2,677 research outputs found
Energy Efficient Smart Wireless Sensor Network for Border Monitoring
The main concern of wireless sensor network is the flexibility and the power to execute different control tasks. This paper presents low power flexible controller for an intrusion detection using power gating technique to reduce the static power loss and fuzzy logic controller, the input signals are proceeded from a PIR, an acoustic and magnetic sensors, the output is presented as an alarm to define the kind of the intrusion. The system behavior is simulated using MATALB-SIMULINK
Maternal and Neonatal Factors Influencing Preterm Birth and Low Birth Weight in Oman: A Hospital Based Study
Background: Preterm births (PTB) and low birth weight (LBW) - the two distinct adverse pregnancy outcomes - are the major determinants of perinatal survival and development. The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of LBW and PTB and identify the maternal and neonatal risk factors influencing them.
Methods: Data for the study come from a cross-sectional retrospective study conducted at the maternity ward of Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman during the period between November 2011 and February 2012. Data on 534 singleton live births that occurred during the study period were extracted from hospital record. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression model were used for data analysis.
Results: The incidence of PTB and LBW were observed to be 9.7% and 13.7% respectively. Half (51.8%) of the LBW babies were PTB and 48.2% of the LBW babies were of term births. Differences and similarities were noted for the risk profile for PTB and LBW. Risk factors specific to PTB were maternal age, previous pregnancy loss, and infant’s length, while birth interval, maternal weight and BMI during pregnancy, and gestational age were the risk factors unique to LBW. ANC visit, infant’s gender, Apgar score, and head circumference of infants were the common significant risk factors influencing both LBW and PTB.
Conclusions: The incidence of PTB and LBW are moderately high in Oman. They are associated with different risk factors. A greater understanding and modification of identified risk factors would help reduce the incidence of PTB and LBW in Oman
Design of UWB microstrip patch antenna with variable band notched characteristics
Recently lower frequency band 4.5−5.5 GHz is proposed by the ASEAN countries for 5G cellular application and therefore, it is essential of designing an ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna for the particular band-notched characteristics. In this article, a compact tuning fork shape ultra-wideband (UWB) patch antenna with a variable band-notched characteristic has been proposed for 5G cellular application. The UWB antenna has been achieved by using a tuning fork shape with a simple partial ground plane. A pair of ring shape slits (RSS) on the ground plane has been added to achieve the band-notched characteristic. The proposed antenna has achieved a large −10 dB bandwidth of 7.8 GHz (2.9−11 GHz) and the VSWR value is less than 2 for the entire bandwidth excepted for notched frequency bands of lower 5G bands (4.5−5.5 GHz). Moreover, the antenna has a peak radiation efficiency of more than 87% for UWB and less than 27% for the notched frequency band. The notched-band is shifted with the change in the position of RSS’s within the vertical axis and thus, the variable band-notched characteristics have been achieved. Besides, the proposed antenna is compact with the dimension of 45×34 mm2 that makes it suitable for the lower band of 5G application
Interaction effect of nitrogen and potassium on growth and yield of carrot
The experiment was carried out to study the effects of three mulching practices viz., no mulch, water hyacinth mulch and polythene mulch, three levels of nitrogen viz., 0, 150 and 200 and three levels of potassium viz., 0, 200 and 250 kg/ha on the growth and yield of carrot. The yield and yield contributing characters of carrot were significantly influenced by the application of nitrogen and potassium fertilizers with mulching treated plot. The highest marketable yield (63.47 t/ha) was recorded from the treatment combination of black polythene mulch with 200 kg N/ha and 200 kg K/ha treated plot and the lowest (23.69 t/ha) from the control treatment (M0N0K0). But the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) was found maximum (5.60) in the treatment combination of water hyacinth mulch with 200 kg N/ha and 200 kg K/ha, and the lowest (2.54) in control treatment. Considering the above findings, water hyacinth mulch with the application of 200 kg N/ha and 200 kg K/ha appeared to be recommendable for carrot cultivation for the place where irrigation facility was not available
Dynamics and control of quadcopter using linear model predictive control approach
This paper investigates the dynamics and control of a quadcopter using the Model
Predictive Control (MPC) approach. The dynamic model is of high fidelity and nonlinear, with
six degrees of freedom that include disturbances and model uncertainties. The control approach
is developed based on MPC to track different reference trajectories ranging from simple ones
such as circular to complex helical trajectories. In this control technique, a linearized model is
derived and the receding horizon method is applied to generate the optimal control sequence.
Although MPC is computer expensive, it is highly effective to deal with the different types of
nonlinearities and constraints such as actuators’ saturation and model uncertainties. The MPC
parameters (control and prediction horizons) are selected by trial-and-error approach. Several
simulation scenarios are performed to examine and evaluate the performance of the proposed
control approach using MATLAB and Simulink environment. Simulation results show that this
control approach is highly effective to track a given reference trajectory
Prevalence of intestinal protozoan parasites among school children in Africa:a systematic review and meta-analysis
INTRODUCTION: Parasitic infections, especially intestinal protozoan parasites (IPPs) remain a significant public health issue in Africa, where many conditions favour the transmission and children are the primary victims. This systematic review and meta-analysis was carried out with the objective of assessing the prevalence of IPPs among school children in Africa. METHODS: Relevant studies published between January 2000 and December 2020 were identified by systematic online search on PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and Scopus databases without language restriction. Pooled prevalence was estimated using a random-effects model. Heterogeneity of studies were assessed using Cochrane Q test and I(2) test, while publication bias was evaluated using Egger’s test. RESULTS: Of the 1,645 articles identified through our searches, 46 cross-sectional studies matched our inclusion criteria, reported data from 29,968 school children of Africa. The pooled prevalence of intestinal protozoan parasites amongst African school children was 25.8% (95% CI: 21.2%-30.3%) with E. histolytica/ dispar (13.3%; 95% CI: 10.9%-15.9%) and Giardia spp. (12%; 95% CI: 9.8%-14.3%) were the most predominant pathogenic parasites amongst the study participants. While E. coli was the most common non-pathogenic protozoa (17.1%; 95% CI: 10.9%-23.2%). CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed a relatively high prevalence of IPPs in school children, especially in northern and western Africa. Thus, poverty reduction, improvement of sanitation and hygiene and attention to preventive control measures will be the key to reducing protozoan parasite transmission
inTformer: A Time-Embedded Attention-Based Transformer for Crash Likelihood Prediction at Intersections Using Connected Vehicle Data
The real-time crash likelihood prediction model is an essential component of
the proactive traffic safety management system. Over the years, numerous
studies have attempted to construct a crash likelihood prediction model in
order to enhance traffic safety, but mostly on freeways. In the majority of the
existing studies, researchers have primarily employed a deep learning-based
framework to identify crash potential. Lately, Transformer has emerged as a
potential deep neural network that fundamentally operates through
attention-based mechanisms. Transformer has several functional benefits over
extant deep learning models such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Convolution
Neural Network (CNN), etc. Firstly, Transformer can readily handle long-term
dependencies in a data sequence. Secondly, Transformer can parallelly process
all elements in a data sequence during training. Finally, Transformer does not
have the vanishing gradient issue. Realizing the immense possibility of
Transformer, this paper proposes inTersection-Transformer (inTformer), a
time-embedded attention-based Transformer model that can effectively predict
intersection crash likelihood in real-time. The proposed model was evaluated
using connected vehicle data extracted from INRIX's Signal Analytics Platform.
The data was parallelly formatted and stacked at different timesteps to develop
nine inTformer models. The best inTformer model achieved a sensitivity of 73%.
This model was also compared to earlier studies on crash likelihood prediction
at intersections and with several established deep learning models trained on
the same connected vehicle dataset. In every scenario, this inTformer
outperformed the benchmark models confirming the viability of the proposed
inTformer architecture.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, 9 table
Phenolics in Citrus hystrix leaves obtained using supercritical carbon dioxide extraction
The extraction of phenolics from Citrus hystrix leaf was carried out using supercritical fluid extraction and was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). The effects of CO2 flow rate, extraction pressure and extraction temperature on yield, total phenolic content and diphenyl-picrylhydrazyl-IC50 were evaluated and compared with ethanol extraction. The extraction pressure was the most significant factor affecting the yield, TPC and DPPH-IC50 of the extracts, followed by CO2 flow rate and the extraction temperature. The optimum conditions of pressure, CO2 flow rate and temperature were at 267 bars, 18 g/min and 50oC, respectively. The yield, TPC and DPPH-IC50 obtained were 5.06%, 116.53 mg GAE/g extract and IC50 of 0.063 mg/ml, respectively. These values were not significantly different (p<0.05) to their predicted values. Better inhibition and TPC were obtained using SFE method whereas higher yield and phenolic acids were obtained in the ethanol extracts
Novel packet scheduling algorithm based on cross component carrier in LTE-advanced network with carrier aggregation
LTE-Advanced provides considerably higher data
rates than the early releases of LTE. The carrier aggregation CA) technology allows scalable expansion of effective bandwidth provided to user equipment (UE) through simultaneous utilization of radio resources across multiple carriers. In this paper we propose a new packet scheduling (PS) criterion algorithm that charmingly satisfies the fairness among the different kinds of UEs by designing a weighting factor to proportional fair (PF) packet scheduling (PS) algorithms, while enhancing their throughput performance. The proposed PS algorithm is implemented and validated in a PS module for LTE\LTE-Advanced via system level simulations. Results show that PS-modified algorithms achieve higher throughput for both LTE and LTE-Advanced UEs
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