VECTORS: Video communication through opportunistic relays and scalable video coding

Crowd-sourced video distribution is frequently of interest in the local vicinity. In this paper, we propose a novel design to transfer such content over opportunistic networks with adaptive quality encoding to achieve reasonable delay bounds. The video segments are transmitted between source and destination in a delay tolerant manner using the Nearby Connections Android library. This implementation can be applied to multiple domains, including farm monitoring, wildlife, and environmental tracking, disaster response scenarios, etc. In this work, we present the design of an opportunistic contact based system, and we discuss basic results for the trial runs within our institute.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, and under 3000 words for submission to the SoftwareX journa

Federated Learning for Protecting Medical Data Privacy

Deep learning is one of the most advanced machine learning techniques, and its prominence has increased in recent years. Language processing, predictions in medical research and pattern recognition are few of the numerous fields in which it is widely utilized. Numerous modern medical applications benefit greatly from the implementation of machine learning (ML) models and the disruptive innovations in the entire modern health care system. It is extensively used for constructing accurate and robust statistical models from large volumes of medical data collected from a variety of sources in contemporary healthcare systems [1]. Due to privacy concerns that restrict access to medical data, these Deep learning techniques have yet to completely exploit medical data despite their immense potential benefits. Many data proprietors are unable to benefit from large-scale deep learning due to privacy and confidentiality concerns associated with data sharing. However, without access to sufficient data, Deep Learning will not be able to realize its maximum potential when transitioning from the research phase to clinical practice [2]. This project addresses this problem by implementing Federated Learning and Encrypted Computations on text data, such as Multi Party Computation. SyferText, a Python library for privacy-protected Natural Language Processing that leverages PySyft to conduct Federated Learning, is used in this context

Comparison of clinical outcomes among thrombolyzed and non-thrombolyzed STEMI patients: a single-centre observational study

Background: There is a paucity of data that compare clinical outcomes, especially morbidity and mortality among thrombolyzed and non-thrombolyzed ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients in Indian population.Methods: An observational, single-centre study involving 70 patients who were diagnosed with STEMI from February 2014 to June 2015. Patients were thrombolysed after meticulous evaluation of indications for thrombolytic therapy, and later whenever needed they were subjected to revascularization therapy of either percutenous coronary intervention (PCI) or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). Then, STEMI patients were categorized into thrombolyzed and non-thrombolyzed groups. Mortality and morbidity parameters such as effort tolerance expressed in terms of New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class and typical anginal chest pain at 1, 6, and 12-month were primary outcomes.Results: Mean age of the cohort was 53.2 years: 48 men and 22 women. Of the total, 58 (82.9%) patients underwent thrombolysis. Mean window period of thrombolysis therapy was 8.1±2.0 hours. Revascularization was required in 80% of cases. At 12-month, STEMI patients who were thrombolyzed had significantly better effort tolerance in terms of NYHA class than those who were non-thrombolyzed (25% versus 13.8%; p<0.005). At 1 and 6-month, STEMI patients who were thrombolyzed had significantly better effort tolerance in terms of typical anginal pain than those who were non-thrombolyzed (1-month, 82.8% versus 58.3%; p<0.005; 6-month, 4.3% versus 0.0%; p<0.005).Conclusions: This study enlightened the effectiveness of thrombolytic therapy together with revascularization (CABG or PCI) in reducing the morbidity rate than revascularization alone

Assessment of anal incontinence among patients with fistula in ano, at presentation and after seton treatment

INTRODUCTION: Fistula in ano is a tubular tract connecting two epithelial surfaces, connecting mucosa of anal canal to the perianal skin. It is lined by granulation tissue. It can present as a single fistulous tract or as multiple tracts. The actual burden of the disease is unknown because it gets underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, under reported, treatment is mostly tried by traditional methods. The risk of an anal abscess to lead to fistula in ano ranges from 26% - 38%. Other fistulas caused by subacute infection and suppuration of cryptoglandular glands of anal canal. Rarer causes of fistula in ano include malignancy, tuberculosis, hidradenitis suppurativa and crohn’s disease. Fistula in ano starts as a cryptoglandular abscess which is a representation of acute phase, which the infective stage. This stage significantly affects the quality of life and caused significant amount of discomfort when it forms a big abscess. The correct treatment at this stage itself becomes challenging. Surgery is the treatment of choice to control local sepsis. Goal of therapy at this point is control of local infection, removal of fistulous tract with minimal possibility of recurrence, and preservation of anal sphincters function. OBJECTIVES: 1. To assess prevalence of baseline anal incontinence among new patients presenting with fistula in ano. 2. To determine the incidence of new onset anal incontinence following draining seton surgery for fistula in ano METHODS: A prospective observational study with a sample size of 196 patients who presented with fistula in the department of General Surgery II (Colorectal surgery) during the study period. All the patients had incontinence assessment by Kamm’s scoring and Wexner’s scoring system at presentation in outpatient clinic. They also had anal manometry assessment. The set of patients who had a draining seton surgery done, underwent similar assessment 3 months later to assess continence. RESULTS: 1 - As per Kamm’s scoring system 26.2% patients and according to Wexner’s scoring system 23.5% patients had some form of incontinence at presentation itself. 2 – There was no statistically significant post operative new onset of incontinence following draining seton surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Thus we conclude; 1. As per Kamm’s scoring system 26.2% patients and according to Wexner’s scoring system 23.5% patients had some form of incontinence at presentation itself. 2. Draining Seton surgery is a safe surgery, there was no stastically significant short term (3 monthly) complication was noticed like, anal incontinence. 3. Draining Seton surgery can be done for the patient who present with high fistula in anon. 4. There was no additional risks of developing incontinence based on comorbid illness. 5. Intersphincteric fistulas have low resting anal tone, though trans sphincteric fistulas show drop in squeeze anal tone. 6. There was a basal mild incontinence present in patients with fistula in ano. The severity was more in patients who had multiple perianal surgical procedures. Incontinence was also seen in patients with chronic fistula in ano history. 7. The depth of internal opening and involvement of muscles fibres was also a contributing factor for baseline incontinence Thus it can be concluded safely that there was no significant change of squeeze anal tone following draining seton surgery nor significant change was noted in resting anal tone. Draining seton should be preferred in cases with high fistula in ano in which more than 1/3rd of external anal sphincters are involved

Does thyroid function have any relation with components of metabolic syndrome?

Background: Obesity, insulin resistance, physical inactivity, advanced age and hormonal disturbances have been suggested to be the underlying risk factors for the development of metabolic syndrome. Thyroid dysfunction can cause obesity, and can in turn lead to metabolic syndrome and can also be a cause of lipid abnormalities. Hence we tried to study the effect of thyroid function on the components of metabolic syndrome.Methods: Blood pressure, waist circumferences, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides were measured in all patients. TSH was measured and on its basis patients were divided in three groups: euthyroid, hypothyroid and subclinical hypothyroid.Results: There were 28 females and 22 males. Mean BMI was 31.51±5.21 kg/m2. The mean systolic blood pressure was 139.04±26.67 mm Hg and the diastolic pressure was 88.32±14.95 mm Hg. Mean waist circumference was 102±10.1 cm & mean waist: hip ratio was 0.97±0.094. HDL <50 in males and <40 in females in Euthyroid showed statistical significance (p value 0.05). Other components did not gain a statically significance. Comparing gender wise Subclinical hypothyroidism patients with Euthyroid patients, females having subclinical hypothyroidism are more likely to have metabolic syndrome (p value =0.03). This is not so in case of males.Conclusions: Female patients having subclinical hypothyroidism have higher chances of have metabolic syndrome as compared to males. Euthyroid patients with metabolic syndrome had low cholesterol. Other components of metabolic syndrome had no statically significance with thyroid function.

An Efficient Cloud Scheduling Algorithm for the Conservation of Energy through Broadcasting

Method of broadcasting is the well known operation that is used for providing support to different computing protocols in cloud computing. Attaining energy efficiency is one of the prominent challenges, that is quite significant in the scheduling process that is used in cloud computing as, there are fixed limits that have to be met by the system. In this research paper, we are particularly focusing on the cloud server maintenance and scheduling process and to do so, we are using the interactive broadcasting energy efficient computing technique along with the cloud computing server. Additionally, the remote host machines used for cloud services are dissipating more power and with that they are consuming more and more energy. The effect of the power consumption is one of the main factors for determining the cost of the computing resources. With the idea of using the avoidance technology for assigning the data center resources that dynamically depend on the application demands and supports the cloud computing with the optimization of the servers in use

Collision Avoidance In Cognitive Radio Adhoc Networks Using Leach Algorithm

One of the most important operation in ad hoc networks is the broadcast whose protocol is very useful in the wireless system. In earlier days infrastructure based networks were used which denied secondary users from using the free channels. The existence of ad hoc networks makes the cognitive radio very useful. A stream of channels are available for the secondary users in cognitive radio along with the primary users. In this paper, we discuss the modified version of a fully-distributed Broadcast protocol in multi-hop Cognitive Radio ad hoc networks with collision avoidance, BRACER. We consider the availability of spectrum for the unlicensed users along with the primary user for the transmission to take place

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION OF ENHANCED MULTICAST ROUTING MECHANISM FOR EVOLVING NETWORK TOPOLOGIES

Routing protocols of mobile ad-hoc network tend to need different approaches from existing Internet protocols, since most of the existing Internet protocols were designed to support routing in a network with fixed structure. In the academic and industrial world, those who think about such things have written quite a few papers proposing various routing solutions for mobile ad-hoc networks. In most wireless networking environments in productive use today the users devices communicate either via some networking infrastructure in the form of base stations and a backbone network, or directly with their intended communication partner, e.g. using 802.11 in ad hoc networks. In the proposed work, the evaluation of the distributed island multicast Protocol with AODV for news broadcasting and software distribution often has a large number of users is to be simulated and compared with CIM. It requires scalable and distributed solutions for data delivery. In DIM, hosts in the same island elect a unique leader. All leaders form an overlay tree. Based on the leader tree, leaders select bridge-nodes for their islands and construct a delivery overlay in distributed manner