FogGIS: Fog Computing for Geospatial Big Data Analytics

Cloud Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has emerged as a tool for analysis, processing and transmission of geospatial data. The Fog computing is a paradigm where Fog devices help to increase throughput and reduce latency at the edge of the client. This paper developed a Fog-based framework named Fog GIS for mining analytics from geospatial data. We built a prototype using Intel Edison, an embedded microprocessor. We validated the FogGIS by doing preliminary analysis. including compression, and overlay analysis. Results showed that Fog computing hold a great promise for analysis of geospatial data. We used several open source compression techniques for reducing the transmission to the cloud.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, 3rd IEEE Uttar Pradesh Section International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Electronics (09-11 December, 2016) Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) Varanasi, Indi

HRM Strategies in Structurally Depressed Industries: The Japanese Approach

Several adverse macro-economic trends beginning in the early 1970’s drastically reduced the relative competitiveness of various sectors of the Japanese economy. Firms in Western (industrialized) countries that were faced with a similar loss of comparative advantage dealt with the problem by undertaking strategies of restructuring--primarily, retrenchment and downsizing strategies. However, in sharp contrast to the Western approach, the Japanese response to industrial decline, from a HRM standpoint, was a product of the political, cultural, and social institutions/values of that society. The Japanese government, business sector and the labor unions worked together to ‘maintain’ employment levels (albeit, mainly that of permanent employees) in order to minimize the costs of adjustment for the key stakeholder groups in particular, and for the Japanese society as a whole, in general

Design and Analysis of New Shuffle Encryption Schemes for Multimedia

Securing the contents of visual data and multimedia requires specific design consideration for use in different applications. The major issue with this type of data has been occurrence of redundancy, at various places particularly in images, which makes data values repetitive at several places. The focus of this paper is on design of new shuffling schemes that can efficiently destroy redundancy in the visual data ensuring its secured transmission and distribution over public networks. Different variants of these shuffling schemes will be used as pre-processing schemes on multimedia data values especially in light weight devices using images. Standard as well as chaotic permutation and substitution schemes together with S-box rotation have been used to shuffle and map the plain data into random uncorrelated values via various variants of the presented schemes. For further improving the security, the processed data is encrypted using a computationally fast algorithm in its normal mode of operation. Security analysis using different types of images show that the proposed schemes satisfy the parameters required for securing visual contents even with very high redundancy.Defence Science Journal, 2012, 62(1), pp.159-166, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.62.100

Lichen synusiae in East Antarctica (Schirmacher Oasis and Larsemann Hills): substratum and morphological preferences

Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems experience some of the most extreme growth conditions, where plant distribution is determined by favourable environmental gradients of temperature and moisture along with micro-topography of habitats. Lichens are among the most tolerant symbiotic organisms which constitute dominant component in the terrestrial biota of Antarctica. There are various studies dealing with patterns of lichen diversity of various regions of Antarctica are done but in east Antarctica such studies are scanty. Lichen synusiae of Schirmacher Oasis and McLeod Island, Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica were studied in order to determine their morphological and substratum affinities. The Lichen synusiae of the study sites was represented by 71 species, 24 genera and 13 families in Schirmacher Oasis and 27 species, 18 genera and 10 families in McLeod Island, Larsemann Hills. Hierarchical cluster analysis of lichen communities on the basis of growth form diversity and substratum occurrence showed that crustose growth form and saxicolous (on rock, stones and moraines) habitat were the most preferred, in both study sites. The study presents a representative account of morphological and substratum preference patterns in lichen synusiae of east Antarctica, which can be of fundamental importance for future lichenological investigation in the region

Defining the Incremental Utility of Prostate Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Imaging at Standard and Specialized Read in Predicting Extracapsular Extension of Prostate Cancer

AbstractMultiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) is increasingly used in staging early prostate cancer (PCa) but remains heavily reader-dependent. We aim to define the incremental utility of mpMRI over clinical parameters in determining the pathologic extracapsular extension (pECE) of PCa interpreted in a standard radiologic setting and when further over-read by a specialized reader. We retrospectively reviewed 120 men with clinically localized PCa undergoing mpMRI and radical prostatectomy. We obtained radiologic prediction of pECE from standard radiologic reports (standard read) and by a specialized reader blinded to clinical and pathologic findings (specialized read). We determined the incremental benefit of standard read and specialized read by sequential addition to a baseline clinical parameters-only logistic regression model predicting pECE. The sensitivity and specificity of standard read were 77% and 44%, respectively, whereas those of specialized read were 86% and 81%. The positive likelihood ratio was 1.7 at baseline, 1.7 adding standard read, and 6.5 adding specialized read. The negative likelihood ratio was 0.6 at baseline, 0.5 adding standard read, and 0.1 adding specialized read. Standard read modestly improved prediction of pECE, whereas specialized read improved it moderately.Patient summaryThe incremental benefit of mpMRI over clinical information is small but increases to moderate with a specialized second opinion. This second opinion may be useful when considering active surveillance, nerve-sparing surgery, or focal therapy

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease may not be a severe disease at presentation among Asian Indians

Aim: To evaluate the clinical and biochemical profile of patients with non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and to assess their histological severity at presentation. Methods: Consecutive patients presenting to the liver clinic of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) with raised transaminases to at least 1.5 times upper limit of normal, and histologically confi rmed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease were included. Patients who had significant alcohol intake or positive markers of other liver diseases or who were taking drugs known to produce fatty liver were excluded. The clinical, biochemical and histological profi le of this group was studied. Results: Fifty-one patients with NAFLD formed the study population. Their median age and BMI were 34(17-58) years and 26.7(21.3-32.5) kg/m2 respectively and 46 (90.1%) were males. The majority of the patients had mild inflammation, either grade 1 [32 (63%)] or grade 2 [16 (31%)] and only 3 (6%) patients had severe (grade 3) infl ammation. Twenty-three (45%), 19 (37%), 8(16%) and 1(2%) patient had stage 0, 1, 2 and 3 fi brosis respectively on index biopsy and none had cirrhosis. On univariate analysis, triglyceride levels more than 150 mg % (OR = 7.1; 95% CI: 1.6-31.5, P = 0.002) and AST/ALT ratio > 1 (OR = 14.3; 95% CI: 1.4-678.5, P = 0.008) were associated with high grades of inflammation and none was associated with advanced fibrosis. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, hypertriglyceridemia >150 mg% was the only factor independently associated with presence of high grade of infl ammation (OR = 1.6; 95% CI: 1.3-22.7, P = 0.02), while none was associated with advanced fi brosis. Triglyceride levels correlated positively with infl ammatory grade (r = 0.412; P = 0.003). Conclusion: NAFLD in North Indian patients is a disease of young over-weight males, most of whom are insulin resistant and they tend to have a mild histological disease at presentation

Light Quark Masses from Lattice QCD

We present estimates of the masses of light quarks using lattice data. Our main results are based on a global analysis of all the published data for Wilson, Sheikholeslami-Wohlert (clover), and staggered fermions, both in the quenched approximation and with $n_f=2$ dynamical flavors. We find that the values of masses with the various formulations agree after extrapolation to the continuum limit for the $n_f=0$ theory. Our best estimates, in the MSbar scheme at $\mu=2 GeV$, are \mbar=3.4 +- 0.4 +- 0.3 MeV and $m_s = 100 +- 21 +- 10 MeV$ in the quenched approximation. The $n_f=2$ results, \mbar = 2.7 +- 0.3 +- 0.3 MeV and $m_s = 68 +- 12 +- 7 MeV$, are preliminary. (A linear extrapolation in $n_f$ would further reduce these estimates for the physical case of three dynamical flavors.) These estimates are smaller than phenomenological estimates based on sum rules, but maintain the ratios predicted by chiral perturbation theory. The new results have a significant impact on the extraction of $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ from the Standard Model. Using the same lattice data we estimate the quark condensate using the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation. Again the three formulations give consistent results after extrapolation to $a=0$, and the value turns out to be correspondingly larger, roughly preserving m_s \vev{\bar \psi \psi}.Comment: 32 pages. Package submitted in uufiles format: unpack and tex paper.tex. Modified "axis" source for figures also included. Latex2e document. Uncomment hyperref if available. This is the final published versio

Phenomenology with Wilson fermions using smeared sources

We investigate the use of two types of non-local (``smeared'') sources for quark propagators in quenched lattice QCD at $\beta=6.0$ using Wilson fermions at $\kappa=0.154$ and $0.155$. We present results for the hadron mass spectrum, meson decay constants, quark masses, the chiral condensate and the quark distribution amplitude of the pion. The use of smeared sources leads to a considerable improvement over previous results. We find a disturbing discrepancy between the baryon spectra obtained using Wuppertal and wall sources. We find good signals in the ratio of correlators used to calculate the quark mass and the chiral condensate and show that the extrapolation to the chiral limit is smooth.Comment: (revised), 57 pages (29 pages of PostScript in landscape mode, 765924 bytes