IoT and UAV Integration in 5G Hybrid Terrestrial-Satellite Networks

The Fifth Generation of Mobile Communications (5G) will lead to the growth of use cases demanding higher capacity and a enhanced data rate, a lower latency, and a more flexible and scalable network able to offer better user Quality of Experience (QoE). The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of these use cases. It has been spreading in the recent past few years, and it covers a wider range of possible application scenarios, such as smart city, smart factory, and smart agriculture, among many others. However, the limitations of the terrestrial network hinder the deployment of IoT devices and services. Besides, the existence of a plethora of different solutions (short vs. long range, commercialized vs. standardized, etc.), each of them based on different communication protocols and, in some cases, on different access infrastructures, makes the integration among them and with the upcoming 5G infrastructure more difficult. This paper discusses the huge set of IoT solutions available or still under standardization that will need to be integrated in the 5G framework. UAVs and satellites will be proposed as possible solutions to ease this integration, overcoming the limitations of the terrestrial infrastructure, such as the limited covered areas and the densification of the number of IoT devices per square kilometer

Cress Seed (Lepidium sativum) Role in the healthy Processed Spread Cheese and Its Anti-Diabetic Activity

The present study dealt with utilization of cress seeds (Lepidium sativum) in the manufacture of processed spread cheese, instead of emulsifying salt. Cress seed have also health promoting properties especially lowering glucose ratios. Cress seeds powder were prepared and added with the ingredients during manufacture of processed spread cheese at levels of six ratios (0.05, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and 5.5%) compared with control (3% commercial emulsifying salt). The chemical, physical, microbiology and organoleptic properties of resultant samples were evaluated. Data revealed that processed spread cheese sample fortified with 3.5% cress seeds was the best either when fresh or during storage (8±2ºC for 3 months) and they had acceptable properties. Microstructure of processed cheese spread samples were also conducted. From nutritional view, processed cheese spread samples fortified with 3.5% cress seeds were used for feeding Adult male albino rats to study their effect on plasma glucose level. Obtained data indicated that the glucose level in plasma was significantly decreased (

Gambaran Konsumsi Protein Nabati Dan Hewani Pada Anak Balita Stunting Dan Gizi Kurang Di Indonesia (the Profile of Vegetable - Animal Protein Consumption of Stunting and Underweight Children Under Five Years Old in Indonesia)

Undernutrition is still public health problem in Indonesia, based on 2013 Basic Health Research showed that more than 20 percent of children under five in 18 out of 33 provinces were underweight and more than 20 percent in all of provinces were stunted, so the malnutrition is still a public health problem. Meanhile the SKMI 2014 showed that the average of protein consumption of children under five were above 100 persen RDA. Therefore the purpose of this data analysis was to establish the profile of protein intake and the nutritional status of children under five years old. The data sources were from the SKMI 2014 and the Basic Health Research 2013. The design of the two national health research were cross-sectional, and the analysis was done in National Institute of Heatlh Research and Development, Ministry of Health. Samples were children under five years old (ages 6-59 months). The variables collected were residence, socio economic, education, number of household members, the protein intake, vegetable and animal protein consumption, as well as their nutritional status. The result showed that among stunting and underweight children, the protein intake from animal foods especially milk and dairy foods were lower than children with normal nutritional status. Meanwhile the protein intake from vegetable was higher, especially cereals. Based on these results need to be developed foods containing high quality protein as well as providing information and education for people to consume more varied food sources of high quality protein with low prices such as nuts. Hasil Riset Kesehatan Dasar (Riskesdas) tahun 2013 menunjukkan 18 dari 33 provinsi mempunyai prevalensi gizi kurang (underweight) pada Balita lebih dari 20 persen dan semua propinsi masih memiliki masalah stunting lebih dari 20 persen, sehingga masalah gizi kurang dan stunting masih menjadi masalah kesehatan masyarakat. Data SKMI 2014 menunjukkan bahwa tingkat kecukupan rata-rata protein pada Balita sudah di atas 100 persen. Analisis lanjut data SKMI 2014 dan data Riskesdas 2013 ini bertujuan untuk melihat profil keragaman asupan protein hubungannya dengan masalah gizi pada Balita. Desain penelitian Riskesdas maupun SKMI adalah cross-sectional. Analisis data dilakukan di Badan Litbang Kesehatan dari bulan Juni -Oktober 2015. Sampel adalah anak Balita (usia 6-59 bulan). Variabel yang dikumpulkan yaitu tempat tinggal, sosial ekonomi kepala keluarga, pendidikan kepala keluarga, jumlah anggota rumah tangga, asupan protein anak Balita, konsumsi protein nabati dan hewani anak Balita, masalah gizi anak Balita yang kemudian dilakukan analisis antara asupan protein hewani dan asupan protein nabati. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa pada anak Balita stunting maupun gizi kurang, asupan protein hewani terutama yang berasal dari susu dan hasil olahnya lebih rendah dibandingkan anak Balita dengan status gizi baik. Sebaliknya asupan protein dari bahan nabati lebih tinggi terutama serealia. Berdasarkan hasil tersebut perlu dikembangkan dan disosialisasikan seperti biskuit tinggi protein yang terbuat dari telur dan susu serta pemberian informasi dan edukasi kepada masyarakat untuk mengonsumsi bahan pangan sumber protein hewani secara lebih bervariasi seperti protein dari kacang-kacangan

FPGA implementation of LDPC soft-decision decoders based DCSK for spread spectrum applications

Spread spectrum (SS) communications have attracted interest because of their channel attenuation immunity and low intercept potential. Apart from some extra features such as basic transceiver structures, chaotic communication would be the analog alternative to digital SS systems. Differential chaos shift keying (DCSK) systems, non-periodic and random characteristics among chaos carriers as well as their interaction with soft data are designed based on low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes in this brief. Because of simple structure, and glorious ability to correct errors. Using the Xilinx kintex7 FPGA development kit, we investigate the hardware performance and resource requirement tendencies of the DCSK communication system based on LDPC decoding algorithms (Prob. Domain, Log Domain and Min-Sum) over AWGN channel. The results indicate that the proposed system model has substantial improvements in the performance of the bit error rate (BER) and the real-time process. The Min-Sum decoder has relatively fewer FPGA resources than the other decoders. The implemented system will achieve 10-4 BER efficiency with 5 dB associate Eb/No as a coding gain

Fine Structures of Shock of SN 1006 with the Chandra Observation

The north east shell of SN 1006 is the most probable acceleration site of high energy electrons (up to ~ 100 TeV) with the Fermi acceleration mechanism at the shock front. We resolved non-thermal filaments from thermal emission in the shell with the excellent spatial resolution of Chandra. The thermal component is extended widely over about ~ 100 arcsec (about 1 pc at 1.8 kpc distance) in width, consistent with the shock width derived from the Sedov solution. The spectrum is fitted with a thin thermal plasma of kT = 0.24 keV in non-equilibrium ionization (NEI), typical for a young SNR. The non-thermal filaments are likely thin sheets with the scale widths of ~ 4 arcsec (0.04 pc) and ~ 20 arcsec (0.2 pc) at upstream and downstream, respectively. The spectra of the filaments are fitted with a power-law function of index 2.1--2.3, with no significant variation from position to position. In a standard diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) model, the extremely small scale length in upstream requires the magnetic field nearly perpendicular to the shock normal. The injection efficiency (eta) from thermal to non-thermal electrons around the shock front is estimated to be ~ 1e-3 under the assumption that the magnetic field in upstream is 10 micro G. In the filaments, the energy densities of the magnetic field and non-thermal electrons are similar to each other, and both are slightly smaller than that of thermal electrons. in the same order for each other. These results suggest that the acceleration occur in more compact region with larger efficiency than previous studies.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ, the paper with full resolution images in http://www-cr.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp/member/bamba/Paper/SN1006.pd

A meta-analysis on the prophylactic use of macrolide antibiotics for the prevention of disease exacerbations in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

SummaryIntroductionMacrolides are of unique interest in preventing COPD exacerbations because they possess a variety of antibacterial, antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. Recent research has generated renewed interest in prophylactic macrolides to reduce the risk of COPD exacerbations. Little is known about how well these recent findings fit within the context of previous research on this subject. The purpose of this article is to evaluate, via exploratory meta-analysis, whether the overall consensus favors prophylactic macrolides for prevention of COPD exacerbations.MethodsEMBASE, Cochrane and Medline databases were searched for all relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Six RCTs were identified. The primary endpoint was incidence of COPD exacerbations. Secondary endpoints including mortality, hospitalization rates, adverse events and likelihood of having at least one COPD exacerbation were also examined.ResultsThere was a 37% relative risk reduction (RR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.45–0.87, p value = 0.005) in COPD exacerbations among patients taking macrolides compared to placebo. Furthermore, there was a 21% reduced risk of hospitalization (RR = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.69–0.90, p-value = 0.01) and 68% reduced risk of having at least one COPD exacerbation (RR = 0.34, 95% CI 0.21–0.54, p-value = 0.001) among patients taking macrolides versus placebo. There was also a trend toward decreased mortality and increased adverse events among patients taking macrolides but these were not statistically significant.ConclusionsProphylactic macrolides are an effective approach for reducing incident COPD exacerbations. There were several limitations to this study including a lack of consistent adverse event reporting and some degree of clinical and statistical heterogeneity between studies

BAMM (BRAF autophagy and MEK inhibition in melanoma): A phase I/II trial of dabrafenib, trametinib, and hydroxychloroquine in advanced BRAFV600-mutant melanoma

PURPOSE: Autophagy is a resistance mechanism to BRAF/MEK inhibition in BRAFV600-mutant melanoma. Here we used hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to inhibit autophagy in combination with dabrafenib 150 mg twice daily and trametinib 2 mg every day (D+T). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We conducted a phase I/II clinical trial in four centers of HCQ + D+T in patients with advanced BRAFV600-mutant melanoma. The primary objectives were the recommended phase II dose (RP2D) and the one-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate of \u3e53%. RESULTS: Thirty-four patients were evaluable for one-year PFS rate. Patient demographics were as follows: elevated lactate dehydrogenase: 47%; stage IV M1c/M1d: 52%; prior immunotherapy: 50%. In phase I, there was no dose-limiting toxicity. HCQ 600 mg orally twice daily with D+T was the RP2D. The one-year PFS rate was 48.2% [95% confidence interval (CI), 31.0%-65.5%], median PFS was 11.2 months (95% CI, 5.4-16.9 months), and response rate (RR) was 85% (95% CI, 64%-95%). The complete RR was 41% and median overall survival (OS) was 26.5 months. In a patient with elevated LDH (n = 16), the RR was 88% and median PFS and OS were 7.3 and 22 months, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: HCQ + D+T was well tolerated and produced a high RR but did not meet criteria for success for the one-year PFS rate. There was a high proportion of patients with pretreated and elevated LDH, an increasingly common demographic in patients receiving targeted therapy. In this difficult-to-treat population, the RR and PFS were encouraging. A randomized trial of D+T + HCQ or placebo in patients with BRAFV600-mutant melanoma with elevated LDH and previous immunotherapy is being conducted

Enhancing image captioning with depth information using a Transformer-based framework

Captioning images is a challenging scene-understanding task that connects computer vision and natural language processing. While image captioning models have been successful in producing excellent descriptions, the field has primarily focused on generating a single sentence for 2D images. This paper investigates whether integrating depth information with RGB images can enhance the captioning task and generate better descriptions. For this purpose, we propose a Transformer-based encoder-decoder framework for generating a multi-sentence description of a 3D scene. The RGB image and its corresponding depth map are provided as inputs to our framework, which combines them to produce a better understanding of the input scene. Depth maps could be ground truth or estimated, which makes our framework widely applicable to any RGB captioning dataset. We explored different fusion approaches to fuse RGB and depth images. The experiments are performed on the NYU-v2 dataset and the Stanford image paragraph captioning dataset. During our work with the NYU-v2 dataset, we found inconsistent labeling that prevents the benefit of using depth information to enhance the captioning task. The results were even worse than using RGB images only. As a result, we propose a cleaned version of the NYU-v2 dataset that is more consistent and informative. Our results on both datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework effectively benefits from depth information, whether it is ground truth or estimated, and generates better captions. Code, pre-trained models, and the cleaned version of the NYU-v2 dataset will be made publically available.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, 13 table

Typologies of stress appraisal and problem-focused coping: associations with compliance with public health recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Given prior research finding that young adults are less likely to engage in recommended public health behaviors (PHBs) than older adults, understanding who is and is not likely to engage in PHBs among young adults is crucial to mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, this study examined how typologies of stress appraisal (SA) and problem-focused coping (PFC) among young adults were associated with compliance with public health recommendations during the pandemic. METHODS: An online sample of young adults in the United States, ages 18-35, was recruited during the early phase of the pandemic (April-May 2020). Participants reported their appraisals of how central, threatening, and uncontrollable the pandemic was, their tendencies to engage in instrumental, problem-focused coping strategies, and how frequently they engaged in three recommended PHBs (social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing). RESULTS: Using latent class analysis, we identified three classes of individuals: Low-SA/Low-PFC, Low-SA/High-PFC, and High-SA/High-PFC. Demographics did not efficiently distinguish membership in the three classes. The former two classes reported less compliance with public health recommendations than did the latter class. Tests of measurement invariance for gender indicated trivial differences in the composition of class membership and relations to compliance. CONCLUSIONS: This research uncovered three qualitatively distinct classes of people who differed in their appraisal of the pandemic and their tendency to engage in PFC. Individuals who view the pandemic as central and threatening and engage in problem-focused coping were more likely than their peers to comply with guidelines recommending social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing. These results contribute to our understanding of why people do and do not comply with public health guidelines and highlight the importance of attending to psychological variables in public health research. Understanding what drives poor compliance with public health recommendations can contribute to efforts promoting better compliance, and ultimately better health outcomes