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A low-cost monitoring and data transfer system is needed that uses various protocols in the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Among the various available protocols for the transmission of messages such as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), constrained application protocol (CoAP), etc., message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) is the most widely used protocol due to its lower power consumption. Further, broker selection is the foremost task in operating the MQTT-based algorithms used in the automation. Researchers have explored several brokers. After a rigorous analysis, the EMQX broker-based MQTT protocol is investigated to transfer the data between the clients efficiently. The implementation and performance analysis of the EMQX broker-based MQTT protocol is assessed in depth with respect to the published and subscribed rates of data packets. Furthermore, new metric sets i.e. average number of messages published and subscribed and messages received with actual QoS are represented and analyzed in combinations of different quality of services (QoSs) to publish and subscribe the data. The analysis shows the efficacy of the investigated protocol.

There is a growing urgency to discover better materials that capture CO2 from air and improve battery performance. An important step is to search large databases of materials properties to find examples that resemble known carbon capture agents or electrolytes and then test them for effectiveness. This paper describes novel computational tools for accelerated discovery of solvents, nano-porous materials, and electrolytes. These tools have produced interesting results so far, such as the identification of a relatively isolated location in amine configuration space for the solvents with known carbon capture use, and the demonstration of an end-to-end simulation and process model for carbon capture in MOFs.

Ophthalmology is a field that is now seeing the integration of robotics in its surgical procedures and interventions. Assistance facilitated by robots offers substantial improvements in terms of movement control, tremor cancellation, enhanced visualization, and distance sensing. Robotic technology has only recently been integrated into ophthalmology; hence, the progression is only in its initial stages. Robotic technologies such as da Vinci Surgical System are integrated into the field of ophthalmology and are assisting surgeons in complex eye surgeries. Ophthalmic surgeries require high accuracy and precision to execute tissue manipulation, and some complex ocular surgery may take few hours to complete the procedures that may predispose high-volume ophthalmic surgeons to work-related musculoskeletal disorders. A complete paradigm shift has been achieved in this particular field through the integration of advanced robotic technology, resulting in easier and more efficient procedures. Where robotic technology assists the surgeons and improves the overall quality of care, it also projects several challenges including limited availability, training, and the high cost of the robotic system. Although considerable studies and trials have been conducted for various robotic systems, only a few of them have made it to the commercial stage and ophthalmology, on its own, has a long way to go in robotics technology.

SrTiO_{3} is a highly efficient photocatalyst for the overall water splitting reaction under UV irradiation. However, an atomic-level understanding of the active surface sites responsible for the oxidation and reduction reactions is still lacking. Here we present a unified experimental and computational account of the photocatalytic activity at the SrO and TiO_{2} terminations of aqueous solvated [001] SrTiO_{3}. Our experimental findings show that the overall water-splitting reaction proceeds on the SrTiO_{3} surface only when the two terminations are simultaneously exposed to water. Our simulations explain this, showing that the photogenerated hole-driven oxidation primarily occurs at SrO surfaces in a sequence of four single hole transfer reactions, while the TiO_{2} termination effects the crucial band alignment of the photocatalyst relative to the water oxidation potential. The present work elucidates the interdependence of the two chemical terminations of SrTiO_{3} surfaces, and has consequent implications for maximizing sustainable solar-driven water splitting.

Background: The need for case-based learning in basic subjects is being recognized world over. Early clinical illustrations and actual clinical exposure enable students to associate basic science and real patient situations, probably increasing their retention of knowledge. The study was conducted to introduce an alternate method of teaching-learning in pharmacology in a large classroom setting to integrate pharmacology into clinical setting for better learning and understanding of the subject. Methods: Ninety-four students of second professional MBBS of a medical college in Punjab were divided into 2 groups and were taught a 2-hour topic in pharmacology using case-based learning (CBL) method and didactic lecture (DL) method using a crossover design. Their attendance and written test score at the end of teaching session were compared. Feedback from students and faculty was taken by prestructured questionnaires. Results: There was an increase in students’ attendance ( P = .008) in CBL sessions but insignificant difference in their performance ( P = .98) in the tests. Most (84%) of the students felt that CBL is a better method of teaching-learning than traditional DL. The teaching faculty felt that the students looked more interested and were themselves more motivated for the newer method of teaching. Conclusions: Case-based learning led to improvement in student motivation, satisfaction, and engagement. Most students and faculty accepted that CBL was an effective learning tool for pharmacology teaching in a large group setting and supported the incorporation of CBL into traditional DL teaching.

Several techniques are used to make a capsulorhexis in white mature cataract cases as needle cystotome, Utrata capsulorhexis forceps, microincision capsulorhexis forceps, femtosecond Laser, etc. Zepto precision nano-pulse capsulotomy device (Mynosys Cellular Devices; Fremont, CA, USA) is Food and Drug Administration approved, a disposable capsulotomy device that uses low-energy pulses to create a precise central capsulorhexis, independent of pupil size, corneal clarity, or lens density. In this article, the authors report their experience of performing anterior circular curvilinear capsulorhexis with Zepto precision nano-pulse capsulotomy device in challenging cataract cases done at our center. The Zepto handpiece device was inserted through 2.8 mm clear corneal incision. Results of our study in 3 cataract cases (intumescent cataract, morgagnian cataract, and cataract with small pupil) revealed that the precision pulse capsulotomy technology mechanically and simultaneously cleaves all 360° of the apposed capsule of without cauterizing it, creating CCC of 5.2 mm size.

The energy consumption in the wireless sensor networks is a very critical issue which attracts immediate attention for the sake of the growing demand of the billion dollar market in future. The Dynamic Power Management (DPM) technique is a way of controlling and saving the energy usage in a sensor node. Previously, researchers have proposed lifetime improving stochastic models for wireless sensor networks and limited work has been done focusing on the wireless sensor node. This paper proposes an analyser based Semi-Markov model for DPM in the event-driven sensor node. The power consumption comparison with previously proposed models without this analyser shows the analyser significant contributes to lifetime improvement. The improved model is more power efficient, presents how the DPM model observes the input event arrival and power states of the sensor node components, and then dynamically manages the power consumption of the overall system. Further, to observe the effect of event arrival, missed events, waiting time, processor utilization on the power consumption and lifetime, the proposed DPM system with the single server queuing model is developed.

In density functional–theoretic studies of photoionized water-based systems, the role of charge localization in proton-transfer dynamics is not well understood. This is due to the inherent complexity in extracting the contributions of coupled electron-nuclear nonadiabatic dynamics in the presence of exchange and correlation functional errors. In this work we address this problem by simulating a model system of ionized linear H-bonded water clusters using real-time time-dependent density functional theory–based Ehrenfest dynamics. Our aim is to understand how self-interaction error in semilocal exchange and correlation functionals affects the probability of proton transfer. In particular, we show that the proton-transfer probability is largely underestimated for short H-bonded chains but becomes comparable to that predicted by hybrid functionals for (H_{2}O)_{n}^{+} chains with n>3. This is because the formation of hemibonded-type geometries is largely suppressed in extended H-bonded structures. We also show how the degree of localization of the initial photo-hole is connected to the probability of a proton-transfer reaction, as well as to the hole–proton separation. These results are compared to those obtained with adiabatic dynamics where the initial wave function is allowed to relax to the ground state of the ion cluster, explaining why different functionals and dynamical approaches lead to quantitatively different results.

Video-on-Demand is becoming most sought after multimedia applications. It is difficult to attain a true video-on-demand (TVOD) system, so near video-on-demand (NVOD) is catching the attention of people. In NVOD, requests are multicast in different streams. Important issue in this system is the choice of batching time. Traditionally the batching time is fixed depending on the number of requests. In this paper we have suggested an adaptive batching scheme (ABS) where batching time is adjusted according to the current arrival rate, which follows the hyper-exponential distribution pattern. A comparison is made between the fixed and adaptive batching schemes. Numerical illustrations are provided to show that adaptive batching policy is better than fixed batching policy for optimizing bandwidth requirements.