A review of routing protocols in wireless body area networks

Recent technological advancements in wireless communication, integrated circuits and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMs) has enabled miniaturized, low-power, intelligent, invasive/ non-invasive micro and nano-technology sensor nodes placed in or on the human body for use in monitoring body function and its immediate environment referred to as Body Area Networks (BANs). BANs face many stringent requirements in terms of delay, power, temperature and network lifetime which need to be taken into serious consideration in the design of different protocols. Since routing protocols play an important role in the overall system performance in terms of delay, power consumption, temperature and so on, a thorough study on existing routing protocols in BANs is necessary. Also, the specific challenges of BANs necessitates the design of new routing protocols specifically designed for BANs. This paper provides a survey of existing routing protocols mainly proposed for BANs. These protocols are further classified into five main categories namely, temperature based, cross-layer, cluster based, cost-effective and QoS-based routing, where each protocol is described under its specified category. Also, comparison among routing protocols in each category is given. © 2013 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

Virginity and Guilt Differences Between Men and Women

In this research, the authors measured the levels of sexual guilt between two groups of people on multiple levels, virgins and nonvirgins, by gender. The differences between men and women when it comes to virginity will also be studied. Based on the sample size of college students, N = 364. College students (N=364) completed a 34-item online survey of questions that measure guilt levels. Ten out of the twenty questions are demographic questions, such as: age, ethnicity, religion, year, etc. The other questions were a combination of Likert scaled questions and open ended responses. We predicted that females will produce more guilt compared to males after they lose their virginity. The researchers found that females do produce sexual guilt compared to males and high scores of religiosity also produce higher levels of sexual guilt for females

A new strategy to improve proactive route updates in mobile ad hoc networks

This paper presents two new route update strategies for performing proactive route discovery in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The first strategy is referred to as minimum displacement update routing (MDUR). In this strategy, the rate at which route updates are sent into the network is controlled by how often a node changes its location by a required distance. The second strategy is called minimum topology change update (MTCU). In this strategy, the route updating rate is proportional to the level of topology change each node experiences. We implemented MDUR and MTCU on top of the fisheye state routing (FSR) protocol and investigated their performance by simulation. The simulations were performed in a number of different scenarios, with varied network mobility, density, traffic, and boundary. Our results indicate that both MDUR and MTCU produce significantly lower levels of control overhead than FSR and achieve higher levels of throughput as the density and the level of traffic in the network are increased

Soil moisture remote sensing using SIW cavity based metamaterial perfect absorber

Continuous and accurate sensing of water content in soil is an essential and useful measure in the agriculture industry. Traditional sensors developed to perform this task suffer from limited lifetime and also need to be calibrated regularly. Further, maintenance, support, and deployment of these sensors in remote environments provide additional challenges to the use of conventional soil moisture sensors. In this paper, a metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA) based soil moisture sensor is introduced. The ability of MPAs to absorb electromagnetic signals with near 100% efficiency facilitates the design of highly accurate and low-profile radio frequency passive sensors. MPA based sensor can be fabricated from highly durable materials and can therefore be made more resilient than traditional sensors. High resolution sensing is achieved through the creation of physical channels in the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity. The proposed sensor does not require connection for both electromagnetic signals or for adding a testing sample. Importantly, an external power supply is not needed, making the MPA based sensor the perfect solution for remote and passive sensing in modern agriculture. The proposed MPA based sensor has three absorption bands due to the various resonance modes of the SIW cavity. By changing the soil moisture level, the absorption peak shifts by 10 MHz, 23.3 MHz, and 60 MHz, which is correlated with the water content percentage at the first, second and third absorption bands, respectively. Finally, a 6×6 cell array with a total size of 312mm×312mm has been fabricated and tested. A strong correlation between measurement and simulation results validates the design procedure

Wide-angle metamaterial absorber with highly insensitive absorption for TE and TM modes.

Being incident and polarization angle insensitive are crucial characteristics of metamaterial perfect absorbers due to the variety of incident signals. In the case of incident angles insensitivity, facing transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) waves affect the absorption ratio significantly. In this scientific report, a crescent shape resonator has been introduced that provides over 99% absorption ratio for all polarization angles, as well as 70% and 93% efficiencies for different incident angles up to [Formula: see text] for TE and TM polarized waves, respectively. Moreover, the insensitivity for TE and TM modes can be adjusted due to the semi-symmetric structure. By adjusting the structure parameters, the absorption ratio for TE and TM waves at [Formula: see text] has been increased to 83% and 97%, respectively. This structure has been designed to operate at 5 GHz spectrum to absorb undesired signals generated due to the growing adoption of Wi-Fi networks. Finally, the proposed absorber has been fabricated in a [Formula: see text] array structure on FR-4 substrate. Strong correlation between measurement and simulation results validates the design procedure

Singular projective varieties and quantization

By the quantization condition compact quantizable Kaehler manifolds can be embedded into projective space. In this way they become projective varieties. The quantum Hilbert space of the Berezin-Toeplitz quantization (and of the geometric quantization) is the projective coordinate ring of the embedded manifold. This allows for generalization to the case of singular varieties. The set-up is explained in the first part of the contribution. The second part of the contribution is of tutorial nature. Necessary notions, concepts, and results of algebraic geometry appearing in this approach to quantization are explained. In particular, the notions of projective varieties, embeddings, singularities, and quotients appearing in geometric invariant theory are recalled.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Extention of Finite Solvable Torsors over a Curve

Let $R$ be a discrete valuation ring with fraction field $K$ and with algebraically closed residue field of positive characteristic $p$. Let $X$ be a smooth fibered surface over $R$ with geometrically connected fibers endowed with a section $x\in X(R)$. Let $G$ be a finite solvable $K$-group scheme and assume that either $|G|=p^n$ or $G$ has a normal series of length 2. We prove that every quotient pointed $G$-torsor over the generic fiber $X_{\eta}$ of $X$ can be extended to a torsor over $X$ after eventually extending scalars and after eventually blowing up $X$ at a closed subscheme of its special fiber $X_s$.Comment: 16 page

HIV and respiratory illness in the antiretroviral therapy era

Respiratory illness is a common manifestation of HIV infection. The availability of effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) has changed the pattern of respiratory ill-health experienced by people living with HIV (PLWH). Among populations with good access to ART, opportunistic respiratory infections such as Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) are becoming less frequent. However, there is evidence to suggest that these populations may be at greater risk of serious non-AIDS illness including chronic respiratory disease. Although there is remaining uncertainty about the extent to which HIV represents an independent risk-factor for respiratory illness in individuals with a suppressed HIV viral load and immune reconstitution, in many settings PLWH have greater exposure to risk factors for respiratory illness (in particular tobacco smoking), which contribute to this burden of disease. As HIV-positive populations age, management of these conditions will therefore become increasingly important. Healthcare services need to manage this growing burden of chronic respiratory illness and provide access to preventative measures including smoking cessation and immunisation against vaccine-preventable respiratory infections in a way that is appropriate to the populations served

Frost monitoring cyber-physical system: a survey on prediction and active protection methods

Frost damage in broadacre cropping and horticulture (including viticulture) results in substantial economic losses to producers and may also disrupt associated product value chains. Frost risk windows are changing in timing, frequency, and duration. Faced with the increasing cost of mitigation infrastructure and competition for resources (e.g., water and energy), multiperil insurance, and the need for supply chain certainty, producers are under pressure to innovate in order to manage and mitigate risk. Frost protection systems are cyber-physical systems (CPSs) consisting of sensors (event detection), intelligence (prediction), and actuators (active protection methods). The Internet-of-Things communication protocols joining the CPS components are also evaluated. In this context, this article introduces and reviews existing methods of frost management. This article focuses on active protection methods because of their potential for real-time deployment during frost events. For integrated frost prediction and active protection systems, prediction method, sensor types, and integration architecture are assessed, research gaps are identified and future research directions proposed