Globally, breast cancer is a major reason for female mortality. Due to the limitations of current clinical imaging, the researchers are encouraged to explore alternative and complementary tools to available techniques to detect the breast tumor in an earlier stage. This article outlines a new, portable, and low-cost microwave imaging (MWI) system using an iterative enhancing technique for breast imaging. A compact side slotted tapered slot antenna is designed for microwave imaging. The radiating fins of tapered slot antenna are modified by etching nine rectangular side slots. The irregular slots on the radiating fins enhance the electrical length as well as produce strong directive radiation due to the suppression of induced surface currents that radiate vertically at the outer edges of the radiating arms with end-fire direction. It has remarkable effects on efficiency and gain. With the addition of slots, the side-lobe levels are reduced, the gain of the main-lobe is increased and corrects the squint effects simultaneously, thus improving the characteristics of the radiation. For experimental validation, a heterogeneous breast phantom was developed that contains dielectric properties identical to real breast tissues with the inclusion of tumors. An alternative PC controlled and microcontroller-based mechanical MWI system is designed and developed to collect the antenna scattering signal. The radiated backscattered signals from the targeted area of the human body are analyzed to reveal the changes in dielectric properties in tissues. The dielectric constants of tumorous cells are higher than that of normal tissues due to their higher water content. The remarkable deviation of the scattered field is processed by using newly proposed Iteratively Corrected Delay and Sum (IC-DAS) algorithm and the reconstruction of the image of the phantom interior is done. The developed UWB (Ultra-Wideband) antenna based MWI has been able to perform the detection of tumorous cells in breast phantom that can pave the way to saving lives.

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric status of the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). The BRS is a brief self-rating questionnaire to measure resilience. This instrument consists of six items and was administered on 120 international students studying at a public university in Malaysia. The sample consists of 76 male and 44 female, with a mean age of 24.4 years old. The BRS met the requirement for the implementation of PCA based on the Bartlett test of Sphericity and the Kaiser Mayer Olkin. Factor analysis reveals a single factor with eigenvalues above 1.0, which accounted for 73.54% of the total variance. Reliability analysis using Cronbach's Alpha was .93, indicating that the scale has good reliability. This study demonstrates that BRS is appropriate to be used by college personnel and counselors to examine and identify resiliency among college students in Malaysia. Suggestions for future study are also discussed.

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