Wireless Medical Sensor Networks: Design Requirements and Enabling Technologies

This article analyzes wireless communication protocols that could be used in healthcare environments (e.g., hospitals and small clinics) to transfer real-time medical information obtained from noninvasive sensors. For this purpose the features of the three currently most widely used protocols—namely, Bluetooth® (IEEE 802.15.1), ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4), and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11)—are evaluated and compared. The important features under consideration include data bandwidth, frequency band, maximum transmission distance, encryption and authentication methods, power consumption, and current applications. In addition, an overview of network requirements with respect to medical sensor features, patient safety and patient data privacy, quality of service, and interoperability between other sensors is briefly presented. Sensor power consumption is also discussed because it is considered one of the main obstacles for wider adoption of wireless networks in medical applications. The outcome of this assessment will be a useful tool in the hands of biomedical engineering researchers. It will provide parameters to select the most effective combination of protocols to implement a specific wireless network of noninvasive medical sensors to monitor patients remotely in the hospital or at home

The Frequency of Rapid Rotation Among K Giant Stars

We present the results of a search for unusually rapidly rotating giant stars in a large sample of K giants (~1300 stars) that had been spectroscopically monitored as potential targets for the Space Interferometry Mission's Astrometric Grid. The stars in this catalog are much fainter and typically more metal-poor than those of other catalogs of red giant star rotational velocities, but the spectra generally only have signal-to-noise (S/N) of ~20-60, making the measurement of the widths of individual lines difficult. To compensate for this, we have developed a cross-correlation method to derive rotational velocities in moderate S/N echelle spectra to efficiently probe this sample for rapid rotator candidates. We have discovered 28 new red giant rapid rotators as well as one extreme rapid rotator with a vsini of 86.4 km/s. Rapid rotators comprise 2.2% of our sample, which is consistent with other surveys of brighter, more metal-rich K giant stars. Although we find that the temperature distribution of rapid rotators is similar to that of the slow rotators, this may not be the case with the distributions of surface gravity and metallicity. The rapid rotators show a slight overabundance of low gravity stars and as a group are significantly more metal-poor than the slow rotators, which may indicate that the rotators are tidally-locked binaries.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 25 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables. Tables 1 and 2 are provided in their full form as plain text ancillary file

Does rotation of B stars depend on metallicity? preliminary results from GIRAFFE spectra

We show the vsini distribution of main sequence B stars in sites of various metallicities, in the absolute magnitude range -3.34 < Mv < -2.17. These include Galactic stars in the field measured by Abt et al. (2002), members of the h & chi Per open clusters measured by North et al. (2004), and five fields in the SMC and LMC measured at ESO Paranal with the FLAMES-GIRAFFE spectrograph, within the Geneva-Lausanne guaranteed time. Following the suggestion by Maeder et al. (1999), we do find a higher rate of rapid rotators in the Magellanic Clouds than in the Galaxy, but the vsini distribution is the same in the LMC and in the SMC in spite of their very different metallicities.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, poster presented at the ESO/Arcetri Workshop on "Chemical abundances and mixing in stars in the Milky Way and its satellites", 13-17 Sept. 200

Informações sobre polinizadores em mangueira no Vale do São Francisco,

Caracterização da Região; A Cultura da Mangueira; Socioeconomia; Floração, Morfologia e Biologia Floral; Formação e Desenvolvimento dos Frutos; Polinização da Mangueira ; Visitantes Florais na Região do Vale do São Francisco; Polinizadores Potenciais Recomendações de Manejo; Incremento da População de Polinizadores na Área oferta de Fonte Alimentar Alternativa;Sensibilização de Produtores e Técnicos; Criação de Abelhas Nativas em Ninhos Racionais.bitstream/CPATSA-2009-09/40159/1/SDC213.pd

Constant Curvature Algebras and Higher Spin Action Generating Functions

The algebra of differential geometry operations on symmetric tensors over constant curvature manifolds forms a novel deformation of the sl(2,R) [semidirect product] R^2 Lie algebra. We present a simple calculus for calculations in its universal enveloping algebra. As an application, we derive generating functions for the actions and gauge invariances of massive, partially massless and massless (for both bose and fermi statistics) higher spins on constant curvature backgrounds. These are formulated in terms of a minimal set of covariant, unconstrained, fields rather than towers of auxiliary fields. Partially massless gauge transformations are shown to arise as degeneracies of the flat, massless gauge transformation in one dimension higher. Moreover, our results and calculus offer a considerable simplification over existing techniques for handling higher spins. In particular, we show how theories of arbitrary spin in dimension d can be rewritten in terms of a single scalar field in dimension 2d where the d additional dimensions correspond to coordinate differentials. We also develop an analogous framework for spinor-tensor fields in terms of the corresponding superalgebra.Comment: 44 pages, LaTeX, 2 .eps figure

Efeitos da desidratação e do armazenamento em sementes de Taluma ovata St. Hill. - magnoliaceae.

Resumo

ENVEREDANDO O SERTÃO OSWALDIANO:: USOS DO PASSADO NO ENSAÍSMO ETNOGRÁFICO DE OSWALDO LAMARTINE DE FARIA (1961 – 1988)

This article discusses the uses of the past operated by Oswaldo Lamartine de Faria in his ethnographic essays on the hinterland of the Seridó, published between the 1960s and 1980s. The sertanist finds in the essay model a strategic space where to articulate, in his own way, experiences of life and writing. Oswaldian essayism registers the ethnography of a domination, conditioning the existence of the hinterland of the Seridó to the permanence of an elitist and conservative memory.O presente artigo aborda os usos do passado operados por Oswaldo Lamartine de Faria em seus ensaios etnográficos sobre o sertão do Seridó, publicados entre as décadas de 1960 e 1980. O sertanista encontra no modelo ensaístico um espaço estratégico onde articular, à sua maneira, experiências de vida e de escrita. O ensaísmo oswaldiano registra a etnografia de uma dominação, condicionando a existência do sertão do Seridó à permanência de uma memória elitista e conservadora