Modeling and design of high force RFMEMS contact switches

This thesis describes the modeling and design issues of high force electrostatically actuated RFMEMS contact switches. Various reliability issues and challenges are associated with the design of RFMEMS contact switches. The reliability of microcontacts is of major importance in increasing the lifetime of such devices. A semi-analytical model based on the beam deflection theory is developed to calculate the contact force delivered by parallel-plate electrostatically actuated switch structures. The model is capable of fast and accurate static solution for complicated switch structures which are normally analyzed using finite element analysis techniques. High force designs are presented together with finite element simulations confirming the model results and reflecting on the reliability of these switch structures. The RF performance is expected to be comparable to recently announced commercial counterpart specifications. A simple all-metal surface micromachining technology providing thick electroplated nickel beams will be used to implement high force switch structures

Efficient H.264 intra Frame CODEC with Best prediction matrix mode algorithm

The continuous growth of smart communities and everincreasingdemand of sending or storing videos, have led toconsumption of huge amount of data. The video compressiontechniques are solving this emerging challenge. However, H.264standard can be considered most notable, and it has proven to meetproblematic requirements. The authors present (BPMM) as a novelefficient Intra prediction scheme. We can say that the creation of ourproposed technique was in a phased manner; it's emerged as aproposal and achieved impressive results in the performanceparameters as compression ratios, bit rates, and PSNR. Then in thesecond stage, we solved the challenges of overcoming the obstacle ofencoding bits overhead. In this research, we try to address the finalphase of the (BPMM) codec and to introduce our approach in a globalmanner through realization of decoding mechanism. For evaluation ofour scheme, we utilized VHDL as a platform. Final results haveproven our success to pass bottleneck of this phase, since the decodedvideos have the same PSNR that our encoder tells us, whilepreserving steady compression ratio treating the overhead. We aspireour BPMM algorithm will be adopted as reference design of H.264 inthe ITU

Urban Governance as a Tool for Enhancing Resilient Urban Form: Case Study Alexandria, Egypt

Cities are continually changing in an adaptation process to overcome a diverse range of natural and man-made pressures. Natural disaster, political upheavals or economic crisis are examples of stresses that cities face and try to overcome in different ways by developing mechanisms for handling continues changes. Most of these stresses and pressures are interrelated, complicated and hard to predict in the future time. As a result of the wide range of shocks and stresses, cities may decay or collapse, affecting the lives of millions of people living within the urban areas. Therefore, to a certain extent, urban resilience is considered as one of the most essential topics within the discourses of the sustainable development as it tackles issues as risk reduction and disaster prevention. Accordingly, it was essential to develop and plan cities in ways that allow them to foster resilience to the uncertainty of the environmental, socio-economic and political changes overtime. Subsequently, the theory of resilience gained an attention within the urban field leading to the notion of urban resilience. In the last decades, Egypt as -a developing country- has witnessed several stresses due to major shifts in its political situation. Started at the 1950s with a shift from a monarchy to a socialist republic, followed by an open market system at the late 1970s, to reach a capitalist system in the early 1980s. All these major political shifts brought a wide range of urban governance forms, which in turn had significant effects on the urban form of the cities’ designed and built environment. In this context, urban governance changes in Egypt are frequent and consequent over a short period of time demonstrating the importance of tackling the issue of urban resilience. Designing and planning cities are profoundly political activities; therefore, politics should be prioritized in managing cities. Broadly, the research aims to explore the interplay between the urban governance and the resilience of the urban form over time. The research focuses on urban resilience in terms of long-term urban governance through studying the effect of the urban legislation of the different consequent systems on the city resilience. Accordingly, the research worked on developing a resilience index to measure the resilience of the urban form of a neighbourhood area in Alexandria through a time line while analysing the urban building laws that shaped this form. The study reaches a conclusion of identifying the legislation that formed the most resilient urban from over time

The Association Between the Body Mass Index and 4-Year All-Cause Mortality in Older Hospitalized Patients

Background. Association between body mass index (BMI) and long-term mortality is poorly studied in older hospitalized populations. Methods. The researchers prospectively studied the impact of the BMI, comorbidities, and malnutrition on long-term mortality in 444 patients (mean age 85.3±6.7 years; 74.0% women) receiving geriatric inpatient care. All-cause mortality was determined using simple and multiple Cox proportional hazard models. Results. Higher BMI was associated with a higher prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure, but with a lower prevalence of malignancies. Four-year all-cause mortality was inversely associated with a BMI greater than or equal to 30kg/m2 (hazard ratio = 0.59, p = .037) and positively associated with age, male gender, several individual comorbidities, and the global disease load determined by the Cumulative Illness Rating scale. The inverse association between a BMI greater than or equal to 30 and mortality remained significant after adjustment for age, gender, smoking, individual comorbidities (including heart failure and malignancies), Cumulative Illness Rating scale scores, and malnutrition parameters (hazard ratio = 0.52, p = .015). One-year mortality was associated with the Cumulative Illness Rating scale score but not with BMI categories. There were no survival differences between patients in low (<20.0) and intermediate (20.0-24.9 and 25.0-29.9) BMI categories. Conclusions. A BMI greater than or equal to 30 is associated with better long-term survival in hospitalized older patients, even after extensive adjustment for comorbidities, malnutrition, and smoking. Conversely, a low BMI (<20-25) is not associated with excess mortality, likely due to the overriding impact of multiple comorbidities. The researchers' observations have important implications for the mortality risk stratification in older high-risk patient

An Autonomous Wearable Sensor Node for Long-Term Healthcare Monitoring Powered by a Photovoltaic Energy Harvesting System

oai:ojs.ijet.ise.pw.edu.pl:article/2503In this paper, an autonomous wearable sensor node is developed for long-term continuous healthcare monitoring. This node is used to monitor the body temperature and heart rate of a human through a mobile application. Thus, it includes a temperature sensor, a heart pulse sensor, a low-power microcontroller, and a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) module. The power supply of the node is a lithium-ion rechargeable battery, but this battery has a limited lifetime. Therefore, a photovoltaic (PV) energy harvesting system is proposed to prolong the battery lifetime of the sensor node. The PV energy harvesting system consists of a flexible photovoltaic panel, and a charging controller. This PV energy harvesting system is practically tested outdoor under lighting intensity of 1000 W/m2. Experimentally, the overall power consumption of the node is 4.97 mW and its lifetime about 246 hours in active-sleep mode. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate long-term and sustainable operation for the wearable sensor node

FPGA Implementation of Sphere Detector for Spatial Multiplexing MIMO System

Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO (techniquesuse multiple antennas at both transmitter and receiver forincreasing the channel reliability and enhancing the spectralefficiency of wireless communication system.MIMO Spatial Multiplexing (SM) is a technology that can increase the channelcapacity without additional spectral resources. The implementation of MIMO detection techniques become a difficult missionas the computational complexity increases with the number oftransmitting antenna and constellation size. So designing detection techniques that can recover transmitted signals from SpatialMultiplexing (SM) MIMO with reduced complexity and highperformance is challenging. In this survey, the general model ofMIMO communication system is presented in addition to multipleMIMO Spatial Multiplexing (SM) detection techniques. These detection techniques are divided into different categories, such as linear detection, Non-linear detection and tree-search detection.Detailed discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of each detection algorithm are introduced. Hardware implementation of Sphere Decoder (SD) algorithm using VHDL/FPGA is alsopresente

Conversion to Judaism in South Africa

Amidst the decisive events of the 20th century - the Holocaust and the rebirth of the Jewish homeland - which impacted heavily on Jewish attitudes, emerged a broadening of religious doctrines creating diversity within Judaism. Previous insularist tendencies were replaced by revised outlooks on proselytisation, blending with the unique characteristics of South African Jewry. Clearly, local Jewish society and the Rabbinate have placed these updated perceptions high on its agenda. The inevitable mixed reactions have been reviewed in this work, which looks at the long road travelled by the convert from the viewpoint of current motivations, acceptance by the community and post conversion levels of observance. My own theory is a model encompassing the respective components of local proselytism looking at categories of converts, their motives, demands to be met and obstacles. To comprehend the contemporary position, a historical survey delved into the issue from its Biblical origins via the influences of centuries, reaching the South African scene. This inquiry investigated the development of conversion policies drawn from an evolvement of energetic Halakhic debate. These attitudes manifest themselves in archival sources from 1924, of which my analysis is the first of its kind. From these records, together with those of my own community and data available from the Cape Beth Din, the interpretative statistics thus compiled identified characteristics and motivations of applicants and procedural mechanics. This work proceeded a step further. Focus on the Durban model provided an ideal observation point for the post conversion stages. Personal knowledge of the candidates gained from my service to Durban Jewry enabled me to assess their respective adherences and absorption into the community. Furthermore, responses to a questionnaire sent to the local Jewry and interviews revealed attitudes both of Jews by birth and the converts themselves whilst added perceptions were obtained from a questionnaire sent to the Rabbis of South Africa. In the final chapter I submitted proposals and recommendations, some of which are radical. Covering the entire process of conversion this model attempts to address the future of conversions in South Africa as this is expected to remain a pivotal issue of immense momentum.Religious Studies and ArabicD. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies

Deep learning can improve early skin cancer detection

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting humans. Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer; and early diagnosis is extremely vital in curing the disease. So far, the human knowledge in this field is very limited, thus, developing a mechanism capable of identifying the disease early on can save lives, reduce intervention and cut unnecessary costs. In this paper, the researchers developed a new learning technique to classify skin lesions, with the purpose of observing and identifying the presence of melanoma.  This new technique is based on a convolutional neural network solution with multiple configurations; where the researchers employed an International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC) dataset. Optimal results are achieved through a convolutional neural network composed of 14 layers. This proposed system can successfully and reliably predict the correct classification of dermoscopic lesions with 97.78% accuracy

Experimental Performance Characterization of Photovoltaic Modules Using DAQ

AbstractThis paper presents a simple electronic circuit for testing the photovoltaic (PV) modules by tracing their I-V characteristics. A precise PV module electrical model is also introduced. The circuit consists of a fast varying electronic load based on power MOSFET and operational amplifier. A DAQ system with LabVIEW application was developed for controlling the MOSFET gate-source voltage. The circuit is designed, implemented and tested under real conditions. The experimental results verified with simulation results and another way of testing which is resistor method

Economic considerations of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders

Economic analyses of geriatric syndromes are seldom performed. However, demographic and epidemiological imperatives have led to significant interest in the evaluation of AD-related costs. Over 300 papers devoted to economic considerations of Alzheimer's disease have been published in peer-reviewed journals, within the last five years. In these papers, the chosen perspective (costs to society or to specific payers) is important. Analytical methods are still evolving and remain complex. Unresolved methodological issues will need to be addressed to further our understanding of long-term economic consequences. At present, it is clear that diagnostic and drug costs are low compared to the major cost of institutionalization. Thus, directing efforts at early diagnosis and delaying nursing home placement are two key cost-containment interventions. In this respect, the need to support informal care should not be underestimate