Patients must always communicate with their doctor for checking their health status. In recent years, wireless body sensor networks (WBSNs) has an important contribution in Healthcare. In these ...applications, energy-efficient and secure routing is really critical because health data of individuals must be forwarded to the destination securely to avoid unauthorized access by malicious nodes. However, biosensors have limited resources, especially energy. Recently, energy-efficient solutions have been proposed. Nevertheless, designing lightweight security mechanisms has not been stated in many schemes. In this paper, we propose a secure routing approach based on the league championship algorithm (LCA) for wireless body sensor networks in healthcare. The purpose of this scheme is to create a tradeoff between energy consumption and security. Our approach involves two important algorithms: routing process and communication security. In the first algorithm, each cluster head node (CH) applies the league championship algorithm to choose the most suitable next-hop CH. The proposed fitness function includes parameters like distance from CHs to the sink node, remaining energy, and link quality. In the second algorithm, we employs a symmetric encryption strategy to build secure connection links within a cluster. Also, we utilize an asymmetric cryptography scheme for forming secure inter-cluster connections. Network simulator version 2 (NS2) is used to implement the proposed approach. The simulation results show that our method is efficient in terms of consumed energy and delay. In addition, our scheme has good throughput, high packet delivery rate, and low packet loss rate.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Skin cancer has a significant impact on the lives of many individuals annually and is recognized as the most prevalent type of cancer. In the United States, an estimated annual incidence of ...approximately 3.5 million people receiving a diagnosis of skin cancer underscores its widespread prevalence. Furthermore, the prognosis for individuals afflicted with advancing stages of skin cancer experiences a substantial decline in survival rates. This paper is dedicated to aiding healthcare experts in distinguishing between benign and malignant skin cancer cases by employing a range of machine learning and deep learning techniques and different feature extractors and feature selectors to enhance the evaluation metrics. In this paper, different transfer learning models are employed as feature extractors, and to enhance the evaluation metrics, a feature selection layer is designed, which includes diverse techniques such as Univariate, Mutual Information, ANOVA, PCA, XGB, Lasso, Random Forest, and Variance. Among transfer models, DenseNet-201 was selected as the primary feature extractor to identify features from data. Subsequently, the Lasso method was applied for feature selection, utilizing diverse machine learning approaches such as MLP, XGB, RF, and NB. To optimize accuracy and precision, ensemble methods were employed to identify and enhance the best-performing models. The study provides accuracy and sensitivity rates of 87.72% and 92.15%, respectively.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Basophils, eosinophils and monocytes may be involved in BCG-induced immune responses and be associated with outcomes of bladder cancer patients receiving intravesical BCG. Our objective ...was to explore the association of baseline counts of basophils, eosinophils and monocytes with outcomes of patients with high-grade T1 bladder cancer receiving a standard course of intravesical BCG.
Methods
We retrospectively reviewed medical records of patients with primary T1 HG/G3 bladder cancer. After re-TURBT, patients were treated with a 6-week course of intravesical BCG induction followed by intravesical BCG every week for 3 weeks given at 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months from initiation of therapy The analysis of potential risk factors for recurrence, muscle invasion and cancer-specific and overall survival was performed using univariable Cox regression models. Those factors that presented, at univariate analysis, an association with the event at a liberal
p
< 0.1, have been selected for the development of a multivariable model.
Results
A total of 1045 patients with primary T1 HG/G3 were included. A total of 678 (64.9%) recurrences, 303 (29.0%) progressions and 150 (14.3%) deaths were observed during follow-up. Multivariate analysis showed that logarithmic transformation of basophils count was associated with a 30% increment in the hazard of recurrence per unit increase of logarithmic basophils count (HR 1.30; 95% confidence interval 1.09–1.54;
p
= 0.0026). Basophil count modeled by quartiles was also significantly associated with time to recurrence second vs. lower quartile HR 1.42 (1.12–1.79);
p
= 0.003, third vs. lower quartile HR 1.26 (1.01–1.57);
p
= 0.041; upper vs. lower quartile HR 1.36 (1.1–1.68);
p
= 0.005. The limitations of a retrospective study are applicable.
Conclusion
Baseline basophil count may predict recurrence in BCG-treated HG/G3 T1 bladder cancer patients. External validation is warranted.
Body integrated wearable electronics can be used for advanced health monitoring, security, and wellness. Due to the complex, asymmetric surface of human body and atypical motion such as stretching in ...elbow, finger joints, wrist, knee, ankle, etc. electronics integrated to body need to be physically flexible, conforming, and stretchable. In that context, state‐of‐the‐art electronics are unusable due to their bulky, rigid, and brittle framework. Therefore, it is critical to develop stretchable electronics which can physically stretch to absorb the strain associated with body movements. While research in stretchable electronics has started to gain momentum, a stretchable antenna which can perform far‐field communications and can operate at constant frequency, such that physical shape modulation will not compromise its functionality, is yet to be realized. Here, a stretchable antenna is shown, using a low‐cost metal (copper) on flexible polymeric platform, which functions at constant frequency of 2.45 GHz, for far‐field applications. While mounted on a stretchable fabric worn by a human subject, the fabricated antenna communicated at a distance of 80 m with 1.25 mW transmitted power. This work shows an integration strategy from compact antenna design to its practical experimentation for enhanced data communication capability in future generation wearable electronics.
A flexible and stretchable antenna, enabled by out‐of‐plane stretching and fabricated using a low‐cost metal (copper), demonstrates constant frequency operation for far‐field communication—up to 80 m on a human arm at 1.25 mW transmission power.
One of the biggest problems with Internet of Things (IoT) applications in the real world is ensuring data integrity. This problem becomes increasingly significant as IoT expands quickly across a ...variety of industries. This study presents a brand-new data integrity methodology for Internet of Things applications. The "sequence sharing" and "data exchange" stages of the suggested protocol are divided into two parts. During the first phase, each pair of nodes uses a new chaotic model for securely exchanging their identity information to generate a common sequence. This phase's objectives include user authentication and timing calculations for the second phase of the recommended method's packet validation phase. The recommended approach was tested in numerous settings, and various analyses were taken into account to guarantee its effectiveness. Also, the results were compared with the conventional data integrity control protocol of IoT. According to the results, the proposed method is an efficient and cost-effective integrity-ensuring mechanism with eliminates the need for third-party auditors and leads to reducing energy consumption and packet overhead. The results also show that the suggested approach is safe against a variety of threats and may be used as a successful integrity control mechanism in practical applications.
Winglets can reduce effect of wingtip vortices on the wind turbine performance can be reduced by diffusing the vortices from the blade tips. Unlike non-rotating wings, winglets have not been widely ...investigated for moving blades of wind turbines, while there is a potential they could enable the wind turbine rotor to capture more kinetic energy from wind. There have been a number of studies on the effect of winglet parameters and configurations on the wind turbine performance, however a combined effect of winglet planform and airfoil has not been investigated in details. The present work reports on the study of the effect of winglet planform and winglet airfoil on the wind turbine performance using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) phase VI rotor with 10 m diameter was used as the baseline and the CFD results were validated with the available experimental data on the output power and pressure coefficients. Different designs of winglet with different heights, cant angles, planforms and airfoils have been numerically tested and optimised. The best improvement in the performance is achieved when a 15 cm rectangular winglet with the S809 airfoil and 45° cant angle is used.
•Effect of winglet planform and airfoil on wind turbine performance are studied.•An optimum winglet design has been found for the wind turbine blade in this paper.•The output power of wind turbine is increased using the optimum winglet design.•Extended blade can increase the thrust force.
Systems that exhibit phase competition, order parameter coexistence, and emergent order parameter topologies constitute a major part of modern condensed-matter physics. Here, by applying a range of ...characterization techniques, and simulations, we observe that in PbTiO
/SrTiO
superlattices all of these effects can be found. By exploring superlattice period-, temperature- and field-dependent evolution of these structures, we observe several new features. First, it is possible to engineer phase coexistence mediated by a first-order phase transition between an emergent, low-temperature vortex phase with electric toroidal order and a high-temperature ferroelectric a
/a
phase. At room temperature, the coexisting vortex and ferroelectric phases form a mesoscale, fibre-textured hierarchical superstructure. The vortex phase possesses an axial polarization, set by the net polarization of the surrounding ferroelectric domains, such that it possesses a multi-order-parameter state and belongs to a class of gyrotropic electrotoroidal compounds. Finally, application of electric fields to this mixed-phase system permits interconversion between the vortex and the ferroelectric phases concomitant with order-of-magnitude changes in piezoelectric and nonlinear optical responses. Our findings suggest new cross-coupled functionalities.
This article presents novel designs of reconfigurable microwave filters based on the recently introduced concept of field programmable microwave substrate (FPMS). Using reconfigurable FPMS substrate, ...significant tuning freedom of the designed microwave filters can be achieved. It allows implementation of smart filter designs with tunable center frequencies, operational bandwidths, and filter orders. Moreover, different microwave filter types are also realizable on one FPMS board with simple dynamic control. As a proof-of-concept, design steps are described for three filter types, including waveguide bandpass filter, quarter-wave-coupled bandpass filter, and waveguide bandstop filter. A good match between the simulated and measured results is presented, showing good tuning range for the center frequency and bandwidth of the bandpass filters around 2 GHz. In addition, the reconfigurability of the design allows it to switch to bandstop filters, which is a complete change in topology from a single physical design. The merits of the proposed design are reflected in the realized bandpass filter, exhibiting center frequency tuning of more than 20% along with bandwidth variability spanning three times its minimum value. Finally, a significant size reduction compared with the designs using conventional technologies is also demonstrated. With its inherent flexibility, low cost, and high degree of integration, FPMS filtering is suited to a wide variety of RF applications.
Virtual surgical planning and computer-aided design and computer-aided modeling are promising technologies with a growing trend in contemporary head and neck reconstruction. Segmental mandibular ...reconstruction with the osteoseptocutaneous fibula flap is one of the fields in which these technologies are increasingly used. Perceived benefits are increased surgical precision, improved operative efficiency, and overall good outcomes. Nevertheless, these programs do not cover the reconstruction picture of interest thoroughly, at least in the mind of the experienced surgeon. Based on extensive experience in segmental mandibular reconstruction and comprehensive literature review, the authors attempted to identify missing dots in computer-aided mandibular reconstruction; when possible, a problem-solution approach was taken. Of these dots, pedicle reach to the recipient vessels, multiple target soft-tissue reconstruction, anatomical variations and cross-section topography of the osteoseptocutaneous fibula flap, and intraoperative modification of the surgical plan were understated or not considered in the phases of virtual surgical planning and execution. Moreover, with the relatively small experience reported in computer-aided segmental mandibular reconstruction compared with the well-appreciated challenges, further discussion of what could be a realistic and safe indication was deemed necessary. Following in the footsteps of the iPhone developer of creating software satisfying to customers (i.e., surgeons) first and armed with the evidence from the literature and accumulation of experience, this Special Topic article aims to provoke a discussion among experts in this field to instigate ideological and technological reforms in computer-aided mandibular reconstruction.
Hyperspectral band selection is one of the efficacious ways to diminish the size of hyperspectral images. The process of selecting a few useful bands will be successful when two fundamental aspects ...are considered: information abundance and redundancy among the chosen bands. However, selecting the suitable number of bands in an ill-posed classification problem remains challenging. Overcoming this issue, a novel unsupervised multi-objective multi-verse optimizer-based band selection (MOMVOBS) approach is proposed. It explores optimal trade-offs among the different traits of the objective functions namely information richness, less redundancy and the number of bands to be selected. These three objective functions are optimized simultaneously using a multiverse optimizer (MVO) to obtain the best solutions. To evaluate the quality of selected bands, two widely used supervised classifiers are used, such as support vector machine (SVM) and K-nearest neighbour (KNN). Experimental results evidence for the superiority of the proposed approach over the recent multi-objective optimization-based band selection approaches by selecting the highly informative distinct bands that have better classification performance on four benchmark hyperspectral data sets. The proposed MOMVOBS have obtained 79.50% and 71.35% of overall accuracy for SVM and KNN classifier, respectively, in Indian Pines dataset with 10% of band retention, 93.06% and 88.88% of overall accuracy for SVM and KNN classifier, respectively, in Salinas dataset with 10% of band retention, 92.86% and 85.35% of overall accuracy for SVM and KNN classifier, respectively, in Pavia University dataset with 15% band retention, and 92.42% and 85.33% of overall accuracy for SVM and KNN classifier, respectively, in Botswana dataset with 11% band retention. The achievement of higher accuracy at less than 15% bands is significant.
PDF
