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The demand of wireless solutions in industrial applications increases since the early nineties. This trend is not only ongoing, it is further pushed by developments in the area of software stacks like the latest Bluetooth Low Energy Stack. It is also pushed by new chip-designs and powerful and highly integrated electronic hardware. The acceptance of wireless technologies as a possible solution for industrial applications, has overcome the entry barrier [1]. The first step to see wireless as standard for many industrial applications is almost accomplished. Nevertheless there is nearly none acceptance of wireless technology for Safety applications. One highly challenging and demanding requirement is still unsolved: The aspect safety and robustness. Those topics have been addressed in many cases but always in a similar manner. WirelessHART as an example addresses this topic with redundant so called multiple propagation paths and frequency hopping to handle with interferences and loss of network participants. So far the pure peer to peer link is rarely investigated and there are less safety solutions available. One product called LoRa™ can be seen as one possible solution to address this lack of safety within wireless links. This paper focuses on the safety performance evaluation of a modem-chip-design. The use of diverse and redundant wireless technologies like LoRa can lead to an increase acceptance of wireless in safety applications. Many measurements in real industrial application have been carried out to be able to benchmark the new chip in terms of the safety aspects. The content of this research results can help to raise the level of confidence in wireless. In this paper, the term “safety” is used for data transmission reliability.
The Raman spectra from the chemical compounds toluene and cyclohexane obtained using a Fourier Transform (FT)-Raman spectrometer prototype have been contrasted with the Raman spectra of these same materials collected with two different commercial FT-Raman devices. The FT-Raman spectrometer consist of a Michelson interferometer, a self-designed photon counter and a reference photo-detector. The evaluation methodology of the spectral information, contrary to the commercial devices that commonly use the zero-crossing method, is carried out by re-sampling the Raman scattering and by accurately extracting the optical path information of the Michelson interferometer. The FTRaman arrangement has been built using conventional parts without disregarding the spectral frequency precision that usually such a FTRaman instruments deliver. No additional complex hardware components or costly software modules have been included in this FT-Raman device. The main Raman lines from the spectra obtained with the three FT-Raman devices have been compared with the Raman lines from the standard Raman spectra of these two materials. The values obtained using the FT-Raman spectrometer prototype have shown a frequency accuracy comparable to that obtained with the commercial devices without facing the need for a large investment. Although the proposed FT-Raman prototype cannot be directly compared to the last generation of FT-Raman spectrometers from the commercial manufacturers, such a device could give an opportunity to users that require high frequency precision in their spectral analysis and are provided with rather scarce resources.
6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks) is gaining more and more attraction for the seamless connectivity of embedded devices for the Internet of Things. It can be observed that most of the available solutions are following an open source approach, which significantly leads to a fast development of technologies and of markets. Although the currently available implementations are in a pretty good shape, all of them come with some significant drawbacks. It was therefore decided to start the development of an own implementation, which takes the advantages from the existing solutions, but tries to avoid the drawbacks. This paper discussed the reasoning behind this decision, describes the implementation and its characteristics, as well as the testing results. The given implementation is available as open-source project under [15].
We propose secure multi-party computation techniques for the distributed computation of the average using a privacy-preserving extension of gossip algorithms. While recently there has been mainly research on the side of gossip algorithms (GA) for data aggregation itself, to the best of our knowledge, the aforementioned research line does not take into consideration the privacy of the entities involved. More concretely, it is our objective to not reveal a node's private input value to any other node in the network, while still computing the average in a fully-decentralized fashion. Not revealing in our setting means that an attacker gains only minor advantage when guessing a node's private input value. We precisely quantify an attacker's advantage when guessing - as a mean for the level of data privacy leakage of a node's contribution. Our results show that by perturbing the input values of each participating node with pseudo-random noise with appropriate statistical properties (i) only a minor and configurable leakage of private information is revealed, by at the same time (ii) providing a good average approximation at each node. Our approach can be applied to a decentralized prosumer market, in which participants act as energy consumers or producers or both, referred to as prosumers.
The durability of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) is governed by a nonlinear coupling between system demand, component behavior, and physicochemical degradation mechanisms, occurring on timescales from the sub-second to the thousand-hour. We present a simulation methodology for assessing performance and durability of a PEMFC under automotive driving cycles. The simulation framework consists of (a) a fuel cell car model converting velocity to cell power demand, (b) a 2D multiphysics cell model, (c) a flexible degradation library template that can accommodate physically-based component-wise degradation mechanisms, and (d) a time-upscaling methodology for extrapolating degradation during a representative load cycle to multiple cycles. The computational framework describes three different time scales, (1) sub-second timescale of electrochemistry, (2) minute-timescale of driving cycles, and (3) thousand-hour-timescale of cell ageing. We demonstrate an exemplary PEMFC durability analysis due to membrane degradation under a highly transient loading of the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC).
The formation and analysis of ten microporous triazolyl isophthalate based MOFs, including nine isomorphous and one isostructural compound is presented. The compounds 1 M – 3 M with the general formula [ M ( R 1 - R 2 - trz - ia ) ] ∞ 3 ·x H 2 O (M 2+ = Co 2+ , Cu 2+ , Zn 2+ , Cd 2+ ; R 1 = H, Me; R 2 = 2py, 2pym, prz (2py = 2-pyridinyle; 2pym = 2-pyrimidinyle; prz = pyrazinyle)) crystallize with rtl topology. They are available as single crystals and also easily accessible in a multi-gram scale via refluxing the metal salts and the protonated ligands in a solvent. Their isomorphous structures facilitate the synthesis of heteronuclear MOFs; in case of 2 M , Co 2+ ions could be gradually substituted by Cu 2+ ions. The Co 2+ :Cu 2+ ratios were determined by ICP-OES spectroscopy, the distribution of Co 2+ and Cu 2+ in the crystalline samples are investigated by SEM-EDX analysis leading to the conclusions that Cu 2+ is more favorably incorporated into the framework compared to Co 2+ and, moreover, that the distribution of the two metal ions between the crystals and within the crystals is inhomogeneous if the crystals were grown slowly. The various compositions of the heteronuclear materials lead to different colors and the sorption properties for CO 2 and N 2 are dependent on the integrated metal ions.
Adsorption of N2 and CO2 on Activated Carbon, AlO(OH) Nanoparticles, and AlO(OH) Hollow Spheres
(2015)
Adsorption behaviors of nitrogen and CO2 on Norit R1 Extra and AlO(OH) nanoparticles and hollow spheres were measured under different temperature and pressure conditions using a magnetic suspension balance. Independent from the substrate investigated, all isotherms increase at lower pressure, reach a maximum, and then decrease with increasing pressure. In addition, selected experimental data were correlated with different model approaches and compared with reliable literature data. In case of CO2 on AlO(OH), capillary condensation was observed at two defined temperatures. The results suggest that the conversion of the liquid into a supercritical adsorbate phase does not take place suddenly.
Rubber materials are characterized by a variety of inelasticities such as softening behavior, hysteresis loops and permanent set. In order to calculate the inelastic material behavior, constitutive models, that describe rubber as a homogeneous continuum, have to make use of damping or friction elements.
On the nanoscale, there is no need to adopt such rheological models. Inelastic material behavior can be explained and simulated by a continuous rearrangement of bonds, in particular, the van der Waals interactions, and by the polymer chains transitioning between cis and trans equilibrium torsion angles. The discrete molecular dynamics simulations presented in this paper are performed in an explicit FEM environment using nonlinear but elastic force field potentials. From a structural mechanics point of view, topological changes of the polymer network can be interpreted as a sequence of local material instability problems due to negative tangential bond stiffnesses.
In order to obtain representative results within reasonable computational time, the model is optimized with respect to the number of atoms and the loading velocity. It is shown that by increasing the model size, the stress–strain curves become independent of both the atoms initial state and the strain amplitudes.
An Extraction Method for 17α-Ethinylestradiol from Water using a new kind of monolithic Stir-bar
(2015)
In the present study, in vitro toxicity as well as biopersistence and photopersistence of four artificial sweeteners (acesulfame, cyclamate, saccharine, and sucralose) and five antibiotics (levofloxacin, lincomycin, linezolid, marbofloxacin, and sarafloxacin) and of their phototransformation products (PTPs) were investigated. Furthermore, antibiotic activity was evaluated after UV irradiation and after exposure to inocula of a sewage treatment plant. The study reveals that most of the tested compounds and their PTPs were neither readily nor inherently biodegradable in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-biodegradability tests. The study further demonstrates that PTPs are formed upon irradiation with an Hg lamp (UV light) and, to a lesser extent, upon irradiation with a Xe lamp (mimics sunlight). Comparing the nonirradiated with the corresponding irradiated solutions, a higher chronic toxicity against bacteria was found for the irradiated solutions of linezolid. Neither cytotoxicity nor genotoxicity was found in human cervical (HeLa) and liver (Hep-G2) cells for any of the investigated compounds or their PTPs. Antimicrobial activity of the tested fluoroquinolones was reduced after UV treatment, but it was not reduced after a 28-day exposure to inocula of a sewage treatment plant. This comparative study shows that PTPs can be formed as a result of UV treatment. The study further demonstrated that UV irradiation can be effective in reducing the antimicrobial activity of antibiotics, and consequently may help to reduce antimicrobial resistance in wastewaters. Nevertheless, the study also highlights that some PTPs may exhibit a higher ecotoxicity than the respective parent compounds. Consequently, UV treatment does not transform all micropollutants into harmless compounds and may not be a large-scale effluent treatment option.
Application of Polymer Plaster Composites in Additive Manufacturing of High-Strength Components
(2015)
Today, 3D-printing with polymer plaster composites is a common method in Additive Manufacturing. This technique has proven to be especially suitable for the production of presentation models, due to the low cost of materials and the possibility to produce color-models. But nowadays it requires refinishing through the manual application of a layer of resin. However, the strength of these printed components is very limited, as the applied resin only penetrates a thin edge layer on the surface. This paper develops a new infiltration technique that allows for a significant increase in the strength of the 3D-printed component. For this process, the components are first dehydrated in a controlled two-tier procedure, before they are then penetrated with high-strength resin. The infiltrate used in this process differs significantly from materials traditionally used for infiltration. The result is an almost complete penetration of the components with high-strength infiltrate. As the whole process is computer-integrated, the results are also easier to reproduce, compared to manual infiltration. On the basis of extensive material testing with different testing specimen and testing methods, it can be demonstrated that a significant increase in strength and hardness can be achieved. Finally, this paper also considers the cost and energy consumption of this new infiltration method. As a result of this new technology, the scope of applicability of 3D-printing can be extended to cases that require significantly more strength, like the production of tools for the shaping of metals or used for the molding of plastics. Furthermore, both the process itself and the parameters used are monitored and can be optimized to individual requirements and different fields of application.
In this paper fatigue crack closure under in-phase and out-of-phase thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) loading is studied using a temperature dependent strip yield model. It is shown that fatigue crack closure is strongly influenced by the phase relation between mechanical loading and temperature, if the temperature difference goes along with a temperature dependence of the yield stress. In order to demonstrate the effect of the temperature dependent yield stress, the influence of in-phase and out-of-phase TMF loading is studied for a polycrystalline nickel-base superalloy. By using a mechanism based lifetime model, implications for fatigue lives are demonstrated.
Recent advances in motion recognition allow the development of Context-Aware Assistive Systems (CAAS) for industrial workplaces that go far beyond the state of the art: they can capture a user's movement in real-time and provide adequate feedback. Thus, CAAS can address important questions, like Which part is assembled next? Where do I fasten it? Did an error occur? Did I process the part in time? These new CAAS can also make use of projectors to display the feedback within the corresponding area on the workspace (in-situ). Furthermore, the real-time analysis of work processes allows the implementation of motivating elements (gamification) into the repetitive work routines that are common in manual production. In this chapter, the authors first describe the relevant backgrounds from industry, computer science, and psychology. They then briefly introduce a precedent implementation of CAAS and its inherent problems. The authors then provide a generic model of CAAS and finally present a revised and improved implementation.
Seven cell design concepts for aqueous (alkaline) lithium–oxygen batteries are investigated using a multi-physics continuum model for predicting cell behavior and performance in terms of the specific energy and specific power. Two different silver-based cathode designs (a gas diffusion electrode and a flooded cathode) and three different separator designs (a porous separator, a stirred separator chamber, and a redox-flow separator) are compared. Cathode and separator thicknesses are varied over a wide range (50 μm–20 mm) in order to identify optimum configurations. All designs show a considerable capacity-rate effect due to spatiotemporally inhomogeneous precipitation of solid discharge product LiOH·H2O. In addition, a cell design with flooded cathode and redox-flow separator including oxygen uptake within the external tank is suggested. For this design, the model predicts specific power up to 33 W/kg and specific energy up to 570 Wh/kg (gravimetric values of discharged cell including all cell components and catholyte except housing and piping).
With projectors and depth cameras getting cheaper, assistive systems in industrial manufacturing are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. As these systems are able to continuously provide feedback using in-situ projection, they are perfectly suited for supporting impaired workers in assembling products. However, so far little research has been conducted to understand the effects of projected instructions on impaired workers. In this paper, we identify common visualizations used by assistive systems for impaired workers and introduce a simple contour visualization. Through a user study with 64 impaired participants we compare the different visualizations to a control group using no visual feedback in a real world assembly scenario, i.e. assembling a clamp. Furthermore, we introduce a simplified version of the NASA-TLX questionnaire designed for impaired participants. The results reveal that the contour visualization is significantly better in perceived mental load and perceived performance of the participants. Further, participants made fewer errors and were able to assemble the clamp faster using the contour visualization compared to a video visualization, a pictorial visualization and a control group using no visual feedback.
In this work we describe the implementation details of a protocol suite for a secure and reliable over-the-air reprogramming of wireless restricted devices. Although, recently forward error correction codes aiming at a robust transmission over a noisy wireless medium have extensively been discussed and evaluated, we believe that the clear value of the contribution at hand is to share our experience when it comes to a meaningful combination and implementation of various multihop (broadcast) transmission protocols and custom-fit security building blocks: For a robust and reliable data transmission we make use of fountain codes a.k.a. rateless erasure codes and show how to combine such schemes with an underlying medium access control protocol, namely a distributed low duty cycle medium access control (DLDC-MAC). To handle the well known problem of packet pollution of forward-error-correction approaches where an attacker bogusly modifies or infiltrates some minor number of encoded packets and thus pollutes the whole data stream at the receiver side, we apply homomorphic message authentication codes (HomMAC). We discuss implementation details and the pros and cons of the two currently available HomMAC candidates for our setting. Both require as the core cryptographic primitive a symmetric block cipher for which, as we will argue later, we have opted for the PRESENT, PRIDE and PRINCE (exchangeable) ciphers in our implementation.
Demand Side Management for Thermally Activated Building Systems based on Multiple Linear Regression
(2015)
DEM–FEA estimation of pores arrangement effect on the compressive Young’s modulus for Mg foams
(2015)
This work reports the study of the effect of the pore arrangement on the compressive behavior of Mg foams with regular pore size and porosities ranging from 25% to 45%. Pore arrangements were modeled using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), with random and ordered models, and compared to the estimations obtained for a previous work. The coordinates of the random pore arrangements were firstly generated using Discrete Element Method (DEM), and used in a second stage for modeling the pores by FEA. Estimations were also compared to the experimental results for Mg foams obtained by means of powder metallurgy. Results show important drops in the Young’s moduli as the porosity increases for both, experimental results and FEA estimations. Estimations obtained using ordered pore arrangements presented significant differences when compared to the estimations acquired from models with random arrangements. The randomly arranged models represent more accurately the real topologies of the experimental metallic foams. The Young’s moduli estimated using these models were in excellent agreement with the experiments, whilst the estimations obtained using ordered models presented relative errors significantly higher. The importance of the use of more realistic FEA models for improving the predicting ability of this method was probed, for the study of the mechanical properties of metallic foams.
Design approaches for the gamification of production environments: a study focusing on acceptance
(2015)
Gamification is an ever more popular method to increase motivation and user experience in real-world settings. It is widely used in the areas of marketing, health and education. However, in production environments, it is a new concept. To be accepted in the industrial domain, it has to be seamlessly integrated in the regular work processes.
In this work we make the following contributions to the field of gamification in production: (1) we analyze the state of the art and introduce domain-specific requirements; (2) we present two implementations gamifying production based on alternative design approaches; (3) these are evaluated in a sheltered work organization. The comparative study focuses acceptance, motivation and perceived happiness.
The results reveal that a pyramid design showing each work process as a step on the way towards a cup at the top is strongly preferred to a more abstract approach where the processes are represented by a single circle and two bars.
Video game developers continuously increase the degree of details and realism in games to create more human-like characters. But increasing the human-likeness becomes a problem in regard to the Uncanny Valley phenomenon that predicts negative feelings of people towards artificial entities. We developed an avatar creation system to examine preferences towards parametrized faces and explore in regard to the Uncanny Valley phenomenon how people design faces that they like or reject. Based on the 3D model of the Caucasian average face, 420 participants generate 1341 faces of positively and negatively associated concepts of both gender. The results show that some characteristics associated with the Uncanny Valley are used to create villains or repulsive faces. Heroic faces get attractive features but are rarely and little stylized. A voluntarily designed face is very similar to the heroine. This indicates that there is a tendency of users to design feminine and attractive but still credible faces.
Auch und gerade im Gesundheitswesen müssen Daten zwischen diversen Stellen ausgetauscht werden. Dies geschieht in der Praxis regelmäßig etwa zur Abrechnung von Versicherungsleistungen, bei Überweisungen von Patienten und im Abrechnungswesen der Ärzteschaft. Aber auch die Übernahme einer Arztpraxis ist ein Problemfall. Schon die Erhebung von Gesundheitsdaten bedarf aufgrund des datenschutzrechtlichen Verbots mit Erlaubnisvorbehalt (§ 4 BDSG) einer Rechtsgrundlage. Umso mehr darf die Weitergabe von Patientendaten als besonderen personenbezogenen Daten i.S.d. § 3 Abs. 9 BDSG nur erfolgen, wenn sie durch Gesetz oder durch die Einwilligung der betroffenen Person gestattet wurde. Eine Einwilligung durch Unterzeichnung einer klauselmäßige Schweigepflichtentbindung ist möglich, unterliegt aber bestimmten formalen und inhaltlichen Anforderungen.
Distribution of esophageal interventricular conduction delays in CRT patients and healthy subjects
(2015)
In this paper, the correlation of the cyclic J-integral, ΔJ, and the cyclic crack-tip opening displacement, ΔCTOD, is studied in the presence of crack closure to assess the question if ΔJ describes the crack-tip opening displacement in this case. To this end, a method is developed to evaluate ΔJ numerically within finite-element calculations. The method is validated for an elastic–plastic material that exhibits Masing behavior. Different strain ranges and strain ratios are considered under fully plastic cyclic conditions including crack closure. It is shown that the cyclic J-integral is the parameter to determine the cyclic crack-tip opening displacement even in cases where crack closure is present.
Lithium-oxygen cells with organic electrolyte suffer high overpotentials during charge, indicating asymmetric charge/discharge reaction mechanisms. We present a multi-physics dynamic modeling and simulation study of the Li/O2 cell cycling behavior. We present three different multi-step mechanisms of the 2 Li + O2 ⇄ Li2O2 cell reaction, (A) a reversible 5-step mechanism, (B) a partially irreversible 6-step mechanism, and (C) a partially irreversible 8-step mechanism that includes reactions of a redox mediator. Model predictions are compared to experimental galvanostatic cycling data of Swagelok cells without and with 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyloxyl (TEMPO) as redox mediator. All mechanisms are able to predict the discharge behavior in good agreement to the experimental results. The experimentally observed high charge overpotentials as well as their reduction by using a redox mediator can be qualitatively reproduced with the irreversible reaction mechanisms. However, the particular shape of the experimental charge curve with continuously increasing charge overpotential cannot be reproduced with the present mechanisms.
Since 2003, most European countries established heat health warning systems to alert the population to heat load. Heat health warning systems are based on predicted meteorological conditions outdoors. But the majority of the European population spends a substantial amount of time indoors, and indoor thermal conditions can differ substantially from outdoor conditions. The German Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) extended the existing heat health warning system (HHWS) with a thermal building simulation model to consider heat load indoors. In this study, the thermal building simulation model is used to simulate a standardized building representing a modern nursing home, because elderly and sick people are most sensitive to heat stress. Different types of natural ventilation were simulated. Based on current and future test reference years, changes in the future heat load indoors were analyzed. Results show differences between the various ventilation options and the possibility to minimize the thermal heat stress during summer by using an appropriate ventilation method. Nighttime ventilation for indoor thermal comfort is most important. A fully opened window at nighttime and the 2-h ventilation in the morning and evening are more sufficient to avoid heat stress than a tilted window at nighttime and the 1-h ventilation in the morning and the evening. Especially the ventilation in the morning seems to be effective to keep the heat load indoors low. Comparing the results for the current and the future test reference years, an increase of heat stress on all ventilation types can be recognized.
Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is an established class I level A biventricular pacing therapy in chronic heart failure patients with left bundle branch block and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction, but not all patients improved clinically. Purpose of the study was to evaluate electrical interatrial conduction delay (IACD) to interventricular conduction delay (IVCD) ratio with focused transesophageal left atrial and left ventricular electrocardiography.
Methods: Thirty eight chronic heart failure patients (age 63.4±10.2 years; 3 females, 35 males) with New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class 3.0±0.2 and 171.71±36.17ms QRS duration were analysed using posterior left atrial and left ventricular transesophageal electrocardiography with hemispherical electrodes before CRT. Electrical IACD was measured between onset of P-wave in the surface ECG and onset of left atrial signal. Electrical IVCD was measured between onset of QRS complex in the surface ECG and onset of left ventricular signal.
Results: Electrical IACD and IVCD could be evaluated by transesophageal left atrial and left ventricular electrocardiography in all heart failure patients with correlation to 1.18±0.92 IACD-IVCD-ratio (r=-0.57, P<0.001; r=0.66, P<0.001). There were 32 CRT responder with reduction of NYHA class from 3.0±0.22 to 1.97±0.31 (P<0.001) during 16.5±18.9 month CRT with 75.19±33.49ms IACD, 78.91±24.73ms IVCD, 1.04±0.66 IACD-IVCD-ratio and correlation between IACD and IACDIVCD- ratio (r=0.84, P<0.001). There were 6 CRT nonresponder with no reduction of NYHA class from 3.0±0.3 to 2.9±0.5 during 14.3±13.7 month biventricular pacing, 50.0±28.26ms IVCD (P=0.014), 1.92±1.65 IACD-IVCD-ratio (P=0,029) and correlation between 67.0±24.9ms IACD and IACD-IVCD-ratio (r=0.85, P=0.031).
Conclusions: Focused transesophageal left atrial and left ventricular electrocardiography can be utilized to analyse electrical IACD and IVCD in heart failure patients. IACDIVDC- ratio may be a useful parameter to evaluate electrical left cardiac desynchronization in heart failure patients.
Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is an established biventricular pacing therapy in heart failure patients with left bundle branch block and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction, but not all patients improved clinically as CRT responder. Purpose of the study was to evaluate electrical left atrial conduction delay (LACD) with focused transesophageal electrocardiography in CRT responder and CRT non-responder.
Methods: Twenty heart failure patients (age 66.6±8.2 years; 2 females, 18 males) with New York Heart Association functional class 3.0±0.3 and 174.2±40.2ms QRS duration were analysed using posterior left atrial transesophageal electrocardiography with hemispherical electrodes. Electrical LACD was measured between onset and offset of transesophageal left atrial signal before implantation of CRT devices.
Results: Electrical LACD could be evaluated by bipolar transesophageal left atrial electrocardiography using TO Osypka electrode in all heart failure patients with negative correlation between 54.7±18.1ms LACD and 24.9±6.4% left ventricular ejection fraction (r=-0.65, P=0.002). There were 16 CRT responders with reduction of New York Heart Association functional class from 3.0±0.29 to 2.1±0.2 (r=0.522, P=0.038) during 9.41±10.96 month biventricular pacing and negative correlation between 49.6±14.2ms LACD and 26.0±6.2% left ventricular ejection fraction (r=-0.533, P=0.034). There were 4 CRT non-responders with no reduction of New York Heart Association functional class from 3.0±0.4 to 2.8±0.5 (r=0.816, P=0.184) during with 13.88±16.39 month biventricular pacing and no correlation between 75.25±19.17ms LACD and 20.75±6.4% left ventricular ejection fraction (r=-0.831, P=0.169).
Conclusions: Focused transesophageal left atrial electrocardiography can be utilized to analyse electrical LACD in heart failure patients. LACD correlated negative with left ventricular ejection fraction in CRT responders. LACD may be a useful parameter to evaluate electrical left atrial desynchronization in heart failure patients.
The instability of ultra-thin films of an electrolyte bordering a dielectric gas in an external tangential electric field is scrutinized. The solid wall is assumed to be either a conducting or charged dielectric surface. The problem has a steady one-dimensional solution. The theoretical results for a plug-like velocity profile are successfully compared with available experimental data. The linear stability of the steady-state flow is investigated analytically and numerically. Asymptotic long-wave expansion has a triple-zero singularity for a dielectric wall and a quadruple-zero singularity for a conducting wall, and four (for a conducting wall) or three (for a charged dielectric wall) different eigenfunctions. For infinitely small wave numbers, these eigenfunctions have a clear physical meaning: perturbations of the film thickness, of the surface charge, of the bulk conductivity, and of the bulk charge. The numerical analysis provides an important result: the appearance of a strong short-wave instability. At increasing Debye numbers, the short-wave instability region becomes isolated and eventually disappears. For infinitely large Weber numbers, the long-wave instability disappears, while the short-wave instability persists. The linear stability analysis is complemented by a nonlinear direct numerical simulation. The perturbations evolve into coherent structures; for a relatively small external electric field, these are large-amplitude surface solitary pulses, while for a sufficiently strong electric field, these are short-wave inner coherent structures, which do not disturb the surface.
The current methods used to assess the energy performance of ventilation devices do not consider all the aspects necessary for a comprehensive evaluation of decentralised ventilation concepts and can only be partially adapted to their needs. In order to improve the energy evaluation and to ensure the comparability of different systems, a calorimetric method was developed and implemented in test facilities for the evaluation of two decentralised devices: one equipped with a recuperative counter flow heat exchanger and one with a regenerative heat exchanger. This method, based on direct measurements of the heating load in an insulated test room, includes the effect of the electrical consumption of the fans on the energy performance of the ventilation devices. The calorimetric evaluation method was extended to a seasonal evaluation on the basis of a heating-degree-day method implemented for a warm, a cool and a moderate location in Europe: Athens, Strasbourg and Copenhagen. All the results are above 50% efficiency for both devices, even in Athens where the use of heat recovery ventilation is not usual.
This paper presents a practice and science orientated education approach for freshman students of interdisciplinary bachelor engineering degree programs. This approach is meant to enhance the motivation and success of freshman students during their whole study. The education approach is called Fit4PracSis (Fit for Practice and Sciences) It was started to develop, set up and establish an education approach, which is building a relationship to students' future profession and to scientific working during the introductory study phase. The freshman students will be trained early in important skills, which are necessary for achieving the final degree successfully and handling of future business and research activities.
It is the purpose of this paper to address ethical issues concerning the development and application of Assistive Technology at Workplaces (ATW). We shall give a concrete technical concept how such technology might be constructed and propose eight technical functions it should adopt in order to serve its purpose. Then, we discuss the normative questions why one should use ATW, and by what means. We argue that ATW is good to the extent that it ensures social inclusion and consider four normative domains in which its worth might consists in. In addition, we insist that ATW must satisfy two requirements of good workplaces, which we specify as (a) an exploitation restraint and (b) a duty of care.
EuGH "Videoüberwachung"
(2015)
Extended Performance Measurements of Scalable 6LoWPAN Networks in an Automated Physical Testbed
(2015)
IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks, also known as 6LoWPAN, is becoming more and more a de facto standard for such communications for the Internet of Things, be it in the field of home and building automation, of industrial and process automation, or of smart metering and environmental monitoring. For all of these applications, scalability is a major precondition, as the complexity of the networks continuously increase. To maintain this growing amount of connected nodes a various 6LoWPAN implementations are available. One of the mentioned was developed by the authors' team and was tested on an Automated Physical Testbed for Wireless Systems at the Laboratory Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, which allows the flexible setup and full control of arbitrary topologies. It also supports time-varying topologies and thus helps to measure performance of the RPL implementation. The results of the measurements prove an excellent stability and a very good short and long-term performance also under dynamic conditions. In all measurements, there is an advantage of minimum 10% with regard to the average times, like global repair time; but the advantage with reagr to average values can reach up to 30%. Moreover, it can be proven that the performance predictions from other papers are consistent with the executed real-life implementations.
Wireless sensor networks have recently found their way into a wide range of applications among which environmental monitoring system has attracted increasing interests of researchers. Such monitoring applications, in general, don way into a wide range of applications among which environmental monitoring system has attracted increasing interests of researc latency requirements regarding to the energy efficiency. Also a challenge of this application is the network topology as the application should be able to be deployed in very large scale. Nevertheless low power consumption of the devices making up the network must be on focus in order to maximize the lifetime of the whole system. These devices are usually battery-powered and spend most of their energy budget on radio transceiver module. A so-called Wake-On-Radio (WoR) technology can be used to achieve a reasonable balance among power consumption, range, complexity and response time. In this paper, some designs for integration of WOR into IEEE 802.1.5.4 are to be discussed, providing an overview of trade-offs in energy consumption while deploying the WoR schemes in a monitoring system.
Facebook - "App Zentrum"
(2015)