When to collect blood specimens: midmorning vs fasting samples

This study was carried out to define the consequences of collecting blood specimens during the forenoon instead of using fasting specimens collected early in the morning. Extensive laboratory data were obtained from specimens collected from fasting participants at 0800, after breakfast at 0930, and again at 1100. The subjects were inpatients in medical and surgical wards (n = 51; 13 women and 38 men; ages, 32-87 years) and subjectively healthy volunteers corresponding to outpatients (n = 51; 31 women and 20 men; ages, 18-63 years). The coefficient of variation (CV, %) of the patient results was compared with the analytical CV. The observed CVs of the subjects' results far exceeded the analytical CV (%), the average being 3.5-fold and up to 14-fold for some analytes. In individual results the observed change often exceeded the medically derived clinical critical difference. Laboratory data should always be interpreted in the context in which they were obtained. Clinical decisions should be based on objective data (observations) more than on experience and educated guesses. Different medical specialities and different clinical situations may require different kinds of procedures.     

Simple and low-cost fabrication of PDMS microfluidic round channels by surface-wetting parameters optimization

Convenient for both biologists and MEMS designers, Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer is intensively investigated for its biocompatibility, transparency, high resistance under plasma treatment, flexibility and resistance to high temperature. However, for microfluidic applications, the fabrication of PDMS circular channels is difficult to achieve except by wire moulding. In this article, we present a simple, fast and low-cost fabrication method which can be applied out of clean-room environment. It is based on the deposition of alginic acid sodium salt aqueous solution, enabling the formation of a liquid cylinder on the most hydrophilic part of a hydrophilic/hydrophobic patterned surface. We experimentally studied the interaction between liquid rivulets and surfaces presenting a contrast of wettability and/or a stepwise texture. Subsequent moulding of the half-cylinder of liquid produces round PDMS microfluidic channels. The optimal parameters for hydrophilic/hydrophobic patterns have then been applied to produce the roundest possible channels. The realisation of both straight channels 300–500 μm wide, 1 cm long and 75° tangent chord angle at best, and Y-shaped channels with the same dimensions and 55° TCA is demonstrated.     

UTILIZATION OF POPULATION BALANCES IN SIMULATION OF LIQUID-LIQUID SYSTEMS IN MIXED TANKS

A simulation model has been developed to model drop populations in a mixed tank. A multiblock mixed tank model has been used with the drop population balance equations developed in the literature. The drop breakage and coalescence functions used in the population balance model take into account the local turbulent energy dissipation values. The drop breakage and coalescence function parameters are fitted against drop size measurements from dense liquid-liquid dispersions, which were assumed fully turbulent. Since the local turbulence and flow values of a mixed tank are used in the present model, the fundamental breakage and coalescence phenomena can be taken into closer examination. Furthermore, the present model is capable of predicting inhomogeneities occurring in a mixed tank. It is also considered as an improved tool for process scale-up, compared to the simple vessel-averaged population balance approach, or use of correlations of dimensionless numbers only. The present model can use two sources of data for fitting parameters in the drop rate functions. One is the transient data of the measured drop size distribution as the impeller speed is changed. The other is the time-averaged data measured at different locations of the mixed tank. Different flow regions can be chosen from direct measurements or from the CFD simulations in a straightforward manner. CFD flow simulation results can be used when no experimentally obtained flow conditions are available. This is especially useful for nonstandard vessels, such as reactors containing cooling coils.     

Surfascan 3D — An industrial 3D surface texture characterisation instrument

2D profile analysis has often in the past been considered sufficient to control the geometrical features of a surface and to ensure that they are compatible with the required functionalities. Yet, experience shows that 3D surface texture analysis is now essential wherever a complete assessment of the surface is required to enable the selection of the most appropriate surface texture to achieve a required functionality.This paper introduces measurement strategies and features considered as essential by SOMICRONIC when designing or developing 3D surface texture measuring instruments, knowing that the pursued aim is to assess the measured surface in a way to reveal the real surface. This is achieved without losing sight of existing ISO standardized concepts concerning surface texture profile analysis.Indeed, essentially for economical reasons, we consider that 31) surface texture stylus instruments must be designed to achieve classical surface texture profiles measurements and characterisations and to fulfil conditions and characteristics listed and described in existing surface texture ISO standards.We propose to develop in the next paragraphs, the following points:

• - Design of the data acquisition unit of a 3D surface texture instrument

• - Strategy for the measurement of the surface

• - Application of these concepts - Examples.

     

‘Podracing’: experimenting with mobile TV content consumption and delivery methods

Recently, mobile TV has been launched in several countries. While mobile TV integrates television contents into mobile phones, the most personal of communication devices, it becomes interesting to know how this feature will be used throughout the day and in varying contexts of everyday life. This paper presents empirical results on the use of mobile TV with different delivery mechanisms and both quantitative and qualitative results on how end-users prefer to use mobile TV contents in different situations. The data is based on ongoing empirical research in Finland in 2006 and 2007. The mobile TV services under study included both news and entertainment contents, and were tested in 3G, DVB-H and Wi-Fi networks using different delivery paradigms: broadcast, on-demand and download. To explore the use of different delivery methods and content consumption, we have developed a mobile TV service protoype, called Podracing. The analysis shows that users appreciated up-to-date information and information-rich media forms and contents especially for mobile news delivery. There was high demand for only the latest news on mobiles. The real-time property was considered important. Most of the users looked at the headlines or followed the news several times a day – much more often than the traditional TV and news prime times would allow.     

Mixed preconditioners for harmonic balance Jacobians

Preconditioning is crucial for the convergence of GMRES iteration in the Harmonic Balance analysis of RF and microwave circuits. In this article, mixed frequency/time‐domain preconditioners for harmonic balance Jacobians are presented. The efficiency of mixed preconditioners is demonstrated with realistic simulation examples. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

Medical challenges of internal conflicts

The most prevalent menace since the end of the cold war is the occurrence of civil wars and local and regional conflicts. The term "low intensity conflict" describes the new threat environment and covers a multitude of phenomena, such as civil wars, guerrilla warfare, terrorism and counterinsurgency operations occurring between routine, peaceful inter- or intrastate competition, and a sustained conventional conflict. There is a great challenge to alert the physicians in general, and the surgical community of the world in particular, to the new threat environment and the medical challenges involved in treating casualties of low intensity conflicts. Specifically, a new international body of surgeons might be required to coordinate the recruitment, training, and creditation for surgeons with special expertise in the management of victims of such conflicts and to facilitate research and general knowledge of the medical challenges of modern conflicts.     

A moving threads processor architecture MTPA

Moving threads is a new kind of approach for multicore processor architectures. Traditionally, each thread stays in the core where it is created, and data is moved from the main memory via caches to each core and thread. In the moving threads approach, each core can access only a certain portion of the main memory via its local memory block, and thus extremely lightweight threads are moved between the cores. As a consequence, all kinds of cache coherence problems and need for read reply messages are eliminated. Also Lamport’s sequential consistency of shared memory multiprocessor systems is achieved for free. In this paper, we propose a processor architecture (MTPA) for the moving threads paradigm. We describe the overall structure, operation, instruction set, and thread management mechanism as well as evaluate the proposed architecture with different functional unit settings with simulations and give early silicon area and power consumption estimates.     

Managing the requirements flow from strategy to release in large-scale agile development: a case study at Ericsson

In a large organization, informal communication and simple backlogs are not sufficient for the management of requirements and development work. Many large organizations are struggling to successfully adopt agile methods, but there is still little scientific knowledge on requirements management in large-scale agile development organizations. We present an in-depth study of an Ericsson telecommunications node development organization which employs a large scale agile method to develop telecommunications system software. We describe how the requirements flow from strategy to release, and related benefits and problems. Data was collected by 43 interviews, which were analyzed qualitatively. The requirements management was done in three different processes, each of which had a different process model, purpose and planning horizon. The release project management process was plan-driven, feature development process was continuous and implementation management process was agile. The perceived benefits included reduced development lead time, increased flexibility, increased planning efficiency, increased developer motivation and improved communication effectiveness. The recognized problems included difficulties in balancing planning effort, overcommitment, insufficient understanding of the development team autonomy, defining the product owner role, balancing team specialization, organizing system-level work and growing technical debt. The study indicates that agile development methods can be successfully employed in organizations where the higher level planning processes are not agile. Combining agile methods with a flexible feature development process can bring many benefits, but large-scale software development seems to require specialist roles and significant coordination effort.     

Mobile crowdsensing with mobile agents

We introduce mobile agents for mobile crowdsensing. Crowdsensing campaigns are designed through different roles that are implemented as mobile agents. The role-based tasks of mobile agents include collecting data, analyzing data and sharing data in the campaign. Mobile agents execute and control the campaign autonomously as a multi-agent system and migrate in the opportunistic network of participants’ devices. Mobile agents take into account the available resources in the devices and match participants’ privacy requirements to the campaign requirements. Sharing of task results in real-time facilitates cooperation towards the campaign goal while maintaining a selected global measure, such as energy efficiency. We discuss current challenges in crowdsensing and propose mobile agent based solutions for campaign execution and monitoring, addressing data collection and participant-related issues. We present a software framework for mobile agents-based crowdsensing that is seamlessly integrated into the Web. A set of simulations are conducted to compare mobile agent-based campaigns with existing crowdsensing approaches. We implemented and evaluated a small-scale real-world mobile agent based campaign for pedestrian flock detection. The simulation and evaluation results show that mobile agent based campaigns produce comparable results with less energy consumption when the number of agents is relatively small and enables in-network data processing with sharing of data and task results with insignificant overhead.