Channel Models for Medical Implant Communication

Information regarding the propagation media is typically gathered by conducting physical experiments, measuring and processing the corresponding data to obtain channel characteristics. When this propagation media is human body, for example in case of medical implants, then this approach might not be practical. In this paper, an immersive visualization environment is presented, which is used as a scientific instrument that gives us the ability to observe RF propagation from medical implants inside a human body. This virtual environment allows for more natural interaction between experts with different backgrounds, such as engineering and medical sciences. Here, we show how this platform has been used to determine channel models for medical implant communication systems.     

Ultra wideband antenna

Ultra wideband antennas are specifically designed to transmit and/or receive very short time durations of electromagnetic energy. It is well known that UWB antenna design remains the major factor in the progress of UWB technology. This article describes a study of conventional antennas and why they are not suitable for a UWB system.     

An Integrated Framework to Evaluate Resilient-Sustainable Urban Drainage Management Plans Using a Combined-adaptive MCDM Technique

Due to the inevitability of urban flood in presence of the rainfalls exceeding design capacity of urban drainage system, resilience approach has been recently considered instead of the conventional urban drainage management. However, acceptance of resilience approach necessitates considering sustainability in the selection of urban drainage projects due to the various aspect of flood impacts. This paper presents a new integrated framework to show how urban drainage plans are resilient and sustainable. The framework consists of several indicators including technical, economic, social, environmental and planning aspects. On the other hand, the selection of suientropy of the probability distribution p _i . In fact, entropy reduces the effect of plan among available suggested plans is complicated in presence of multiplicity of the indicators. A new combined-adaptive multi criteria decision making technique including combination of Adaptive analytical hierarchical process, Entropy and TOPSIS is here introduced to facilitate the decision making process as well as dealing with uncertainties due to the subjective experts’ preferences. Moreover, presented framework are applied on a part of urban drainage system of Tehran, Capital City. Four urban drainage plans are designed and suggested to be evaluated along with existing system in terms of their sustainability and resilience. The results shows the presented framework provide comprehensive information regarding the behavior of the urban drainage plans against urban floods as well as their sustainability for urban managers. In addition, presented framework facilitates and accelerate the complicated process of decision making. Therefore, it can be employed as comprehensive decision support tool for resilient and sustainable urban drainage management.     

Wireless Technologies in Healthcare: Selected Papers from IEEE PIMRC 2011

The use of wireless technologies for medical device communication, health monitoring (at hospitals or homes) and mobile healthcare information delivery (i.e. m-Health) is one of the most rapidly growing areas in health-IT research today. The papers which appear in this special issue have been carefully selected from the best IEEE PIMRC 2011 conference. They are highlighting various challenging issues in using wireless technology for healthcare applications such as PHY & MAC innovations for wearable and implantable medical sensors, optical communication and location systems in hospital environments and interference mitigation issues.     

Potential impacts of clean air regulations on system operations

This paper is one of a series prepared on the behalf of the IEEE system operation committee to focus industry attention on current problems faced by power system operators. The paper contains 6 short-note reports, describing current and emerging needs of electric utilities in the power generation emissions area     

Flood Intensification due to Changes in Land Use

The non-stationarity in runoff regime may be attributed to various causes such as climate change, land use change, and man-made runoff control structures. Degradation of land use can induce significant impact on infiltration and surface roughness leading to higher flood discharges. This study aims at quantifying possible effects of land use changes and identifying flood source areas for future flood control planning in the Golestan watershed located northeast of Iran. A preliminary trend analysis on the annual maximum flood record of three stations inside the watershed showed that two stations were subject to anthropogenic change. This is while no trend could be detected in the annual maximum rainfall records in the region. Using a calibrated event-based rainfall-runoff model, flood hydrographs corresponding to land use conditions in 1967 and 1996 were simulated and relative changes in the peak flow of the two subsequent conditions were determined for different return periods. The results showed that the impact of land use changes on the flood peak discharge is considerably greater in some subwatersheds. Two limiting land use scenarios were also considered to investigate the envelope of future flood peaks in the watershed. By successively eliminating subwatersheds from the simulation process in a method titled "unit flood response”, the contribution of each subwatershed to the outlet flood peak was quantified. Contribution, per unit area, to the outlet flood peak was the basis to rank the subwatersheds in terms of their flood potential.     

Body Area Networking: Selected Papers from IEEE PIMRC 2009

Body Area Networks (BAN) which consist of RF-enabled wearable and implantable sensory nodes are poised to be a promising interdisciplinary technology with novel uses in pervasive healthcare, personal entertainment and consumer electronics. The papers which appear in this special issue have been carefully selected from the best IEEE PIMRC 2009 conference papers addressing some of the most challenging issues in BAN such as propagation modeling, physical, and medium access control layers. Papers presented here propose models, algorithms and protocols exhibiting advance research in this promising field.     

The extent of cage aquaculture,adherence to best practices and reflections for sustainable aquaculture on African inland waters

Cage aquaculture is expanding on African inland waters and has potential to close the fish supply deficit in the region and provide other social benefits such as employment and income. However, if not appropriately guided and regulated, cage aquaculture could become unsustainable, causing conflicts with other water uses, environmental degradation and economic losses to aquaculture enterprises. To enhance sustainability of cage aquaculture on the African inland waters, we developed an inventory of cage aquaculture installations and used it to investigate the distribution and magnitude of cage aquaculture and adherence to best practices for sustainable aquaculture. Our results show evidence of spatial expansion of cage aquaculture on the African inland waters, of varying magnitude across and within water bodies and partial adherence to best practices. Cage aquaculture was confirmed on 18 water bodies which together share 263 installations with more than 20,000 cages. Lakes Victoria, Kariba, Volta and River Volta host 82.9% of cage aquaculture installations on the African inland waters and are major areas for cage aquaculture. Contrary to best practices, evidence shows cage aquaculture installations entirely or in close proximity to protected areas, in eutrophic and hypertrophic waters, shallow water bodies and sites (≥5 m average depth) and close to the shoreline. Cage aquaculture is qualified as an additional stressor to the African inland waters and because it is expected to continue expanding, adherence to best practices should be promoted for sustainability.     

A New Integrated Portfolio Based Water-Energy-Environment Nexus in Wetland Catchments

Water Resources Management - Increasing demand of vital resources such as water and energy will impose some overwhelming environmental degradation, particularly on wetlands as the most vulnerable...