Elderly care monitoring system with IoT application

Falls among elderly can pose serious consequences such as injury or even fatal ones. Therefore, it is essential that fall are detected early and away to that is by using IoT platform. The authors have been developing a wearable device for elderly monitoring system utilizing accelerometer. The data from accelerometer is connected to an Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform called ThingSpeakTM. Based on IoT platform, elderly patients can be remotely monitored as long as the care providers have good internet access. The paper presents the experimental results of determining the sensitivity and specificity of the accelerometer used in the proposed system. This is the first step for developing an accurate data acquisition for monitoring purposes. Based on the experimental results, the average percentage for sensitivity obtained for this device is 73.3%, while the average for specificity obtained is 89.3%. Both sensitivity and specificity tests shows promising results which indicates that the device only has a fail rate of 26.7% and error rate of 10.7%

An overview: effectiveness of different arrangement for electrode guard in electrical capacitance tomography

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) system is useful to obtain information about the spatial distribution of a dielectric materials mixture inside a vessel. It has been suggested by many researchers previously to use guard electrode in ECT sensors. This paper describes various types of design for guard electrode in Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) sensor. The design of these electrode guards is vital to reduce crosstalk (undesired signals) between the adjacent electrodes (positioned at the outside of the measured pipe) since the crucial signals are only inside the pipe. There are three types of electrode guards designed by various researchers which are radial guard, axial guard with end guard and driven guard. The configuration and the effectiveness of each designed electrode are discussed. Other than that this paper introduced new design of electrode guards which are embedded on electrode sensor instead of placing separately between or around adjacent measuring electrodes as the previous design

Optimization of Pulse Duration Parameter for Hela Cells Growth Rate

To introduce a cell or tissue with a gene or DNA, electroporation parameter plays the most important role. Research on electroporation parameters is still in its early stages. Different researches have used different parameters while performing their research. Electroporation is a mechanism of temporarily disrupting the bilayer membrane, in such a way that a hydrophilic pore is established, allowing a pathway into the cell for molecules such as DNA, which then heals up, once again protecting the cell from the outside. There are many theories as to how this can occur, but the simplest view is that a short pulse creates an increase in the trans-membrane potential which if it exceeds a certain threshold (dependent on size and shape of cells) can lead to a thinning of the bilayer, either due to a local dislocation in the membrane. In this study, cervical cancer cells (HeLa cells) was used to expose to single pulse electric field. Thus, for the purpose of this study, the field strength of 1kV/cm was selected and the pulse duration was varied (30µs, 70µs, 100µs, 200µs, 300µs and 600µs) to obtain higher proliferation for a growth rate of HeLa cells. From this study, it is determined that, HeLa cell exposed to 1kV/cm with a pulse duration of 100µs and single pulse revealed the highest and fastest percentage confluence when compared to growth rate of HeLa cell exposed for 30µs, 70µs, 200µs, 300µs and 600µs pulse duration

Detection and Measurement System for Button Mushrooms using Convolutional Neural Network

In Malaysia, the button mushroom is recognized as a vegetable with high nutritional value and is easy to grow. To observe the mushrooms\u27 growth, farmers are frequently required to check the crops, which are time-consuming and waste of human resources. Therefore, a detection and measurement system for button mushrooms has been developed based on image processing techniques using the convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm model known as YOLOv4. Based on the results obtained from the preliminary experiments, the detection and measurement system demonstrate high accuracy in locating position of each button mushroom with only 5% deviation error in predicting the size of each button mushroom

Combined effect of neolamarckia cadamba leaves and electroporation method on hela cell anti- proliferation process

This study suggests that natural sources may become an important tool in treating cancer. Neolamarckia cadamba (NC) leaves also well-known as “Anthocephalus Cadamba”, is a precious plant in Ayurvedic medicine. HeLa cells are one of the examples of eukaryotic cells type. It is derived from human cervical cancer cells. This experiment is conducted in different concentrations of NC Leaves (1μg/ml, 5μg/ml, 10μg/ml, 20μg/ml, 30μg/ml, 40μg/ml, 50μg/ml, 60μg/ml, 70μg/ml, 80μg/ml, 90μg/ml and 100μg/ml) for 48 hours. This experiment’s result proves that the anti-cancer properties of the extract of NC leaves are by increasing the concentration of extract, the numbers of cell viability will decrease. For contribution, the process of NC leaves extract will be combined with the electroporation process to investigate the effect on HeLa cell. Electroporation parameters used for this study were (voltage 600v/cm, pulse duration 5ms, single pulse)

Development of a Mobile Robot with Camera-based Target Tracking and Obstacle Avoidance Systems

This work describes the preliminary design and development of a mobile robot called CREC (Camera-Based Mobile Robot for Elderly Care). The robot uses a low-cost HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor to avoid obstacle, and a Pixy CMUcam5 camera as the vision-based sensor to track the target. This camera uses colour marker tag to follow and monitor the target. CREC uses an Arduino UNO microcontroller to fuse data conveyed by the ultrasonic sensor and camera so that the robot can follow the target and avoid obstacles simultaneously. In this work, the hardware design of CREC is described. Furthermore, preliminary experiments to characterize the ultrasonic sensor and Pixy camera are demonstrated to verify the usefulness of the selected sensors for the mobile robot

Development of a home-based wrist rehabilitation system

There are several factors that may result to wrist injuries such as athlete injuries and stroke. Most of the patients are unable to undergo rehabilitation at healthcare providers due to cost and logistic constraint. To solve this problem, this project proposes a home-based wrist rehabilitation system. The goal is to create a wrist rehabilitation device that incorporates an interactive computer game so that patients can use it at home without assistance. The main structure of the device is developed using 3D printer. The device is connected to a computer, where the device provides exercises for the wrist, as the user completes a computer game which requires moving a ball to four target positions. Data from an InvenSense MPU-6050 accelerometer is used to measure wrist movements. The accelerometer values are read and used to control a mouse cursor for the computer game. The pattern of wrist movements can be recorded periodically and displayed back as sample run for analysis purposes. In this paper, the usefulness of the proposed system is demonstrated through preliminary experiment of a subject using the device to complete a wrist exercise task based on the developed computer game. The result shows the usefulness of the proposed system

Development of a wrist rehabilitation device with android based game application

Traditional methods of rehabilitation that lacking excitement can contribute to demotivate patients in completing rehabilitation. Thus, interactive and interesting rehabilitation methods are essential to ensure stroke patients continue rehabilitation activity. This project proposes a wireless home based wrist rehabilitation device with an android-based game application (app). The patients will be able to do wrist therapy at home or anywhere with the rehabilitation device. The device is consists of an accelerometer that can measure acceleration in three dimensional space. It is developed in free wrist movement such as roll, pitch and yaw. The accelerometer data is processed by an Arduino Micro, and converted into mouse cursor movement that can be used in an android-based game app for rehabilitation. The game app called “BallGame” is being developed using the MIT App Inventor software. In this work, the hardware development of the rehabilitation device is presented. Furthermore, early development stages of the game app is described where the data from the rehabilitation device is successfully transmitted to the app via Bluetooth communication

Dengue virus type 1 clade replacement in recurring homotypic outbreaks

BACKGROUND: Recurring dengue outbreaks occur in cyclical pattern in most endemic countries. The recurrences of dengue virus (DENV) infection predispose the population to increased risk of contracting the severe forms of dengue. Understanding the DENV evolutionary mechanism underlying the recurring dengue outbreaks has important implications for epidemic prediction and disease control. RESULTS: We used a set of viral envelope (E) gene to reconstruct the phylogeny of DENV-1 isolated between the periods of 1987–2011 in Malaysia. Phylogenetic analysis of DENV-1 E gene revealed that genotype I virus clade replacements were associated with the cyclical pattern of major DENV-1 outbreaks in Malaysia. A total of 9 non-conservative amino acid substitutions in the DENV-1 E gene consensus were identified; 4 in domain I, 3 in domain II and 2 in domain III. Selection pressure analyses did not reveal any positively selected codon site within the full length E gene sequences (1485 nt, 495 codons). A total of 183 (mean dN/dS = 0.0413) negatively selected sites were found within the Malaysian isolates; neither positive nor negative selection was noted for the remaining 312 codons. All the viruses were cross-neutralized by the respective patient sera suggesting no strong support for immunological advantage of any of the amino acid substitutions. CONCLUSION: DENV-1 clade replacement is associated with recurrences of major DENV-1 outbreaks in Malaysia. Our findings are consistent with those of other studies that the DENV-1 clade replacement is a stochastic event independent of positive selection

CREC: Camera-based mobile robot for elderly care

Technologies that permits remote monitoring can be very helpful in reducing concerns of long-distance caregiving especially for elderly care. This work describes the design and development of a Camera-based mobile Robot for Elderly Care (CREC). A Pixy CMUcam5 camera is used as the main intermediary between the elderly and the movement of the robot. This camera uses a marker or tag to follow and monitor the elderly. Furthermore, a range finder sensor, Ultrasonic Sensor HC-SR04 is used as the main sensor to avoid obstacles as it is easy to inter-face and low-cost. An Arduino microprocessor is utilized to control the tyres of the mobile robot, so that the robot can follow the elderly with precision. In the current work, the robot is specifically designed to be used indoors. Several experiment have been carried out to show the usefulness of CREC. Experimental results demonstrated that CREC is capable to avoid obstacle and follow the marker tagged static and moving target successfully