Top k-leader election in wireless ad hoc networks

2008-2009 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperVersion of RecordPublishe

Three-dimensional kinematics of the human metatarsophalangeal joint during level walking

The objective of this study is to investigate the three-dimensional (3D) kinematics of the functional rotation axis of the human metatarsophanlangeal (MP) joint during level walking at different speeds. A twelve camera motion analysis system was used to capture the 3D motion of the foot segments and a six force plate array was employed to record the simultaneous ground reaction forces and moments. The 3D orientation and position of the functional axis (FA) of the MP joint were determined based on the relative motion data between the tarsometatarsi (hindfoot) and phalanges (forefoot) segments. From the results of a series of statistical analyses, it was found that the FA remains anterior to the anatomical axis (AA), defined as a line connecting the 1st and 5th metatarsal heads, with an average distance about 16% of the foot length across all walking speeds, and is also superior to the AA with an average distance about 2% of the foot length during normal and fast walking. Whereas, the FA shows a higher obliquity than the AA with an anteriorly more medial and superior orientation. This suggests that using the AA to represent the MP joint may result in overestimated MP joint moment and power and also underestimated muscle moment arms for MP extensor muscles. It was also found that walking speed has statistically significant effect on the position of the FA though the FA orientation remains unchanged with varying speed. The FA moves forwards and upwards towards a more anterior and more superior position with increased speed. This axis shift may help to increase the effective mechanical advantage (EMA) of MP extensor muscles, maximise the locomotor efficiency and also reduce the risk of injury. Those results may further our understanding of the contribution of the intrinsic foot structure to the propulsive function of the foot during locomotion at different speeds

Ubiquitous intelligent object : modeling and applications

2007-2008 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperVersion of RecordPublishe

A middleware support for agent-based application mobility in pervasive environments

Version of RecordPublishe

Cognitively-inspired Agent-based Service Composition for Mobile & Pervasive Computing

Automatic service composition in mobile and pervasive computing faces many challenges due to the complex and highly dynamic nature of the environment. Common approaches consider service composition as a decision problem whose solution is usually addressed from optimization perspectives which are not feasible in practice due to the intractability of the problem, limited computational resources of smart devices, service host's mobility, and time constraints to tailor composition plans. Thus, our main contribution is the development of a cognitively-inspired agent-based service composition model focused on bounded rationality rather than optimality, which allows the system to compensate for limited resources by selectively filtering out continuous streams of data. Our approach exhibits features such as distributedness, modularity, emergent global functionality, and robustness, which endow it with capabilities to perform decentralized service composition by orchestrating manifold service providers and conflicting goals from multiple users. The evaluation of our approach shows promising results when compared against state-of-the-art service composition models.Comment: This paper will appear on AIMS'19 (International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Services) on June 2

Wolbachia and DNA barcoding insects: patterns, potential and problems

Wolbachia is a genus of bacterial endosymbionts that impacts the breeding systems of their hosts. Wolbachia can confuse the patterns of mitochondrial variation, including DNA barcodes, because it influences the pathways through which mitochondria are inherited. We examined the extent to which these endosymbionts are detected in routine DNA barcoding, assessed their impact upon the insect sequence divergence and identification accuracy, and considered the variation present in Wolbachia COI. Using both standard PCR assays (Wolbachia surface coding protein – wsp), and bacterial COI fragments we found evidence of Wolbachia in insect total genomic extracts created for DNA barcoding library construction. When >2 million insect COI trace files were examined on the Barcode of Life Datasystem (BOLD) Wolbachia COI was present in 0.16% of the cases. It is possible to generate Wolbachia COI using standard insect primers; however, that amplicon was never confused with the COI of the host. Wolbachia alleles recovered were predominantly Supergroup A and were broadly distributed geographically and phylogenetically. We conclude that the presence of the Wolbachia DNA in total genomic extracts made from insects is unlikely to compromise the accuracy of the DNA barcode library; in fact, the ability to query this DNA library (the database and the extracts) for endosymbionts is one of the ancillary benefits of such a large scale endeavor – for which we provide several examples. It is our conclusion that regular assays for Wolbachia presence and type can, and should, be adopted by large scale insect barcoding initiatives. While COI is one of the five multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) genes used for categorizing Wolbachia, there is limited overlap with the eukaryotic DNA barcode region

Research Productivity of Saha Institute of Nuclear physics (SINP), India with special reference to International Collaborative Experimental Consortia

The Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) is one of the prestigious autonomous research institutes under the Department of Atomic Energy, Govt. of India. The present study is carried out to identify the research performance of the scientists of SINP during 2005-2016. For this purpose, a total number of 3694 articles as reflected in Web of Science (WoS) database have been retrieved and evaluated on the basis of year, authorship, publication pattern, source journal, impact factor, collaborating institution, country, research area and citation. Out of total publications, the international collaborative research output constitute 41.20% share and western developed nations i.e. USA, Germany, Italy have been found as the most favoured countries for collaborations. The institute has produced significant number of research articles participating with international collaboration experimental groups or consortia like ALISC, CMS, MAGIC and PICASSO. The scientists of SINP also select some foreign reputed journals to publish their maximum research findings and of these, Physics Letters B journal has been found as the most preferred source journal