Frequency hopping in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are nowadays being used to collectively gather and spread information in different kinds of applications, for military, civilian, environmental as well as commercial purposes. Therefore the proper functioning of WSNs under different kinds of environmental conditions, especially hostile environments, is a must and a lot of research currently ongoing. The problems related to the initialization and deployment of WSNs under harsh and resource limited conditions are investigated in this thesis. Frequency hopping (FH) is a spread spectrum technique in which multiple channels are used, or hoped, for communications across the network. This mitigates the worst effects of interference with frequency agile communication systems rather than by brute force approaches. FH is a promising technique for achieving the coexistence of sensor networks with other currently existing wireless systems, and it is successful within the somewhat limited computational capabilities of the sensor nodes hardware radios. In this thesis, a FH scheme for WSNs is implemented for a pair of nodes on an application layer. The merits and demerits of the scheme are studied for different kinds of WSN environments. The implementation has been done using a Sensinode NanoStack, a communication stack for internet protocol (IP) based wireless sensor networks and a Sensinode Devkit, for an IPv6 over low power wireless personal area network (6LoWPAN). The measurements are taken from the developed test bed and channel simulator for different kinds of scenarios. The detailed analysis of the FH scheme is done to determine its usefulness against interference from other wireless systems, especially wireless local area networks (WLANs), and the robustness of the scheme to combat fading or frequency selective fading

Cellular and transcriptional profiling of hypoxic cells in the brain

Hypoxia is a critical regulator of the hypoxic response driving neurodevelop-ment, angiogenesis, hematopoiesis, and tissue regeneration. In the central nervous system, oxygen is a fundamental constituent of cellular homeostasis and is tightly controlled down to the single cells to maintain physiological func-tions. Under challenging conditions, slight alterations are detected and adaptive mechanisms are activated to adjust the homeostatic balance. In the brain, neu-ronal metabolic and network activity demands tightly controlled oxygen supply and any disruption results in detrimental outcomes. We therefore hypothesized that high neuronal activity would result in transient reduction of oxygen leading to physiological, ‘functional’ hypoxia followed by initiation of an adaptive gene response. A novel transgenic and robust approach, utilizing the oxygen-dependent degradation (ODD) domain of HIF-1α fused to CreERT2 recom-binase driven by CAG promoter was developed to report and label hypoxic cells upon breeding with tdTomato reporter mice. CAG-CreERT2-ODD::R26R-tdTomato transgenic mice allowed us to fate map hypoxic cells in the behaving brain under normoxia and hypoxia. We demonstrate an increase in the number of hypoxic neurons in the hippocampus upon complex motor cognitive chal-lenge. Light-sheet microscopy whole-brain spatial mapping revealed a global distribution of hypoxic cells in the brain. Hypoxic cells were particularly abundant in the hippocampus and increased under inspiratory hypoxia. Hypoxic cell type characterization by immuno-labelling revealed that the major population of tdTomato+ cell were neurons followed by small subset of astrocytes, endothelial cells, oligodendrocytes and pericytes. Unexpectedly, the microglial population was devoid of tdTomato+ fluorescence in the brain. However, single-cell tran-scriptome analysis indicated comparable expression of ODD/tdTomato mRNA across cell-types in the hippocampus. These findings point to variable hypoxia tolerance and response of different cells in the brain. Furthermore, association of high neuronal activity with cognitive challenge was confirmed in new neuron-specific CaMKIIα-Cre-ERT2-ODD::R26R-tdTomato transgenic mouse model. Hippocampal hypoxic neuron quantification results indicate an increase upon exposure to a challenging cognitive and motor task. Light-sheet microscopy analysis provided the spatial and temporal distribution of hypoxic neurons in the whole-brain. Taken together, these data provide evidence of the existence of physiological hypoxia in the brain under normoxia and its increase upon com-plex motor learning tasks.2021-07-1

Insecticide Screening For Effectiveness of Controlling Onion Thrips (Thrips Tabaci, Lindemann)

For the control of Thrips tabaci Lindeman Three insecticides product Movento240SC+Biopower276.6SL, Acephate75SP and Confidor200SL were applied against the onion (Allium cepa) thrips (Thrips tabaci Lindeman). The movento240SC+Biopower 276.6SP gave the highest results against the onion (Allium cepa) thrips (Thrips tabaci Lindeman) as compared to the other market standard insecticides of Acephate75SP and confidor200SL. The dose of Movento 240SP + Biopower 276.6SL 2.8 + 4.7 ml having more good results as compared to the other dose Movento 240SP +  Biopower 276.6 SL 2.4 + 4.7 ml. Keywords: onion thrips, insecticide use, insect contro

An Efficient & Less Complex Solution to Mitigate Impulsive Noise in Multi-Channel Feed-Forward ANC System with Online Secondary Path Modeling (OSPM)

This paper deals with impulsive noise (IN) in multichannel (MC) Active Noise Control (ANC) Systems with Online Secondary Path Modelling (OSPM) employing adaptive algorithms for the first time. It compares performance of various existing techniques belonging to varied computational complexity range and proposes four new methods, namely: FxRLS-VSSLMS, VSSLMS-VSSLMS, FxLMAT-VSSLMS and NSS MFxLMAT-VSSLMS to deal with modest to very high impulsive noise (IN). Simulation results show that these proposed methods demonstrated improved performance in terms of fast convergence speed, lowest steady state error, robustness and stability under impulsive environment in addition to modelling accuracy for stationary as well as non-stationary environment besides reducing computational complexity many folds

Use of Non Fossil Fuel Resources, Electricity, Economic Growth and Carbon Dioxide Emission in Pakistan

The ARDL (autoregressive distributed lag model) approach is used to study the effects of non fossil fuel resources, economic growth per capita, and use of electricity on carbon dioxide emanations in Pakistan from 1971 to 2014. The outcomes of OLS regression propose that use of non  fossil fuel resources play an essential function in curbing carbon dioxide emanations because sign of coefficients is negative and significant, on  the contrary the economic growth and electricity consumption increase carbon dioxide emanations in the environment.  The findings of ARDL propose that all variables have no effect on the carbon dioxide emanations in the long-run. Nevertheless, the Granger Causality test suggests there is bidirectional causality between carbon dioxide emanations and economic growth per capita.  Similarly, there is unidirectional causality between electricity utilization and carbon dioxide emissions. According to OLS regression findings, this study concluding that uses of non fossil fuel resources mitigate carbon dioxide emissions in Pakistan very effectively and therefore government give preference to use of non fossil fuel resources

Spatial Stimuli Gradient Based Multifocus Image Fusion Using Multiple Sized Kernels

Multi-focus image fusion technique extracts the focused areas from all the source images and combines them into a new image which contains all focused objects. This paper proposes a spatial domain fusion scheme for multi-focus images by using multiple size kernels. Firstly, source images are pre-processed with a contrast enhancement step and then the soft and hard decision maps are generated by employing a sliding window technique using multiple sized kernels on the gradient images. Hard decision map selects the accurate focus information from the source images, whereas, the soft decision map selects the basic focus information and contains minimum falsely detected focused/unfocused regions. These decision maps are further processed to compute the final focus map. Gradient images are constructed through state-ofthe-art edge detection technique, spatial stimuli gradient sketch model, which computes the local stimuli from perceived brightness and hence enhances the essential structural and edge information. Detailed experiment results demonstrate that the proposed multi-focus image fusion algorithm performs better than the other well known state-of-the-art multifocus image fusion methods, in terms of subjective visual perception and objective quality evaluation metrics

Petrography of Jutana Dolomite: Implications for Geotechnical Utility

Present study has been carried out to know the reliance of mechanical properties on the petrographic parameters. The Jutana dolomite is comprised of dolomite, sandy dolomite and siliciclastic beds. In this study microfacies analysis and geotechnical utility of Jutana dolomite has been determined. Based on the microscopic study different microfacies were identified. The mechanical properties of Jutana dolomite were investigated with the help of the strength tests such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and uniaxial tensile strength (UTS) and shear strength. The results of the strength tests show that the Jutana dolomite is a moderately strong, which is suitable for construction purpose. In addition, the interrelationships of petrographic and mechanical properties of Jutana dolomite were determined. The percent quartz (8-41%) grains play a positive impact on the uniaxial compressive strength of Jutana dolomite

Interferon lambda-3 polymorphism and response to pegylated interferon in patients with hepatitis D

Background: Specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near the interferon lambda-3 (IFNλ3) gene (formerly interleukin 28B) influence the response to treatment with interferon in hepatitis C patients. We aimed to investigate such an influence in hepatitis D patients.Methods: The study population consisted of hepatitis D patients who were previously treated with pegylated interferon for one year and who were spontaneous clearers of the virus post recent superinfection. The SNP of IFNλ3, rs12979860, was determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism protocol.Results: The total number of patients was 64; median age was 30.5 years and 53 were male. The number of patients with sustained virological response 1 year post-treatment was 17, non-responders 29, relapsers 11 and spontaneous clearers post superinfection 7. Cirrhosis was present in 28 (44%). IFNλ3, rs12979860 genotype CC, was present in 41 (64.1%), CT in 21 (32.8%) and TT in 2 (3.1%). There was no difference in the body mass index, baseline alanine aminotransferase, hepatitis B e antigen and HBV DNA status among patients with sustained response and response failure (no response or relapse). The median age of response failures was 33.5 years compared to 26 in responders (P=0.024). They had higher gamma glutamyl transferase levels (P=0.030) and cirrhosis (P=0.003). Genotype CC was present in 29/40 of response failures compared to 9/17 of the responders (P=0.152). Logistic regression analysis showed that cirrhosis was the independent risk factor for failure to have a response (P=0.001). 4/7 patients with spontaneous clearance had genotype CC.Conclusions: IFNλ3 rs12979860 SNP does not have any significant influence on long-term hepatitis D clearance. Presence of cirrhosis may influence the response

An audit of trauma related mortality in Government Medical College, Jammu

Background: Surgical audit is defined as a systematic, critical analysis of the quality of surgical care that is reviewed by peers against explicit criteria or recognized standards, and then used to further inform and improve surgical practice with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of care for patients. Aims and objectives were to study the profile of patients who died due to trauma and to identify factors involved in both pre-hospital and hospital care.Methods: This study was conducted in the department of surgery, GMC Jammu during over a period of one year. The profile of all traumatic deaths was studied to evaluate the various causes of trauma related mortality, age and sex relationship, mortality rate, prognostic indicators and also to identify factors involved in both pre-hospital and hospital care.Results: A total of 414 deaths occurred due to trauma. Out of these 317 patients were males and 97 patients were females comprising male to female ratio of 3.3:1. Road traffic accidents accounted for majority of the deaths (57%) followed by falls (35.5%), assaults (5.07%) and miscellaneous causes (2.43%). In children less than 15 years of age, traumatic deaths were more due to falls, whereas in adults it was more due to road traffic accidents. In our study there was steady rise of fatalities during weekend days with a peak on Saturday. Cranio-cerebral injuries were responsible for majority of the traumatic deaths (85.9%) followed by limb injuries including fractures (38.4%), thoracic injuries (27.7%), abdominal injuries (24.6%), pelvic injuries (20.7%) and spine injuries (14.2%).Conclusions: This study can be the impetus to motivate committed professionals in the trauma specialty to help in the organization of available facilities and to upgrade existing facilities for a better response to injury, which should not be different from other public health responses

Covid-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy among medical students of Faisalabad

Objectives: The study was conducted to determine the Covid-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy among the medical students who are more susceptible to be infected being the frontline workers. Methodology: This analytical cross sectional study was conducted in medical students of 1st to final year MBBS of various medical institutions of Faisalabad. Study duration was 3 months (August 2021 to October 2021). The sample size was 391 and divided in 2 age groups i.e. above and below 21 years and 245 (62.7%) comprised of females. The inclusion criteria were those students who gave consent and filled out the questionnaire and the exclusion criteria was who didn't concede. The data was analysed on SPSS 25. Confidence interval was set to be 95% with 5% margin of error. Results: More than half of the participants i.e. 214 (54.7) have got Sinopharm vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy was found in 28 (7.2%) students and major reason was concern about vaccine safety. Significant relationship (p = < 0.05) was found in all factors related to ‘concerns regarding Covid-19 vaccines and trust of official information’; in all except one in factors related to ‘awareness and overall attitude regarding vaccine acceptance’ and in all except one in factors related to ‘perception of vulnerability to COVID-19 and attitude regarding usefulness of vaccine for community’. Conclusion: Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy was found in one out of every 14 medical students. They were concerned about the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines. Most of the participants also showed concerns regarding severe adverse effects of these vaccine and on vaccine trials also before making it available for general public. At the same time, participants showed trust on information about Covid-19 vaccine from government and public health experts. Although vaccine hesitancy was present in only 7.2% of participants, health education programmes should be arranged to improve awareness and trust on Covid-19 vaccine. Concerns of medical students should be addressed on priority as future health care providers. Keywords: Covid-19, medical students, vaccine acceptance, hesitanc