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Air pollution brings uncountable serious influences on human life during the last decade. This study is an attempt to compare economic liberalism with economic federalism in examining the problem of air pollution in the Asia-Pacific region. Economic analysts have different views with one school of thought arguing that air pollution is the cause of the failure of a free economy rather than the failure of government regulations, while another supports liberal economics and vice versa. After developing a conceptual framework, the study uses the technique of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine how the rule of law, the size of government, regulatory efficiency, and the openness of the market influence air pollution in countries across the region. The analysis identifies two solutions with government size being found to be a necessary and core condition that influences air pollution. The study thus provides insights and suggests that government spending, taxation, and other financial health policies can be used as key sources to control air pollution in the Asia-Pacific region.

Climate change has affected all sectors of the economy, especially the agriculture sector. Pakistan is one of the developing countries in South Asia that is most vulnerable to climate change and disasters. Various studies were conducted to report on farmers’ understanding of agriculture, adaptation, mitigation, and perception of climate change. Still, the literature on farmers' awareness of climate change in Pakistan is weak. To close such a research gap, the study carried out the awareness level and related issues of farm households about climate change in Pakistan. A sample of 1,123 respondents was interviewed from the four districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan, through a questionnaire. The logistic regression method was used to investigate the awareness level of farm households about climate change. Results of the study showed that 63.5% of respondents were aware of climatic shocks. The socioeconomic and demographic factors such as age, land ownership, education level, income, family size, and farming experience were directly related to the respondent's awareness of climate change.

For this research, we examined the influence of access to domestic and international financing on sustainability performance with a mediating role of innovative performance and a moderating role of access to government support. Data were collected from 317 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through structured questionnaires. The results indicated that access to domestic and international financing significantly contributes to sustainability and innovative performances. Accordingly, we found a partial mediating role of innovative performance between access to domestic financing and sustainability performance as well as between access to international financing and sustainability performance. Access to government support significantly moderates the relationship between access to domestic finances and innovative performance as well as between access to international finances and innovative performance. Practitioners and policymakers should encourage national and international financial institutions and banks to facilitate SMEs by lending them funds for innovative activities and sustainability performance. Moreover, the government should support SMEs, so that they can contribute to economic growth and the gross domestic product. The implications from these matters will be further discussed in this paper.

Speech emotion recognition (SER) is a challenging task in human–computer interaction (HCI) systems. One of the key challenges in speech emotion recognition is to extract the emotional features effectively from a speech utterance. Despite the promising results of recent studies, they generally do not leverage advanced fusion algorithms for the generation of effective representations of emotional features in speech utterances. To address this problem, we describe the fusion of spatial and temporal feature representations of speech emotion by parallelizing convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and a Transformer encoder for SER. We stack two parallel CNNs for spatial feature representation in parallel to a Transformer encoder for temporal feature representation, thereby simultaneously expanding the filter depth and reducing the feature map with an expressive hierarchical feature representation at a lower computational cost. We use the RAVDESS dataset to recognize eight different speech emotions. We augment and intensify the variations in the dataset to minimize model overfitting. Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) is used to augment the RAVDESS dataset. With the spatial and sequential feature representations of CNNs and the Transformer, the SER model achieves 82.31% accuracy for eight emotions on a hold-out dataset. In addition, the SER system is evaluated with the IEMOCAP dataset and achieves 79.42% recognition accuracy for five emotions. Experimental results on the RAVDESS and IEMOCAP datasets show the success of the presented SER system and demonstrate an absolute performance improvement over the state-of-the-art (SOTA) models.

The beneficial effects of fluoride on human oral health are well studied. There are numerous studies demonstrating that a small amount of fluoride delivered to the oral cavity decreases the prevalence of dental decay and results in stronger teeth and bones. However, ingestion of fluoride more than the recommended limit leads to toxicity and adverse effects. In order to update our understanding of fluoride and its potential toxicity, we have described the mechanisms of fluoride metabolism, toxic effects, and management of fluoride toxicity. The main aim of this review is to highlight the potential adverse effects of fluoride overdose and poorly understood toxicity. In addition, the related clinical significance of fluoride overdose and toxicity has been discussed.

Ets-related gene (ERG) is overexpressed as a fusion protein in prostate cancer. During metastasis, the pathological role of ERG is associated with cell proliferation, invasion, and angiogenesis. Here, we hypothesized that miRNAs regulate ERG expression through its 3ʹUTR. Several bioinformatics tools were used to identify miRNAs and their binding sites on 3ʹUTR of ERG. The selected miRNAs expression was analyzed in prostate cancer samples by qPCR. The miRNAs overexpression was induced in prostate cancer cells (VCaP) to analyze ERG expression. Reporter gene assay was performed to evaluate the ERG activity in response to selected miRNAs. The expression of ERG downstream target genes was also investigated through qPCR after miRNAs overexpression. To observe the effects of selected miRNAs on cell proliferation and migration, scratch assay was performed to calculate the cell migration rate. miR-4482 and miR-3912 were selected from bioinformatics databases. miR-4482 and -3912 expression were decreased in prostate cancer samples, as compared to controls ( p<0 . 05 and p<0 . 001 ), respectively. Overexpression of miR-4482 and miR-3912 significantly reduced ERG mRNA ( p<0 . 001 and p<0 . 01 ), respectively ) and protein ( p<0 . 01 ) in prostate cancer cells. The transcriptional activity of ERG was significantly reduced ( p<0 . 01 ) in response to miR-4482 and-3912. ERG angiogenic targets and cell migration rate was also reduced significantly ( p<0 . 001 ) after miR-4482 and -3912 over-expression. This study indicates that miR-4482 and -3912 can suppress the ERG expression and its target genes, thereby, halt prostate cancer progression. These miRNAs may be employed as a potential therapeutic target for the miRNA-based therapy against prostate cancer.

In the present era, women are recognized as successful entrepreneurs through their strong desire, qualities, and capabilities for robust economic development. Due to such an important contribution of women in economic development, we propose to investigate the factors which affect women entrepreneur’s success in Pakistan. Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 181 registered SMEs operating in Pakistan. A conceptual model is developed, while SPSS and AMOS software’s are used for analysis. The results indicate that the internal factors including the need for achievements, risk-taking, and self-confidence and external factors including economic factors and socio-cultural factors have a positive and significant influence on the success of women-owned enterprises. This research recommends Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA), policymakers, and practitioners to encourage women entrepreneurs to run their businesses for the long term by providing a variety of incentives and supports related to those internal and external factors. Numerous studies have been conducted to test the different factors’ effects on women’s entrepreneurial success, but our study investigated some psychological, cultural, and religious factors that are still almost untouched especially in Pakistan. The current study also contributes to the existing literature through empirical shreds of evidence.

This article presents Fuzzy Particle Swarm Optimization of PID controller PSO-FPIDC used as a Conventional Power System Stabilizer CPSS to improve the dynamic stability performance of generating unit during low frequency oscillations. Speed deviation Δw and acceleration Δẇ of synchronous generator are taken as input to the PSO-FPIDC controller connected to Single Machine Infinite Busbar SMIB system. This controller examined under different perturbation scenarios. The dynamic performance of the PSO-FPIDC is compared with the Fuzzy Teacher Learner Based Optimization PID TLBO-FPIDC, PSO-PID, TLBO-PID and optimal parameters of convectional Power System Stabilizer CPSS. The results show that the performance of PSO-FPIDC has small overshoot/undershoot and damp out lower frequency oscillations very quickly as compared to other controllers.

Purpose This study is important in measuring the role of investment in information and communication technology (ICT), financial inclusion and governance indicators on environmental performance in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) economies. Hence, this study aims to explore the strategies for decarbonization and improve sustainable development through technological innovation and governance improvement. Design/methodology/approach This study used the pool mean group–autoregressive distributed lag methodology to measure the short- and long-term effects of ICT investment, financial inclusion and governance indicators on environmental performance. It covered data from 1991 to 2022 from 25 OECD countries. Findings This study observed stationarity of the variables at the first difference, weak correlation between the variables, strong cross-section dependency and cointegration among the variables. The findings also observed that investment in ICT with private participation, financial inclusion, rule of law and government effectiveness significantly decline the level of CO2 emission both in the short and long term. Besides, voice and accountability increase the level of CO2 emission and strongly affect the environmental performance of OECD economies. Practical implications Policymakers of the OECD countries can improve environmental performance by encouraging ICT investment, expanding financial inclusion and improving the governance frameworks. Policymakers must initiate by encouraging green finance, improving resource efficiency and efficient waste management can raise the environmental performance. The adverse effect of voice and accountability on environmental performance needs refining governance frameworks to support them with environmental goals. Originality/value This study provides a new insight into the existing literature by incorporating ICT investment, financial inclusion and governance indicators in a unified framework for improving environmental performance. This study provides a new perspective on how the selected variable plays a significant role in decarbonization and achieving sustainable development. This study also provides a framework for decision-makers to combat climatic issues by improvising good governance.

In this study, a 9-elements hybrid MIMO (multiple input multiple output) antennas system is developed for 5G Smartphone communication.The designed MIMO system is composed of two different antenna parts i.e. the multi-band antenna element, and the eight-elements single-band antenna array. The multi-band antenna element encompasses the GSM 0.9/1.8/1.9 GHz (2G bands), UMTS 2.1 GHz (3G bands), LTE 2.3/2.5 GHz (4G bands), GPS, and WLAN 2.4/5 GHz, while the single-band antenna array covers the C-band (3400–3600 MHz) allocated for 5G cellular communcation. The model of the designed system has been manufactured and the simulation results are validated by conducting experiments with the fabricated prototype. High isolation levels have been observed between the elements. The designed antenna systems showed consistent radiation characteristics with a peak gain value of 5.5 dBi, and efficiency of as high as 90%. Furthermore, good MIMO performance parameters, such as the envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) less than 0.13, and 40 bps/Hz channel capacity have been observed over the desired bandwidth. Owing to the salient performance characteristics, the proposed antenna system could be used in modern mobile communications.