A review of smart homes- present state and future challenges

In the era of information technology, the elderly and disabled can be monitored with numerous intelligent devices. Sensors can be implanted into their home for continuous mobility assistance and non-obtrusive disease prevention. Modern sensor-embedded houses, or smart houses, cannot only assist people with reduced physical functions but help resolve the social isolation they face. They are capable of providing assistance without limiting or disturbing the resident's daily routine, giving him or her greater comfort, pleasure, and well-being. This article presents an international selection of leading smart home projects, as well as the associated technologies of wearable/implantable monitoring systems and assistive robotics. The latter are often designed as components of the larger smart home environment. The paper will conclude by discussing future challenges of the domain.     

Self-timed Manchester chain carry propagate adder

The authors present a self-timed adder that uses two Manchester chains to propagate carries in a two-rail code. With the inclusion of buffers in the chains, the adder met the timing conditions typical of an asynchronous design based on the `bundled-data, bounded-delay' model and is significantly faster than self-timed adders with restoring logic and similar complexity     

Kinetics of elimination and distribution in blood and liver of biocompatible ferrofluids based on Fe3O4 nanoparticles: An EPR and XRF study

In this study, we evaluated the biodistribution and the elimination kinetics of a biocompatible magnetic fluid, Endorem™, based on dextran-coated Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles endovenously injected into Winstar rats. The iron content in blood and liver samples was recorded using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques. The EPR line intensity at g = 2.1 was found to be proportional to the concentration of magnetic nanoparticles and the best temperature for spectra acquisition was 298 K. Both EPR and XRF analysis indicated that the maximum concentration of iron in the liver occurred 95 min after the ferrofluid administration. The half-life of the magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) in the blood was (11.6 ± 0.6) min measured by EPR and (12.6 ± 0.6) min determined by XRF. These results indicate that both EPR and XRF are very useful and appropriate techniques for the study of kinetics of ferrofluid elimination and biodistribution after its administration into the organism.     

Chi-phase precipitation in a duplex stainless steel

The aim of this study is to investigate the precipitation of intermetallic phases, especially the chi-phase, in a 45N (type UNS S31803) duplex stainless steel through aging heat-treatments carried out at 700 and 750 °C. Two intermetallic phases are detected: chi (χ) and sigma (σ). The χ-phase precipitates at ferrite/ferrite grain boundaries prior to the σ-phase precipitation, which occurs preferentially at ferrite/austenite interfaces and at ferrite/ferrite grain boundaries. The σ-phase precipitation is a eutectoid type reaction of ferrite leading to σ-phase phase and austenite. The χ-phase is consumed in the σ-phase precipitation after becoming completely surrounded by both the σ-phase and the newly formed austenite.     

Capacitive RF MEMS analytical predictive reliability and lifetime characterization

The reliability of integrated systems is considered as a major obstacle in their development. The goal of this work is to estimate the lifetime of RF MEMS capacitive switch devices. This is performed by combining the functional and physical failure analysis models using the VHDL-AMS language. The physics of charging effects along with mechanical behavior of the membrane are introduced simultaneously to determine the time to failure.