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Security and privacy are among the most critical challenges on the internet of drones (IoD) network. The communication entities of the IoD network can communicate securely with the use of authenticated key agreement (AKA) based techniques. However, the design of such techniques must balance the tradeoff between security and lightweight features. Recently, Chen et al. proposed an authentication and key sharing scheme for IoD deployment. It is, however, realized after scrutiny that the proposed technique is vulnerable to security attacks under the well-accepted Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) adversary model. Moreover, the scheme applies to the IoD network with only one drones’ flying zone. To solve these challenges, this paper proposed a secure lightweight proven authenticated key agreement (SLPAKA) technique for IoD deployment. The technique is free from all the problems identified in the scheme of Chen et al . To ensure the reliability of the SLPAKA, the security of the technique has been assessed from a theoretical method and formal way using the ProVerif cryptographic protocol verification tool. Apart from comparing the performance of SLPAKA with the benchmarking schemes in terms of security, computational cost, and communication cost, the SLPAKA and the technique proposed by Chen et al. are implemented using a python programming language to evaluate and compare their performance in terms of energy consumption and computational time metrics. The results show that the SLPAKA outperforms the technique of Chen et al. and all the other benchmarking techniques in terms of security and lightweight features.

A feature-based retinal image registration (RIR) technique aligns multiple fundus images and composed of pre-processing, feature point extraction, feature descriptor, matching and geometrical transformation. Challenges in RIR include difference in scaling, intensity and rotation between images. The scale and intensity differences can be minimised with consistent imaging setup and image enhancement during the pre-processing, respectively. The rotation can be addressed with feature descriptor method that robust to varying rotation. Therefore, a feature descriptor method is proposed based on statistical properties (FiSP) to describe the circular region surrounding the feature point. From the experiments on public Fundus Image Registration dataset, FiSP established 99.227% average correct matches for rotations between 0° and 180°. Then, FiSP is paired with Harris corner, scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), speeded-up robust feature (SURF), Ghassabi's and D-Saddle feature point extraction methods to assess its registration performance and compare with the existing feature-based RIR techniques, namely generalised dual-bootstrap iterative closet point (GDB-ICP), Harris-partial intensity invariant feature descriptor (PIIFD), Ghassabi's-SIFT, H-M 16, H-M 17 and D-Saddle-histogram of oriented gradients (HOG). The combination of SIFT-FiSP registered 64.179% of the image pairs and significantly outperformed other techniques with mean difference between 25.373 and 60.448% (p =

Feature-based retinal fundus image registration (RIR) technique aligns fundus images according to geometrical transformations estimated between feature point correspondences. To ensure accurate registration, the feature points extracted must be from the retinal vessels and throughout the image. However, noises in the fundus image may resemble retinal vessels in local patches. Therefore, this paper introduces a feature extraction method based on a local feature of retinal vessels (CURVE) that incorporates retinal vessels and noises characteristics to accurately extract feature points on retinal vessels and throughout the fundus image. The CURVE performance is tested on CHASE, DRIVE, HRF and STARE datasets and compared with six feature extraction methods used in the existing feature-based RIR techniques. From the experiment, the feature extraction accuracy of CURVE (86.021%) significantly outperformed the existing feature extraction methods (p ≤ 0.001*). Then, CURVE is paired with a scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptor to test its registration capability on the fundus image registration (FIRE) dataset. Overall, CURVE-SIFT successfully registered 44.030% of the image pairs while the existing feature-based RIR techniques (GDB-ICP, Harris-PIIFD, Ghassabi’s-SIFT, H-M 16, H-M 17 and D-Saddle-HOG) only registered less than 27.612% of the image pairs. The one-way ANOVA analysis showed that CURVE-SIFT significantly outperformed GDB-ICP (p = 0.007*), Harris-PIIFD, Ghassabi’s-SIFT, H-M 16, H-M 17 and D-Saddle-HOG (p ≤ 0.001*).

Megarectum rarely occur in adults. Rectal innervation abnormality or rectal muscle dysfunction could be the underlying pathophysiology, but there are cases where no specific cause is found. Only a handful of cases of megarectum in pregnancy were reported in the literature. Raised progesterone and reduced motilin level during pregnancy may affect bowel motility and predispose pregnant patients to this unusual condition. Clinical presentation ranges from bowel symptoms e.g. chronic constipation, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain to dysfunctional labour including labour dystocia and obstructed labour. We hereby present a 23 year old lady in early pregnancy who presented with coital penetration failure due to megarectum. We wish to discuss the impact, outcome and management of this rare condition in pregnancy.

A young adult patient with 46XX congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) presented with recurrent painful haematuria. CAH was diagnosed at birth following ambiguous genitalia. Hormonal treatment was started, female gender was assigned and feminising genitoplasty was planned, however the patient was lost to follow-up. Gender dysphoria started to occur during childhood which prompted the family to raise the patient as a boy. He eventually identified himself as a male. Examination revealed a male phenotype with severely virilised genitalia. Imaging studies confirmed the presence of uterus with low confluent urogenital sinus. Total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy was performed, and the troublesome symptoms were cured.

Prior 6LoWPAN intrusion detection system (IDS) utilized several features to detect various malicious activities. However, these IDS methods only detect specific attack but fails when the attacks are combined. In this paper, we propose an IDS known as compression header analyzer intrusion detection system (CHA-IDS) that analyzes 6LoWPAN compression header data to mitigate the individual and combination routing attacks. CHA-IDS is a multi-agent system framework that capture and manage raw data for data collection, analysis, and system actions. The proposed CHA-IDS utilize best first and greedy stepwise with correlation-based feature selection to determine only significant features needed for the intrusion detection. These features are then tested using six machine learning algorithms to find the best classification method that able to distinguish between an attack and non-attack and then from the best classification method, we devise a rule to be implemented in Tmote Sky. To ensure the reliability of our proposed method, we evaluate the CHA-IDS with three types of combination attacks known as hello flood, sinkhole, and wormhole. We also compare our results in term of accuracy of detection, energy overhead, and memory consumption with the prior 6LoWPAN-IDS implementation such as SVELTE and Pongle’s IDS. The results show that CHA-IDS performs better than the aforementioned methods with 99% true positive rate and consumed low energy overhead and memory that fit in constrained device such Tmote Sky.

Giant bladder stone is a rare phenomenon. Surgical treatment which involves open vesicolithotomy and delivery of the bladder stone is usually straightforward. Herein, we report a 69-year-old gentleman with a neglected giant bladder stone complicated by obstructive uropathy and acute renal failure. After medical condition was stabilized, he underwent open vesicolithotomy. At surgery, delivery of the giant bladder stone was difficult both manually and with stone forceps. The stone was later delivered successfully by Wrigley’s obstetrics forceps. We report this case to highlight the rare cause of acute renal failure and the use of obstetrics forceps in the management of giant bladder stones.

A case of giant ovarian tumour containing total of 53 liters of serous fluid is reported here. A 61 year old postmenopausal lady presented with shortness of breath to the Casualty Department with underlying history of progressive abdominal distension for 10 years. Clinical assessment and abdominal ultrasound suggest diagnosis of giant ovarian tumour with concurrent pneumonia. Stabilization of her medical condition took priority before surgery. Both pre- and intraoperative drainage of the tumour were performed. Postoperative period was stormy but patient recovered well and was discharged on day 42 post-surgery. Histopathological examination confirmed benign papillary serous cystadenoma of the ovaries.

The twin reverse arterial perfusion (TRAP) sequence is a rare but serious complication of mono-chorionic multiple pregnancies in which the affected twin is reversely perfused from the healthy co-twin. The unaffected twin is at risk of cardiac de-compensation or complication related to polyhydramnios, preterm pre-labour rupture of membrane and preterm delivery. When the risk to the healthy fetus increases significantly, the management is to occlude the circulation to the acardiac twin. Here we report a case successfully managed with intra-fetal alcohol ablation at the mid-trimester.

Adnexal torsion in the pediatric and adolescent population is a rare gynecological disease with an incidence of 2.7%. They are categorized by different clinical presentations and by the need to establish a suitable type and timing of treatment in order to prevent problems, such as ovarian necrosis after torsion and infertility. Ovarian torsion denotes a real surgical emergency. Quick diagnosis is crucial for ovarian salvage, and high clinical notion is imperative in this respect. Confounding the diagnosis in overall are more usually come across abdominal complaints in the Emergency Department (ED) such as constipation, diarrhea, and urinary tract infections and more common surgical emergencies such as appendicitis. Until a decade ago,the standard recommended treatment for ovarian torsion was removal of the gangrenous ovary without detorsion. However, conservative management for preservation of ovarian function should be undertaken because most females with adnexal torsion are adolescent girls and of childbearing age. A 10-year-old obese girl presented with a 3-days history of right iliac fossa pain. She was operated for acute appendicitis; however, intraoperatively found gangrenous twisted right ovarian cyst measuring 10x6 cm. Detorsion was done and noted the right fallopian tube appeared to be viable within few minutes however the right ovarian cyst remained the same. The postoperative period was uneventful. The same gangrenous ovary was monitored through repeated ultrasound examinations during follow-up visits and found that cyst was gradually decreasing in size and finally disappeared within 3 months. Detorsion of twisted ovarian cyst (conservative management) leads to complete disappearance and ovary not only be saved but also operative morbidity of interval cystectomy was avoided. Key words: Cyst, Detorsion, Gangrenous, Ovarian, Twisted.

Uterine torsion in pregnancy is a rare condition, but potentially life-threatening. The non-specific clinical features make preoperative diagnosis difficult and most cases are discovered during caesarean deliveries done for other obstetric indications. Authors present 2 cases of uterine torsion with different clinical presentation and outcome. Case 1 was a G3P2 at 36 weeks with twin pregnancy presented in active labour with a prolapsed cord. A 180 degrees uterine torsion was discovered only after delivery of the foetuses, resulting in inadvertent posterior uterine wall incision. Case 2 was a G6P5 at 35 weeks who presented with an acute abdomen and went into shock. At laparotomy, a 360 degrees uterine torsion was discovered complicated with placental abruption, causing a fresh stillborn baby. These cases highlight uterine torsion as a rare but important diagnosis in obstetrics, which could be associated with potentially devastating outcome.

Two unusual cases of extrapelvic endometriosis are discussed here. Both presented themselves to the general surgeons. Case 1 presented with cyclical painful abdominal wall mass at the left iliac fossa region. Ultrasound and computed tomography scan showed a solitary mass at the subcutaneous region and fine needle aspiration cytology revealed endometriosis. The patient underwent wide surgical excision and recovered. Case 2 presented with painless swelling at the left inguinal area whilst being pregnant. Surgical exploration was performed for ‘left inguinal hernia’ but an encysted mass was found in the inguinal canal which was excised. Histopathological examination reported endometriosis. Both cases were subsequently under gynaecological follow-up. It is important for the surgeons to include endometriosis as one of the differential diagnosis in the management of their female patients with mass or swelling.

Authors present a case of vaginal implantation metastasis following a diagnosis of endometrial cancer. A 58-year-old lady presented with postmenopausal bleeding and was later diagnosed to have endometrial cancer. She underwent an extra-fascial hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophrorectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy for Stage 3A endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the endometrium. The lymph nodes and cervix were free from the disease and no lymphovascular invasion was seen on the pathological specimen. She defaulted adjuvant radiotherapy and was lost to follow up. Six months later she had a tumour recurrence at the vaginal introitus just below the urethral orifice and awal from the vaginal vault with similar histopathological findings as previous cancer. This case highlights the rare occurrence of implantation metastasis of endometrial cancer.

Omental pregnancy is a rare form of abdominal ectopic pregnancy associated with high mortality. Diagnosis is often made intraoperatively when normal pelvic organs are found in surgeries done for ectopic pregnancy. A 31 year old lady underwent exploratory laparotomy for ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Intraoperatively, 600mls haemoperitoneum was present but the uterus, bilateral fallopian tubes and ovaries were all normal. After careful surgical exploration, location of ectopic pregnancy was found to be at the omentum.

Imperforate hymen and transverse vaginal septum are categorized under obstructive genital tract anomalies. The occurrence of both anomalies is a single patient is extremely rare and the sub-occlusive variant of these anomalies occurring together has never been reported before. A 29 year old nullipara who was previously healthy and menstruating regularly presented with a sudden onset of acute urinary retention. After clinical examination and imaging study, diagnosis of obstructed microperforate hymen and transverse vaginal septum was made. The anomalies had caused pyocolpos which had spontaneously drained out before surgery. During surgery, there was no obvious hymenal perforation and there was a pin-point opening of the transverse vaginal septum. The anomalies were surgically corrected by hymenectomy and septoplasty. This is the first case report in the literature describing the concurrent sub-occlusive variant of hymen and transverse vaginal septum in the form of microperforate hymen and transverse vaginal septum.

Uterine artery pseudoaneurysm (UAP) is a rare cause of secondary postpartum haemorrhage (PPH). Ultrasound may suggest this condition and pelvic arteriography is done to confirm the diagnosis and to institute treatment via uterine artery embolization. Herein, we describe a case who experienced recurrent episodes of secondary PPH with inconclusive findings on ultrasound and pelvic arteriography. Foley catheter balloon was used several times to arrest acute bleeding episodes. Exploratory laparotomy revealed pseudoaneurysm of the branch of right uterine artery. Transection and ligation of the involved artery followed by ligation of bilateral internal iliac arteries were performed. Post operation, patient made a full recovery. This case highlights uterine artery pseudoaneurysm as a rare but important cause for secondary PPH. We recommend a simple measure to provide intrauterine tamponade by using Foley catheter balloon. Diagnosis of UAP may not be straightforward and this condition may only be discovered during surgery.

The ternary Sn–1.0Ag–0.5Cu (SAC105) solders doped with a minor addition of Fe (0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 wt.%) have been shown to demonstrate excellent mechanical thermal cyclic reliability. To complement the mechanical performance, the electrical resistivities of SAC105, SAC105–0.1Fe, SAC105–0.3Fe, and SAC105–0.5Fe bulk solder alloys were also characterised after thermal aging. Results showed that the overall resistivity decreased by up to 13% after the thermal aging process. Meanwhile the electrical resistivity for 0.1 wt.%, 0.3 wt.%, and 0.5 wt.% Fe-bearing SAC105 solder alloys decreased by 25%, 11%, and 17% respectively, showing a rather stable reduction in resistivity. This can be correlated to the stabilisation of the microstructure of the Fe-added SAC 105 after thermal aging.

Asynchronous wheelchair navigation system using EEG signals and EOG artifacts.Horizontal gazes are observed at C3, C4 and eyelid positions at O2.The system is modeled as a finite state machine with three states for each mode.Total of six different directions move in forward and backward.Actual navigation tasks are performed and registered an average accuracy of 97.5%. In this study, an asynchronous wheelchair navigation system using a hybrid of EEG signal and EOG artifacts embedded in EEG signals is demonstrated. The EEG signals are recorded at three different locations on the scalp in the occipital and motor cortex regions. First, an EEG signal related to eyelid position is analyzed and used to determine whether the eyes are closed or open. If the eyes are closed, no wheelchair movement is allowed. If the eyes are open, EOG traces (artifacts) from two other EEG signals are examined to infer the gaze direction of the eyes. A sliding window is utilized to position important cues in the trace signals at the center of the window for effective classification. The variance of the EEG signal is used to determine the eyelid position by thresholding. Then, features extracted from the EOG traces are used as inputs to a pair of minimum distance classifiers whose outputs reveal the gaze shift performed by the eyes. The wheelchair navigation system is designed to move forward and backward in a total of six different directions. However, the number of distinct gaze direction that can be used as commands to move the wheelchair is only three. Therefore, we model the system as a finite state machine with three modes, each containing three states to overcome this deficiency. The system is equipped with proximity sensor to avoid collision with obstacles. A stop command is also available for safety measures. In a real-time experiment involving 20 participants, the system performed well as it registered a high accuracy of 97.88% with an average of computational time less than 1s. The system was also tested by five participants in a navigation experiment where each participant successfully completed all tasks without collision while showing improvement in maneuvering ability over attempts.

Retinal image registration is important to assist diagnosis and monitor retinal diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. However, registering retinal images for various registration applications requires the detection and distribution of feature points on the low-quality region that consists of vessels of varying contrast and sizes. A recent feature detector known as Saddle detects feature points on vessels that are poorly distributed and densely positioned on strong contrast vessels. Therefore, we propose a multiresolution difference of Gaussian pyramid with Saddle detector (D-Saddle) to detect feature points on the low-quality region that consists of vessels with varying contrast and sizes. D-Saddle is tested on Fundus Image Registration (FIRE) Dataset that consists of 134 retinal image pairs. Experimental results show that D-Saddle successfully registered 43% of retinal image pairs with average registration accuracy of 2.329 pixels while a lower success rate is observed in other four state-of-the-art retinal image registration methods GDB-ICP (28%), Harris-PIIFD (4%), H-M (16%), and Saddle (16%). Furthermore, the registration accuracy of D-Saddle has the weakest correlation (Spearman) with the intensity uniformity metric among all methods. Finally, the paired t-test shows that D-Saddle significantly improved the overall registration accuracy of the original Saddle.

Understanding the behavior of lead-free solder alloys within a high humidity environment is a serious topic in the deployment of products in various electronics applications. The work reported herein investigates this specific impact on Sn–1.0Ag–0.5Cu–0.5Fe solder alloy. Specimens were treated with 5% NaCl salt spray. All specimens showed strong resistance to corrosion. Microstructural deformations after the test were analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM/EDX). Concerns were at the localized corroded area, as this would cause significant degradation at the solder joints. The mechanisms leading to these disadvantageous results as well as the microstructural evolution and correlation with the intrinsic properties of the solder alloy are discussed.

A 28 year old primigravida at 16 weeks pregnancy presented with voiding difficulties, pelvic pain and acute urinary retention. Clinical and ultrasound examination were suggestive of Incarcerated Uterus and diagnosis was confirmed by a pelvic MRI. Manual repositioning under anaesthesia was planned following a failed procedure in the outpatient clinic. Immediately post induction with general anaesthesia, interestingly spontaneous repositioning of the uterus occurred without any manual manipulation. This is the first case report describing a spontaneous repositioning of incarcerated uterus following general anaesthesia.

The authenticity and reliability of digital images are increasingly important due to the ease in modifying such images. Thus, the capability to identify image manipulation is a current research focus, and a key domain in digital image authentication is Copy-move forgery detection (CMFD). Copy-move forgery is the process of copying and pasting from one region to another location within the same image. In this paper, we survey the recent developments in CMFD, and describe the entire CMFD process involved. Specifically, we characterize the common CMFD workflow of feature extraction and matching process using block or keypoint-based approaches. Instead of listing the datasets and validations used in the literature, we also categorize the types of copied regions. Finally, we also outline a number of future research directions. Display Omitted Copy-move forgery detection.Authenticity and reliability of digital images.Survey of copy-move forgery detection techniques.Feature extraction and matching process.Data inconsistencies and high scalability.

Pregnancy in rudimentary horn of the uterus is a rare clinical condition and often misdiagnosed as tubal, cornual, abdominal and even intrauterine pregnancy. Surgical excision of the horn is the definitive treatment for this condition. A healthy primigravida at 11 weeks gestation with underlying corrected Tetralogy of Fallot was seen with ultrasound findings suggestive of ectopic pregnancy. She underwent laparotomy and intraoperative finding was unruptured right non-communicating rudimentary horn pregnancy which was surgically excised. This case highlights the importance of having this rare diagnosis as one of the differential diagnosis for ectopic pregnancy.

Prior studies in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) optimization mostly concentrate on maximizing network coverage and minimizing network energy consumption. However, there are other factors that could affect the WSN Quality of Service (QoS). In this paper, four objective functions that affect WSN QoS, namely end-to-end delay, end-to-end latency, network throughput and energy efficiency are studied. Optimal value of packet payload size that is able to minimize the end-to-end delay and end-to-end latency, while also maximizing the network throughput and energy efficiency is sought. To do this, a smart grid application case study together with a WSN QoS model is used to find the optimal value of the packet payload size. Our proposed method, named Multi-Objective Optimization Algorithm Based on Sperm Fertilization Procedure (MOSFP), along with other three state-of-the-art multi-objective optimization algorithms known as OMOPSO, NSGA-II and SPEA2, are utilized in this study. Different packet payload sizes are supplied to the algorithms and their optimal value is derived. From the experiments, the knee point and the intersection point of all the obtained Pareto fronts for all the algorithms show that the optimal packet payload size that manages the trade-offs between the four objective functions is equal to 45 bytes. The results also show that the performance of our proposed MOSFP method is highly competitive and found to have the best average value compared to the other three algorithms. Furthermore, the overall performance of MOSFP on four objective functions outperformed OMOPSO, NSGA-II and SPEA2 by 3%, 6% and 51%, respectively.

In this paper, we presented a semi-automated tool to analyze red blood cells. We utilized circular Hough transform for circular cells detection. In a light micrograph, the red blood cells may appear in a crescent shape that known as Sicklecell. Thus, we proposed a technique to detect this shape and demonstrated its capability. Overall, our tool recorded 92% of accuracy with 70% and 72% of sensitivity and specificity respectively. Despite the promising performance, several limitations must be overcome and has been highlighted in the conclusions.

There are many digital electroencephalography (EEG) acquisition systems available nowadays for researchers due to the demand in the brain signal research. The electroencephalography (EEG) acquisition systems varied on the specification, design and prices. One of the ambulatory amplifiers for acquisition is the Trackit from Lifelines Limited. Presently, the Trackit system is only available for clinical applications. In order to integrate from clinical applications to research capabilities, the Trackit has to be interfaced with software that be able to do the electroencephalography (EEG) signals processing. In our project, LabVIEW is chosen as our software platform. Therefore, we have taken the initiative to developed the software for Trackit-LabVIEW interfaced. In this paper, we have demonstrated that the acquired electroencephalography (EEG) signals obtained using Trackit-LabVIEW software. Example of signal processing application on the raw electroencephalography (EEG) signals was shown in the results section.