Efficient manipulator collision avoidance by dynamic programming

This paper describes a research effort in the area of collision avoidance path planning for robotic manipulators. A robotic arm with known geometry is to perform a spatial manipulation in the presence of known obstacles in its workspace. The task is to generate a series of waypoints for its path to pass through which will guarantee a safe, collision-free trajectory from its predefined starting point to its predefined goal position.This is an important topic in the area of automated manufacturing. Automated factories are becoming increasingly important for the goals of greater manufacturing efficiency, better equipment utilization, and lower overall manufacturing costs. Robotic devices, including manipulator arms and assembly devices, are finding more uses in these factories.The approach is to discretize the robot's workspace into a transition network. The optimal path through this network, in terms of angular displacement of the manipulator's joints, is generated by dynamic programming. While this approach has been used previously, this paper adds the innovation of variable-node spacing, with the node density in various parts of the network reflecting the need for precise position control in each local area of the workspace. In this way, precise motion control is possible without an undue computational burden.     

Indoor positioning: “an image-based crowdsource machine learning approach”

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Various technologies have been utilized today for recognizing client or user in the indoor areas. These technologies incorporate RSSI, Bluetooth Low Energy...     

Data Security Model for Cloud Computing

From the perspective of data security, which has always been an important aspect of quality of service, cloud computing focuses a new challenging security threats. Therefore, a data security model must solve the most challenges of cloud computing security. The proposed data security model provides a single default gateway as a platform. It used to secure sensitive user data across multiple public and private cloud applications, including Salesforce, Chatter, Gmail, and Amazon Web Services, without influencing functionality or performance. Default gateway platform encrypts sensitive data automatically in a real time before sending to the cloud storage without breaking cloud application. It did not effect on user functionality and visibility. If an unauthorized person gets data from cloud storage, he only sees encrypted data. If authorized person accesses successfully in his cloud, the data is decrypted in real time for your use. The default gateway platform must contain strong and fast encryption algorithm, file integrity, malware detection, firewall, tokenization and more. This paper interested about authentication, stronger and faster encryption algorithm, and file integrity.     

Fuzzy-based hunger games search algorithm for global optimization and feature selection using medical data

Neural Computing and Applications - Feature selection (FS) is one of the basic data preprocessing steps in data mining and machine learning. It is used to reduce feature size and increase model...     

Groundwater Utilization and Management in the State of Kuwait

Abstract

The main brackish groundwater resources in the State of Kuwait are the groundwater located in the Kuwait Group and the Dammam limestone aquifers. Most of the groundwater used in the State of Kuwait is for irrigation, some part of it is used for domestic purposes and for small scale industries. Since rainfall is seasonal and is less than the annual evaporation, the recharge from rainfall is negligible. Water levels in both the aquifers are highly affected by the pumping rate from each well. The groundwater is extracted heavily resulting in decline of water levels and the deterioration of groundwater quality though there is underflow from Saudi Arabia. Improvement of the groundwater management is essential for maintaining long-term productivity of the aquifers in the State of Kuwait.     

Nontoxic and Naturally Occurring Active Compounds as Potential Inhibitors of Biological Targets in Liriomyza trifolii

In recent years, novel strategies to control insects have been based on protease inhibitors (PIs). In this regard, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations have been extensively used to investigate insect gut proteases and the interactions of PIs for the development of resistance against insects. We, herein, report an in silico study of (disodium 5′-inosinate and petunidin 3-glucoside), (calcium 5′-guanylate and chlorogenic acid), chlorogenic acid alone, (kaempferol-3,7-di-O-glucoside with hyperoside and delphinidin 3-glucoside), and (myricetin 3′-glucoside and hyperoside) as potential inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase receptors, actin, α-tubulin, arginine kinase, and histone receptor III subtypes, respectively. The study demonstrated that the inhibitors are capable of forming stable complexes with the corresponding proteins while also showing great potential for inhibitory activity in the proposed protein-inhibitor combinations.     

Cytotoxic T Cell Expression of Leukocyte-Associated Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor-1 (LAIR-1) in Viral Hepatitis C-Mediated Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) pathogenesis involves liver inflammation, therefore, despite successful treatment, hepatitis C virus (HCV) may progress to HCC from initiated liver cirrhosis. Cytotoxic T cells (Tcs) are known to be involved in HCV-related cirrhotic complications and HCC pathogenesis. The inhibitory checkpoint leukocyte-associated immunoglobulin-like receptor-1 (LAIR-1) is expressed on Tcs. Therefore, we aimed to determine whether the Tc expression level of LAIR-1 is associated with HCC progression and to evaluate LAIR-1 expression as a noninvasive biomarker for HCC progression in the context of liver cirrhosis related to HCV genotype 4 (G4) in Egyptian patients’ peripheral venous blood liquid biopsy. A total of 64 patients with HCC and 37 patients with liver cirrhosis were enrolled in this case-controlled study, and their LAIR-1 expression on Tc related to the progression of liver cirrhosis was examined and compared to that of the apparently healthy control group (n = 20). LAIR-1 expression was analyzed using flow cytometry. Results: The HCC group had significantly higher LAIR-1 expression on Tc and percentage of Tc positive for LAIR-1 (LAIR-1+Tc%) than the HCV G4-related liver cirrhosis group. LAIR-1+Tc% was correlated with the HCC surrogate tumor marker AFP (r = 0.367, p = 0.001) and insulin resistance and inflammation prognostic ratios/indices. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve revealed that adding LAIR-1+Tc% to AFP can distinguish HCC transformation in the Egyptian patients’ cohort. Upregulated LAIR-1 expression on Tc could be a potential screening noninvasive molecular marker for chronic inflammatory HCV G4 related liver cirrhosis. Moreover, LAIR-1 expression on Tc may be one of the players involved in the progression of liver cirrhosis to HCC.     

Proteome Based Approach Defines Candidates for Designing a Multitope Vaccine against the Nipah Virus

Nipah virus is one of the most harmful emerging viruses with deadly effects on both humans and animals. Because of the severe outbreaks, in 2018, the World Health Organization focused on the urgent need for the development of effective solutions against the virus. However, up to date, there is no effective vaccine against the Nipah virus in the market. In the current study, the complete proteome of the Nipah virus (nine proteins) was analyzed for the antigenicity score and the virulence role of each protein, where we came up with fusion glycoprotein (F), glycoprotein (G), protein (V), and protein (W) as the candidates for epitope prediction. Following that, the multitope vaccine was designed based on top-ranking CTL, HTL, and BCL epitopes from the selected proteins. We used suitable linkers, adjuvant, and PADRE peptides to finalize the constructed vaccine, which was analyzed for its physicochemical features, antigenicity, toxicity, allergenicity, and solubility. The designed vaccine passed these assessments through computational analysis and, as a final step, we ran a docking analysis between the designed vaccine and TLR-³ and validated the docked complex through molecular dynamics simulation, which estimated a strong binding and supported the nomination of the designed vaccine as a putative solution for Nipah virus. Here, we describe the computational approach for design and analysis of this vaccine.     

Thermal,structural, and optical properties of γ‐irradiated poly(vinyl alcohol)/poly(ethylene glycol) thin film

Poly(vinyl alcohol)/poly(ethylene glycol) (PVA/PEG) copolymer was prepared using casting technique. The obtained PVA/PEG thin films have been irradiated with gamma rays with doses ranging from 1.5 to 20 Gy. The resultant effect of gamma irradiation on the thermal properties of PVA/PEG has been investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). The onset temperature of decomposition T_o and activation energy of thermal decomposition E_a were calculated, results indicating that the PVA/PEG thin film decomposes in one main weight loss stage. Also, the gamma irradiation in dose range 4–12 Gy led to a more compact structure of PVA/PEG copolymer, which resulted in an improvement in its thermal stability with an increase in the activation energy of thermal decomposition. The variation of transition temperatures with gamma dose has been determined using DTA. The PVA/PEG thermograms were characterized by the appearance of an endothermic peak due to melting of crystalline phase. In addition, structural property studies using X‐ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy were performed on both nonirradiated and irradiated samples. Furthermore, the transmission of the PVA/PEG samples and any color changes were studied. The color intensity (E was greatly increased with increasing the gamma dose and was accompanied by a significant increase in the blue and green color components. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

Development of Potent Adenosine Monophosphate Activated Protein Kinase (AMPK) Activators

Previously, we reported the identification of a thiazolidinedione‐based adenosine monophosphate activated protein kinase (AMPK) activator, compound 1 (N‐[4‐({3‐[(1‐methylcyclohexyl)methyl]‐2,4‐dioxothiazolidin‐5‐ylidene}methyl)phenyl]‐4‐nitro‐3‐(trifluoromethyl)benzenesulfonamide), which provided a proof of concept to delineate the intricate role of AMPK in regulating oncogenic signaling pathways associated with cell proliferation and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancer cells. In this study, we used 1 as a scaffold to conduct lead optimization, which generated a series of derivatives. Analysis of the antiproliferative and AMPK‐activating activities of individual derivatives revealed a distinct structure–activity relationship and identified 59 (N‐(3‐nitrophenyl)‐N′‐{4‐[(3‐{[3,5‐bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]methyl}‐2,4‐dioxothiazolidin‐5‐ylidene)methyl]phenyl}urea) as the optimal agent. Relative to 1 , compound 59 exhibits multifold higher potency in upregulating AMPK phosphorylation in various cell lines irrespective of their liver kinase B1 (LKB1) functional status, accompanied by parallel changes in the phosphorylation/expression levels of p70S6K, Akt, Foxo3a, and EMT‐associated markers. Consistent with its predicted activity against tumors with activated Akt status, orally administered 59 was efficacious in suppressing the growth of phosphatase and tensin homologue (PTEN)‐null PC‐3 xenograft tumors in nude mice. Together, these findings suggest that 59 has clinical value in therapeutic strategies for PTEN‐negative cancer and warrants continued investigation in this regard.