Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

(First paragraph) Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have recently been proposed as one of the promising ad hoc networking techniques that can provide both drivers and passengers with a safe and enjoyable driving experience. VANETs can be used for many applications with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. In the United States, motor vehicle traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for all motorists between two and thirty-four years of age. In 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 33,808 people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes. The US Department of Transportation (US-DOT) estimates that over half of all congestion events are caused by highway incidents rather than by rush-hour traffic in big cities. The US-DOT also notes that in a single year, congested highways due to traffic incidents cost over $75 billion in lost worker productivity and over 8.4 billion gallons of fuel. Some of the significant applications of VANETs are road safety applications including collision and other safety warning systems, driver convenience and information systems, and, in the future, intelligent traffic management systems

Stress effects on work efficiency: study by professionals at the Cambridge school library of Karachi Sindh, Pakistan.

Librarians, like other professionals, face stress from a diversity of sources around the world. A population of 70 Cambridge school library professionals was studied to see if there was a significant relation between work efficiency and occupational stress. This research study is investigated on the relation of school library professionals working in Karachi\u27s Cambridge schools on Stress at work and work efficiency. The main purpose of this research was to identify the level of occupational stress among school librarians, as well as gender and marital status disparities in occupational stress and work efficiency among school librarians, as well as the consequences of occupational stress on efficiency from work. For this investigation, a survey research strategy was carried out. Census/enumerative techniques was adapted. The sample size of the study was 70, response rate was 60 (87%) and the remaining 10 (13%) did not respond. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data and consisted of close ended queries to measure the information. Cronbach’s Alpha used to check the reliability of the questionnaire. All five hypothesis tested t value and simple linear regression collected data were analyzed by SPSS ver. 22 software. According to the bases of the findings, working in school libraries generates a lot of occupational overload. There was no significant mean difference in the perception of work stress of male and female library professionals (p\u3e0.05), however there was a significant mean difference in the perception of work efficiency of male and female library professionals (p\u3e0.05). \u3e0.05). On seven work efficiency characteristics, men outperformed women: interpersonal relationships with colleagues, ability to handle multiple jobs, communication skills, punctuality and regularity at work, technical skills, problem solving, and quality of library work. When it came to the relationship between occupational stress and performance and performance at work (r=0.0624, p\u3e0.01), the outcome showed a significant relationship (r=0.0624, p\u3e0.01). In addition, roll ambiguity, overload, conflict and career stagnation were some of the factors that negatively impacted the professional performance of school library professionals. The results demonstrated a small but statistically significant negative association between occupational stress and work efficiency, implying that a rise in occupational stress has a detrimental impact on the gender and marital status of school library professionals\u27 work efficiency. Four hypothesis are rejected based on t value analysis, but the fifth is supported based on t value and simple linear regression. This study found that the factors that contributing to work stress is significant with school library professional’s performance and it also concluded that the employees at Cambridge schooling system were experiencing occupational stress

Applications of machine and deep learning to thyroid cytology and histopathology: a review.

This review synthesises past research into how machine and deep learning can improve the cyto- and histopathology processing pipelines for thyroid cancer diagnosis. The current gold-standard preoperative technique of fine-needle aspiration cytology has high interobserver variability, often returns indeterminate samples and cannot reliably identify some pathologies; histopathology analysis addresses these issues to an extent, but it requires surgical resection of the suspicious lesions so cannot influence preoperative decisions. Motivated by these issues, as well as by the chronic shortage of trained pathologists, much research has been conducted into how artificial intelligence could improve current pipelines and reduce the pressure on clinicians. Many past studies have indicated the significant potential of automated image analysis in classifying thyroid lesions, particularly for those of papillary thyroid carcinoma, but these have generally been retrospective, so questions remain about both the practical efficacy of these automated tools and the realities of integrating them into clinical workflows. Furthermore, the nature of thyroid lesion classification is significantly more nuanced in practice than many current studies have addressed, and this, along with the heterogeneous nature of processing pipelines in different laboratories, means that no solution has proven itself robust enough for clinical adoption. There are, therefore, multiple avenues for future research: examine the practical implementation of these algorithms as pathologist decision-support systems; improve interpretability, which is necessary for developing trust with clinicians and regulators; and investigate multiclassification on diverse multicentre datasets, aiming for methods that demonstrate high performance in a process- and equipment-agnostic manner

Fireside corrosion in oxy-fuel environments and the influence of fuel and ash characteristics on corrosion and deposition

The development of advanced techniques (such as carbon capture and storage) for future power plants and the implementation of retrofit technologies to existing ones (like biomass co-firing) in order to reduce pollutant emission, has raised several concerns for the power industry. One such problem, which also forms the basis of this thesis, is the effect of these measures on corrosion and deposition of the boiler heat transfer surfaces. This research work can be divided into two parts. The first part involved studying the corrosion behaviour of a typical waterwall and a superheater material under simulated oxy-fuel environments with and without the influence of an ash deposit. A custom-built, laboratory scale, corrosion rig with the ability to simulate a range of flue gas compositions and temperatures, in addition to generating a heat flux through the specimen, was set up for this purpose. The second part of this work deals with evaluating the properties of a UK power station coal and four biomass samples with the help of laboratory techniques and thermodynamic modelling in order to predict their fusion and deposit forming tendencies in combustion systems. A series of experiments were performed on the corrosion rig to assess the influence of individual variables on the rate of corrosion. The results indicated that the increased concentration of SO2 in oxy fuel combustion due to recycling of the flue gas, can lead to an increase in corrosion rates especially in the presence of reactive alkali containing deposits. Under the conditions studied, the presence of a biomass ash deposit aggravated the corrosive propensity of the environment while coal ash lessened it. With regard to predicting the fusion behaviour of different ashes, the standard ash fusion tests proved inadequate for explaining the relationship between high alkali constituents in biomass ash and the expected higher slagging and fouling tendencies. Simultaneous thermal analysis was more useful in assessing the physical & chemical changes taking place in the ash. Prediction of the fuel behaviour using FactSage thermodynamic analysis showed that ash melting commences at much lower temperatures than those predicted from laboratory techniques. This would help to explain the increased risk of deposition and corrosion linked with burning high alkali containing fuels

Microscopic Observation Drug Susceptibility Assay for Rapid Diagnosis of Lymph Node Tuberculosis and Detection of Drug Resistance.

In this study, 132 patients with lymphadenopathy were investigated. Fifty-two (39.4%) were diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB). The microscopic observation drug susceptibility (MODS) assay provided rapid (13 days), accurate diagnosis (sensitivity, 65.4%) and reliable drug susceptibility testing (DST). Despite its lower sensitivity than that of other methods, its faster results and simultaneous DST are advantageous in resource-poor settings, supporting the incorporation of MODS into diagnostic algorithms for extrapulmonary TB

Rapid Step Test Based on Leg Length as a Novel Dynamic Standing Balance Test in the Geriatric Population: A Pilot Study

Each year, 1 out of 3 adults over age 65 experience a fall resulting in a traumatic injury or even mortality. Falls are the leading cause of death in the elderly population and cause the greatest number of hospital admissions from trauma. The Balance Evaluation Systems Test (BEST), Berg Balance Scale, and Tinetti are frequently used tests to determine fall risk. However, they can be complicated, time consuming, and exhibit a ceiling effect. This study employed the Rapid Step Test (RST) to examine the use and practicality of a new, portable and easy to administer test that may differentiate between fallers and non-fallers.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/dpt_symposium/1021/thumbnail.jp

Oligodendrocyte RasG12V Expressed in its Endogenous Locus Disrupts Myelin Structure Through Increased MAPK, Nitric Oxide, and Notch Signaling

Costello syndrome (CS) is a gain of function Rasopathy caused by heterozygous activating mutations in the HRAS gene. Patients show brain dysfunction that can include abnormal brain white matter. Transgenic activation of HRas in the entire mouse oligodendrocyte lineage resulted in myelin defects and behavioral abnormalities, suggesting roles for disrupted myelin in CS brain dysfunction. Here we studied a mouse model in which the endogenous HRas gene is conditionally replaced by mutant HRasG12V in mature oligodendrocytes, to separate effects in mature myelinating cells from developmental events. Increased myelin thickness due to decompaction was detectable within one month of HRasG12V expression in the corpus callosum of adult mice. Increases in active ERK and Nitric Oxide (NO) were present in HRas mutants and inhibition of NO synthase (NOS) or MEK each partially rescued myelin decompaction. In addition, genetic or pharmacologic inhibition of Notch signaling improved myelin compaction. Complete rescue of myelin structure required dual drug treatments combining MAPK, NO or Notch inhibition; with MEK + NOS blockade producing the most robust effect. We suggest that individual or concomitant blockade of these pathways in Costello syndrome patients may improve aspects of brain function