Detection of repolarization alternans with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator lead in a porcine model

Mechanistic links have been suggested between repolarization alternans (RPA) and the onset of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and/or fibrillation. Endocardial detection of RPA may, therefore, be an important step in future device-based treatments of arrhythmias. Here, we investigate if RPA could be detected during acute ischemia using an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) lead (tip to distal coil) located in the right ventricular apex. In 18 pigs, the right coronary (n = 10) or left anterior descending coronary (n = 8) artery was occluded for 10 min using a balloon catheter, followed by reperfusion for 30 min, and re-occlusion for 30 min. RPA magnitude, computed using the modified moving average (MMA) method, showed a sharp increase in all 18 animals, from a mean baseline level of 1.9 +/- 1.3 mV to 3.0 +/- 1.3 mV during first occlusion (p < 0.001). RPA magnitude showed a prominent increase in 10 animals during re-occlusion, from a mean baseline level of 1.7 +/- 1.0 mV to 3.3 +/- 1.5 mV (p < 0.001). The protocol was terminated during the first two stages of occlusion and reperfusion for the remaining 8 animals due to the occurrence of ventricular fibrillation (VF). These results confirm that RPA increases under ischemic conditions and that it is possible to detect and track RPA dynamics with an ICD lead that is positioned in a clinically realistic location. Such an approach may be useful in formulating improved arrhythmia detection and control algorithms.     

Suppression of transient phenomena in hybrid Raman/EDF amplifier

Transient phenomena of hybrid Raman/erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) upon optical channel add-drop are investigated. The transient responses of surviving channels are resulted from the combined dynamics of Raman amplifier and EDFA. It is shown that the suggested method employing fast gain control of EDFA only can effectively suppress the transient variation of output power. The transient-suppressing hybrid Raman/EDFA is proven to be enough for wavelength-division-multiplexing networks including reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer and/or transparent optical cross-connect, if the optical switching speed is carefully chosen.     

A novel dynamic Multiple Ring-based Local Restoration for point-to-multipoint multicast traffic in WDM mesh networks

Optical networks with DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex) can provide multiple data channels to supply high speed, high capacity to perform bandwidth-intensive multicast transmission service. Light-tree is a popular technique applied to support point-to-multipoint multicast services. Any failure during a multicast session would cause severe service loss or disruptions, especially when the faults occur near the source node. A novel ring-based local fault recovery mechanism, Multiple Ring-based Local Restoration (MRLR), for point-to-multipoint multicast traffic based on the minimum spanning tree (MST) in WDM mesh networks is proposed in this article. The MRLR mechanism dismembers the multicast tree into several disjoint segment-blocks (sub-trees) and reserves preplanned spare capacity to set up multiple protection rings in each segment-block for providing rapid local recovery. The MRLR scheme outperforms other methodologies in terms of the blocking probability, recovery time, and average hop count of protection path per session for different network topologies.     

Study of Intrusion Detection Systems

Modern network systems have much trouble in security vulnerabilities such as buffer overflow, bugs in Microsoft Internet, sensor network routing protocol too simple, security flaws of applications, and operating systems. Moreover, wireless devices such as smart phones, personal digital assistants （PDAs）, and sensors have become economically feasible because of technological advances in wireless communication and manufacturing of small and low-cost sensors. There are typologies of vulnerabilities to be exploited in these devices. In order to improve securities, many mechanisms are adopted, including authentication, cryptography, access control, and intrusion detection systems （IDS）. In general, intrusion detection techniques can be categorized into two groups： misuse detection and anomaly detection. The misuse detection systems use patterns of weB-known attacks or weak spots of the systems to identify intrusions. The weakness of misuse detection systems is unable to detect any future （unknown） intrusion until corresponding attack signatures are intruded into the signature database. Anomaly detection methods try to determine whether the deviation is from the established normal usage patterns or not. The critical success of anomaly detection relies on the model of normal behaviors.     

Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition of CdTe(133) Epilayers on Si(211) Substrates

Single-crystalline CdTe(133) films have been grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition on Si(211) substrates. We studied the effect of various growth parameters on the surface morphology and structural quality of CdTe films. Proper oxide removal from the Si substrate is considered to be the principal factor that influences both the morphology and epitaxial quality of the CdTe films. In order to obtain single-crystalline CdTe(133) films, a two-stage growth method was used, i.e., a low-temperature buffer layer step and a high- temperature growth step. Even when the low-temperature buffer layer shows polycrystalline structure, the overgrown layer shows single-crystalline structure. During the subsequent high-temperature growth, two-dimensional crystallites grow faster than other, randomly distributed crystallites in the buffer layer. This is because the capturing of adatoms by steps occurs more easily due to increased adatom mobility. From the viewpoint of crystallographic orientation, it is assumed that the surface structure of Si(211) consists of (111) terrace and (100) step planes with an interplanar angle of 54.8°. This surface structure may provide many preferable nucleation sites for adatoms compared with nominally flat Si(100) or (111) surfaces. The surface morphology of the resulting films shows macroscopic rectangular-shaped terrace—step structures that are considered to be a (111) terrace with two {112} step planes directed toward 〈110〉.     

A Multi‐Strategic Concept‐Spotting Approach for Robust Understanding of Spoken Korean

We propose a multi‐strategic concept‐spotting approach for robust spoken language understanding of conversational Korean in a hostile recognition environment such as in‐car navigation and telebanking services. Our concept‐spotting method adopts a partial semantic understanding strategy within a given specific domain since the method tries to directly extract pre‐defined meaning representation slot values from spoken language inputs. In spite of partial understanding, we can efficiently acquire the necessary information to compose interesting applications because the meaning representation slots are properly designed for specific domain‐oriented understanding tasks. We also propose a multi‐strategic method based on this concept‐spotting approach such as a voting method. We present experiments conducted to verify the feasibility of these methods using a variety of spoken Korean data.     

Improved Yen-Joye's authenticated multiple-key agreement protocol

An authenticated multiple-key agreement protocol is proposed. The protocol is not only secure against the unknown-key attack but also more efficient than other protocols.     

Digital Laser Micropainting for Reprogrammable Optoelectronic Applications

Structural coloration is closely related to the progress of innovative optoelectronic applications, but the absence of direct, on-demand, and rewritable coloration schemes has impeded advances in the relevant area, particularly including the development of customized, reprogrammable optoelectronic devices. To overcome these limitations, a digital laser micropainting technique, based on controlled thin-film interference, is proposed through direct growth of the absorbing metal oxide layer on a metallic reflector in the solution environment via a laser. A continuous-wave laser simultaneously performs two functions—a photothermal reaction for site-selective metal oxide layer growth and in situ real-time monitoring of its thickness—while the reflection spectrum is tuned in a broad visible spectrum according to the laser fluence. The scalability and controllability of the proposed scheme is verified by laser-printed painting, while altering the thickness via supplementary irradiation of the identical laser in the homogeneous and heterogeneous solutions facilitates the modification of the original coloration. Finally, the proof-of-concept bolometer device verifies that specific wavelength-dependent photoresponsivity can be assigned, erased, and reassigned by the successive application of the proposed digital laser micropainting technique, which substantiates its potential to offer a new route for reprogrammable optoelectronic applications.     

Rapid Generation of Biologically Relevant Hydrogels Containing Long‐Range Chemical Gradients

Many biological processes are regulated by gradients of bioactive chemicals. Thus, the generation of materials with embedded chemical gradients may be beneficial for understanding biological phenomena and generating tissue‐mimetic constructs. Here a simple and versatile method to rapidly generate materials containing centimeter‐long gradients of chemical properties in a microfluidic channel is described. The formation of a chemical gradient is initiated by a passive‐pump‐induced forward flow and further developed during an evaporation‐induced backward flow. The gradient is spatially controlled by the backward flow time and the hydrogel material containing the gradient is synthesized via photopolymerization. Gradients of a cell‐adhesion ligand, Arg‐Gly‐Asp‐Ser (RGDS), are incorporated in poly(ethylene glycol)‐diacrylate (PEG‐DA) hydrogels to test the response of endothelial cells. The cells attach and spread along the hydrogel material in a manner consistent with the RGDS‐gradient profile. A hydrogel containing a PEG‐DA concentration gradient and constant RGDS concentration is also shown. The morphology of cells cultured on such hydrogel changes from round in the lower PEG‐DA concentration regions to well‐spread in the higher PEG‐DA concentration regions. This approach is expected to be a valuable tool to investigate the cell–material interactions in a simple and high‐throughput manner and to design graded biomimetic materials for tissue engineering applications.     

A Low‐Complexity 128‐Point Mixed‐Radix FFT Processor for MB‐OFDM UWB Systems

In this paper, we present a fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor with four parallel data paths for multiband orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing ultra‐wideband systems. The proposed 128‐point FFT processor employs both a modified radix‐2⁴ algorithm and a radix‐2³ algorithm to significantly reduce the numbers of complex constant multipliers and complex booth multipliers. It also employs substructure‐sharing multiplication units instead of constant multipliers to efficiently conduct multiplication operations with only addition and shift operations. The proposed FFT processor is implemented and tested using 0.18 µm CMOS technology with a supply voltage of 1.8 V. The hardware‐ efficient 128‐point FFT processor with four data streams can support a data processing rate of up to 1 Gsample/s while consuming 112 mW. The implementation results show that the proposed 128‐point mixed‐radix FFT architecture significantly reduces the hardware cost and power consumption in comparison to existing 128‐point FFT architectures.