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Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease, often transmitted to humans from animals. While the whole world is haggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergence of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) arose as a new challenge to mankind. Till date, numerous cases related to the MPXV have been reported in several countries across the globe, but, its momentary distribution in the current time has left everyone in fright with increasing mortality and limited clinically approved treatments. Therefore, it is of immense importance to develop a potent and highly effective vaccine capable of inducing desired immunogenic responses against the highly contagious MPXV. Herein, using various immunoinformatic and computational biology tools, we made an attempt to develop a multi-epitope vaccine construct against the MPXV which is antigenic, non-allergen and non-toxic in nature and capable of exhibiting immunogenic behavior. The sequence of vaccine construct was designed using the proposed 4 MHC-I, 3 MHC-II and 4 B-cell epitopes linked with suitable adjuvant and linkers. The modeled structure of the vaccine construct was used to assess its interaction with the Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4) using ClusPro and HADDOCK. All-atoms molecular dynamics simulation of the MPXV vaccine construct-TLR4 complex followed by a high level of gene expression of the construct within the bacterial system affirmed its stability along with induction of immunogenic response within the host cell. Altogether, our immunoinformatic approach aid in the development of a stable chimeric vaccine construct against MPXV and needs further experimental validation for its immunological relevance and usefulness as a vaccine candidate. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has become influential among academic research and industry because of its vast application in the wireless world. However, several drawbacks have in UWB based antenna. To tackle this, EBG (Electromagnetic Band Gap) structures have proposed. Furthermore, the design of EBG structures is very complex due to the uncertain EBG properties dependence upon unit cell parameters. Therefore, to the optimal design of micro strip antenna for applications of UWB, EBG-PIO (pigeon inspired optimization) on the basis of micro strip patch antenna has been proposed to enhance micro strip antenna’s performance in terms of directivity, gain, bandwidth and efficiency. To select design parameters optimally, the PIO technique is proposed with substrate material of Rogers RT/Duroid 6010 with height h = 1.6 mm. Proposed antenna return loss remains –34.6 dB to cover applications of UWB (3.1–10.6 GHz). Also, results exhibited by both proposed technique and fabricated model-based antenna has outperformed than existing techniques regarding directivity, return loss, bandwidth, gain and radiation efficiency.

There is widespread concern around the rising rates of cesarean births (CBs), especially among first-time mothers, despite evidence suggesting increased morbidities after birth by cesarean. There are uncertainties around factors associated with rising rates of CBs among first-time mothers in Ireland, and insight into these is essential for understanding the rising trend in CBs. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the factors associated with CBs in nulliparous women.A prospective cohort study was conducted in three maternity hospitals in the Republic of Ireland between 2012 and 2017. Data were collected from 3047 nulliparous women using self-administered surveys antenatally and at 3 months postpartum and from consenting women's hospital records (n = 2755) and analyzed using the Poisson regression to assess associations between demographic and clinical factors and the main outcome measures, planned and unplanned CBs.Common risk factors for planned and unplanned CBs were being aged ≥40 years, being in private care, multiple pregnancy, and fetus in breech or other malpresentations. An unplanned CB occurred for 22.43% (n = 377/1681) of women who did not have induction of labor (IOL) or who had IOL with no epidural, but the risk was about twice as high for women who had IOL and epidural.Findings confirm multifactorial reasons for CB and the challenge of reversing the increasing CB rate if maternal age, overweight/obesity, infertility treatment, multiple pregnancy, and preexisting hypertension in Ireland continue to increase. There is a need to address prelabor interventions, especially IOL combined with epidural analgesia with respect to unplanned CB.

EBG structures have evolved as an emerging technology in recent years in the domain of microstrip antenna performance enhancement for wireless applications. They contain innovative structures, shapes, and materials that can be found in numerous industrial and military utilizations. The dimensions considered for the substrate of a microstrip antenna which propagates by using metal molecules (cells) are smaller than its kinetic wavelength ([Formula: see text]). This uncertainty in the arrangement increases both bandwidth and efficiency of an antenna when placed on the modified surface. Uttermost the literature surveys on the computational features of the EBG architecture, uncertainly there is little discussion on the development of the design and its effectiveness in challenging external conditions. This research is aimed to have optimized design values and respective control factors of an antenna like substrate height (h), breadth of EBG patch (p) and width of the gap between adjoining cells of EBG (d). Hence, an optimal design of wideband EBG architecture is done utilizing spider monkey optimization (SMO) process to advance the performance of micro-strip antenna. The result values highlighted through simulation outcomes exhibit the performance of the proposed optimal EBG structure outperforms than the standard EBG in the terms of reflection phase, transmission loss, magnitude of [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and gain comparison. The outcomes of this technique provide enhance in its bandwidth up to 11.25 GHz, return loss of −31 dB, gain of 5.5 dB and from [Formula: see text]comparison the magnitude of measured with EBG to magnitude of measured with optimal EBG is increased by 7.5% is observed.

Outstanding bit error rate LDPC design in waterfall region and error floor region is one of the challenging tasks for the past decade. This chapter, focuses on the design of LDPC encoder with the low error floor and waterfall region of BER with minimum trapping set. Scheduled Progressive Edge-Growth (SPEG) LDPC encoder is used, and the simulation result of density evolution and exit chart are giving the better convergence of LDPC encoder. BER performance in error floor can controlled by minimum trapping set and waterfall region controlled by scheduled PEG LDPC encoder (1000, 500) with code length (n) is less than 600. The girth of the SPEG encoder is 8. SPEG with minimum trapping set will perform well for short length code also and it converges faster than the other PEG encoder.

Health care applications are pondered as propitious fields for wire-less sensor networks (WSN), in which patients can well be monitored utilizing wire-less medical sensor networks (WMSNs). Presentl...

Inteins are auto-processing domains that implement a multi-step biochemical reaction termed protein splicing, marked by cleavage and formation of peptide bonds. They excise from a precursor protein, generating a functional protein via covalent bonding of flanking exteins. We report the kinetic study of splicing and cleavage reaction in [Fe-S] cluster assembly protein SufB from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Although it follows a canonical intein splicing pathway, distinct features are added by extein residues present in the active site. Sequence analysis identified two conserved histidines in the N-extein region; His-5 and His-38. Kinetic analyses of His-5Ala and His-38Ala SufB mutants exhibited significant reductions in splicing and cleavage rates relative to the SufB wild-type precursor protein. Structural analysis and molecular dynamics simulations suggested that Mtu SufB displays a unique mechanism where two remote histidines work concurrently to facilitate N-terminal cleavage reaction. His-38 is stabilized by the solvent-exposed His-5, and can impact N-S acyl shift by direct interaction with the catalytic Cys1. Development of inteins as biotechnological tools or as pathogen specific novel antimicrobial targets requires a more complete understanding of such unexpected roles of conserved extein residues in protein splicing.

This is the era of Intelligent cognitive radio network technology that provides the available spectrum with efficient utilization. Cognitive Radio technology must promise to allow interference-free spectrum access by users. The paper discusses the several attacks and motives of attacks. The authentication mechanism role to prevent the attacks for hassle-free spectrum utilization is demonstrated. In this paper, resolving the cognitive network security issues by the authentication mechanism and the methods and need of authentication is discussed. This paper addresses the research challenges in the way of securing the cognitive radio network and countermeasures in CRN security strategies. Cognitive radio is an empowering innovation that guarantees to achieve spectrum utilization. In cognitive radio networks, several security threats affect the process of cognitive radio. Spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack is most disruptive in which the malicious users degrade the decision-making process by sending the false sensing reports to data fusion centres thus preventing honest users from utilizing the spectrum. Hence, security is a very important issue in cognitive radio networks that needs to be addressed for proper utilization of available spectrum by the users. Cognitive radio technology must promise secure spectrum dynamic access to users. In this paper, to counter the SSDF attack, the trust-based security mechanism is demonstrated to authenticate the honest users and it is observed that the proposed framework in the MATLAB environment is efficient and able to detect malicious users. Cognitive radio technology is the strategy applied to the spectrum to make it efficient for wireless communication. The strategy is an intelligent way to access the spectrum as it can learn its environment and make decisions by easy adaptation of operating parameters. The multiple nodes scenario is a good perspective. Software-defined radio is an essential component of cognitive radio Here, secondary users can access the spectrum to primary users whenever their vacant spectrum is available. The initial step is to sense the spectrum available further steps are spectrum decision making, spectrum management, and spectrum mobility. The network is vulnerable to various attacks on spectrum sensing and policy protocols which lead to disturbing functionality of cognitive radio technology. The defence mechanism based on public-key cryptography is proposed in which PU is authenticated by appending signature provided to PU signal. Authentication with a tag to the primary users is another perspective proposed. CRN technology should provide integrity, confidentiality and authenticity to the users.

Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) is an amazing technology, achieving its promise of certainly delivering high quality digital audio in the most vindicate mobile and fixed receiver environments. The radio signal processing capability can be provided by Universal software radio peripheral (USRP) hardware. The received signal frequency can be controlled and transmitting the signal through wireless is possible by installing NI USRP utility configuration. The programmable USRP was running the VI snippet program in block diagram panel with radio companion integrated through USB cable on windows 7 64. With the parameters such as IQ rate, transmitter gain, carrier frequency along with device name which is given as ni2901_1 the students can able to tune the radio signal. DAB technology is integrated with USRP device using prominent OFDM technique for promise delivery of high quality audio signal. DAB works under four transmission modes in this paper. In this paper RF0 module is used USRP device is connected with dual band vertical antenna with 2.4 and 5GHz frequency as Tx1. This transmitting VI snippet program will support all file formats such as.wav, mp3, etc. the intention of the paper is to transmit the real time data through long distance using DAB technology in remote laboratory. The proposed system is implemented in virtual lab so that it can be accessed by any user from anywhere. This system is successfully tested on institute of aeronautical engineering virtual lab.

Shared decision‐making involves health professionals and patients/clients working together to achieve true person‐centred health care. However, this goal is infrequently realized, and most barriers are unknown. Discussion between philosophers, clinicians, and researchers can assist in confronting the epistemic and moral basis of health care, with benefits to all. The aim of this paper is to describe what shared decision‐making is, discuss its necessary conditions, and develop a definition that can be used in practice to support excellence in maternity care. Discussion between the authors, with backgrounds in philosophy, clinical maternity care, health care management, and maternity care research, assisted the team to confront established norms in maternity care and challenge the epistemic and moral basis of decision‐making for caesarean section. The team concluded that shared decision‐making must start in pregnancy and continue throughout labour and birth, with equality in discourse facilitated by the clinician. Clinicians have a duty of care for the adequacy of women's knowledge, which can only be fulfilled when relevant knowledge is offered freely and when personal beliefs and biases that may impinge on decision‐making (defeaters) are disclosed. Informed consent is not shared decision‐making. Key barriers include existing cultural norms of “the doctor knows best” and “patient acquiescence” that prevent defeaters being acknowledged and discussed and can lead to legal challenges, overuse of medical intervention and, in some areas, obstetric violence. Shared decision‐making in maternity care can thus be defined as an enquiry by clinician and expectant woman aimed at deciding upon a course of care or none, which takes the form of a dialogue within which the clinician fulfils their duty of care to the client's knowledge by making available their complete knowledge (based on all types of evidence) and expertise, including an exposition of any relevant and recognized potential defeaters. Research to develop measurement tools is required.

AIM This systematic review aims to identify disease-specific and generic quality of life (QoL) outcome measurement instruments used in populations of women with urinary incontinence (UI) and to determine the most psychometrically robust and appropriate disease-specific and generic tools for measuring the quality of life in this population. METHODS A systematic search was conducted of PubMed, Embase, SCIELO, and CINAHL databases for studies evaluating measurement properties of QoL instruments in women with UI. The methodological quality of studies and the quality of measurement properties were evaluated using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health status Measurement INtruments (COSMIN) checklist and quality criteria. Overall, evidence for measurement properties was graded using the modified grading of recommendations, assessment, development & evaluation approach. RESULTS A total of 73 studies were included, and 27 specific and 6 generic instruments were identified. The Incontinence QoL questionnaire (IQoL) had the highest overall psychometric quality for English-speaking populations and was the most widely translated tool. Evidence for generic QoL tools in this population is limited. Few studies evaluated measurement error or cross-cultural validity. CONCLUSION The IQoL is the most psychometrically robust disease-specific tool for use in this population. More research is needed to determine the most psychometrically robust generic tool. Future studies should also evaluate measurement error and cross-cultural validity as evidence for these properties is particularly lacking.

Dynamic power dissipation depends on the switching activity of the circuit. In this paper we analyzed power consumption of TG based D flip-flop at different technology nodes and power saving obtained by applying dynamic XOR based clock gating technique to this flip-flop. This work deals with implementation of a transmission gate based D flip-flop in 3 different technology nodes namely 32 nm, 22 nm and 16 nm. The circuit level simulation result of D flip-flop shows power consumption with and without clock gating at the several frequencies of operation and several data activity factors at these technology nodes. Although the power dissipation decreases with the lower technology node, the additional power saving may be obtained using the dynamic XOR based clock gating approach at higher frequency of operation and low data activity, which has been investigated in this research work.

Objectives This systematic review aimed to offer insight and understanding, through synthesis of findings from studies that report on perspectives of student nurses/midwives, clinical instructors, clinical nurses/midwives on the challenges faced by student nurses/midwives in the clinical learning environment (CLE). Design All primary qualitative research studies published in the English language that reported on the views of student nurses/midwives, clinical instructors and clinical nurses/midwives on the challenges faced by student nurses/midwives in the CLE were included. Data sources The electronic databases of Medline EBSCO (1946-), CINAHL (1970), Embase Ovid (1974-), ScielO, WHOLIS (2002-), ASSIA (1985-), Web of Science (1956-), PsycINFO (1800s-) and Maternal and Infant Care (1970-) were searched in November 2019. Review methods Retrieved papers were reviewed independently by two authors for selection by title, abstract and full text, and two authors agreed for inclusion of the papers. The COREQ criteria checklist was used for assessment of methodological quality of the included studies. Results The review included 32 studies published over 22 years between 1997 and 2019 involving 853 nursing/midwifery students, clinical instructors, and clinical nurses/midwives from 14 countries. Three key themes emerged: ‘The support structure’, ‘Personal factors’, and ‘Planning and organisation – influence of extrinsic factors’. Conclusion Attitude of clinical staff, instructors, and significant others had a major influence on students' clinical learning. Lack of a sense of belongingness and self-motivation to learn, and perceived fear of doing errors were some of the demotivating factors. Lack of resources to facilitate need-based training, staff shortages, workload and inconsistencies between theory and practice were other key challenges in the CLE. Understanding the challenges faced by students in clinical practice can help overcome the barriers leading to development of competent and confident nurses and midwives.

Now a days, due to increase in emission of smoke from vehicles, smoke emitted from industries pollution in air density is increasing rapidly and creating health issues day by day in the environment. Since we are unable to control the pollution as an individual, we propose a model which will help the individuals to have a control on them and protect them with their smart phones with the help of an application called Blynk. More than 35% people reside in urban cities in India. The proportion of urban population is constantly climbing and is expected to cross 50% in next decade. This will call for more traffic, more construction and more industrialization. In addition to this, the pollutant can cause acid rain, global warming and distressing the herbal progress. Mostly, a humanoid cannot forecast or decide whether the airborne is good or bad. Therefore a measuring tool is required to check the air quality. The proposed research design is to measure air quality by using esp8266 module and sensors for detecting gases (MQ135) and measuring temperature (LM35) in PPM .The final results of the air quality can be displayed in a smartphone by connecting to Wi-Fi through ESP8266. The recent tech trends based on Internet of Things (IoT) in our research on air quality monitoring plays a significant part. A BLYNK app is created in smartphone where values are directly monitored easily by the users and receives a notification or warning when the quality of air worse.

Objective: To identify the factors associated with birth by caesarean section (CS) in nulliparous women. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Three maternity hospitals in the Republic of Ireland. Sample: A total of 3047 nulliparous women. Method: Data from self-administered surveys antenatally and at 3-months postpartum and hospital records of consenting women were included in the analysis. Poisson regression was used to assess associations between demographic and clinical factors and birth by CS. Main outcome measures: Planned and unplanned CS. Results: Of the 2755 women included in the analysis, 888 women (32.23%) had a CS (planned (n=166, 6.02%) and unplanned (n=722, 26.21%)). Common risk factors for planned and unplanned CS were being aged ≥40 years, being in private care, multiple pregnancy and fetus in breech or other malpresentations. An unplanned CS occurred for 22.43% (n=377/1681) of women who did not have induction of labour (IOL) or who had IOL with no epidural but the risk was about twice as high for women who had IOL and epidural (with intravenous oxytocin: ARR 1.70, 95% CI 1.44-2.01, p 20% of the unplanned CSs would not have occurred. Conclusions: Findings confirm the multifactorial reasons for CS and the challenge of reversing the increasing CS rate if maternal age, overweight/obesity, infertility treatment, multiple pregnancy and pre-existing hypertension continue to increase, and highlight the need to address pre-labour interventions considering that IOL, with epidural, made the greatest contribution to risk of unplanned CS.

The growth of personal computing devices as portable desktops, personal digital assistants, multimedia and personal computers demands a complex functionality with efficient computations. Digital systems with present day technologies possess a very high computing capability that makes powerful workstations. The demand for low power consumption is prominently increasing as the device feature size shrinks into submicron dimensions. Power dissipation can become the bottleneck for the current designs because of battery life and cooling requirements of portable equipment’s. Excessive power consumption degrades the reliability and limits the transistor integration on a chip. With, ever increasing quest for higher computing power on battery operated devices, design emphasis on optimizing area, power with high performance. The total power dissipation of the proposed compressor is found to be 11.796 μW and 5.168 μW with the corresponding delay of 0.649 ns and 0.437 ns for 180 nm and 90 nm technologies respectively. It reveals a PDP reduction of the proposed compressor to be 5.50% to 15.83% for 180 nm technology, 4.48% to 14.89% for 90 nm technology compared with other state-of-the-art designs. This suggests the suitability of the proposed compressor design for portable applications. An 8-bit Wallace tree multiplier is designed using the proposed compressor and other state-of-the-art designs. From the comparison, it is seen that the multiplier design using proposed compressor architecture achieves better performance in terms of PDP compared to other state-of-the- art designs.

Age and growth study provide detail information on the life history, ecology of fish and habitat which is important to manage the water body for fish production and optimize of harvestable size. Scale based age and growth of Indian major crap (Labeo rohita, Cirrhinus mrigala and Puntius ticto) was studied. There is no significance occurs in between the species. Such study is helpful in describing the present status of fish population along with the future course of the fishery., {"references":["Bagenal, T.B. (1974). The Proceedings of an International Symposium on the Ageing of Fish: Sponsored by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission of FAO, the Fisheries Society of the British Isles and the Freshwater Biological Association and Held at the University of Reading, England on 19 and 20 July 1973: Unwin Brothers Limited.","Balon, E.K. (1995). Origin and domestication of the wild carp, Cyprinus carpio: from Roman gourmets to the swimming flowers. Aquaculture, 129(1-4), 3-48.","Beddington, J., & Kirkwood, G. (2005). The estimation of potential yield and stock status using life–history parameters. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1453), 163-170.","Bhatt, B., & Jahan, N. (2015). Determination of age and growth rate of fresh water fish Labeo rohita (Ham. 1822) by using cycloid scales. International Journal of Pure and Applied Bioscience, 3(3), 189-200.","Casselman, J.M. (1983). Age and growth assessment of fish from their calcified structures-techniques and tools. NOAA Technical Report NMFS, 8, 1-17.","Fowler, A. (2009). Age in years from otoliths of adult tropical fish Tropical fish otoliths:Iinformation for Assessment, Management and Ecology, pp. 55-92.","Guldi, D.M., Rahman, G., Zerbetto, F., & Prato, M. (2005). Carbon nanotubes in electron donor acceptor nanocomposites. Accounts of Chemical Research, 38(11), 871-878.","Hamilton, W. (1882). The aesthetic movement in England: Books on Demand.","Hilborn, R., & Walters, C.J. (2013). Quantitative fisheries stock assessment: choice, dynamics and uncertainty: Springer Science & Business Media.","Joshi, P., Islam, S., Pais, P., Reddy, S., Dorairaj, P., Kazmi, K., Rangarajan, S. (2007). Risk factors for early myocardial infarction in South Asians compared with individuals in other countries. Journal of Jama, 297(3), 286-294.","Khan, M.A., & Khan, S. (2009). Comparison of age estimates from scale, opercular bone, otolith, vertebrae and dorsal fin ray in Labeo rohita (Hamilton), Catla catla (Hamilton) and Channa marulius (Hamilton). Fisheries Research, 100(3), 255-259.","Kirpichnikov, V., Ilyasov, I., Shart, L., Vikhman, A., Ganchenko, M., Ostashevsky, A., Tjurin, V. (1993). Selection of Krasnodar common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) for resistance to dropsy: principal results and prospects Genetics in Aquaculture, 7-20.","Linterman, L., & Browne, R. (2007). Getting the most out of professional development. Set: Research Information for Teachers (Wellington)(3), 38-43.","Lintermans, M. (2007). Fishes of the Murray-Darling Basin: an introductory guide: Murray-Darling Basin Commission Canberra.","Mills, K., & Beamish, R. (1980). Comparison of fin-ray and scale age determinations for lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) and their implications for estimates of growth and annual survival. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 37(3), 534-544.","Panfili, F., & Panfili, J.P. (2002). Ergonomic blade scraper: Google Patents.","Secor, H.C., Rendleman, R.M., & Copenhaver, P.D. (1996). Infra-red forced air dryer and extractor: Google Patents.","Talwar, P., & Jhingran, A.G. (1991). Inland fisheries of India and adjacent countries. Vol. I & II, 1-1158.","Vilizzi, L., & Walker, K.F. (1999). Age and growth of the common carp, Cyprinus carpio, in the River Murray, Australia: validation, consistency of age interpretation, and growth models. Environmental Biology of Fishes, 54(1), 77-106."]}

With the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) along with its development of advanced authentication, both security and remote monitoring have become imperative as well as essential, and the need for smarter security systems has only been growing. The traditional system needs an individual to use a key or an identification (ID) card or a password to access the security doors. However, they have many limitations such as keys can be forged, recreation of ID cards and passwords can be stolen. To overcome, the existing system issues, a novel approach is proposed with the design and development of face authenticated web-based smart door lock control system using facial recognition and remotely monitoring the door. In this proposed system OpenCVs self-trained Haar Cascade Classifier along with Histogram of Gradient is used for face Recognition. Door will be unlocked when users face is recognised else will remain closed. In case an unauthorised person is found, the time of intrusion and the intruders image will be captured and sent to a separate server on discord, so that the user or the admin can view them at their convenience. The main usage of this system is to assist users for improvement of the door security of sensitive locations by using face recognition and is also designed by considering the physically challenged persons also.

In order to improve the performance of digital communication system, here the author proposes equalization of nonlinear channels by using ANN trained with PSO. Broad recreations introduced during this paper shows that, when contrasted with other ANN based equalizers additionally as Neuro-fuzzy equalizers the proposed equalizer performs better by and large condition, {"references":["1.\tPreparata F. Holographic dispersal and recovery of Information. IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory. Sept., 1989, 35(5), 112-1124p.","2.\tGibson G.J., Siu S., Cowan C.F.N. The application of nonlinear structures to the reconstruction of binary signals. IEEE Trans. signal processing. Aug. 1991, 39(8), 1877-1884p.","3.\tVoulgaris P.G., Hadjicostics C.N. Optimal processing strategies for perfect reconstruction of binary signals under power-constrained transmission. Proc. IEEE confernec on decision and control, Atlantis, Bahamas. Dec. 2004, 4, 4040-4045p","4.\tTouri R., Voulgaris P.G., Hadjicostis C.N. Time varying power limited preprocessing for perfect reconstruction of binary signals. Proc. of the 2006 American control conference, Minneapdis, USA. June 2006, 5722-5727p.","5.\tPatra J.C., Pal R.N., Baliarsingh R., Panda G. Nonlinear channel equalization for QAM signal constellation using Artificial Neural Network. IEEE Trans. on systems, man and cybernetics-Part B: cybetnetics. April 1999, 29(2).","6.\tPatra J.C., Wei Beng Poh, Chaudhari N.S., Das A. Nonlinear channel equalization with QAM signal using Chebyshev artificial neural network. Proc. of International joint conference on neural networks, Montreal, Canada. August 2005, 3214-3219p.","7.\tPanda G., Majhi B., Mohanty D., et al. Development of Novel Digital Channel Equalizers using Genetic Algorithms. Proc. of National Conference on Communication (NCC-2006), IIT Delhi. January 2006, 27-29, 117-121p.","8.\tZhao H. et al. Pipelined functional link artificial recurrent neural network with the decision feedback structure for nonlinear channel equalization. Information Sciences. 2011, 181, 3677–3692p.","9.\tZhao H. et al. An adaptive decision feedback equalizer based on the combination of the FIR and FLNN. Digital Signal Processing. 2011, 21, 679–689p.","10.\tPanigrahi S.P. et al. Hybrid ANN reducing training time requirements and decision delay for equalization in presence of co-channel interference. Applied Soft Computing. 2008, 8, 1536–1538p."]}

Objective To gain insight and understanding of women's views and experiences of maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. Design A qualitative descriptive study using semi-structured interviews. Due to social distancing and associated COVID-19 restrictions at the time of the study, the interviews were held remotely via telephone. The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interview data. Setting & participants A large urban tertiary referral maternity unit (greater than 8000 births per year) in the Republic of Ireland. Women of low and high obstetric risk, primiparous and multiparous, who gave birth in April or May of 2020 were eligible for inclusion. Women were invited to take part via a hospital-based gatekeeper who had no other involvement in the study. Findings Nineteen women consented to take part and were interviewed. Four dominant themes reflective of women's views and experiences emerged during data analysis. These were: ‘navigating the system’, ‘at the end of the day it's just you’, ‘preparing for and adapting to uncertainty’ and ‘blessing in disguise’. Key conclusions and implications for practice Women experienced added challenges as a result of COVID-19 associated altered care structures and processes. Some changes implemented in response to the pandemic were positively experienced by women. The findings will contribute to and assist in planning future services for women and their partners, and in tailoring care to meet women's expectations and needs as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and beyond.

Yoga has become a popular form of complementary alternative medicine, and is often advocated for a wide range of conditions. Yoga explores the mind and body. Every woman goes through a different pregnancy journey with a variety of physical and psychological symptoms. In today’s western world, health services focus a great deal on the medical management of pregnancy. The aim of this literature review is to offer insight into and understanding of the benefits of yoga in pregnancy. Electronic data bases of PubMed, CINAHL and Science direct were searched in December 2017 for primary research studies published in the English language from 2005 to 2017. A total of 12 studies were included in this review. Three themes emerged; ‘benefits on mental health’, ‘reduction in pain’ and ‘birth outcome benefits’.

Background: Women who give birth by caesarean section are more likely to require readmission to hospital following birth compared to women who give birth vaginally. Aims: To examine the reasons, management and outcomes for women readmitted to hospital following birth by caesarean section (CS). Methods: A retrospective audit of maternity records was undertaken. Findings: The total number of births for the period of data extraction was 8580, of which 2470 (28.79%) women gave birth by CS. A total of 107 women (4.33% of those who gave birth by CS) were readmitted to hospital between 1 August 2014 and 31 July 2015, of which 46 women (1.86%) were readmitted following elective CS and 61 (2.47%) following emergency CS. The average length of hospital stay was 2.64 and 4.61 nights, respectively, and the average timeline for readmission was 14.6 days following elective CS and 15.7 following emergency CS. The most common reason for readmission was wound infection, with the majority of women requiring analgesics (n=29, 63.05% following elective CS and n=51, 83.61% following emergency CS) and intravenous antibiotics (n=23, 50% following elective CS and n=34, 55.74% following emergency CS). Conclusions: Abdominal wound infection is one of the most common reasons for readmission of women to hospital following birth by CS. These findings will make it easier to understand and identify women at risk of postpartum morbidity following birth by CS.

The rising caesarean section (CS) rates have been, in part, attributed to women's requests. Several individual studies and literature reviews have attempted to determine the degree of influence of women's requests on overall CS rates, and the common reasons behind these requests, from women's, midwives' and obstetricians' viewpoints. Despite many similarities in their findings, there is both a lack of clarity and disparity on the degree of influence women's requests actually has on the decision to perform a CS. This paper presents a critique of a key finding from a recently published systematic review of clinicians' (midwives' and obstetricians') views of factors that influenced their decision to perform a CS, which identified their belief in 'women's request' as a key factor. This finding is contrasted with findings from three other published reviews, which concluded that women's request contributed minimally to the overall rising rates of CS indicating a disparity in evidence around influence and contribution of women's request. Some of the possible reasons for this disparity can be explained by differences in views of women and clinicians, women's decision being guided by clinicians' beliefs of what is 'safe' and unsafe', and women's concerns being interpreted as their request and preferences to birth by CS. An insight into the possible reasons for the disparity in findings can help explain whether maternal request has any influence on the rising rates of CSs.

Background Rising rates of caesarean section (CS) are a concern in many countries, yet Sweden has managed to maintain low CS rates. Exploring the multifactorial and complex reasons behind the rising trend in CS has become an important goal for health professionals. The aim of the study was to explore Swedish obstetricians’ and midwives’ perceptions of the factors influencing decision-making for CS in nulliparous women in Sweden. Methods A qualitative design was chosen to gain in-depth understanding of the factors influencing the decision-making process for CS. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants. Four audio-recorded focus group interviews (FGIs), using an interview guide with open ended questions, were conducted with eleven midwives and five obstetricians from two selected Swedish maternity hospitals after obtaining written consent from each participant. Data were managed using NVivo© and thematically analysed. Ethical approval was granted by Trinity College Dublin. Results The thematic analysis resulted in three main themes; ‘Belief in normal birth – a cultural perspective’; ‘Clarity and consistency – a system perspective’ and ‘Obstetrician makes the final decision, but...’, and each theme contained a number of subthemes. However, ‘Belief in normal birth’ emerged as the core central theme, overarching the other two themes. Conclusion Findings suggest that believing that normal birth offers women and babies the best possible outcome contributes to having and maintaining a low CS rate. Both midwives and obstetricians agreed that having a shared belief (in normal birth), a common goal (of achieving normal birth) and providing mainly midwife-led care within a ‘team approach’ helped them achieve their goal and keep their CS rate low.

Background Caesarean section rates are increasing worldwide and are a growing concern with limited explanation of the factors that influence the rising trend. Understanding obstetricians’ and midwives’ views can give insight to the problem. This systematic review aimed to offer insight and understanding, through aggregation, summary, synthesis and interpretation of findings from studies that report obstetricians’ and midwives’ views on the factors that influence the decision to perform caesarean section. Methods The electronic databases of PubMed (1958–2016), CINAHL (1988–2016), Maternity and Infant Care (1971–2016), PsycINFO (1980–2016) and Web of Science (1991–2016) were searched in September 2016. All quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies, published in English, whose aim was to explore obstetricians’ and/or midwives’ views of factors influencing decision-making for caesarean section were included. Papers were independently reviewed by two authors for selection by title, abstract and full text. Thomas et al’s 12 assessment criteria checklist (2003) was used to assess methodological quality of the included studies. Result The review included 34 studies: 19 quantitative, 14 qualitative, and one using mixed methods, involving 7785 obstetricians and 1197 midwives from 20 countries. Three main themes, each with several subthemes, emerged. Theme 1: “clinicians’ personal beliefs”–(‘Professional philosophies’; ‘beliefs in relation to women’s request for CS’; ‘ambiguous versus clear clinical reasons’); Theme 2: “health care systems”–(‘litigation’; ‘resources’; ‘private versus public/insurance/payments’; ‘guidelines and management policy’). Theme 3: “clinicians’ characteristics” (‘personal convenience’; ‘clinicians’ demographics’; ‘confidence and skills’). Conclusion This systematic review and metasynthesis identified clinicians’ personal beliefs as a major factor that influenced the decision to perform caesarean section, further contributed by the influence of factors related to the health care system and clinicians’ characteristics. Obstetricians and midwives are directly involved in the decision to perform a caesarean section, hence their perspectives are vital in understanding various factors that have influence on decision-making for caesarean section. These results can help clinicians identify and acknowledge their role as crucial members in the decision-making process for caesarean section within their organisation, and to develop intervention studies to reduce caesarean section rates in future.

Purpose – Describes how, in a highly competitive environment, Larsen & Toubro attracts and retains its talent in a strategic way. Design/methodology/approach – Researches the firm’s various talent-management and leadership-training strategies. Findings – Reveals that 360-degree talent management is necessary to empower employees and to develop leadership capacities. Practical implications – Presents a framework for talent management and leadership development in a manufacturing business which can be recast to suit different organizational set-ups. Social implications – Explains that the company recruits many of its workers from rural India. Employees are recruited for their potential as much as for their existing skills. Originality/value – Describes a new dimension of talent management being practiced and its success in a manufacturing business.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to test a model of talent development interventions and find out the various factors which actually impact the process in a manufacturing concern. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple regression analysis is used to analyse the data and find the extent to which the variables considered are significant predictors of talent development. Primary data are collected from the respondents (executives) of two manufacturing units with the help of a structured questionnaire. A sample size of 200 is considered for extraction of data for the study. Findings – The results of the study highlight that six of the independent variables significantly predict the dependent variable. This paper identifies the most important factors which are found to be pivotal for the development of talent in the organizations considered for the study. Practical implications – Managing talent in the present competitive business scenario is one of the most vital issues in which HR professionals/practitioners are involved. It becomes imperative for top management to know about the various ways which can aid in proper development of talent. This paper empirically identifies the various strategic interventions which aid in the proper development of talent in manufacturing sector. Originality/value – While there are many papers tracing the talent development process and the various strategic interventions, there is a dearth of empirical research being done in this field in the manufacturing sector. This paper attempts to explore the developmental interventions in the manufacturing sector and adds new insights on an empirical basis.

A Recently proposed DSO trained ANN used for the problem of channel equalization.This paper introduced a novel strategy for equalization of nonlinear channels using this DSO trained neural network.Proposed method of channel equalization performs better than contemporary equalization methods used in the literature. This paper deals with the problem of equalization of channels in a digital communication system. In the literature, artificial neural network (ANN) has been increasingly used for the said problem. However, traditional methods of ANN training fall short of desired performance in the problem of equalization. In this paper, we propose a recently proposed training method for ANN for the problem. This training uses directed search optimization (DSO) as a trainer to neural networks. Then, we apply the same to the problem of nonlinear channel equalization and in that way, this paper introduces a novel strategy for equalization of nonlinear channels. Proposed method of channel equalization performs better than contemporary equalization methods used in the literature, as evident from extensive simulation results presented in this paper.

This work is on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) training and application in channel equalization. Here, we design a novel training strategy for neural networks. This training uses Firefly Algorithm (FFA) to train ANN. Then, this FFA trained ANN is applied for equalization of nonlinear channels. As proved through simulations, the proposed methodology outperforms the existing ANN-based equalization schemes.

This article uses Artificial Neural Network (ANN) trained with Quantum behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO) for the problem of equalization. Though the use of PSO in training of ANN finds optimal weights of the network it fails in the design of appropriate topology. But, QPSO is capable of optimizing the network topology. Here, parameters like neurons in each layer, the number of layers etc. are optimized using QPSO. Then, this QPSO tuned ANN then applied to the problem of channel equalization. The superior performance of proposed equalizer is proved through simulations.

Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNN) is one of the most popular equalizers to mitigate the channel distortions. The most challenging problem associated with the design of RBFNN Equalizer is the traditional hit and trial method. This paper proposes training of RBFNN equalizer using a recently proposed population-based optimization, Shuffled Frog-Leaping Algorithm (SFLA) and three of its modified forms. It is found from the simulation results that performances of different forms of SFLA for the training of RBFNN equalizers are superior as compared to existing equalizers.

Nanomaterials such as silver nanoparticles and graphene-based composites are known to exhibit biocidal activities. However, interactions with surrounding medium or supporting substrates can significantly influence this activity. Here, it is shown that superior antimicrobial properties of natural shellac-derived graphene oxide (GO) coatings is obtained on metallic films, such as Zn, Ni, Sn, and steel. It is also found that such activities are directly correlated to the electrical conductivity of the GO-metal systems; the higher the conductivity the better is the antibacterial activity. GO-metal substrate interactions serve as an efficient electron sink for the bacterial respiratory pathway, where electrons modify oxygen containing functional groups on GO surfaces to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). A concerted effect of nonoxidative electron transfer mechanism and consequent ROS mediated oxidative stress to the bacteria result in an enhanced antimicrobial action of naturally derived GO-metal films. The lack of germicidal effect in exposed cells for GO supported on electrically nonconductive substrates such as glass corroborates the above hypothesis. The results can lead to new GO coated antibacterial metal surfaces important for environmental and biomedical applications.

This paper makes use of shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA) as a training algorithm to train multi-layer artificial neural network (ANN). Next, The SFLA ANNs are used for channel equalization. We, in this paper, also introduce SFLA for channel equalization that is formulated as an optimization problem. In short, this paper introduces a novel strategy for training of ANN and also proposes two novel approaches for channel equalization problem using shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA). The proposed strategies are tested both in time-invariant and time varying channels and interestingly yield better performance than contemporary approaches as evidenced by simulation results.

An audit was conducted in the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland in November 2012 with 47 women in early labour, through retrospective review of charts. All women were admitted to the antenatal ward at term gestation with labour-related symptoms. The aim was to ascertain the outcomes of labour and to describe the interventions performed by midwives. The most common reason for transfer of women to the labour ward was establishment of labour (72.34%) and, of these women, only a few (35.29%) needed augmentation of labour. Among the women transferred in active labour, 97.05% had vaginal births with an average duration of labour of 4.1 hours (with no augmentation) and 5.3 hours (with augmentation). All women transferred for augmentation of labour (27.66%) had vaginal births. Women admitted to the antenatal ward to await establishment of labour need quality midwifery care to make their birthing experience a positive and memorable one.