Bioengineered Textiles and Nonwovens – the convergence of bio-miniaturisation and electroactive conductive polymers for assistive healthcare, portable power and design-led wearable technology

Today, there is an opportunity to bring together creative design activities to exploit the responsive and adaptive ‘smart’ materials that are a result of rapid development in electro, photo active polymers or OFEDs (organic thin film electronic devices), bio-responsive hydrogels, integrated into MEMS/NEMS devices and systems respectively. Some of these integrated systems are summarised in this paper, highlighting their use to create enhanced functionality in textiles, fabrics and non-woven large area thin films. By understanding the characteristics and properties of OFEDs and bio polymers and how they can be transformed into implementable physical forms, innovative products and services can be developed, with wide implications. The paper outlines some of these opportunities and applications, in particular, an ambient living platform, dealing with human centred needs, of people at work, people at home and people at play. The innovative design affords the accelerated development of intelligent materials (interactive, responsive and adaptive) for a new product & service design landscape, encompassing assistive healthcare (smart bandages and digital theranostics), ambient living, renewable energy (organic PV and solar textiles), interactive consumer products, interactive personal & beauty care (e-Scent) and a more intelligent built environment

BCAS: A Web-enabled and GIS-based Decision Support System for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer

For decades, geographical variations in cancer rates have been observed but the precise determinants of such geographic differences in breast cancer development are unclear. Various statistical models have been proposed. Applications of these models, however, require that the data be assembled from a variety of sources, converted into the statistical models’ parameters and delivered effectively to researchers and policy makers. A web-enabled and GIS-based system can be developed to provide the needed functionality. This article overviews the conceptual web-enabled and GIS-based system (BCAS), illustrates the system’s use in diagnosing and treating breast cancer and examines the potential benefits and implications for breast cancer research and practice

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Towards NFC payments using a lightweight architecture for the Web of Things

The Web (and Internet) of Things has seen the rapid emergence of new protocols and standards, which provide for innovative models of interaction for applications. One such model fostered by the Web of Things (WoT) ecosystem is that of contactless interaction between devices. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is one such enabler of contactless interactions. Contactless technology for the WoT requires all parties to agree one common definition and implementation and, in this paper, we propose a new lightweight architecture for the WoT, based on RESTful approaches. We show how the proposed architecture supports the concept of a mobile wallet, enabling users to make secure payments employing NFC technology with their mobile devices. In so doing, we argue that the vision of the WoT is brought a step closer to fruition

Integration of Data Mining into Scientific Data Analysis Processes

In recent years, using advanced semi-interactive data analysis algorithms such as those from the field of data mining gained more and more importance in life science in general and in particular in bioinformatics, genetics, medicine and biodiversity. Today, there is a trend away from collecting and evaluating data in the context of a specific problem or study only towards extensively collecting data from different sources in repositories which is potentially useful for subsequent analysis, e.g. in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository of high throughput gene expression data. At the time the data are collected, it is analysed in a specific context which influences the experimental design. However, the type of analyses that the data will be used for after they have been deposited is not known. Content and data format are focused only to the first experiment, but not to the future re-use. Thus, complex process chains are needed for the analysis of the data. Such process chains need to be supported by the environments that are used to setup analysis solutions. Building specialized software for each individual problem is not a solution, as this effort can only be carried out for huge projects running for several years. Hence, data mining functionality was developed to toolkits, which provide data mining functionality in form of a collection of different components. Depending on the different research questions of the users, the solutions consist of distinct compositions of these components. Today, existing solutions for data mining processes comprise different components that represent different steps in the analysis process. There exist graphical or script-based toolkits for combining such components. The data mining tools, which can serve as components in analysis processes, are based on single computer environments, local data sources and single users. However, analysis scenarios in medical- and bioinformatics have to deal with multi computer environments, distributed data sources and multiple users that have to cooperate. Users need support for integrating data mining into analysis processes in the context of such scenarios, which lacks today. Typically, analysts working with single computer environments face the problem of large data volumes since tools do not address scalability and access to distributed data sources. Distributed environments such as grid environments provide scalability and access to distributed data sources, but the integration of existing components into such environments is complex. In addition, new components often cannot be directly developed in distributed environments. Moreover, in scenarios involving multiple computers, multiple distributed data sources and multiple users, the reuse of components, scripts and analysis processes becomes more important as more steps and configuration are necessary and thus much bigger efforts are needed to develop and set-up a solution. In this thesis we will introduce an approach for supporting interactive and distributed data mining for multiple users based on infrastructure principles that allow building on data mining components and processes that are already available instead of designing of a completely new infrastructure, so that users can keep working with their well-known tools. In order to achieve the integration of data mining into scientific data analysis processes, this thesis proposes an stepwise approach of supporting the user in the development of analysis solutions that include data mining. We see our major contributions as the following: first, we propose an approach to integrate data mining components being developed for a single processor environment into grid environments. By this, we support users in reusing standard data mining components with small effort. The approach is based on a metadata schema definition which is used to grid-enable existing data mining components. Second, we describe an approach for interactively developing data mining scripts in grid environments. The approach efficiently supports users when it is necessary to enhance available components, to develop new data mining components, and to compose these components. Third, building on that, an approach for facilitating the reuse of existing data mining processes based on process patterns is presented. It supports users in scenarios that cover different steps of the data mining process including several components or scripts. The data mining process patterns support the description of data mining processes at different levels of abstraction between the CRISP model as most general and executable workflows as most concrete representation

NASA SBIR abstracts of 1990 phase 1 projects

The research objectives of the 280 projects placed under contract in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1990 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program are described. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses in response to NASA's 1990 SBIR Phase 1 Program Solicitation. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 280, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. The document also includes Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference in the 1990 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA field center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number