The development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) for wireless sensing and monitoring of a person’s vital functions, is an enabler in providing better personal health care whilst enhancing the quality of life. A critical factor in the acceptance of WBANs is providing appropriate security and privacy protection of the wireless communication. This paper first describes a general health care ...

Cloud computing has become popular in recent years. Companies such as Amazon and Microsoft host large datacenters of networked machines available for users to rent. These users are varied: from individual researchers to large companies. Their workloads range from short, resource-intensive jobs to long-running user-facing services. As cloud environments become more heavily used, provisioning the...

In recent years, animal ethics issues have led researchers to explore nondestructive methods to access materials for genetic studies. Cicada exuviae are among those materials because they are cast skins that individuals left after molt and are easily collected. In this study, we aim to identify the most efficient extraction method to obtain high quantity and quality of DNA from cicada exuviae. ...

Antipolyamine antibodies were produced following im munization of New Zealand white rabbits with thyro globulin spermine conjugate, using multiple-site injection and macrophage-harvesting techniques. The antispermine antibody in a radioimmunoassay system cross-reacted with spermidine (22%), putrescine (1%), diaminopropane (6%), and cadaverine (0.16%). No reaction with L-lysine, orni thine, or h...

Despite a substantial resource pulse, numerous avian insectivores known to depredate periodical cicadas (Magicicada spp.) are detected less commonly during emergence years than in either the previous or following years. We used data on periodical cicada calls collected by volunteers conducting North American Breeding Bird Surveys within the range of cicada Brood X to test three hypotheses for t...

—In tallgrass prairie, cicadas emerge annually, are abundant and their emergence can be an important flux of energy and nutrients. However, factors influencing die distribution and abundance of these cicadas are virtually unknown. We examined cicada emergence in plots from a long-term (13 y) experimental manipulation involving common tallgrass prairie management practices. The plots were arrang...

The small cicada Tettigettalnajosei (Boulard, 1982) was until recently only known from southern Portugal and was considered endemic to this country. Fieldwork in 2013 led to the first record of the species in Spain, expanding its known eastern range to Andalusia. The northern limits remain poorly defined but it appears that the distribution of Tettigettalnajosei is restricted to the south Atlan...

An analysis of cicada mating calls, measured in field experiments, indicates that the very high levels of acoustic energy radiated by this relatively small insect are mainly attributed to the nonlinear characteristics of the signal. The cicada emits one of the loudest sounds in all of the insect population with a sound production system occupying a physical space typically less than 3 cc. The s...

An initial classifier considers the main frequency component of the call, centered around 13.5 kHz and spanning mainly between 11 and 17 kHz. The ratio between this and a range where little noise is present (8–9 kHz) is a measure of the acoustic energy of the cicada call, as can be defined as: • Only cicada native to the UK • Only present in the New Forest • High pitched call at ~ 13.5 kHz • Di...