Search

MANET is an autonomous wireless network without any centralized authority, consisting of a dynamic topology with a multi-hop scenario. Clustering provides centralized authority within MANET and makes the network stable up to some extent. Security is one of the most challenging aspects, directly proportional to load and overhead over the network. The model being proposed uses a cluster-based technique and modified secure routing protocol, which minimizes the network’s load and overhead, improving the network’s security and performance. Two major factors are used as contribution level and stability factor for the choice of cluster head, which minimizes the method of re-selection for cluster head. The node addition using authentication and the Modified Secure Routing Protocol increases the security of the network. The Modified Secure Routing Protocol, based on limited and efficient use of the certificates with encryption and decryption of packets, minimizes the overhead and load over the network. Hence, it provides more efficiency and security.

Background: The pattern of head-and-neck cancer (HNC) differs across India due to considerable differences in regional customs, tobacco consumption behaviors, socio-economic status, and other regional risk-factors. Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to assess the epidemiological and demographic profile of patients with HNC from Bihar, India. The secondary objective was to evaluate differences in the incidence of HNC across different anatomical sites with respect to tobacco use, gender, and geographical location. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 3230 newly diagnosed, biopsy-proven HNC cases from Bihar, treated at the Department of Head-and-Neck Cancer, Mahavir Cancer Institute and Research Center, Patna, between January 2021 and December 2022. Data on age, gender, address, tobacco habit, site of disease, and other details were extracted from clinical records for statistical analysis. Results: This hospital-based study showed a predominance of male patients, with a male-to-female ratio of 5.37:1. The majority of patients were aged between 41-60 years, with significant gender disparities noted across all the age groups (P < 0.05). The oral cavity was identified as the most common site of HNC, accounting for 71.6% in males (n = 1949/2723) and 50.5% in females (n = 256/507). Within the oral cavity, the buccal mucosa and tongue were the most prevalent subsites. The number of patients from North Bihar was more in comparison to South Bihar. The most common tobacco habits were khaini and betel quid, both widely cultivated in Bihar. Conclusion: This study highlights a high prevalence of non-smoking tobacco consumption among the patients with HNC in Bihar. The oral cavity, particularly the buccal mucosa, was found to be the most affected site. Variations in the pattern of HNC were noted with respect to tobacco use, gender, and geographical location.

Recognizing and understanding human activities in real-time videos is a challenging task due to the complex nature of video data and the need for efficient and accurate analysis. This research pioneers a breakthrough in video activity recognition by introducing a robust framework leveraging the power of a stacked Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) architecture, harmonized within a fusion-based deep model. The stacked Bi-LSTM-GRU model capitalizes on its dual recurrent architecture, capturing nuanced temporal dependencies within video sequences. The fusion-based deep architecture synergizes spatial and temporal features, enabling the model to discern intricate patterns in human activities. To further enhance the discriminative power of the model, we introduce a fusion module in the proposed deep architecture. The fusion module integrates multi-modal features extracted from different levels of the network hierarchy, allowing for a more comprehensive representation of video activities. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach through rigorous experimentation on UCF50, UCF101, and HMDB51 datasets. In experiments on the UCF50 dataset, our model achieves an accuracy of 97.01% and 95.86% on training and validation sets respectively, showcasing its proficiency in discerning activities across a diverse range of scenarios. The evaluation extends to the UCF101 dataset, where the proposed approach achieves a competitive accuracy of 97.62% and 96.93% on training and validation sets, surpassing previous benchmarks by a margin of approx 1%. Further-more, on the challenging HMDB51 dataset, the model demonstrates a robust accuracy of 89.71%and 88.88% on training and validation sets, solidifying its efficacy in intricate action recognition tasks.

OBJECTIVE: People who experience marginalization, including Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Plus (ie, all other marginalized genders and sexual orientations) people (LGBTQ+) experience discrimination during healthcare interactions, which negatively impacts patient-provider communication and care. Yet, scarce research examines the lived experience of unfair treatment among patients from marginalized groups to guide patient-centered tools that improve healthcare equity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We interviewed 25 BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ people about their experiences of unfair treatment and discrimination when visiting healthcare providers. Through thematic analysis, we describe participants immediate reactions and longer-term consequences of those experiences. RESULTS: We identified 4 ways that participants reacted to discrimination in the moment: Fighting, Fleeing, Excusing, and Working Around Bias. Long-term consequences reflect 6 ways they coped: Delaying or Avoiding Care, Changing Healthcare Providers, Self-prescribing, Covering Behaviors, Experiencing Health Complications, and Mistrusting Healthcare Institutions. DISCUSSION: By describing how patients react to experiences of unfair treatment and discrimination, our findings enhance the understanding of health disparities as patients cope and struggle to speak out.To combat these problems, we identify 3 future directions for informatics interventions that improve provider behavior, support patient advocacy, and address power dynamics in healthcare. CONCLUSIONS: BIPOC and LGBTQ+ patients perspectives on navigating unfair treatment and discrimination in healthcare offers critical insight into their experiences and long-term consequences of those experiences. Understanding the circumstances and consequences of unfair treatment, discrimination, and the impact of bias through this patient-centered lens is crucial to inform informatics technologies that promote health equity.

It is well known that healthy lifestyle behaviors have positive effects on nearly every aspect of life, including physical health and longevity, mental health, and personal workplace productivity. This first-of-its-kind article sets out to see if healthy lifestyle behaviors also contribute to positive organizational citizenship behavior. While there is existing literature that infers healthy lifestyle behaviors would also contribute to positive organizational citizenship behavior, there is a glaring gap in directly making this connection. According to the job resources-demands (JD-R) theory, the balance between work resources and demands translates to work attitudes and behavioral outcomes. We employ JD-R theory to posit that when employees engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors, they accrue greater physical, cognitive, and emotional resources. Consequently, this allows them to better demonstrate desirable workplace behaviors, such as job performance and extra role behaviors, that benefit the organization. Job resources are the facets of a job that are functional to employee well-being, and it is reasonable to suggest that a healthy lifestyle would contribute to employee wellness. The JD-R model postulates that job resources and workplace challenges constitute a motivational path that result in desirable work outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior. The finding of this study, that healthy lifestyles contribute to organizational citizenship behavior, is valuable to institutions looking to improve productivity through organizational citizenship behavior. However, this finding is also troubling given the modern trend of poor health among Americans and its disparate impact on different racial and socioeconomic groups. Recent studies show that Americans have increased in obesity, decreased physical activity, decreased healthy eating, and increased alcohol consumption. And in the United States, Black populations are more likely to live in food deserts, where healthy food is largely unattainable. By providing a valuable framework for future research regarding healthy lifestyles and organizational citizenship behavior, this article serves as a powerful catalyst to ignite future research into the subject, including more nuanced studies regarding the relationship between diminishing health outcomes in the United States and the disparate impact felt by certain minority groups., INTRODUCTION It is well known that healthy lifestyle behaviors have positive effects on nearly every aspect of life, including physical health and longevity, mental health, and personal workplace productivity. This [...]

In response to the rising global concerns over food sustainability and the pressing need to minimize waste, finding efficient, eco-friendly preservation techniques have become increasingly urgent to prevent environmental deterioration and ensure food security. The present study investigates the impact of edible coatings on the extended shelf life of pointed gourd and green chillies. A set of 3-point gourds and green chillies were divided into five groups – one was a control group, and the other four combinations of edible coatings were made of chitosan, chitosan with clove essential oil, beeswax, and beeswax with essential oil. Weight loss, visible decay, and visual surface colour change was evaluated. The control groups, to which no coating was applied, showed a loss in weight of 7.5% and visible decay starting from day 6. In contrast, the groups coated with chitosan showed a significantly reduced weight loss of 3.2% and delayed decay appearance until day 15. The most successful coating, however, was a combination of chitosan and clove essential oil. These outperformed the others by not only lowering weight loss to 1.8% but also delaying obvious degradation until day 15 at ambient temperature. The results showed that the coated samples experienced a longer shelf-life and less weight loss than the control sample. Further, the edible coatings with clove essential oil managed to reduce the microbial load of yeast and molds and it also increased antioxidant properties. Among the treated samples, chitosan incorporated with clove essential oil showed superiority in all enlisted parameters.