RFID Tag Reader Designs for Retail Store Applications

Current RFID tag readers do not do much more than reading the tags and transmitting that information to a central server for processing. This places a heavy burden on the central server to keep track of all the incoming data from the reader when it can be spending its time more gainfully on other tasks. We propose building some intelligence into RFID tag readers so that they can process some of the data themselves and reduce the load on the central server. We discuss the technical details of building this intelligence in the four key functions of tag readers: (A) Automatic initialization of the tag readers, (B) Automatic identification of misplaced items, (C) Automatic generation of shelf replenishment alerts, and (D) Automatic generation of reorder alerts. In addition, we discuss possible network designs for interconnecting the tag readers and the central transaction server at the retail store. We provide a database model for storing transactions generated by RFID tag reads. We discuss how the current enterprise architectures can be modified to accommodate RFID transactions

Hearing outcome in congenitally CMV infected children in Finland - Results from follow-up after three years age

Objectives: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common congenital infection affecting about 0.6% of all newborns in developed countries. Vertical transmission to fetus can take place either after maternal primary or non-primary CMV infection during pregnancy. It is the most common infectious agent for sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in young children. The hearing loss after congenital CMV (cCMV) may be present at birth, or may develop after months or even years. In this study, we evaluated hearing outcome at 3-4 years of age in children (n 32) with cCMV identified in universal saliva CMV-PCR-based screening.Methods: Study population consisted of mainly asymptomatic children (median age 3.1 years) with cCMV identified in newborn CMV screening. The type of maternal CMV infection (primary or non-primary) was determined by analyzing CMV antibodies (IgM, IgG and IgG avidity) from preserved maternal serum samples drawn in the end of first trimester of pregnancy. Hearing was evaluated with pure tone audiometry (PTA), or transient-evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) and sound field audiometry (SF).Results: Unilateral hearing loss occurred in 5/32 (16%) of the children with cCMV. None of the subjects in our cohort had bilateral hearing loss. Hearing loss occurred in 3/15 (20%) of children who were born to mothers with non-primary CMV infection during pregnancy, and in 2/10 (20%) of children whose mother had had a primary CMV infection during the 2-3 trimester. None of the additional 6 children, whose mother had primary infection in the first trimester, had hearing loss by age of 3-4 years. Two children with normal hearing at 1 years age had developed unilateral hearing loss by the age of three.Conclusions: Unilateral hearing loss was relatively common among the mainly asymptomatic children with cCMV identified in screening. Long-term follow up of children with cCMV is essential to identify the children with late-onset hearing loss.Peer reviewe

Viral shedding, and distribution of cytomegalovirus glycoprotein H (UL75), glycoprotein B (UL55), and glycoprotein N (UL73) genotypes in congenital cytomegalovirus infection

Background Children with congenital CMV infection (cCMV) shed virus in urine and saliva for prolonged periods of time. Outcome of cCMV varies from asymptomatic infection with no sequelae in most cases, to severe longterm morbidity. The factors associated with asymptomatic cCMV are not well defined. We evaluated the viral shedding in a cohort of infants with cCMV identified on newborn screening. In addition, we describe the distribution of viral genotypes in our cohort of asymptomatic infants and previous cohorts of cCMV children in the literature. Methods Study population consisted of 40 children with cCMV identified in screening of 19,868 infants, a prevalence of 2/1000. The viral shedding was evaluated at 3 and 18 months of age by real-time CMV-PCR of saliva and plasma, and CMV culture of urine. CMV positive saliva samples were analyzed for genotypes for CMV envelope glycoproteins gB (UL55), and gH (UL75) by genotype specific real-time PCR, and gN (UL73) by cloning and sequencing Results At 3 months age 40/40 saliva and urine samples, and 19/40 plasma samples were positive for CMV. At 18 months age all urine samples tested (33/33), 9/37 of saliva samples, and 2/34 plasma samples were positive for CMV. The genotype distribution did not differ from the published data Conclusions The urinary virus shedding is more persistent than salivary shedding in children with cCMV. The genotype distribution was similar to previous literature and does not explain the low disease burden of cCMV in our population.Peer reviewe

Fault-Tolerant Routing with Non-Adaptive Wormhole Algorithms in Mesh Networks

. We present simple techniques to enhance the e-cube algorithm for fault-tolerant routing in mesh networks. These techniques are based on the concept of fault rings, which are formed using fault-free nodes and links around each fault region. We use fault rings to enhance the e-cube to route messages in the presence of rectangular block faults. We show that if fault rings do not overlap with one another---the sets of links in fault rings are pairwise disjoint, then two virtual channels per physical channel are sufficient to make the e-cube tolerant to any number of faulty blocks. For more complex cases such as overlapping fault rings and faults on network boundaries, three or four virtual channels are used. In all cases, the routing guarantees livelock and deadlock free delivery of each and every message injected into the network. Our simulation results for isolated faults indicate that the proposed method provides acceptable performance with as many as 10 percent faulty links. Keyword..

Fault-Tolerant Multicast Communication in Multicomputers

. We describe fault-tolerant routing of multicast messages in mesh-based wormhole-switched multicomputers. With the proposed techniques, multiple convex faults can be tolerated. The fault information is kept locally--- each fault-free processor needs to know the status of the links incident on it only. Furthermore, the proposed techniques are deadlock- and livelock-free and guarantee delivery of messages. In particular, we show that the previously proposed column-path and Hamilton-path based algorithms can be made tolerant to multiple faults using two or three virtual channels per physical channel. Keywords: block faults, fault-tolerant routing, Hamilton path routing, multicast routing, wormhole routing. 1 Introduction Many commercially available parallel computers use mesh or grid based networks for interprocessor communication with a processor and router module at each node [5, 10]. The interprocessor communication functions in a multicomputer are usually handled by a router which..

Adaptive Multimodule Routers

. Recent multiprocessors such as Cray T3D support interprocessor communication using partitioned dimension-order routers (PDRs). In a PDR implementation, the routing logic and switching hardware is partitioned into multiple modules, with each module suitable for implementation as a chip. This paper proposes a method to incorporate adaptivity into such routers with simple changes to the router structure and logic. We show that with as few as two virtual channels per physical channel, adaptivity can be provided to handle nonuniform traffic in multidimensional meshes. Keywords: adaptive routing, mesh networks, multicomputers, multimodule routers, wormhole routing. 1 Introduction Many recent experimental and commercial multicomputers and multiprocessors [6, 14, 18] use grid topology based networks such as meshes and tori. Majority of these multicomputers use the dimension-order or e-cube routing with wormhole (WH) switching [8]. Wormhole is a form of cutthrough routing in which blocked ..

Higher expectations for a vaccine to prevent congenital cytomegalovirus infection

SCOPUS: le.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe