Wireless sensor networks are expected to be one of the key enabling technologies in the near future. Ubiquitous intelligent sensing environments have a promising potential to enhance the everyday ...life of citizens, bringing important social benefits for each person and for society as a whole. Substantial research has contributed to progress in this field. However, there are still gaps to be filled. This article presents an overview of the creating ubiquitous intelligent sensing environments (CRUISE) project and identifies challenges in the research on WSNs. It focuses on outlining the consortium's vision and strategy for the evolution of research. Key issues for target sensor network applications and current research orientations in CRUISE are described. Future work within the project focus areas is identified.
Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have recently attracted much attention due to their potential to reduce CO 2 emissions and transportation costs and can be grouped into entities (aggregators) to ...provide ancillary services such as frequency regulation. In this paper, the application of aggregators to frequency regulation by making fair use of their energy storage capacity is addressed. When the power grid requires frequency regulation service to the aggregator to adjust the grid frequency, the PEVs participating in providing the service can either draw energy (as it is usually done to charge the vehicle) or deliver energy to the grid by means of the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interface. Under the general framework of optimizing the aggregator profit, different methods, such as state-dependent allocation and the water-filling approach, are proposed to achieve a final state of charge (SOC) of the PEVs that satisfy the desired fairness criteria once the regulation service has been carried out.
Skeletal muscle has good regenerative capacity, but the extent of muscle injury and the developed fibrosis might prevent complete regeneration. The in vivo application of human mesenchymal stem cells ...(HMSCs) of the umbilical cord and the conditioned media (CM) where the HMSCs were cultured and expanded, associated with different vehicles to induce muscle regeneration, was evaluated in a rat myectomy model. Two commercially available vehicles and a spherical hydrogel developed by our research group were used. The treated groups obtained interesting results in terms of muscle regeneration, both in the histological and in the functional assessments. A less evident scar tissue, demonstrated by collagen type I quantification, was present in the muscles treated with HMSCs or their CM. In terms of the histological evaluation performed by ISO 10993-6 scoring, it was observed that HMSCs apparently have a long-term negative effect, since the groups treated with CM presented better scores. CM could be considered an alternative to the in vivo transplantation of these cells, as it can benefit from the local tissue response to secreted molecules with similar results in terms of muscular regeneration. Searching for an optimal vehicle might be the key point in the future of skeletal muscle tissue engineering.
Pilots have included a children's wearable device for monitoring health; a web-based patient education module for heart patients; a program that brings care to homebound patients, in collaboration ...with the emergency medical services department; a mobile diabetes management solution; the redesign of Providence Health Plan's explanation of benefits; and a mobile platform for new or expectant mothers. In the clinical area, we hired a senior executive with experience in systemwide care improvement; in population health, a senior executive with experience acquired at a major health insurance and population health management organization; for our digital initiatives, a senior executive from Amazon; and in precision medicine, a founding pioneer in genomics.
Many studies have been dedicated to the development of scaffolds for improving post-traumatic nerve regeneration. The goal of this study was to assess the effect on nerve regeneration, associating a ...hybrid chitosan membrane with non-differentiated human mesenchymal stem cells isolated from Wharton＇s jelly of umbilical cord, in peripheral nerve reconstruction after crush injury. Chromosome analysis on human mesenchymal stem cell line from Wharton＇s jelly was carried out and no structural alterations were found in metaphase. Chitosan membranes were previously tested in vitro, to assess their ability in supporting human mesenchymal stem cell survival, expansion, and differentiation. For the in vivo testing, Sasco Sprague adult rats were divided in 4 groups of 6 or 7 animals each： Group 1, sciatic axonotmesis injury without any other intervention （Group 1-Crush）; Group 2, the axonotmesis lesion of 3 mm was infiltrated with a suspension of 1 250 -1 500 human mesenchymal stem cells （total volume of 50 pL） （Group 2-CrushCell）; Group 3, axonotmesis lesion of 3 mm was enwrapped with a chitosan type Ill membrane covered with a monolayer of non-differentiated human mesenchymal stem cells （Group 3-CrushChitlllCell） and Group 4, axonotmesis lesion of 3 mm was enwrapped with a chitosan type III membrane （Group 4-CrushChiUll）. Motor and sensory functional recovery was evaluated throughout a healing period of 12 weeks using sciatic functional index, static sciatic index, extensor postural thrust, and withdrawal reflex latency. Stereological analysis was carded out on regenerated nerve fibers. Results showed that infiltration of human mesenchymal stem cells, or the combination of chitosan membrane enwrapment and human mesenchymal stem cell enrichment after nerve crush injury provide a slight advantage to post-traumatic nerve regeneration. Results obtained with chitosan type III membrane alone confirmed that they significantly improve post-traumatic axonal regrowth and may represent a very promising clinical tool in peripheral nerve reconstructive surgery. Yet, umbilical cord human mesenchymal stem cells, that can be expanded in culture and induced to form several different types of cells, may prove, in future experiments, to be a new source of cells for cell therapy, including targets such as peripheral nerve and muscle.
The cell-associated and extracellular peptidases of
Herpetomonas megaseliae grown in brain–heart infusion and in modified Roitman's complex media were analyzed by measuring peptidase activity on ...gelatin, casein and hemoglobin in zymograms. Casein was the best proteinaceous substrate for the peptidase detection on both growth conditions. However, no proteolytic activity was detected when hemoglobin was used. Our results showed that cellular cysteine peptidase (115–100, 40 and 35
kDa) and metallopeptidase (70 and 60
kDa) activities were detected on both media in casein and gelatin zymograms. Additionally, the use of casein in the gel revealed a distinct acidic metallopeptidase of 50
kDa when the parasite was cultured in the modified Roitman's complex medium. Irrespective of the culture medium composition,
H. megaseliae released metallopeptidases exclusively in the extracellular environment. The presence of gp63-like molecules on the
H. megaseliae surface was shown by flow cytometry using anti-gp63 antibody raised against recombinant gp63 from
Leishmania mexicana. The pre-treatment of parasites with phospholipase C reduced the number of gp63-positive cells, suggesting that these molecules were glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored to the surface. Additionally, the supernatant obtained from phospholipase C-treated cells and probed with anti-cross-reacting determinant confirmed that at least a 52
kDa gp63-like molecule is glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored. Furthermore, we assessed a possible function for the gp63-like molecules in
H. megaseliae on the interaction with explanted guts of its original host,
Megaselia scalaris, and with an experimental model employing
Aedes aegypti. Parasites pre-treated with either anti-gp63 antibody or phospholipase C showed a significant reduction in the adhesion to
M. scalaris and
A. aegypti guts. Similarly, the pre-treatment of the explanted guts with purified gp63 diminished the interaction process. Collectively, these results corroborate the ubiquitous existence of gp63 homologues in insect trypanosomatids and the potential adhesion of these molecules to invertebrate host tissues.
The activities of the current European RACE and ACTS projects have led to an increasing interest in OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) as a means of combating impulsive noise and ...multipath effects and making fuller use of the available bandwidth of the system. This paper analyses the performance of OFDM signals in amplifier nonlinearity. In particular, bit error rate (BER) degradation as a result of amplitude limiting or clipping are analysed. In the presence of both nonlinear distortion and additive Gaussian noise, optimized output power back off is provided to balance the requirements of minimum BER and power amplifier efficiency. For this purpose, an OFDM system has been built using the SPW (Signal Processing Worksystem) simulator.
En este artículo se expone y discute una problemática de gran relevancia actualmente en la educación mexicana: los exámenes de ingreso, en especial los que dan acceso a la Educación Superior (es). ...Dichas pruebas han sido muy cuestionadas por sus notables limitaciones en cuanto a la evaluación estan-darizada y descontextualizada de conocimientos y habilidades de cientos de miles de alumnos que intentan ingresar a las universidades y otras instituciones públicas, sin tomar en consideración sus orígenes socioculturales ni sus condi-ciones económicas y sociales. De hecho, varios autores y organizaciones consideran que tales exámenes obstaculizan el desarrollo académico y profe-sional de un gran sector de los aspirantes, el cual frecuentemente se encuentra en insoslayables circunstancias de pobreza y marginación (lo cual es aún más grave en el caso de los alumnos provenientes de las comunidades originarias). Este sector suele carecer de los recursos básicos (nutricionales, monetarios y educativos, entre otros), así como de la formación previa necesaria (sobre todo en aspectos lingüísticos y matemáticos), para competir por un lugar en la es con alumnos de clases medias y altas, generándose una notoria desventaja que les cierra las oportunidades de continuar sus estudios. Lo anterior va en detrimento del compromiso federal con la educación inclusiva, política que busca que todos los estudiantes, independientemente de sus circunstan-cias (físicas, étnicas, sociales, etc.), puedan acceder a la educación pública. Ante ello, se han planteado una serie de propuestas para modificar, adaptar o eliminar el proceso de evaluación a través de las pruebas de ingreso, con la intención de permitir un mayor acceso de los alumnos pobres y/o de pueblos originarios a la es, como se muestra en el presente ensayo.
The phase noise effect in multiple-input-multiple-output systems employing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing is considered in a realistic scenario where the estimated channel matrix is ...affected by an error. The analytical SINR degradation due to phase noise and channel estimation is obtained for linear receivers (ZF and MMSE).
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