RESUMEN

Pomegranate (Punica granatum) has staminate (male), androgynous (hermaphrodite), and intermediate flower types. Floral characterization is difficult for breeding efficiency across many pomegranate genotypes in Pakistan, which is essential for pomegranate cultivar enhancements. The present research focused on the floral characterization and breeding efficiency of fifteen pomegranate genotypes. Flower sex ratio, floral morphological parameters, i.e., flower length, ovary width, flower notch, flower tip and stigma with style length, and fruit set percentage were examined during the experiment. In terms of sex ratio, male flowers were found to be higher among all genotypes. Due to clear differences in flower length, width, and heterostyly facilitating visual identification of the hermaphrodite flowers, genotype Ternab-2, Kandhari White, and Kandhari Red had higher fruit set (≥70%) among all cross combinations attempted. Genotype Sava had higher flower length and heterostyly of hermaphrodite flower type, but ovary width was not very distinct, leading to average crossing success (85-34%). In conclusion, single or combination of morphological characters can be used for accurate identification of hermaphrodite flowers, which can improve hybrid efficiency and fruit set after artificial cross-pollination.

RESUMEN

Traditional taxi services have now been transformed into e-hailing applications (EHA) such as Uber, Careem, Hailo, and Grab Car globally due to the proliferation of smartphone technology. On the one hand, these applications provide transport facilities. On the other hand, users are facing multiple issues in the adoption of EHAs. Despite problems, EHAs are still widely adopted globally. However, a sparse amount of research has been conducted related to EHAs, particular in regards to exploring the significant factors of intention behind using EHAs Therefore, there is a need to identify influencing factors that have a great impact on the adoption and acceptance of these applications. Hence, this research aims to present an empirical study on the factors influencing customers' intentions towards EHAs. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was extended with four external factors: perceived mobility value, effort expectancy, perceived locational accuracy, and perceived price. A questionnaire was developed for the measurement of these factors. A survey was conducted with 211 users of EHAs to collect data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the collected data. The results of this study exposed that perceived usefulness, perceived price, and perceived ease of use affect behavior intention to use EHAs. Furthermore, perceived ease of use was impacted by effort expectancy, perceived locational accuracy, and perceived mobility. The findings of the study provide a foundation to develop new guidelines for such applications that will be beneficial for developers and designers of these applications.

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RESUMEN

Radio propagation models (RPMs) are generally employed in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) to predict path loss in multiple operating environments (e.g. modern road infrastructure such as flyovers, underpasses and road tunnels). For example, different RPMs have been developed to predict propagation behaviour in road tunnels. However, most existing RPMs for road tunnels are computationally complex and are based on field measurements in frequency band not suitable for VANET deployment. Furthermore, in tunnel applications, consequences of moving radio obstacles, such as large buses and delivery trucks, are generally not considered in existing RPMs. This paper proposes a computationally inexpensive RPM with minimal set of parameters to predict path loss in an acceptable range for road tunnels. The proposed RPM utilizes geometric properties of the tunnel, such as height and width along with the distance between sender and receiver, to predict the path loss. The proposed RPM also considers the additional attenuation caused by the moving radio obstacles in road tunnels, while requiring a negligible overhead in terms of computational complexity. To demonstrate the utility of our proposed RPM, we conduct a comparative summary and evaluate its performance. Specifically, an extensive data gathering campaign is carried out in order to evaluate the proposed RPM. The field measurements use the 5 GHz frequency band, which is suitable for vehicular communication. The results demonstrate that a close match exists between the predicted values and measured values of path loss. In particular, an average accuracy of 94% is found with R2 = 0.86.

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