Dynamic Fractional Frequency Reuse Diversity Design for Intercell Interference Mitigation in Nonorthogonal Multiple Access Multicellular Networks

Mehmood, Kashif,Niaz, Muhammad Tabish,Kim, Hyung Seok Hindawi Limited 2018 WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS AND MOBILE COMPUTING Vol.2018 No.-

<P>Nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is one of the few promising techniques that can ensure the achievement of benefits foreseen in next-generation 5G wireless networks and beyond. By using superposition coding, NOMA allows multiple users to share the same time and frequency resources, thereby enhancing user connectivity, spectral efficiency, and a considerable increase in user throughput. Interference mitigation is an important consideration in NOMA and is considerably more influencing in multicellular environments. First, a brief description of the impairments that can arise in a NOMA cellular network along with responsible factors is provided. Second, different approaches adopted to minimize these impairments are discussed. Finally, a possible solution is proposed that consists of a coordinated approach between the individual cells in the NOMA domain to minimize interferences and improve user throughput. Adaptive fractional frequency reuse (FFR) is used to allocate distinct frequency resources to edge users of different cells to minimize intercell interference in NOMA. Simulation results prove that the proposed NOMA scheme plays an important role in minimizing impairment effects and enhancing the SINR and the throughput performance of edge users while ensuring fairness in its design.</P>

Assessment of Rheological and Piezoresistive Properties of Graphene based Cement Composites

Sardar Kashif Ur Rehman,Zainah Ibrahim,Mohammad Jameel,Shazim Ali Memon,Muhammad Faisal Javed,Muhammad Aslam,Kashif Mehmood,Sohaib Nazar 한국콘크리트학회 2018 International Journal of Concrete Structures and M Vol.12 No.6

The concrete production processes including materials mixing, pumping, transportation, injection, pouring, moulding and compaction, are dependent on the rheological properties. Hence, in this research, the rheological properties of fresh cement paste with different content of graphene (0.03, 0.05 and 0.10% by weight of cement) were investigated. The parameters considered were test geometries (concentric cylinders and parallel plates), shear rate range (300–0.6, 200–0.6 and 100–0.6 s<SUP>−1</SUP>), resting time (0, 30 and 60 min) and superplasticizer dosage (0 and 0.1% by weight of cement). Four rheological prediction models such as Modified Bingham, Herschel–Bulkley, Bingham model and Casson model were chosen for the estimation of the yield stress, plastic viscosity and trend of the flow curves. The effectiveness of these rheological models in predicting the flow properties of cement paste was verified by considering the standard error method. Test results showed that the yield stress and the plastic viscosity increased with the increase in graphene content and resting time while the yield stress and the plastic viscosity decreased with the increase in the dosage of superplasticizer. At higher shear rate range, the yield stress increased while the plastic viscosities decreased. The Herschel–Bulkley model with the lowest average standard error and standard deviation value was found to best fit the experimental data, whereas, Casson model was found to be the most unfitted model. Graphene reduces the flow diameter and electrical resistivity up to 9.3 and 67.8% and enhances load carrying capacity and strain up to 16.7 and 70.1% of the composite specimen as compared with plain cement specimen. Moreover, it opened a new dimension for graphene-cement composite as smart sensing building construction material.

A real-time optimal coordination scheme for the voltage regulation of a distribution network including an OLTC, capacitor banks, and multiple distributed energy resources

Mehmood, Khawaja Khalid,Khan, Saad Ullah,Lee, Soon-Jeong,Haider, Zunaib Maqsood,Rafique, Muhammad Kashif,Kim, Chul-Hwan Elsevier 2018 International journal of electrical power energy s Vol.94 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>The progression towards smarter grids, incorporating clean energy resources, has increased the integration of distributed generators (DGs) into power distribution networks. The DGs often cause a rise in voltage at their points of common coupling. Ordinary voltage regulation devices such as on-load tap changers (OLTCs) are not capable of addressing these issues adequately without careful coordination with DGs. In this paper, a new supervisory control and data acquisition-based two-stage voltage control scheme for the coordination of an OLTC transformer, capacitor banks (CBs) and the DGs is presented. The proposed scheme sets forth a new criterion for the selection of tap positions of an OLTC. In the first stage, tap positions of the OLTC are changed optimally using the micro genetic algorithm, whereas in the second stage, a recursive genetic algorithm is run to minimise the power losses in order to find the optimal reactive powers for the distribution network. Stochastic modelling of wind speed and solar irradiance data is also performed. The scheme is verified by studying it under four different test cases. An OLTC, CBs, photovoltaic panels, wind power DGs and dispatchable DGs are installed in the distribution network, and an IEEE 37-node test feeder is used for the verification of the proposed scheme. The simulation results show that the scheme achieves the objective of voltage regulation.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> A real-time voltage regulation scheme for active distribution networks is proposed. </LI> <LI> Online coordination between an OLTC, capacitor banks and DGs is proposed. </LI> <LI> Real world wind speed and solar irradiance data modellings are taken into account. </LI> <LI> The proposed scheme enhances the voltage quality. </LI> </UL> </P>

Comparative Analysis of Consumer's Impulse Buying Behavior with Different Household Incomes : Empirical Evidence from Faisalabad

Mehmood, Sana,Hamid, Kashif East Asia Business Economics Association 2017 East asian journal of business management Vol.5 No.2

In today's highly unpredictable marketing environment, where the consumer demands and behaviors are continuously and rapidly changing therefore various factors of consumer impulse buying behavior are proving to be challenging for the existing and new business organizations. Shopping has become a relaxing and rejoicing activity for the consumers making impulsive buying as a socially acceptable and common practice. So by taking into account all these aspects, the objective of this study was to understand the factors affecting impulse buying behavior of the consumer. Store atmosphere and fashion involvement were selected as independent variables while consumer impulse buying behavior was taken as dependent variable for this study. Likewise, impulse buying behavior of consumers with different monthly household income was also analyzed in this study. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire from 250 respondents of district Faisalabad, and then it was analyzed by using various statistical techniques. The results indicated a significant positive impact of store atmosphere and fashion involvement on consumer impulse buying behavior. The study also revealed that among consumer groups with different household incomes; at least one group differed from others in impulse buying behavior. These results were consistent with previous literature. These results could provide information to the marketers and retailers for planning and execution of various marketing techniques. Moreover, educators could expand on the findings by developing new studies examining consumer impulse buying behavior.

Germline Variations of Apurinic/Apyrimidinic Endonuclease 1 (APEX1) Detected in Female Breast Cancer Patients

Ali, Kashif,Mahjabeen, Ishrat,Sabir, Maimoona,Baig, Ruqia Mehmood,Zafeer, Maryam,Faheem, Muhammad,Kayani, Mahmood Akhtar Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.18

Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 (APEX1) is a multifunctional protein which plays a central role in the BER pathway. APEX1 gene being highly polymorphic in cancer patients and has been indicated to have a contributive role in Apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site accumulation in DNA and consequently an increased risk of cancer development. In this case-control study, all exons of the APEX1 gene and its exon/intron boundaries were amplified in 530 breast cancer patients and 395 matched healthy controls and then analyzed by single-stranded conformational polymorphism followed by sequencing. Sequence analysis revealed fourteen heterozygous mutations, seven 5'UTR, one 3'UTR, two intronic and four missense. Among identified mutations one 5'UTR (rs41561214), one 3'UTR (rs17112002) and one missense mutation (Ser129Arg, Mahjabeen et al., 2013) had already been reported while the remaining eleven mutations. Six novel mutations (g.20923366T>G, g.20923435G>A, g.20923462G>A, g.20923516G>A, 20923539G>A, g.20923529C>T) were observed in 5'UTR region, two (g.20923585T>G, g.20923589T>G) in intron1 and three missense (Glu101Lys, Ala121Pro, Ser123Trp) in exon 4. Frequencues of 5'UTR mutations; g.20923366T>G, g.20923435G>A and 3'UTR (rs17112002) were calculated as 0.13, 0.1 and 0.1 respectively. Whereas, the frequency of missense mutations Glu101Lys, Ser123Trp and Ser129Arg was calculated as 0.05. A significant association was observed between APEX1 mutations and increased breast cancer by ~9 fold (OR=8.68, 95%CI=2.64 to 28.5) with g.20923435G>A (5'UTR), ~13 fold (OR= 12.6, 95%CI=3.01 to 53.0) with g.20923539G>A (5'UTR) and~5 fold increase with three missense mutations [Glu101Lys (OR=4.82, 95%CI=1.97 to 11.80), Ser123Trp (OR=4.62, 95%CI=1.7 to 12.19), Ser129Arg (OR=4.86, 95%CI=1.43 to 16.53)]. The incidence of observed mutations was found higher in patients with family history and with early menopause. In conclusion, our study demonstrates a significant association between germ line APEX1 mutations and breast cancer patients in the Pakistani population.

Comparative Analysis of Consumer‘s Impulse Buying Behavior with Different Household Incomes: Empirical Evidence from Faisalabad

Sana Mehmood,Kashif Hamid 동아시아경상학회 2017 The East Asian Journal of Business Economics Vol.5 No.2

In today's highly unpredictable marketing environment, where the consumer demands and behaviors are continuously and rapidly changing therefore various factors of consumer impulse buying behavior are proving to be challenging for the existing and new business organizations. Shopping has become a relaxing and rejoicing activity for the consumers making impulsive buying as a socially acceptable and common practice. So by taking into account all these aspects, the objective of this study was to understand the factors affecting impulse buying behavior of the consumer. Store atmosphere and fashion involvement were selected as independent variables while consumer impulse buying behavior was taken as dependent variable for this study. Likewise, impulse buying behavior of consumers with different monthly household income was also analyzed in this study. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire from 250 respondents of district Faisalabad, and then it was analyzed by using various statistical techniques. The results indicated a significant positive impact of store atmosphere and fashion involvement on consumer impulse buying behavior. The study also revealed that among consumer groups with different household incomes; at least one group differed from others in impulse buying behavior. These results were consistent with previous literature. These results could provide information to the marketers and retailers for planning and execution of various marketing techniques. Moreover, educators could expand on the findings by developing new studies examining consumer impulse buying behavior.

Water-filling algorithm based approach for management of responsive residential loads

HAIDER, Zunaib Maqsood,MEHMOOD, Khawaja Khalid,RAFIQUE, Muhammad Kashif,KHAN, Saad Ullah,LEE, Soon-Jeong,KIM, Chul-Hwan Springer Nature 2018 Journal of modern power systems and clean energy Vol.6 No.1

<P>Integration of large number of electric vehicles (EVs) with distribution networks is devastating for conventional power system devices such as transformers and power lines etc. This paper proposes a methodology for management of responsive household appliances management and EVs with water-filling algorithm. With the proposed scheme, the load profile of a transformer is retained below its rated capacity while minimally affecting the associated consumers. When the instantaneous demand at transformer increases beyond its capacity, the proposed methodology dynamically allocates demand curtailment limit (DCL) to each home served by transformer. The DCL allocation takes convenience factors, load profile and information of flexible appliances into account to assure the comfort of all the consumers. The proposed scheme is verified by modeling and simulating five houses and a distribution transformer. The smart appliances such as an HVAC, a water heater, a cloth dryer and an EV are also modeled for the study. Results show that the proposed scheme performs to reduce overloading effects of the transformer efficiently and assures comfort of the consumers at the same time.</P>

Fall Detection System for the Elderly Based on the Classification of Shimmer Sensor Prototype Data

Moiz Ahmed,Nadeem Mehmood,Adnan Nadeem,Amir Mehmood,Kashif Rizwan 대한의료정보학회 2017 Healthcare Informatics Research Vol.23 No.3

Objectives: Falling in the elderly is considered a major cause of death. In recent years, ambient and wireless sensor platforms have been extensively used in developed countries for the detection of falls in the elderly. However, we believe extra efforts are required to address this issue in developing countries, such as Pakistan, where most deaths due to falls are not even reported. Considering this, in this paper, we propose a fall detection system prototype that s based on the classification on real time shimmer sensor data. Methods: We first developed a data set, ‘SMotion’ of certain postures that could lead to falls in the elderly by using a body area network of Shimmer sensors and categorized the items in this data set into age and weight groups. We developed a feature selection and classification system using three classifiers, namely, support vector machine (SVM), Knearest neighbor (KNN), and neural network (NN). Finally, a prototype was fabricated to generate alerts to caregivers, health experts, or emergency services in case of fall. Results: To evaluate the proposed system, SVM, KNN, and NN were used. The results of this study identified KNN as the most accurate classifier with maximum accuracy of 96% for age groups and 93% for weight groups. Conclusions: In this paper, a classification-based fall detection system is proposed. For this purpose, the SMotion data set was developed and categorized into two groups (age and weight groups). The proposed fall detection system for the elderly is implemented through a body area sensor network using third-generation sensors. The evaluation results demonstrate the reasonable performance of the proposed fall detection prototype system in the tested scenarios.

Decentralized Demand Response Architecture for Energy Management of Residential Consumers

Zunaib Maqsood Haider,Khawaja Khalid Mehmood,Saad Ullah Khan,Muhammad Kashif Rafique,Chul-Hwan Kim 한국조명·전기설비학회 2017 조명·전기설비학회논문지 Vol.31 No.10

Due to the current alarming conditions regarding environmental pollution and growing energy crisis, electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining popularity across the world. According to one estimation [1], there will be 20 million EV fleets on the road by 2020 and that the aggregated sale of EVs will rise to 5.9 million. Integration of large number of EVs to the distribution network will pose serious threats in terms of the reliability and stability of the power system. In order to mitigate the adverse effects on the power system, this paper proposes an approach for the management of EV charging along with smart home load management (SHLM) systems by using a water-filling (WF) algorithm. The proposed framework ensures that the instantaneous load at a distribution transformer is restrained below its rated capacity while consumer preferences are taken into account. In the case that the instantaneous demand increases beyond the transformer capacity, the proposed framework allocates a demand restraining limit (DRL) to each home associated with the transformer. The allocation of the DRL is dynamic and based on the consideration of the convenience factor, demand profile and characteristics of the flexible appliances of all the consumers. The performance of the proposed plan is verified by considering a network consisting of a distribution transformer and five homes.

The Role of Training and Absorptive Capacity in Mediating Human Capital Dimensions and Organizational Performance: Evidence from Pakistan

Sana Arz BHUTTO,Yasir JAMAL,Asim RAFIQ,Kashif MEHMOOD,Munir HUSSAIN,Amjad ALI 한국유통과학회 2021 The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Busine Vol.8 No.12

This study aims to examine the role of training and absorptive capacity as a mediator to examine the impact of human capital dimensions on the performance of an organization. This study employs the quantitative approach for analysis. A sample of 208 respondents was collected from the textile factories based in Karachi and Faisalabad. Data was analyzed using the PLS-SEM technique. PLS-SEM algorithm was used to check the validity and reliability of the data. PLS-SEM bootstrapping was used for studying the impact. The results show that the skills have an insignificant impact on organizational performance. Education and skills have an insignificant indirect impact on the performance of an organization. The research findings show that the human capital dimensions are full and partially mediated via absorptive capacity and training. The findings revealed that if we implement one by one dimension of human capital then it will not cause any increase in the organization’s performance but if we implement all dimensions then it results in optimal performance. Thus, this study suggests adopting effective training techniques and creating absorptive capacity in an organization to increase the performance of an organization. The findings of this study significantly contribute to the existing body of knowledge.