On the Development of Realistic Cross Layer Communication Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Traditional protocols in wireless sensor networks follow the strict layering techniques which lead to the degradation in performance of the QoS (Quality of Service) parameters. Battery powered tiny sensor nodes with constraints of energy and guaranteed time require the efficient communication protocols with innovative and optimized approach to attain the objectives of WSN. Especially, these requirements become more stringent with the emergence of novel applications based on WSN. In order to find an optimized solution to this, cross layer-based approach which allows the cooperation, synchronization and communication among the layers, seems to be appropriate. In this paper, a realistic cross-layer protocol has been developed taking into considerations of MAC and Physical layer to further optimize the QoS parameters of already developed Energy Efficient Inter Cluster Coordination Protocol (EEICCP) at the Network layer level. In this paper we endeavor to concentrate on the enhancement of reliability parameter of QoS and results are validated through simulations done in MATLAB.

Genetics of diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a complicated disease characterized by a complex interplay of genetic,epigenetic,and environmental variables.It is one of the world's fastestgrowing diseases,with 783 million adults expected to be affected by 2045.Devastating macrovascular consequences(cerebrovascular disease,cardiovascular disease,and peripheral vascular disease)and microvascular complications(like retinopathy,nephropathy,and neuropathy)increase mortality,blindness,kidney failure,and overall quality of life in individuals with diabetes.Clinical risk factors and glycemic management alone cannot predict the development of vascular problems;multiple genetic investigations have revealed a clear hereditary component to both diabetes and its related complications.In the twenty-first century,technological advancements(genome-wide association studies,nextgeneration sequencing,and exome-sequencing)have led to the identification of genetic variants associated with diabetes,however,these variants can only explain a small proportion of the total heritability of the condition.In this review,we address some of the likely explanations for this"missing heritability",for diabetes such as the significance of uncommon variants,gene-environment interactions,and epigenetics.Current discoveries clinical value,management of diabetes,and future research directions are also discussed.

Optimization of Cognitive Radio System Using Enhanced Firefly Algorithm

The optimization of cognitive radio(CR)system using an enhanced firefly algorithm(EFA)is presented in this work.The Firefly algorithm(FA)is a nature-inspired algorithm based on the unique light-flashing behavior of fireflies.It has already proved its competence in various optimization prob-lems,but it suffers from slow convergence issues.To improve the convergence performance of FA,a new variant named EFA is proposed.The effectiveness of EFA as a good optimizer is demonstrated by optimizing benchmark functions,and simulation results show its superior performance compared to biogeography-based optimization(BBO),bat algorithm,artificial bee colony,and FA.As an application of this algorithm to real-world problems,EFA is also applied to optimize the CR system.CR is a revolutionary technique that uses a dynamic spectrum allocation strategy to solve the spectrum scarcity problem.However,it requires optimization to meet specific performance objectives.The results obtained by EFA in CR system optimization are compared with results in the literature of BBO,simulated annealing,and genetic algorithm.Statistical results further prove that the proposed algorithm is highly efficient and provides superior results.

User Assisted Cooperative Relaying in Beamspace Massive MIMO NOMA Based Systems for Millimeter Wave Communications

A novel scheme‘user assisted cooperative relaying in beamspace massive multiple input multiple output(M-MIMO)non-orthogonal multiple access(NOMA)system’has been proposed to improve coverage area,spectrum and energy efficiency for millimeter wave(mmWave)communications.A downlink system for M users,where base station(BS)is equipped with beamforming lens antenna structure having NRF radio frequency(RF)chains,has been considered.A dynamic cluster of users is formed within a beam and the intermediate users(in that cluster)between beam source and destination(user)act as relaying stations.By the use of successive interference cancellation(SIC)technique of NOMA within a cluster,the relaying stations relay the symbols with improved power to the destination.For maximizing achievable sum rate,transmit precoding and dynamic power allocation for both intra and inter beam power optimization are implemented.Simulations for performance evaluation are carried out to validate that the proposed system outperforms the conventional beamspace M-MIMO NOMA system for mmWave communications in terms of spectrum and energy efficiency.

有机转化过程中的二氧化硅负载Br?nsted酸催化剂(英文)

Br?nsted acid catalysts have been used in a number of organic transformations. To overcome limi-tations, such as toxicity, volatility, high price and hazardous nature of the conventional methods, the catalysts are adsorbed on silica gel to give the benefits and advantages of ready availability, simple work-up procedure, long catalytic life, environment-friendliness, good to excellent yields and recy-clability. The uses of such catalysts have gained importance worldwide. This article describes some of the important silicated catalysts, namely, heteropolyacids, polyphosphoric acid, perchloric acid, fluoroboric acid, and silicated sulphuric acid. These catalysts have been used in a number of organic reactions to yield compounds that are important in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. We summarize the beneficial effects of these catalysts and the reports that have been published on them in the past several years. In the present review, the description of the catalysts are introduced followed by a recent research history, and a comparison between the silica supported catalysts and other(polymer) supported catalysts. The article ends up giving the advantages of these catalytic systems over the conventional catalyst.

Plant Species Diversity along an Altitudinal Gradient of Bhabha Valley in Western Himalaya

The present study highlights the rich species diversity of higher plants in the Bhabha Valley of western Himalaya in India. The analysis of species diversity revealed that a total of 313 species of higher plants inhabit the valley with a characteristic of moist alpine shrub vegetation. The herbaceous life forms dominate and increase with increasing altitude. The major representations are from the families Asteraceae, Rosaceae, Lamiaceae and Poaceae, suggesting thereby the alpine meadow nature of the study area. The effect of altitude on species diversity displays a hump-shaped curve which may be attributed to increase in habitat diversity at the median ranges and relatively less habitat diversity at higher altitudes. The anthropogenic pressure at lower altitudes results in low plant diversity towards the bottom of the valley with most of the species being exotic in nature. Though the plant diversity is less at higher altitudinal ranges, the uniqueness is relatively high with high species replacement rates. More than 90 % of variability in the species diversity could be explained using appropriate quantitative and statistical analysis along the altitudinal gradient. The valley harbours 18 threatened and 41 endemic species, most of which occur at higher altitudinal gradients due to habitat specificity.

Antioxidant activity and identification of bioactive compounds from leaves of Anthocephalus cadamba by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry

Objective:To evaluate the antioxidant potential of different extract/fractions of Anthocephalus cadamba（A.cadamba）（Roxb.） Miq.（Rubiaceae） and study the tentative identification of their active constituents.Methods:The extract/fractions were screened for antioxidant activity using various in vitro assays viz.DPPH assay,ABTS assay,superoxide anion radical scavenging assay, reducing power assay and plasmid DNA nicking assay.Total phenolic content of extract/fractions was determined by colorimetric method.An ultra-performance LC-electrospray-quadrupoletime of flight mass spectrometry method was used to analyse the active constituents of extract/ fractions of A.cadamba.Results:The ethyl acetate fraction was found to be most active fraction in all the assays as compared to other extract/fractions.The IC50 value of ethyl acetate fraction （ETAC fraction） was 21.24μg/mL,1.12μg/mL,9.68μg/mL and S7.81μg/mL in DPPH assay, ABTS assay,reducing power assay and superoxide scavenging assay respectively.All the extract/ fractions also showed the potential to protect the plasmid DNA（pBR322） against the attack of hydroxyl radicals generated by Fenton’s reagent.The bioactive compounds were identified by UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS,by comparing the mass andλmax with literature values.Conclusions:The potential of the extract/fractions to scavenge different free radicals in different systems indicated that they may be useful therapeutic agents for treating radical-related pathologic damage.

Biomass-derived bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction and evolution reaction: A review

Oxygen electrode catalysts are important as inter-conversion of O_(2) and H_(2)O is crucial for energy technologies.However,the sluggish kinetics of oxygen reduction and evolution reactions(ORR and OER)are a hindrance to their scalable production,whereas scarce and costly Pt and Ir/Ru-based catalysts with the highest electrocatalytic activity are commercially unviable.Since good ORR catalysts are not always efficient for OER and vice versa,so bifunctional catalysts on which OER and ORR occurs on the same electrode are very desirable.Alternative catalysts based on heteroatom-doped carbon nanomaterials,though showed good electrocatalytic activity yet their high cost and complex synthesis is not viable for scalable production.To overcome these drawbacks,biomass-derived heteroatom-doped porous carbons have recently emerged as low-cost,earth-abundant,renewable and sustainable environment-friendly materials for bifunctional oxygen catalysts.The tunable morphology,mesoporous structure and high concentration of catalytic active sites of these materials due to heteroatom(N)-doping could further enhance their ORR and OER activity,along with tolerance to methanol crossover and good durability.Thus,biomassderived heteroatom-doped porous carbons with large surface area,rich edge defects,numerous micropores and thin 2 D nanoarchitecture could be suitable as efficient bifunctional oxygen catalysts.In the present article,synthesis,N-doping,ORR/OER mechanism and electrocatalytic performance of biomassderived bifunctional catalysts has been discussed.The selected biomass(chitin,eggs,euonymus japonicas,tobacco,lysine and plant residue)except wood,act as both C and N precursor,resulting in N selfdoping of porous carbons that avoids the use of toxic chemicals,thus making the synthesis a facile and environment-friendly green process.The synthetic strategy could be further optimized to develop future biomass-based N self-doped porous carbons as metal-free high performance bifunctional oxygen catalysts for commercial energy applications.Recent advances and the importance of biomass-based bifunctional oxygen catalysts in metal-air batteries and fuel cells has been highlighted.The material design,perspectives and future directions in this field are also provided.

Enhanced dielectric and optical properties of nanoscale barium hexaferrites for optoelectronics and high frequency application

M-type barium hexaferrites with chemical composition Ba1-xDyxFe12-yCryO19(x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, and y =0.0, 0.4, 0.5) were synthesized via sol–gel auto-combustion method. The samples were pre-sintered at 400℃ for 3 h and sintered at 950℃ for 5 h. The changes in the structural, dielectric, and optical properties were studied after the substitution of Dy3+and Cr3+ions. X-ray diffraction(XRD) analysis confirms the formation of single phase hexaferrites with the absence of secondary phase. FTIR analysis gives an idea of the formation of hexaferrites with the appearance of two peaks at 438 cm-1and 589 cm-1. The field emission scanning electron micrographs(FESEM) show a combination of crystallites with large shapes close to hexagonal platelet-like shape and others with rice or rod-like shapes, whereas EDX and elemental analysis confirm the stoichiometry of prepared samples. The calculated band gap from UV-vis NIR spectroscopy spectra was found to decreases with increase in Dy3+–Cr3+substitution. The dielectric properties were explained on the basis of Maxwell–Wagner model. Enhancement of dielectric constant at higher frequencies was observed in all the samples. Low dielectric loss is also observed in all the samples and Cole–Cole plot shows that grain boundary resistance(Rgb) contribute most to the dielectric properties. The prepared samples exhibit properties that could be useful for optoelectronics and high frequency application.

Improved Enhanced Chain Based Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, we have proposed an energy efficient chain based protocol which is an improvement over ECBSN (Energy Efficient Chain Based Sensor Network). ECBSN protocol has certain deficiencies like the non optimal selection of leader nodes in rounds, aggregation and transmission of data by head nodes that leads to unbalanced energy consumption. Aiming at these problems, an improved chain based protocol is proposed. IECBSN adopts a new method of selection of leader nodes based on selection value (SV) parameter .To lower energy consumption further, one more level of hierarchy has been added with a head leader node, which will aggregate data from the leader nodes and pass it to the base station. IECBSN shows an improvement of 20% - 35% as compare to PEGASIS (Power Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information System) and 5% t to 7% from ECBSN on energy consumption and improves network lifetime.

A Middleware for Polyglot Persistence and Data Portability of Big Data PaaS Cloud Applications

Vendor lock-in can occur at any layer of the cloud stack-Infrastructure,Platform,and Software-as-a-service.This paper covers the vendor lock-in issue at Platform as a Service(PaaS)level where applications can be created,deployed,and managed without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.These applications and their persisted data on one PaaS provider are not easy to port to another provider.To overcome this issue,we propose a middleware to abstract and make the database services as cloud-agnostic.The middleware supports several SQL and NoSQL data stores that can be hosted and ported among disparate PaaS providers.It facilitates the developers with data portability and data migration among relational and NoSQL-based cloud databases.NoSQL databases are fundamental to endure Big Data applications as they support the handling of an enormous volume of highly variable data while assuring fault tolerance,availability,and scalability.The implementation of the middleware depicts that using it alleviates the efforts of rewriting the application code while changing the backend database system.A working protocol of a migration tool has been developed using this middleware to facilitate the migration of the database(move existing data from a database on one cloud to a new database even on a different cloud).Although the middleware adds some overhead compared to the native code for the cloud services being used,the experimental evaluation on Twitter(a Big Data application)data set,proves this overhead is negligible.

GENERALIZATIONS OF KY FAN’S THEOREM ON BEST APPROXIMATIONS

In 1969, Ky Fan^[3] proved that for any continuous function f from a compact convex subset M of a normed linear space X into X, there exists x E M such that ｜｜f（x） - x｜｜ = dist（f（x）,M）. Since then, there have appeared several generalizations, extensions and applications of this result. This paper also deals with some extensions and generalizations of this result when the underlying spaces are convex metric spaces.

COMMON FIXED POINTS WITH APPLICATIONS TO BEST SIMULTANEOUS APPROXIMATIONS

For a subset K of a metric space （X,d） and x ∈ X,Px（x）={y ∈ K ： d（x,y） = d（x,K）≡ inf{d（x,k） ： k ∈ K}}is called the set of best K-approximant to x. An element go E K is said to be a best simulta- neous approximation of the pair y1,y2 E ∈ if max{d（y1,go）,d（y2,go）}=inf g∈K max {d（y1,g）,d（y2,g）}.In this paper, some results on the existence of common fixed points for Banach operator pairs in the framework of convex metric spaces have been proved. For self mappings T and S on K, results are proved on both T- and S- invariant points for a set of best simultaneous approximation. Some results on best K-approximant are also deduced. The results proved generalize and extend some results of I. Beg and M. Abbas^[1], S. Chandok and T.D. Narang^[2], T.D. Narang and S. Chandok^[11], S.A. Sahab, M.S. Khan and S. Sessa^[14], P. Vijayaraju^[20] and P. Vijayaraju and M. Marudai^[21].

IN VITRO CYTOGENETIC EFFECTS OF AGRIZIM AND BAYLETON ON HUMAN LYMPHOCYTES IN THE PRESENCE AND ABSENCE OF METABOLIC ACTIVATION

Agrizim and bayleton,two commonly usedagricultural fungicides in India,wereinvestigated for their genotoxicpotentialities on cultured humanlymphocytes by studying chromosomalaberrations and sister chromatid exchangesin the presence and absence of

IN VITRO AND IN VIVO GENOTOXICITY EVALUATION OF PREDNISOLONE,A SYNTHETIC GLUCOCORTICOID

Prednisolone,a derivative of hydrocorti-sone with effective glucocorticoidal and alittle mineralocorticoidal activity hasbeen studied in detail for its genotoxicpotentialities using various in vitro andin vivo assays.The drug was unable toinduce gene mutations in S.

Study of obliquely propagating electron acoustic shock waves with non-extensive electron population

Obliquely propagating electron acoustic shock waves in magnetized plasma composed of stationary ions, cold and non-extensive hot electrons are investigated by deriving Korteweg–de Vries Burgers(KdVB) equation. The tangent hyperbolic method is used to solve the KdVB equation in dissipative medium. The dissipation effect is introduced in the model by means of kinematic viscosity term. The analytical calculations of the KdVB equation shows that the structures(amplitude, velocity and width) of the shock waves are modified significantly with kinematic viscosity(η_0), obliqueness(k_z) and magnetic field(ω_c). Since plasmas are ubiquitously permeated with magnetic field, it is pertinent to explore the characteristics of KdVB equation in a magnetized plasmas.

SOME RESULTS ON BEST APPROXIMATION IN SPACES WITH CONVEX STRUCTURE

Some generalizations of the result proved by S.P. Singh [J. Approx. Theory 25（1979）, 89-90] are presented in convex metric spaces. The results proved contain several known results on the subject.

Monitoring of TDS and conductivity in groundwater in the seismically active region in NW Himalayas,India

The earthquake precursors and earthquake prediction are the burning issue among the community of earth scientists and engineers. Studies of earthquake precursory phenomena since the last several decades have shown that significant geophysical and geochemical changes may occur prior to intermediate and large earthquakes （Hartmann and Levy, 2005; Yang et al, 2005; Einarsson et al, 2008; Italiano et al, 2008; Kumar et al, 2009）. Among the more intensely investigated geochemical phenomena there have been changes in the concentrations of dissolved ions and gases in groundwater as well as variations in the concentrations of crustal and mantle volatiles in ground gases.

Nonplanar dust acoustic solitary and rogue waves in an ion beam plasma with superthermal electrons and ions

The propagation characteristics of dust acoustic solitary and rogue waves are investigated in an unmagnetized ion beam plasma with electrons and ions following kappa-type distribution in nonplanar geometry. The reductive perturbation method （RPM） is employed to derive the cylindrical/spherical Korteweg-de Vries （KdV） equation, which is further transformed into standard KdV equation by neglecting the geometrical effects. Using new stretching coordinates, nonlinear Schrrdinger equation （NLSE） has been derived from the standard KdV equation to study the different order rational solutions of dust acoustic rogue waves （DARWs）. The impact of various physical parameters on the characteristics of dust acoustic solitary waves （DASWs） is elaborated specifically in nonplanar geometry. Further, the effects of ion beam and superthermality of electrons/ions on the characteristics of DARWs are studied. The results obtained in the present investigation may be useful in comprehending a variety of phenomena in Earth＇s magnetosphere polar cap region where the presence of positive ion beam has been detected and also in other regions of space/astrophysical environments where dust along with superthermal electrons and ions exists.