A survey of component carrier selection algorithms for carrier aggregation in long term evolution-advanced

Given that the demand for real-time multimedia contents that require significantly high data rate are getting of high popularity, a new mobile cellular technology known as Long term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) was standardized. The LTE-A is envisaged to support high peak data rate by aggregating more than one contiguous or non-contiguous Component Carriers (CCs) of the same or different frequency bandwidths. This paper provides a survey on the case where the LTE-A is working in backward compatible mode as well as when the system contains only LTE-A users. Note that the backward compatible mode indicates that the LTE-A contains a mixture of the legacy Long Term Evolution Release 8 (LTE) users that support packets (re)transmission on a single CC and the LTE-A users that are capable of utilizes more than one CCs for packets (re)transmission. It can be concluded from the study that the CC selection algorithms for newly-arrived LTE users can benefit from the channel diversity and the load status whereas the carrier aggregation that does not allocate all of the available CCs to the newly arrived LTE-A users shown to be more efficient

Simulation of packet scheduling in cognitive long term evolution-advanced

Real Time (RT) and Non-Real Time (NRT) multimedia content demand on mobile devices are increasing at a high pace. Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) is expected to cater these demands. However, LTE-A operates at fixed spectrum which leads to spectrum scarcity. Cognitive Radio (CR) is one the promising technologies that is used to overcome spectrum scarcity and implementation of CR into LTE-A will improve spectrum availability and efficiency of the network. Furthermore, with addition of Packet Scheduling (PS) in the cognitive LTE-A, QoS requirement of the mobile users can be guaranteed. However, the study on the stated is very limited. Thus, this paper models, simulates and evaluates performance of five well-known PS algorithms for supporting the RT and NRT multimedia contents. The simulation results show that Maximum- Largest Weighted Delay First (M-LWDF) is the best candidate for implementation in the cognitive LTE-A

Fade margin estimation technique using radar data for satellite link

The fade margin is an important parameter used by the operator to measure the link availability for a given time. Fade margin is a parameter that is used in the design of satellite links to ensure optimal performance of the link. A new technique is proposed where the fade margin of a satellite link can be estimated using attenuation statistics of radar data. Data set acquired from Malaysian meteorological radar for the year 2009 is used in the study. Radar return or reflectivity is used in the process of generating the attenuation values. The reflectivity is first converted into rainfall rate value and the specific attenuation is then calculated. The rain attenuation values can be derived by the multiplication of the specific attenuation and the path length affected. The rainfall rate derived from radar information is used in calculating the slant path attenuation of the satellite link. The databases of rain attenuation is then compiled with the time duration to acquire the cumulative distribution function (CDF) for the specified link. The satellite link investigated are based on the RazakSAT link in relation to its ground station located at Sg Lang, Banting, Selangor, Malaysia for X-band and MEASAT-3 satellite in relation to its ground station at Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia for Ku-band

Solitary fibrous tumour of the submandibular region: a rare entity

Solitary fibrous tumours of the head and neck region are extremely rare. The clinical diagnosis is often difficult to establish, and this lesion may be indistinguishable from other soft tissue neoplasms. An 18-year old Chinese gentleman presented with a painless right submandibular swelling which was increasing in size for eight months. A computed tomography scan showed a well-defined solid mass measuring about 2.0 x 2.96 cm in the submandibular region. The tumour was resected and was confined within its capsule. Immunohistochemical staining was strongly positive for CD34, CD 99, and vimentin and negative for desmin, smooth muscle actin (SMA), cytokeratin, S100 and CD68. The microscopic and immunohistochemical profile were compatible with solitary fibrous tumour. Distinguishing solitary fibrous tumours from various spindle neoplasms can be difficult. In view of the resemblance, immunohistochemical staining can help differentiate solitary fibrous tumour from spindle neoplasm

Web based water turbidity monitoring and automated filtration system: IoT application in water management

Water supplied to residential areas is prone to contaminants due to pipe residues and silt, and therefore resulted in cloudiness, unfavorable taste, and odor in water. Turbidity, a measure of water cloudiness, is one of the important factors for assessing water quality. This paper proposes a low-cost turbidity system based on a light detection unit to measure the cloudiness in water. The automated system uses Intel Galileo 2 as the microprocessor and a server for a web-based monitoring system. The turbidity detection unit consists of a Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) and a Light Emitting Diode (LED) inside a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe. Turbidity readings were recorded for two different positionings; 90° and 180° between the detector (LDR) and the incident light (LED). Once the turbidity level reached a threshold level, the system will trigger the filtration process to clean the water. The voltage output captured from the designed system versus total suspended solid (TSS) in sample water is graphed and analyzed in two different conditions; in total darkness and in the present of ambient light. This paper also discusses and compares the results from the above-mentioned conditions when the system is submerged in still and flowing water. It was found that the trends of the plotted graph decline when the total suspended solid increased for both 90° and 180° detector turbidimeter in all conditions which imitate the trends of a commercial turbidimeter. By taking the consideration of the above findings, the design can be recommended for a low-cost real-time web-based monitoring system of the water quality in an IOT environment

The first Malay database toward the ethnic-specific target molecular variation

BACKGROUND:The Malaysian Node of the Human Variome Project (MyHVP) is one of the eighteen official Human Variome Project (HVP) country-specific nodes. Since its inception in 9(th) October 2010, MyHVP has attracted the significant number of Malaysian clinicians and researchers to participate and contribute their data to this project. MyHVP also act as the center of coordination for genotypic and phenotypic variation studies of the Malaysian population. A specialized database was developed to store and manage the data based on genetic variations which also associated with health and disease of Malaysian ethnic groups. This ethnic-specific database is called the Malaysian Node of the Human Variome Project database (MyHVPDb). FINDINGS:Currently, MyHVPDb provides only information about the genetic variations and mutations found in the Malays. In the near future, it will expand for the other Malaysian ethnics as well. The data sets are specified based on diseases or genetic mutation types which have three main subcategories: Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), Copy Number Variation (CNV) followed by the mutations which code for the common diseases among Malaysians. MyHVPDb has been open to the local researchers, academicians and students through the registration at the portal of MyHVP ( http://hvpmalaysia.kk.usm.my/mhgvc/index.php?id=register ). CONCLUSIONS:This database would be useful for clinicians and researchers who are interested in doing a study on genomics population and genetic diseases in order to obtain up-to-date and accurate information regarding the population-specific variations and also useful for those in countries with similar ethnic background

Modulation of inflammatory pain in intervertebral disc degeneration: A therapeutic biomaterials approach

Discogenic low back pain (LBP) is a very common health problem that imposes a socio-economic burden on society. Primarily, intervertebral disc degeneration is one of the causative factors of LBP. It is mediated by an inflammation and an imbalance of extracelullar matrix homeostasis that can induce hyper-innervation and sensory sensitization in the disc and results in discogenic pain. The use of hyaluronic acid (HA) as a therapeutic agents offers promising results in tissue regeneration as it can reduce inflammation and pain, but the effects of HA therapy on glycosylation and pain associated with disc degeneration have not previously been determined. The overall aim of this study was to develop an optimally cross-linked high molecular weight of HA hydrogel, and further informed as to its therapeutic efficacy in alleviating inflammatory pain in degenerative disc disease. In phase I, the hydrogel was optimally crosslinked at 75 mM PEG, exerted hydrolytic stability and resistance to enzymatic degradation. No cytotoxic effect of NP cells was marked after treatment with HA hydrogels for one, three and seven days. IL-1β signalling molecules of IL-1R1 and MyD88 were significantly suppressed in the presence of HA hydrogel. Additionally, NGF and BDNF mRNA were down-regulated after treatment with cross-linked HA hydrogel. A possible protective mechanism of HA is shown by the binding of the CD44 receptor of NP cells to HA and which prevents NP cells from undergoing further inflammation. These findings indicate that optimally stabilized cross-linked HA hydrogel has a therapeutic effect in response to neurogenic inflammatory insult and becomes an ideal matrices hydrogel for NP repair. Nonetheless, the efficacy of HA hydrogel in alleviating pain in degenerative disc disease is still unknown. Therefore, a novel pre-clinical model of pain was established in phase II of the study as an intervention platform. The surgically puncture-induced disc injury was adopted in the rat tail. Here, for the first time, surgically puncture-induced disc injury evoked robust pain phenotype by exhibiting thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia close to the site of injury and up- regulation of spinal nociception marker, c-Fos mRNA. Conversely, the tail flick test revealed hypoalgesia at a lower level of the rat tail, suggesting a phenomenon of persistent pain as seen in clinical chronic pain. Moreover, disc injury inducedstructural disc degeneration and differently regulated glycosignature in both AF and NP tissues. Thus, the inhibition of nociceptive behaviour by low dose morphine, a current reversible analgesic that validates this pain model. Conclusively, the results indicate the first demonstration of nociception in the rat tail, anatomical disc degeneration and distinct glycosylation in AF and NP, thereby provide a platform to study pathogenesis of disc degeneration and testing of potential therapeutic target for disc repair in treating discogenic pain. Using this model, the potential efficacy of HA hydrogel in alleviating inflammatory pain in disc degeneration was evaluated in phase III of the study. HA hydrogel has been seen to alleviate nociceptive behaviour by reducing thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia close to the site of injury in the rat tail. Using the tail flick test, HA hydrogel demonstrated an inhibition of hypoalgesia at a lower level of the rat tail. These results indicate an anti-nociceptive effect of HA hydrogel that is comparable to low dose morphine treatment. The HA hydrogel also down- regulated spinal nociception markers, c-Fos and Tac1 (precusor for substance P), and pro-nociceptor of TRPV1 and Trk-A in AF and NP. An inhibition of sensory hyper- innervation was indicated by GAP43 and CGRP protein. Furthermore, HA altered glycosylation pattern than in injured AF and NP tissues. The mechanism of action of HA was determined by modulating key inflammatory pathways of IL-6 and IL-1β, and regulatory signalling pathways of Smad3 via TGF-β1 to respectively attenuate inflammation and regulate matrix components. Therefore, these results represent inflammatory pain modulation by HA hydrogel through alteration in glycomic and protein regulatory pathways, and thus suggesting that HA hydrogel as a promising clinical candidate for treatment of back pain caused by degenerated discs.2021-10-0

Pemahaman hubungan antara modal sosial dan perkongsian pengetahuan dalam community of practice di sektor awam Malaysia: kesan ke atas prestasi kerja individu

Cabaran terbesar perkongsian pengetahuan dalam Community of Practice ialah kesediaan individu untuk berkongsi pengetahuan mereka. Kertas ini mengintegrasikan Teori Modal Sosial dan Teori Berasaskan Pengetahuan Firma untuk memeriksa hubungan antara modal sosial dan perkongsian pengetahuan, serta kesannya ke atas prestasi kerja individu. Data kajian dikutip daripada ahli-ahli Kumpulan Inovatif dan Kreatif di Majlis Perbandaran Kuantan, dan Jabatan Kastam DiRaja Malaysia. Sebanyak 219 sampel telah dianalisis menggunakan PLS-SEM. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan keakraban, kepercayaan, bahasa sepunya, dan matlamat sepunya boleh mempengaruhi individu untuk berkongsi pengetahuan mereka, serta perkongsian pengetahuan mempunyai hubungan yang positif dengan prestasi kerja individu. Justeru, untuk mempertingkatkan aktiviti perkongsian pengetahuan dalam Community of Practice, pihak kerajaan perlu memberi penekanan kepada aspek-aspek berkaitan modal sosia

An improved component carrier selection algorithm for downlink long term evolution advanced

Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) supports much wider transmission bandwidth through Carrier Aggregation (CA). CA is a method that aggregates multiple Component Carriers (CCs) of the same or different frequency bands. Additionally, LTE-A system needs to simultaneously support a mixture of LTE-A and Long Term Evolution (LTE) users. The LTE-A users can transmit on multiple CCs whereas the LTE users are restricted to transmit on a single CC. Given that there are multiple CCs available, an efficient CC selection algorithm is necessary in order to assign a CC to each LTE user. This paper proposes a novel CC selection algorithm to efficiently utilize the available radio resources whilst balancing total load across multiple CCs. Results obtained via simulation have demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed algorithm in optimizing the system capacity without compromising the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of delay-sensitive Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) application

Simulation of Packet Scheduling in Cognitive Long Term Evolution-Advanced

Real Time (RT) and Non-Real Time (NRT) multimedia content demand on mobile devices are increasing at a high pace. Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) is expected to cater these demands. However, LTE-A operates at fixed spectrum which leads to spectrum scarcity. Cognitive Radio (CR) is one the promising technologies that is used to overcome spectrum scarcity and implementation of CR into LTE-A will improve spectrum availability and efficiency of the network. Furthermore, with addition of Packet Scheduling (PS) in the cognitive LTE-A, QoS requirement of the mobile users can be guaranteed. However, the study on the stated is very limited. Thus, this paper models, simulates and evaluates performance of five well-known PS algorithms for supporting the RT and NRT multimedia contents. The simulation results show that Maximum- Largest Weighted Delay First (M-LWDF) is the best candidate for implementation in the cognitive LTE-A