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In recent years, there is a growing interest in the field of battery-free and energy harvesting IoT devices. In line with this trend, we introduce BaMbI a low-cost power and communication architecture for battery-free personal communication devices. BaMbI aims to address two main challenges associated with using traditional mobile phones: i) the short lifespan of conventional phone batteries and ii) the unreliable electrical infrastructure in many parts of the world. To mitigate limited battery life, BaMbI uses super-capacitor energy storage with a projected lifetime of at least one decade. To combat unreliable charging infrastructure, BaMbI harvests energy using a solar panel and an optional hand-crank. This paper focusses on the development of an energy-efficient navigation App for use in BaMbI. Our primary goal is to significantly reduce the energy consumption of GPS-based navigation to ensure usability in BaMbI and similar devices. We build a reference hardware platform and conduct a series of experiments on the prototype, simulating different scenarios and analyzing the results. The overall results demonstrate the feasibility of our approach in decreasing the energy consumption of navigation in BaMbI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion intelligence is a fundamental aspect of human communication, enabling individuals to perceive and respond to the emotional states of others. In the realm of humanrobot interaction, the ability of robots to recognize and respond to human emotions is of paramount importance for fostering natural and effective communication. This paper introduces EmoNet, a novel facial emotion recognition model, designed to significantly enhance the quality of human-robot interactions. EmoNet leverages deep learning techniques to achieve impressive accuracy, reaching 92% in recognizing a wide range of human emotions, including happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, and disgust. The results indicate that EmoNet not only excelsin recognizing emotions but also offers a promising avenue for applications in e-learning, social robotics, and automated decision-making. This research represents a significant step towards creating emotionally intelligent robots that can bridge the gap between humans and machines, paving the way for a more connected and emotionally attuned future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs), such as LoRa, enable end-users to create low power networks that cover 10s of km with a single gateway, providing low cost connectivity to areas that may be poorly served by the mainstream cellular networks. However, the low data rates of current LPWANs have limited their applicability to plain text, sensor and control applications. This paper explores whether extremely low bitrate audio codecs can deliver adequate quality real-time voice communication over LPWANs while preserving low power operation. Specifically, we contribute ReSoNate, an efficient halfduplex voice communication protocol for LoRa that builds on CODEC 2. We created a reference implementation of ReSoNate for a representative embedded platform (100MHz ARM Cortex-M4 with 128kB of RAM and 512kB of Flash) and tested it with the RFM9x LoRa transceiver. Energy consumption and audio quality assessments were then conducted to investigate its performance. Our results show that: (i.) ReSoNate achieves acceptable audio quality for basic voice communication, (ii.) the energy profile of the reference implementation can achieve long battery lifetimes in realistic settings (iii.) the protocol is robust to high levels of packet loss of up to 20%. Considered in sum, the contributions of this paper pave the way for the deployment of extremely low cost and low power voice communication networks in remote areas such as the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents microstrip patch antenna designed using computer simulation technology (CST) Microwave Studio at a resonant frequency of 2.4 GHz. The antenna consists of three layers, the upper layer called metallic patch, the bottom layer called ground and the dielectric layer in between the conduction layers called substrate. The antenna has advantage of minimal weight, low profile and can maintain high performance over a wide spectrum of frequencies. As such the study focused on the novel design of a rectangular microstrip patch antenna. The performance characteristics of the antenna patch arrays elements 1X2, 1X4 and 2X2 were compared. The aim of designing antenna with improved gain, reduced losses and use for X band applications such as radar, satellite, communication, medical applications and other wireless systems was achieved. The performance of the designed antenna in terms of radiation efficiency, gain, reflection coefficients and radiation patterns were verified and found suitable for wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single or no transmission line network connected to the power grid is the major characteristics of rural area power supply; resulting in unreliable and unsecured power supply. While in villages or islands that are off-grid, stand-alone systems are the alternatives energy generation procedure used. Recent penetration of renewables into the power generation has enable its application in both urban and rural areas in order to minimise cost, and make the system more reliable and secured. Thus, integrated wind-diesel hybrid power system with pumped storage system in a remote island of Jazirat Masirah in Oman would be of high benefits. Different wind-diesel hybrid systems were designed and analysed using HOMER software, in a bid to find a better and lasting solutions to the power problem of the island while considering the economic and technical benefits. It was found that, a hybrid system comprising of two E-48 wind turbines, one diesel generator set and one pumped hydro storage can meet the island's load demands at a cheaper rate by producing output power of about 9.3MW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A maximum power point tracker is required to improve the power conversion efficiency of the solar photovoltaic generation system (PVGS) and ensure maximum power transfer from panel to the load through continually matching their internal resistances. In this study, an improved fixed step-size perturb and observe (P&O) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) has been proposed and analysed using MATLAB/Simulink. Duty cycle (δ) was used to control the DCDC boost converter's switching signal in the system configuration. Several key performance indicators to evaluate the suitability of the proposed algorithm were tested. It was found that the algorithm has excellent tracking efficiency above 99% and is capable of tracking the maximum power point (MPP) correctly at a lower time interval. The overall efficiency of the system is remarkably good, with a value higher than 97%. The proposed algorithm is, therefore, appropriate for photovoltaic (PV) applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gynaecological cancers, which affect the female genital tract, constitute a significant public health problem, especially in developing countries. Some of these malignancies have known aetiology and premalignant stages making them preventable. Understanding the burden of gynaecological malignancies in our environment will provide baseline information and help form strategies for their control. Aim: To describe the histological subtypes of gynaecological cancers, their frequency and age distribution trends in Katsina State over the 10-year study period. Methods: This was a 10-year retrospective cross-sectional multicenter study of all histologically diagnosed gynaecological cancer cases seen from 1st January 2012 to 31st December 2021 at Federal Teaching Hospital Katsina, General Hospital Katsina and General Amadi Rimi Specialist Hospital Katsina. Data for this study were extracted from departmental record registers of the pathology laboratories of the corresponding hospitals whose laboratories provide pathology services to the State. Cancer distribution over the years was sorted based on the primary site of diagnosis, histological diagnosis and age. Data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science version 28 and results were presented in tables and charts. Results: Two thousand three hundred and fifty-nine cancers were seen over the 10-year study period. Of these cases, 58.4% (n = 1,378) were females. Gynaecological malignancies accounted for 18.7% (441/2,359) of all cancers and 32.0% (441/1,378) of all female cancers. The highest frequency of gynaecological cancers was seen in women who were within the age groups of 40-49 and 50-59, and the lowest was seen in women who were ≥90 years old. The mean age was 48.9 ± 14.9 years. The most common site of gynaecological malignancies was the cervix uteri (n = 262, 59.4%) followed by the ovary (n = 106, 24.0%). Other sites in descending order were corpus uteri (n = 29, 6.6%), vulva (n = 9, 2.0%) and vagina (n = 2, 0.5%). The most common histo-morphologic subtypes were large-cell keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma in the cervix, large-cell non-keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma in the cervix and cystadenocarcinoma in the ovary. Choriocarcinoma was found in 33 cases (7.5%). Conclusion: This study demonstrated the various histotypes of gynaecological malignancies and their trends in Katsina state. The leading cancer was found to be cervical cancer which is mainly preventable. It is hoped that data from this study will provide a basis for making and implementing policies and strategies to lessen the problems of gynaecological malignancies through regular screening programs, especially for cervical cancer and accepting human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination take-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]