Link quality aware channel allocation for multichannel body sensor networks.

Body Sensor Network (BSN) is a typical Internet-of-Things (IoT) application for personalized health care. It consists of economically powered, wireless and implanted medical monitoring sensor nodes, which are designed to continually collect the medical information of the target patients. Multichannel is often used in BSNs to reduce the spectrum competition of the tremendous sensor nodes and the problem of channel assignment has attracted much research attention. The health sensing data in BSNs is often required to be delivered to a sink node (or server) before a certain deadline for real time monitoring or health emergency alarm. Therefore, deadline is of significant importance for multichannel allocation and scheduling. The existing works, though designed to meet the deadline, often overlook the impact of the unreliable wireless links. As a result, the health sensing data can still be overdue because of the scheduled lossy links. Besides, potential collisions in the schedules also incur considerable delay in delivering the sensing data. In this paper, we propose a novel deadline- driven Link quality Aware Channel Assignment scheme (LACA), where link quality, deadlines and collisions are jointly considered. LACA prioritizes links with urgent deadlines and heavy collisions. Besides, LACA allows the exploition of the spare slots for retransmissions on lossy links, which can further reduce the retransmission delay. Extensive simulation experiments show that compared to the existing approaches, LACA can better utilize the wireless spectrum and achieve higher packet delivery ratio before the deadline.N/

Editor\u27s Notes, Chiba Medical Journal 90-1

Multiple sequence alignment of deduced amino acid sequences of 25 wheat annexin genes with rice annexin OsAnn2 (Os05g31760) obtained by ClustalW. (PDF 212 kb

Synergistic Effects of Apigenin and Paclitaxel on Apoptosis of Cancer Cells

BACKGROUND: It was well known that the clinical use of chemotherapeutic drugs is restricted by severe adverse reactions and drug resistances. Thus it is necessary to figure out a strategy to increase the specific anti-tumor efficiency of chemotherapeutic drugs. Apigenin, a kind of flavonoids, has been reported to possess anticancer activities with very low cytotoxicity to normal tissue. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Our results from cell viability assay, western-blots and TdT-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay demonstrated the synergistic pro-apoptotic effects of a low dose of apigenin and paclitaxel in human cancer cell lines. To analyze the underlying mechanism, we examined reactive oxygen species (ROS) staining after cells were treated with a combination of apigenin and paclitaxel, or each of them alone. Data from flow-cytometry showed that superoxides but not reduction of peroxides accumulated in HeLa cells treated with apigenin or a combination of apigenin and paclitaxel. Apigenin and paclitaxel-induced HeLa cell apoptosis was related to the level of ROS in cells. We further evaluated activity and protein level of superoxide dismutase (SOD). Apigenin significantly inhibited SOD activity but did not alter the SOD protein level suggesting that apigenin promoted ROS accumulation through suppressing enzyme activity of SOD. Addition of Zn(2+), Cu(2+) and Mn(2+) to cell lysates inhibited apigenin's effects on SOD activity. At the same time, data from caspase-2 over-expression and knocked-down experiments demonstrated that caspase-2 participated in apigenin and paclitaxel-induced HeLa cell apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Taken together, our study demonstrated that apigenin can sensitize cancer cells to paclitaxel induced apoptosis through suppressing SOD activity, which then led to accumulation of ROS and cleavage of caspase-2, suggesting that the combined use of apigenin and paclitaxel was an effective way to decrease the dose of paclitaxel taken

Safety Analysis and Condition Assessment of Corroded Energy Pipelines under Landslide Disasters

Corrosion poses a significant risk to the safety of energy pipelines, while landslide disasters emerge as the primary threat responsible for triggering pipeline failures across mountainous areas. To date, there is limited research focused on the safety of energy pipelines considering the synergistic effect of corrosion and landslides. The present study proposes a finite element (FE)-based model to assess the condition of corroded pipelines under landslides. The effects of corrosion dimensions (length and depth) and location are determined. A novel equation is finally developed to predict the maximum stress and determine the most disadvantageous position for corroded pipelines under various landslide displacements. The results demonstrate that (1) as the landslide progresses, the pipeline’s stress significantly increases; (2) corrosion depth has a more significant impact on the pipeline condition than the corrosion length, and it is positively correlated with the pipe’s stress; (3) the maximum stress exhibits a nonlinear relationship with the landslide-facing position and the corrosion circumferential location; and (4) when the axial position of the corrosion is more than 6.5 m away from the center of the landslide, the location of maximum stress shifts from the corrosion region to the central section of the pipeline within the landslide. This work contributes to helping pipeline owners to understand the applicability of energy pipelines subjected to the combined effects of corrosion and landslides and provides support for future risk assessment efforts in pipeline integrity management

Design and Experiment of an Underactuated Broccoli-Picking Manipulator

Mature broccoli has large flower balls and thick stems. Therefore, manual broccoli picking is laborious and energy-consuming. However, the big spheroid vegetable-picking manipulator has a complex structure and poor enveloping effect and easily causes mechanical damage. Therefore, a broccoli flower ball-picking manipulator with a compact structure and simple control system was designed. The manipulator was smart in structure and stable in configuration when enveloped in flower balls. First, a physical damage test was carried out on broccoli according to the underactuated manipulator’s design scheme. The maximum surface pressure of the flower ball was 30 N, and the maximum cutting force of the stem was 35 N. Then, kinematic analysis was completed, and the statical model of the underactuated mechanism was established. The dimension of the underactuated mechanism for each connecting rod was determined based on the damage test results and design requirements. The sizes of each connecting rod were 50 cm, 90 cm, 50 cm, 90 cm, 50 cm, 60 cm, and 65 cm. The statical model calculated the required thrust of the underactuated mechanism as 598.66–702.88 N. Then, the manipulator was simulated to verify its reliability of the manipulator. Finally, the manipulator’s motion track, speed, and motor speed were determined in advance in the laboratory environment. One-hundred picking tests were carried out on mature broccoli with a 135–185 mm diameter. Results showed that the manipulator had an 84% success rate in picking and a 100% lossless rate. The fastest single harvest time in the test stand was 11.37 s when the speed of the robot arm was 3.4 m/s, and the speed of the stepper motor was 60 r/min

Path Planning of Mecanum Wheel Chassis Based on Improved A* Algorithm

This study is concerned with path planning in a structured greenhouse, in contrast to much of the previous research addressing applications in outdoor fields. The prototype mainly comprises an independently driven Mecanum wheel, a lidar measuring module, a single-chip microcomputer control board, and a laptop computer. Environmental information collection and mapping were completed on the basis of lidar and laptop computer connection. The path planning algorithm used in this paper expanded the 8-search-neighborhood of the traditional A* algorithm to a 48-search-neighborhood, increasing the search direction and improving the efficiency of path planning. The Floyd algorithm was integrated to smooth the planned path and reduced the turning points in the path. In this way, the problems of the traditional A* algorithm could be solved (i.e., slow the path planning speed and high numbers of redundant points). Tests showed that the turning points, planning path time, and distance of the improved algorithm were the lowest. Compared with the traditional 8-search-neighborhood A* algorithm, the turning point was reduced by 50%, the planning time was reduced by 13.53%, and the planning distance was reduced by 13.96%. Therefore, the improved method of the A* algorithm proposed in this paper improves the precision of the planning path and reduces the planning time, providing a theoretical basis for the navigation, inspection, and standardization construction of greenhouses in the future

Gpr48 deficiency induces polycystic kidney lesions and renal fibrosis in mice by activating Wnt signal pathway.

G protein-coupled receptor 48 (Gpr48/Lgr4) is essential to regulate the development of multiple tissues in mice. The notion that Gpr48 functions in renal development prompted us to investigate the relation between Gpr48 and renal diseases. Using a Gpr48 knockout mice model, we observed that 66.7% Gpr48 null mice developed polycystic lesions in the kidney, while no cysts were observed in the kidneys of wild-type mice. Polycystic kidney disease 1 (PKD1) and PKD2 expressions were also markedly decreased in the Gpr48 knockout mice. Abnormal expressions of exra-cellular matrix protein lead to the progression of polycystic kidney disease and the formation of renal fibrosis in the Gpr48 null mice. The expressions of several Wnt molecules and its receptors were increased and marked β-catenin nuclear accumulation was observed in the Gpr48 null mice. The inhibitors of Wnt/β-catenin signal pathway such as GSK3β and axin2 were loss of function. The Wnt/PCP signaling pathway is also activated in Gpr48 null mice. However, TGF-β expression and phosphorylated Smad2/3 levels were not altered. Collectively, our results showed that Gpr48 null mice are at a greater risk of suffering from polycystic lesions and renal fibrosis. Moreover, the formation of polycystic lesions and renal fibrosis induced by Gpr48 deficiency involves the activation of Wnt signaling pathway but not the TGF-β/Smad pathway