A Framework for Dynamic Selection of Backoff Stages during Initial Ranging Process in Wireless Networks

yesThe only available solution in the IEEE 802.22 standard for avoiding collision amongst various contending customer premises equipment (CPEs) attempting to associate with a base station (BS) is binary exponential random backoff process in which the contending CPEs retransmit their association requests. The number of attempts the CPEs send their requests to the BS are fixed in an IEEE 802.22 network. This paper presents a mathematical framework that helps the BS in determining at which attempt the majority of the CPEs become part of the wireless regional area network from a particular number of contending CPEs. Based on a particular attempt, the ranging request collision probability for any number of contending CPEs with respect to contention window size is approximated. The numerical results validate the effectiveness of the approximation. Moreover, the average ranging success delay experienced by the majority of the CPEs is also determined.The full text will be available at the end of the publisher's embargo: 7th Aug 201

UDTN-RS : A new underwater delay tolerant network routing protocol for coastal patrol and surveillance

The Coastal Patrol and Surveillance Application (CPSA) is developed and deployed to detect, track and monitor water vessel traffic using automated devices. The latest advancements of marine technologies, including Automatic Underwater Vehicles, have encouraged the development of this type of applications. To facilitate their operations, installation of a Coastal Patrol and Surveillance Network (CPSN) is mandatory. One of the primary design objectives of this network is to deliver an adequate amount of data within an effective time frame. This is particularly essential for the detection of an intruder's vessel and its notification through the adverse underwater communication channels. Additionally, intermittent connectivity of the nodes remains another important obstacle to overcome to allow the smooth functioning of CPSA. Taking these objectives and obstacles into account, this work proposes a new protocol by ensembling forward error correction technique (namely Reed-Solomon codes or RS) in Underwater Delay Tolerant Network with probabilistic spraying technique (UDTN-Prob) routing protocol, named Underwater Delay Tolerant Protocol with RS (UDTN-RS). In addition, the existing binary packet spraying technique in UDTN-Prob is enhanced for supporting encoded packet exchange between the contacting nodes. A comprehensive simulation has been performed employing DEsign, Simulate, Emulate and Realize Test-beds (DESERT) underwater simulator along with World Ocean Simulation System (WOSS) package to receive a more realistic account of acoustic propagation for identifying the effectiveness of the proposed protocol. Three scenarios are considered during the simulation campaign, namely varying data transmission rate, varying area size, and a scenario focusing on estimating the overhead ratio. Conversely, for the first two scenarios, three metrics are taken into account: normalised packet delivery ratio, delay, and normalised throughput. The acquired results for these scenarios and metrics are compared to its ancestor, i.e., UDTN-Prob. The results suggest that the proposed UDTN-RS protocol can be considered as a suitable alternative to the existing protocols like UDTN-Prob, Epidemic, and others for sparse networks like CPSN

The Profile of Leprosy Patients in Aceh: Retrospective Study

Backgrounds: Morbus Hansen or leprosy is a chronic granulomatous infectious disease caused by the obligate intracellular Mycobacterium leprae bacillus. Leprosy can cause loss of sensation in the skin with or without lesions and body dysfunction during the course of the disease. In Aceh, there were 337 new cases of leprosy in 2019 and this was the highest case in Sumatra. Purpose: To analyze the profile of leprosy patients in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology of RSUDZA Banda Aceh. Methods: Observational descriptive study with retrospective design, using medical record of leprosy patients who visited Dermatology and Venereology Outpatient Clinic RSUDZA Banda Aceh for the period of January 2017 – December 2021. Result: A total of 183 leprosy patients were obtained from the study. Most cases occured in male patients (68.3%), the majority was in the 18-40 year age group (60.1%), most patients live outside of Banda Aceh (71%). The most frequently reported type of leprosy was the multibacillary type (71.6%). Leprosy patients without disability were 35.5%, the majority did not experience a leprosy reaction (71%), the most common morphology of the lesion was erythematous (29.5%), and the highest proportion of the bacteriological and morphological index was negative (46.4% and 50.8% respectively). Conclusion: The diagnosis of leprosy was based on clinical, bacteriological, and histopathological features. Early diagnosis, patient access to treatment, early initiation of treatment and adherence to therapy would reduce the disease transmission thus would decrease the prevalence of leprosy in Aceh

Global overview of the management of acute cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic (CHOLECOVID study)

Background: This study provides a global overview of the management of patients with acute cholecystitis during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: CHOLECOVID is an international, multicentre, observational comparative study of patients admitted to hospital with acute cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on management were collected for a 2-month study interval coincident with the WHO declaration of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and compared with an equivalent pre-pandemic time interval. Mediation analysis examined the influence of SARS-COV-2 infection on 30-day mortality. Results: This study collected data on 9783 patients with acute cholecystitis admitted to 247 hospitals across the world. The pandemic was associated with reduced availability of surgical workforce and operating facilities globally, a significant shift to worse severity of disease, and increased use of conservative management. There was a reduction (both absolute and proportionate) in the number of patients undergoing cholecystectomy from 3095 patients (56.2 per cent) pre-pandemic to 1998 patients (46.2 per cent) during the pandemic but there was no difference in 30-day all-cause mortality after cholecystectomy comparing the pre-pandemic interval with the pandemic (13 patients (0.4 per cent) pre-pandemic to 13 patients (0.6 per cent) pandemic; P = 0.355). In mediation analysis, an admission with acute cholecystitis during the pandemic was associated with a non-significant increased risk of death (OR 1.29, 95 per cent c.i. 0.93 to 1.79, P = 0.121). Conclusion: CHOLECOVID provides a unique overview of the treatment of patients with cholecystitis across the globe during the first months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The study highlights the need for system resilience in retention of elective surgical activity. Cholecystectomy was associated with a low risk of mortality and deferral of treatment results in an increase in avoidable morbidity that represents the non-COVID cost of this pandemic

Decline in subarachnoid haemorrhage volumes associated with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, decreased volumes of stroke admissions and mechanical thrombectomy were reported. The study\u27s objective was to examine whether subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) hospitalisations and ruptured aneurysm coiling interventions demonstrated similar declines. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional, retrospective, observational study across 6 continents, 37 countries and 140 comprehensive stroke centres. Patients with the diagnosis of SAH, aneurysmal SAH, ruptured aneurysm coiling interventions and COVID-19 were identified by prospective aneurysm databases or by International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, codes. The 3-month cumulative volume, monthly volumes for SAH hospitalisations and ruptured aneurysm coiling procedures were compared for the period before (1 year and immediately before) and during the pandemic, defined as 1 March-31 May 2020. The prior 1-year control period (1 March-31 May 2019) was obtained to account for seasonal variation. FINDINGS: There was a significant decline in SAH hospitalisations, with 2044 admissions in the 3 months immediately before and 1585 admissions during the pandemic, representing a relative decline of 22.5% (95% CI -24.3% to -20.7%, p\u3c0.0001). Embolisation of ruptured aneurysms declined with 1170-1035 procedures, respectively, representing an 11.5% (95%CI -13.5% to -9.8%, p=0.002) relative drop. Subgroup analysis was noted for aneurysmal SAH hospitalisation decline from 834 to 626 hospitalisations, a 24.9% relative decline (95% CI -28.0% to -22.1%, p\u3c0.0001). A relative increase in ruptured aneurysm coiling was noted in low coiling volume hospitals of 41.1% (95% CI 32.3% to 50.6%, p=0.008) despite a decrease in SAH admissions in this tertile. INTERPRETATION: There was a relative decrease in the volume of SAH hospitalisations, aneurysmal SAH hospitalisations and ruptured aneurysm embolisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings in SAH are consistent with a decrease in other emergencies, such as stroke and myocardial infarction

Breast cancer management pathways during the COVID-19 pandemic: outcomes from the UK ‘Alert Level 4’ phase of the B-MaP-C study

Abstract: Background: The B-MaP-C study aimed to determine alterations to breast cancer (BC) management during the peak transmission period of the UK COVID-19 pandemic and the potential impact of these treatment decisions. Methods: This was a national cohort study of patients with early BC undergoing multidisciplinary team (MDT)-guided treatment recommendations during the pandemic, designated ‘standard’ or ‘COVID-altered’, in the preoperative, operative and post-operative setting. Findings: Of 3776 patients (from 64 UK units) in the study, 2246 (59%) had ‘COVID-altered’ management. ‘Bridging’ endocrine therapy was used (n = 951) where theatre capacity was reduced. There was increasing access to COVID-19 low-risk theatres during the study period (59%). In line with national guidance, immediate breast reconstruction was avoided (n = 299). Where adjuvant chemotherapy was omitted (n = 81), the median benefit was only 3% (IQR 2–9%) using ‘NHS Predict’. There was the rapid adoption of new evidence-based hypofractionated radiotherapy (n = 781, from 46 units). Only 14 patients (1%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during their treatment journey. Conclusions: The majority of ‘COVID-altered’ management decisions were largely in line with pre-COVID evidence-based guidelines, implying that breast cancer survival outcomes are unlikely to be negatively impacted by the pandemic. However, in this study, the potential impact of delays to BC presentation or diagnosis remains unknown

Mathematical modeling of association attempt with the base station for maximum number of customer premise equipments in the IEEE 802.22 network

NoAbstract: Avoiding collision among contending customer premise equipments (CPEs) attempting to associate with a base station (BS), the only available solution in IEEE 802.22 standard is binary exponential random backoff process in which the contending CPEs retransmit their association requests. The number of attempts the CPEs sends their requests to the BS are fixed in IEEE 802.22 network. This paper presents a mathematical framework for helping the BS in determining at which attempt the majority of the CPEs become the part of wireless regional area network (WRAN) from a particular number of contending CPEs at a given initial contention window size

Modeling and analysis of customer premise equipments registration process in IEEE 802.22 WRAN cell

NoThe development of the IEEE 802.22 standard is aimed at providing broadband access in rural areas by effectively utilizing the unused TV band, provided no harmful interference is caused to the incumbent operation. The motivation behind TV band selection is of having lower frequencies compared to other licensed bands, which, therefore, results in lower propagation path loss. Due to this quality, the spectral power density of the radio signal reduces slowly, which results in a high coverage area. Further, it has been observed that many TV channels largely remain unoccupied, as most households and businesses rely on cable and satellite TV services. This is the first international standard for a wireless regional area network (WRAN) based on cognitive radio technologies. This standard provides both PHY and MAC layer functionalities in an infrastructure based network for communication between customer premise equipments (CPEs) through a base station (BS). The Spectrum Manager is the central part of the BS, which plays a significant role in maintaining spectrum availability information, channel selection, channel management, scheduling quiet periods for spectrum sensing, accessing to the database and implementing IEEE 802.22 policies. A WRAN can particularly accommodate up to 512 CPEs in a cell. Contention may occur during initial ranging, periodic ranging, bandwidth request and urgent coexistence situation notification. The medium access control (MAC) incorporates several schemes to control contention between CPEs within a cell and overlapping cells sharing the same channel. A CPE has to make decision to resolve collisions in the upstream direction. In the case of initial ranging and periodic ranging, code division multiple access (CDMA) is employed to resolve collisions. For bandwidth and UCS notification, either a CDMA or exponential time backoff approach can be applied for collision resolution. This paper presents the analytical framework to evaluate the number of active CPEs in a cognitive radio network, It is important to note that when the arrival rate becomes equal to the service rate, the active CPEs curve attains a constant value. Further, the active CPEs length is highly dependent on service rate. The different special cases have been addressed and the effectiveness of the proposed framework has been validated through various evaluation results

Modeling of initial contention window size for successful initial ranging process in IEEE 802.22 WRAN cell

NoAvoiding collision among contending customer premise equipments (CPEs) attempting to associate with a base station (BS) in a wireless regional area network (WRAN) is a challenging issue. The collision probability is highly dependent upon the size of the initial contention window and the number of contending CPEs. To reduce the collision probability among CPEs in order to start the ranging process in an IEEE 802.22 network, the BS needs to adjust the initial contention window size. This paper provides an analytical framework to estimate the ranging request collision probability depending upon the size of the initial contention window and the number of CPEs attempting to join the IEEE WRAN cell. The accuracy of the estimated curve is analyzed for various numbers of contention CPEs on the basis of the relative errors. The numerical results confirm that the approximation works reasonably well for finding the ranging request collision probability for any number of contention CPEs at a particular value of initial contention window size. Moreover, this approximation provides the threshold size for a contention window to start the initial ranging process for any number of CPEs in an IEEE 802.22 network. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Modeling of initial contention window size for successful initial ranging process in IEEE 802.22 WRAN cell

NoAvoiding collision among contending customer premise equipments (CPEs) attempting to associate with a base station (BS) in a wireless regional area network (WRAN) is a challenging issue. The collision probability is highly dependent upon the size of the initial contention window and the number of contending CPEs. To reduce the collision probability among CPEs in order to start the ranging process in an IEEE 802.22 network, the BS needs to adjust the initial contention window size. This paper provides an analytical framework to estimate the ranging request collision probability depending upon the size of the initial contention window and the number of CPEs attempting to join the IEEE WRAN cell. The accuracy of the estimated curve is analyzed for various numbers of contention CPEs on the basis of the relative errors. The numerical results confirm that the approximation works reasonably well for finding the ranging request collision probability for any number of contention CPEs at a particular value of initial contention window size. Moreover, this approximation provides the threshold size for a contention window to start the initial ranging process for any number of CPEs in an IEEE 802.22 network. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved