Delivery Success Rate Research Articles

Study on routing protocol based on traffic density in VANET

This paper focuses on the problem of routing protocol in the VANET. For traditional GPSR protocol, due to lack of neighbour nodes in small areas with low traffic density, overall network efficiency is reduced. To address this issue, FS-GPSR protocol based on traffic density is proposed. When the vehicle is located in a large area with high traffic density, the classic GPSR protocol is used for routing and forwarding. When the vehicle is located in a small area with low traffic density, to determine the next hop node, we use an improved FS-GPSR protocol combined with the vehicle travelling direction and speed. Simulation results show that the improved FS-GPSR protocol network achieves superior performance: smaller transmission overhead and higher data delivery success rate.

Tracking a Duty-Cycled Autonomous Underwater Vehicle by Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

The real-time position of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is always of great interest. With advances of technologies, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) become promising tools for AUV tracking. Due to the energy constraint of underwater nodes, energy saving is a key issue that affects all aspects of the design of a tracking scheme. In this paper, we propose a novel energy-efficient tracking scheme for an AUV to locate itself in time by UWSNs. We first design a tracking protocol considering the energy consumptions in both the AUV and sensor nodes (SNs). Particularly, the protocol is designed in two aspects: 1) the passive listening mechanism and duty-cycle strategy for the AUV and 2) the detection-based ranging packet transmission for SNs. Since the tracking protocol will inevitably affect the packet delivery between the AUV and SNs, we analyze the packet delivery success rate (PDSR) to shed light on the impact of system parameters on the tracking performance. To cope with non-linearity of the model and the intermittent observations mainly arisen from the effect of the tracking protocol, we adopt two extended versions of the original intermittent Kalman filter for tracking. They are intermittent extended Kalman filter and intermittent unscented Kalman filter. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed tracking scheme, and reveal that the PDSR analysis provides a design guidance for parameter selection in system configuration.

Study on routing protocol based on traffic density in VANET

This paper focuses on the problem of routing protocol in the VANET. For traditional GPSR protocol, due to lack of neighbour nodes in small areas with low traffic density, overall network efficiency is reduced. To address this issue, FS-GPSR protocol based on traffic density is proposed. When the vehicle is located in a large area with high traffic density, the classic GPSR protocol is used for routing and forwarding. When the vehicle is located in a small area with low traffic density, to determine the next hop node, we use an improved FS-GPSR protocol combined with the vehicle travelling direction and speed. Simulation results show that the improved FS-GPSR protocol network achieves superior performance: smaller transmission overhead and higher data delivery success rate.

Subcutaneous sumatriptan delivery devices: comparative ease of use and preference among migraineurs

BackgroundSeveral sumatriptan subcutaneous autoinjector devices for acute treatment of migraine patients are available, each device differs with respect to design and features. Determining device preference and ease of use is important because patients experiencing a migraine attack are often functionally impaired.ObjectiveThe objective of this human factors study was to compare migraine patients’ device use performance and preferences for three sumatriptan subcutaneous autoinjectors: a disposable two-step device (Zembrace® SymTouch®), a disposable three-step device (Sumavel® DosePro®), and a multistep reloadable device (Imitrex® STATdose®), using simulated injections.MethodsEach study subject performed two unaided simulated injections with each of three different drug delivery devices, which were presented in counterbalanced order. The participants were then asked to rate the three devices on various subjective measures. The primary end point was overall device preference using a visual analog scale.ResultsA total of 54 subjects participated and each subject performed two simulated injections with each of the three devices. Most subjects preferred the two-step device (88.9%) to the three-step (13.0%) and the reloadable (1.9%). The two-step device had higher mean overall preference ratings (F (2, 159)=56.6, P<0.01) and higher ratings for ease of use, intuitiveness, convenience, portability, and control. The two-step device had a first injection full-dose delivery success rate of 44.4%, higher than both the reloadable (24.1%) and the three-step (3.7%) devices. The number of errors with the two-step device (n=3) was ~90% lower than the three-step (n=49) and reloadable (n=44) devices.ConclusionIn this human factors study, 54 migraineurs used simulated injections to compare three sumatriptan subcutaneous delivery devices. Zembrace SymTouch, a two-step device, was most preferred compared with Sumavel DosePro and Imitrex STATdose. It also ranked highest for ease of use and various other measures. In this study, migraine patients preferred the autoinjector that they rated as simpler and more intuitive.

Decentralized content sharing among tourists in visiting hotspots

Content sharing with smart mobile devices using decentralized approach enables users to share contents without the use of any fixed infrastructure, and thereby offers a free-of-cost platform that does not add to Internet traffic which, in its current state, is approaching bottleneck in its capacity. Most of the existing decentralized approaches in the literature consider spatio-temporal regularity in human movement patterns and pre-existing social relationship for the sharing scheme to work. However, such predictable movement patterns and social relationship information are not available in places like tourist spots where people visit only for a short period of time and usually meet strangers. No works exist in literature that deals with content sharing in such environment. In this work, we propose a content sharing approach for such environments. The group formation mechanism is based on users' interest score and stay probability in the individual region of interest (ROI) as well as on the availability and delivery probabilities of contents in the group. The administrator of each group is selected by taking into account its probability of stay in the ROI, connectivity with other nodes, its trustworthiness and computing and energy resources to serve the group. We have also adopted an incentive mechanism as encouragement that awards nodes for sharing and forwarding contents. We have used network simulator NS3 to perform extensive simulation on a popular tourist spot in Australia which facilitates a number of activities. The proposed approach shows promising results in sharing contents among tourists, measured in terms of content hit, delivery success rate and latency.

Delivery Outcomes after Term Induction of Labor in Small-for-Gestational Age Fetuses.

Objective The objective of this study was to estimate the delivery outcomes after induction of labor (IOL) at term in patients with small-for-gestational age (SGA) fetuses. Study Design A secondary analysis of a prospective cohort study of all term, singleton deliveries from 2010 to 2014. Patients who underwent an IOL for any indication were included. Delivery outcomes were compared between patients with and without SGA fetuses (defined as birth weight < 10th percentile for gestational age). Analysis was stratified by parity. Indication for cesarean was compared between the two groups for those who did not achieve vaginal delivery. Logistic regression was used to adjust for confounders. Results Of 3,787 patients who underwent an IOL, 644 patients had SGA fetuses and 3,143 were included in the non-SGA group. There was no significant difference in rate of successful vaginal delivery for patients with and without SGA fetuses (77.2 vs. 72.0% [adjusted odds ratio: 1.22, 95% confidence interval 1.00-1.50]). Of the patients who were delivered by cesarean, women with SGA fetuses were more likely to undergo cesarean for nonreassuring fetal status and less likely for arrest disorders than women without an SGA fetus. Conclusion Term patients undergoing IOL with SGA fetuses are as likely to achieve a vaginal delivery as patients with non-SGA fetuses.

Enhanced Buffer Management for Data Delivery to Multiple Destinations in DTNs

Delay-tolerant networks often adopt the message replication methodology to increase the opportunity that destinations can receive messages from a source node in a network. Repeatedly replicating messages, however, consumes significant resources such as local buffer space on nodes and internode communication bandwidth. Previous buffer management and scheduling policies mainly contributed to a simple scenario of message unicasting from a source to a singular destination in a network. When message multicasting toward multiple destinations is considered, previous solutions perform inefficiently. This paper proposes a new buffer management and scheduling policy for message multicasting in delay-tolerant networks. The proposed policy is an optimal-based design with a new utility function, which can prioritize messages in a buffer for maximizing the successful delivery rate in a network. Simulation results manifest the efficacy of the proposed scheme under different mobility benchmarks in delay-tolerant networks.

Risk factors for emergency caesarean section in planned vaginal breech delivery.

To identify risk factors for emergency caesarean section in women attempting a vaginal breech delivery at term. Data from 1092 breech deliveries performed between 1998 and 2013 at a Swiss cantonal hospital were extracted from an electronic database. Of the 866 women with a singleton, full term pregnancy, 464 planned a vaginal breech delivery. Fifty-seven percent (265/464) were successful in delivering vaginally. Multivariate regression analyses of risk factors were performed, and neonatal and maternal complications were compared. Risk factors for failed vaginal delivery were peridural anaesthesia (OR 2.05; 95% CI 1.09-3.84; p=0.025), nulliparity (OR 2.82; 95% CI 1.87-4.25; p<0.001), high birth weight (OR 1.17; 95% CI 1.04-1.30; p=0.006) and induction of labour (OR 1.56; 95% CI 1.003-2.44; p=0.048). Maternal age, height and weight; gestational age; or newborn length and head circumference were not associated with an unplanned caesarean section. The rate of successful vaginal delivery in the low risk sub-group (multiparous women without induction of labour) was 58-83%, depending on birth weight category. The likelihood of success for the high risk sub-group (nulliparous women with induction of labour) fell below a third at neonatal birth weights >3250g. Complication rates were low in the cohort. Use of peridural anaesthesia, nulliparity, high birth weight and induction of labour were risk factors for unsuccessful vaginal breech delivery requiring an unplanned caesarean section. Awareness of these risk factors is useful when counselling women who are considering a vaginal breech delivery.

New MRI Criteria for Successful Vaginal Breech Delivery in Primiparae.

BackgroundEven if lower vaginal delivery success rates and impaired neonatal short-term outcomes have been reported for primiparous women with breech presentation, vaginal breech delivery remains an option for carefully selected patients. Because Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) pelvimetry can provide additional information on maternal pelvic morphology, we sought to identify new MRI parameters that predict successful vaginal breech delivery.MethodsIn this retrospective unicentre study, 240 primiparous women with breech presentation at term underwent MRI pelvimetry. For all patients vaginal delivery was planned, according to German guidelines and if the conjugata vera (CV) was ≥12 cm. The patients with uneventful vaginal deliveries and the patients who underwent a secondary caesarean section were compared according to pelvimetric parameters and outcomes. Regression analyses were performed.ResultsIn the vaginal delivery group (n = 162, (67.5%)), the distance between the spinae ischiadicae (interspinous diameter, ISD) was significantly enlarged. The ISD significantly influenced the mode of delivery in the regression analyses. The CV did not significantly differ between the groups. The patients with successful vaginal deliveries were significantly younger than the patients who underwent caesarean section. In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) for ISD was 67.7% (p<0.001, 95% CI [0.303–0.642]) and was higher considering the mother’s age (AUC = 73.1%, p<0.001, 95% CI [0.662–0.800]). The neonatal short-term outcomes were comparable in both groups.ConclusionThe additional use of ISD may predict successful vaginal breech delivery and may be superior to the CV, which is more commonly used.Trial RegistrationDRKS00009957

Learning Data Delivery Paths in QoI-Aware Information-Centric Sensor Networks

In this paper, we envision future sensor networks to be operating as information-gathering networks in large-scale Internet-of-Things applications such as smart cities, which serve multiple users with diverse quality-of-information (QoI) requirements on the data delivered by the network. To learn data delivery paths that dynamically adapt to changing user requirements in this information-centric sensor network (ICSN) environment, we make use of cognitive nodes that implement both learning and reasoning in the network. In this paper, we focus on the learning strategies and propose two techniques, namely learning data delivery A* (LDDA*) and cumulative-heuristic accelerated learning (CHAL) that use heuristics to improve the success rate of data delivered to the sink in the cognitive ICSN. While LDDA* updates a single heuristic function to choose paths that can deliver data with good QoI to the sink, CHAL accumulates heuristic values from multiple observations from the environment to choose data delivery paths that are more resource aware and considerate toward the energy consumption of the network. Extensive simulations have shown improvement of about 40% in the average rate of successful data delivery to the sink with the use of heuristic learning, when compared with a network that did not implement any learning.

Study of Vaginal Birth after Caesarean Section

Objective: To determine the success rate and safety of vaginal delivery after previous one caesarean section (VBAC) Methods: The Cross sectional study was done in 100 cases of G2P1+0+0+1 with previous one caesarean section for trial of labour to determine the success rate and safety of vaginal delivery after previous one caesarean section (VBAC) in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal. Data for the purpose of my study was collected over a period of 18 months i.e. from November 2013 to April 2015. Data analysis was checked for consistency and accuracy using IBM SPSS ver. 16and were described using means and percentages. Results: During the study period, only 100 numbers of cases were eligible to undergo trial of labour. Of these 20 patients opted out from the study, 61 patients delivered vaginally and remaining 19 cases had failed trial of labour and had to undergo repeat caesarean section (CS). Out of total 19(23.8%) cases that underwent caesarean section, maximum study cases presented with scar tenderness 10(52.7%). followed by foetal distress in 6(31.6%) cases. VBAC success rate at our institution during our study period was 76.2% which is in tandem with other studies from different author’s/scholars.

Deep space multi-file delivery protocol based on LT codes

A deep space multi-file delivery protocol (DSMDP) based on LT codes is proposed to reduce the influence of long delay and a high bit error rate (BER) in deep space communication. The protocol increases sending redundancy by LT codes to improve the success rate of file delivery, and adopts different protective strategies for different situations of packet loss. At the same time, the multi-file united delivery strategy is adopted to make full use of the retransmission time to reduce the end-to- end transmission delay. Furthermore, the protocol determines the quantity of encoded packets according to the feedback for controlling redundancy. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol can significantly reduce the transmission delay of files, which would be effectively suitable for deep space communication environment of high BER and long delay.

Modest Rise in Caesarean Section from 2000-2010: The Dutch Experience.

BackgroundThe caesarean delivery (CD) rate has risen in most countries over the last decades, but it remains relatively low in the Netherlands. Our objective was to analyse the trends of CD rates in various subgroups of women between 2000 and 2010, and identify the practice pattern that is attributable to the relative stability of the Dutch CD rate.MethodsA total of 1,935,959 women from the nationwide Perinatal Registry of the Netherlands were included. Women were categorized into ten groups based on the modified CD classification scheme. Trends of CD rates in each group were described.ResultsThe overall CD rate increased slightly from 14.0% in 2000–2001 to 16.7% in 2010. Fetal, early and late neonatal mortality rates decreased by 40–50% from 0.53%, 0.21%, 0.04% in 2000–2001 to 0.29%, 0.12%, 0.02% in 2010, respectively. During this period, the prevalence of non-vertex presentation decreased from 6.7% to 5.3%, even though the CD rate in this group was high. The nulliparous women with spontaneous onset of labor at term and a singleton child in vertex presentation had a CD rate of 9.9%, and 64.7% of multiparous women with at least one previous uterine scar and a singleton child in vertex presentation had a trial of labor and the success rate of vaginal delivery was 45.9%.ConclusionsThe Dutch experience indicates that external cephalic version for breech presentation, keeping the CD rate low in nulliparous women and encouraging a trial of labor in multiparous women with a previous scar, could help to keep the overall CD rate steady.

An Azimuth-Based Dead-End Avoiding Routing Mechanism for Providing Reliable IP Connectivity in Multihop Wireless Networks

In a multihop wireless network, such as a wireless sensor network (WSN), with nodes being aware of their locations, the geographic routing scheme is an effective way of delivering packets to their destinations because of its 1-hop beacon broadcasting based routing related information exchange operation. The routing information obtained via 1-hop beaconing is local in the sense that it is just 1-hop compared to the multihop end-to-end routing. Hence, at some point, packets may experience no more place to be forwarded to (i.e., dead-ends). In this paper, we propose a geographical routing mechanism adopting the concept of the azimuth to reduce the possibility of packets confronting dead-ends. In other words, the node with a packet to be forwarded to the final destination figures out the next-hop node by utilizing the azimuth of the destination as a routing metric. Besides, we propose additional routing metrics for stable next-hop node selection to provide reliable IP connectivity. In order to validate the performance of the proposed routing mechanism, we evaluate its performance through the NS-2 based simulations and show that our mechanism outperforms the other schemes in terms of the packet delivery success rate, the end-to-end delay, and the number of dead-end encounters.

Impact de la version par manœuvre externe sur le pronostic obstétrical dans une équipe à fort taux de réussite de l’accouchement vaginal du siège

To analyse the impact of external cephalic version (ECV) on caesarean section rate in a team with a high success rate of vaginal delivery in breech presentation. Retrospective monocentric study including 298patients with a breech presentations between 33 and 35weeks of amenorrhea followed at our university hospital and delivered after 35weeks, between 1stJanuary2011 and 31stDecember2013. Patients were divided into 2groups: planned ECV (n=216patients) versus no planned ECV (n=57patients). Our rate of successful vaginal breech delivery over the period of the study was 61.1%. We performed 165ECV, with a 21.8% success rate. The average term of the attempt of ECV was 36.7weeks of amenorrhea. The caesarean section rate was not significantly different in the planned ECV group, even after adjustment on age, parity and previous caesarean delivery (adjusted OR=1.67 [0.77-3.61]). Attempt of ECV did not reduce the number of breech presentation at delivery (61.1% versus 61.4% [P=0.55]). Planned ECV in our center with a high level of breech vaginal delivery did not significantly impact our cesarean section rate.

A wireless sensor network-based monitoring system with dynamic convergecast tree algorithm for precision cultivation management in orchid greenhouses

The orchid industry in Taiwan has established large-scale orchid greenhouses to achieve high-precision cultivation of orchids, especially for Phalaenopsis. The wireless sensor network (WSN) technology has been shown to be able to play an important and useful role for effectively acquiring environmental parameters in real-time. However, the mobile benches equipped with different sensors used in an orchid greenhouse create a problem of susceptible dynamic network topology. To meet the requirements of reliable data acquisition in the monitoring of orchid growth, a novel dynamic convergecast tree algorithm (DCTA) based on a tree-like topology was designed and implemented in the WSN-based monitoring system. The proposed WSN algorithm uses the information of the received signal strength indication and hop count to dynamically adjust the routing path of each sensor node. The proposed algorithm includes a flexible scheduling-based design for the medium access control protocol to guarantee higher transmission reliability of the sensor data. An extensive series of experiments, including tests in the lab and an orchid greenhouse, were conducted to examine the performance of the proposed DCTA. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reliably collect environmental data; average successful data delivery rates up to 92.5 % of the entire tested networks with multiple mobile nodes in the greenhouse can be achieved. The WSN-based monitoring system equipped with the proposed DCTA provides environmental measurements with better spatio-temporal resolution to achieve precision cultivation management for orchids.

Nanoparticles Suitable for BCAA Isolation Can Serve for Use in Magnetic Lipoplex-Based Delivery System for L, I, V, or R-rich Antimicrobial Peptides.

This paper investigates the synthesis of paramagnetic nanoparticles, which are able to bind branched chain amino acids (BCAAs)—leucine, valine, and isoleucine and, thus, serve as a tool for their isolation. Further, by this, we present an approach for encapsulation of nanoparticles into a liposome cavity resulting in a delivery system. Analyses of valine and leucine in entire complex show that 31.3% and 32.6% recoveries are reached for those amino acids. Evaluation of results shows that the success rate of delivery in Escherichia coli (E. coli) is higher in the case of BCAAs on nanoparticles entrapped in liposomes (28.7% and 34.7% for valine and leucine, respectively) when compared to nanoparticles with no liposomal envelope (18.3% and 13.7% for valine and leucine, respectively). The nanoparticles with no liposomal envelope exhibit the negative zeta potential (−9.1 ± 0.3 mV); however, their encapsulation results in a shift into positive values (range of 28.9 ± 0.4 to 33.1 ± 0.5 mV). Thus, electrostatic interactions with negatively-charged cell membranes (approx. −50 mV in the case of E. coli) leads to a better uptake of cargo. Our delivery system was finally tested with the leucine-rich antimicrobial peptide (FALALKALKKALKKLKKALKKAL) and it is shown that hemocompatibility (7.5%) and antimicrobial activity of the entire complex against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), and methicilin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) is comparable or better than conventional penicillin antibiotics.

A simulator for opportunistic networks

SummaryWhen mobile devices involved in a communication process are unable to establish a direct connection, or when communication should be offloaded to cope with large throughputs, mobile collaboration can be used to enable communication through opportunistic networks. These types of networks are formed when mobile devices communicate only using short‐range transmission protocols, usually when users are close. Routes are built dynamically, because each mobile device is acting according to the store‐carry‐and‐forward paradigm. Thus, contacts are seen as opportunities to move data towards the destination. In such networks, the routing protocol is of vital importance, and today, we witness quite a number of routing algorithms that have been proposed to maximize the success rate of message delivery whilst minimizing the communication cost. Such protocols take advantage of the devices history of contacts, or information about users carrying the mobile devices, to make their forwarding decision. This paper extends our previous work with the following: First, we describe a new simplified, fast simulator, designed to minimize the work needed to conduct extensive tests for opportunistic routing algorithm on multiple traces; next, we analyze extensively several of the most popular routing algorithms through extensive simulations conducted using our simulation platform. We highlight their pros and cons in different scenarios, considering different real‐world mobility data traces, such as Global Positioning System traces. The raw Global Positioning System traces are converted to a format based on encounters between participating entities. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Pregnancy Outcome After I-131 Therapy for Patients With Thyroid Cancer: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of I-131 therapy on pregnancy outcome in patients that received therapeutic I-131 doses for thyroid cancer in Taiwan.This nationwide population-based cohort study was based on data from 1998 to 2010 obtained from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database. We identified 11,708 women with thyroid cancer (≥15 and ≤50 years of age) by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Patients were divided into 2 cohorts: I-131 therapy cohort and non-I-131 therapy cohort. The mean follow-up period was 6.08 years for the I-131 cohort and 6.87 years for the non-I-131 cohort. The case cohort and the control cohort comprised 775 and 716 pregnant patients, respectively.The overall incidence of pregnancy was significantly lower in the I-131 cohort (adjusted HR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.70–0.86) and it was also observed when the patients were stratified according to age (HR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.64–0.83 in 25–34 years; HR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.49–0.82 in 35–44 years). Patients in the I-131 cohort had a lower successful delivery rate, particularly among patients in 25 to 34 years (OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.45–0.80). No significant difference was observed for adverse pregnancy conditions between 2 cohorts.I-131 therapy is associated with decreased pregnancy and successful delivery rates. The underlying mechanism likely involves physician recommendation, patient's psychological issue, and potential impact of I-131 treatment on reproductive health. Further investigation is needed.

Data Delivery Delay Reduction for VANETs on Bi-Directional Roadway

In this paper, we investigate the data delivery delay from source to destination for VANETs on bi-directional roadways. The topology includes bi-directional roadways, left-turn lane, straight through lane, right-turn lane with traffic lights deployed at the intersections. Due to the multi-hop feature of data delivery and the limited range of radio transmission, the roadways’ topology and the switch operations of traffic lights will jointly affect the data delivery delay. By employing the queuing theory and analyzing the traffic lights operations, we propose the formulae of data delivery delay for different scenarios and extend the analysis to a more general scenario. We find that in the scenario of single intersection, the data delivery delay can be reduced by appropriately selecting the relay nodes. Specifically, in the case of green traffic light at the intersection, opposite lane vehicles can be used to reduce the delay, while for red traffic light, left-turn lane vehicles are used to reduce the delay in a similar approach, i.e., by using multi-hop transmission. The proposed algorithm is verified on single lane roadway, opposite-only, and left-turn-only lane for different simulation time slots, the number of mobile nodes and the value of $R/W$ ( $R$ is the wireless communication range and $W$ is the length of the road intersection) through VanetMobiSim and NS-2. Numerical results show that for single intersection, the data delivery delay can be reduced by choosing appropriate relay nodes. Besides, the successful packet delivery rate of bi-directional roadway is better than that of single line roadway scenario.