Ellipsoidal neighbourhood outlier factor for distributed anomaly detection in resource constrained networks

Anomaly detection in resource constrained wireless networks is an important challenge for tasks such as intrusion detection, quality assurance and event monitoring applications. The challenge is to detect these interesting events or anomalies in a timely manner, while minimising energy consumption in the network. We propose a distributed anomaly detection architecture, which uses multiple hyperellipsoidal clusters to model the data at each sensor node, and identify global and local anomalies in the network. In particular, a novel anomaly scoring method is proposed to provide a score for each hyperellipsoidal model, based on how remote the ellipsoid is relative to their neighbours. We demonstrate using several synthetic and real datasets that our proposed scheme achieves a higher detection performance with a significant reduction in communication overhead in the network compared to centralised and existing schemes.     

Evidence of Tin Oxide Recrystallization in Opacified Lead Glazes

Tin oxide (SnO₂) particles that are a few hundred nanometers in size and are embedded in a lead glaze act as a white opacifier. The insolubility of SnO₂ particles in a lead glaze is responsible for this microstructure. Although it is assumed that SnO₂ particles do not react during the glaze formation, we demonstrate that the development of metastable phases prior to the fusion of the PbO-SiO₂-SnO₂ mixture allows the SnO₂ particles to react and then recrystallize subsequent to the fusion of the mixture. The recrystallization of SnO₂ occurs during heating and/or cooling until the temperature is sufficiently low and/or the tin supply is exhausted.     

Wood chips size distribution in relation to blade wear and screen use

The study investigated the effect of wearing chipper knives on machine productivity, fuel consumption and particles size distribution. The test included two different tree species (poplar and pine), two tree parts (branches and logs) and two screen types (large and medium). Chip quality was defined by CEN international technical standards. Knife wear causes a significant reduction of chipping productivity and a remarkable increase of fuel consumption. The replacement of the standard wide mesh screen with a narrower screen has a similar effect, further decreasing productivity and increasing fuel consumption. For the same screen type and knife wear level, productivity and fuel consumption are the same for poplar and pine. Knife, tree species and tree part also have a significant impact on chip size distribution. Chips produced from logs always contain a smaller proportion of oversize particles and a higher proportion of accepts. For the same large mesh screen, poplar chips tend to be larger than pine chips and to contain a higher proportion of oversize particles. On the contrary, pine chips tend to be smaller and to contain a higher proportion of fines. The use of a narrower mesh screen on pine material does not seem to offer any significant reduction of oversize particles, whose presence is already very limited. Therefore, a standard large mesh screen should be used when chipping pine material.     

A monolithic gallium arsenide interval timer IC with integrated PLLclock synthesis having 500-ps single shot resolution

A gallium arsenide (GaAs) integrated circuit for measuring single shot time intervals with 500-ps resolution has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The circuit contains a 12-b counter that can be extended externally and control circuitry for the detection of multiple intervals. Options such as number of intervals, minimum interval time, and timing resolution are user programmable. The circuit employs a self-contained 2.0-GHz phase-locked loop (PLL) clock synthesizer with less than 5 ps rms jitter and a lock time of 2.5 μs. The circuit is packaged in a 14-mm², 52-pin thermally enhanced plastic package and operates from a single +5-V supply. The nominal power dissipation is 2.8 W. The circuit is fabricated in a 0.6-μm gate length, enhancement/depletion GaAs MESFET process utilizing four layers of gold interconnect metallization. Inductors, capacitors, and thin film resistors can be fabricated in this process, enabling integrated analog circuitry. The die size is 3.28 by 3.15 mm. The circuit has applications in collision avoidance sensors, laser rangefinders, surveying, police radar, and test instrumentation     

Impact of osmotic agent on the transport of components using forward osmosis to separate ethanol from aqueous solutions

The separation of low molecular weight organic compounds such as the ethanol from aqueous solutions represents an important area to be investigated and increment the range of applications of forward osmosis. This investigation assesses the effects of using different draw solutes for ethanol separation from dilute aqueous solutions. The influence of glucose, sucrose, sodium chloride, and magnesium chloride was evaluated in terms of total permeate, reverse solute and ethanol fluxes. Inorganic solutes promoted higher total permeate and ethanol fluxes than the organic solutes (2.5 and 1.5 times higher in average, respectively) for the same molar concentration, while presenting only 1.1 times higher reverse solute fluxes. Despite the lower ethanol flux promoted by the organic draw solutes, these osmotic agents promoted higher concentration of ethanol in the total permeate flux, suggesting that they can also be alternatives for specific processes. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 4499–4507, 2017     

Metoclopramide does not affect renal function and atrial natriuretic peptide release in response to acute saline loading in conscious rats

The medication regimens of 243 children aged 1-16 years were analysed. The children were resident in five Districts in the Northern Region, England and were taking medication orally in liquid or syrup form for chronic disease. 39% of the children were under 5 years of age and 44% were aged 5-11 years, with slightly more males in most age groups. Epilepsy, chronic renal disease and cystic fibrosis were the most common medical problems for which the medicines were prescribed long-term. The duration of medication ranged between 3 months and 12 years; the average duration varied according to the disease and the type of medicine. Most of the anticonvulsants and vitamins had been used for 2 years or more, whereas most of the anti-asthmatic drugs were used for a period of up to a year only. Twenty six (39%) of the 67 different preparations used contained sugar, 19 (28%) were sugar-free, and the sweetening agent in the remainder varied according to how they were prescribed. Specificity of prescribing was the major determinant in the dispensing of either the sugar-containing or the sugar-free medicines.     

VACOP-B versus VACOP-B plus autologous bone marrow transplantation for advanced diffuse non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: results of a prospective randomized trial by the non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Cooperative Study Group

PURPOSE: The aim of this multicenter randomized study was to compare conventional therapy with conventional plus high-dose therapy (HDT) and autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) as front-line treatment for poor-prognosis non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between October 1991 and June 1995, 124 patients, aged 15 to 60 years, with diffuse intermediate- to high-grade NHL (Working Formulation criteria), stages II bulky (> or = 10 cm), III, or IV were enrolled. Sixty-one patients were randomized to receive etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone, and bleomycin (VACOP-B) for 12 weeks and cisplatin, cytarabine, and dexamethasone (DHAP) as a salvage regimen (arm A), and 63 to receive VACOP-B for 12 weeks plus HDT and ABMT (Arm B). RESULTS: There was no significant difference in terms of complete remissions (CRS) in the two groups: 75% in arm A, and 73% in arm B. The median follow-up observation time was 42 months. The 6-year survival probability was 65% in both arms. There was no difference in disease-free survival (DFS) or progression-free survival (PFS) between the two groups. DFS was 60% and 80% (P = .1) and PFS was 48% and 60% (P = .4) for arms A and B, respectively. Procedure feasibility was the major problem. In arm B, 29% of enrolled patients did not undergo HDT and ABMT. A statistical improvement in terms of DFS (P = .008) and a favorable trend in terms of PFS (P = .08) for intermediate-/high- plus high-risk group patients assigned to HDT and ABMT was observed. CONCLUSION: In this study, conventional chemotherapy followed by HDT and ABMT as front-line therapy seems no more successful than conventional treatment in terms of overall results. However, our results suggest that controlled studies of HDT plus ABMT should be proposed for higher risk patients.     

A detailed analytical and simulation study of geographic random forwarding

In this paper, we extend previous work on geographic random forwarding (GeRaF) by considering a more efficient paradigm whereby on/off cycles are exploited and every node can participate to packet relaying, as long as it wakes up during any handshake procedure. The protocol is fully distributed, as routing decisions are made hop by hop based on geographic metrics and using a joint channel access/routing procedure, like in the first version of GeRaF. In addition, a previously defined analytical model for GeRaF is used to analyze the protocol, after extending it to cover the new channel access and relay selection procedure. The model is employed to find optimal choices for the parameters of the protocol, before comparing analytical results with ns2 simulations. Results confirm that the geographic paradigm remains a very good solution for energy‐constrained, density‐constrained, and latency‐constrained networks, and that small yet very effective protocol optimizations can achieve remarkable performance improvements. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.