A new educational program on biomedical engineering

At the University of Twente together with the Free University of Amsterdam a new educational program on Biomedical Engineering will be developed. The academic program with a five-year duration will start in September 2001. After a general, broad education in Biomedical Engineering in the first three years, the students specialise in one of the following areas: materials and tissue engineering; technology for restoration of human function; healthcare technolog

Fulmar Litter EcoQO Monitoring in the Netherlands 1979-2008 in relation to EU Directive 200/59/EC on Port Reception Facilities

Operational and cargo related wastes from ships are an important source of litter in the marine environment in the southern North Sea and cause serious economical and ecological damage. Inadequacies in the ship to shore waste delivery procedures are considered a major factor in illegal discharges. The European Union therefore addressed the problem with the Directive on Port Reception Facilities (Directive 2000/59/EC). Obligatory waste delivery to shore and indirect financing of the costs are key-elements of the Directive to stimulate and enforce proper disposal of shipwaste in harbours. Monitoring the effect of the EU Directive is required. In the Netherlands, the Ministry of VenW commissions regular updates of Dutch data in the Fulmar-Litter monitoring database maintained by IMARES

Video imaging in turbid water

In order to describe seabed habitats and to identify and quantify spatial patterns information is needed at different scales. Whereas ground-truthing techniques are used to gain point information, remote sensing techniques are used to obtain information on a larger scale. To link seabed samples taken with grabs and cores to a wider patterns remote sensing techniques as side scan sonar, multibeam and video imaging are often used. For the latter, however, the Dutch waters are often too turbid to obtain good images. In order to improve information obtained by photography and video a “water lens” system was developed and tested

Genetic algorithm based two-mode clustering of metabolomics data

Metabolomics and other omics tools are generally characterized by large data sets with many variables obtained under different environmental conditions. Clustering methods and more specifically two-mode clustering methods are excellent tools for analyzing this type of data. Two-mode clustering methods allow for analysis of the behavior of subsets of metabolites under different experimental conditions. In addition, the results are easily visualized. In this paper we introduce a two-mode clustering method based on a genetic algorithm that uses a criterion that searches for homogeneous clusters. Furthermore we introduce a cluster stability criterion to validate the clusters and we provide an extended knee plot to select the optimal number of clusters in both experimental and metabolite modes. The genetic algorithm-based two-mode clustering gave biological relevant results when it was applied to two real life metabolomics data sets. It was, for instance, able to identify a catabolic pathway for growth on several of the carbon sources

Removal of Base-Line Wander and Power-Line Interference from the ECG by an Efficient FIR Filter with a Reduced Number of Taps

Linear phase filtering is proposed for the removal of baseline wander and power-line frequency components in electrocardiograms. In order to reduce the large number of computations involved in the digital filtering that are necessary, the desired filter spectrum was defined periodically. Making use of the property that the spectrum period is 50 Hz, the spectrum can be realized with a considerably reduced number of impulse response coefficients. This, in combination with the necessary impulse response symmetry, leads to a reduction in the number of multiplications per output sample by a factor of 10. A suitable impulse response is designed with a pass-band ripple of less than 0.5 dB and a high stop-band attenuation. The applicability is demonstrated by applying the filtering to exercise electrocardiograms

Problems for Vulnerable Road Users in the Netherlands

INTRODUCTION In the Netherlands pedestrian and pedal cycle travel are important transport modes for the population. However, given the particularly vulnerable nature of these modes of transport, pedestrians and cyclists are involved in a large number of accidents and suffer a particularly high proportion of the fatalities and serious injuries. Technical measures to improve safety and efficiency focus almost exclusively on motorized traffic, disregarding the needs of the non-motorized traffic participants. In order to determine how technical measures, such as Road Tr&c Informatics (RTI) applications, can be used to increase the safety and mobility of pedestrians and cyclists, more information is needed about the causes of accidents to these groups. This report deals with a first analysis of the problems of cyclists and pedestrians in the Netherlands. Similar reports are being produced for Britain and Sweden which together will serve as a basic information source from which decisions can be made about which type of measures have potential to improve the situation of vulnerable road users. This report examines the nature and causes of accidents involving vulnerable road users (VRU's), their mobility patterns and their risk. It is intended to serve as a tool in subsequent stages of this project, and thus is not a general survey of safety and mobility problems for vulnerable road users, but rather a review of those issues that are related to the RTI measures envisaged by the project. The project is aimed at improving VRU safety and mobility both directly, through the enhancement of signalized junctions and pedestrian crossings, and indirectly, through the creation of a model of the traffic system incorporating vulnerable road users. It is intended that this model will permit the routing and guidance of motorized vehicles in such a way as to enhance VRU safety and reduce VRU annoyance and delay from traffic. Both the direct and the indirect measures envisaged will only be relevant to VRU safety and mobility on main roads in urban areas; they are unlikely to be applicable to residential streets or minor roads unless these have substantial VRU flows. The report therefore concentrates (in so far as existing information permits) on VRU safety and mobility on main roads and on VRU use of facilities that are intended to be upgraded through the planned RTI measures. The report covers both the national level for the Netherlands (about 14.5 million inhabitants) and the local level for the City of Groningen (about 160,000 inhabitants). Section 2 of this report seeks to define a number of the terms which are used throughout, and provides a basis for comparison between the findings from this report and those for Sweden and Britain. Section 3 identifies the sources of information from which the analyses of accident and mobility data have been derived. Sections 4 and 5 identify the safety and mobility situations of vulnerable road users at the national and local levels respectively. Section 6 examines the risk to pedestrians and cyclists, and finally Section 7 provides some conclusions and recommendations for RTI-measures

ECG baseline wander reduction using linear phase filters

The continuous real time reduction of baseline wander is a considerable problem in electrocardiography during exercises. Our solution consists of spectral filtering. The legitimacy of high-pass filtering of the ECG by means of digital linear phase filters with a low cut-off frequency as high as the heart rate is shown. The specifications of these filters are derived from experimental results. Special hardware is presented that simultaneously performs the desired real-time filter operation in four ECG leads

Hysteresis losses in hollow superconducting filaments and in multifilament systems

The magnetization of hollow superconducting filaments in a perpendicular applied field is calculated numerically using a mathematical model. With this model the hysteresis losses over a closed cycle of the applied field, as well as the instantaneous power dissipation in the filament, can be calculated. Theoretical results are compared with data from experiments using wire with hollow Nb3Sn filaments. Demagnetization effects caused by the influence of the field of one filament on another are studied and, finally, bridging between neighouring filaments and its influence on the effective filament diameter and the hysteresis losses are discussed