Coupling for Power Line Communications: A Survey

The advent of power line communication (PLC) for smart grids, vehicular communications, internet of things and data network access has recently gained ample interest in industry and academia. Due to the characteristics of electric power grids and regulatory constraints, the effectiveness of coupling between the power line and PLC transceivers has become a very important issue. Coupling devices used to inject or extract data communication signals into or from power lines are very important components of a PLC system. There is, however, an obvious gap in the literature for a detailed review of existing PLC couplers. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of couplers, which are required for narrowband and broadband PLC transceivers. Prevailing issues that protract the design of couplers and consequently subtended the inventions of different types of couplers are clearly described. We also provide a useful classification of PLC couplers based on the type of physical couplings, voltage levels, frequency bandwidth, propagation modes and a number of connections. This survey will guide researchers, as well as designers alike, into a quicker resourcing when studying coupling in narrowband and broadband PLC systems

Facial Anthropometry of Adult Tiv and Idoma Tribes of Nigeria

The facial indices are among the most important cephalometric parameters for ethnic morphological classification and categorization. This study was carried out to determine the facial index in the target population and compare it in both sexes and with result of other similar studies. The sample consisted of 600 youths aged 18-32 years. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaire to establish ethnic background. Facial length and facial breadth were measured using spreading calipers and facial index calculated according to standard formula. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS for windows version 20 (IBM Corporation, New York, USA). Statistical significance was considered at p ≤0.05. The mean facial length of Tiv was 10.3±0.63 cm and the mean facial breadth was 12.3±0.79 cm. The mean facial length of Idoma was 10.6±0.60 cm and the mean facial breadth was 12.5±0.76 cm. There was statistically significant mean difference in facial length and facial index between the two ethnic groups with Idoma having higher mean values (p<0.05). In addition, both ethnic groups exhibited sexual dimorphism with males having significantly higher mean values than females (p<0.05). The mean facial index of Tiv was 83.9±4.79 while that of Idoma was 85.2±5.66. Based on facial index, it was concluded that the face type in Tiv was mesoproscopic while the face type in Idoma was leptoproscopic

The Impact of the Yorùbá Traditional Belief in Reincarnation among Yorùbá Christians in Akurẹ

Reincarnation is the belief that after someone dies; his immortal soul separates from the body and lives again in another physical body. The traditional Yorùbá culture holds the belief in reincarnation (atunwaye). Atunwaye is believed to be possible in three different forms which are: ipadawaye (ancestor’s rebirth), akudaaya (die and reappear) and abiku (born to die). The Christian culture does not accommodate such beliefs in reincarnation. Nevertheless, Yorùbá people who are converted to Christianity still hold on to the belief in reincarnation and this generates for them a problem of cultural dilemma. Yorùbá Christians of the Akurẹ division also hold on to the traditional belief in atunwaye which contradicts their Christian faith. This has negative influence on their beliefs and practices as Christians. The various reincarnation beliefs among the Yorùbá people in Akurẹ have been evaluated. Oral interviews were conducted among indigenes of Akurẹ, who are also clergymen and lay Church leaders in Akurẹ from selected denominations to understand the beliefs of Akurẹ Christians on reincarnation. 200 copies of a questionnaire were administered on Akurẹ indigenous Christians to determine the extent of their belief in reincarnation and its impact on their Christian faith.Findings show that Yorùbá Christians in Akurẹ still hold on to traditional belief in reincarnation (atunwaye) in its various forms. It has also been shown that this belief has a great influence on their other beliefs and practices, such as veneration of the dead, occult practices, worship activities and family living.It recommends that Akurẹ Christians be taught sound Biblical doctrine on the subject of reincarnation. It recommends further that the church needs to differentiate between reincarnation and resurrection, emphasising the importance of the belief in resurrection for a Christian. Keywords: Reincarnation, Yoruba beliefs, ipadawaye, abiku, akudaaya

Phytochemical Screening and Anticonvulsant Activity of the Residual Aqueous Fraction of Tapinanthus globiferus Growing on Ficus glums

Tapinanthus globiferus (Loranthaceae) is a plant used in traditional medicine for the treatment of rheumatism, syphilis, fever and epilepsy. In this study, the acute toxicity study revealed an oral LD50 of ≥ 5000 mg/kg. The anticonvulsant activity of the residual aqueous fraction was investigated at doses of 250, 500, and 1000 mg/ kg using the Pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) induced seizure and maximal electroshock seizure models in mice and chicks. In the PTZ induced seizure the fraction offered 62.5% protection against seizure and prolonged the onset of seizure from 54.23 ± 6.12s to 290.86 ± 14.43s. The plant decreased the minimum recovery time (MRT) after hind limb tonic extension (HTLE) from 213.4 ± 19.12s to 136 ± 16.1s in the 500 mg/kg group. The CNS depressant effect was also studied using the Diazepam induce sleep model. The fraction used dose dependently decreased the onset of diazepam induced sleep 160.03 ± 19.24.s to 28.00 ± 7.18.s, with a marked increase in duration of sleep 39.00 ± 12.53 min to 198.17 ± 27.28 min in the 1000 mg/kg treated group. The data obtained from this study suggest that the residual aqueous portion of the dried whole plant of Tapinanthus globiferus may possess bioactive compounds with anticonvulsant effect

Electrodiagnostic evaluation of median nerve conduction in Type II diabetes mellitus patients that were asymptomatic for peripheral neuropathy: a case control study

Background: Diabetic neuropathy (DN) is a potentially debilitating complication of diabetes mellitus but many of the diabetic patients are often asymptomatic of DN, thereby, placing them at high risk of developing debilitating complications like diabetic hand and foot.Aim: The study was designed to evaluate median nerve conduction of T2DM patients that were asymptomatic for neuropathy and compare their findings with age and sex-matched healthy individuals.Methods: The median motor and sensory nerve conduction study was conducted on 100 type 2 diabetic (T2DM) patients and 100 healthy volunteers, matched for age and sex-matched control. Median nerve motor and sensory proximal and Distal latency (DL), Amplitude and Conduction Velocity (CV) as well as motor f-reponse were measured using Nihoen Kohden EMG Machine and standardized techniques of measurement in the course of the study were adhered to.Results: On comparison of the median nerve motor and sensory parameters, the median nerve (motor and sensory) distal latencies and f-responses were significantly lower in the control group while the median nerve conduction velocities and amplitudes were significantly higher in the T2DM group. Conclusion: The study showed significant impairment of median nerve conduction parameters in T2DM patients who did not have any feature suggestive of peripheral neuropathy when compared with apparently healthy individuals. Thus high index of suspicion as well as early screening for peripheral neuropathy in diabetes is further emphasized.Keywords: Median nerve, diabetic neuropathy, electrodiagnostic evaluation, conduction velocity, latenc

Network traffic analysis for threats detection in the Internet of Things

As the prevalence of the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to increase, cyber criminals are quick to exploit the security gaps that many devices are inherently designed with. Users cannot be expected to tackle this threat alone, and many current solutions available for network monitoring are simply not accessible or can be difficult to implement for the average user, which is a gap that needs to be addressed. This article presents an effective signature-based solution to monitor, analyze, and detect potentially malicious traffic for IoT ecosystems in the typical home network environment by utilizing passive network sniffing techniques and a cloud application to monitor anomalous activity. The proposed solution focuses on two attack and propagation vectors leveraged by the infamous Mirai botnet, namely DNS and Telnet. Experimental evaluation demonstrates the proposed solution can detect 98.35 percent of malicious DNS traffic and 99.33 percent of Telnet traffic for an overall detection accuracy of 98.84 percent

Vitamins A, C and Lycopene Contents of Some Varieties of Tomato and Pepper in the Southwest Region of Nigeria

The concentrations of vitamin A, C and lycopene were determined in some varieties of Lycopersicum esculentum (Plum tomato, Marmande tomato, Beefsteak tomato and Cherry tomato) and capsicum sp. (fresh Cayenne pepper, Bell pepper, Green pepper, Sweet pepper, Hot pepper and Dry cayenne pepper). The ethanolic extracts of the varieties of tomato and pepper were prepared and the vitamin A and lycopene contents were quantified by separating funnel technique, while the concentration of vitamin C was determined by titration technique in the aqueous extract. The concentrations of vitamin A and lycopene were significantly increased (p&lt;0.05) in Plum and Cherry tomatoes. Vitamin A concentration in the various pepper fruits increased significantly (p&lt;0.05) in the order: green pepper&lt;sweet pepper=hot pepper&lt;bell pepper&lt; dry cayenne&lt;cayenne. Significant increases (p&lt;0.05) were presented only in the Vitamin C contents in the green, hot and cayenne pepper fruits with no changes (p&gt;0.05) among these pepper. Lycopene concentrations were significant increased (p&lt;0.05) in the order of green pepper&lt;sweet pepper&lt;bell pepper&lt;cayenne pepper. The finding of the study indicated that the Plum and Cherry tomato fruits, and Bells and fresh Cayenne pepper fruits would have better anti-oxidative capabilities. Therefore, the consumption of the combination of these tomato and pepper fruits as recipes in soup or stew making may boost the endogenous anti-oxidative status. Keywords: Lycopersicum esculentum, capsicum species, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Lycopene, anti-oxidative capabilities, recipes and boost the anti-oxidative status

Towards green computing for Internet of Things: energy oriented path and message scheduling approach

Recently, energy efficiency in sensor enabled wire-less network domain has witnessed significant attention from both academia and industries. It is an enabling technological advancement towards green computing in Internet of Things (IoT) eventually supporting sensor generated big data processing for smart cities. Related literature on energy efficiency in sensor enabled wireless network environments focuses on one aspects either energy oriented path selection or energy oriented message scheduling. The definition of path also varies in literature without considering links towards energy efficiency. In this context, this paper proposes an energy oriented path selection and message scheduling framework for sensor enabled wireless network environments. The technical novelty focuses on effective cooperation between path selection and message scheduling considering links on path, location of message sender, and number of processor in sensor towards energy efficiency. Specifically, a path selection strategy is developed based on shortest path and less number of links on path (SPLL). The location of message sender, and number of processor in specific sensor are utilized for developing a longer hops (LH) message scheduling approach. A system model is presented based on M/M/1 queuing analysis to showcase the effective cooperation of SPLL and LH towards energy efficiency. Simulation oriented comparative performance evaluation attest the energy efficiency of the proposed framework as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques considering number of energy oriented metrics

Enhanced Amplify-and-Forward Relaying in Non-Gaussian PLC Networks

Relaying over power line communication (PLC) channels has the potential to improve the reliability and robustness of many PLC-based applications. In particular, this paper proposes to enhance the energy efficiency (EE) of a dual-hop relaying PLC system in the presence of impulsive noise by considering energy-harvesting (EH) at the relaying modem. Amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying and time-switching relaying EH protocols are deployed in this paper. The PLC modems are assumed to have the capability to go on low-power consumption sleep mode when they are neither transmitting nor receiving. The system performance is evaluated in terms of EE and average outage probability for which analytical expressions are derived. Using the derived expressions, several system parameters are investigated, such as the channel gain, which is related to the number of network branches, EH time factor and impulsive noise characteristics. Particularly, the optimization problem of the EH time is addressed thoroughly in order to maximize the achievable gains. Results reveal that the proposed system can offer considerable improvements compared with the conventional AF relaying scheme

On the performance of DF-based power-line/visible-light communication systems

This paper presents a comprehensive performance analysis of an integrated indoor power line communication (PLC)/visible light communication (VLC) system with the presence of a decode-and-forward (DF) relay. The existing indoor power line networks are used as the backbone for VLCs. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated in terms of the average capacity and the outage probability. A new unified mathematical method is developed for the PLC/VLC system and analytical expressions for the aforementioned performance metrics are derived. Monte Carlo simulations are provided throughout the paper to verify the correctness of the analysis. The results reveal that the performance of the proposed system deteriorates with increasing the end-to-end distance and improves with increasing the relay transmit power. It is also shown that the outage probability of the system under consideration is negatively affected by the vertical distance to user plane