Signaling Congestion Control Mechanisms for Supporting Machine-To-Machine Communications in 4G LTE Cellular Networks

Typically, in Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication system, an M2M device (sensor, meter, etc.) captures an event (pressure, inventory level, etc.), which is relayed through a communication network (wireless, wired or hybrid, cellular) to an application (software program), that translates the captured event into meaningful information without any human intervention. Based on this concept, several noble applications have been developed such as environment monitoring, smart grid, e-healthcare, and fleet management which will affect various aspects of our life

Vitamin C supplementation as adjuvant analgesic therapy in post-operative pain management in patients undergoing surgical decompression in a case of prolapsed intervertebral disc

Background: The management of postoperative pain has been a major challenge for the operating surgeons. Vitamin C has shown analgesic effects in specific clinical conditions, reducing patient suffering and improving the quality of life. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of vitamin C as an adjuvant in postoperative pain management and its effect on analgesia requirements in patients undergoing spinal decompression surgery.Methods: The present study was a prospective study of 50 patients aged 30-60 years with low back pain due to prolapsed intervertebral disc requiring surgical decompression, conducted in a tertiary care institute from 2018 to 2020. All patients underwent open discectomy. 25 patients each were randomized into two groups, those that were given vitamin c supplementation (group A) and those that weren't (group B). The patients were then followed up 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th week and the pain was graded at each follow-up according to the NRS scale. The total amount of diclofenac sodium consumed in the 6 weeks was calculated.Results: The mean NRS (A vs B) at 2 (2.68 vs 3.56) and 4 (0.88 vs 1.48) weeks follow-up showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups, but the difference was not significant at 6 (0.16 vs 0.36) weeks follow up. The difference in the consumption of analgesic (3.56 vs 5.46) at 6 weeks was statistically significant.Conclusions: In this clinical outcome-based study, we suggest that for postoperative pain management, vitamin C acts as an efficacious adjuvant with a dose-sparing effect on the consumption of analgesics

Cultural, morphological and molecular diversity of Ustilaginoidea virens (Cooke) Tak. isolates causing false smut of rice in different agroclimatic regions of Karnataka

The ascomycete fungal pathogen Ustilaginoidea virens (Cooke) Takahshi cause false smut in rice and considerable yield loss. In this study, we collected isolates of U. virens from the rice growing ecosystems of Karnataka and characterized for cultural, morphological and molecular characters. The isolates of the fungus on Potato Sucrose Agar media exhibited distinct colonies with colony growth ranging from 21.50 mm (Uv-20) to 70.00 mm (Uv-15). The colony colour appeared as whitish to yellowish with varied growth pattern from flat, raised flat to fluffy and raised fluffy colonies with sectoring in Uv-1, Uv-3, Uv-6 and Uv-9 isolates. The isolates of U. virens also showed variation in the morphology of spores, where the conidia were globose, irregularly round to elliptical and warty on the surface with spore radius ranging from 2.91 to 5.36 μm. The scanning electron microscopy revealed hyaline globose to irregularly rounded ornamented chlamydospores with prominent spines. Besides cultural and morphological characters, molecular identification of false smut isolates was confirmed through ITS sequencing which showed 91 to 99 per cent identity with U. virens in NCBI-BLAST analysis. Dendrogram constructed using ITS sequence data broadly separated the isolates into two major clusters with divergence among clusters. This ITS (internal transcribed spacer) sequencing of isolates should help better understanding of the phylogenetic relationships among these isolates.

Adaptive RACH Congestion Management to Support M2M Communication in 4G LTE Networks

Machine to machine communication (M2M) or machine type communication (MTC) facilitates communication of two network enabled devices, without any human intervention, to take some intelligent decision based on the interaction of devices. Because of ubiquitous coverage and global connectivity, cellular networks are playing a major role in the deployment of M2M communications. Due to some unique characteristics of M2M communication, supporting M2M applications in cellular networks is very challenging. One of such challenge is congestion in radio access network (RAN) during RACH procedure. This is because of the fact that there are large numbers of M2M devices which access the radio network at the same time. As a solution, we propose an adaptive RACH congestion management function (ARC) which specifies congestion handling method to be used by all M2M devices based on the current congestion condition of the networ

Understanding our seas: National Institute of Oceanography, Goa

The present article summarizes the research done at the CSIR–National Institute of Oceanography in 2014 in ocean science, resources and technology. Significant research has been conducted on air–sea interactions and coastal circulation, biogeochemistry, biology, marine geophysics, palaeoceanography, marine fishery, gas hydrates and wave energy. Technological advances covered topics like oceanographic tools. Major strides have been made in marine resources research and evaluation

Understanding our seas: National Institute of Oceanography, Goa

The present article summarizes the research done at the CSIR–National Institute of Oceanography in 2014 in ocean science, resources and technology. Significant research has been conducted on air–sea interactions and coastal circulation, biogeochemistry, biology, marine geophysics, palaeoceanography, marine fishery, gas hydrates and wave energy. Technological advances covered topics like oceanographic tools. Major strides have been made in marine resources research and evaluation

JNK1 controls dendritic field size in L2/3 and L5 of the motor cortex, constrains soma size, and influences fine motor coordination

Peer reviewe

An assessment of soil erosion prevention by vegetation in Mediterranean Europe: Current trends of ecosystem service provision

International audienceThe concept of ecosystem services has received increased attention in recent years, and is seen as a useful construct for the development of policy relevant indicators and communication for science, policy and practice. Soil erosion is one of the main environmental problems for European Mediterranean agro-forestry systems, making soil erosion prevention a key ecosystem service to monitor and assess. Here, we present a spatially and temporally explicit assessment of the provision of soil erosion prevention by vegetation in Mediterranean Europe between 2001 and 2013, including maps of vulnerable areas. We follow a recently described conceptual framework for the mapping and assessment of regulating ecosystem services to calculate eight pro cess-based indicators, and an ecosystem service provision profile. Results show a relative increase in the effectiveness of provision of soil erosion prevention in Mediterranean Europe between 2001 and 2013. This increase is particularly noticeable between 2009 and 2013, but it does not represent a general trend across the whole Mediterranean region. Two regional examples describe contrasting trends and illustrate the need for regional assessments and policy targets. Our results demonstrate the strength of having a coherent and complementary set of indicators for regulating services to inform policy and land management decisions. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A Generalized Event Driven Framework for Building Occupancy

Building occupancy is very important for building energy simulation and research, however generating an occupancy model that is closer to the real world occupancy patterns is a very challenging task. In this paper, we have proposed a generalized event driven framework for the simulation of building occupancy. Real humans work together in groups and their presence is affected by events. So, the proposed model incorporates the concept of events and groups. Unlike the existing building occupancy models which were based on Markov chain, the proposed framework is fully event driven and group based which makes it closer to reality. The proposed model develops a generalized framework which will be able to simulate the occupancy patterns for any building be it an office, lab or even a house