A platform for the development of patient applications in the domain of personalized health

Personalized health (p-health) systems can contribute significantly to the sustainability of healthcare systems, though their feasibility is yet to be proven. One of the problems related to their development is the lack of well-established development tools for this domain. As the p-health paradigm is focused on patient self-management, big challenges arise around the design and implementation of patient systems. This paper presents a reference platform created for the development of these applications, and shows the advantages of its adoption in a complex project dealing with cardio-vascular diseases.     

Synthesis of MCM-41 frameworks incorporating oxygen-sulphur derivates of molybdenum and tungsten

The first examples of mesostructured materials containing Mo- and W-oxo-sulphur species incorporated into a poorly ordered MCM-41 framework have been prepared under hydrothermal condition and alkaline medium. The incorporation of oxygen-sulphur derivates of molybdenum and tungsten not only increases significantly the pore diameter, but also improves the thermal stability of the MCM-41-related mesoporous material.     

A Monadic Semantics for Core Curry

We give a deterministic, big-step operational semantics for the essential core of the Curry language, including higher-order functions, call-by-need evaluation, non-determinism, narrowing, and residuation. The semantics is structured in modular monadic style, and is presented in the form of an executable interpreter written in Haskell. It uses monadic formulations of state, non-determinism, and resumption-based concurrency.     

Neurotrophic control of ovarian development

Substantial evidence now exists indicating that the neurotrophins, a family of growth factors required for the survival, development, and differentiation of various neuronal populations of the nervous system, are also important for the development of nonneuronal tissues. Such a function was first suggested by studies showing the presence of high-affinity neurotrophin receptors in a variety of nonneuronal tissues including those of the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems. Within the latter, the gonads appear to be a preferential site of neurotrophin action as suggested by the presence in the mammalian ovary of at least four of the five known neurotrophins and all of the neurotrophin receptors thus far identified. While the various functions that the neurotrophins may have in the ovary are still being elucidated, it is now clear that in addition to recruiting the ovarian innervation, they play a direct role in the regulation of two different maturational periods that are critical for the acquisition of female reproductive function: early follicular development and ovulation. Neurotrophins facilitate the development of newly formed follicles by promoting the initial differentiation and the subsequent growth of primordial follicles. These actions appear to be related to the ability of neurotrophins to sustain the proliferation of both mesenchymal and granulosa cells, and to induce the synthesis of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) receptors. At the time of the first ovulation, neurotrophins contribute to the ovulatory cascade by increasing prostaglandin E(2) release, reducing gap junction communication, and inducing cell proliferation within the thecal compartment of preovulatory follicles.     

A parallel micro evolutionary algorithm for heterogeneous computing and grid scheduling

This work presents a novel parallel micro evolutionary algorithm for scheduling tasks in distributed heterogeneous computing and grid environments. The scheduling problem in heterogeneous environments is NP-hard, so a significant effort has been made in order to develop an efficient method to provide good schedules in reduced execution times. The parallel micro evolutionary algorithm is implemented using MALLBA, a general-purpose library for combinatorial optimization. Efficient numerical results are reported in the experimental analysis performed on both well-known problem instances and large instances that model medium-sized grid environments. The comparative study of traditional methods and evolutionary algorithms shows that the parallel micro evolutionary algorithm achieves a high problem solving efficacy, outperforming previous results already reported in the related literature, and also showing a good scalability behavior when facing high dimension problem instances.     

A low-cost frequency multiplier for synchronous sampling ofperiodic signals

The theory of digital signal processing indicates clearly that the measurements performed on periodic signals by means of digital techniques are affected by an error due to the nonsynchronization between the sampling frequency and the signal frequency. The authors present a low-cost device, based on a frequency multiplier, that allows the generation of sampling pulses synchronized with the signal frequency. The behavior of this device is analyzed in order to assure its ability to work with input signals in the frequency range typical of the mains. As an example of the application of this device, the results of the Fourier analysis of a multifrequency signal are given, showing the high accuracy that can be attained     

A straightforward design technique for narrowband multi‐stage low‐noise amplifiers with I/O conjugate match

Low‐noise amplifier (LNA) designers often struggle to simultaneously satisfy gain, noise, stability, and I/O matching requirements. In this article, a novel design technique, tailored for two‐stage low‐noise amplifiers, is presented. The proposed design method is completely deterministic and exploits inductive source degeneration to obtain a two‐stage LNA featuring perfect input and output match together with low noise figure (NF) and a pre‐determined gain, including stability analysis. A novel flowchart is provided together with the corresponding design chart that contains gain, matching, and stability information, therefore addressing all key figures‐of‐merit of a linear amplifier. The design chart is easily implementable in commercial Electronic Design Automation software, to aid designers in the difficult task of selecting the appropriate source degeneration inductor value. The noise performance, on the other hand, is the best possible since the matching networks are designed to provide the input of the two Field Effect Transistors with the optimum termination for noise. The design method is validated with two separate test vehicles operating respectively at Ka‐band (26.5‐31.5 GHz) and K‐band (20.0‐24.0 GHz). The realized Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits exhibit 18 dB gain for both versions, NF of 1.5 and 1.2 dB, respectively for the Ka‐band and K‐band version. Input and output matching are typically better than 12 and 15 dB.     

A method for the calibration of a 3-D laser scanner

The calibration of a three-dimensional digitizer is a very important issue to take into consideration that good quality, reliability, accuracy and high repeatability are the features which a good digitizer is expected to have. The aim of this paper is to propose a new method for the calibration of a 3-D laser scanner, mainly for robotic applications. The acquisition system consists of a laser emitter and a webcam with fixed relative positions. In addition, a cylindrical lens is provided with the laser housing so that it is capable to project a plane light. An optical filter was also used in order to segment the laser stripe from the rest of the scene. For the calibration procedure it was used a digital micrometer that move a target with known dimensions. The calibration method is based on the modeling of the geometrical relationship between the 3-D coordinates of the laser stripe on the target and its digital coordinates in the image plane. By this method it is possible to calibrate the intrinsic parameters of the video system, the position of the image plane and the laser plane in a given frame, all in the same time.     

Discrete-time stochastic control systems: A continuous Lyapunov function implies robustness to strictly causal perturbations

Discrete-time stochastic systems employing possibly discontinuous state-feedback control laws are addressed. Allowing discontinuous feedbacks is fundamental for stochastic systems regulated, for instance, by optimization-based control laws. We introduce generalized random solutions for discontinuous stochastic systems to guarantee the existence of solutions and to generate enough solutions to get an accurate picture of robustness with respect to strictly causal perturbations. Under basic regularity conditions, the existence of a continuous stochastic Lyapunov function is sufficient to establish that asymptotic stability in probability for the closed-loop system is robust to sufficiently small, state-dependent, strictly causal, worst-case perturbations. Robustness of a weaker stochastic stability property called recurrence is also shown in a global sense in the case of state-dependent perturbations, and in a semiglobal practical sense in the case of persistent perturbations. An example shows that a continuous stochastic Lyapunov function is not sufficient for robustness to arbitrarily small worst-case disturbances that are not strictly causal. Our positive results are also illustrated by examples.