An Energy-Aware Protocol for Periodical Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we propose a protocol for periodical data collection applications in wireless sensor networks. The protocol is energy-aware in the sense that the way of energy consumption used here is evenly distributed. The protocol is chain-oriented and uses data fusion at every sensor node. Compare to other data collection protocols, this protocol shows better performance with respect to both latency and energy. It has been found that the proposed protocol outperforms PEGASIS with respect to latency in data delivery and performs better than that of LEACH with respect to energy. Furthermore, our protocol performs higher number rounds than that of PEGASIS in the case when the first node dies in the network. In a word the protocol shows an outstanding time-energy compromise

GENDER IN MEDICAL CAREERS

Gender in Medical Careers: Role of Gender in Stereotypes and Research in Doctors\u2019 Professional Lives Gender relations constitute an important aspect of the contemporary labour market. With rising numbers of women in the work force, they have had to negotiate their gendered identities in the career advancement of their work lives. This thesis seeks to explore the role of gender in medical careers by looking at its impact in two dimensions; on the formation and perpetuation of gender-based stereotypes, and on the role of gender in research activity and scientific productivity. A mixed method approach, employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods, has been used to study the research objectives. Gender inequality in the form of exclusionary processes and marginalisation mechanisms exist in all the medical specialisations in the composition and decision-making of research teams or collaborations and its subsequent consequences on research activity and scientific productivity. The formation of a research team, research collaboration, marginalisation of women from research groups, restriction of women from performing important research tasks or presence of informal \u2018men\u2019s club\u2019 where men support each other\u2019s interests are the invisible exclusionary processes and mechanisms which affect research activity and scientific productivity of male and female doctors. Significant gender differences also exist when it comes to first-authored publications. Additionally, a complex inter-relationship of these outlined issues with a doctor\u2019s job position, specialisation and age can have implications on the scientific productivity of a medical doctor. Gender roles and gender stereotypes are prevalent in the medical profession where conflicting roles can create tension between hospital personnel. Gender roles are differentiated for men and women in some aspects whereas in other aspects, significant differences between men and women were observed. Gender stereotypes are deeply embedded in a person\u2019s mind-set and many actions, and even the very speech of doctors, show that sexist attitudes have been internalised by doctors and nurses. Female doctors consider themselves \u2018lucky\u2019 and rarely credit their own hard work for their successes or achievements. Female doctors try to \u2018become like men\u2019 in order to be successful in their careers. It is interesting that understanding and compassion, which are seen as traditionally feminine traits or \u2018communal\u2019 traits, are displayed by both men and women and not by women alone in the medical profession. Decisiveness and assertiveness, traditionally \u2018masculine\u2019 traits, are displayed more by men than women for low to medium levels of the traits. However, women exhibiting \u2018masculine\u2019 traits such as ambitiousness or aggressiveness may be judged harshly. It is not just gender, but a cross-section of age and gender too that affects stereotypes and relationships between doctors, in the doctor-nurse or doctor-patient relationship in the hospital work space

Investigating the benefits of molecular profiling of advanced non-small cell lung cancer tumors to guide treatments.

In this study we utilized data on patient responses to guided treatments, and we evaluated their benefit for a non-small cell lung cancer cohort. The recommended therapies used were predicted using tumor molecular profiles that involved a range of biomarkers but primarily used immunohistochemistry markers. A dataset describing 91 lung non-small cell lung cancer patients was retrospectively split into two. The first group's drugs were consistent with a treatment plan whereby all drugs received agreed with their tumor's molecular profile. The second group each received one or more drug that was expected to lack benefit. We found that there was no significant difference in overall survival or mortality between the two groups. Patients whose treatments were predicted to be of benefit survived for an average of 402 days, compared to 382 days for those that did not (P = 0.7934). In the matched treatment group, 48% of patients were deceased by the time monitoring had finished compared to 53% in the unmatched group (P = 0.6094). The immunohistochemistry biomarker for the ERCC1 receptor was found to be a marker that could be used to predict future survival; ERCC1 loss was found to be predictive of poor survival

Comparative node selection-based localization technique for wireless sensor networks: A bilateration approach

Wireless sensor networks find extensive applications, such as environmental and smart city monitoring, structural health, and target location. To be useful, most sensor data must be localized. We propose a node localization technique based on bilateration comparison (BACL) for dense networks, which considers two reference nodes to determine the unknown position of a third node. The mirror positions resulted from bilateration are resolved by comparing their coordinates with the coordinates of the reference nodes. Additionally, we use network clustering to further refine the location of the nodes. We show that BACL has several advantages over Energy Aware Co-operative Localization (EACL) and Underwater Recursive Position Estimation (URPE): (1) BACL uses bilateration (needs only two reference nodes) instead of trilateration (that needs three reference nodes), (2) BACL needs reference (anchor) nodes only on the field periphery, and (3) BACL needs substantially less communication and computation. Through simulation, we show that BACL localization accuracy, as root mean square error, improves by 53% that of URPE and by 40% that of EACL. We also explore the BACL localization error when the anchor nodes are placed on one or multiple sides of a rectangular field, as a trade-off between localization accuracy and network deployment effort. Best accuracy is achieved using anchors on all field sides, but we show that localization refinement using node clustering and anchor nodes only on one side of the field has comparable localization accuracy with anchor nodes on two sides but without clustering

Comparison of survival and adverse effect profile in patients with esophageal cancer treated with the combination of carboplatin and paclitaxel vs. 5-flourouracil and cisplatin

Objective: Esophageal cancer (EC) is a form of gastrointestinal cancer with the worst malignant potential and poor prognosis. This study sought to compare the survival and adverse effect profile in patients with EC treated with Carboplatin and Paclitaxel or 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) and Cisplatin regimen.  Patients and Methods: The study was conducted at the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, Srinagar, J&K, India for a period of 7 months. A total of 251 patients were included in this retrospective study, of which 177 (Group I) had been treated with the combination of Carboplatin and Paclitaxel while 74 patients (Group II) had been treated with 5-FU and Cisplatin combination. Results: The median overall survival (OS) was 20.7 months for patients in Group I and 17.1 months for patients in Group II (HR: 1.200; 95% Confidence Interval [CI], p=0.176). The median progression-free survival (PFS) was 12.26 months for subjects of Group I and 12.33 months for Group II subjects (HR: 0.609; 95% CI; p=0.909). Haematological toxicity (≥ grade III) in terms of anaemia, leukocytopenia and thrombocytopenia in Carboplatin and Paclitaxel group (1.7%, 8%, and 18%) was significantly higher than in the 5-FU and Cisplatin group (1.36%, 0%, and 38%) (95% CI; p<0.05). Among non-haematological toxicities, bradycardia was the most notable side-effect of 5-FU and Cisplatin group (18.9%) followed by diarrhoea/vomiting (6.75%) and cough (2.7%). The major side-effect seen in patients treated with the combination of Carboplatin and Paclitaxel was diarrhoea/vomiting (4.52%), followed by mucositis (3.39%) and cough (2.25%) (95% CI; p<0.05). Conclusions: Results suggest that Carboplatin and Paclitaxel regimen is the preferred regimen for patients with potentially curable EC and has higher patient compliance compared to 5-FU and Cisplatin regimen. Toxicity, excluding haematological events, occurred less frequently in the group that received Carboplatin and Paclitaxel compared to toxicity rates in patients who received 5-FU and Cisplatin regimen

Reaction of Groundnut Advanced Breeding lines to Groundnut Bud Necrosis Disease

Forty advanced breeding lines were evaluated for reaction to Groundnut bud necrosis orthotospovirus (GBNV) in the field and greenhouse in Hyderabad, India during2013 rainy season. Results from natural infection showed eight resistant, 24 moderately resistant and eight moderately susceptible genotypes. There were no genotypes pertaining to highly resistant, susceptible and highly susceptible disease reaction grade. Greenhouse screening with mechanical sap inoculation showed all genotypes highly susceptible at 1:10 infected virus extract dilution, whereas at 1:100, two genotypes were moderately resistant, four moderately susceptible, ten susceptible and 24 highly susceptible. There were no genotypes pertaining to highly resistant and resistant disease reaction grade even at 1:100 infected virus extract dilution

An Attribute-Based Encryption Method Using Outsourced Decryption and Hierarchical Access Structure, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2022, nr 2

Cloud computing is being rapidly adopted by many organizations from different domains and large amounts of data is stored in the cloud. In order to ensure data security, the attribute-based access control mechanism has been emerging recently as a fine-grained access control model that grants access based on the data user’s attributes. In this model, the data owner builds the access policy using the attributes of the data users and access to the data is granted only if the requirements of such an access policy are satisfied. Ciphertext policy-based attribute-based encryption (CPABE) is one of the most widely used methods for providing encrypted access control. Complex, time consuming and costly paring operations are the major issue with the CPABE method. Hence, another efficient method is needed to reduce the data user’s overhead while decrypting data. This paper presents an efficient method consisting in outsourcing decryption operations to a third-party server, so that complex operations may be performed by that machine with only some simple calculations left on the data user’s side. The concept of a hierarchical access structure is also integrated with the traditional CPABE technique. The hierarchical approach enables the data owner to encrypt multiple data using a single common hierarchical access structure. This allows the user to decrypt only the relevant part of ciphertext, depending on which fragment of the hierarchical access structure is satisfied. The paper evaluates also the performance of the proposed model in terms of time and storage cost