Simulating Vehicle Movement and Multi-Hop Connectivity from Basic Safety Messages

The Basic Safety Message (BSM) is a standardized communication packet that is sent every tenth of a second between connected vehicles using Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC). BSMs contain data about the sending vehicle's state, such as speed, location, and the status of the turn signal. Currently, many BSM datasets are available through the connected vehicle testbeds of U.S. Department of Transportation from all over the country. However, without a proper visualization tool, it is not possible to analyze or visually get an overview of the spatio-temporal distribution of the data. With this goal, a web application has been developed which can ingest a raw BSM dataset and display a time-based simulation of vehicle movement. The simulation also displays multi-hop vehicular network connectivity over DSRC. This paper gives details about the application, including an explanation of the multi-hop partitioning algorithm used to classify the vehicles into separate network partitions. A performance analysis for the simulation is included, in which it is suggested that calculating a connectivity matrix with the multi-hop partitioning algorithm is computationally expensive for large number of vehicles

Vibration Signature of Roller Bearing’s Faults

Centrifugal pumps are widely used in many industrial applications. Defective pumps cause higher rate of energy loss with related overall performance degradation. Mechanical components fail due to decrease in pump’s strength or an increase in the force acting on it. Rolling bearings are one of the major components of the centrifugal pumps. Bearings are critical mechanical components in industrial machines. Bearing failure is often attributed to be one of the major causes of breakdown. Early detection of undesired conditions during the operation of the centrifugal pump has become very important in order to avoid consequential damages. Early detection is also vital for increasing availability and reliability. Automated health monitoring can reduce the outage time and repair costs. Using vibration analysis technique to monitor and evaluate the health of the machines has become an important technique in this field. In this research, we studied the vibration signatures of healthy and faulty conditions of the bearings of a pumping system. The pumping system consists of centrifugal pump and electrical motor. The vibration signatures analyze the bearing status with respect to the normal operation. The paper shows how to identify if there is a problem in the outer race of the Bearing Pass Frequency Outer Race (BPFO)

Clinical significance and treatment of striae gravidarum during pregnancy: a review article

Abdominal stretch marks found during pregnancy may be indicative of poor skin elasticity. One who does not have stretch marks may have better skin elasticity and may be less likely to tear perineal and vaginal tissue during vaginal delivery. Striae gravidarum (SG) is a common phenomenon of stretch marks observed during pregnancy that may be an indicator of poor skin elasticity. The type and amount of collagen in connective tissue are considered to determine the individual’s elastic index. The skin surface is made up of a complex network of crossing thin lines. The two-dimensional relationship between primary and secondary lines determines the skin texture and its grade of irregularity. SG is caused by changes in the structural connective tissue due to a hormonal elect on the alignment and reduced elastin and fibrillin in the dermis. Severity scoring of SG was observed using the numerical scoring system of Atwal. This score provides a rank based on observation of four areas in which SG is most commonly observed (abdomen, hips, buttocks, and breast)

Robotic dry cleaner for photovoltaic solar panels: an implemented design that evaluated in iraq's weather

Arabian desert areas are suffered from high mitigation in the produced photovoltaic (PV) power due to high dusty weather. This article presents a robotic cleaner that will significantly reduce the impact of dust on the installed PV systems in these areas. The proposed robotic cleaner is simple, low cost, standalone, self-powered, portable, and connected to the cloud. ESP32 used as a controller that manages the cleaning process and monitors its PV power production, the battery's state of charge, time of the day, and weather conditions. Thanks to the ESP32 features and its ability to connect to the cloud, as an internet of things (IoT), via the ThingSpeak website. All the electrical, mechanical, and electronic design aspects are presented and implemented in this article. The results show the effectiveness and performance enhancement due to periodic cleaning using the proposed robotic cleaner. The results also show that the total percentage of the monthly normalized accumulated losses for the two scheduled cleaning photovoltaic strings with a performance improvement of 15.54% for the weekly cleaned string (WCS) 83.04% for the never cleaned string (NCS) through the tested month

Sexual behaviour of pregnant women attending antenatal care clinic at Assiut Women's Health Hospital, Egypt

Background: The aim of the current study was to describe the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behavior of pregnant women regarding sexuality during pregnancy. Study was carried out at Women’s Health Hospital, Assiut University, Egypt.Methods: A cross-sectional study included pregnant women at different gestational ages between December 2016 and Jun 2017 recruited consecutively at the antenatal outpatient clinic of women’s Health Hospital at Assiut University. We used the Arabic version of the Female Sexual Function Index (Ar-FSFI) in the interview to evaluate the sexual functions or problems during the last month. The cut-off score used to indicate sexual dysfunction was 28.1. The obtained data were analyzed by means of SPSS software (version 22.0) and p<0.05 was taken as the significant level.Results: The study included 140 pregnant women at different ages and trimesters and also at different socio-economic states. Concerning the level of knowledge, the classification in recorded a mean score =11.91±4.05 which revealed a level of knowledge below average. Regarding the extent of beliefs in relation to sexuality during pregnancy, the mean score=2.72 of the respondents’ beliefs means that the impact of the beliefs regarding sexuality during pregnancy was weak among respondents. On assessing their perceptions about sexual intercourse during pregnancy, majority of them [130 (93.1%)] felt that sex have no negative impacts on pregnancy while 10 (6.9%) opined that sex during pregnancy had negative effects. Perceived negative effects of sex during pregnancy included vaginal bleeding and miscarriage.Conclusions: The low rate of sexual activity in our study, regardless question about the taboo of sexual intercourse during pregnancy, could be related to a cultural background in which women avoid speaking about their desires and sexual needs

Hepato- and nephroprotective effects of bradykinin potentiating factor from scorpion (Buthus occitanus) venom on mercuric chloride-treated rats

Bioactive peptides such as bradykinin potentiating factor (BPF), have, anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and ameliorative effects in chronic diseases and play a potential role in cancer prevention. It is known that the liver and kidney accumulate inorganic mercury upon exposure, which often leads to mercury intoxication in these organs. In this study, we investigated the effect of bradykinin potentiating factor (BPF), a scorpion venom peptide, on mercuric chloride-induced hepatic and renal toxicity in rats. We used 20 adult male Albino rats divided into four equal groups: the first group was injected with saline (control); the second group was administered daily with mercuric chloride (HgCl2) for 2 weeks; the third group was administered with BPF twice weekly for 2 successive weeks, while the fourth group was exposed to BPF followed by HgCl2. We observed that HgCl2 treated rats had a significant increase in serum ALT, AST, ALP, creatinine and urea levels compared to control. Furthermore, HgCl2 treated rats showed a marked decrease in total proteins, albumin and uric acids compared to control. The previously studied parameters were not significantly changed in BPF pretreated rats compared to control. Moreover, a significant decrease in the activities of glutathione perioxidase (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT), in addition to a significant increase in the level of malondialdehyde (MDA) were observed in hepatic and renal tissues of rats after HgCl2 treatment. In contrast, the HgCl2/BPF treated rats showed a significant elevation in the activity of GSH, SOD, and CAT accompanied with a significant regression in the level of MDA compared to the HgCl2 exposed rats. We conclude that treatment with BPF is a promising prophylactic approach for the management of mercuric chloride-induced hepato- and nephro-toxicities

Impaired splenic function in systemic amyloidosis: diagnostic importance of peripheral blood film

We describe case of a 40 year old male, who went on to developed systemic amyloidosis 3 years after the diagnosis of chronic renal failure. The diagnosis of systemic amyloidosis was suspected upon a routine examination of periheral blood film showing features of hyposlenism. We would like to highlight the importance of examination of pheripheral blood film in patients with renal failure for the diagnosis of extensive systemic amyloidosis which occasionally leads to functional hyposplenism, recognized by the presence of abnormal red cell morphology and reduced splenic uptake on isotope scan1

Optical Properties of (PVA-CoCl2) Composites

Polymers are used in a wide range of manufacture applications for their low cost, light weight, mechanical and optical properties. In this paper, study effect of addition cobalt chloride on  optical  properties of poly-vinyl alcohol(PVA). The cobalt chloride was add to poly-vinyl alcohol with weight percentages are (0,1,2,4) wt.%. The absorption and transmission  spectra has been recorded in the wavelength range (200-800) nm. The experimental results showed that the absorption coefficient, optical energy gap, extinction coefficient, refractive index and  real and imaginary dielectric constant effected by addition different weight percentages from cobalt chloride. Keyword: polymer, optical constants, absorption, cobalt chloride