Effect on bone turnover markers of once-yearly intravenous infusion of zoledronic acid versus daily oral risedronate in patients treated with glucocorticoids

Objective. Long-term glucocorticoid use is accompanied by rapid bone loss; however, early treatment with bisphosphonates prevents bone loss and reduces fracture risk. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of two bisphosphonates, i.v. zoledronic acid (ZOL) versus oral risedronate (RIS), on bone turnover markers (BTMs) in subjects with glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIO). Methods. Patients were randomly stratified according to the duration of pre-study glucocorticoid therapy [prevention subpopulation (ZOL, n = 144; RIS, n = 144) ≤3 months, treatment subpopulation (ZOL, n = 272; RIS, n = 273) >3 months]. Changes in β-C-terminal telopeptides of type 1 collagen (β-CTx), N-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (NTx), procollagen type 1 N-terminal propeptide (P1NP) and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BSAP) from baseline were measured on day 10 and months 3, 6 and 12. Results. At most time points, there were significantly greater reductions (P < 0.05) in the concentrations of serum β-CTx, P1NP and BSAP and urine NTx in subjects on ZOL compared with RIS in both males and females of the treatment and prevention subpopulations. In pre- and post-menopausal women, there were significantly greater reductions in the concentrations of BTMs with ZOL compared with RIS. At 12 months, ZOL had significantly greater reductions compared with RIS (P < 0.05) for β-CTx, P1NP, BSAP and NTx levels, independent of glucocorticoid dose. Conclusions. Once-yearly i.v. infusion of ZOL 5 mg was well tolerated in different subgroups of GIO patients. ZOL was non-inferior to RIS and even superior to RIS in the response of BTMs in GIO patients. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, http://clinicaltrials.gov, NCT0010062

Analyse trajectcontrole

status: publishe

Modeling Acoustic Localization Accuracy for Scalable Energy Consumption in Wireless Sensor Swarms

Sensor swarms can be a cost-effectieve and more privacy-friendly alternative for location based service systems in building automation and health-care. To increase the battery lifetime of such swarm networks, the energy consumption should be scaled to the required localization accuracy. In this paper we described the first steps in developing an energy model that couples localization accuracy to energy-related sensor parameters such as sample frequency and ADC resolution. The goal is to use the model for the localization of undetermined environmental sounds, by means of wireless acoustic sensors. We show that for TDOA-based localization, the signal sample rate can be under the Nyquist frequency, provided that enough frequency components remain present in the undersampled signal. The resulting localization error is comparable with that of similar localization systems.status: publishe

Influence of Bluetooth Low Energy on WIFI communications and vice versa

In modern mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, multiple wireless communication standards are supported. Since many of those standards operate at the licence free 2.4GHz ISM band, these standards use different modulation schemes and error correcting techniques in order to avoid interference when communicating over a wireless link (WIFI, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy...). For commercial use, these techniques are sufficient, but for industrial or medical use, in perhaps life threatening circumstances, all communications should perform at peak efficiency whilst not influencing each other. In this paper, a case study is presented where a healthcare setting is envisioned in which a WIFI network is deployed and used formedical purposes.We investigate the influence of a lot of transceiving Bluetooth Low Energy devices on theWIFI throughput, and vice versa. Conclusions and suggestions about the coexistance of both standards are also given.status: publishe

Indoor Room Location Estimation

This paper presents an indoor location estimation system, especially to locate people or objects at room level. First of all a theoretical approach is given. Secondly, a practical case, using our own system, is presented. Our system consists of a ZigBee-based wireless sensor network connected to a central PC. Using the signpost algorithm and considering the behavior of the received signal strength (RSS) through walls, floors and ceilings, we succeeded in developing a reliable indoor room localization system.status: publishe

Acoustic localization of unknown sources with wireless sensor nodes

Accuracy of unknown sound source localization and lifetime of sensor nodes is one of the important and critical issue and challenge in wireless sensor network. Localization plays major role when there is an uncertainty of the exact source location of some fixed or mobile devices. The main problem is source localization in an environment where they try to localize and focus on a source of unknown sound and noisy distance. This paper presents a new approach on the indoor localization of an acoustic sensor source. In this localization system, the environment will be scattered with a swarm of acoustic motes. The motes used in this localization system are the LOTUS motes from MEMSIC. In order to get the system working, We utilize a modular sensor board to plug on the mote. This sensor board captures acoustic signals and then digitalizes them. This localization algorithm uses the incoming Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) values of a swarm ZigBee modules. The location of the source of the acoustic signal is determined by the multilateration technique. A sensor network is used in order to collect the signals. The evident advantage of the algorithm is that it requires synchronization between the motes mutually and not between the motes and acoustic source. The algorithm for these methods is written in MATLAB. The motes communicate in a ZigBee mesh network.status: publishe

Open-source hardware for embedded security

status: publishe

Integration of a CAN bus in an Onboard Computer for Space Applications

The integration of CAN bus networks in space applications has gained interest over the past years because of its high reliability and cost effectiveness. The bus has already been integrated in some low earth orbit satellites with commercial off-the-shelf components, but the harsh environment in deep space demands a more reliable solution. That is why a radiation hardened design of a CAN transceiver and a CAN controller is being investigated. The transceiver is constructed with a radhard RS-485 transceiver and the CAN controller is implemented in a radhard FPGA by means of VHDL IP cores. For this paper, a CAN IP core from Gaisler Research is selected and implemented in an FPGA. Eventually, this design was successfully tested in simulations of a VHDL test bench as well as in a hardware test bench. These tests proved the fitness of the CAN controller for use in deep space applications.status: publishe

Optimization of an RFID Loop Antenna with Smart Goal Functions

It is very challenging to create reliable RFID systems within the vicinity of metallic environments. Most solutions for this kind of applications are accommodated with a multi antenna setup of circular loop antennas. Within this paper we will present an optimized loop antenna which is placed in a metallic tunnel. The setup with a single loop antenna has a comparable reliability with a multi antenna setup. The presented loop antenna is the result of an automated antenna design tool which combines MATLAB® and CST EM Studio ®. A genetic algorithm with smart defined RFID goal functions is implemented and forms the core of the automated antenna design tool. The paper shows some promising results for the optimized loop antenna within this typical application. © 2012 IEEE.status: publishe