Microalbuminuria in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a global pandemic with cases reporting from virtually every country and continues to be a common infection in developing country like India. Microalbuminuria is a manifestation of human immunodeficiency virus associated nephropathy. Therefore, microalbuminuria may be an early marker of human immunodeficiency virus associated nephropathy, and screening for its presence may be beneficial. A strikingly high prevalence of microalbuminuria among human immunodeficiency virus infected patients has been described in various studies. Risk factors for clinically significant proteinuria include African - American race, higher human immunodeficiency virus ribonucleic acid level and lower CD4 lymphocyte count. The cardiovascular risk factors of increased systolic blood pressure and increase fasting blood sugar level are strongly associated with microalbuminuria in human immunodeficiency virus patient. These results suggest that microalbuminuria may be a sign of current endothelial dysfunction and micro-vascular disease and there is substantial risk of future cardiovascular disease events. Positive contributing factors include early kidney disease such as human immunodeficiency virus associated nephropathy, a marker of end organ damage related to co morbidities of diabetes or hypertension, or more diffuse endothelial cells dysfunction. Nevertheless after adjustment for non human immunodeficiency virus factors, human immunodeficiency virus itself is a major risk factor. The presence of human immunodeficiency virus infection is independent risk to develop microalbuminuria in human immunodeficiency virus patient. Cardiovascular risk factors appeared to be stronger predictors of microalbuminuria than markers of human immunodeficiency virus severity person with human immunodeficiency virus infection and microalbuminuria therefore appear to potentially bear the burden of two separate damage related to known vascular end organ damage related to know vascular risk factors, and human immunodeficiency virus specific processes such as the direct viral infection of kidney cells.The higher prevalence of microalbuminuria among the human immunodeficiency virus infected could be harbinger of future increased risks of both kidney and cardiovascular disease. Further study defining the prognostic significance of microalbuminuria among human immunodeficiency virus infected persons will be essential. Microalbuminuria seems to be a predictor of cardiovascular disease in diabetic and non diabetic subjects, hence it can also be used for early detection of micro vascular disease in human immunodeficiency virus positive patients, thus can help to diagnose the disease at the earliest.

Dynamic-Stochastic Influence Diagrams: Integrating Time-Slices IDs and Discrete Event Systems Modeling

The Influence Diagrams (IDs) is a kind of Probabilistic Belief Networks for graphic modeling. The usage of IDs can improve the communication among field experts, modelers, and decision makers, by showing the issue frame discussed from a high-level point of view. This paper enhances the Time-Sliced Influence Diagrams (TSIDs, or called Dynamic IDs) based formalism from a Discrete Event Systems Modeling and Simulation (DES M&S) perspective, for Exploring Analysis (EA) modeling. The enhancements enable a modeler to specify times occurred of endogenous events dynamically with stochastic sampling as model running and to describe the inter- influences among them with variable nodes in a dynamic situation that the existing TSIDs fails to capture. The new class of model is named Dynamic-Stochastic Influence Diagrams (DSIDs). The paper includes a description of the modeling formalism and the hiberarchy simulators implementing its simulation algorithm, and shows a case study to illustrate its enhancements.

High Performance in Parallel Data Integration: An Empirical Evaluation of the Ratio Between Processing Time and Number of Physical Nodes

Many studies have shown that parallelization decreases efficiency [1], [2]. There are many reasons for these decrements. This paper investigates those which appear in the context of parallel data integration. Integration processes generally cannot be allocated to packages of identical size (i. e. tasks of identical complexity). The reason for this is unknown heterogeneous input data which result in variable task lengths. Process delay is defined by the slowest processing node. It leads to a detrimental effect on the total processing time. With a real world example, this study will show that while process delay does initially increase with the introduction of more nodes it ultimately decreases again after a certain point. The example will make use of the cloud computing platform Hadoop and be run inside Amazon-s EC2 compute cloud. A stochastic model will be set up which can explain this effect.

A Fast Sensor Relocation Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Networks

Sensor relocation is to repair coverage holes caused by node failures. One way to repair coverage holes is to find redundant nodes to replace faulty nodes. Most researches took a long time to find redundant nodes since they randomly scattered redundant nodes around the sensing field. To record the precise position of sensor nodes, most researches assumed that GPS was installed in sensor nodes. However, high costs and power-consumptions of GPS are heavy burdens for sensor nodes. Thus, we propose a fast sensor relocation algorithm to arrange redundant nodes to form redundant walls without GPS. Redundant walls are constructed in the position where the average distance to each sensor node is the shortest. Redundant walls can guide sensor nodes to find redundant nodes in the minimum time. Simulation results show that our algorithm can find the proper redundant node in the minimum time and reduce the relocation time with low message complexity.

Investigating Intrusion Detection Systems in MANET and Comparing IDSs for Detecting Misbehaving Nodes

As mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) have different characteristics from wired networks and even from standard wireless networks, there are new challenges related to security issues that need to be addressed. Due to its unique features such as open nature, lack of infrastructure and central management, node mobility and change of dynamic topology, prevention methods from attacks on them are not enough. Therefore intrusion detection is one of the possible ways in recognizing a possible attack before the system could be penetrated. All in all, techniques for intrusion detection in old wireless networks are not suitable for MANET. In this paper, we classify the architecture for Intrusion detection systems that have so far been introduced for MANETs, and then existing intrusion detection techniques in MANET presented and compared. We then indicate important future research directions.

An Energy-Efficient Distributed Unequal Clustering Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

The wireless sensor networks have been extensively deployed and researched. One of the major issues in wireless sensor networks is a developing energy-efficient clustering protocol. Clustering algorithm provides an effective way to prolong the lifetime of a wireless sensor networks. In the paper, we compare several clustering protocols which significantly affect a balancing of energy consumption. And we propose an Energy-Efficient Distributed Unequal Clustering (EEDUC) algorithm which provides a new way of creating distributed clusters. In EEDUC, each sensor node sets the waiting time. This waiting time is considered as a function of residual energy, number of neighborhood nodes. EEDUC uses waiting time to distribute cluster heads. We also propose an unequal clustering mechanism to solve the hot-spot problem. Simulation results show that EEDUC distributes the cluster heads, balances the energy consumption well among the cluster heads and increases the network lifetime.

Dynamic Analysis of Porous Media Using Finite Element Method

The mechanical behavior of porous media is governed by the interaction between its solid skeleton and the fluid existing inside its pores. The interaction occurs through the interface of gains and fluid. The traditional analysis methods of porous media, based on the effective stress and Darcy's law, are unable to account for these interactions. For an accurate analysis, the porous media is represented in a fluid-filled porous solid on the basis of the Biot theory of wave propagation in poroelastic media. In Biot formulation, the equations of motion of the soil mixture are coupled with the global mass balance equations to describe the realistic behavior of porous media. Because of irregular geometry, the domain is generally treated as an assemblage of fmite elements. In this investigation, the numerical formulation for the field equations governing the dynamic response of fluid-saturated porous media is analyzed and employed for the study of transient wave motion. A finite element model is developed and implemented into a computer code called DYNAPM for dynamic analysis of porous media. The weighted residual method with 8-node elements is used for developing of a finite element model and the analysis is carried out in the time domain considering the dynamic excitation and gravity loading. Newmark time integration scheme is developed to solve the time-discretized equations which are an unconditionally stable implicit method Finally, some numerical examples are presented to show the accuracy and capability of developed model for a wide variety of behaviors of porous media.

Mapping of C* Elements in Finite Element Method using Transformation Matrix

Mapping between local and global coordinates is an important issue in finite element method, as all calculations are performed in local coordinates. The concern arises when subparametric are used, in which the shape functions of the field variable and the geometry of the element are not the same. This is particularly the case for C* elements in which the extra degrees of freedoms added to the nodes make the elements sub-parametric. In the present work, transformation matrix for C1* (an 8-noded hexahedron element with 12 degrees of freedom at each node) is obtained using equivalent C0 elements (with the same number of degrees of freedom). The convergence rate of 8-noded C1* element is nearly equal to its equivalent C0 element, while it consumes less CPU time with respect to the C0 element. The existence of derivative degrees of freedom at the nodes of C1* element along with excellent convergence makes it superior compared with it equivalent C0 element.

Adaptive Hierarchical Key Structure Generation for Key Management in Wireless Sensor Networks using A*

Wireless Sensor networks have a wide spectrum of civil and military applications that call for secure communication such as the terrorist tracking, target surveillance in hostile environments. For the secure communication in these application areas, we propose a method for generating a hierarchical key structure for the efficient group key management. In this paper, we apply A* algorithm in generating a hierarchical key structure by considering the history data of the ratio of addition and eviction of sensor nodes in a location where sensor nodes are deployed. Thus generated key tree structure provides an efficient way of managing the group key in terms of energy consumption when addition and eviction event occurs. A* algorithm tries to minimize the number of messages needed for group key management by the history data. The experimentation with the tree shows efficiency of the proposed method.

Implementation of a New Neural Network Function Block to Programmable Logic Controllers Library Function

Programmable logic controllers are the main controllers in the today's industries; they are used for several applications in industrial control systems and there are lots of examples exist from the PLC applications in industries especially in big companies and plants such as refineries, power plants, petrochemical companies, steel companies, and food and production companies. In the PLCs there are some functions in the function library in software that can be used in PLC programs as basic program elements. The aim of this project are introducing and implementing a new function block of a neural network to the function library of PLC. This block can be applied for some control applications or nonlinear functions calculations after it has been trained for these applications. The implemented neural network is a Perceptron neural network with three layers, three input nodes and one output node. The block can be used in manual or automatic mode. In this paper the structure of the implemented function block, the parameters and the training method of the network are presented by considering the especial method of PLC programming and its complexities. Finally the application of the new block is compared with a classic simulated block and the results are presented.

Titania and Cu-Titania Composite Layer on Graphite Substrate as Negative Electrode for Li-Ion Battery

This research study the application of the immobilized TiO2 layer and Cu-TiO2 layer on graphite substrate as a negative electrode or anode for Li-ion battery. The titania layer was produced through chemical bath deposition method, meanwhile Cu particles were deposited electrochemically. A material can be used as an electrode as it has capability to intercalates Li ions into its crystal structure. The Li intercalation into TiO2/Graphite and Cu- TiO2/Graphite were analyzed from the changes of its XRD pattern after it was used as electrode during discharging process. The XRD patterns were refined by Le Bail method in order to determine the crystal structure of the prepared materials. A specific capacity and the cycle ability measurement were carried out to study the performance of the prepared materials as negative electrode of the Li-ion battery. The specific capacity was measured during discharging process from fully charged until the cut off voltage. A 300 was used as a load. The result shows that the specific capacity of Li-ion battery with TiO2/Graphite as negative electrode is 230.87 ± 1.70mAh.g-1 which is higher than the specific capacity of Li-ion battery with pure graphite as negative electrode, i.e 140.75 ±0.46mAh.g-1. Meanwhile deposition of Cu onto TiO2 layer does not increase the specific capacity, and the value even lower than the battery with TiO2/Graphite as electrode. The cycle ability of the prepared battery is only two cycles, due to the Li ribbon which was used as cathode became fragile and easily broken.

Bottom Up Text Mining through Hierarchical Document Representation

Most of the existing text mining approaches are proposed, keeping in mind, transaction databases model. Thus, the mined dataset is structured using just one concept: the “transaction", whereas the whole dataset is modeled using the “set" abstract type. In such cases, the structure of the whole dataset and the relationships among the transactions themselves are not modeled and consequently, not considered in the mining process. We believe that taking into account structure properties of hierarchically structured information (e.g. textual document, etc ...) in the mining process, can leads to best results. For this purpose, an hierarchical associations rule mining approach for textual documents is proposed in this paper and the classical set-oriented mining approach is reconsidered profits to a Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) oriented approach. Natural languages processing techniques are used in order to obtain the DAG structure. Based on this graph model, an hierarchical bottom up algorithm is proposed. The main idea is that each node is mined with its parent node.

An Optimization of Orbital Transfer for Spacecrafts with Finite-thrust Based on Legendre Pseudospectral Method

This paper presents the use of Legendre pseudospectral method for the optimization of finite-thrust orbital transfer for spacecrafts. In order to get an accurate solution, the System-s dynamics equations were normalized through a dimensionless method. The Legendre pseudospectral method is based on interpolating functions on Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto (LGL) quadrature nodes. This is used to transform the optimal control problem into a constrained parameter optimization problem. The developed novel optimization algorithm can be used to solve similar optimization problems of spacecraft finite-thrust orbital transfer. The results of a numerical simulation verified the validity of the proposed optimization method. The simulation results reveal that pseudospectral optimization method is a promising method for real-time trajectory optimization and provides good accuracy and fast convergence.

Distributed Frequency Synchronization for Global Synchronization in Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper, our focus is to assure a global frequency synchronization in OFDMA-based wireless mesh networks with local information. To acquire the global synchronization in distributed manner, we propose a novel distributed frequency synchronization (DFS) method. DFS is a method that carrier frequencies of distributed nodes converge to a common value by repetitive estimation and averaging step and sharing step. Experimental results show that DFS achieves noteworthy better synchronization success probability than existing schemes in OFDMA-based mesh networks where the estimation error is presented.

2D Numerical Analysis of Sao Paulo Tunnel

Nonlinear finite element method and Serendipity eight nodes element are used for determining of ground surface settlement due to tunneling. Linear element with elastic behavior is used for modeling of lining. Modified Generalized plasticity model with nonassociated flow rule is applied for analysis of a tunnel in Sao Paulo – Brazil. The tunnel had analyzed by Lades- model with 16 parameters. In this work modified Generalized Plasticity is used with 10 parameters, also Mohr-Coulomb model is used to analysis the tunnel. The results show good agreement with observed results of field data by modified Generalized Plasticity model than other models. The obtained result by Mohr-Coulomb model shows less settlement than other model due to excavation.

A 10 Giga VPN Accelerator Board for Trust Channel Security System

This paper proposes a VPN Accelerator Board (VPN-AB), a virtual private network (VPN) protocol designed for trust channel security system (TCSS). TCSS supports safety communication channel between security nodes in internet. It furnishes authentication, confidentiality, integrity, and access control to security node to transmit data packets with IPsec protocol. TCSS consists of internet key exchange block, security association block, and IPsec engine block. The internet key exchange block negotiates crypto algorithm and key used in IPsec engine block. Security Association blocks setting-up and manages security association information. IPsec engine block treats IPsec packets and consists of networking functions for communication. The IPsec engine block should be embodied by H/W and in-line mode transaction for high speed IPsec processing. Our VPN-AB is implemented with high speed security processor that supports many cryptographic algorithms and in-line mode. We evaluate a small TCSS communication environment, and measure a performance of VPN-AB in the environment. The experiment results show that VPN-AB gets a performance throughput of maximum 15.645Gbps when we set the IPsec protocol with 3DES-HMAC-MD5 tunnel mode.

Binary Decision Diagrams: An Improved Variable Ordering using Graph Representation of Boolean Functions

This paper presents an improved variable ordering method to obtain the minimum number of nodes in Reduced Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (ROBDD). The proposed method uses the graph topology to find the best variable ordering. Therefore the input Boolean function is converted to a unidirectional graph. Three levels of graph parameters are used to increase the probability of having a good variable ordering. The initial level uses the total number of nodes (NN) in all the paths, the total number of paths (NP) and the maximum number of nodes among all paths (MNNAP). The second and third levels use two extra parameters: The shortest path among two variables (SP) and the sum of shortest path from one variable to all the other variables (SSP). A permutation of the graph parameters is performed at each level for each variable order and the number of nodes is recorded. Experimental results are promising; the proposed method is found to be more effective in finding the variable ordering for the majority of benchmark circuits.

Comprehensive Studies on Mechanical Stress Analysis of Functionally Graded Plates

Stress analysis of functionally graded composite plates composed of ceramic, functionally graded material and metal layers is investigated using 3-D finite element method. In FGM layer, material properties are assumed to be varied continuously in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fraction of a ceramic and metal. The 3-D finite element model is adopted by using an 18-node solid element to analyze more accurately the variation of material properties in the thickness direction. Numerical results are compared for three types of materials. In the analysis, the tensile and the compressive stresses are summarized for various FGM thickness ratios, volume fraction distributions, geometric parameters and mechanical loads.

Queen-bee Algorithm for Energy Efficient Clusters in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks include small nodes which have sensing ability; calculation and connection extend themselves everywhere soon. Such networks have source limitation on connection, calculation and energy consumption. So, since the nodes have limited energy in sensor networks, the optimized energy consumption in these networks is of more importance and has created many challenges. The previous works have shown that by organizing the network nodes in a number of clusters, the energy consumption could be reduced considerably. So the lifetime of the network would be increased. In this paper, we used the Queen-bee algorithm to create energy efficient clusters in wireless sensor networks. The Queen-bee (QB) is similar to nature in that the queen-bee plays a major role in reproduction process. The QB is simulated with J-sim simulator. The results of the simulation showed that the clustering by the QB algorithm decreases the energy consumption with regard to the other existing algorithms and increases the lifetime of the network.

Analysis of Current Mirror in 32nm MOSFET and CNTFET Technologies

There is need to explore emerging technologies based on carbon nanotube electronics as the MOS technology is approaching its limits. As MOS devices scale to the nano ranges, increased short channel effects and process variations considerably effect device and circuit designs. As a promising new transistor, the Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor(CNTFET) avoids most of the fundamental limitations of the Traditional MOSFET devices. In this paper we present the analysis and comparision of a Carbon Nanotube FET(CNTFET) based 10(A current mirror with MOSFET for 32nm technology node. The comparision shows the superiority of the former in terms of 97% increase in output resistance,24% decrease in power dissipation and 40% decrease in minimum voltage required for constant saturation current. Furthermore the effect on performance of current mirror due to change in chirality vector of CNT has also been investigated. The circuit simulations are carried out using HSPICE model.