Investigating IoT Middleware Platforms for Smart Application Development

With the growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the data generated through these devices is also increasing. By 2030, it is been predicted that the number of IoT devices will exceed the number of human beings on earth. This gives rise to the requirement of middleware platform that can manage IoT devices, intelligently store and process gigantic data generated for building smart applications such as Smart Cities, Smart Healthcare, Smart Industry, and others. At present, market is overwhelming with the number of IoT middleware platforms with specific features. This raises one of the most serious and least discussed challenge for application developer to choose suitable platform for their application development. Across the literature, very little attempt is done in classifying or comparing IoT middleware platforms for the applications. This paper categorizes IoT platforms into four categories namely-publicly traded, open source, developer friendly and end-to-end connectivity. Some of the popular middleware platforms in each category are investigated based on general IoT architecture. Comparison of IoT middleware platforms in each category, based on basic, sensing, communication and application development features is presented. This study can be useful for IoT application developers to select the most appropriate platform according to their application requirement

Theoretical Update on Two Non-Resonant Three-Body Channels in Charmed Meson Decays

Predictions of two channels in the three-bod decays of the charmed mesons are made within the heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory. There still exists the problem that the theoretical expectation is too small compared to the experimental data.Comment: 13 pages with 2 figures included. To be publishe

Weak Radiative Decays of Beauty Baryons

Weak radiative decays of beauty baryons into strange baryons, induced by the electroweak penguin, are estimated by using a quark model approach. Relations between formfactors in the semileptonic and in the weak radiative decays are derived within the heavy quark effective theory. The partial decay widths are found to be of the order of $10^{-15}{\rm MeV}$ for $\Lambda_b\rightarrow\Lambda\gamma$ and $\Xi_b\rightarrow\Xi\gamma$ and of the oder of $10^{-13}{\rm MeV}$ for $\Omega_b\rightarrow\Omega\gamma$. The $\Omega_b$ radiative decay is thus expected at the sizable branching ratio of approximately $10^{-4}$.Comment: 10 pages, latex, no figure

Two-photon exclusive decays Bs→η(η′)γγB_s \to \eta (\eta') \gamma\gamma and B→KγγB \to K \gamma\gamma

The exclusive decay modes $B \to K \gamma\gamma$ and $B_s \to \eta (\eta') \gamma\gamma$ are shown to have significant branching ratios of approximately $0.5\times 10^{-7}$. This first calculation of these modes employs a model based on a cascade transition $B\to V\gamma\to P\gamma\gamma$ for estimating the long-distance contribution and the process $b\to s\gamma\gamma$ for the short distance one.Comment: 11 Page

Searching for new physics in b→ssdˉb\to s s \bar d decays

For any new physics possibly emerging in the future B experiments, the problem is how to extract the signals from the SM background. We consider the decay $b\to s s\bar d$ which is very small in the SM. In the MSSM this decay is possibly accessible in the future experiments. In the supersymmetric models with R-parity violating couplings, this channel is not strictly constrained, thus being useful in obtaining bounds on the lepton-number violating couplings. A typical candidate for the suggested search is the $B^-\to K^-K^-\pi^+$ mode.Comment: 9 pages, one figure, late

Therapeutic approach to Gradenigo's syndrome: a case report

Abstract Introduction Traditional management of Gradenigo's syndrome requires aggressive and radical surgery without any attempt to preserve hearing. Recent reports, however, describe a successful outcome after conservative surgical intervention without labyrinthectomy. A similar outcome has also been reported in patients who were only prescribed with antibiotics and did not undergo myringotomy. Case presentation We report the case of a 24-year-old Caucasian Greek woman with Gradenigo's syndrome who was treated by draining her petrous apex via an infralabyrithine approach between her posterior semicircular canal and the jugular bulb. Her inner ear was not sacrificed during the procedure. She presented pre-operatively with ipsilateral conductive hearing loss, which recovered completely four weeks after the surgery. Conclusions Patients with Gradenigo's syndrome may be successfully treated with a combination of long-term permanent drainage and ventilation of the apical cells with corresponding hearing preservation. This can be achieved via a combination of transmastoid, infralabyrinthine and suprajugular approaches, if such would be allowed by the anatomy of the region or if there is enough space between the posterior semicircular canal and the jugular bulb.</p

Validation of GPM IMERG extreme precipitation in the Maritime Continent by station and radar data

The Maritime Continent (MC) is a region subject to high impact weather (HIW) events, which are still poorly predicted by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. To improve predictability of such events, NWP need to be evaluated against accurate measures of extreme precipitation across the whole MC. With its global spatial coverage at high spatio-temporal resolution, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) dataset is a suitable candidate. Here we evaluate extreme precipitation in the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrieval for GPM (IMERG) V06B product against station data from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) in Malaysia and the Philippines. We find that the high intra-grid spatial variability of precipitation extremes results in large spatial sampling errors when each IMERG gridbox is compared with individual co-located precipitation measurements, a result that may explain discrepancies found in earlier studies in the MC. Overall, IMERG daily precipitation is similar to station precipitation between the 85th and 95th percentile, but tends to overestimate above the 95th. IMERG data were also compared with radar data in western Peninsular Malaysia for sub-daily timescales. Allowing for uncertainties in radar data, the analysis suggests that the 95th percentile is still suitable for NWP evaluation of extreme sub-daily precipitation, but that the rainfall rates diverge at higher percentiles. Hence, our overall recommendation is that the 95th percentile be used to evaluate NWP forecasts of HIW on daily and sub-daily time scales against IMERG data, but that higher percentiles (i.e., more extreme precipitation) be treated with caution

The tumour-suppressive function of CLU is explained by its localisation and interaction with HSP60

The product of the CLU gene promotes or inhibits tumourigenesis in a context-dependent manner. It has been hypothesised that different CLU isoforms have different and even opposing biological functions, but this theory has not been experimentally validated. Here we show that molecules involved in survival pathways are differentially modulated by the intracellular or secreted forms of CLU. Secreted CLU, which is selectively increased after transformation, activates the survival factor AKT, whereas intracellular CLU inhibits the activity of the oncogenic transcription factor nuclear factor kappa B. Furthermore, intracellular CLU is inactivated by the pro-proliferative and pro-survival activity of the chaperone protein HSP60 in neuroblastoma cells by forming a physical complex. Thus, localisation is key for CLU physiology, explaining the wide range of effects in cell survival and transformation