Energy Efficient Multipath Routing Algorithm for Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network.

Wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs) are capable of collecting multimedia events, such as traffic accidents and wildlife tracking, as well as scalar data. As a result, WMSNs are receiving a great deal of attention both from industry and academic communities. However, multimedia applications tend to generate high volume network traffic, which results in very high energy consumption. As energy is a prime resource in WMSN, an efficient routing algorithm that effectively deals with the dynamic topology of WMSN but also prolongs the lifetime of WMSN is required. To this end, we propose a routing algorithm that combines dynamic cluster formation, cluster head selection, and multipath routing formation for data communication to reduce energy consumption as well as routing overheads. The proposed algorithm uses a genetic algorithm (GA)-based meta-heuristic optimization to dynamically select the best path based on the cost function with the minimum distance and the least energy dissipation. We carried out an extensive performance analysis of the proposed algorithm and compared it with three other routing protocols. The results of the performance analysis showed that the proposed algorithm outperformed the three other routing protocols.

Clone tag detection in distributed RFID systems.

Although Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is poised to displace barcodes, security vulnerabilities pose serious challenges for global adoption of the RFID technology. Specifically, RFID tags are prone to basic cloning and counterfeiting security attacks. A successful cloning of the RFID tags in many commercial applications can lead to many serious problems such as financial losses, brand damage, safety and health of the public. With many industries such as pharmaceutical and businesses deploying RFID technology with a variety of products, it is important to tackle RFID tag cloning problem and improve the resistance of the RFID systems. To this end, we propose an approach for detecting cloned RFID tags in RFID systems with high detection accuracy and minimal overhead thus overcoming practical challenges in existing approaches. The proposed approach is based on consistency of dual hash collisions and modified count-min sketch vector. We evaluated the proposed approach through extensive experiments and compared it with existing baseline approaches in terms of execution time and detection accuracy under varying RFID tag cloning ratio. The results of the experiments show that the proposed approach outperforms the baseline approaches in cloned RFID tag detection accuracy.

[Endovascular repair of iliocaval arteriovenous fistula complicating lumbar disc surgery]. / Traitement endovasculaire d'une fistule artério-veineuse ilio-cave compliquant une chirurgie discale lombaire.

Vascular complications of lumbar disc surgery are rare. Few cases have been reported. Arteriovenous fistulas are the most common. They are due to anatomical relationships between the last lumbar vertebrae, the corresponding discs, and the iliac vessels; degenerative lesions of the intervertebral discs facilitate instrumental vessel perforation, and operative difficulty. Computed tomography is particularly accurate for making the diagnosis. Treatment strategies consist in surgery or endovascular management. Percutaneous endovascular treatment using a stent-graft is a reasonable option for treating arteriovenous fistula. We describe the case of a 50-year-old patient who developed an iliocaval arteriovenous fistula following lumbar disc hernia surgery. The lesion was excluded by a stent-graft. The postoperative period was uneventful.

A data fusion method in wireless sensor networks.

The success of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) deployment strongly depends on the quality of service (QoS) it provides regarding issues such as data accuracy, data aggregation delays and network lifetime maximisation. This is especially challenging in data fusion mechanisms, where a small fraction of low quality data in the fusion input may negatively impact the overall fusion result. In this paper, we present a fuzzy-based data fusion approach for WSN with the aim of increasing the QoS whilst reducing the energy consumption of the sensor network. The proposed approach is able to distinguish and aggregate only true values of the collected data as such, thus reducing the burden of processing the entire data at the base station (BS). It is also able to eliminate redundant data and consequently reduce energy consumption thus increasing the network lifetime. We studied the effectiveness of the proposed data fusion approach experimentally and compared it with two baseline approaches in terms of data collection, number of transferred data packets and energy consumption. The results of the experiments show that the proposed approach achieves better results than the baseline approaches.

Maternal outcomes of magnesium sulphate and diazepam use in women with severe pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Preferred anticonvulsant used to treat and prevent fits in eclampsia currently is magnesium sulphate. Clinical monitoring of tendon reflexes, respiration rate and measuring hourly urine output should be done to ensures safe administration of magnesium sulphate. OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate maternal outcomes of magnesium sulphate and diazepam use in the management of severe pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in Jimma University Specialized Hospital. METHODS: A retrospective hospital based cross-sectional comparative study was conducted using data collection format. Data was collected from the hospital delivery care register and patient chart records of all pregnant women who presented with the diagnosis of severe pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in two years and three months period from January, 2010 to April, 2012. Data analysis was done by SPSS version 16.0. A P-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant in all tests. RESULTS: A total of 357 patient charts, 217 from magnesium sulphate and 140 from diazepam treated pregnant women group, were reviewed and analyzed. Three pregnant women from the magnesium sulphate treated group and eleven pregnant women from diazepam treated group had at least one convulsion after taking the drug. Greater proportion of patients in the magnesium sulphate treated group had less than four days postpartum stay as compared to the diazepam treated patients (82.3% versus 66.2%). Seizure occurrence, duration of postpartum hospital stays and birth outcome had a statistically significant association with the type of anticonvulsant used. CONCLUSIONS: Magnesium sulphate is more effective than diazepam in the management of severe pre-eclamptic and eclamptic pregnant women in terms of seizure prevention, shortening postpartum hospital stay and reducing maternal morbidities.

Performance analysis of receive diversity in wireless sensor networks over GBSBE models.

Wireless sensor networks have attracted a lot of attention recently. In this paper, we develop a channel model based on the elliptical model for multipath components involving randomly placed scatterers in the scattering region with sensors deployed on a field. We verify that in a sensor network, the use of receive diversity techniques improves the performance of the system. Extensive performance analysis of the system is carried out for both single and multiple antennas with the applied receive diversity techniques. Performance analyses based on variations in receiver height, maximum multipath delay and transmit power have been performed considering different numbers of antenna elements present in the receiver array, Our results show that increasing the number of antenna elements for a wireless sensor network does indeed improve the BER rates that can be obtained.