QoS Constrained Optimal Sink and Relay Placement in Planned Wireless Sensor Networks

We are given a set of sensors at given locations, a set of potential locations for placing base stations (BSs, or sinks), and another set of potential locations for placing wireless relay nodes. There is a cost for placing a BS and a cost for placing a relay. The problem we consider is to select a set of BS locations, a set of relay locations, and an association of sensor nodes with the selected BS locations, so that number of hops in the path from each sensor to its BS is bounded by hmax, and among all such feasible networks, the cost of the selected network is the minimum. The hop count bound suffices to ensure a certain probability of the data being delivered to the BS within a given maximum delay under a light traffic model. We observe that the problem is NP-Hard, and is hard to even approximate within a constant factor. For this problem, we propose a polynomial time approximation algorithm (SmartSelect) based on a relay placement algorithm proposed in our earlier work, along with a modification of the greedy algorithm for weighted set cover. We have analyzed the worst case approximation guarantee for this algorithm. We have also proposed a polynomial time heuristic to improve upon the solution provided by SmartSelect. Our numerical results demonstrate that the algorithms provide good quality solutions using very little computation time in various randomly generated network scenarios

Legal and Administerial Overreach by IPO while Considering Proof of Right Requirement

20-30India being a dualist country has to domesticate treaty obligations to enforce the same at domestic level by enacting statutes, which in turn must be construed in the light of the parent treaty. This paper introspects the complexity in identifying the applicable rule concerning the Proof of Right requirement for Indian National Phase Applications under Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Rule 4.17. It goes on to highlight the incongruity between the PCT regulations and the domestic law as interpreted and applied by the Indian Patent Office (IPO). A comparative study of legal positions in other countriesare also included for a better understanding of approaches by foreign patent office towards implementing PCT obligations concerning Proof of Right. In essence, this paper sheds light on how the IPO’s demand for proof of right contradicts with several provisions of the PCT Regulations, the recent PCT Applicant’s Guide for the national phase and concludes by mooting some suggestions to resolve the issue

Legal and Administerial Overreach by IPO while Considering Proof of Right Requirement

India being a dualist country has to domesticate treaty obligations to enforce the same at domestic level by enacting statutes, which in turn must be construed in the light of the parent treaty. This paper introspects the complexity in identifying the applicable rule concerning the Proof of Right requirement for Indian National Phase Applications under Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Rule 4.17. It goes on to highlight the incongruity between the PCT regulations and the domestic law as interpreted and applied by the Indian Patent Office (IPO). A comparative study of legal positions in other also included for a better understanding of approaches by foreign patent office towards implementing PCT obligations concerning Proof of Right. In essence, this paper sheds light on how the IPO’s demand for proof of right contradicts with several provisions of the PCT Regulations, the recent PCT Applicant’s Guide for the national phase and concludes by mooting some suggestions to resolve the issue

Amendments at Indian National Phase: In Harmony with PCT Standards?

The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) under Article 28 / Rule 52 or Article 41 / Rule 78 guarantees the applicant the right to amend claims, description and drawings before each designated/elected office, on national phase entry or at least one month thereafter, further to the amendments submitted during the International phase of the application. The Indian Patent Office (IPO) however refuses to allow amendments while entering the national phase,1 except for deletion2 of one or more claims under Rule 20(1)3 of the Patent Rules 2003. The Patent Offices of other PCT signatories like the European Patent Office(EPO), the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS)4, the Chinese Patent Office (CNIPA) and the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INPI)allow this amendment under Article 28/Article 41 PCT. The IPO accepts all other types of amendments such as merging of two or more claims, alteration of the claim language, etc. only during the national phase proceedings. These amendments can be made either through a request for voluntary amendments in Form 13 along with payment of the associated fee, or in response to the examination report. The latter requires, the applicant to wait until the examination report is communicated. In this article, we are attempting to analyze whether India is in line with the above mentioned provisions of PCT in respect of providing the applicants an opportunity to amend the claims further from that on file in the international phase, at the time of filing the national phase application

Amendments at Indian National Phase: In Harmony with PCT Standards?

61-67The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) under Article 28 / Rule 52 or Article 41 / Rule 78 guarantees the applicant the right to amend claims, description and drawings before each designated/elected office, on national phase entry or at least one month thereafter, further to the amendments submitted during the International phase of the application. The Indian Patent Office (IPO) however refuses to allow amendments while entering the national phase,1 except for deletion2 of one or more claims under Rule 20(1)3 of the Patent Rules 2003. The Patent Offices of other PCT signatories like the European Patent Office (EPO), the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS)4, the Chinese Patent Office (CNIPA) and the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INPI)allow this amendment under Article 28/Article 41 PCT. The IPO accepts all other types of amendments such as merging of two or more claims, alteration of the claim language, etc. only during the national phase proceedings. These amendments can be made either through a request for voluntary amendments in Form 13 along with payment of the associated fee, or in response to the examination report. The latter requires, the applicant to wait until the examination report is communicated. In this article, we are attempting to analyze whether India is in line with the above mentioned provisions of PCT in respect ofproviding the applicants an opportunity to amend the claims further from that on file in the international phase, at the time of filing the national phase application

Price fluctuations and species diversity across fish markets in Kerala

The fish marketing system of Kerala deserves to be highly efficient as compared to that of the country. The demand-supply gap is ironed by the fish arrivals from the other states and there exists huge price variations of fish identified among the landing centres, wholesale and retail markets of Kerala. The study analysed the price volatilities and species diversity, across different markets. Results of the study suggest that the supply side constraints and the monopsony conditions of the fish markets are the major factors responsible for the high price instability. The prices of low value fish species have not been stable for several reasons and the prices varied depending on species, seasons and abundance of other fish and fishery products. The study suggests that the development of a Fish Market Price Information System (FMPIS) to act as a decision support system would ensure fish market and price information dissemination about availability, accessibility and affordability of fish which also enables different stakeholders, mainly fishers in identifying target prices or markets; consumers with rational choices about fish availability and traders with inputs for better marketing efficiency

A Survey on Unusual Event Detection in Videos

As the usage of CCTV cameras in outdoor and indoor locations has increased significantly, one needs to design a system to detect the unusual events, at the time of its occurrence. Computer vision is used for Human Action recognition, which has been widely implemented in the systems, but unusual event detection is lately entering into the limelight. In order to detect the unusual events, supervised techniques, semi-supervised techniques and unsupervised techniques have been adopted. Social force model (SFM) and Force field are used to model the interaction among crowds. Only normal events training samples is not sufficient for detection of unusual events. Double sparse representation has been used as a solution to this, which includes normal and abnormal training data. To develop an intelligent video surveillance system, behavioural representation and behavioural modelling techniques are used. Various machine learning techniques to identify unusual events include: Graph modelling and matching, object trajectory based, object silhouettes based and pixel based approaches. Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence, Quaternion Discrete Cosine Transformation (QDCT) analysis, hidden Markov model (HMM) and histogram of oriented contextual gradient (HOCG) descriptor are some of the models used are used for detecting unusual events. This paper briefly discusses the above mentioned strategies and pay attention on their pros and cons

Valuation of marine fish landings in India for period 2019-2021

The present study portrays the trend in the valuation of marine fish landings during the period 2019-2021 based on the price data of the commercially traded fish species which is collected on a weekly/ fortnightly basis through a well-structured schedule MAP (market price). The collected data is tabulated and the average prices are worked out taking into consideration the parameters of seasonality and size ranges. The study throws light on the average price realized and marketing efficiency of major species across the country. The data has been generated/ collected in the shadow of an important underlying event - the covid pandemic which certainly played (and continues to play) an important role in reconfiguring and restructuring the world fisheries sector including for India

Geo-spatial technique-based approach on drainage morphometric analysis at Kalrayan Hills, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract Drainages are pulses which in turn help us to understand the ongoing process in the hill ecosystem. The Kalrayan hill is known for its dissected terrain condition, rich biological diversity and depletion of natural resources. Therefore, a study on quantitative geomorphometry was carried out in the Kalrayan Hills, Eastern Ghats, Tamil Nadu, using Indian remote sensing 1D LISSIII satellite data. The study area was divided into 36 watersheds and total area is 1158.4 km2. It covers the upper part of Vellar basin. The linear, aerial and relief aspects and different morphometric parameters such as stream length, bifurcation ratio, drainage density, stream frequency, drainage texture, relief ratio, basin shape, form factor, circularity ratio, elongation ratio and length of overland flow were computed using standard methods, formulae and geo-spatial technologies. Based on the present drainage morphometric study, it is inferred that the watersheds 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 27, 32, 33, 34 and 36 are active with reference to geological processes, mean denudational rate, peak discharge, mean annual run off, dominant watershed process and sediment yield per unit area. Multi-criteria analysis is performed to determine the drainage architecture and hydrogeological processes occurring in the present hill area

Depression. Anxiety and Stress among high school adolescent children in public and private schools: A comparative study

Background: With increasing competition children today experience more stress and academic pressure which is harmful for the well-being of the children and can result in devastating life situations. Objective: To study and compare the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress among high school adolescent children in public and private schools Methods: A cross sectional comparative study was carried out among high school adolescent children. 120 children from private schools and 259 children from public schools were studied. DASS questionnaire was used to assess the depression, anxiety and stress among the study subjects. The data was expressed as proportion, and mean values. Appropriate statistical tests were applied. Results: In public schools, the female’s proportion was more compared to males 58.3% vs. 42% respectively while in private schools, both sexes were equally distributed. In public schools’ majority of the children were in tenth class while in private schools’ majority were in the ninth class at the time of the study. the overall prevalence of depression in the children from the public schools was found to be only 5%, that of anxiety was 20.8% and that of stress was 15.8%. the overall prevalence of depression in children from private schools was found to be 1.9%, that of anxiety was 20.5% and that of stress was 20.1%. 19% resorted to TV watching, 8.4% used internet, 17.4% reported playing, 13% engaged themselves in music, 37% spent time with friends, and 6% said they were busy with some or the other hobbies to cope with the depression, anxiety and stress. The mean score of depression and anxiety was found to be similar in children from public and private schools. But the stress score was significantly higher in children from public schools i.e. 21.6 compared to children from private schools i.e. 16.9 (p < 0.05). Conclusion: In both the school’s anxiety and stress were found to be more among study participants. Depression was observed to be in less. But if they have more anxiety and stress and if it not taken proper care at this point of time, it might get converted into a state of depression