Leveraging Multimodal Ensemble Fusion-Based Deep Learning for COVID-19 on Chest Radiographs

Recently, COVID-19 has posed a challenging threat to researchers, scientists, healthcare professionals, and administrations over the globe, from its diagnosis to its treatment. The researchers are making persistent efforts to derive probable solutions for managing the pandemic in their areas. One of the widespread and effective ways to detect COVID-19 is to utilize radiological images comprising X-rays and computed tomography (CT) scans. At the same time, the recent advances in machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models show promising results in medical imaging. Particularly, the convolutional neural network (CNN) model can be applied to identifying abnormalities on chest radiographs. While the epidemic of COVID-19, much research is led on processing the data compared with DL techniques, particularly CNN. This study develops an improved fruit fly optimization with a deep learning-enabled fusion (IFFO-DLEF) model for COVID-19 detection and classification. The major intention of the IFFO-DLEF model is to investigate the presence or absence of COVID-19. To do so, the presented IFFO-DLEF model applies image pre-processing at the initial stage. In addition, the ensemble of three DL models such as DenseNet169, EfficientNet, and ResNet50, are used for feature extraction. Moreover, the IFFO algorithm with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) classification model is utilized to identify and classify COVID-19. The parameter optimization of the MLP approach utilizing the IFFO technique helps in accomplishing enhanced classification performance. The experimental result analysis of the IFFO-DLEF model carried out on the CXR image database portrayed the better performance of the presented IFFO-DLEF model over recent approaches.     

Protein characteristics and peroxidase activities of different Indian wheat varieties and their relationship to chapati-making quality

Different wheat varieties grown at a single geographical location were evaluated for protein quantity and quality, rheological properties, and activities of peroxidase as well as polyphenol oxidase. The protein content in these varieties ranged from 11.6 to 14.6%, farinograph water absorption ranged from 70 to 76%, and the damaged starch content varied from 12.3 to 16.3%. The total protein content of whole wheat flours significantly correlated to stiffness (R/E values) of the dough (r=0.73, p<0.05); however, it did not influence any of the quality parameters of chapati. However, the protein quality parameter, Glu-1 score, which reflects the high molecular weight (HMW) glutenin subunit composition, correlated significantly to the cutting force, which indicates the texture of chapati (r=0.78, p<0.05). The quantity of low molecular weight protein fraction having molecular weight of 20 kDa showed significant correlation to over all quality scores of chapati (r=0.78, p<0.05). The color of chapatis was significantly correlated to color of dough (r=0.76, p<0.05), which became darker on resting. Peroxidase activity greatly influenced the color of chapatis (r=0.81, p<0.05).     

Analytical solution for transient, diffusing fields inside a ring conductor with rectangular cross section

Electromagnetic launch involves diffusing fields and currents and finite-element analyses are usually employed to compute the transients in launch systems. The simulation times of interest in launch components such as sliding electrical contact systems and pulsed power systems vary from a few microseconds to a few milliseconds. Numerical solutions in such short time scales require very fine meshes to avoid instabilities. Benchmarking and validation of codes with finite-element analyses of coupled electromagnetic equations require checks on errors and instabilities. For this purpose, analytical series solutions have been derived here to describe the diffusing field transients in a few milliseconds in a ring conductor with rectangular cross section. A linearly ramped or step voltage is imposed on one axial end of the ring conductor, whereas the other axial end is grounded and maintained at zero potential. The coupled transient, one-dimensional diffusion equations have been solved using classical methods in applied mathematics. The distributions of currents and fields inside the conductor and the stored magnetic energy with time have been computed. The method presented here can be applied to any general excitation encountered in electromagnetic launch.     

Quasi-static scheduling of communicating tasks

Good scheduling policies for distributed embedded applications are required for meeting hard real time constraints and for optimizing the use of computational resources. We study the quasi-static scheduling problem in which (uncontrollable) control flow branchings can influence scheduling decisions at run time. Our abstracted distributed task model consists of a network of sequential processes that communicate via point-to-point buffers. In each round, the task gets activated by a request from the environment. When the task has finished computing the required responses, it reaches a pre-determined configuration and is ready to receive a new request from the environment. For such systems, we prove that determining the existence of a scheduling policy that guarantees upper bounds on buffer capacities is undecidable. However, we show that the problem is decidable for the important subclass of “data-branching” systems in which control flow branchings are exclusively due to data-dependent internal choices made by the sequential components. This decidability result exploits ideas derived from the Karp and Miller coverability tree for Petri nets as well as the existential boundedness notion of languages of message sequence charts.     

Space Diversity Knotted with WiMAX- A Way for Undistorted and Anti-Corruptive Channel

The principal aim of this research article is to develop an apt transmission scheme which will completely accomplish the goal of eliminating channel distortion. The effort on this work signifies and delivers a combined transmit diversity scheme that scatters the transmitter signal in multi dimension to comprehend the need to improve noise immunity. Extrapolating the diversity combining techniques, it is possible to perceive the same in the case of receivers. Space diversity is intertwined with WiMAX and the benefits have been demonstrated by incorporating various space diversity techniques and the analysis is done with respect to Bit Error Rate. Performance comparison is presented for Multiple Input Single Output and Multiple Input Multiple Output configurations.     

High-field electron transport in semiconducting zigzag carbon nanotubes

Electron transport in semiconducting zigzag carbon nanotubes is studied by solving the Boltzmann transport equation using the single-particle Monte Carlo technique. The electronic band structure is based on a standard nearest-neighbour tight-binding parameterization, and the phonon spectrum is calculated using a fourth nearest-neighbour force constant model. The electron-phonon scattering probabilities are calculated within a tight-binding formalism. The steady-state drift velocities for the semiconducting zigzag nanotubes (8, 0), (10, 0), (11, 0), (13, 0), and (25, 0) are computed as functions of electric field strength and temperature, and the results are analysed here. The results show the presence of negative differential resistance at high electric fields for some of the nanotubes. The drift velocity and the low-field mobility reach a maximum value of ? 4.67 × 10? cm s?1 and? 4 × 10? cm2 V?1 s?1, respectively, for a (25, 0) nanotube.     

Scheduling in dynamic assembly job-shops with jobs having different holding and tardiness costs

Most studies on scheduling in dynamic job-shops assume that the holding cost of a job is given by the flowtime of the job and that the tardiness cost of a job is given by the tardiness of the job. In other words, unit holding and unit tardiness costs of a job are assumed. However, in reality, such an assumption need not hold, and it is quite possible that there are different costs for holding and tardiness for different jobs. In addition, most studies on job-shop scheduling assume that jobs are independent and that no assembly operations exist. The current study addresses the problem of scheduling in dynamic assembly job-shops (manufacturing multilevel jobs) with the consideration of different holding and tardiness costs for different jobs. An attempt is made to develop efficient dispatching rules by incorporating the relative costs of holding and tardiness of jobs in the form of scalar weights. The primary objective of scheduling considered here is the minimization of the total scheduling cost consisting of the sum of holding and tardiness costs. The performance of the scheduling rules in minimizing the individual components of total scheduling cost is also observed. The results of an extensive simulation study on the performance of different dispatching rules show that the proposed rules are effective in minimizing the means and maximums of the primary measure, and are quite robust with respect to different job structures and experimental settings.