Simulation Analysis Of Bluetooth Scanning Systems

We develop and present a simulation program to investigate the failure probability of a scanning job conducted by a Bluetooth Low-Energy scanner on a group of items. Each item is outfitted with a BLE device and are sorted into large, batch sizes to be moved into the scanning area. The BLE device broadcasts packets, known as advertisements, to the scanning system. The rate at which the advertisements broadcast is determined by its interadvertisement time, which is the sum between a fixed advertising interval and a pseudo-random advertising delay. The objective is to determine the optimal interadvertisement time that minimizes the scanning time while achieving a prescribed minimal probability of failure to successfully scan every advertiser. Using our analytical model to set the parameters for our simulations, we notice that the simulation results had an order of magnitude difference from the analytical results. Additionally, the simulation results failed to meet our objective. Thus, we retraced our steps and hypothesized that the events of collisions were correlated. We adjusted both the analytical and simulation model by implementing a discrete-Markov chain. This allous to explore successive collision events between the target advertiser and the collection of other advertisers. We found that the probability of successive collisions increases as the number of successive collisions increases. Thus, correlated collisions have a profound impact on the failure probability and the probability of collision between the target advertiser and any other advertiser on successive advertisements is independent of the interadvertisement time. Additionally, we show that longer scanning times are needed but failure probability of a scanning job is not excessively sensitive to interadvertisement time

The absorption spectrum of ozone in the visible. I. Examination for fine structure. II. The effect of temperature

The absorption spectrum of ozone in the visible spectral region has been investigated for fine structure and for changes in absorption with temperature. No fine structure was observed in spectrograms taken in the second order of a 21-ft. grating spectrograph. The absorption coefficients remained constant within experimental error in going from room to dry-ice temperature

Are there gender differences in access to and demand for East Coast fever vaccine? Empirical evidence from rural smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya

Women lag in the adoption of agricultural innovations compared to men, mainly due to gender inequalities in access to complementary inputs, capital, and knowledge/information. The Infection-and-Treatment-Method (ITM) is considered a safe and effective method of controlling East Coast fever. However, since its commercialisation in Kenya differences in demand for this vaccine among smallholder men and women dairy cattle keepers have not been assessed. Using a sample of 448 respondents, we used an Average-Treatment-Effect framework to estimate ITM adoption rates under awareness constraints and the determinants of adoption among smallholder male-headed (MHHs) and female-headed (FHHs) households. We found some difference in ITM awareness between MHHs (57 per cent) and FHHs (46 per cent). However, gender adoption gaps in the actual and potential adoption rates were considerable, with actual adoption rates of 41 per cent and potential adoption rate of 62 per cent among MHHs, compared to 19 per cent actual and 31 per cent potential adoption for FHHs. The smaller adoption gap for FHHs indicates that only increasing awareness amongst FHHs will not reduce inequities. ITM adoption in both household headships was mainly determined by education, extension interventions, access to financial services, and social capital. In addition to this, ITM adoption in FHHs was positively influenced by age, land-size, and group membership. To realise adoption beyond the current potential and to reduce inequities at the scale-up stage, gender-specific interventions targeting resource-poor women cattle keepers would be effective, in addition to ensuring that women have access to extension and financial services

Haemoglobin Level and Intestinal Parasites in Pregnant Women in Eziama, Imo State of Nigeria

This prospective study was carried out between January to June, 2008 at Eziama in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State to determine the haemoglobin level and intestinal parasites in pregnant women attending antenatal clinic. In total, 281 stool and blood samples were collected from the women. The stool samples were examined using direct wet preparation and formol ether concentration technique while the haemoglobin levels of the women were estimated using cyanmethaeoglobin technique. The overall prevalence of E. histolytical, A. Lumbricoides, Hookworm Spp, T. trichuria and G. lamblia  was 10(3.6), 31(11.0), 29(10.3), 10(3.6) and 3(1.1) respectively. The proportion of pregnant women with helminithic infestation was 83 (29.6%) while their mean Heamoglobin concentration was 9.7+1.8g/dl while the pregnant women without helminthic infestation had Heamoglobin concentration of 10.4 + 1.3g/dl. The poor socioeconomic status of the women coupled with poor environmental sanitation and lack of clean portable water supply may have contributed to the high prevalence

Neural operator learning of heterogeneous mechanobiological insults contributing to aortic aneurysms

[EN] Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) is a localized dilatation of the aorta that can lead to life-threatening dissection or rupture. In vivo assessments of TAA progression are largely limited to measurements of aneurysm size and growth rate. There is promise, however, that computational modelling of the evolving biomechanics of the aorta could predict future geometry and properties from initiating mechanobiological insults. We present an integrated framework to train a deep operator network (DeepONet)-based surrogate model to identify TAA contributing factors using synthetic finite-element-based datasets. For training, we employ a constrained mixture model of aortic growth and remodelling to generate maps of local aortic dilatation and distensibility for multiple TAA risk factors. We evaluate the performance of the surrogate model for insult distributions varying from fusiform (analytically defined) to complex (randomly generated). We propose two frameworks, one trained on sparse information and one on full-field greyscale images, to gain insight into a preferred neural operator-based approach. We show that this continuous learning approach can predict the patient-specific insult profile associated with any given dilatation and distensibility map with high accuracy, particularly when based on full-field images. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of applying DeepONet to support transfer learning of patient-specific inputs to predict TAA progression.This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant nos. P01 HL134605 and U01 HL142518)Goswami, S.; Li, DS.; Rego, BV.; Latorre, M.; Humphrey, JD.; Karniadakis, GE. (2022). Neural operator learning of heterogeneous mechanobiological insults contributing to aortic aneurysms. Journal of The Royal Society Interface. 19(193):1-16. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2022.04101161919

X-ray observations of the galaxy cluster Abell 2029 to the virial radius

We present Suzaku observations of the galaxy cluster Abell 2029, which exploit Suzaku's low particle background to probe the ICM to radii beyond those possible with previous observations (reaching out to the virial radius), and with better azimuthal coverage. We find significant anisotropies in the temperature and entropy profiles, with a region of lower temperature and entropy occurring to the south east, possibly the result of accretion activity in this direction. Away from this cold feature, the thermodynamic properties are consistent with an entropy profile which rises, but less steeply than the predictions of purely gravitational hierarchical structure formation. Excess emission in the northern direction can be explained due to the overlap of the emission from the outskirts of Abell 2029 and nearby Abell 2033 (which is at slightly higher redshift). These observations suggest that the assumptions of spherical symmetry and hydrostatic equilibrium break down in the outskirts of galaxy clusters, which poses challenges for modelling cluster masses at large radii and presents opportunities for studying the formation and accretion history of clusters.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Ambitious mothers-successful daughters: Mothers’ early expectations for children’s education and children’s earnings and sense of control in adult life

Background: Mothers’ expectations for their children’s educational attainment are related to children’s educational and occupational attainment. Studies have yet to establish, however, long term links between maternal expectations and offspring earnings, which are not always related to occupational attainment especially in women, or between maternal expectations and offspring sense of control and self-efficacy, which are pivotal factors in career choice and development. Aims: To explore the role of mothers’ expectations for their children’s educational attainment in children’s earnings attainment and sense of control later in life. Method: Data from sweeps of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) were used. The study sample was those cohort members with complete information on all the variables of interest. The study sample (N=3,285) was more educated and less disadvantaged than the whole sample. If cohort members of this type are more likely to have a mother who has high expectations then our results are biased downwards, which suggests that we underestimate the effect of expectations on our two outcome variables. Results: Mothers’ expectations at age 10 were positively related to daughters’ sense of control at age 30 even after controlling for ethnicity, educational attainment, and concurrent partner, parent, and labor market participation status, as well as the following confounding variables (measured at ages 0-10): general ability and general ability squared, locus of control, emotional and behavioral problems and emotional and behavioral problems squared, socio-economic disadvantage, parental social class, parental family structure, and mother’s education, child-rearing attitudes and mental health. Mothers’ expectations had no effect in sons’ adult outcomes. Conclusions: Given that women are particularly at risk for poor psychological and economic outcomes in adulthood, and that this study likely underestimated the effect of expectations on these two outcomes, this is an important conclusion