Despite growing importance of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in normal physiological and disease conditions, our knowledge of RA-related lncRNAs remains limited. Therefore, we aimed to identify lncRNA signatures that have prognostic values in RA. There was a notably high expression level of Hotair in blood mononuclear cells and serum exosome of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, leading the migration of active macrophage. In contrast, markedly lower level of Hotair was detected in differentiated osteoclasts and rheumatoid synoviocytes and enforced expression of Hotair led to significantly decreased levels of MMP-2 and MMP-13. This exploratory study provides novel empirical evidence that Hotair could be one of potential biomarkers for diagnosing RA.

Recently, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) have attracted much research attention from both academia and industry, in order to explore the vast underwater environment. UWSNs have peculiar characteristics; that is, they have large propagation delay, high error rate, low bandwidth, and limited energy. Therefore, designing network/routing protocols for UWSNs is very challenging. Also, in UWSNs, improving the energy efficiency is one of the most important issues since the replacement of the batteries of underwater sensor nodes is very expensive due to the unpleasant underwater environment. In this paper, we therefore propose an energy efficient routing protocol, named (energy-efficient depth-based routing protocol) EEDBR for UWSNs. EEDBR utilizes the depth of sensor nodes for forwarding data packets. Furthermore, the residual energy of sensor nodes is also taken into account in order to improve the network lifetime. Based on the comprehensive simulation using NS2, we observe that EEDBR contributes to the performance improvements in terms of the network lifetime, energy consumption, and end-to-end delay. A previous version of this paper was accepted in AST-2011 conference.

Abstract. Recently, Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have attracted much research attention from both academia and industry, in order to explore the vast underwater environment. However, designing network protocols is challenging in UWSNs since UWSNs have peculiar characteristics of large propagation delay, high error rate, low bandwidth and limited energy. In UWSNs, improving the energy efficiency is one of the most important issues since the replacement of the batteries of such nodes is very expensive due to harsh underwater environment. Hence, in this paper, we propose an energy efficient routing protocol, named EEDBR (Energy-Efficient Depth Based Routing protocol) for UWSNs. Our proposed protocol utilizes the depth of the sensor nodes for forwarding the data packets. Furthermore, the residual energy of the sensor nodes is also taken into account in order to improve the network life-time. Based on the comprehensive simulation using NS2, we observe that our proposed routing protocol contributes to the performance improvements in terms of the network lifetime, energy consumption and end-to-end delay.

SUMMARYRecently, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) have attracted much research attention to support various applications for pollution monitoring, tsunami warnings, offshore exploration, tactical surveillance, etc. However, because of the peculiar characteristics of UWSNs, designing communication protocols for UWSNs is a challenging task. Particularly, designing a routing protocol is of the most importance for successful data transmissions between sensors and the sink. In this paper, we propose a reliable and energy‐efficient routing protocol, named R‐ERP2R (Reliable Energy‐efficient Routing Protocol based on physical distance and residual energy). The main idea behind R‐ERP2R is to utilize physical distance as a routing metric and to balance energy consumption among sensors. Furthermore, during the selection of forwarding nodes, link quality towards the forwarding nodes is also considered to provide reliability and the residual energy of the forwarding nodes to prolong network lifetime. Using the NS‐2 simulator, R‐ERP2R is compared against a well‐known routing protocol (i.e. depth‐based routing) in terms of network lifetime, energy consumption, end‐to‐end delay and delivery ratio. The simulation results proved that R‐ERP2R performs better in UWSNs.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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