8.39 dBm and signal to noise ratios of up to 29.39 dB. Practical prototype simulations showed auspicious results including received power of -24.6 dBm to -34.12 dBm at the vehicle speeds of 10 MPH to 30 MPH respectively. The implemented PoC Li-Fi technology component has demonstrated the ability to transmit information with a theoretical output of 333 bits per second at 1.92 m, without the use of any highpower processors, components, and modulation techniques. The proposed system yields high data rates due to reconfigurable high bandwidth channels; ma

Blockchain (BC) and Information for Operational and Tactical Analysis (IOTA) are distributed ledgers that record a huge number of transactions in multiple places at the same time using decentralized databases. Both BC and IOTA facilitate Internet-of-Things (IoT) by overcoming the issues related to traditional centralized systems, such as privacy, security, resources cost, performance, and transparency. Still, IoT faces the potential challenges of real-time processing, resource management, and storage services. Edge computing (EC) has been introduced to tackle the underlying challenges of IoT by providing real-time processing, resource management, and storage services nearer to IoT devices on the network's edge. To make EC more efficient and effective, solutions using BC and IOTA have been devoted to this area. However, BC and IOTA came with their pitfalls. This survey outlines the pitfalls of BC and IOTA in EC and provides research directions to be investigated further.

The report presents the design and characterisation of Omni-directional inset-fed microstrip patch antenna (MPA), multiband Omni-directional microstrip antenna array (2×2 and 4×4) fractals; omnidirectional tri-band microstrip patch antenna, multiband 3-, 5-, and 9-port radio frequency (RF) hybrid power divider-combiner (HPDC) designs, and rectifier circuit design with matching networks. The proposed designs promise multiband characteristics at Wi-Fi 6E frequency bands, i.e., at 2.4 GHz (ISM, IEEE 802.11b, g); 5.8 GHz (IEEE 802.11n,a and 802.11ac), and 6 GHz (IEEE 802.11ax) wireless standards for RF energy harvesting (EH) and wireless communication applications. The report also presents a novel design of a power management unit (PMU) utilised for power handling in the RF energy harvester circuit block for EH applications. The research project will enable energy-efficient 5G-enabled passive Internet of Things (IoTs) sensors, energy harvesting (EH), passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna beamforming, and data communication applications spanning DC to the 6-GHz frequency range. The presented designs operate at a centre-design frequency of 3 GHz on a Rogers RO4350 and Rogers RT-duriod 5870 substrate. The designed inset-feed microstrip patch antenna and multiband microstrip patch antenna array demonstrate a good return loss, gain, and electromagnetic-field (EMF) radiation efficiency of more than 80%. The designed novel HPDC presents a good match between the ports, high isolation between the output ports, and equal power distribution between the output ports. The obtained return and isolation losses are less than -10 dB for the Wi-Fi 6E standards. The HSMS2860 diode is utilized for rectifier circuits, and an efficiency of 70% is achieved at 12 dBm input power. The reported findings hold excellent promise for RF-EH and utilisation, adaptive, intelligent energy-efficient data communication, and seamless, ubiquitous s

We argue that social computing and its diverse applications can contribute to the attainment of sustainable development goals (SDGs)—specifically to the SDGs concerning gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, and to make cities and human settlements inclusive. To achieve the above goals for the sustainable growth of societies, it is crucial to study gender-based violence (GBV) in a smart city context, which is a common component of violence across socio-economic groups globally. This paper analyzes the nature of news articles reported in English newspapers of Pakistan, India, and the UK—accumulating 12,693 gender-based violence-related news articles. For the qualitative textual analysis, we employ Latent Dirichlet allocation for topic modeling and propose a Doc2Vec based word-embeddings model to classify gender-based violence-related content, called GBV2Vec. Further, by leveraging GBV2Vec, we also build an online tool that analyzes the sensitivity of Gender-based violence-related content from the textual data. We run a case study on GBV concerning COVID-19 by feeding the data collected through Google News API. Finally, we show different news reporting trends and the nature of the gender-based violence committed during the testing times of COVID-19. The approach and the toolkit that this paper proposes will be of great value to decision-makers and human rights activists, given the prompt and coordinated performance against gender-based violence in smart city context—and can contribute to the achievement of SDGs for sustainable growth of human societies.

The expanding massive smart internet of things (IoTs) sensors with emerging use cases have created legitimate security requirements concerns for device manufacturers. Within decentralised and distributed systems of smart IoTs devices, heterogeneous mix of wireless protocols and/or standards are deployed. These technologies enable short-range (proximity and wireless personal area network); short/medium-range (wireless local area network); medium-range (wireless neighbourhood area network); and long-range (wireless wide area network) connectivities. The 5G/6G convergence ecosystem will span edge, gateway and enterprise IoTs nodes with unique security requirements. The public key infrastructure (PKI) is currently the industry’s holy grail for building secure IoTs devices. However, the current design solutions lack post-manufacturing multi-radio dynamic key reconfiguration and integrated reconfigurable hardware solutions. PKI must be embedded into the hardware design and simplified for third-party developers and manufacturers to implement and deploy. In this paper, we propose dynamic key configuration protocol (DKCP) and reconfigurable hardware root of trust (RHRoT) for 5G/6G satellite-cellular convergence network IoTs PKI implementations. This hybrid hardware-application protocol security solution provides a three-tier authentication that can be optionally implemented depending on the threat level within the IoTs device environment. Hence, DKCP only; DKCP and RHRoT; and RHRoT only tiers can be implemented to achieve IoTs PKI-based authentication, encryption and integrity for devices at scale by device manufacturers with little or no cryptography knowledge. The proposed adaptive IoTs PKI model promises scalable ubiquitous, seamless, cost-effective, secure, simple and security solution to stay ahead of existing and emerging threats and regulations.

Software-defined network (SDN) is an emerging networking paradigm that segregates functionalities of control and data plane to reduce their complexity and provides more control, scalability, and centralized management. OpenFlow (OF) is a widely used protocol that builds a global and shared view of the network. Therefore, for SDN applications, the correctness of the topology view has a critical impact on the flow-based communication and provision of services. However, recently identified vulnerabilities in Open Flow Discovery Protocol (OFDP) reveal that malicious hosts or data plane switches can poison the global view of the network, and an intruder can launch man-in-the-middle or denial of service attacks. Existing passive approach-based solutions work well for known attacks. Some solutions use an active approach to identify the fake links or malicious hosts by sending Stealthy Probing Verification (SPV) packets. However, due to the use of probing mechanism, it faces scalability and bandwidth consumption issues in the case of large data centers networks and resource limited networks. The proposed technique is based on the SPV mechanism, however, to counter the scalability and bandwidth issues, the probing packets are only initiated when triggered updates of a new link or network node are received by the SDN controller. The probing traffic has been reduced by 40%. Hence consume less bandwidth and identifies a malicious host in less than 90 ms. The results indicate that the Enhance Stealthy Probing Verification (ESPV) is a more scalable and suitable solution to detect and identify fake links or malicious hosts in large data center networks and resource limited networks such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs).

This paper investigates the impact of corporate governance on cash holding of non-financial Pakistani firms listed on the Karachi stock exchange. A sample of 110 non-financial firms is used from 2017 through 2021. This paper tested panel data and report that the fixed effect model is the best result-yielding method. The results show that board independence, the board size, firm size, and cash flow do not show any relationship with cash holding, whereas leverage, market-to-book value, profitability, and dividend have an insignificant relationship with cash holdings. Whereas Net-working-capital, insider ownership, and institutional ownership are positively related to cash holdings. Firms with CEO duality have no effect on cash reserves in firms. The results from this study show that Pakistani firms tend to hold a moderate amount of cash level. The result supports the trade-off theory and some aspects of agency cost theory. Keywords: Karachi stock exchange, panel data, fixed effect model, cash holding, corporate governance, CEO duality DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/13-20-03 Publication date:October 31st 2022

The article is scientifically based on the method of developing the jumping skills of volleyball players aged 19-21.

The article presents the results of theoretical studies on the use of sintered flux-cored tape for the restoration of parts of the "Val" type by the EKP method.

This article examines the aspects of exemption from liability due to the expiration of the term in the theory of criminal law of the Republic of Uzbekistan. In this article, the author explores a new interpretation of the term of exemption in cases where the offender is hiding from the court and investigation in the sense of exemption due to the expiration of the term. Explains the concept of exemption due to the expiration of time. Interprets the passage of time continuing crimes, crimes committed with participation, crimes related to the suspension of the term, life imprisonment. It offers new deadlines based on the experience of other countries in terms of timing. The importance of overdue release focuses on some aspects of the application of the Republic of Uzbekistan by the courts and law enforcement agencies. Exemption from liability due to the expiration of the term concludes that the expiration of the term should not be interrupted if the new crime was committed through negligence. She concludes that offenders cannot pose a threat to society for the rest of their lives, so release from liability due to the expiration of a term is an important form of release from liability

This article approaches the phrase from a systematic linguistic point of view, focusing on the interrelationships between the components of this syntactic unit.

This paper presents three- and five-ports radio frequency (R.F) hybrid power divider combiner (HPDC) designs with multiband characteristics operating at 2.4 GHz (ISM, IEEE 802.11b,g); 5.8 GHz (IEEE 802.11n, a and 802.11ac); and 6 GHz (IEEE 802.11ax) wireless standards for energy-efficient 5G-enabled passive Internet of Things (IoTs) sensors; energy harvesting (E.H); passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags; multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna beamforming; and data communication applications spanning D.C to the 6-GHz frequency range. The presented HPDC designs operate at a centre-design frequency of 3 GHz on a Rogers RO4350 substrate. The designed novel HPDC demonstrates a good match between the ports, high isolation between the output ports, and equal power distribution between the output ports. Furthermore, the obtained return and isolation losses are less than -10 dB for the Wi-Fi 6E standards. The reported findings hold an excellent promise for R.F energy harvesting and utilisation, adaptive intelligent energy-efficient data communication, and seamless, ubiquitous satellite-cellular convergence connectivity applications.

Alpha-synuclein aggregation and mitochondrial dysfunction are main pathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD) and several other neurodegenerative diseases, collectively known as synucleinopathies. However, increasing evidence suggests that they may not be sufficient to cause PD. Here we propose the role of hypoxia as a missing link that connects the complex interplay between alpha-synuclein biochemistry and pathology, mitochondrial dysfunctions and neurodegeneration in PD. We review the partly conflicting literature on alpha-synuclein binding to membranes and mitochondria and its impact on mitochondrial functions. From there, we focus on adverse changes in cellular environments, revolving around hypoxic stress, that may trigger or facilitate PD progression. Inter-dependent structural re-arrangements of mitochondrial membranes, including increased cytoplasmic exposure of mitochondrial cardiolipins and changes in alpha-synuclein localization and conformation are discussed consequences of such conditions. Enhancing cellular resilience could be an integral part of future combination-based therapies of PD. This may be achieved by boosting the capacity of cellular and specifically mitochondrial processes to regulate and adapt to altered proteostasis, redox, and inflammatory conditions and by inducing protective molecular and tissue re-modelling. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

The direction of arrival (DOA) estimation and beamforming are effective methods for spatial diversity realization. Various algorithm already exists for implementing these methods. This paper explore the performance of least mean square algorithm (LMS) beamforming algorithm. This adaptive beamforming algorithm investigates receiver signal processing method that continuously monitor, calculate and update the weights in a continuously changing electromagnetic environment. Several optimization algorithms are studied, and a comparison of the least mean-squared algorithm and the minimum variance distortionless response is investigated with varying parameters (i.e. number of antenna element, element spacing etc.) using analytical method and Matlab simulation. It would be demonstrated through simulation that LMS algorithm increases signal quality by elimination interfering signals and noise by nulling them, while sending maximum signal (beams) to the desired direction.

Critical care has frequently been fatal for trauma patients suffering from hemorrhage. The pre-hospital communication gap between the paramedics and the doctors contributes most towards this. This paper discusses a system model of a 5G-enabled communication architecture among the major trauma centres in the Greater Manchester. An Internet of sensors acquires and wirelessly communicates biosignals from the patient in real time, using 5G. These signals are then displayed as parameters to the closest trauma care management centres. This paper proposes a connectivity model that supports such a system by assessing and identifying the most optimal path for signal transmittance. A system-level 5G network modelling and simulation findings reveal that a signal-to-noise ratio of over 2dB is achieved for two base stations between the incident site and the nearest emergency medical centre. This value decreases by over 5 dB as the number of base station doubles. Hence, reconfigurable 5G base stations connectivity subsystems are required for critical vertical use cases of the radio standard.

Brain pathological changes linked with Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be measured with Neuroimaging. In the past few years, these measures are rapidly integrated into the signatures of Alzheimer disease (AD) with the help of classification frameworks which are offering tools for diagnosis and prognosis. Here is the review study of Alzheimer's disease based on Neuroimaging and cognitive impairment classification. This work is a systematic review for the published work in the field of AD especially the computer-aided diagnosis. The imaging modalities include 1) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) 2) Functional MRI (fMRI) 3) Diffusion tensor imaging 4) Positron emission tomography (PET) and 5) amyloid-PET. The study revealed that the classification criterion based on the features shows promising results to diagnose the disease and helps in clinical progression. The most widely used machine learning classifiers for AD diagnosis include Support Vector Machine, Bayesian Classifiers, Linear Discriminant Analysis, and K-Nearest Neighbor along with Deep learning. The study revealed that the deep learning techniques and support vector machine give higher accuracies in the identification of Alzheimer’s disease. The possible challenges along with future directions are also discussed in the paper.

Blockchain has penetrated numerous domains such as, industries, government agencies, online voting, and healthcare, etc. Among these domains, healthcare is one of the trending and most important one, which consists of a control system and an Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Diabetes is one of the most rapidly growing chronic diseases that increases the death ratio across the globe. This paper presents a Blockchain-enabled diabetes disease detection framework that provides an earlier detection of this disease by using various machine learning classification algorithms and maintains the EHRs of the patients in a secure manner. Our EHRs sharing framework combines symptom-based disease prediction, Blockchain, and interplanetary file system (IPFS) in which the patient's health information are collected via wearable sensor devices. This information is then sent to EHRs manager, where an ML model is executed for further processing to collect the desired results. The results along with the physiological parameters are then stored in the Blockchain with the approval of concerned patient and his/her practitioner. It is anticipated that our proposed system will help the healthcare society in order to store, process, and share the patient health information in a secure manner.

Wireless Sensor Network holds a pivotal position and gained a lot of attention from researchers in recent years. Sensor nodes have been used in vast applications such as environment monitoring, security purpose applications, and target tracking. This latter comprises of detection and monitoring of the target movement. In this paper, we explore in detail well-known target tracking techniques. The existing techniques are evaluated using metrics such as network topology, target recovery, energy efficiency, and security. We also discuss some of the challenges that affect the performance of tracking schemes. Furthermore, a thorough analysis is performed on existing techniques and future directions are explored.

Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming human lives by paving the way for the management of physical devices on the edge. These interconnected IoT objects share data for remote accessibility and can be vulnerable to open attacks and illegal access. Intrusion detection methods are commonly used for the detection of such kinds of attacks but with these methods, the performance/accuracy is not optimal. This work introduces a novel intrusion detection approach based on an ensemble-based voting classifier that combines multiple traditional classifiers as a base learner and gives the vote to the predictions of the traditional classifier in order to get the final prediction. To test the effectiveness of the proposed approach, experiments are performed on a set of seven different IoT devices and tested for binary attack classification and multi-class attack classification. The results illustrate prominent accuracies on Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors and weather sensors to 96% and 97% and for other machine learning algorithms to 85% and 87%, respectively. Furthermore, comparison with other traditional machine learning methods validates the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Sadia Sarwar,1,2 Abir A Alamro,3 Amani A Alghamdi,3 Komal Naeem,4 Salamat Ullah,5 Muazzam Arif,6 Jun Qing Yu,1 Fazlul Huq7 1Discipline of Biomedical Sciences, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Cumberland Campus, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 2Department of Pharmacognosy, Riphah Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Riphah International University, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan; 3Department of Biochemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11495, Saudi Arabia; 4Department of Pharmacology, Riphah Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Riphah International University, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan; 5Acute Medicine, Northampton General Hospital, NHS, UK; 6Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Riphah Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Riphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan; 7Eman Research Journal, Eman Research, Sydney, NSW, AustraliaCorrespondence: Sadia SarwarRiphah Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Riphah International University, G-7-4, Islamabad Campus, Islamabad, PakistanTel +92 333 5565889Email sadi.phd@gmail.comPurpose: Cisplatin resistance is a major concern in ovarian cancer treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate if wedelolactone could perform better in resistant ovarian cancer cells when used in combination with cisplatin.Methods: Growth inhibitory potential of wedelolactone and cisplatin was investigated through MTT reduction assay in ovarian cancer cell lines including A2780 (sensitive), A2780cisR (cisplatin resistant) and A2780ZD0473R. Resistance factor (RF) of drugs was determined in these three cell lines. Combination index (CI) was calculated as a measure of combined drug action. Effect of this combination on changes in the cellular accumulation of platinum levels and platinum-DNA binding was also determined in vitro using AutoDock Vina while the effect of wedelolactone on inhibition of possibl

Considering the profound societal change taking place in several developing countries, the objective of this paper is to reflect on work-family conflict (WFC) both as a concept and a social phenomenon. Given that WFC is a concept rooted in academic debate focusing on developments in Western, largely individualistic, societies, this paper reconsiders WFC’s value added as applied in a context of a collectivist society in a developing country. The objective of this paper is thus threefold, i.e., (i) to assess WFC’s applicability in a context of a collectivist society in a developing country, where the position and role of women gradually changes; (ii) to develop a culturally adjusted/sensitive scale to measure the scope of WFC in Pakistan, whereby the latter is treated here as a case study; and (iii) to reflect on the possibility of devising a set of good practices that would allow a smooth inclusion of women in the formal workforce, while at the same time mitigating the scope and scale of WFC. The value added of this paper stems from these three objectives.

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is neither just shyness, nor for most victims does it merely involve an inability to speak in public. For most sufferers of this disorder, it could be a pervasive, disabling condition that steals away opportunities for a richer, fuller life. Having an early onset and combining high prevalence rates with serious negative effects on functioning and quality of life, SAD is a public health problem of considerable magnitude. Hence, its assessment using a standardized measure and timely intervention can completely preempt or at least lessen the severity of this psychiatric illness. So far SAD among students in higher education institutions is a less investigated area of study in Pakistan. Students generally avoid reporting difficulties they experience while making interactions with people and quietly try to combat with their fears in social settings. Proper and timely diagnosis and treatment of SAD are required, and for this purpose, the need of the hour is to create a culturally oriented measuring instrument for proper surveillance of the student population in Pakistan. This paper, drawing from a study conducted at Higher Education Institutions (HEI) across Pakistan, addresses this issue by devising an indigenous, comprehensive, well-founded and valid scale of social anxiety in the Urdu language. The use of this scale, both in general and patient care settings, would effectively screen individuals who could be at risk of being victimized by this disorder. This alternative Social Anxiety Scale (SAS) carefully evaluates social behaviors and attitudes while also ensuring that cultural perspectives are considered, which would also encourage clinicians to evaluate SAD in Pakistani population.

In recent years, cloud computing has gained massive popularity in information technology and the industrial Internet of things. It provides facilities to the users over the wireless channel. Many surveys have been carried out in cloud security and privacy. The existing survey papers do not specify the classifications on the basis of cloud computing components. Therefore, they fail to provide the techniques with their specialities as well as the previously available literature review is outdated. This paper presents the security for cloud computing models with a new aspect. Unlike the previously existing surveys, the literature review of this paper includes the latest research papers in the field of cloud security. Also, different classifications are made for cloud computing security on the basis of different cloud components that are used to secure the cloud models. Furthermore, a total of eleven (11) classifications are considered, which includes cloud components to secure the cloud systems. These classifications help the researchers to find out the desired technique used in a specific component to secure the cloud model. Moreover, the shortcoming of each component enables the researchers to design an optimal algorithm. Finally, future directions are given to highlight future research challenges that give paths to researchers.

Recently, soil reinforcement has received more attention due to sustainability, simplicity, and costeffectiveness. The research aimed was to evaluate the efficacy of coconut husk fibre (CHF) in improving the strength properties of laterite soils. A series of laboratory tests such as Atterberg limit test, specific gravity test and hydrometer test was carried out on raw soil. Physical tests were conducted on CHF including density, specific gravity test, and water absorption testing. Geotechnical properties of both unreinforced and reinforced soils were determined through the compaction test and soaked and unsoaked California bearing ratio (CBR) test. The reinforced-soil was prepared by mixing with different ratio of CHF of 0%, 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, 1.00% and 1.50% by mass of dry soil. All unreinforced samples (control samples) are prepared with 0% of CHF. From this research, it had been identified that 0.75% of CHF has the highest CBR value of 27%.

Previous works on segmentation of SEM (scanning electron microscope) blood cell image ignore the semantic segmentation approach of whole-slide blood cell segmentation. In the proposed work, we address the problem of whole-slide blood cell segmentation using the semantic segmentation approach. We design a novel convolutional encoder-decoder framework along with VGG-16 as the pixel-level feature extraction model. -e proposed framework comprises 3 main steps: First, all the original images along with manually generated ground truth masks of each blood cell type are passed through the preprocessing stage. In the preprocessing stage, pixel-level labeling, RGB to grayscale conversion of masked image and pixel fusing, and unity mask generation are performed. After that, VGG16 is loaded into the system, which acts as a pretrained pixel-level feature extraction model. In the third step, the training process is initiated on the proposed model. We have evaluated our network performance on three evaluation metrics. We obtained outstanding results with respect to classwise, as well as global and mean accuracies. Our system achieved classwise accuracies of 97.45%, 93.34%, and 85.11% for RBCs, WBCs, and platelets, respectively, while global and mean accuracies remain 97.18% and 91.96%, respectively., Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures

The toll of workplace bullying is immense, yet, similarly as with an iceberg, its scope, scale and implications tend to remain underestimated. Several ways of assessing the prevalence of workplace bullying have been proposed in the literature. The most frequently discussed are the ‘subjective method’ assessing individuals’ perceptions of being a victim and the questionnaire, i.e., criterion-based, methods, including Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ) and Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror (LIPT). Since in both cases culture plays a profound role as a mediating factor in the process of identifying, collecting, and processing data, the applicability of these methods across cultures and countries has several limitations. At this stage, it is impossible to determine the impact of the implicit cultural-bias that these methods entail on the research outcomes. This would be possible if an alternative workplace bullying scale (WBS) was at hand and, consequently, a comparative analysis was conducted. This paper, drawing from a study conducted at higher education institutions (HEI) across Pakistan, addresses this issue by devising an alternative WBS. The value added of this paper is three-fold, i.e., it elaborates on the study and the specific methods employed to prove the validity and relevance of the alternative WBS. Moreover, by so doing, it addresses some of the limitations that other methods measuring the prevalence of workplace bullying display. As a result, it adds to the researchers’ and administrators’ toolkit as regards research and policies aimed at mitigating the scope and scale of bullying at HEIs across cultures and countries.

Although workplace bullying is a well-researched phenomenon, the specific way it unfolds in higher education institutions (HEI) remains largely underdiscussed. Based on the outcomes of a survey conducted across HEI in Pakistan, by reference to structural equation modeling, using Amos-20, this paper not only adds to our understanding of the scope and features of bullying in HEI, but also suggests strategies employers and victims could employ to cope with the adverse implications of bullying. The key findings of this research are: (i) a positive correlation exists between the degree of workplace bullying and strain levels; (ii) more frequently than not, female employees, younger employees, and employees in junior positions are victims of bullying; (iii) bullying and strain can be fully mediated only when both emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies are employed in synergy. In brief, although research findings elaborated in this paper draw from the specific case of HEI in Pakistan, this paper makes a case for more research, vigilance and action to understand the scale of the phenomenon in academia and to undertake concerted action to mitigate its adverse impact on specific individuals and HEI themselves.

Penelitian ini berjudul “Praanggapan dalam Iklan Media cetak Kendaraan Bermotor Roda Dua”. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan bentuk dan jenis praanggapan yang terdapat dalam iklan media cetak kendaraan bermotor roda dua. Bentuk penelitian ini adalah deskriptif kualitatif, dengan data berupa penggalan teksyang terdapat dalam iklan media cetak kendaraan bermotor roda dua. Subjek penelitian ini adalah media cetak seperti koran, majalah, brosur, leaflet, baliho atau spanduk. Teks-teks itu berupa teks verbal maupun nonverbal. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode simak dalam mengumpulkan data, dengan menggunakan teknik catat sebagai teknik lanjutan. Data dianalisis dengan metode padan pragmatis yaitu teknik pilah unsur penentu dan teknik hubung banding menyamakan Terdapat dua bentuk praanggapan yang ditemukan dalam penelitian ini, yaitu praanggapan semantik dan praanggapan pragmatik. Terdapat empat jenis praanggapan yang ditemukan dalam penelitian ini, yaitu praanggapan eksistensial, praanggapan faktif, praanggapan leksikal, praanggapan nonfaktif. Berbagai macam bentuk dan jenis praanggapan yang ditemukan dalam iklan media cetak kendaraan bermotor roda dua menunjukkan bahwa tuturantuturan dalam iklan media cetak tidak hanya menginformasikan tentang sebuah produk yang ditawarkan. Tetapi, makna dalam iklan media cetak kendaraan bermotor terdapat berbagai bentuk dan jenis praanggapan baik secara tersirat maupun tersurat, sehingga berdasarkan data yang dominan dari bentuk praanggapan adalah bentuk praanggapan semantik, karena bentuk praanggapan semantik menunjukkan adanya kosakata atau kalimat yang mudah dipahami dan makna dari pernyataan atau kalimat dapat tersampaikan dengan jelas. Adapun jenis praanggapan yang dominan adalah jenis praanggapan eksistensial karena jenis praanggapan eksistensial menyatakan suatu keberadaan terhadap iklan yang mengandung makna kepastian dari pernyataan atau kosakata.

This thesis tests and questions the concept of revenge in Hamlet against the context of Pukhtun culture in the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan. As this study seeks to understand the emotive meaning of revenge in a range of cultural contexts, I explore the way in which Hamlet is read and interpreted in a culture where revenge, as in the debased form of badal, is both current and pervasive. The KP universities‘ students who belong to the culture, where revenge is considered obligatory, tend to identify themselves with various characters of the play, particularly Hamlet. This study seeks to ascertain the experience of the play as a dramaturgical construct which questions the revenge ethos capable of modifying entrenched beliefs among young Pakistanis engaged in reading the play at KP universities. As a result, I explore the role and use of Hamlet as an educational tool to combat revenge practices in Pakistan. This research contributes to the growing work on Shakespeare criticism and performance in different cultures around the world by presenting the relevant appropriations of the play in Pakistan and worldwide.

Introduction: Poisoning, specifically unintentional poisoning, is a major public health problem in the United States (U.S.). Published literature that presents epidemiology of all forms of poisoning mortalities (i.e., unintentional, suicide, homicide) together is limited. This report presents data and summarizes the evidence on poisoning mortality by demographic and geographic characteristics to describe the burden of poisoning mortality and the differences among sub-populations in the U.S. for a 5-year period.Methods: Using mortality data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, we presented the age-specific and age-adjusted unintentional and intentional (suicide, homicide) poisoning mortality rates by sex, age, race, and state of residence for the most recent years (2003–2007) of available data. Annual percentage changes in deaths and rates were calculated, and linear regression using natural log were used for time-trend analysis.Results: There were 121,367 (rate¼8.18 per 100,000) unintentional poisoning deaths. Overall, the unintentional poisoning mortality rate increased by 46.9%, from 6.7 per 100,000 in 2003 to 9.8 per100.000 in 2007, with the highest mortality rate among those aged 40–59 (rate¼15.36), males(rate¼11.02) and whites (rate¼8.68). New Mexico (rate¼18.2) had the highest rate. Unintentional poisoning mortality rate increased significantly among both sexes, and all racial groups except blacks (p,0.05 time-related trend for rate). Among a total of 29,469 (rate¼1.97) suicidal poisoning deaths, the rate increased by 9.9%, from 1.9 per 100,000 in 2003 to 2.1 per 100,000 in 2007, with the highest rate among those aged 40–59 (rate¼3.92), males (rate¼2.20) and whites (rate¼2.24). Nevada(rate¼3.9) had the highest rate. Mortality rate increased significantly among females and whites only (p,0.05 time-related trend for rate). There were 463 (rate¼0.03) homicidal poisoning deaths and the rate re

The aim of this work is to find the difference between the\r\noctonions and split octonions over Zp (where p is any prime) regarding\r\nto zero divisors. We first find the conditions for an element to be zero\r\ndivisors and give a closed formula for number of zero divisors in both\r\nalgebra. We also give computer codes to find these elements.

L'objectif principal de ce travail est de développer un essai accéléré de corrosion dans le béton armé capable de bien représenter les conditions de développement de la corrosion en environnement réel. Le test reproduit les phases d'initiation et de propagation. La phase d'initiation correspond à la période durant laquelle les agents agressifs (le CO2 ou les ions chlorure) pénètrent à travers le béton d'enrobage jusqu'à atteindre l'armature. La phase de propagation se produit une fois que le béton entourant les armatures est totalement pollué par les agents agressifs et les conditions nécessaires étant réunies, la corrosion de l'acier démarre. Dans cette étude la phase d'initiation est accélérée en exposant le béton dans une enceinte avec un taux de CO2 de 50% et une humidité relative de 65%. Dans la phase de propagation la corrosion de type galvanique est accélérée en augmentant le rapport de surface entre cathode et anode. Les échantillons utilisés sont composés de deux cylindres de béton imbriqués. Le cylindre interne contient une seule armature et le béton d'enrobage est entièrement carbonaté. Autour de cette éprouvette un cylindre externe de béton est alors coulé avec quatre armatures régulièrement réparties sur sa périphérie. Le béton du cylindre externe est préservé de la carbonatation. Les barres externes sont donc dans un état passif et la barre interne dans un état actif. La distance entre chaque barre du cylindre externe et la barre du cylindre interne est identique. La connexion entre une ou plusieurs barres passives et la barre active génère un courant galvanique qui va entraîner la corrosion de la barre active. En jouant sur le nombre de barres passives connectées on peut donc faire varier l'intensité du courant galvanique et donc accéléré ou ralentir la corrosion. Pour éviter de réaliser un trop grand nombre d'essais en laboratoire, la conception de l'essai et la définition de sa sensibilité sont effectuées par le biais de simulations numériques à l'a, This work presents the results of an experimental and numerical study of an accelerated corrosion test, performed in laboratory. The acceleration of corrosion in reinforced concrete is due to the elimination of initiation phase by an artificial environment technique. The initiation phase takes years to undergo, if it is accelerated, the studies can be focused on the kinetics of steel corrosion in concrete. For acceleration of initiation phase the concrete samples were kept in a carbonation chamber set at 50% CO2 and 65% RH. The geometry used in this test is comprised of two concrete cylinders. The inner concrete cylinder is carbonated and has a steel bar in the center, the bar is depassivated and acts as anode (A). The outer cylinder comprised of non-carbonated concrete, casted around the inner carbonated cylinder. Four steel bars are embedded around centered bar at given distance in non-carbonated concrete; these bars are in passive state and act as cathodes (C). The presence of these passive bars will allow changing the cathode surface and hence C/A ratio, by connecting different number of bars to active bar. The geometry for the test is defined by numerical simulations using COMSOL Multiphysics(r) software, and its sensitivity in particular the effect of C/A ratio, is defined by numerical experiments. In order to provide reliable inputs for the model the corrosion parameters are measured. Once the geometry of the samples is defined an extensive experimental program involving 15 samples is carried out. Despite the higher resistivity of carbonated concrete layer, the measurements of macrocell current revealed high levels of galvanic corrosion rate even in case of low C/A ratio. With the increase in C/A ratio the higher macrocell current levels are achieved in propagation phase. The importance of galvanic coupling in carbonationinduced corrosion is therefore also experimentally demonstrated. The accordance between numerical and experimental results is demonstrated r

The project is aimed at designing an intelligent communication system where the receiver is able to detect the modulation scheme of the signal it receives using Automatic Modulation Recognition (AMR) algorithms, without having minimum or no prior knowledge of the transmitted signal. Six digital modulation schemes namely QPSK, BPSK, 2ASK, 4ASK, 2FSK, 4FSK and 16QAM were used. Algorithms based on deriving key statistical features from the communication signal, were formed. Features were also extracted using Azzouz and Nandi‟s techniques. Neural Networks were applied to the extracted features to distinguish between signals having different modulation schemes. The simulations were performed for different SNR values as well as different number of neurons in a one and two hidden layers.

Professor Khurshid Alam Gill, Azzam Saddique-Footprints in the Dark. pp. 1; Zeeshan Zaighum-A Glimpse. pp. 1; Easha Farooq-Dawn to Dusk. pp. 2; Qudsia Arooj-Beloved Prof. K. A. Gill. pp. 2; Arif Qureshi-Prof. Khurshid Alam Gill. pp. 3; Bakhtawar Khan-Remembering Sir K. A. Gill. pp. 3; Qaiser Abbas Dahar-Murder of the History of FCC. pp. 4; Sharoon Javaid-A Moment to Remember. pp. 4; Mehreen Ali-Poetry-Dear Professor. pp. 5; Arif Qureshi-Poetry-Elegy. pp. 6; Sobia Kiran-Poetry-Death. pp. 6; Lodhi, M. Muazzam-Poetry-Prof. Gill kay liye. pp. 15; Rasheed Gill-Poetry-Namoode Khurshid. pp. 15; Israr ul Haq-Poetry-Prof. Gill ki Yaad Mein. pp. 16; Rose Asghar-Untitled. pp. 16; Nawaz Rehmat Masih-Catalyst. pp. 17; Prim Asghar-Untitled. pp. 18; Mian Aziz Qureshi-Prof. Khurshid Alam Gill... Shaheed. pp. 18-19

Control of Trypanosoma congolense infections requires an early cell-mediated immune response. To unravel the role of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in this process, 6 different T. congolense strains were used in 6 different gene-deficient mouse models that included TNF-/-, TNF receptor-1 (TNFp55)-/-, and TNF receptor-2 (TNFp75)-/- mice, 2 cell type-specific TNF-/- mice, as well as TNF-knock-in mice that expressed only membrane-bound TNF. Our results indicate that soluble TNF produced by macrophages/neutrophils and TNFp55 signaling are essential and sufficient to control parasitemia. The downstream mechanism in the control of T. congolense infection depends on inducible nitric oxide synthase activation in the liver. Such a role for nitric oxide is corroborated ex vivo, because the inhibitor NG-monomethyl-L-arginine blocks the trypanolytic activity of the adherent liver cell population, whereas exogenous interferon-γ that stimulates nitric oxide production enhances parasite killing. In conclusion, the control of T. congolense infection depends on macrophage/neutrophil-derived soluble TNF and intact TNFp55 signaling, which induces trypanolytic nitric oxide. © 2007 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Scalable fault tolerant Agent Grooming Environment (SAGE) is first open source initiative in South-Asia. It is a multi-agent system which has been developed according to FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) 2002 specifications. SAGE has been designed with a distributed and decentralized architecture to achieve fault tolerance and scalability as its key features. Due to these characteristics, SAGE is not only regarded as 2nd generation Multi Agent System but also provides a competitive edge over other platforms.

Because histamine receptor type I blockade attenuates allergic asthma, we asked whether complete neutralization of histamine by an arthropod-derived, high affinity histamine-binding protein (EV131) would prevent allergic asthma. Intranasal administration of EV131 given before Ag challenge in immunized mice prevented airway hyperreactivity by 70%, and abrogated peribronchial inflammation, pulmonary eosinophilia, mucus hypersecretion, and IL-4 and IL-5 secretion. Saturation with histamine abrogated the inhibitory effect of EV131 on bronchial hyperreactivity. The inhibitory effect of EV131 on bronchial hyperreactivity was comparable to that of glucocorticosteroids. These results demonstrate that histamine is a critical mediator of allergic asthma. Therefore, complete neutralization of histamine, rather than specific histamine receptor blockade, may have a profound effect on allergic asthma.

Changes in the lectin binding pattern in non-malignant and malignant gallbladder tissues were examined using the following eight types of carbohydrate binding lectins : Ulex europaeus-1 (UEA-1), Arachis hypogaea (PNA), Griffonia simplicifolia (GS-1), Glycine maximum (SBA), Bauhinia purpurea (BPA), Dolichos biflorus (DBA), Canavalia ensiformis (Con-A), and Triticum vulgare (WGA). We used a total of 109 tissues including 31 normal tissues, 25 metaplasias, and 53 carcinomas. Lectin staining pattern was evaluated using the Hamada's crieria of the following four types : apical type, cytoplasmic type with polarity, cytoplasmic type without polarity, and stromal type. Normal cases showed apical type and cytoplasmic type with polarity, while carcinoma cases revealed cytoplasmic type with or without polarity. In carcinoma cases, GS-I and DBA lectins showed higher immunohistochemical positive rate and more frequent cytoplasmic type with polarity pattern of immunohistochemical localization than the other types of lectins. These results suggest that the GS-I and DBA are the most reliable lectin marker for malignant transformation of the gallbladder tissues. Key words : Lectin, immunohistochemistry, gallbladder carcinoma., Acta medica Nagasakiensia. 1991, 36(1-4), p.176-184

Nous étudions les effets de la thalidomide chez le rat Sprague-Dawley.1- Nous administrons la thalidomide per os pendant dix semaines à des mâles adultes et les accouplons â des femelles non-traitées à intervalles définis. Les rejetons, issus de mâles traités pendant 2 semaines à 10 mg de thalidomide par jour et accouplés à des femelles vierges non-traitées, présentent un plus grand nombre de malformations. Toutes les malformations observées, se situent au niveau de la jonction, des os du crâne: frontal, pariétaux, occipital. 2- Chez des femelles adultes conçues par des mâles traités, à 10 mg et à 2.5 mg de thalidomide de 2 à 10 semaines, nous constatons une diminution de la réponse ovarienne â une stimulation de gonadotrophine exogène pour les femelles des deux groupes et une augmentation du poids des ovaires pour les femelles conçues par les mâles traités à 10 mg de thalidomide. 3- Chez les rejetons des femelles traitées per vaginam le 11e jour de gestation, à 10 mg de thalidomide, nous remarquons des malformations de types divers (hématome, malformations au niveau des membres, de la tête, etc.). 4- Chez les femelles adultes traitées le 11e jour de gestation, à 0.5 mg de thalidomide, et chez celles traitées le 1er jour de gestation, à 50 mg de thalidomide et à 0.5 mg de thalidomide, nous notons un accroissement du nombre de sites de résorption. 5- Lorsque nous traitons des femelles adultes, à 50 mg de thalidomide et à 2.5 mg de thalidomide pendant 20 jours, nous remarquons que le médicament ne produit aucun effet sur le cycle estrus. Par contre, nous observons une diminution dans le nombre de corps jaunes nouvellement formés.

L'action tératogène de la thalidomide est bien connue par les séquelles rencontrées chez les enfants dont les mères ont absorbé de la thalidomide durant la grossesse. En laboratoire, plusieurs chercheurs rencontrèrent le même genre de malformation chez les rejetons de rates traitées à la thalidomide. Connaissant ces faits, nous voulons savoir si un "traitement paternel" à la thalidomide peut induire des malformations chez les rejetons. En employant deux souches de rats différentes et en faisant des accouplements à certains intervalles durant le traitement nous n'avons pas décelé de malformations chez les rejetons venant des mâles traités à 10 ou 50 mg de thalidomide. Peu d'auteurs se sont occupés de la croissance des rats durant leurs traitements. En utilisant plusieurs souches et sources de rats, et en traitant durant 70 jours, on remarque une diminution du gain de poids corporel chez les animaux traités. Nous avons fait un "pair-feeding" pour vérifier si cette diminution de gain de poids corporel n'est pas tout simplement produite par une plus faible ingestion de nourriture. Nous avons en effet remarqué que les animaux traités à la thalidomide ont moins d'appétit et ceci occasion ne une diminution du gain de poids corporel mais, en contrôlant la nourriture ingérée par ces traités et par les témoins "pair-fed", la diminution du gain de poids corporel est encore évidente et significative. L'explication de cette diminution du gain de poids corporel ne peut être expliquée par une diminution de la thyroxine ou de l'hormone de croissance.