Collaborative Misbehaviour Response System for Improving Road Safety

Wrong-way driving (WWD), Driver Monitoring System (DMS), and parking violations pose significant threats to road safety. To address these challenges, we propose a collaborative misbehavior response system (MBR) that generates real-time, context-aware navigation recommendations to the nearest available parking spot. The MBR integrates individual misbehavior detection systems(MBDs) for a holistic approach to road safety and leverages Kafka and Avro for efficient communication under the 5GMETA Platform

Collaborative Misbehaviour Response System for Improving Road Safety

This paper advocates for a proactive approach to traffic safety by introducing a collaborative Misbehaviour Response System (MBR) designed to preemptively address hazardous driving behaviours such as wrong-way driving and distracted driving. The system integrates with electric vehicles (EVs), leveraging advanced technologies like ADAS, edge computing, and cloud services to enhance road safety. Upon detection of misbehaviour, the MBR system utilizes data from interconnected parking facilities to identify the nearest safe location and provides navigation guidance to authorities and nearby vehicles. The paper presents a prototype of the MBR system, demonstrating its efficiency in detecting misbehaviours and coordinating swift responses. It also discusses the system's limitations and societal implications, outlining future research directions, including integration with autonomous vehicle systems and variable speed limit technologies, to further improve road safety through proactive and context-aware response mechanisms

Pitch strength of normal and dysphonic voices

Two sounds with the same pitch may vary from each other based on saliency of their pitch sensation. This perceptual attribute is called “pitch strength.” The study of voice pitch strength may be important in quantifying of normal and pathological qualities. The present study investigated how pitch strength varies across normal and dysphonic voices. A set of voices (vowel /a/) selected from the Kay Elemetrics Disordered Voice Database served as the stimuli. These stimuli demonstrated a wide range of voice quality. Ten listeners judged the pitch strength of these stimuli in an anchored magnitude estimation task. On a given trial, listeners heard three different stimuli. The first stimulus represented very low pitch strength (wide-band noise), the second stimulus consisted of the target voice and the third stimulus represented very high pitch strength (pure tone). Listeners estimated pitch strength of the target voice by positioning a continuous slider labeled with values between 0 and 1, reflecting the two anchor stimuli. Results revealed that listeners can judge pitch strength reliably in dysphonic voices. Moderate to high correlations with perceptual judgments of voice quality suggest that pitch strength may contribute to voice quality judgments

Inequalities in Economic and Educational Status in Social Groups in India: Evidences from Village Study in Uttar Pradesh

This paper attempts to analyze the social and economic disparities across social groups in rural Uttar Pradesh. The paper clearly demonstrates that the structure of rural economy in India is charecterised by deeply ingrained prejudices and social discrimination. The four-village study undertaken in one of the most populated states in India, Uttar Pradesh, clearly reveals that there is a huge disparity in terms of various social and economic indicators and the so-called high growth has hardly filtered in bettering their lives. The paper is based on primary data collected from census survey of villages exploring socio-economic disparities across social groups by using decomposition models. The results evidently lend credence to our postulations that a large proportion of disadvantaged groups are prone to multiple deprivations, both in the society and in labour markets. Our inquiry has revealed this phenomenon clearly. From the policy point of view, it is therefore an imperative necessity to have direct and focused provision of basic human requirements in terms of education, employment and income of the state. Such direct policy interventions are of paramount necessity for the state to ensure convergence and inclusive growth process to take place on a sustained basis

Inequalities in Economic and Educational Status in Social Groups in India: Evidences from Village Study in Uttar Pradesh

This paper attempts to analyze the social and economic disparities across social groups in rural Uttar Pradesh. The paper clearly demonstrates that the structure of rural economy in India is charecterised by deeply ingrained prejudices and social discrimination. The four-village study undertaken in one of the most populated states in India, Uttar Pradesh, clearly reveals that there is a huge disparity in terms of various social and economic indicators and the so-called high growth has hardly filtered in bettering their lives. The paper is based on primary data collected from census survey of villages exploring socio-economic disparities across social groups by using decomposition models. The results evidently lend credence to our postulations that a large proportion of disadvantaged groups are prone to multiple deprivations, both in the society and in labour markets. Our inquiry has revealed this phenomenon clearly. From the policy point of view, it is therefore an imperative necessity to have direct and focused provision of basic human requirements in terms of education, employment and income of the state. Such direct policy interventions are of paramount necessity for the state to ensure convergence and inclusive growth process to take place on a sustained basis

Quantitation of nitrofurantoin in human plasma by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

A reliable, selective and sensitive LC-MS/MS assay has been proposed for the determination of nitrofurantoin in human plasma. The analyte and nitrofurazone were extracted from 100 µL of human plasma via SPE on Strata-X 33 µm extraction cartridges. Chromatography was done on a BDS Hypersil C18 (100 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 µm) column under isocratic conditions. Quantitation was done using the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode for deprotonated precursor to product ion transitions of nitrofurantoin (m/z 237.0 → 151.8) and nitrofurazone (m/z 197.0 →123.9). The limit of detection and the lowest limit of quantitation of the method were 0.25 ng mL–1 and 5.00 ng mL–1, respectively, with a linear dynamic range of 5.00–1500 ng mL–1 for nitrofurantoin. The intra-batch and inter-batch precision (RSD, %) was ≤ 5.8 %, while the mean extraction recovery was > 92 %. The method was successfully applied to a bioequivalence study of a 100 mg nitrofurantoin capsule formulation in 36 healthy subjects

The Effect of Incorporating Knowledge of Performance in the Treatment of Aprosodia

Evidence suggests that expressive aprosodia, an impairment of emotional communication, results from a deficit in motor planning/programming. We investigated a treatment incorporating knowledge of performance (KP), an important component in motor learning. Four males with aprosodia following right hemisphere stroke completed 30 treatment sessions in which prosodic features of targets and responses were displayed using VisiPitch IV®. Perceptual analysis of a sentence-level outcome measure revealed significant improvement in emotional expression. Thus, KP in the form of visual/auditory feedback may be an important component in aprosodia treatments. Further investigation comparing this approach to traditional forms of clinician feedback is warranted

Novel insights on diagnosis, cause and treatment of diabetic neuropathy: Focus on painful diabetic neuropathy

Diabetic neuropathy is common, under or misdiagnosed, and causes substantial morbidity with increased mortality. Defining and developing sensitive diagnostic tests for diabetic neuropathy is not only key to implementing earlier interventions but also to ensure that the most appropriate endpoints are employed in clinical intervention trials. This is critical as many potentially effective therapies may never progress to the clinic, not due to a lack of therapeutic effect, but because the endpoints were not sufficiently sensitive or robust to identify benefit. Apart from improving glycaemic control, there is no licensed treatment for diabetic neuropathy, however, a number of pathogenetic pathways remain under active study. Painful diabetic neuropathy is a cause of considerable morbidity and whilst many pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions are currently used, only two are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. We address the important issue of the ‘placebo effect’ and also consider potential new pharmacological therapies as well as nonpharmacological interventions in the treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy

On the critical exponent α of the 5D random-field Ising model

11 pages, 7 figures, final version with minor correctionsInternational audienceWe present a complementary estimation of the critical exponent $\alpha$ of the specific heat of the 5D random-field Ising model from zero-temperature numerical simulations. Our result $\alpha = 0.12(2)$ is consistent with the estimation coming from the modified hyperscaling relation and provides additional evidence in favor of the recently proposed restoration of dimensional reduction in the random-field Ising model at $D = 5$

Exocyclic Carbons Adjacent to the N6 of Adenine are Targets for Oxidation by the Escherichia coli Adaptive Response Protein AlkB

The DNA and RNA repair protein AlkB removes alkyl groups from nucleic acids by a unique iron- and α-ketoglutarate-dependent oxidation strategy. When alkylated adenines are used as AlkB targets, earlier work suggests that the initial target of oxidation can be the alkyl carbon adjacent to N1. Such may be the case with ethano-adenine (EA), a DNA adduct formed by an important anticancer drug, BCNU, whereby an initial oxidation would occur at the carbon adjacent to N1. In a previous study, several intermediates were observed suggesting a pathway involving adduct restructuring to a form that would not hinder replication, which would match biological data showing that AlkB almost completely reverses EA toxicity in vivo. The present study uses more sensitive spectroscopic methodology to reveal the complete conversion of EA to adenine; the nature of observed additional putative intermediates indicates that AlkB conducts a second oxidation event in order to release the two-carbon unit completely. The second oxidation event occurs at the exocyclic carbon adjacent to the N[superscript 6] atom of adenine. The observation of oxidation of a carbon at N[superscript 6] in EA prompted us to evaluate N[superscript 6]-methyladenine (m6A), an important epigenetic signal for DNA replication and many other cellular processes, as an AlkB substrate in DNA. Here we show that m6A is indeed a substrate for AlkB and that it is converted to adenine via its 6-hydroxymethyl derivative. The observation that AlkB can demethylate m6A in vitro suggests a role for AlkB in regulation of important cellular functions in vivo.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant number CA080024)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant number CA26731)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant number ES02109