Recent Multicast Routing Protocols in VANET: Classification and Comparison

الشبكة المخصصة للسيارات (VANET) صنفت باعتبارها واحدة من أهم فئات شبكات الجيل التالي التي طورت في السنوات الأخيرة بسرعة بالنسبة للمركبات وعمليات نقل الطرق. هذه الشبكه يمكن أن تساعد في تنفيذ مجموعة كبيرة من التطبيقات المتعلقة بالمركبات، اشارة المرور، ازدحام المرور، السائقين، الركاب، الإسعاف، الشرطة، سيارات الإطفاء وحتى المشاة. التوجيه هو المشكلة الأبرز في نقل المعلومات في الـ VANET وهناك العديد من وسائط النشر: البث الاحادي، البث المتعدد و البحث في منطقه جغرافيه معينه (geocast). في هذه المقاله سوف نركز فقط على الإرسال المتعدد الذي يشير إلى عملية إرسال معلومات من عقدة واحدة (تسمى المركبة المصدر) إلى مجموعة من العقد الموجودة في مواقع مختلفة (تسمى المركبات الهدف). والغرض من هذه المقالة هو دراسة بروتوكولات توجيه الإرسال المتعدد الموجودة في الـ VANET وإنتاج دراسه جيد عنها وتحديد مزايا وعيوب كل منها وكذلك تصنيفها إلى فئات مختلفة استنادا إلى بعض العوامل المؤثرة مثل نوعية الخدمة، مسار المركبة وما إلى ذلك. وبعد تحليل بروتوكولات التوجيه هذه وجدنا أن هناك حاجة ملحة لإنتاج بروتوكول توجيه متعدد الإرسال فعال لهذه الشبكة لتقليل استهلاك الموارد وتحسين الأداء العام.Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) classified as one of the most important classes of next generation networks that developed in recent years rapidly for vehicles and road transmissions. It can help in implementing a large set of applications related to vehicles, traffic light, traffic jam, drivers, passengers, ambulance, police, fire trucks and even pedestrians. Routing is the most prominent problem in the transmission of information in VANETs and there are many modes of dissemination: unicast, broadcast, multicast and geocast. In this paper, we will focus only on the multicast that is referring to a process of sending information from one node (called source vehicle) to a group of nodes that found in different locations (called destination vehicles). The purpose of this paper is to study the existing multicast routing protocols in VANET and produce good survey about them and determine the advantages and disadvantages of each one as well as classify them into different categories based on some effected parameters such as quality of service, vehicle trajectory and etc. After analyzing these routing protocols we concluded that there is persistent need to produce efficient multicast routing protocol in this network to decrease the resource consumption and improve the overall performance

Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Corporate Reputation via Organizational Trust and Commitment

Purpose: The conceptual framework based on a comprehensive literature review hypothesized that the perceived CSR of an organization may lead to the development of trust and commitment among the employees, which in turn may lead to the building of the corporate reputation of the organization. Along with that, the moderating effects of HRM practices and organizational justice have also been investigated in the given relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with its given mediators i.e., “organizational trust” and “organizational commitment”. Methodology: The target population of the study was comprised of the management and teaching faculty of educational institutions. The random sampling technique was employed to carry out an empirical study of 380 samples of employees. The data collected were analyzed by using the Smart PLS 3 software. The model was tested, and all the hypotheses were accepted. Findings: A positive relationship has been observed between CSR investments and corporate reputation. Furthermore, empirical results show that the employee’s commitment and the level of trust towards the organization serve as partial mediators between CSR practices and corporate reputation. The results showed that all of the hypotheses were accepted. Conclusion: This study is intuitive and empirically substantiates the selection of organizational justice and HRM practices as moderating variables between the observed CSR activities and its given mediators

Routing Strategy for Internet of Vehicles based on Hierarchical SDN and Fog Computing

تم اکتشاف الحوسبة الضبابیة لحل مشكلة نقص المصادر في مستشعرات إنترنت الأشياء (IoT) ومعالجة المهام بسرعة. انترنت المركبات (IoV) هو تطبيق خاص من شبكات إنترنت الأشياء التي تتكون من أجهزة استشعار غير متجانسة موجودة في المركبات. تقوم هذه المستشعرات بنقل المهام إلى خوادم الحوسبة الضابية التي تعالجها وتعطي الإجابات للمستشعرات.  على اي حال، فإن حركة المركبات تؤثر على عملية تسليم هذه الاجابات. عندما تخرج السيارة المصدرة للمهمة من مجال خادم ضبابي معين خلال وقت معالجة هذه المهمة، فأنه لن يتم وصول الاجابة لتلك السيارة بشكل صحيح. لذلك، يحتاج إلى حساب المسار الأمثل لتلك السيارة. تتسبب هذه العملية في تجاوز الموعد النهائي للمهمة وتقليل الإنتاجية. للتغلب على هذه المشكلة، يقدم هذا البحث معمارية هرمية مبنية على الشبكات المعرفة بالبرمجيات (SDN) وحوسبة الضباب لشبكة IoV. تتألف هذه المعمارية من طبقة سيارات IoV, بيئة حوسبة ضبابية ووحدات تحكم SDN شبه مركزية ووحدة تحكم SDN  مركزية. علاوة على ذلك ، تم اقتراح إستراتيجية توجيهية تسمى إستراتيجية توجيه ذات تأخير جيد بالاعتماد على الحوسبة الضبابية و ال SDN لشبكات ال IoV (DRSFI) .تقوم وحدات التحكم SDN بتنفيذ DRSFI لحساب المسارات مع أدنى تأخير مع الأخذ بنظر الاعتبار قيد النطاق الترددي المتاح وموقع وسرعة المركبة. من نتائج محاكاة سيناريوهات مختلفة مع سرعات حركة متنوعة وعداد مختلفة من المهام، استنتجنا أن النظام المقترح أفضل من نظام IoV-Fog-Central SDN  ونظام IoV-Fog من حيث متوسط التأخير من البداية إلى النهاية و النسبة المئوية لخسارة الحزم والنسبة المئوية للإرسال الناجح.The fog computing is invited to solve the lack of resources problem in the sensors of Internet of Things (IoT) and handle the tasks quickly. Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a special application of IoT networks that composed of heterogeneous sensors that are found in vehicles. These sensors transfer the tasks to the fog servers that process them and give the responses to the sensors. However, the mobility of vehicles effects on the delivery operation of responses. When the source vehicle of a task exited from the domain of some fog server through the processing time of this task, the response will not be reached to that vehicle correctly. Therefore, it is need to compute the optimal path to that vehicle. This process causes exceeding the task deadline and decreasing the throughput. To overcome this issue, this paper produces a hierarchical architecture based on Software Defined Network (SDN) and fog computing for IoV networks. This architecture consists of IoV vehicles, fog computing framework, semi-central SDN controllers and central SDN controller layers. Moreover, a routing strategy is proposed called Delay-Efficient Routing strategy based on SDN and Fog computing for IoV (DRSFI). The SDN controllers perform DRSFI to compute the routes with minimum delay with taking into consideration the available bandwidth constraint and the location and speed of the vehicle. From the results of simulation of different scenarios with various mobility speeds and various number of tasks, we concluded that the proposed system is better than IoV-Fog-central SDN system and IoV-Fog system in terms of average delay from end to end, percentage of packet loss and percentage of successfully transmission. &nbsp

Recurrent pregnancy loss at gynecology and obstetrical hospital in Duhok Province

Background: Recurrent pregnancy loss is physically and emotionally harmful for mothers. This study aimed to find out the prevalence and associated factors of recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) in pregnant women in Duhok province.Methods: In this retrospective study, the medical records of the patients who had pregnancy loss and registered in Duhok Maternity Hospital were reviewed for the period of January - December 2019. Accordingly, 300 women aged 18 years and older with pregnancy loss were included in this study.Results: The prevalence of EPL was 16.3%. The study found that patients with RPL were statistically older compared to those patients without RPL, (39.27 vs. 33.24 years; P<0.001), respectively. Besides, the RPL group had a significantly higher percentage of family history of pregnancy loss (12.24% vs. 1.20%; P<0.001). The patients with RPL had significantly higher prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis (14.29% vs. 3.59%; P=0.002), cervical incompetence (8.16% vs. 0.80%; P=0.002), structural abnormalities of uterus (14.29% vs. 4.8%; P=0.012), and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) (40.82% vs. 11.95%; P<0.001). There was no significant association of RPL with smoking (P=0.261).Conclusions: This study revealed a high prevalence of RPL in patients with pregnancy loss. Also, the study showed that the patients in the RPL group were significantly older and had a higher prevalence of medical illnesses; including chlamydia trachomatis, cervical incompetence, structural anomalies of the uterus, and polycystic ovarian syndrome

Interacting with a Chatbot-Based Advising System: Understanding the Effect of Chatbot Personality and User Gender on Behavior

Chatbots with personality have been shown to affect engagement and user subjective satisfaction. Yet, the design of most chatbots focuses on functionality and accuracy rather than an interpersonal communication style. Existing studies on personality-imbued chatbots have mostly assessed the effect of chatbot personality on user preference and satisfaction. However, the influence of chatbot personality on behavioral qualities, such as users’ trust, engagement, and perceived authenticity of the chatbots, is largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, this study contributes: (1) A detailed design of a personality-imbued chatbot used in academic advising. (2) Empirical findings of an experiment with students who interacted with three different versions of the chatbot. Each version, vetted by psychology experts, represents one of the three dominant traits, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion. The experiment focused on the effect of chatbot personality on trust, authenticity, engagement, and intention to use the chatbot. Furthermore, we assessed whether gender plays a role in students’ perception of the personality-imbued chatbots. Our findings show a positive impact of chatbot personality on perceived chatbot authenticity and intended engagement, while student gender does not play a significant role in the students’ perception of chatbots

Ameliorating drought effects in wheat using an exclusive or 2 co-applied rhizobacteria and ZnO nanoparticles

Simple Summary Wheat is a vital source of food, and its production is increasingly threatened by drought episodes. Moreover, its cultivation under water deficit situations along with zinc deficient soils is a major concern of declined wheat grain quantity and quality. Drought-linked changes in nutrient use efficiency, photosynthetic mechanisms, and chemical composition of wheat plants ultimately led to poorer harvest. Therefore, we aimed to understand the drought-ameliorating and grain nutritional improving effects in wheat by rhizobacteria (Azospirillum brasilense) and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) under various growth stage-based drought stress episodes. Rhizobacteria colonized the host plant rhizosphere and provided growth promotion and stress amelioration. ZnO NPs were recognized as a potential water and zinc deficiency alleviator, and general growth promoter by triggering nitrogen metabolism, chlorophyll synthesis, membrane integrity, and grain zinc biofortification activities. Physio-biochemical observations indicated significantly higher positive effects under co-application over the sole use of either microbial or nanomaterials. Based on our research, it was concluded that co-applied Azospirillum brasilense and ZnO NPs generally increase wheat productivity under drought episodes with low operational cost to growers. Further, plausible synergistic physiological enhancement by NPs and rhizobacteria interaction may contribute towards sustainable wheat crop management under abiotic stresses. Drought is a major abiotic factor and affects cereal-based staple food production and reliability in developing countries such as Pakistan. To ensure a sustainable and consistent food supply, holistic production plans involving the integration of several drought mitigation approaches are required. Using a randomized complete block design strategy, we examined the drought-ameliorating characteristics of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and nanoparticles (NPs) exclusively or as a combined application (T-4) through three stages (D-1, D-2, and D-3) of wheat growth (T-1, control). Our field research revealed that Azospirillum brasilense alone (T-2) and zinc oxide NPs (T-3) improved wheat plant water relations, chlorophyll, proline, phenolics and grain quality, yield, and their allied traits over the stressed treatments. Specifically, the best outcome was observed in the combined treatment of PGPR and ZnO NPs (T-4). Interestingly, the combined treatment delivered effective drought mitigation through enhanced levels of antioxidants (15% APX, 27% POD, 35% CAT, 38% PPO and 44% SOD) over controls at the grain-filling stage (GFS, D-3 x T-1). The 40% improvements were recorded under the combined treatment at GFS over their respective controls. Their combined usage (PGPR and ZnO NPs) was concluded as an effective strategy for building wheat resilience under drought, especially in arid and semi-arid localities

Investigation of 9000 hours multi-stress aging effects on High-Temperature Vulcanized Silicone Rubber with silica (nano/micro) filler hybrid composite insulator

Degradation in the polymeric insulators is caused due to the environmental stresses. The main aim of this paper is to explore the improved aging characteristics of hybrid samples by adding nano/micro silica in High Temperature Vulcanized Silicone Rubber (HTV-SiR) under long term accelerated aging conditions for 9000 hours. As HTV-SiR is unable to sustain environmental stresses for a long time, thus a long term accelerated aging behavior is an important phenomenon to be considered for field application. The aging characteristics of nano/micro filled HTV-SiR are analyzed by using techniques such as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Leakage Current (LC), Fourier Transform Infrared Microscopy (FTIR), Hydrophobicity Classification (HC), and breakdown strength for the aging time of 9000 hours. FTIR and leakage currents are measured after every cycle. All the co-filled samples revealed escalated aging characteristics as compared to the neat sample except the SN8 sample (8% nano-silica+20% micro-silica) after 9000 hours of aging. The highest loading of 6% and 8% nano-silica with 20% micro-silica do not contribute to the improved performance when compared with the neat and hybrid samples. However, from the critical experimental analysis, it is deduced that SN2 sample (2% nano-silica+20% micro-silica) is highly resistant to the long term accelerated aging conditions. SN2 has no cracks, lower loss percentages in the important FTIR absorption peaks, higher breakdown strength and superior HC after aging as compared to the unfilled and hybrid samples

A Mendelian Randomization Analysis Investigates Causal Associations between Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and Variable Risk Factors

The question of whether variable risk factors and various nutrients are causally related to inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) has remained unanswered so far. Thus, this study investigated whether genetically predicted risk factors and nutrients play a function in the occurrence of inflammatory bowel diseases, including ulcerative colitis (UC), non-infective colitis (NIC), and Crohn’s disease (CD), using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Utilizing the data of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) with 37 exposure factors, we ran Mendelian randomization analyses based on up to 458,109 participants. Univariable and multivariable MR analyses were conducted to determine causal risk factors for IBD diseases. Genetic predisposition to smoking and appendectomy as well as vegetable and fruit intake, breastfeeding, n-3 PUFAs, n-6 PUFAs, vitamin D, total cholesterol, whole-body fat mass, and physical activity were related to the risk of UC (p < 0.05). The effect of lifestyle behaviors on UC was attenuated after correcting for appendectomy. Genetically driven smoking, alcohol consumption, appendectomy, tonsillectomy, blood calcium, tea intake, autoimmune diseases, type 2 diabetes, cesarean delivery, vitamin D deficiency, and antibiotic exposure increased the risk of CD (p < 0.05), while vegetable and fruit intake, breastfeeding, physical activity, blood zinc, and n-3 PUFAs decreased the risk of CD (p < 0.05). Appendectomy, antibiotics, physical activity, blood zinc, n-3 PUFAs, and vegetable fruit intake remained significant predictors in multivariable MR (p < 0.05). Besides smoking, breastfeeding, alcoholic drinks, vegetable and fruit intake, vitamin D, appendectomy, and n-3 PUFAs were associated with NIC (p < 0.05). Smoking, alcoholic drinks, vegetable and fruit intake, vitamin D, appendectomy, and n-3 PUFAs remained significant predictors in multivariable MR (p < 0.05). Our results provide new and comprehensive evidence demonstrating that there are approving causal effects of various risk factors on IBDs. These findings also supply some suggestions for the treatment and prevention of these diseases

The Use of Low-Level Laser Therapy to Reduce Postoperative Morbidity After Third Molar Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Purpose Surgical removal of third molars carries morbidity and significantly affects patients' quality-of-life. This study aims to investigate whether administration of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) is effective in reducing postoperative morbidity in patients undergoing surgical removal of mandibular third molars compared with placebo. Material and Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis involving a comprehensive search strategy implemented across 5 electronic databases. This was supplemented by hand searching and contacting international experts and grey literature. Titles, abstracts, and full articles were scrutinized for studies meeting the inclusion criteria. All randomized controlled trials comparing treatment group of LLLT with a placebo control group were eligible for inclusion. The outcomes variables were postoperative pain, swelling, and trismus. Risk of bias and methodological quality assessment was carried out. We pooled data statistically, and meta-analyses were carried out using a random-effects model. Results Seventeen randomized controlled trials were included in this systematic review, all of which were considered to have a low risk of bias. Participants, aged 13 to 70 years, and 35% women, totaled 1064. Meta-analyses found significant reductions in standardized mean differences (SMDs) in swelling at day 2 and day 7 postoperatively (SMD, −0.611; 95% confidence interval, −0.968, −0.234 and SMD, −0.532; 95% confidence interval, −0.795, −0.269). There were nonsignificant reductions in SMD in pain and trismus at day 2 and day 7 postoperatively. Conclusions LLLT significantly reduces swelling after extraction of mandibular third molars compared with placebo. LLLT has not shown to reduce postoperative pain and trismus. LLLT does not cause adverse effects. There is currently insufficient evidence available, to promote the investment in LLLT vs the net clinical benefit. Randomized controlled trials with larger sample size and standardized study design and outcome measures are required, to make definitive recommendations to clinicians on its use on patients