Authoring and Living Next-Generation Location-Based Experiences

Authoring location-based experiences involving multiple participants, collaborating or competing in both indoor and outdoor mixed realities, is extremely complex and bound to serious technical challenges. In this work, we present the first results of the MAGELLAN European project and how these greatly simplify this creative process using novel authoring, augmented reality (AR) and indoor geolocalisation techniques

Theoretical Considerations Regarding the Application of Received Signal Strength within Heterogeneous Indoor Positioning Systems

Nowadays, there are a variety of different indoor positioning systems, where some of them use communication hardware taking advantage of the Received Signal Strength (RSS) such as Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) or Bluetooth. These variants are employed if low cost is of primary importance. However, the accuracy provided is in the meter range. The alternative are positioning-tailored approaches like Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar, Ultra-WideBand (UWB) radar or phase-based positioning, which offer superior accuracy in the low decimetre range. If there is such a system in use, the question arises whether there is any improvement, if utilizing additional RSS measurements, which are performed by most systems anyway. With the help of the Cram´er-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB), this paper demonstrates that these additional readings can improve accuracy significantly, thus widen the application field for RSS from a low-budget only technique to enabling enhanced accurate positioning. To demonstrate this statement we compare the CRLB for Time of Arrival (ToA) with hybrid ToA/RSS. Our evaluations show that in practice the CRLB is approximately divided by two, if incorporating the RSS for each base station

Hardware Design for an Angle of Arrival Positioning System

Nowadays, there are a variety of different indoor positioning systems employing diverse techniques. Besides inertial navigation, most systems are based on ranging. For instance, techniques utilizing the Received Signal Strength (RSS), phase-difference, time of flight or time of arrival usually convert this information to distances, where trilateration is used to calculate the position. In contrast, approaches utilizing the Angle of Arrival (AoA) are commonly overlooked in literature. Within this paper, we present the hardware design for building such a system and give an outlook towards the algorithms to determine of the AoA. Preliminary measurements show the operability of the system

Program FFlexCom — High frequency flexible bendable electronics for wireless communication systems

Today, electronics are implemented on rigid substrates. However, many objects in daily-life are not rigid — they are bendable, stretchable and even foldable. Examples are paper, tapes, our body, our skin and textiles. Until today there is a big gap between electronics and bendable daily-life items. Concerning this matter, the DFG Priority Program FFlexCom aims at paving the way for a novel research area: Wireless communication systems fully integrated on an ultra-thin, bendable and flexible piece of plastic or paper. The Program encompasses 13 projects led by 25 professors. By flexibility we refer to mechanical flexibility, which can come in flavors of bendability, foldability and, stretchability. In the last years the speed of flexible devices has massively been improved. However, to enable functional flexible systems and operation frequencies up to the sub-GHz range, the speed of flexible devices must still be increased by several orders of magnitude requiring novel system and circuit architectures, component concepts, technologies and materials

Immunohistochemical Biomarkers of Gastrointestinal, Pancreatic, Pulmonary, and Thymic Neuroendocrine Neoplasms

Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) are a heterogeneous group of epithelial neoplastic proliferations that irrespective of their primary site share features of neural and endocrine differentiation including the presence of secretory granules, synaptic-like vesicles, and the ability to produce amine and/or peptide hormones. NENs encompass a wide spectrum of neoplasms ranging from well-differentiated indolent tumors to highly aggressive poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinomas. Most cases arise in the digestive system and in thoracic organs, i.e., the lung and thymus. A correct diagnostic approach is crucial for the management of patients with both digestive and thoracic NENs, because their high clinical and biological heterogeneity is related to their prognosis and response to therapy. In this context, immunohistochemistry represents an indispensable diagnostic tool that pathologists need to use for the correct diagnosis and classification of such neoplasms. In addition, immunohistochemistry is also useful in identifying prognostic and theranostic markers. In the present article, the authors will review the role of immunohistochemistry in the routine workup of digestive and thoracic NENs