A microscopy technique based on bio-impedance sensors

It is proposed a microscopy for cell culture applications based on impedance sensors. The imagined signals are measured with the Electrical Cell-Substrate Spectroscopy (ECIS) technique, by identifying the cell area. The proposed microscopy allows real-time monitoring inside the incubator, reducing the contamination risk by human manipulation. It requires specific circuits for impedance measurements, a two-dimensional sensor array (pixels), and employing electrical models to decode efficiently the measured signals. Analogue Hardware Description Language (AHDL) circuits for cell-microelectrode enables the use of geometrical and technological data into the system design flow. A study case with 8x8 sensor array is reported, illustrating the evolution and power of the proposed image acquisition.Junta de Andalucía P0-TIC-538

“ASOCIACIÓN ENTRE SÍNDROME DE RESPIRACIÓN ORAL Y TRASTORNO POR DÉFICIT DE ATENCIÓN E HIPERACTIVIDAD EN PREESCOLAR Y PRIMARIA”

El síndrome del respirador oral es el conjunto de signos y síntomas ante la alteración patológica de la función nasorrespiratoria. Son distintas las secuelas que han sido descritas, algunas bien establecidas como las alteraciones craneodentofaciales y ortopédicas y otras que aún siguen en estudio como el trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad. El trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad afecta al 3-8 % de los escolares, aunque tal vez muchos de los que lo padecen no sean apropiadamente identificados. Se diagnostica especialmente en los varones, con una relación de 3,5:1 sobre las niñas OBJETIVO: Conocer la relación entre el síndrome de respiración oral crónica y el trastorno de déficit de atención e hiperactividad en niños preescolares y de primaria. RESULTADOS: La investigación se llevó a cabo con una muestra de 146 niños, 73 niñas y 73 niños de edades que van desde los 5 hasta los 12 años. El diagnóstico realizado para respiración oral fue del 38.4% de los participantes y la causa más común de esta condición fue la rinitis alérgica. Los puntajes en las versiones de padres y profesores de la escala Conners en una correlación a través del coeficiente P de Pearson, obtuvo P= 0.913 con una significancia de 0.05 mientras que para la correlación planteada entre la respiración oral y las versiones de la escala Conners P=0.164 con una significancia de 0.05. CONCLUSIÓN: El síndrome de respiración oral es una patología que se encuentra de manera frecuente en la población infantil y debe de ser tratada de manera oportuna para evitar alguna o algunas de sus múltiples secuelas. Existe una relación estadísticamente significativa entre las dos patologías de estudio. Se debe de realizar una adecuada valoración multidisciplinaria para mejores resultados

Combining submerged membrane technology with anaerobic and aerobic wastewater treatment

This thesis is framed in the field of industrial and municipal wastewater treatment. Increasingly strict legislations lead to the need of developing compact and efficient systems for the removal of both organic matter and nutrients. Membrane technology has expanded at a remarkable rate over the pass twenty years, and nowadays enhances a multi-billion dollar industry. The present work has been focused on the treatment of both urban and industrial wastewaters with different aerobic and anaerobic technologies, all of them combined with submerged membranes. Thus, tertiary membrane filtration of secondary effluents from two sequencial batch reactors with flocculent and granular biomass were firstly studied. Then, the operation of a combined system integrated by an anaerobic UASB reactor with an aerobic membrane bioreactor (MBR) and the feasibility of denitrification with the dissolved methane present in the effluent of the UASB were studied. Finally, the operation of an anaerobic MBR treating industrial wastewater was assessed. Especial attention was paid to the study of membrane fouling in all the operating systems

Minimizing buffer requirements in video-on-demand servers

23rd Euromicro Conference EUROMICRO 97: 'New Frontiers of Information Technology', Budapest, Hungary, 1-4 Sept 1997Memory management is a key issue when designing cost effective video on demand servers. State of the art techniques, like double buffering, allocate buffers in a per stream basis and require huge amounts of memory. We propose a buffering policy, namely Single Pair of Buffers, that dramatically reduces server memory requirements by reserving a pair of buffers per storage device. By considering in detail disk and network interaction, we have also identified the particular conditions under which this policy can be successfully applied to engineer video on demand servers. Reduction factors of two orders of magnitude compared to the double buffering approach can be obtained. Current disk and network parameters make this technique feasible.Publicad

Detection of irrigation inhomogeneities in an olive grove using the NDRE vegetation index obtained from UAV images

We have developed a simple photogrammetric method to identify heterogeneous areas of irrigated olive groves and vineyard crops using a commercial multispectral camera mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). By comparing NDVI, GNDVI, SAVI, and NDRE vegetation indices, we find that the latter shows irrigation irregularities in an olive grove not discernible with the other indices. This may render the NDRE as particularly useful to identify growth inhomogeneities in crops. Given the fact that few satellite detectors are sensible in the red-edge (RE) band and none with the spatial resolution offered by UAVs, this finding has the potential of turning UAVs into a local farmer’s favourite aid tool.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version