Wireless Aspects of Telehealth

Telehealth is the use of electronic information and communication technology to deliver health and medical information and services over large and small distances. Broadband wireless services available today, along with more powerful and convenient handheld devices, will enable a transformational change in health management and healthcare with the introduction of real-time monitoring and timely responses to a wide array of patient needs. Further, a network of low-cost sensors and wireless systems help in creating constantly vigilant and pervasive monitoring capability at home and at work. This paper addresses recent efforts in this growing field, including standards, system architectures, propagation models, and lower layer protocols for body area networks. The paper also suggests the use of cooperative transmission-based strategies for such wireless topologies.     

Can variation in durum wheat pasta protein and starch composition affect in vitro starch hydrolysis?

Pasta was prepared with modifications designed to alter its rate of digestion, including altering the ratio of A- to B-granules, incorporating higher amylose content, and varying the glutenin:gliadin ratio and HMW:LMW glutenin subunit ratio. The effects of these modifications were investigated using an in vitro hydrolysis method. A significant reduction in parameters related to glycaemic index was established for high amylose pastas and pastas with 40% B-granule composition, while most other modifications increased the rate of starch hydrolysis. All effects observed were small in comparison to the effect on glycaemic index previously obtained by addition of soluble fibres.     

Fretting fatigue studies of titanium nitride-coated biomedical titanium alloys

Fretting fatigue is an adhesive wear mechanism caused by repetitive tangential micro-oscillation between two contacting materials pressed together under cyclic load. Bioimplants, such as hip joints and bone plates, are prone to undergo fretting fatigue failures during their service within the body. This article presents the fretting fatigue damage characterization of physical vapor deposition (PVD) TiN-coated biomedical titanium alloys (Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-7Nb) subjected to cyclic loads. The PVD TiN layer delayed the damage because of superior tribological properties compared with uncoated alloys. Delamination and abrasive wear damage of TiN at contact caused failure of the alloy. Friction coefficient curves of the PVD TiN-coated pair showed an irregular pattern caused by the influence of wear particulates and Ringer fluid at the contact.     

Design and material analysis for prototyping of four arm mechanical microgripper with self-locking and anti-slipping capability

Microsystem Technologies - In this work, a mechanically actuated microgripper is designed with the COMSOL Multiphysics and its analysis is discussed. The mechanical microgripper is having a...     

Low sintering effect on structural,electrical and magnetic properties of rare-earth metal ion Er3+-substituted nickel–zinc spinal ferrites

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - The nano-crystalline particles of erbium-substituted Ni–Zn ferrites with compositional formula Ni0.7Zn0.3ErxFe2?xO4...     

Modelling of Chevron electrothermal actuator and its performance analysis

Microsystem Technologies - In this work, a Chevron electrothermal actuator is designed and its analytical model is developed. Chevron actuator works on the principle of Joules heating effect and...     

An IND-CCA2 Secure Certificateless Hybrid Signcryption

This article proposes a hybrid certificateless signcryption scheme that is secure against adaptive chosen ciphertext adversary in the random oracle model. The scheme combines an asymmetric encryption which is one way against chosen plaintext attack and any One-Time secure symmetric encryption scheme, combined using Fujisaki–Okamoto transformation. Uncommon to many Fujisaki–Okamoto based constructions which ensure message integrity alone, this scheme provides entity authentication in addition. By the choice of a hash function that utilizes the advantage of sponge based construction, the scheme enables the user to incorporate any One-Time secure symmetric encryption by re-configuring the input/output parameters. Fujisaki–Okamoto transformation, which is currently a standard in hybrid constructions, guarantees the indistinguishability against adaptive chosen ciphertext attack. The provision for choosing symmetric encryption in the scheme enables it to be implemented in all sort of cryptographic requirements including those in wireless communication.

     

The location and extent of exfoliation of clay on the fracture mechanisms in nylon 66-based ternary nanocomposites

The primary focus of this work is to elucidate the location and extent of exfoliation of clay on fracture (under both static and dynamic loading conditions) of melt-compounded nylon 66/clay/SEBS-g-MA ternary nanocomposites fabricated by different blending sequences. Distinct microstructures are obtained depending on the blending protocol employed. The state of exfoliation and dispersion of clay in nylon 66 matrix and SEBS-g-MA phase are quantified and the presence of clay in rubber is shown to have a negative effect on the toughness of the nanocomposites. The level of toughness enhancement of ternary nanocomposites depends on the blending protocol and the capability of different fillers to activate the plastic deformation mechanisms in the matrix. These mechanisms include: cavitation of SEBS-g-MA phase, stretching of voided matrix material, interfacial debonding of SEBS-g-MA particles, debonding of intercalated clay embedded inside the SEBS-g-MA phase, and delamination of intercalated clay platelets. Based on these results, new insights and approaches for the processing of better toughened polymer ternary nanocomposites are discussed.     

Conserved domains in DNA repair proteins and evolution of repair systems

A detailed analysis of protein domains involved in DNA repair was performed by comparing the sequences of the repair proteins from two well-studied model organisms, the bacterium Escherichia coli and yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to the entire sets of protein sequences encoded in completely sequenced genomes of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. Previously uncharacterized conserved domains involved in repair were identified, namely four families of nucleases and a family of eukaryotic repair proteins related to the proliferating cell nuclear antigen. In addition, a number of previously undetected occurrences of known conserved domains were detected; for example, a modified helix-hairpin-helix nucleic acid-binding domain in archaeal and eukaryotic RecA homologs. There is a limited repertoire of conserved domains, primarily ATPases and nucleases, nucleic acid-binding domains and adaptor (protein-protein interaction) domains that comprise the repair machinery in all cells, but very few of the repair proteins are represented by orthologs with conserved domain architecture across the three superkingdoms of life. Both the external environment of an organism and the internal environment of the cell, such as the chromatin superstructure in eukaryotes, seem to have a profound effect on the layout of the repair systems. Another factor that apparently has made a major contribution to the composition of the repair machinery is horizontal gene transfer, particularly the invasion of eukaryotic genomes by organellar genes, but also a number of likely transfer events between bacteria and archaea. Several additional general trends in the evolution of repair proteins were noticed; in particular, multiple, independent fusions of helicase and nuclease domains, and independent inactivation of enzymatic domains that apparently retain adaptor or regulatory functions.