Fungal osteomyelitis in a patient with chronic granulomatous disease: Case report and review of the literature

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) is the most common of the primary immunodeficiency in children. It is caused by single gene defect resulting in dysfunctional nicotinamide adenine dineucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase complex causing recurrent bacterial and fungal infections. Here we present the case of a 9 year old boy who was a known case of CGD since three years of age. He presented with recent history of fever, left sided pain in the scapular region and difficulty in breathing. Chest imaging revealed developing left upper lobe consolidation and erosion of the 3rd posterior rib. The child underwent video assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) and biopsy of the lesion. Histopathology revealed fungal hyphae which were confirmed to be Aspergillus nidulans on staining. He was successfully treated with voriconazole therapy. We will also review the literature on fungal osteomyelitis in CGD patients

Multicultural Teacher Preparation in Practice: A Hermeneutical Disposition

It is a fact that learning to teach is basically a social and practical activity that is supported and informed by theoretical reflections. Field experience and realities should be the core component of any teacher preparation program. That is why, most of the teacher education programs based on theory into practice model. The main aim of this research is not to reject this model, but to sketch out an alternative way of teacher preparation that is based upon teacher’s own context and socio cultural settings or in other words teacher preparation must be organized Hermeneutically. The hermeneutical approach of Hans-Georg Gadamer, is not only of philosophical importance but contains practical implications also. The concepts of understanding, interpretation and application are the core concepts of teacher preparation. In contrast to adopting an entire theory as the guiding principle to the whole content and practice of teacher preparation courses, this research argue for the focus to be on inculcating a hermeneutic disposition in all teachers preparation programs and courses. Hermeneutics is basic to human interaction, especially in dealing with student-teachers belongs to diverse socio-cultural settings or multicultural environment. The main argument or focus of this research is that it is necessary that the teacher preparation programs must be consider the problem of multiculturalism (inter and intra cultural). Multicultural Teacher Preparation (MTP) or hermeneutical mode of teacher preparation plays an important role in the preparation of teachers. It will be helpful for teachers to develop a deep level understanding of students needs belongs to various backgrounds and perspectives, not through applying a predetermined model of classroom activities, but through helping future teachers to recognize their own prejudices and how these help to determine their understandings of diversity in their future classrooms. Developing a hermeneutic disposition in teachers training facilitates and enrich experience of future teachers. A mixed method design was used to conduct the study

User mobility prediction and management using machine learning

The next generation mobile networks (NGMNs) are envisioned to overcome current user mobility limitations while improving the network performance. Some of the limitations envisioned for mobility management in the future mobile networks are: addressing the massive traffic growth bottlenecks; providing better quality and experience to end users; supporting ultra high data rates; ensuring ultra low latency, seamless handover (HOs) from one base station (BS) to another, etc. Thus, in order for future networks to manage users mobility through all of the stringent limitations mentioned, artificial intelligence (AI) is deemed to play a key role automating end-to-end process through machine learning (ML). The objectives of this thesis are to explore user mobility predictions and management use-cases using ML. First, background and literature review is presented which covers, current mobile networks overview, and ML-driven applications to enable user’s mobility and management. Followed by the use-cases of mobility prediction in dense mobile networks are analysed and optimised with the use of ML algorithms. The overall framework test accuracy of 91.17% was obtained in comparison to all other mobility prediction algorithms through artificial neural network (ANN). Furthermore, a concept of mobility prediction-based energy consumption is discussed to automate and classify user’s mobility and reduce carbon emissions under smart city transportation achieving 98.82% with k-nearest neighbour (KNN) classifier as an optimal result along with 31.83% energy savings gain. Finally, context-aware handover (HO) skipping scenario is analysed in order to improve over all quality of service (QoS) as a framework of mobility management in next generation networks (NGNs). The framework relies on passenger mobility, trains trajectory, travelling time and frequency, network load and signal ratio data in cardinal directions i.e, North, East, West, and South (NEWS) achieving optimum result of 94.51% through support vector machine (SVM) classifier. These results were fed into HO skipping techniques to analyse, coverage probability, throughput, and HO cost. This work is extended by blockchain-enabled privacy preservation mechanism to provide end-to-end secure platform throughout train passengers mobility

High-throughput Protein Sequence Alignment on Multi-core Systems

Rapid evolution in sequencing technologies results in generating data on an enormous scale. A focal and main challenge in analyzing data at such a large scale is the alignment of the DNA/Protein sequences, whereby reads are compared to the reference sequences. To find similar sequences, alignment algorithms are used to align a query sequence with the database. Alignment algorithms can be utilized to classify the source of a sequence, to discover similarities among the organisms, or to deduce a progenitor connection. A wide range of algorithms for alignment has been developed in recent years.In this paper, an accurate method of accelerating such algorithms using GPUs has been investigated. A Swiss-Prot database has been processed using GPU implemented Smith-Waterman Sequence Alignment Algorithm. The first step in the process generates the alignment scores but not the actual alignment. Various available alignment tools like ssearch2 are then utilized to align the output file generated during the first step.The performance of GPU-accelerated implementation as compared to other techniques is then evaluated for performance /throughput improvement. Swiss-Prot database was aligned using various alignment tools. NVIDIA TESLA K40 GPU is being utilized for generating the results for this research. This implementation achieves the performance of 44.3 Giga cell updates per second (GCUPS), which is 22.9 times better than its implementation on GTX 275. Performance is improved as the workload of sequences of equal length is equally distributed among all the threads on Multiprocessors of GPU

Mobility management in multi-RAT multiI-band heterogeneous networks

Support for user mobility is the raison d'etre of mobile cellular networks. However, mounting pressure for more capacity is leading to adaption of multi-band multi-RAT ultra-dense network design, particularly with the increased use of mmWave based small cells. While such design for emerging cellular networks is expected to offer manyfold more capacity, it gives rise to a new set of challenges in user mobility management. Among others, frequent handovers (HO) and thus higher impact of poor mobility management on quality of user experience (QoE) as well as link capacity, lack of an intelligent solution to manage dual connectivity (of user with both 4G and 5G cells) activation/deactivation, and mmWave cell discovery are the most critical challenges. In this dissertation, I propose and evaluate a set of solutions to address the aforementioned challenges. The beginning outcome of our investigations into the aforementioned problems is the first ever taxonomy of mobility related 3GPP defined network parameters and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) followed by a tutorial on 3GPP-based 5G mobility management procedures. The first major contribution of the thesis here is a novel framework to characterize the relationship between the 28 critical mobility-related network parameters and 8 most vital KPIs. A critical hurdle in addressing all mobility related challenges in emerging networks is the complexity of modeling realistic mobility and HO process. Mathematical models are not suitable here as they cannot capture the dynamics as well as the myriad parameters and KPIs involved. Existing simulators also mostly either omit or overly abstract the HO and user mobility, chiefly because the problems caused by poor HO management had relatively less impact on overall performance in legacy networks as they were not multi-RAT multi-band and therefore incurred much smaller number of HOs compared to emerging networks. The second key contribution of this dissertation is development of a first of its kind system level simulator, called SyntheticNET that can help the research community in overcoming the hurdle of realistic mobility and HO process modeling. SyntheticNET is the very first python-based simulator that fully conforms to 3GPP Release 15 5G standard. Compared to the existing simulators, SyntheticNET includes a modular structure, flexible propagation modeling, adaptive numerology, realistic mobility patterns, and detailed HO evaluation criteria. SyntheticNET’s python-based platform allows the effective application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to various network functionalities. Another key challenge in emerging multi-RAT technologies is the lack of an intelligent solution to manage dual connectivity with 4G as well 5G cell needed by a user to access 5G infrastructure. The 3rd contribution of this thesis is a solution to address this challenge. I present a QoE-aware E-UTRAN New Radio-Dual Connectivity (EN-DC) activation scheme where AI is leveraged to develop a model that can accurately predict radio link failure (RLF) and voice muting using the low-level measurements collected from a real network. The insights from the AI based RLF and mute prediction models are then leveraged to configure sets of 3GPP parameters to maximize EN-DC activation while keeping the QoE-affecting RLF and mute anomalies to minimum. The last contribution of this dissertation is a novel solution to address mmWave cell discovery problem. This problem stems from the highly directional nature of mmWave transmission. The proposed mmWave cell discovery scheme builds upon a joint search method where mmWave cells exploit an overlay coverage layer from macro cells sharing the UE location to the mmWave cell. The proposed scheme is made more practical by investigating and developing solutions for the data sparsity issue in model training. Ability to work with sparse data makes the proposed scheme feasible in realistic scenarios where user density is often not high enough to provide coverage reports from each bin of the coverage area. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme, efficiently activates EN-DC to a nearby mmWave 5G cell and thus substantially reduces the mmWave cell discovery failures compared to the state of the art cell discovery methods

A journey from Cure to Care- Wellness management for healthy lifestyle: Diabetes management a case study

Smart ubiquitous computing has a vital role to avoid and indicate the preventable lifestyle-based chronic diseases. It is focusing to adopt a healthy lifestyle by converging science and technology in this digital world for improving health and quality of life. From the last decade, the development of wellness applications has supported personalization and self-quantification. These applications facilitate the users through activity tracking and monitoring, based on the raw sensory data to adopt healthy behavior. The challenge of behavior change is not only to indicate the issues but also provides step-by-step coaching and guidance at real time. The realization of behavior change theories through digital technology has revolutionized the lifestyle change in a systematic and measurable manner. We have proposed a methodology to understand the behavior for generating just-in-time intervention for adopting a healthy lifestyle. Wellness platform based behavior analysis is performed using unbiased life-log and questionnaire for qualitative assessment of behavior. Behavior stage wise intervention is provided to adapt behavior for enhancing the quality of life and boost the socio-economic conditions. Personalized education is provided to understand the importance of healthy behavior and motivate the users, whereas just-in-time context-based recommendations have supported the stage-wise adaptation of unhealthy behavior. These capabilities require status evaluation of the activities and an efficient way to portray the comprehensive index of lifestyle habits. The real focus is to correlate the primarily linked habits in appropriate proportion through healthy behavior index (HBI) for personalized wellness support services. The healthy behavior index and behavior change theories through smart technologies

Procjena različitih razina Bacillus sp. (HCYL03) fitaze u brojlera hranjenih obrocima na bazi kukuruza i soje s niskim udjelom nefitatnog fosfora

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the impact of various levels of phytase derived from Bacillus sp. (HCYL03) in corn-soy diets fed to broilers. Experimental treatments included a positive control (PC) with a calculated non-phytate phosphorus (nPP) level of 4.0g/kg for the 35 days of trial. The negative control (NC) diet included a reduction in nPP to 3.0g/kg during the experiment, and commercially available phytase (@500FTU/kg), as well as new bacterial phytase added to the NC diet in increasing amounts of 500, 800, and 1100FTU/kg. Treatment effects on growth performance, the apparent digestibility of P, tibia mineralization, and Ca and P status in blood plasma were evaluated on day 35. The NC diet decreased feed intake (P<0.05), body weight gain (BWG) (P<0.05), and improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P<0.05) compared to the PC. Phytase addition improved all growth parameters. Birds fed the NC diet displayed lower (P<0.05) digestibility of P, reduced (P<0.05) tibial mineralization, and decreased (P<0.05) P and Ca concentrations in blood plasma compared to birds fed the PC diet. Improvements in digestibility of P, tibia mineralization, and mineral contents in blood plasma were observed with phytase addition. High level inclusion of phytase (1100FTU/kg) yielded the greatest improvement in bird performance, nutrient digestibility, and bone mineralization in the NC group and low levels of phytase treatments. It may be concluded that inorganic P incorporated in the normal-nPP diet of chickens could be effectively replaced by a Bacillus sp. (HCYL03) phytase diet without any adverse effect on the performance and nutrient use of broilers.Cilj istraživanja bio je procijeniti utjecaj različitih razina fitaze izdvojene iz Bacillus sp. (HCYL03) i dodane u obroke od kukuruza i soje kojima se hrane brojleri. Istraživanje je uključilo pozitivnu kontrolu (PC) s izračunatom razinom nefitatnog fosfora (nPP) od 4,0 g/kg tijekom 35 dana trajanja istraživanja. Prehrana brojlera u negativnoj kontroli (NC) uključila je smanjenje nPP-a na 3,0 g/kg tijekom trajanja pokusa, komercijalno dostupnu fitazu (@500FTU/kg), kao i novu bakterijsku fitazu dodanu NC prehrani, u količini koja se povećavala na 500, 800 i 1100 FTU/kg. Učinci na rast, probavljivost fosfora, mineralizaciju tibije i razinu kalcija i fosfora u krvnoj plazmi procijenjeni su 35. dan pokusa. U skupini NC smanjeni su unos hrane (P<0,05) i prirast tjelesne mase (BWG) (P<0,05), dok je stopa konverzije hrane povećana (FCR) (P<0,05) u usporedbi sa skupinom PC. Dodatak fitaze pozitivno je utjecao na sve pokazatelje rasta. Brojleri u skupini NC pokazali su manju probavljivost fosfora (P<0,05), smanjenu mineralizaciju tibije (P<0,05) te smanjenu količinu fosfora i kalcija (P<0,05) u krvnoj plazmi u usporedbi s brojlerima iz skupine PC. Utvrđeno je da dodatak fitaze poboljšava probavljivost fosfora, mineralizaciju tibije i sadržaj minerala u krvnoj plazmi. Dodatak veće količine fitaze (1100 FTU/kg) rezultirao je najvećim poboljšanjem u istraženim svojstvima brojlera, probavljivosti hrane i mineralizaciji kosti u skupini NC. Zaključeno je da bi se anorganski fosfor uključen u uobičajenu nPP prehranu pilića mogao učinkovito zamijeniti Bacillus sp. (HCYL03) fitazom, bez štetnih učinaka na prehranu i svojstva brojlera

Acute necrotizing encephalopathy of childhood: a fatal complication of swine flu

Acute necrotizing encephalopathy of childhood (ANEC) is a rare condition characterized by the presence of multifocal symmetrical brain lesions involving mainly thalami, brainstem, cerebellum and white matter. ANEC is a serious and life threatening complication of simple viral infections. We present a case of a young child who developed this condition with classical clinical and radiological findings consistent with ANEC, secondary to swine flu (H1N1). He needed ventilatory support and had profound motor and intellectual deficit on discharge. We report this case with aim of raising awareness about this fatal complication of swine flu which has become a global health care issue these days

Inventory Management System for a General Items Warehouse of the Textile Industry

This research is based on Inventory Management System for a General Items Warehouse of the Textile Industry. The overall inventory is managed by applying classification tools such as ABC, FSN &amp; HML that categorize inventory based on consumption value, issuance rate and unit price respectively. Also, it helps to appropriately position the items on the desired rack and position. The optimized layout is designed that reduces the retrieval time, uplift the storage capacity, and have cross aisles that reduce the retrieval time of any item from the warehouse. The system for proper traceability &amp; tracking of the items is also studied that is based on the 1D Barcode. This whole study improves the overall operation of the Supply Chain