An Efficient Management System for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks have garnered considerable attention recently. Networks typically have many sensor nodes, and are used in commercial, medical, scientific, and military applications for sensing and monitoring the physical world. Many researchers have attempted to improve wireless sensor network management efficiency. A Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)-based sensor network management system was developed that is a convenient and effective way for managers to monitor and control sensor network operations. This paper proposes a novel WSNManagement system that can show the connections stated of relationships among sensor nodes and can be used for monitoring, collecting, and analyzing information obtained by wireless sensor networks. The proposed network management system uses collected information for system configuration. The function of performance analysis facilitates convenient management of sensors. Experimental results show that the proposed method enhances the alive rate of an overall sensor node system, reduces the packet lost rate by roughly 5%, and reduces delay time by roughly 0.2 seconds. Performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed system is effective for wireless sensor network management

Multi-Hop Routing Mechanism for Reliable Sensor Computing

Current research on routing in wireless sensor computing concentrates on increasing the service lifetime, enabling scalability for large number of sensors and supporting fault tolerance for battery exhaustion and broken nodes. A sensor node is naturally exposed to various sources of unreliable communication channels and node failures. Sensor nodes have many failure modes, and each failure degrades the network performance. This work develops a novel mechanism, called Reliable Routing Mechanism (RRM), based on a hybrid cluster-based routing protocol to specify the best reliable routing path for sensor computing. Table-driven intra-cluster routing and on-demand inter-cluster routing are combined by changing the relationship between clusters for sensor computing. Applying a reliable routing mechanism in sensor computing can improve routing reliability, maintain low packet loss, minimize management overhead and save energy consumption. Simulation results indicate that the reliability of the proposed RRM mechanism is around 25% higher than that of the Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) and ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector routing (AODV) mechanisms

Effects of Electroacupuncture on Benign Prostate Hyperplasia Patients with Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms: A Single-Blinded, Randomized Controlled Trial

We tested the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients. A total of 42 BPH patients with LUTS were randomly assigned to either the EA group (EG), received 2 Hz EA for 20 min twice/week for a total of twelve treatments, or a sham EA group (CG), received sham EA. The increase of voiding volume, average flow rate, and maximal flow rate in the EG were 32.2 ± 104.4 mL, 1.2 ± 1.6 mL/sec, and 2.3 ± 3.7 mL/sec, respectively, from baseline value (before EA) using the measurement of an uroflowmetry. These increases were greater than −37.9 ± 120.4, −0.22 ± 2.7, and −0.3 ± 4.3, respectively, in the CG (P = .038, .026, and .030, resp.). The changes of prostate special antigen and international prostatic symptom score were not significantly different between two groups (P = .573, .175, resp.), suggesting the clinical improvement of 2 Hz EA was quite limited to the LUTS of patients with BPH

Estimation of Distributed Fermat-Point Location for Wireless Sensor Networking

This work presents a localization scheme for use in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that is based on a proposed connectivity-based RF localization strategy called the distributed Fermat-point location estimation algorithm (DFPLE). DFPLE applies triangle area of location estimation formed by intersections of three neighboring beacon nodes. The Fermat point is determined as the shortest path from three vertices of the triangle. The area of estimated location then refined using Fermat point to achieve minimum error in estimating sensor nodes location. DFPLE solves problems of large errors and poor performance encountered by localization schemes that are based on a bounding box algorithm. Performance analysis of a 200-node development environment reveals that, when the number of sensor nodes is below 150, the mean error decreases rapidly as the node density increases, and when the number of sensor nodes exceeds 170, the mean error remains below 1% as the node density increases. Second, when the number of beacon nodes is less than 60, normal nodes lack sufficient beacon nodes to enable their locations to be estimated. However, the mean error changes slightly as the number of beacon nodes increases above 60. Simulation results revealed that the proposed algorithm for estimating sensor positions is more accurate than existing algorithms, and improves upon conventional bounding box strategies

Silibinin Inhibits ICAM-1 Expression via Regulation of N-Linked and O-Linked Glycosylation in ARPE-19 Cells

To evaluate the effects of silibinin on intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression, we used ARPE-19 cells as a model in which tumor necrosis factor (TNF-) and interferon (IFN-) enhanced ICAM-1 expression. This upregulation was inhibited by silibinin. In an adherence assay using ARPE-19 and THP-1 cells, silibinin inhibited the cell adhesion function of ICAM-1. The inhibitory effects of silibinin on ICAM-1 expression were mediated via the blockage of nuclear translocation of p65 proteins in TNF-and phosphorylation of STAT1 in IFN--stimulated cells. In addition, silibinin altered the degree of N-linked glycosylation posttranslationally in ARPE-19 cells by significantly enhancing MGAT3 gene expression. Silibinin can increase the O-GlcNAc levels of glycoproteins in ARPE-19 cells. In a reporter gene assay, PUGNAc, which can also increase O-GlcNAc levels, inhibited NF-B reporter activity in TNF--induced ARPE-19 cells and this process was augmented by silibinin treatment. Overexpression of OGT gene was associated with reduced TNF--induced ICAM-1 levels, which is consistent with that induced by silibinin treatment. Taken together, silibinin inhibits ICAM-1 expression and its function through altered O-linked glycosylation in NF-B and STAT1 signaling pathways and decreases the N-linked glycosylation of ICAM-1 transmembrane protein in proinflammatory cytokinestimulated ARPE-19 cells

Apoptotic Cell Death and Inhibition of Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling Pathway in Human Colon Cancer Cells by an Active Fraction (HS7) from Taiwanofungus camphoratus

Aberrant activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays an important role in the development of colon cancer. HS7 is an active fraction extracted from Taiwanofungus camphoratus, which had been widely used as complementary medicine for Taiwan cancer patients in the past decades. In this study, we demonstrated the effects of HS7 on the growth inhibition, apoptosis induction, and Wnt/β-catenin signaling suppression in human colon cancer cells. HS7 significantly inhibited proliferation of HT29, HCT116, and SW480 colon cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The apoptosis induction was evidenced by DNA fragmentation and subG1 accumulation, which was associated with increased Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, activation of caspase-3 and cleavage of PARP. By using Tcf-dependent luciferase activity assay, HS7 was found to inhibit the β-catenin/Tcf transcriptional activities. In addition, HS7 strongly suppressed the binding of Tcf complexes to its DNA-binding site shown in electrophoretic mobility shift assay. This inhibition was further confirmed by the decreased protein levels of Tcf-4 and β-catenin. The β-catenin/Tcf downstream target genes, such as survivin, c-myc, cyclin D1, MMP7, and MT1-MMP involved in apoptosis, invasion, and angiogenesis were also diminished as well. These results indicate that Taiwanofungus camphoratus may provide a benefit as integrative medicine for the treatment of colon cancer

Frame-based mapping mechanism for energy-efficient MPEG-4 video transmission over IEEE 802.11e networks with better quality of delivery

Recent developments in hardware, software and communication technologies have resulted in increasing interest in the use of wireless local area networks (WLANs). Mobile devices with embedded WLAN functionality are becoming increasingly popular. Such devices must be designed to support applications that require high quality of service (QoS) and have favorable to maximize battery capacity. The resources of queues in IEEE 802.11e networks may be wasted by the transmission of information that is useless to the receiver. This work develops a frame-based mapping mechanism (FBM) that exploits different methods to process I/P/B (Intra/Predictive/Bipredictive) video frame packets. FBM refers to the dropping of arriving packets if the preceding packets in the same video frame have been dropped. When fragmented packets of a single frame are allocated to different access categories (AC) queues, out-of order delivery may occur. Hence, FBM tries to treat all fragmented packets of each video frame equally and allocates them to the same AC queue if possible. The simulation results demonstrate that transmission by the FBM is more efficient than that by other mechanisms, such as EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Channel Access), static mapping and adaptive mapping, suggesting that the energy of a device is not wasted in the transmission of useless video data in WLANs. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Foundation item: The National Project of Taiwan (No.: MOST 103-2221-E507-001). Authors are grateful to Ministry of Science and Technology Grant no. (MOST 103-2221-E507-001), Government of Taiwan for financial support to carry out this work.Ke, C.; Yang, C.; Chen, J.; Ghafoor, KZ.; Lloret, J. (2015). Frame-based mapping mechanism for energy-efficient MPEG-4 video transmission over IEEE 802.11e networks with better quality of delivery. Journal of Network and Computer Applications. 58:280-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2015.08.005S2802865

Photosensized Controlling Benzyl Methacrylate-Based Matrix Enhanced Eu3+ Narrow-Band Emission for Fluorescence Applications

This study synthesized a europium (Eu3+) complex Eu(DBM)3Cl-MIP (DBM = dibenzoyl methane; Cl-MIP = 2-(2-chlorophenyl)-1-methyl-1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline) dispersed in a benzyl methacrylate (BMA) monomer and treated with ultraviolet (UV) light for polymerization. Spectral results showed that the europium complex containing an antenna, Cl-MIP, which had higher triplet energy into the Eu3+ energy level, was an energetically enhanced europium emission. Typical stacking behaviors of π–π interactions between the ligands and the Eu3+-ion were analyzed using single crystal X-ray diffraction. Regarding the luminescence performance of this europium composite, the ligand/defect emission was suppressed by dispersion in a poly-BMA (PBMA) matrix. The underlying mechanism of the effective enhancement of the pure Eu3+ emission was attributed to the combined effects of structural modifications, defect emissions, and carrier charge transfer. Fluorescence spectra were compared to the composite of optimized Eu3+ emission where they were subsequently chelated to four metal ions via carboxylate groups on the BMA unit. The optical enhanced europium composite clearly demonstrated highly efficient optical responses and is, therefore a promising application as an optical detection material