Geographic Routing in Clustered Wireless Sensor Network

A WSN is a network of gadgets that is known as nodes. It consists of sensor nodes distributed over a geographical area. The main task of a sensor node is to sense and collect data from certain domain, process them and transmit it to the sink where the application lies. Clustering provides a productive way to prolong the lifetime of WSN. In this paper, we first propose a distributed technique called energy efficient homogenous clustering technique that selects cluster heads to create a connected backbone network. EHC selects CHs on the basis of their residual energy and utility of sensor to its neighbors. Then we propose a route optimization technique in WSNs to make the best use of routing path among obstacles using Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm. The simulation results show a reduction in average hop count, packet delay, and energy consumption of WSNs

Open fractures caused by high velocity missiles: the outcome of treatment of 39 fractures followed for 1-3 years

Between 1993 and 1995, thirty-three patients having 39 fractures caused by missiles fired from a high velocity rifle were reviewed retrospectively between 1 and 3 years after injury and the outcome of treatment assessed. Majority (33 out of 39) were Grade III. Union was achieved in 35 out of 39 fractures, there was deep infection and delayed union in one case each. Non-union occurred in three fractures. The fractures were stabilized using different techniques, but highest complication rate was seen with the use of the static external fixator. This was related to the severe nature of the injury as well as the inherent limitations of the external fixator. Revision of the external fixator with internal fixation after healing of the soft tissues seems to be the direction of the future

Local Damage of Plain and Reinforced Concrete Targets under Impact Load

In the present study, simplified models for calculating the penetration depth, scabbing, and perforation thicknesses for concrete targets have been proposed. These models consider the dynamic strain rate effect in the estimation of penetration parameters. The results of proposed model have been compared with the experimental data

The outcomes of dapagliflozin use in real-life clinical settings in endocrinology clinics of Islamabad, Pakistan

Introduction: Dapagliflozin is a member of a novel class of drugs (sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors) used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus and licensed in Pakistan in 2017. This retrospective observational study evaluated the effects of dapagliflozin on glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) concentrations in patients treated at endocrinology clinics in Islamabad, Pakistan. The secondary objectives included assessing the effects of dapagliflozin on weight reduction and blood pressure control and to determining its safety.Methodology: Patients with type 2 diabetes who were treated with dapagliflozin were identified by screening the electronic medical records at tertiary care hospitals in Islamabad. Data were collected at the first visit and at follow-up. Categorical variables were recorded as frequencies and percentages and compared by McNemar’s tests, and continuous variables were recorded as means and standard deviations and compared by paired sample t-tests.Results: Mean HbA1C concentration was significantly lower at follow-up than at the first visit (7.57%±0.98% vs. 9.07%±2.07%, respectively; p\u3c0.001). Bodyweight (85.09±15.92 kg vs. 87.07±16.11 kg, respectively; p\u3c0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (80.34±7.12 mmHg vs. 82.34±9.61 mmHg, respectively; p\u3c0.001) were also significantly lower at follow-up than at the first visit, whereas systolic pressure showed a marginally significant reduction (123.5±16.57 mmHg vs. 126.83±19.97 mmHg, p=0.048).Conclusion: This first observational study of patients in Pakistan treated with dapagliflozin found that HbA1c concentration, weight, and blood pressure were reduced after initiation of dapagliflozin treatment

School-based injury outcomes in children from a low-income setting: results from the pilot injury surveillance in Rawalpindi city, Pakistan

Background School-based injuries account for one in five unintentional childhood injuries. Little is known about the epidemiology of school-based injuries in low-income settings. The objective of our study was to compare emergency department (ED) outcomes of the school-based injuries with respect to age, sex, and injury mechanisms in a Pakistani urban setting. Findings A pilot injury surveillance study was conducted at the EDs of three major tertiary-care hospitals of Rawalpindi city from July 2007 to June 2008 and included children of less than 15 years injured at school. The World Health Organization’s questionnaire for injury surveillance was used. There were 923 school injury cases. Mean age of children involved was 8.3 years (SD ± 3.3) with male female ratio 2.9:1. Most injuries occurred while playing 85.6% (n = 789); of which the most common mechanism was falls (n = 797, 86.4%). Nineteen of twenty cases were directly discharged home from the ED (N = 861). Compared to ED discharged cases, injury characteristics overrepresented in hospital admitted cases (n = 46) were age 10–14 years (65.2% vs. 40.9%, p = 0.005), male (88.6% vs. 25.9%), involved in educational activities (39.1% vs. 5.3%), injured from fire/heat (37.8% vs. 0.6%), had burns (39.5% vs. 0.9%) and head injuries (27.9% vs. 6.4%). Conclusion Falls while playing are the commonest injury mechanism in school-based injuries reported in our ED sample. School officials need to prevent these injuries. Studying injury hazards present in school environment in Pakistan might facilitate developing specific prevention strategies

Robust Method for Semantic Segmentation of Whole-Slide Blood Cell Microscopic Image

Previous works on segmentation of SEM (scanning electron microscope) blood cell image ignore the semantic segmentation approach of whole-slide blood cell segmentation. In the proposed work, we address the problem of whole-slide blood cell segmentation using the semantic segmentation approach. We design a novel convolutional encoder-decoder framework along with VGG-16 as the pixel-level feature extraction model. -e proposed framework comprises 3 main steps: First, all the original images along with manually generated ground truth masks of each blood cell type are passed through the preprocessing stage. In the preprocessing stage, pixel-level labeling, RGB to grayscale conversion of masked image and pixel fusing, and unity mask generation are performed. After that, VGG16 is loaded into the system, which acts as a pretrained pixel-level feature extraction model. In the third step, the training process is initiated on the proposed model. We have evaluated our network performance on three evaluation metrics. We obtained outstanding results with respect to classwise, as well as global and mean accuracies. Our system achieved classwise accuracies of 97.45%, 93.34%, and 85.11% for RBCs, WBCs, and platelets, respectively, while global and mean accuracies remain 97.18% and 91.96%, respectively.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Nitric Oxide and Abscisic Acid Mediate Heat Stress Tolerance through Regulation of Osmolytes and Antioxidants to Protect Photosynthesis and Growth in Wheat Plants

Nitric oxide (NO) and abscisic acid (ABA) play a significant role to combat abiotic stress. Application of 100 µM sodium nitroprusside (SNP, NO donor) or ABA alleviated heat stress effects on photosynthesis and growth of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) plants exposed to 40 °C for 6 h every day for 15 days. We have shown that ABA and NO synergistically interact to reduce the heat stress effects on photosynthesis and growth via reducing the content of H2O2 and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), as well as maximizing osmolytes production and the activity and expression of antioxidant enzymes. The inhibition of NO and ABA using c-PTIO (2-4 carboxy-phenyl-4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxide) and fluridone (Flu), respectively, reduced the osmolyte and antioxidant metabolism and heat stress tolerance. The inhibition of NO significantly reduced the ABA-induced osmolytes and antioxidant metabolism, exhibiting that the function of ABA in the alleviation of heat stress was NO dependent and can be enhanced with NO supplementation.Thus, regulating the activity and expression of antioxidant enzymes together with osmolytes production could act as a possible strategy for heat tolerance

A Comparison of Sperm Motility Between Fertile and Infertile Males

Background: To determine the sperm motility of proven fertile males and compare this with that of infertile males. Methods: The study design was cross-sectional comparative and was carried out at Islamic International Medical College Rawalpindi and its attached Railway hospital and Islamabad Clinic Serving Infertile Couples Islamabad, from June 2005 to July 2006. Fifty healthy fertile males were selected and their sperm motility was determined with the latest Makler’s chamber, while another 50 infertile males were recruited as controls. The sampling technique used was convenience non-probability. Inclusion criterion for proven fertile males was pregnancy achieved within one year of marriage with successful coituses. In case of infertile males it was failure to achieve pregnancy without the use of assisted reproductive techniques, with no infertility factors in the female partner. The semen samples were obtained at the laboratory after 3 to 4 days of sexual abstinence with clear written and oral instructions given to the subjects before the collection of the sample. Results: The infertile group was found to be statistically older than the proven fertile group i.e. (36.60 versus 31.32 years). Proven fertile group showed significantly higher motility (60.32 ± 10.80%) and progressive motility (14.32 ± 8.31%) than the infertile male group. Conclusion: Sperm motility is useful in in-vivo situation to find males having a greater possibility of infertility problem. More studies with a larger sample size are required to establish a cut-off value in the local population

CONTROL OF PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) EMISSIONS FROM INDUSTRIAL PLANT USING ANFIS BASED CONTROLLER

In recent times, the negative effect of air pollution such as particulate matter (PM) emitted from industrial plants has compelled researchers in finding efficient control system to control such pollutants in order to keep the environment safe. The aim of this study is to develop a reliable method of controlling the emissions of PM using wet scrubber system as a control device. The process of a wet scrubber is nonlinear in nature. Due to difficulty in selecting optimum scrubbing liquid droplet size in wet scrubbing process, the system becomes complex. Thus, Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) based control technique is employed in this paper to handle the nonlinearities. ANFIS control technique has the advantage to integrate fuzzy logic systems and learning ability of neural network, thus able to handle nonlinear systems better. The controller is developed using data of PM emission from cement kiln. The system is simulated using triangular and trapezoidal membership function (MF) with 2 and 3 input MF in each case. The performance of the controller is evaluated based on settling time. The results indicated that the developed controller was able to maintain the PM emission below a set point of 20µg/m3 which is the maximum allowable PM emission limit recommended by world health organization (WHO). The controller with 2 input triangular membership functions indicated a better performance with a settling time of 5.2 seconds

The crosstalk of melatonin and hydrogen sulfide determines photosynthetic performance by regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in wheat under heat stress

Photosynthesis is a pivotal process that determines the synthesis of carbohydrates re-quired for sustaining growth under normal or stress situation. Stress exposure reduces the photosynthetic potential owing to the excess synthesis of reactive oxygen species that disturb the proper functioning of photosynthetic apparatus. This decreased photosynthesis is associated with dis-turbances in carbohydrate metabolism resulting in reduced growth under stress. We evaluated the importance of melatonin in reducing heat stress‐induced severity in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) plants. The plants were subjected to 25 °C (optimum temperature) or 40 °C (heat stress) for 15 days at 6 h time duration and then developed the plants for 30 days. Heat stress led to oxidative stress with increased production of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) content and reduced accrual of total soluble sugars, starch and carbohydrate metabolism enzymes which were reflected in reduced photosynthesis. Application of melatonin not only reduced oxidative stress through lowering TBARS and H2O2 content,augmenting the activity of antioxidative enzymes but also increased the photosynthesis in plant and carbohydrate metabolism that was needed to provide energy and carbon skeleton to the developing plant under stress. However, the increase in these parameters with melatonin was mediated via hydrogen sulfide (H2S), as the inhibition of H2S by hypotaurine (HT; H2S scavenger) reversed the ameliorative effect of melatonin. This suggests a crosstalk of melatonin and H2S in protecting heat stress‐induced photosynthetic inhibition via regulation of carbohydrate metabolism