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This paper determines the impact of various health indicators on poverty reduction in Pakistan. Health indicators affect the Poverty through increasing Labor productivity and through improving Education. GNP per capita is a proxy variable for poverty reduction. Life Expectancy, infant mortality rate, total health Expenditures, and Population per doctor are explanatory variables in Model 1. The study has regressed these health indicators on Education in Model 2. To determine the Short-run and long run relationship among the variables the research applied the Co-integration (ARDL) and Error Correction Model. The study uses the Augmented- Dickey-Fuller test to check the unit root. The study has analyzed the time series data of Pakistan from 1985 to 2021.The research finds that health indicators like: Life expectancy and Infant mortality increase the GDP per Capita in the long run. The health indicators also have positive effects on education and as a result, Education increases the GDP per capita in the short- run and long run. The research concludes that improvement in human capital leads to decrease the poverty and to improve the health and education sectors of the society. The major policy implication of this study is that to decrease poverty and look for a healthy and educated society, then the government should urgently and seriously focus on the health sector of Pakistan.

Wireless Sensor and actor-network (WSAN) is the utmost significant research area in wireless communication technology. Actor nodes play a vital role during the processing and transmission of valuable data to the base station. WSAN performs its operations in a harsh environment and, therefore, prone to network failure. Moreover, an actor node’s failure causes the network into disjoint segments. Thus, the connectivity restoration of actor nodes is significant. This paper presents a novel technique, namely an efficient solution for connectivity restoration (ESCR), to detect the failure and ensure the connectivity among actor nodes. ESCR comprises two algorithms, i.e., assigning backup nodes and connectivity restoration process. The main objective of the proposed technique is to restore the network with efficient utilization of residual energy and minimum nodes movement. The effectiveness and performance of the ESCR technique are validated through extensive simulations and comparison with baseline approaches. The results show that the ESCR outperforms baseline approaches in terms of the number of nodes moved, total moved distance, reduction in the coverage area, and recovery time.

Node failures are inevitable in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) because sensor nodes in WSNs are miniature and equipped with small and often irreplaceable batteries. Due to battery drainage, sensor nodes can fail at any instance. Moreover, WSNs operate in hostile environments and environmental factors may also contribute to nodes failure. Failure of nodes leads to disruption of inter-node connectivity and might also lead to network partitioning. Failure to communicate with each other and with the base station can compromise the basic operation of the sensor network. For restoration of connectivity, a robust recovery mechanism is required. The existing connectivity restoration mechanisms suffer from shortcomings because they do not focus on energy-efficient operation and coverage-aware mechanisms while performing connectivity restoration. As a result, most of these mechanisms lead to the excessive mobility of nodes, which itself causes the utilization of excessive battery. In this work, we propose a novel technique called smart node relocation (SNR). SNR is capable of detecting and restoring the connectivity caused by either single or multiple node failures. For achieving energy efficiency, SNR relies on transmitting a lesser number of control packets. For achieving the goal of being coverage-aware, it tries to relocate only essential nodes while trying to restore connectivity. By performing extensive simulations, we prove that SNR outperforms the existing approaches concerning multiple performance metrics including but not limited to the total number of packets transmitted, total distance moved for connectivity restoration, the percentage reduction in field coverage.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are widely used in most applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) for efficiently sensing the harsh environments, collecting important data, and sending them to the base station for further analysis. Therefore, the research community worldwide is actively participating in addressing and solving the challenges associated with WSNs. The common issue that is being studied and well-thought-out are how to increase the network's life span by resolving node failure problem and efficient energy utilization. This paper introduces a Cluster-based Node Recovery (CNR) connectivity restoration mechanism based on the concept of clustering. The proposed technique utilizes a distributed cluster-based approach to identify the failed nodes, while Cluster Heads (CHs) play a significant role in the restoration of connectivity. The simulation results show that the proposed technique efficiently addresses node failure and restores the connectivity by moving fewer nodes than other existing connectivity restoration mechanisms.

In the last decade, granular flows have been studied extensively using DEM simulations. But only a little work has been done using non-spherical or real-shape particles even in the latest publications using powerful simulation tools making such study a need of the hour. This is important because the understanding of these particle shapes is crucial for design and development of real-life industrial mixers. In this work, we employed DEM (discrete element method) approach and used open-source simulation software LIGGGHTS to study the flow and mixing behaviour of polydisperse, non-spherical cohesionless particles in a cylindrical tank mixer. The mixer was agitated by using a four-bladed impeller and a blade-rake angle of 135°. We studied the flow and mixing behaviour by analysing particle velocities, contact forces and mixing performance. The mixing was quantified using a latest subdomain-based mixing index introduced by [ 1 ]. Different particle shapes were employed and expressed in terms of circularity/sphericity. We used seven different shapes in addition to spherical shape used for benchmarking. It is learnt that as we sway from circularity or sphericity, the mixing performance decreases. The complex (or in fact the real) shape particles are observed to have lower mixing performance compared to spherical particles under similar conditions.

Wireless Sensor and actor networks (WSANs) are the most vital research area in the wireless communication field. It consists of sensors, actors, and the base station, where actor nodes work as these networks' spine. The network's main objective is to sense the critical information from the area of interest and then send it to the base station. After that, it can make accurate decisions. This project proposes an Energy-Efficient Routing Mechanism (EERM) technique for the effective routing process. It works in three phases, which are Network initialization, data gathering, and routing. Once the node senses the data and tries to forward it to the base station, it chooses the sensor/ actor nodes from its neighbors having more energy and less distance towards the base station, a final node. As a result, there are significantly fewer chances of data loss due to battery depletion. Moreover, it confirms that there is no data duplication. After successful data transmission, the node will be set as in sleeping mode to save energy. EERM evaluates with other gossiping routing techniques like FELGossiping, ELGossiping, and LGossiping. It notices that there is less data packet loss in it. More nodes are alive in additional iterations due to energy-efficient solutions, which increases the network lifetime.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) applications range across distinct application comprising of event detection at real-time. WSNs can be deployed for not only mobile nodes but also for static sensor nodes (SNs) for various applications which may include health care system, smart parking, environmental monitoring etc. Sensor nodes in WSN are constrained in terms of energy contents of each node and can be accessible by other nodes in a wireless medium are more likely to be susceptible to various categories of attacks. Wireless Network are more likely prone to various kinds of security attacks, one such type of attack caused by a malicious attacker, which can result to decay in the lifetime of the network and an adverse scenario can even lead to congestion in the entire network. This paper presents the overview of various attacks and their consequences on different layers and evaluates defense strategy used to mitigate the various categories of attacks on Wireless Sensor Networks. This study proposes a cluster-based approach for each node of a WSN where the nodes of network constrained by energy can organize and perform network duties as per the network performance for this one node performs the role of cluster head (CH) which is elected on the basis of the "Reputation" of a node which is an indicator of nodes individual behavior in the network and "Net_Credit_Score" which determines the cooperating behavior of sensor node in the cluster. Further, this study highlights few parameters which can be implemented to further enhance the defense strategy by taking into account the factors such as Cluster count, Stability factor of both the Cluster and Cluster Head and Intra-Cluster topology which can be crucial. This will result in formulating a road map for designing a secure and resistant reputation-based system for WSN to overcome the various security related attacks.

Sensor nodes in a sensor network often operate in harsh and challenging environments and this leads to frequent failure of sensor nodes. Failure of sensor nodes leads to partitioning in the network connectivity. For significant effectiveness of applications of sensor networks, the inter-sensor connectivity among sensors is vital. Some sensors are also involved in sustaining the flow of information from the sensor to unapproachable end users. The network can be split up into multiple incoherent blocks and cease working due to physical damage or onboard energy depletion. To deal with such scenarios, a plethora of node repositioning techniques are proposed in the literature. In this article, the recent and up to date mode of research on dynamic sensor repositioning in WSN is discussed. This article classifies sensor repositioning methods into on-demand and post-deployment repositioning based on whether the optimization is accomplished at deployment time or while the network is functioning.

Congestion control has a great importance in wireless sensor network (WSN), where efficient application of congestion control mechanisms can prolong the network lifetime. Thus, proper examination is needed to improve more refine way to address the congestion occurrence and resolution. While designing congestion control techniques, the maximum output can be achieved by efficient utilization of required resources within WSN. From last few years several approaches have been brought in, that consist of routing protocols which provide support with congestion control, congestion prevention, and reliable data routing. In old schemes the topology reset and extent traffic drop take place because sink node executes the congestion avoidance. Therefore, node level congestion avoidance, detection, congestion preventing, and resolution mechanisms have been proposed during past few years. Our paper provides a brief overview and performance comparison of centralized and distributed congestion control algorithms in WSN.

Wireless sensor and actor network’s connectivity and coverage plays a significant role in mission-critical applications, whereas sensors and actors respond immediately to the detected events in an organized and coordinated way for an optimum restoration. When one or multiple actors fail, the network becomes disjoint by losing connectivity and coverage; therefore, self-healing algorithm is required to sustain the connectivity and coverage. In this paper two algorithms; Permanent Relocation Algorithm for Centralized Actor Recovery (PRACAR) and Self-Route Recovery Algorithm (SRRA) for sensors have been proposed for connectivity and coverage. The effectiveness of proposed technique has been proved by realistic simulation results which ensure that our proposed technique better handles the connectivity and coverage.

Wireless sensor networks are envisioned to play a very important role in the Internet of Things in near future and therefore the challenges associated with wireless sensor networks have attracted researchers from all around the globe. A common issue which is well studied is how to restore network connectivity in case of failure of single or multiple nodes. Energy being a scarce resource in sensor networks drives all the proposed solutions to connectivity restoration to be energy efficient. In this paper we introduce an intelligent on-demand connectivity restoration technique for wireless sensor networks to address the connectivity restoration problem, where nodes utilize their transmission range to ensure the connectivity and the replacement of failed nodes with their redundant nodes. The proposed technique helps us to keep track of system topology and can respond to node failures effectively. Thus our system can better handle the issue of node failure by introducing less overhead on sensor node, more efficient energy utilization, better coverage, and connectivity without moving the sensor nodes.

Wireless Sensor and actor networks (WSANs) are the most promising research area in the field of wireless communication. It consists of large number of small independent sensor and powerful actor nodes equipped with communication and computation capabilities. Actors gather sensor’s data and react collaboratively to attain application particular assignments. A powerful connected inter-actor network is required to coordinate its operations. Actor node may fail due to the battery depletion or any hardware failure and this failure may divide the network into disjoint segments. This problem can degrade the network performance but also reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of the network. To restore the network into its original state, the researchers have proposed many connectivity restoration techniques during last few years. This paper provides a brief review of the existing connectivity restoration techniques for WSANs with their advantages and limitations.

Role of textbook in any education system can not be ignored. Quality of textbook has always been a major cause concern in any country. Like many other countries, in Pakistan, textbook evaluation is being done through a regulatory body at Federal level, called Curriculum Wing (CW), Ministry of Education. CW approves textbooks after necessary review and evaluation. This study explores, to what extent the approved books have harmony among them with respect to basic characteristics of textbook and how qualification, experience and nature of job in education department affect the evaluation. Eight textbooks, four in each of the two subjects (science and mathematics) introduced in the public and private sector schools of the country were selected for the study. Data was collected through a questionnaire called ‘Textbook Evaluation Form’ from 230 teachers and 67 teacher educators. Analysis of data reveals that there is discord among the textbooks and the evaluation of textbooks is influenced by qualification and experience on some characteristics of textbooks.

PurposeThis paper seeks to determine the relationship among school size, school culture and students' achievement at secondary level in Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachThe study was descriptive (survey type). It was conducted on a sample of 90 secondary school head teachers and 540 primary, elementary and high school teachers working in the government boys secondary schools of Punjab province. Data was collected through three sources: first, statistics on education from Education Management Information System (EMIS) Punjab; second, annual results of grade 9 and 10 students of Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISEs) Punjab; and third, a questionnaire which contained 39 items at five‐point rating scale and ten items in yes/no form. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were ensured through experts' opinions and pilot testing in early 2006; the overall reliability was established at 0.967.FindingsThere was a significant correlation between school size and school culture, and school size and students' achievement. Small schools revealed positive school culture and performed better than medium and large schools.Originality/valueThe policy makers, administrators and managers, and teachers at secondary level may improve school culture by bringing schools to a reasonable size, which may improve the students' achievement in Pakistan. The findings may be useful for other countries of almost similar socio‐economic status to improve the quality of teaching‐learning at secondary level.

The study is aimed at investigating the competency level of primary school teachers in the disciplines of science, mathematics and pedagogy. The sample comprised 1,800 randomly drawn Primary Teaching Certificate (PMC) teachers working in different state primary and middle/elementary schools of 22 districts of the Punjab province. The competency was determined by developing standardised achievement tests in each of the three subjects. The results show teachers have a low level of competency in all these three areas. On average, their achievement rate remained 30.8 percent in mathematics, 34.1 percent in science and 39.2 percent in pedagogy; even below the minimum set criterion of 40 percent against each subject. Gender was found to be a significant indicator in the study that the competency level of female PTC teachers was lower than their male counterparts’.

Basically aims at exploring whether a single definitive structure for secondary and higher secondary education is appropriate for Pakistan or not. The results show that the pedagogical and pastoral environment of the Higher Secondary Schools Scheme (HSSS) gradually improved between 1987‐94, although various factors like financial constraints, lack of physical facilities etc. prevailed in these institutions. It further explores the fact that not only has enrolment in grade XI increased in these institutions, but pass rates in XII have also been improving annually. The analysis of Boards’ results indicates that the achievement of students in arts subjects was better than that of students in science subjects. Gender did not appear to be a significant indicator in this regard. High correlation was found between enrolment and passing.