DRONA: A Novel Design of a Drone for Search and Rescue Operations

This paper presents a novel quadcopter drone that utilizes modular design to aid in search-and-rescue operations. The drone consists of three modules. The first module is a wireless portable patient monitoring system. The module records vital signs such as oxygen saturation, heart rate, electrocardiogram, and body temperature. The module is wireless, and it can fit around the user's finger. The second module reads environmental measurements such as the ambient temperature, humidity, and GPS coordinates. The third module consists of a mini thermal camera that captures a signature of the body temperature. This feature is crucial in search-and-rescue operations to locate trapped people under destruction or lost in the wilderness. A two-way video and audio-conferencing module provides a communication channel between the medics and patients remotely. The drone uploads the data to a cloud server in real-time mode. All the data captured by the drone are accessible via a phone application and on any computer or a custom hand-held Raspberry Pi. The results showed that the drone was able to capture in real-time the vital signs, thermal imaging, video-audio communications, and as well as weather environmental measurements. A friendly user interface program renders all transmitted data. Future work will include introducing advanced image processing and pattern recognition techniques to automatically detect and identify objects.ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors acknowledge the support of the MERG lab (www.htu.edu.jo/merg) and Boeing for funding this work.Scopu

Correlation of Sperm Mitochondrial DNA 7345 bp and 7599 bp Deletions with As-thenozoospemia in Jordanian Population

Background: Alterations in sperm mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) affect the functions of some OXPHOS proteins which will affect sperm motility and may be associated with asthenozoospermia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between 7599-bp and 7345-bp sperm mtDNA deletions and asthenozoospermia in Jordan.&#x0D; Methods: Semen specimens from 200 men including 121 infertile and 79 healthy individuals were collected at the Royal Jordanian Medical Services In-vitro fertilization (IVF) units. The mtDNA was extracted followed by mtDNA amplification. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was conducted for the target sequences, then DNA sequencing was performed for the PCR products. Chi-square, Fisher's and Spearman's tests were used to calculate the correlation. &#x0D; Results: The results showed a significant correlation between the presence of 7599-bp mtDNA deletion and infertility where the frequency of the 7599-bp deletion was 63.6% in the infertile group compared to the fertile 34.2% (p&lt;0.001, (OR=3.37, 95% CI=1.860 to 6.108)). Additionally, the sperm motility showed a significant association with the frequency of the 7599-bp deletion (p=0.001, r=-0.887). The 7345-bp mtDNA deletion showed no assoctiation with the infertility (p=0.65, (OR=0.837, 95% CI= 0.464-1.51)) or asthenozoospermia (p=0.98, r=0.008).&#x0D; Conclusion: We demonstrated a significant correlation between asthenozoospermia and the 7599-bp mtDNA deletion but not the 7345-bp mtDNA deletion in the infertile men in Jordan. Screening for deletions in sperm mtDNA can be used as a pre-diagnostic molecular marker for male infertility.</jats:p