Medium access control schemes for flat mobile wireless sensor networks

One aspect of Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs) is the MAC protocol, which is critical in terms of reliability, delay and energy consumption. This work begins with a literature review, showing that the majority of MWSN MACs are designed for hierarchical architectures, demonstrating that there is a lack of MACs intended for flat architecture MWSNs. Subsequently, we propose three new MAC protocols, uniquely designed for flat MWSNs. Explicitly, the proposed MACs are Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Dedicated Slots, Network Division Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance and Network Division Multiple Access with Dedicated Slots, which are specifically designed to work with the state-of-the-art Location Aware Sensor Routing protocol. Extensive modelling and simulation is done in dense and sparse scenarios with varying traffic levels to evaluate the impact of the proposed from the perspective of both the link and network layers. Given the uniqueness of the proposed protocols, four well-known MACs are also included to give a performance reference to the results. The MAC results show that the collision-free protocols give the best reliability and that Global-TDMA consistently yields the highest level of throughput. This highlights the importance of taking into account both MAC and routing during the design process

Targeting beliefs and behaviours in misophonia: a case series from a UK specialist psychology service.

Misophonia, a disorder of decreased sound tolerance, can cause significant distress and impairment. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) may be helpful for improving symptoms of misophonia, but the key mechanisms of the disorder are not yet known. This case series aimed to evaluate individual, formulation-driven CBT for patients with misophonia in a UK psychology service. A service evaluation of one-to-one therapy for patients with misophonia ( =19) was conducted in a specialist psychology service. Patients completed an average of 13 hours of therapy with a focus on the meaning applied to their reactions to sounds and associated behaviours. Primary outcome measures were the Misophonia Questionnaire (MQ) and the Amsterdam Misophonia Scale (A-MISO-S). Repeated measures -tests were used to compare scores from pre-treatment to follow-up, and reliable and clinically significant change on the MQ was calculated. Scores significantly improved on both misophonia measures, with an average of 38% change on the MQ and 40% change on the A-MISO-S. From pre-treatment to follow-up, 78% of patients showed reliable improvement on the MQ and 61% made clinically significant change. Limitations included a lack of control group, small sample size, and the use of an outcome measure that had not been thoroughly validated for a treatment-seeking sample. These results suggest that one-to-one, formulation-driven CBT for misophonia is worth exploring further using experimental design. Potential mechanisms to explore further include feared consequences of escalating reactions, the role of safety-seeking behaviours and the impact of early memories associated with reactions to sounds

Location aware sensor routing (LASeR) protocol for mobile wireless sensor networks

Location aware sensor routing (LASeR) protocol is a novel solution to the challenges of routing in mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs). It addresses the high reliability and low latency requirements of emerging applications. The protocol uses location information to maintain a gradient field even in highly mobile environments, whilst reducing the routing overhead. This allows the protocol to utilise a blind forwarding technique to propagate packets towards the sink. The protocol inherently utilises multiple paths simultaneously to create route diversity and increase its robustness. LASeR is designed for use in a high variety of MWSN applications with autonomous land, sea or air vehicles. Analytical expressions are derived and evaluated against the simulations. Extensive modelling and simulation of the proposed routing protocol has shown it to be highly adaptable and robust. It is compared with the recent MWSN proactive highly ambulatory sensor routing protocol, the high performance mobility adaptive cross-layer routing protocol, as well as ad-hoc on-demand distance vector and optimised link state routing. Protocols are evaluated on packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, overhead, throughput and energy consumption. The results highlight both the high performance of LASeR in various challenging environments and its superiority over the state-of-the-art

Report of the Fieldwork Data Sustainability Project (FIDAS)

Fieldworkers typically collect data in a rather ad-hoc way during fieldwork, often leading to patchy and highly variable metadata quality at the time of submission to a digital repository. It can be very difficult or even impossible to reconstruct some of this information at a later date, yet these resources are often unique and unrepeatable records of highly significant events collected at considerable expense of researcher time, effort and resources. From the repository perspective, lack of metadata (including preservation metadata) can have serious implications not only for ingestion into a repository, but also for subsequent archival management and dissemination of archival information. This project aimed to extend the scope of the OAIS model to facilitate sustainable data collection and description of digital objects from the time of creation during fieldwork, and to integrate this workflow with repository ingestion, management, and dissemination requirements

How to Reduce Drought Risk

This guide describes a practical step-by-step process for identifying actions that can be taken to reduce potential drought-related impacts before a drought occurs. Step 1 begins with making sure that the right people are brought together and supplied with adequate data to make informed and equitable decisions during the process. Steps 2 and 3 narrow the focus of the study by identifying high priority drought-related impacts that are relevant to the user’s location or activity. Step 4 demonstrates that in order to reduce the potential for the identified impacts to occur in the future, it is necessary to understand the underlying environmental, economic, and social causes of the impacts. Finally, Steps 5 and 6 utilize all of the previous information to identify feasible, cost-effective, and equitable actions that can be taken to address the identified causes. In this manner, true drought vulnerabilities can be addressed that will subsequently reduce drought-related impacts and risk

Achieving high titer in a non-platform CHO cell culture process when converting to an internal medium platform

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Innovative pedagogical practices in the craft of Computing

Computer programming, the art of actually instructing a computer to do what one wants, is fundamentally a practical skill. How does one teach this practical skill in a university setting, to students who may not be initially motivated to acquire it, and who may have a variety of past experience, or none at all? Furthermore, how does one do it in a resource-efficient way to large classes? Students are largely motivated by assessment: what is the best way to assess this skill? How does this skill relate to more abstract concepts like “computational thinking”? In this piece NTFs from very different universities explain their solutions

Integrating New Research Faculty into the UK Computer Science Education Community

A vibrant Computer Science Education (CSE) Communityof Practice is emerging in the United Kingdom and Ireland(UK&I), promoted by national and international professionalbody/learned society specialist interest groups and supportedthrough a number of CSE research and practice conferences.This workshop explores how this community of practiceaddresses the needs of new academics to UK&I higher education and what opportunities there are to bring togetherand develop new academics as part of this community.The complex and contested demands of learning and teaching in UK&I higher education make the early career of anacademic challenging [4] and potentially lonely [1], especially when balanced against their research aspirations, andwider professional service commitments. Learning and teaching development in the UK commonly involves working towards Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy [2] (nowknown as AdvanceHE), either by direct application or byan accredited university postgraduate course. Typically, thisis supported by mentoring from within a department. Thequality of learning provided will be promoted in part by thestrength of the community of practice operating within thedepartment [3] and the communities of practice that exist ata national and international level [4].At the workshop attendees will participate in a qualitative research exercise, to shape and develop a proposal tofurther promote the value of new academics engaging withCSE research to enhance their own learning and teachingactivities. In particular, addressing:1. What current and future opportunities are there toengage new CS faculty with the UK&I CSE communityof practice?2. What is the potential to supplement institutional academic/research development opportunities with national developmental opportunities?3. How can we continue to raise the profile and value ofnew CS research faculty engaging with CSE research?The workshop would consists of two hours, online remoteactivity. By attending, early-career computer science facultywould gain a better appreciation for the opportunities thereare to engage and obtain support from the UK&I CSE research community. Experienced academics, would gain abetter appreciation for the development needs of their colleagues and how this augments their research and learningand teaching roles. All participants will have the opportunity to help shape a proposal for enhanced support for newacademics