Search

Background Cholangiocarcinomas are rare and very aggressive tumors. Most patients have advanced-stage or unresectable disease at presentation, and the systemic therapies have limited efficacy. Albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel) is a solvent-free taxane that has been approved for the treatment of some cancers such as breast, non-small cell lung and pancreatic cancer, however it has not been applied to treat cholangiocarcinoma. We have both preclinical and clinical evidence of the efficacy of nab-paclitaxel in cholangiocarcinoma, yet no phase 3 trials have been made. Case summary A 63-year-old man was diagnosed in December 2016 with stage III B intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Surgery was performed, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy treatment with capecitabine and gemcitabine; although, the gemcitabine was suspended due to allergic reaction after two cycles. In April 2019, metastatic cholangiocarcinoma relapse was diagnosed, and a first-line treatment with FOLFOX scheme was started. Eight cycles were administered, producing an initial clinical improvement and decrease in blood tumor marker levels. Radiological and serological progression was noted in September 2019. As a second-line treatment, FOLFIRI was not recommended due to risk of worsening the patient's tumor-related diarrhea. A combination therapy with gemcitabine was not feasible, as the patient had previously suffered from an allergic reaction to this treatment. We decided to use nab-paclitaxel as a second-line treatment, and four cycles were administered. Both clinical and serological responses were observed, and a radiological mixed response was also noted. Conclusion Advanced cholangiocarcinoma could be treated with nab-paclitaxel monotherapy, which should be studied in combination with other types of treatment (chemotherapy, fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitors).

A 59 year-old woman was treated with adjuvant chemotherapy for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) stage IB. She received pegfilgrastrim as secondary prophylaxis of neutropenia. After administration of pegfilgrastrim on day 11, she was hospitalised because of carotidynia and myocarditis that improved with antibiotics and steroids as an infection was suspected. Once she was recovered, another cycle of chemotherapy with pegfilgrastrim was administrated. At this time, the patient presented to our hospital with fever, odynophagia and chest pain, with diagnosis of myocarditis coupled with cardiogenic shock. She received antibiotics and steroids, advanced life support and also a pericardial window was done, with recovery of her condition. After a complete evaluation and exclusion of other possible aetiologies, we concluded that pegfilgrastrim was responsible for inducing carotidynia and myocarditis. Few cases have been published about Granulocyte-Colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) induced carotidynia and aortitis. However, this is the first reported case about G-CSF induced myocarditis and carotidynia.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in cancer patients has become crucial because of their higher risk of complications and death from COVID19. We performed a prospective study to assess the immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in cancer patients treated with CDKi and compared their immune response with patients treated with chemotherapy. While a robust humoral response was observed in the CDKi patients compared with chemotherapy patients, limited T-cell immunity was achieved in both groups.

Introduction: Androgenic deprivation therapies have been linked to the development of metabolic syndrome (MS) and cardiovascular diseases, which may lead to a poorer survival in patients with metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC). We aimed to analyze whether some cardiovascular or neurological disorders, together with other medical and urological complications, may have an effect on survival outcomes, at baseline and during treatment from patients treated with androgen pathway inhibitors (API). Material and Methods: A retrospective study of a consecutive series of patients diagnosed with mCRPC between 2010 and 2018 treated with API in the first line setting in a single center. Results: Seventy-three patients met the inclusion criteria. Baseline prognostic factors associated with worse survival were diabetes mellitus (DM) with insulin needs compared to patients without DM [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.19, p = 0.025], hypertension (HTN) (HR = 0.46, p = 0.035), and a history of stroke (HR = 0.16, p Conclusions: Some comorbidities may be strongly involved in patient outcomes when receiving API for mCRPC. In this sense, collaborative networking between specialists and caregivers treating prostate cancer (PC) patients should be recommended, focusing on MS features, cardiovascular and neurological disorders in order to anticipate medical and surgical complications.

Several systems have been proposed to monitor wireless sensor networks (WSN). These systems may be active (causing a high degree of intrusion) or passive (low observability inside the nodes). This paper presents the implementation of an active hybrid (hardware and software) monitor with low intrusion. It is based on the addition to the sensor node of a monitor node (hardware part) which, through a standard interface, is able to receive the monitoring information sent by a piece of software executed in the sensor node. The intrusion on time, code, and energy caused in the sensor nodes by the monitor is evaluated as a function of data size and the interface used. Then different interfaces, commonly available in sensor nodes, are evaluated: serial transmission (USART), serial peripheral interface (SPI), and parallel. The proposed hybrid monitor provides highly detailed information, barely disturbed by the measurement tool (interference), about the behavior of the WSN that may be used to evaluate many properties such as performance, dependability, security, etc. Monitor nodes are self-powered and may be removed after the monitoring campaign to be reused in other campaigns and/or WSNs. No other hardware-independent monitoring platforms with such low interference have been found in the literature., This research was supported by the Valencian Regional Government under Research Project GV/2014/012, the Polytechnic University of Valencia under Research Projects VLC/Campus UPV PAID-06-12, financed by the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte as part of the program Campus de excelencia internacional UPV SP20140730 and UPV SP20150050, and the Spanish government under projects CTM2011-29691-C02-01 and TIN2011-28435-C03-0.

[EN] The environment in livestock buildings must be controlled to ensure the health and welfare of both workers and animals, as well as to restrict the emission of pollutants to the atmosphere. Among the pollutants generated inside these premises, carbon dioxide (CO2) is of great interest in terms of animal welfare and ventilation control. The use of inexpensive sensors means that complete systems can be designed with a number of sensors located around the building. This paper describes a study of the suitability of multipoint simultaneous CO2 sensors operating in a wireless sensor network, which was found to operate satisfactorily under laboratory conditions and was found to be the best alternative for these applications. The sensors showed a highly linear response to CO2 concentrations, ranging from 500 to 5000 ppm. However, individual sensor response was found to differ, which made it necessary to calibrate each one separately. Sensor precision ranged between 80 and 110 ppm CO2, and sensor response to register a 95% change in concentration was estimated at around 5 min. These features mean this type of sensor network can be used to monitor animal welfare and also for environmental control in poorly ventilated livestock premises. According to the tests conducted in this study, a temporal drift may occur and therefore a regular calibration of sensors would be needed., This project was supported by the Vicerrectorado de Investigacion of the UPV (Programa de Apoyo a la Investigacion y Desarrollo, PAID-06-11 Program, Project No. 2843) and the Spanish Government under Projects CTM2011-29691-C02-01 and TIN2011-28435-C03-0. The translation of this paper was funded by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain.

e15707 Background: Advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly lethal disease with a five-year overall survival (OS) of less than 5%. Folfirinox and Nab-Paclitaxel plus Gemcitabine (NabPacGem) are the most active treatments in the first-line (1L). The decision to use Folfirinox or NabPacGem is a matter of debate. Methods: A retrospective cohort of advanced PDAC patients treated from January 2011 to May 2018 in four Spanish institutions was analyzed. The principal objective was to compare OS among patients receiving Folfirinox versus NabPacGem in 1L. Progression-free survival (PFS) was a secondary objective. Results: Characteristics of 251 patients included: median age 66.6 years; male 54.4%; stage IV at diagnosis 66.7%; ECOG 0/1/2 18/70/12%; treated with Folfirinox 18.3% and NabPacGem 81.7%. Patients treated with Folfirinox versus NabPacGem were younger (median age 58.3 vs. 67.9; p

In light-emitting electrochemical cells, the lifetime of the device is intrinsically linked to the stability of the phosphorescent emitter. In this study, we present a series of ionic iridium(III) emitters based on cyclometalating phenylpyridine ligands whose fluorine substituents are varied in terms of position and number. Importantly, despite these structural modifications, the emitters exhibit virtually identical electrochemical and spectroscopic properties, which allows for proper comparison in functional devices. Quantum chemical calculations support the properties measured in solution and suggest great similarities regarding the electronic structures of the emitters. In electroluminescent devices the initial luminance efficiency, and efficacy are also relatively unaffected throughout the series. However, a shorter device lifetime is obtained upon increasing the fluorine content of the emitter, which suggests drawbacks of such electron withdrawing substituents for the design of ionic iridium(III) emitters.

Network simulators are useful for researching protocol performance, appraising new hardware capabilities and evaluating real application scenarios. However, these tasks can only be achieved when using accurate models and real parameters that enable the extraction of trustworthy results and conclusions. This paper presents an underwater wireless sensor network ecosystem for the ns-3 simulator. This ecosystem is composed of a new energy-harvesting model and a low-cost, low-power underwater wake-up modem model that, alongside existing models, enables the performance of accurate simulations by providing real weather and marine conditions from the location where the real application is to be deployed., The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from CICYT (research projects CTM2011-29691-C02-01, TIN2011-28435-C03-01) and UPV (research project SP20120889).

During the last two decades Red Palm Weevil (RPW, Rynchophorus Ferrugineus) has become one of the most dangerous threats to palm trees in many parts of the World. Its early detection is difficult, since palm trees do not show visual evidence of infection until it is too late for them to recover. For this reason the development of efficient early detection mechanisms is a critical element of RPW pest management systems. One of the early detection mechanisms proposed in the literature is based on acoustic monitoring, as the activity of RPW larvae inside the palm trunk is audible for human operators under acceptable environmental noise levels (rural areas, night periods, etc.). In this work we propose the design of an autonomous bioacoustic sensor that can be installed in every palm tree under study and is able to analyze the captured audio signal during large periods of time. The results of the audio analysis would be reported wirelessly to a control station, to be subsequently processed and conveniently stored. That control station is to be accessible via the Internet. It is programmed to send warning messages when predefined alarm thresholds are reached, thereby allowing supervisors to check on-line the status and evolution of the palm tree orchards. We have developed a bioacoustic sensor prototype and performed an extensive set of experiments to measure its detection capability, achieving average detection rates over 90%., We would like to acknowledge Michel Ferry and Susi Gomez (from Estacion Phoenix at Elche, Spain) for giving us access to their large RPW sound recording corpora and offering their cooperation during the development of this work. Finally, this work has been partially funded by Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under grants CTM2011-29691-C02-01, TIN2011-28435-C03-01 and TIN2011-27543-C03-03.

[EN] The early detection of pests is key for the maintenance of high-value masterpieces and historical buildings made of wood. In this work, we the present detailed design of an ultra-low power sensor device that permits the continuous monitoring of the presence of termites and other xylophagous insects. The operating principle of the sensor is based on the variations of reflected light induced by the presence of termites, and specific processing algorithms that deal with the behavior of the electronics and the natural ageing of components. With a typical CR2032 lithium battery, the device lasts more than nine years, and is ideal for incorporation in more complex monitoring systems where maintenance tasks should be minimized, This work was funded by the Generalitat Valenciana's project AICO/2016/058.

We present a set of novel low power wireless sensor nodes designed for monitoring wooden masterpieces and historical buildings, in order to perform an early detection of pests. Although our previous star-based system configuration has been in operation for more than 13 years, it does not scale well for sensorization of large buildings or when deploying hundreds of nodes. In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of a cluster-based dynamic-tree hierarchical Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) architecture where realistic assumptions of radio frequency data transmission are applied to cluster construction, and a mix of heterogeneous nodes are used to minimize economic cost of the whole system and maximize power saving of the leaf nodes. Simulation results show that the specialization of a fraction of the nodes by providing better antennas and some energy harvesting techniques can dramatically extend the life of the entire WSN and reduce the cost of the whole system. A demonstration of the proposed architecture with a new routing protocol and applied to termite pest detection has been implemented on a set of new nodes and should last for about 10 years, but it provides better scalability, reliability and deployment properties. © 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland., The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by CICYT research project PET-2008-0011 and AIDIMA (Furniture, Wood and Packaging Technology Institute). The translation of this paper was funded by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain.

R oad safety is a major public health problem in developed countries. Each year, around 1.2 million people die in the road traffic system (around 3000 per day) and more than 50 million are injured worldwide. About 2% of all deaths from any cause are related to traffic injuries, and about 23% of all injury deaths are caused by traffic accidents. Globally, there is a factor of around 40 between the number of injuries and the number of fatalities. The European Council of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) in Bucharest in 2002 unanimously adopted a common quantitative target for all member countries to reduce the 2000 road fatality level by 50% by 2012. Similarly, the European Commission agreed on a target of 50% reduction in the number of road fatalities by the year 2010, compared with 2001. The social and human costs of all these road crashes are about US$518 billion every year. For this reason, the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) pleads for effective and sustainable road traffic safety policies. Many countries give high priority to road traffic safety, with ambitious targets set for the upcoming years.1 Road traffic accidents in the Member States of the European Union annually claim about 43,000 lives and leave more than 1.8 million people injured, representing estimated costs of 160 billion euros.2

655 Background: Adyuvant chemotherapy is a unified therapeutic principle in colon cancer (CC). However, many prognostic factors are arising to determine who really benefits from adyuvant chemotherapy in order to avoid overtreatment. Primary tumor location of CC is emerging as an important prognostic factor owing to distinct biological features. However, there is hardly any evidence showing the benefit of treatment according to primary tumor location. Methods: We retrospectively included patients with stage II and III CC that underwent surgical resection between 2009 and 2014 HURyC. We performed a multivariable Cox model analysis to estimate the benefit of chemotherapy according to tumor location in terms of DFS and OS. The model was further adjusted by including the following confounders: ECOG-PS, number of removed nodes ( < 12 or ≥ 12), use of adyuvant chemotherapy and age. A covariate was considered a confounder factor if the difference between the adjusted and unadjusted coefficient of chemotherapy varied > 10%. Stata 13.1 was used to analyze the data. Results: 564 patients were identified (267 left sided and 297 right sided). The median follow-up of the entire cohort was 49 months. Globally, chemotherapy did not improve DFS neither in right sided or left sided CC (HR: 0.81, p: 0.58; HR 1.31, p: 0.4, respectively). As for OS, it was improved when adding chemotherapy in both sides (right sided CC HR 0.51, p: 0.061 and left sided CC HR 0.42, p: 0.009). By stages, chemotherapy did not improve DFS or OS according to tumor localization in stage II. In right sided stage III, there was a trend to improve both DFS and OS (HR: 0.54, p: 0.14; HR: 0.39, p: 0.1, respectively). In left sided stage III, there was a trend to improve DFS (HR: 0.66, p: 0.36) and there was an improvement in OS (HR: 0.23, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The multivariable analysis showed benefit of chemotherapy in both right and left sided CC in terms of OS, exhibiting more benefit those patients with left sided CC.

[EN] Wireless technology for underwater communication possesses a wide range of potential application, but it is still a relatively unexplored area in many aspects concerning modems physical design. A step towards future deployment of underwater networks is the reduction of power consumption. Therefore, asynchronous wakeup systems need to be integrated within the physical layer design while avoiding the use of additional transducers. This paper offers a practical and generic solution to adapt data reception and transmission together with asynchronous wakeup sub-systems in acoustic underwater modem architectures using a low power and low cost solution. The proposal has been implemented in a real prototype with success., The translation of this paper was funded by the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the CICYT. ANDREA: Automated Inspection and Remote Performance of Marine Fish Farms (CTM2011-29691-C02-01) and RIDeWAN: Research on Improvement of the Dependability of WSN-based Applications by Developing a Hybrid Monitoring Platform. (TIN2011-28435-C03-01).

We present an approach for the modelling and simulating of the modem section of underwater sensor networks. The proposal is based on a specially designed modem architecture and the use of simulation tools and models that represent each of the communication elements: the water medium, physical transducers, electronics, and coding/decoding software. The algorithms can be simulated in the modelling environment; this framework does not require recoding and allows the combination of real and modelled elements. In physical terms, the modem engine provides a decoupled pipelined design of the processing path for the algorithms which allows users to run complex algorithms without requiring a highly demanding specific hardware. The proposal includes a methodology that has allowed us to significantly reduce the effort required in the process, from algorithm development to the effective deployment of the system. As a case study, this paper shows its application and results in the evaluation of a multipath and Doppler-shift correction algorithms., The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the CICYT ANDREA: Automated Inspection and Remote Performance of Marine Fish Farms (CTM2011-29691-C02-01), RIDeWAM: Research on Improvement of the Dependability of WSN based Applications by developing a hybrid monitoring platform (TIN2011-28435-C03-01), Valencian Regional Government under Research Project GV/2014/012, and Universitat Politecnica de Valencia under Research Project UPV PAID-02-12. The translation of this paper was funded by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain.

Communications between two autonomous vehicles has been always an important challenge, especially when one of the vehicles is intended for conducting submerged navigation most of its operational time. Underwater communications become in that case the one most common and feasible way for allowing data trasfering underneath the sea surface. Considering low cost of the final vehicle as one of the main features in the concept of this project, a low power low-cost acoustic modem initially intended for environmental sensor applications has been adopted. With the purpose of increasing at maximum the energy reservoir, this modem includes among others, self-wake capabilities and directional transmission. The present work continues in the validation of this acoustic device for application in Underwater Unmanned Vehicles (UUV) in multivehicle configurations. Different solutions for solving the problems associated to the difficulty of conducting robust and reliable data transfering by using this device are presented.

The Fault-tolerant Systems Research Group of the Technical University of Valencia has developed the distributed industrial control system (DICOS) system. This paper describes DICOS nodes. The architecture of DICOS nodes and the error detection mechanisms used are presented. These mechanisms are based on the internal capabilities of the 16-bit microcontroller used and control flow checking and deadlines control with the aid of a second 8-bit microcontroller. Experimental results about the effectiveness of those mechanisms are shown in this paper.

Designing and modelling real-time systems it becomes necessary to study together hardware, software and the interactions between them, considering propagation of errors between both levels, as a high percentage of transient faults will imply missing a deadline. This work presents an easy to apply approach for the dependability evaluation of the system and the study of the influence of software quality over it.

[EN] Nowadays, distributed architectures are the base of many manufacturing systems. Some aspects like fault-tolerance, system validation and design process are very important in the development of these systems. In this paper we study the dependability of three different architectures of a distributed system, and we show the development of both physical and logical fault injectors and the implementation of local performance monitors. We also study the impact of checkpointing mechanisms on the system performance in a control system based on a CAN network. Finally we propose a distributed system design methodology based on codesign. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved., This article is sponsored by the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia under project CICYT-TAP96-1090-C04-01

Summary Objective:A population analysis of the kinetics of valproic acid (VPA) in children with epilepsy was performed in order to characterize the covariates which influence VPA clearance (CL). Methods: A total of 770 steady-state serum concentration samples was analysed. These were collected during VPA therapy from 255 children, aged 0·1–14 years and weighting 4–74 kg. Age, total body weight (TBW), VPA daily dose, sex and comedication with carbamazepine (CBZ) were considered as covariates. Population analysis was made with NONMEM program, assuming a one-compartment model, fixing the VPA absorption rate, bioavailability and distribution volume at values found in the literature. The results of the population pharmacokinetics analysis were validated in a group of 45 epileptic patients. Results: The final regression model for VPA clearance, that included TBW (kg), daily dose (mg/kg) and CBZ comedication as covariates with a significant influence on this parameter, was as follows: CL (L/h) = 0·012 TBW0·715 DOSE0·306(1·359 CBZ). The coefficient of variation for interpatient variability in CL was 21·4% and the residual variability estimated was 23·9% for a concentration of 65 mg/l. In order to estimate the predictive performance of the selected final model, predictions of the VPA serum concentrations were calculated and compared with VPA measured concentrations in the validation group. This assessment revealed an important improvement in the predictive performance of VPA concentrations in comparison with the basic model that did not include any covariates (root squared mean error: 19·50 vs. 39·73 mg/l). Conclusion: A population pharmacokinetic model is proposed to estimate the individual CL for paediatric patients receiving VPA in terms of patient's dose, weight and concomitant CBZ, in order to establish a priori dosage regimens.

An updated version of a self-developed pack designed for the implementation of a set of rule nets is presented, novelties being referred to the programming language as well as to the structure. The language counts on the use of the so-called `types of variables' and composed rules; as regards the structure, a higher level language has been utilized with a new graphic interface on Microsoft WINDOWS. The set of rule nets implemented is the basis of an expert system that allows for the control of any process undergoing important variations over the course of time, such as alcoholic fermentation processes.

[EN] This survey aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current research on underwater wireless sensor networks, focusing on the lower layers of the communication stack, and envisions future trends and challenges. It analyzes the current state-of-the-art on the physical, medium access control and routing layers. It summarizes their security threads and surveys the currently proposed studies. Current envisioned niches for further advances in underwater networks research range from efficient, low-power algorithms and modulations to intelligent, energy-aware routing and medium access control protocols.

The survey [2] concludes stating that there are opportunities for hybrid and more complete methods, whereby failures detection is tackled on all aspects. Our proposal can access the insights of nodes at a very low cost, while using a non-intrusive passive network to analyze not only the network operation, but also its relation with the environment. The design of our DSN allows us to use complementary technologies to exchange information. Even if there were no support network, the traces stored in nonvolatile memory of sniffers and monitors could be used to reconstruct the network operation.

This paper describes a wireless sensor-actuator network to monitor and manage thermostatically controlled loads, mainly heating and cooling loads, which accounts for around 50% of the residential electricity consumption. A decentralized system is proposed to modify the electrical power demand according to a target demand profile and a set of prefixed constraints, maintaining minimum comfort levels and minimizing the infrastructure requirementsThis solution offers the residential customers a flexible, powerful and low-cost tool to modify their power demand profile, avoiding any additional wiring and extending the wireless sensor-actuator networks technology towards small customers, with around 30% share of the global electricity consumption. The proposed system has been implemented and assessed in a university environment, where heating and cooling loads have been monitored and controlled. Acquired data are also included in this paper as well as an example of the forced switching-off time periods applied on the controlled loads, leading to approximately 15% reduction of the peak power demand., This work was supported by the Regional Seneca Foundation of Spain through Research Project 08747/PI/08. Paper no. TSG-00222-2011.

This paper is focused on the description of the physical layer of a new acoustic modem called ITACA. The modem architecture includes as a major novelty an ultra-low power asynchronous wake-up system implementation for underwater acoustic transmission that is based on a low-cost off-the-shelf RFID peripheral integrated circuit. This feature enables a reduced power dissipation of 10 ¿W in stand-by mode and registers very low power values during reception and transmission. The modem also incorporates clear channel assessment (CCA) to support CSMA-based medium access control (MAC) layer protocols. The design is part of a compact platform for a long-life short/medium range underwater wireless sensor network. © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland., This work has been partially funded by projects DPI2007-66796-C03-01 (Diseno, Evaluacion e Implementacion de una Red Subacuatica de Sensores-Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia), PET2008-0011 (Investigacion basica fundamental sobre tecnologias constitutivas de un sistema de red inalambrica de sensores y su aplicacion para el desarrollo de una plataforma de redes inalambricas de sensores-Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion) and CTM2011-29691-C02-01 (Sonorizacion ambiental subacuatica para la inspeccion y monitorizacion de explotaciones de acuicultura marina-Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion).

In this paper a new architecture for low-power Underwater Wireless Sensor Network acoustic modems is presented. It embeds two independent receivers: one FSK decoder based on a μpower micro-controller and a WU receiver which is able to monitor channel activity and synchronize the network without time reference sharing (Asynchronous Wake-Up). Although it has been proven that this synchronization scheme saves lots of energy, only two acoustic modems are enhanced to support this feature. In this paper it is shown how one of this modems, the ITACA modem, tackles this issue using one single transducer.

An expert system based on rule nets has been developed. This new tool—the rule net—consists of a set of conditional-type propositions which are mutually bound. In this work, a set of rule nets has been implemented by means of a self-developed pack called AUTOMAT. Time has been incorporated into the reasoning of the expert system in such a way that it is able to carry out the on-line monitoring of an alcoholic fermentation process.

Distributed and hierarchical real-time control systems are becoming frequently popular in industrial and manufacturing applications. Now, many real-time control systems include expert system components or implement AI programs for supervision control. These real-time systems are characterized by a hierarchical control structure and a distributed nature, where different levels are interconnected by a local area network. This paper describes the monitoring tools for a low-cost network architecture based on the 83c152 Intel microcontroller for the automatization of the industrial applications. Monitoring tools are specialized tools developed to study the network performance and its behavior under different load conditions. These tools will provide the information needed to teet and compare several communication protocols, fine-tune them and will help us to select the best network configuration to suit specific needs for any embedded application.

The specific characteristics of underwater environments introduce new challenges for networking protocols. In this paper, a specialized architecture for underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) is proposed and evaluated. Experiments are conducted in order to analyze the suitability of this protocol for the subaquatic transmission medium. Moreover, different scheduling techniques are applied to the architecture in order to study their performance. In addition, given the harsh conditions of the underwater medium, different retransmission methods are combined with the scheduling techniques. Finally, simulation results illustrate the performance achievements of the proposed protocol in end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio and energy consumption, showing that this protocol can be very suitable for the underwater medium., The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN research projects CTM2011-29691-C02-01 and TIN2011-28435-C03-01) and the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (grant agreement no. 258359 CLAM).

This paper presents a new Acoustic-Triggered Wake-Up system specially useful to Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks built with low-power consumption architectures. The work includes both the wake-up system description and a comparison with previous works carried out under similar features. These comparisons demonstrate the energy benefits of this new system which requires no additional hardware within the transmission and a single but efficient AT-WUp module in the reception.

There are many areas where Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) can offer innovative solutions for environmental monitoring applications and the meteorological community, but due to their complexity in terms of energy constraints and low performance devices, very few real deployments can be found. In this paper we will explain in detail the design, implementation and performance evaluation of a sparse WSN that has been working maintenance-free for over 12 months. The network has been designed for environmental monitoring purposes, and several motes, attached to lampposts, accurately measure the Temperature and Relative Humidity at various locations in a local street. Our contribution is an enhanced data gathering application for environmental applications. We will present the different arguments and tradeoffs to be taken into account when designing a network of this type, such as the type of sensors and their calibration, choice of mote and operating system, power supply, special housing required for the mote, data sampling frequency, requirements for the data sink, the structure of the database at the central site, and different issues relating to the exploitation of the meteorological results. We show that a reliable, low cost WSN deployment for environmental monitoring that takes into account the main properties of these networks, such multi-hop routing, low maintenance, low cost and long mote lifetimes, is achievable.

Underwater wireless sensor Networks (UWSN) will provide a variety of attractive working fields such as aquaculture, offshore exploitation, biological monitoring as well as water and seafloor pollution, seismic activity and ocean currents. A practical implementation of these applications will require spreading an important number of nodes to facilitate underwater monitoring by means of data acquiring, so it becomes a challenge to develop simple and reliable modem architectures to reduce both the cost in components and the developing time, still being efficient and robust. Moreover power consumption must be also considered due to energy harvesting difficulties in an underwater environment. This work is focused in the design and implementation of a low cost and energy efficient underwater modem. The paper presents a new acoustic modem design based on an original signal-conditioning model optimally adapted to commercial echo sounder based piezoelectric transducers. It represents a very low-cost solution with a power consumption level similar to current terrestrial wireless sensor networks. The modulation and demodulation algorithms are essential to define the modem architecture. In this work, they have been adapted to a low power microcontroller processing capabilities. The proposed modem architecture includes an 8-bit microcontroller and few external analog components. A binary Coherent-FSK modulation has been chosen because it is more efficient in terms of bandwidth than a non-coherent FSK. Coherent FSK modulation algorithm is quite simple, and can be easily implemented in an 8-bit microcontroller with negligible execution time. Demodulation algorithm is more complex and needs a low-power solution. The paper investigates different alternatives, obtaining a new optimal solution including an additional specific processing unit to the microprocessor core. Compared with previous researches that used microcontrollers, the presented approach also improves energy efficiency without lowering bit rate and bandwidth efficiency. The design has a variable gain reception to measure precisely the incoming signal level and obtaining signal quality indicators similar to RSSI used in wireless RF sensor networks. The circuit has been simulated and experimentally tested too with a prototype. Several tests have been carried out using the different alternatives presented. The goal of the first experiments was to characterize the frequency response of the transducers, and validate acoustic wave generation and amplification models obtained by means of simulation. Measurements were also taken to obtain receiver sensitivity and communication efficiency to power variations. Efficient design of both power amplifier and receiver analog processing stages, combined with optimal microcontroller power saving modes has extended estimated battery. As a conclusion, a worthwhile modem has been designed with the following advantages: Ultra-Low power consumption, a small form factor and a low final cost which enable future low cost deployment of underwater sensor networks.

A critical issue of Wireless Sensor Networks circuits is energy management. This work presents a Radio-Triggered Wake-Up solution designed and developed for WSN based systems. The proposed circuit manages, in a simple and efficient way, node switching between sleep mode and both receiving or transmitting active modes. It uses a HW hearing circuit, which lowers power consumption and avoids extra processing on the main microcontroller. The weak-up is selective with predefined recognition patterns without the microcontroller intervention. Furthermore, it is tiny in size, and the whole circuit is suitable for single CMOS chip integration. The circuit has been tested to demonstrate the Wake- Up proposal worthiness. With only 8.7 microwatts of power consumption (@ 3.0 Vdc) the system successfully Wake-Up nodes up to 15 meters away from the transmission source. This performance improves solutions presented in previous research works.

Asynchronous Wake-Up physical solutions offer important advantages to develop energy efficient network polices, however these solutions need specific hardware, optimal configuration of system facilities and interconnection with a core control unit.This paper presents an acoustic-oriented system that has been specifically designed to be used within underwater modems, able to react to external acoustic stimuli with ultra-low consumption.

In this work a new architecture called EDETA (Energy-efficient aDaptive hiErarchical and robusT Architecture) optimized to save node’s power is presented. This architecture is scalable and suitable for heterogeneous and homogeneous wireless sensor networks, supports single or multiple sinks, and also provides features increasely-demanded in the current applications such as fault tolerance and bounded-time response communications. All these features make EDETA suitable for the implementation of safety applications such as a wireless fire detection system. The proposed protocol is able to auto-configure, and it is based on two-levels hieratical architecture. The lower level is based on cluster organization, while the upper one is formed as a dynamic tree of clusters heads to send the data to the sink. A wireless fire detection system based on EDETA has been implemented, obtaining very satisfactory results about the reliability, response time and the consumption, the implemented system based on EDETA reduce the energy consumption in a factor of 8x compared with most popular power-aware protocols. Furthermore, EDETA multiplies the lifetime of the sensor network while providing, in addition, extra-features such as fault-tolerant mechanisms and bounded time.

The increasing complexity of industrial control systems and industrial processes makes it necesary to have the tools and techniques for reliability and safety analysis in these systems. In this paper, we survey the most frecuently used techniques in reliability and safety analysis of components and industrial processes. The methods surveyed are Fault Trees, Markov Models and Stochastics Petri nets. We study the characteristics and the main uses of these methods. The usefulness of the revised methods is demostrated in a model-based faul-detection, comparing a measurement system with redundant sensors and another with analytical redundancy.

One of the most important advances in biomedical engineering has been the ability to inspect inside the body without opening it. In this sense, rheoencephalography (REG) is an electromedical technique used to assess the cerebral blood flow (CBF) by noninvasive electrical impedance methods, using electrodes attached to the scalp surface. This technique was first proposed by Polzer and Schuhfried (1950), and emerged as an extrapolation of impedance plethysmography applied to the head. An electric current flowing through a biological tissue causes a potential difference between any pair of electrodes that can be measured. This potential difference depends on the amplitude of the injected current, the shape of the conductor, the arrangement of the electrodes, and the electrical characteristics of the tissue. For instance, the electrical conductivity of the lung tissue is much lower than that of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), since alveolar sacs are nonconductive. Furthermore, the electrical conductivity depends on the frequency of the electric current, the orientation of the tissue fibers relative to the current flow, and the amount of extracellular fluid that surrounds the cells. For example, electrical conductivity is higher in the blood than in most tissues, since plasma acts as a truehighway for ions (Malmivuo & Plonsey, 1995).

Many control systems need a good safety level, this can be done with the help of a Watchdog Processor, that not involve a high increase in the system's cost compared with other fault tolerant structures. This paper presents Markov models for studying the safety, reliability and availability of a Watchdog Processor. To carry out a benefit analysis, the results of the models of the three systems: Simplex Systems, Reconfigurable Duplication Systems, and Stanby Sparing Systems, are cornpared. The influence of parameters, suchcoverage, permanent faults, fault rate, etc, in all models is considered. For solving the models in the transient mode, a program based in the randomization method is used.

This paper describes the application of wireless sensor network to monitor and control electrical loads in residential areas, mainly heating and cooling loads, which accounts for around 50% of the residential electricity consumption. In this way, a control algorithm has also been implemented in order to select the optimum load control strategy according to a target demand profile and a set of prefixed constraints, allowing the customers to modify their power demand with minimum comfort levels. Therefore, this application offers the residential customers a flexible, powerful and low-cost tool to manage their electrical loads, avoiding any additional wiring and extending the wireless sensor network technology to small customers, with around 30% share of the global electricity consumption. This system has been implemented in a university environment, and the results are also included in this paper.

The wireless communications field is in continuous growth and revolution. The current trend toward the use of distributed wireless systems is due to these systems have demonstrated to be a good option due to its flexibility and power. In this line, nowadays there is an enormous demand of wireless connectivity for any industrial control applications, included critical systems. In this paper we discuss the possibilities and necessary developments to set up wireless communication for industrial applications in general and critical systems in particular. Furthermore, an abstract definition of a layered architecture for the development of intelligent and distributed control systems based on wireless sensor networks is proposed

In the conservation and maturation systems of fruits it is very important to have faithful information about certain parameters that indicate the fruit state, and that allow to take the appropriate proofreaders actions in order to achieve an optimum controlled fruit maturation. In front of the rudimentary control systems that are being used at the present time, the Fault Tolerant Systems Group of the Polytechnic University of Valencia together with POLARIS TECHNOLOGY S.L company, have developed a new distributed control system based on CAN and Internet networks that allows a remote pursuit and control in real time of these processes. In each cold store, there are a strategically distributed set of sensors and actuators that are interconnected by means of a CAN network. One node centralizes the information, so that after its filtrate and storage is overturned on a backbone CAN network that interconnects all cold stores with a PC in charge of carrying out a second treatment and storage of the information and its diffusion to Internet. This system is completely operative and it has been already installed in different companies of several countries, obtaining very interesting results.

Among hardware fault injection techniques involved in the validation of fault tolerant systems, pin-level fault injection is one of the more relevant techniques of the last years. The technique is suitable for injecting faults in the real system under test or in a prototype. Tools based on this technique are generic being possible the reusability of the tool. They are developed externally to the target causing no execution overhead on the system. This chapter presents a general overview about pin-level fault injection with a state of the art including the more remarkable features of the technique. Finally the tool AFIT developed by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), is described as a real implementation of the technique. Moreover, it presents an example about the methodology carried out in fault injection campaigns and the usability of the pin-level fault injection technique.

The paper introduces a methodology for validation of dependable systems based on physical fault injection. The approach defines the elements of the injection environment and the requirements that are necessary to control the injection process with fine granularity, allowing for the elimination of glitches and non valid experiments, therefore making the validation process more accurate. We also show the main features of a high-speed pin level fault injection tool, AFIT (Advanced Fault Injection Tool), that incorporates most of the requirements necessary for the application of this methodology. As a practical case study, we have validated FASST, a fault tolerant multiprocessor system composed of several fail-silent processor modules. The dependability of the system is shown, including the influence of the error detection levels in the coverage and latency of the error.

Control flow monitoring using a watchdog processor is a well-known technique to increase the dependability of a microprocessor system. Most approaches embed reference signatures for the watchdog processor into the processor instruction stream creating noticeable memory and performance overheads. A novel watchdog processor architecture using embedded signatures is presented that minimizes the memory overhead and nullifies performance penalty on the main processor without sacrificing error detection coverage or latency. This scheme is called Interleaved Signature Instruction Stream (ISIS) in order to reflect the fact that signatures and main instructions are two independent streams that co-exist in the system.

Modern distributed industrial control systems need improvements in their dependability. In this paper we study the dependability of a fault tolerant distributed industrial control system designed in our university. This system is based on fault tolerant nodes interconnected by two communication networks. This paper begins showing the architecture of a single node in the distributed system. Reliability and safety results for this node are presented using a theoretical model based on Stochastic Activity Networks (SAN). Based on this architecture, the theoretical model of the distributed system is then presented; in order to evaluate the reliability and safety of the whole system models based on stochastic activity networks are used, and the results obtained using UltraSAN are presented.

In order to study different configurations of distributed systems hierarchical models are needed. Hierarchical models are suitable to friendly and easily study the influence of different parameters in distributed systems. In this paper a hierarchical modelling approach of a distributed industrial control system is presented. In this sense, different fault tolerant techniques to be used are evaluated and different possible system configurations are studied. Two fault tolerant architectures for the distributed system nodes are explained and their influence in the whole system is evaluated. Also the benefits of using checkpointing techniques are presented. In order to do the hierarchical models we use stochastic activity networks and the UltraSAN tool.