Predictive p-persistent CSMA protocol is an important MAC solution developed for networked sensor/control applications and used in Local Operating Networks (LonWorks) technology. The protocol uses a built-in network load prediction to support collision avoidance. The paper presents an analytical study of prediction efficiency for a channel with collision detection. The approach based on Markov ...

Sustained carrying could result in muscular fatigue of the upper limb. Ten male and ten female subjects were recruited for measurements of isometric arm strength before and during carrying a load for a period of 4 minutes. Two levels of load of carrying were tested for each of the male and female subjects. Exponential function based predictive equations for the isometric arm strength were estab...

We examine the problem of scalable file system directories, motivated by data-intensive applications requiring millions to billions of small files to be ingested in a single directory at rates of hundreds of thousands of file creates every second. We introduce a POSIX-compliant scalable directory design, GIGA+, that distributes directory entries over a cluster of server nodes. For scalability, ...

The immunocompetence-handicap hypothesis suggests that androgen-dependent male characters constitute honest signals of mate and/or rival quality because of the imposed costs through immune suppression associated with elevated testosterone levels. We demonstrate in a field experiment that male sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) exposed to elevated testosterone suffered from increased mass loss and ti...

Transient events often account for most of the fatigue damage sustained by hydroelectric turbines during operation. Since one of these damageable events is load rejection, this paper presents a study of the dynamic response of two hydroelectric turbines during load rejection. The two turbines are similar in design and in overall measured behavior. However, we observed that the two turbine runne...

5 Messaging systems, which include message brokers built on top of message-oriented middleware, have been used as middleware components in many enterprise application integration projects. There are many COTS-based messaging systems on the market, but there is little concrete understanding in the software industry on the performance of these different technologies. The authors have carried out ...

When the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) first appeared, its pathogenesis was frustratingly elusive because the disease does not appear immediately upon infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). There is a variable period of time during which the patient remains healthy but exhibits viremia (the virus can be detected in the patient’s blood). Recent work shows that this vi...

Systemic emboli released during total knee replacement have been implicated as a cause of peri-operative morbidity and neurological dysfunction. We undertook a prospective, double-blind, randomised study to compare the cardiac embolic load sustained during computer-assisted and conventional, intramedullary-aligned, total knee replacement, as measured by transoesophageal echocardiography. There ...

intravitreal injection is the most common approach for drug delivery to the posterior segment in humans. however, following the injection, drugs are rapidly eliminated from the vitreous, with half-lives up to a few days. depending on the rate of clearance from the vitreous, large boluses and frequent administrations may be required to ensure therapeutic levels over an extended period of time. m...