Efficient energy management for the internet of things in smart cities

The drastic increase in urbanization over the past few years requires sustainable, efficient, and smart solutions for transportation, governance, environment, quality of life, and so on. The Internet of Things offers many sophisticated and ubiquitous applications for smart cities. The energy demand of IoT applications is increased, while IoT devices continue to grow in both numbers and requirements. Therefore, smart city solutions must have the ability to efficiently utilize energy and handle the associated challenges. Energy management is considered as a key paradigm for the realization of complex energy systems in smart cities. In this article, we present a brief overview of energy management and challenges in smart cities. We then provide a unifying framework for energy-efficient optimization and scheduling of IoT-based smart cities. We also discuss the energy harvesting in smart cities, which is a promising solution for extending the lifetime of low-power devices and its related challenges. We detail two case studies. The first one targets energy-efficient scheduling in smart homes, and the second covers wireless power transfer for IoT devices in smart cities. Simulation results for the case studies demonstrate the tremendous impact of energy-efficient scheduling optimization and wireless power transfer on the performance of IoT in smart cities

A Tutorial and Future Research for Building a Blockchain-Based Secure Communication Scheme for Internet of Intelligent Things

The Internet of Intelligent Things (IoIT) communication environment can be utilized in various types of applications (for example, intelligent battlefields, smart healthcare systems, the industrial internet, home automation, and many more). Communications that happen in such environments can have different types of security and privacy issues, which can be resolved through the utilization of blockchain. In this paper, we propose a tutorial that aims in desiging a generalized blockchain-based secure authentication key management scheme for the IoIT environment. Moreover, some issues with using blockchain for a communication environment are discussed as future research directions. The details of different types of blockchain are also provided. Some of the widely-accepted consensus algorithms are then discussed. Next, we discuss different types of applications in blockchain-based IoIT communication environments. The details of the associated system models are provided, such as, the network and attack models for the blockchain-based IoIT communication environment, which are helpful in designing a security protocol for such an environment. A practical demonstration of the proposed generalized scheme is provided in order to measure the impact of the scheme on the performance of the essential parameters. Finally, some of the future research challenges in the blockchain-based IoIT communication environment are highlighted, which will also be helpful to the researchers

Next-generation big data analytics: state of the art, challenges, and future research topics

The term big data occurs more frequently now than ever before. A large number of fields and subjects, ranging from everyday life to traditional research fields (i.e., geography and transportation, biology and chemistry, medicine and rehabilitation), involve big data problems. The popularizing of various types of network has diversified types, issues, and solutions for big data more than ever before. In this paper, we review recent research in data types, storage models, privacy, data security, analysis methods, and applications related to network big data. Finally, we summarize the challenges and development of big data to predict current and future trends.This work was supported in part by the “Open3D: Collaborative Editing for 3D Virtual Worlds” [EPSRC (EP/M013685/1)], in part by the “Distributed Java Infrastructure for Real-Time Big-Data” (CAS14/00118), in part by eMadrid (S2013/ICE-2715), in part by the HERMES-SMARTDRIVER (TIN2013-46801-C4-2-R), and in part by the AUDACity (TIN2016-77158-C4-1-R). Paper no. TII-16-1

The co-injection of antioxidants with foot-and-mouth disease vaccination altered growth performance and blood parameters of finishing Holstein steers

Objective This study was conducted to evaluate whether the co-injection of antioxidants together with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccination has the potential to attenuate the negative effects caused by vaccination in Holstein finishing steers. Methods A total of 36 finishing Holstein steers (body weight [BW]: 608±45.6 kg, 17 months old) were randomly allocated to one of three treatments: i) control (CON, only FMD vaccination without any co-injection), ii) co-injection of commercial non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) with FMD vaccination at a ratio of 10:1 (NSAID vol/FMD vaccine vol) as a positive control (PCON), iii) co-injection of commercial mixture of vitamin E and selenium with FMD vaccination (VITESEL) (1 mL of FMD vaccine+1 mL of antioxidants per 90 kg of BW). Changes in growth performance and blood parameters because of treatments were determined. Results No significant difference in BW, average daily gain, and dry matter intake of the steers was observed among the treatments. The FMD vaccination significantly increased white blood cells (WBC), neutrophils, platelets, and mean platelet volume (p<0.01) in blood analysis. The count of lymphocyte tended to increase after vaccination (p = 0.08). In blood analysis, steers in VITESEL tended to have higher numbers of WBC, neutrophils, and platelets compared to that of other treatments (p = 0.09, 0.06, and 0.09, respectively). Eosinophils in VITESEL were higher than those in PCON (p<0.01). Among blood metabolites, blood urea nitrogen and aspartate transaminase were significantly increased, but cholesterol, alanine transferase, inorganic phosphorus, Mg, and albumin were decreased after FMD vaccination (p<0.01). Conclusion The use of antioxidants in FMD vaccination did not attenuate growth disturbance because of FMD vaccination. The metabolic changes induced by vaccination were not controlled by the administration of antioxidants. The protective function of antioxidants was effective mainly on the cell counts of leukocytes

Regulation of Inhibitors of Differentiation Family Proteins by Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone in FRTL-5 Thyroid Cells

Members of the inhibitors of differentiation (Id) family of helix-loop-helix (HLH) proteins are known to play important roles in the proliferation and differentiation of many cell types. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) regulates proliferation and differentiation by activating TSH receptor (TSHR) in thyrocytes. In this study, we found that Id2, one of the Id family proteins, is a major target for regulation by TSH in FRTL-5 thyroid cells. TSH rapidly increases the Id2 mRNA level in FRTL-5 thyroid cells but the Id2 protein showed biphasic regulatory patterns, being transiently reduced and subsequently induced by TSH treatment. Transient reduction of Id2 protein was noted within 2 hr of TSH treatment and was mediated by proteasomal degradation. Moreover, reduced Id2 expression correlated with the activity of the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase pathway, which is activated by TSH. Although TSH increases the activity of the Id2 promoter, TSH-induced activation of this promoter was independent of c-Myc. Id2 did not alter TTF-1- and Pax-8-mediated effects on the regulation of the Tg promoter. Thus, in summary, we found that TSH regulates Id2 expression, but that Id2 does not alter the expression of thyroid-specific genes, such as Tg, in FRTL-5 thyroid cells

Cross-Regulation between Oncogenic BRAFV600E Kinase and the MST1 Pathway in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

BACKGROUND:The BRAF(V600E) mutation leading to constitutive signaling of MEK-ERK pathways causes papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Ras association domain family 1A (RASSF1A), which is an important regulator of MST1 tumor suppressor pathways, is inactivated by hypermethylation of its promoter region in 20 to 32% of PTC. However, in PTC without RASSF1A methylation, the regulatory mechanisms of RASSF1A-MST1 pathways remain to be elucidated, and the functional cooperation or cross regulation between BRAF(V600E) and MST1,which activates Foxo3,has not been investigated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:The negative regulators of the cell cycle, p21 and p27, are strongly induced by transcriptional activation of FoxO3 in BRAF(V600E) positive thyroid cancer cells. The FoxO3 transactivation is augmented by RASSF1A and the MST1 signaling pathway. Interestingly, introduction of BRAF(V600E)markedly abolished FoxO3 transactivation and resulted in the suppression of p21 and p27 expression. The suppression of FoxO3 transactivation by BRAF(V600E)is strongly increased by coexpression of MST1 but it is not observed in the cells in which MST1, but not MST2,is silenced. Mechanistically, BRAF(V600E)was able to bind to the C-terminal region of MST1 and resulted in the suppression of MST1 kinase activities. The induction of the G1-checkpoint CDK inhibitors, p21 and p27,by the RASSF1A-MST1-FoxO3 pathway facilitates cellular apoptosis, whereas addition of BRAF(V600E) inhibits the apoptotic processes through the inactivation of MST1. Transgenic induction of BRAF(V600E)in the thyroid gland results in cancers resembling human papillary thyroid cancers. The development of BRAF(V600E)transgenic mice with the MST1 knockout background showed that these mice had abundant foci of poorly differentiated carcinomas and large areas without follicular architecture or colloid formation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:The results of this study revealed that the oncogenic effect of BRAF(V600E) is associated with the inhibition of MST1 tumor suppressor pathways, and that the activity of RASSF1A-MST1-FoxO3 pathways determines the phenotypes of BRAF(V600E) tumors

M (2011) Mobile multimedia sensor networks: architecture and routing

Abstract-Recent advances in the fields of wireless technology and multimedia systems have exhibited a strong potential and tendency on improving human life by enabling smart services in ubiquitous computing environments. This paper investigates a mobile multimedia system through combining various technologies, such as wireless sensor networks, embedded multimedia system and node mobility. In particular, we will employ some powerful sensor node with both mobility and multimedia functionalities, which can be controlled by contextual information collected by other systems to enable interactive multimedia services. The new architecture is called mobile multimedia sensor network (MMSN) in this paper. A routing scheme named mobile multimedia geographic routing (MGR) is specially designed to minimize energy consumption and satisfy constraints on the average end-to-end delay of specific applications in MMSNs. Simulations verify the MGR&apos;s performance to satisfy QoS requirement while saving energy for MMSNs