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Radio frequency based wireless charging is an emerging technology that has been recently explored by various companies. This paper demonstrates the use of Powercast P2110 evaluation board to testify the far-field wireless charging using radio frequency. The maximum harvested power and the first charging time as a function of the charging distance are measured and compared to the theoretical ones for dipole and patch antennas. The experimental results are found to be very close to the theoretical ones. Further, the obtained results show that this technology has a promising future for being integrated into wireless sensor networks and several Internet of Things applications and scenarios.

Wireless sensor network (WSN) has been recently used in several applications and scenarios, among which is environmental monitoring and critical event detection within a specific area of interests (AoI). However, to have an efficient and reliable network implementation, it is important to optimize the WSN motes to prolong the network lifetime. In this paper, an energy-efficient implementation for WSN is presented that utilizes deep-sleep power-saving mode in order to optimize the energy consumption while maintaining a reliable sensing and monitoring operation. Experimental performance evaluations that both consider sensing and wireless data transmission were conducted, which showed the effectiveness of the proposed WSN implementation. Furthermore, the effect of applying the advanced encryption standard (AES) on the nodes’ energy levels is experimentally tested and compared with the case without encryption.

Hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) is an important industrial chemical that can cause asthma, however pathogenic mechanisms remain unclear. Upon entry into the respiratory tract, HDI's N=C=O groups may undergo nucleophilic addition (conjugate) to host molecules (e.g. proteins), or instead react with water (hydrolyze), releasing CO2 and leaving a primary amine in place of the original N=C=O. We hypothesized that (primary amine groups present on) hydrolyzed or partially hydrolyzed HDI may compete with proteins and water as a reaction target for HDI in solution, resulting in polymers that could be identified and characterized using LC-MS and LC-MS/MS. Analysis of the reaction products formed when HDI was mixed with a pH buffered, isotonic, protein containing solution identified multiple [M+H]+ ions with m/z's and collision-induced dissociation (CID) fragmentation patterns consistent with those expected for dimers (259.25/285.23 m/z), and trimers (401.36/427.35 m/z) of partially hydrolyzed HDI (e.g. ureas/oligoureas). Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and monocyte-like U937, but not airway epithelial NCI-H292 cell lines cultured with these HDI ureas contained a novel 260.23 m/z [M+H]+ ion. LC-MS/MS analysis of the 260.23 m/z [M+H]+ ion suggest the formula C13H29N3O2 and a structure containing partially hydrolyzed HDI, however definitive characterization will require further orthogonal analyses.

This paper presents a new decision-gathering scheme that aims at detecting a critical event in an Area of Interests (AoI), where a wireless sensor network is deployed in a group of clusters. The proposed scheme assigns a single time slot for each cluster, where all cluster members simultaneously report their binary decisions to the cluster head on that time slot. As the cluster head is interested in the sum of the binary decisions (not the exact binary decisions), the performance loss due to the concurrent transmission is insignificant compared to the co-channel interference induced from other clusters based on conventional schemes. The main advantage of the proposed scheme is that it avoids the co-channel interference between different clusters and assures minimal delay in detecting the critical event, which is very crucial in many security related applications and scenarios. Both simulation and mathematical analysis of the overall decision-error probability of the proposed scheme are carried out, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

In this study, the effect of grafting with Iron (Fe) ratios (0.1, 0.3 and 0.5) on the structural and optical properties of cadmium oxide films (CdO) was studied, as these films were prepared on glass bases using the method of pulse laser deposition (PLD). The crystallization nature of the prepared films was examined by X-ray diffraction technique (XRD), which showed that the synthesis of the prepared films is polycrystalline, and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) images also showed that the increased vaccination with Iron led to an increase in the crustal size ratio and a decrease in surface roughness, The absorption coefficient was calculated and the optical energy gap for the prepared thin films. It was found the absorption decreases and the energy gap decreases with the increase of doping ratio.

The present work investigated the discharge characteristics in the magnetized hollow cathode system. Also, the gas pressure effect on the discharge characteristics has been examined with a gas pressure between (0.08 and 0.4) Torr. The voltage-current curve of magnetized hollow cathode discharges has the voltage become approximately constant with slight increases in current. The normal glow discharge was established with constant voltage and increasing current. When the current is increased even more, then, the discharge turns into a mode comparable to the normal glow discharge between the parallel electrodes. The increasing of the pressure causes compressing of the cathode falls inside the cathode cavity and the negative glow becomes thin and more luminous. The spectroscopic method used depends on analyzing the argon’s emission atomic spectra. The electron temperature has been evaluated with the use of Boltzmann plot approach. The influence of the pressure on electron temperature observed the reduction in electron temperature when the pressure is increased. The electron number density has been calculated with the use of the Stark broadening method. The density curve indicated that the increase in electron number density with increasing of pressure until 0.4 Torr and then reduced with pressure exceeds 0.4 Torr.

This work aim to achieving laser nano-textured Si structures by means of an ultra-fast ultra-violet femtosecond (fs) laser texturing technique. The evidences of the impact of the duration of irradiation of the femtosecond laser pulses on Silicon (Si) have been investigated experimentally. A Ti:Sapphire laser at 800 nm (130 fs pulse duration with 1 kHz rate of repetition) has been employed to create nano-textured surfaces in an n-type (111) Si wafer of 0.015 Ω.cm resistivity and 508 ± 5 μm thickness. The average sizes of diameters were estimated to be in the 25−45 nm. From PL measurements of Si nanostructures, size dependent shifts in the direction of the blue spectral region have been emphasized. A highly symmetrical band shape was recognized from the samples' Raman spectra after the irradiation, the phonon frequency (phonon peak shift) shifted below 520 cm−1. The surface nanostructured Si showed lower reflectance values compared with bulk Si (un-irradiated). The observed enhancement of the fabricated Si nanostructures broad spectral response, which is in the range between the visible to the near infrared (NIR) 400−1150 nm, was attributed to increasing light absorption within sub-nanostructures. Thus, the proposed technique could be a promising approach to enhance the performance of Si-based photo-detector.

This paper proposes the use of quadrature space shift keying (QSSK) modulation for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). QSSK is a multiple input multiple output communication protocol that attracted substantial interest due to several promised inherent advantages. It has been shown in literature that QSSK scheme achieves high spectral efficiency with low average error probability, high energy efficiency, and very simple transmitter and receiver architectures. Hence, its use in WSNs is very promising to ameliorate the major limitations of such networks. The performance of a WSN with QSSK modulation and in the presence of co-channel interference is studied in this paper. A closed form expression for the average pair wise error probability is derived and used to obtain a tight upper bound on the overall average bit error ratio. Obtained results verified the superiority of QSSK scheme as compared to traditional modulation techniques especially for high spectral efficiency.

Analysis of multiplexed assays is highly important for clinical diagnostics and other analytical applications. Mass cytometry enables multi-dimensional, single-cell analysis of cell type and state. In mass cytometry, the rare earth metals used as reporters on antibodies allow determination of marker expression in individual cells. Barcode-based bioassays for CyTOF are able to encode and decode for different experimental conditions or samples within the same experiment, facilitating progress in producing straightforward and consistent results. Herein, an integrated protocol for automated sample preparation for barcoding used in conjunction with mass cytometry for clinical bioanalysis samples is described; we offer results of our work with barcoding protocol optimization. In addition, we present some points to be considered in order to minimize the variability of quantitative mass cytometry measurements. For example, we discuss the importance of having multiple populations during titration of the antibodies and effect of storage and shipping of labelled samples on the stability of staining for purposes of CyTOF analysis. Data quality is not affected when labelled samples are stored either frozen or at 4 °C and used within 10 days; we observed that cell loss is greater if cells are washed with deionized water prior to shipment or are shipped in lower concentration. Once the labelled samples for CyTOF are suspended in deionized water, the analysis should be performed expeditiously, preferably within the first hour. Damage can be minimized if the cells are resuspended in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) rather than deionized water while waiting for data acquisition.

Video streaming over Internet has been gaining momentum and several quality adaptation schemes have been reported to improve quality of the streamed videos. Most of these schemes focus on adjusting the video encoding rate to match certain network conditions. This paper presents a new quality adaptation algorithm for real-time video streaming over Internet. The proposed algorithm is based upon simultaneous adaptation of multiple key parameters such as video frame rate, resolution, and frame quality to achieve the best possible video quality and minimize possibility of service interruption in lossy networks. Furthermore, the current network status and motion of the streamed video sequence have also been taken into account throughout the adaptation process. A video conferencing test-bed which incorporates the Adobe Flash Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) is built and utilized to investigate the effect of various combinations of the video parameters under study on the quality of sample video clips streamed at slow, medium and fast motions. A quality-adaptation algorithm based on experimental investigations is then developed and its performance is assessed using both subjective and objective evaluations. The obtained results and observations demonstrate superior performance of the developed adaptation algorithm as compared to equivalent algorithms with fixed video quality settings at similar test conditions.

The past few years have witnessed an impressive increasing number of online applications and services that play major roles of our daily life. This have created a growing need to improve our online networks performance and their immunity to online network attacks and anomalies. One approach to improve the network's performance is to predict future bandwidth demands. With accurate forecasting and comparing the forecasted network with real time bandwidth measurement, network management techniques such as resource allocation, traffic engineering, and detection of anomalies become less complex. To this end, a two-stage network analysis model is proposed. In the first stage, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used to predict future bandwidth demands. The ANN is trained using a set of data collected from a local network over the period of five months. The forecasting ANN is tested for different prediction periods. The results are compared to real-time bandwidth measurements. The comparison shows that the forecasting ANN achieves an accuracy level of at least 96.7% for normal network operation. In the second stage, another ANN is used to classify the behavior of the network as normal or anomaly. In this work, the anomalies considered are Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and link failures. Experimental DDoS attacks and link failures were performed to measure the network's behavior. The ANN in the second stage is trained and tested using the difference between the forecasted and real time bandwidth for different periods of time. The results show that the classifier is able to detect network anomalies with an error at most 0.6%.

This paper reports on the basic findings and future perspectives of a capacity building project funded by the European Union. The International Master of Science on Cyber Physical Systems (MS@CPS) is a collaborative project that aims to establish a master program in cyber physical systems (CPS). A consortium composed of nine partners proposed the project. Three partners are European and from Germany, UK and Sweden; while the other six partners are from the South Mediterranean region and include: Palestine, Jordan and Tunisia. The consortium is led by the University of Siegen in Germany who also manages the implementation of the work packages. CPS is an emerging engineering subject with significant economic and societal implications, which motivated the consortium to propose the establishment of a master program to offer educational and training opportunities at graduate level in the fields of CPS. In this paper, CPS as a field of study is presented with an emphasis on its importance, especially with regard to meeting local needs. A brief description of the project is presented in conjunction with the methodology for developing the courses and their learning outcomes.

Part 8: Demonstrations and Installations; International audience; Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are widely used to assist monitoring of an area of interest whenever manual monitoring by skilled personnel is not convenient if not prohibitive. In this paper, we propose a step ahead with respect to the current status of art, with the design and implementation of a novel networked architecture which integrates a set of static ground nodes, an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in a unique monitoring system. All these devices are equipped with sensors, a microcontroller and a wireless communication module such that they are capable of covering an AoI in the terrestrial and aerial dimension. In the proposed architecture, the mobile robot can inspect areas which have no fixed ground sensors, whereas sensors installed on the UAV cover the ground areas from above, ensuring wider coverage. Once data is collected by the ground sensors, it is sent via the UAV to a remote processing center, which elaborates the gathered data for decision making.

Methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), the most abundantly produced diisocyanate worldwide, is among the best recognized chemical causes of occupational asthma. The bulk of synthesized MDI, the 4,4’ isomer, has been the focus of most biochemical research to date. The biological reactivity of other MDI isomers (2,2’ and 2,4’), present at concentrations approaching 50% in some commercial products, remains less clear. We hypothesized 2,2’ and 2,4’ MDI react with glutathione (GSH), a major anti-oxidant of the lower airways, similarly to 4,4’ MDI, and that the products could be characterized using a combination of LC-UV-MS and MS/MS. Purified 2,2’ and 2,4’ MDI isomers were mixed with GSH in pH-buffered aqueous phase at 37°C and reaction products were analyzed at varying time points. Within minutes, S-linked bis(GSH)-MDI conjugates were detectable as the dominant [M+H](+) ion, with an 865.25 m/z and more intense [M+2H](2+) ions of the same nominal mass. Upon longer reaction, [M+H]+ ions with greater retention times and the 558.17 m/z expected for mono(GSH)-MDI reaction products were observed, and exhibited MS/MS collision-induced dissociation (CID)-fragmentation patterns consistent with cyclized structures. Compared with 4,4’ MDI, 2,2’ and 2,4’ isomers exhibit similar rapid reactivity with GSH and formation of bis(GSH)-MDI conjugates, but greater formation of cyclized mono(GSH) conjugates following extended reaction times (10 minutes to 2 hours). Further translational studies will be required to determine if the present in vitro findings extend to the complex lower airway microenvironment in vivo.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) of the skin are autoimmune diseases characterized by inappropriate immune responses against self-proteins; the key elements that determine disease pathogenesis and progression are largely unknown. Here, we show that mice lacking immune inhibitory receptor VISTA or programmed death-1 homolog (PD-1H KO) on a BALB/c background spontaneously develop cutaneous and systemic autoimmune diseases resembling human lupus. Cutaneous lupus lesions of PD-1H KO mice have clustering of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) similar to human DLE. Using mass cytometry, we identified proinflammatory neutrophils as critical early immune infiltrating cells within cutaneous lupus lesions of PD-1H KO mice. We also found that PD-1H is highly expressed on immune cells in human SLE, DLE lesions, and cutaneous lesions of MRL/lpr mice. A PD-1H agonistic monoclonal antibody in MRL/lpr mice reduces cutaneous disease, autoantibodies, inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, and immune cell expansion. Furthermore, PD-1H on both T cells and myeloid cells including neutrophils and pDCs could transmit inhibitory signals, resulting in reduced activation and function, establishing PD-1H as an inhibitory receptor on T cells and myeloid cells. On the basis of these findings, we propose that PD-1H is a critical element in the pathogenesis and progression of lupus, and PD-1H activation could be effective for treatment of systemic and cutaneous lupus.

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a promising research topic that aims at utilizing the visible light spectrum for data communication, which in turns off-loads the heavily utilized wireless radio spectrum. VLC can take advantage of the increased use of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) for lighting purposes in different fields, such as automotive headlights, traffic signals, advertising, aviation and general lightening. Utilizing solid state lights LEDs for lighting purposes not only saves energy but also can be used for data communication since LEDs can be easily modulated by switching the light ON and Off in frequencies above the human eye perception. This data can be transmitted in addition to the main lightening functionality of these devices. VLC is relatively easy to implement, and safe, as it does not have potential side effects like the radio signals. As such, this new technology has a great potential for adoption in several applications. This book chapter will briefly introduce the technology and discuss some potential indoors and outdoors applications.

With the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing technologies in various fields, remote health monitoring and fall detection are two vital applications that are expected to adopt these technologies. This is due to the fact that it not only provides efficient way for logging the patients’ health information, thus providing an electronic record for all the vital health signs that the patient is monitoring utilizing various medical IoT devices, but also it can be used to send an alert message to the healthcare personnel in case of detecting any abnormal behavior hence providing an immediate assistance. Fall detection is another important application of these technologies, where wearable sensors can be used to send an alert message to the healthcare personnel in case of detecting unpredicted fall. In this book chapter, the design and implementation of a simple and cost effective healthcare monitoring and fall detection system that utilizes of-the-shelf electronic components is provided. The system consists of a microcontroller, medical sensors and communication module that are used to collect the patients’ information and send it to the cloud for further processing and analysis. Furthermore, a fall detection system that utilizes wearable sensors is proposed where it can detect unpredicted fall. One unique feature in this system that it utilizes voice recognition technology to interact with the patient after detecting a fall, thus verifying if the patient needs an assistant or not, which in turn reduces the false alarms and improves the system accuracy.

The estimation of the joint angles of the fingers and the wrist using electromyography (EMG) signals is essential to enhance the quality of life for amputees, but this task is often considered challenging. In fact, developing robust mechanisms that can estimate the values of the joint angles in the hand provides better control of prosthetic hands and enables the execution of various daily life activities. In this chapter, we present an EMG-based approach for estimating the joint angles of the fingers and wrist. The proposed approach utilizes the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to analyze the EMG signals in the time-frequency domain. Then, we extract a set of features based on the obtained detail and approximation coefficients of the DWT. The extracted features are used to train a set of support vector regression (SVR) models to estimate the joint angles of the fingers and wrist. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, we employed the publicly available NinaPro database, namely database 1, which comprises the EMG signals along with the hand kinematic data recorded for 27 healthy subjects while performing 52 hand movements. The results presented in this chapter demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach to estimate the joint angles of the fingers and wrist.

A novel free space optical (FSO) wireless communication system is proposed very recently utilizing acousto optical modulator (AOM) to externally modulate the laser beam [1]. The idea is to control the diffracted angle of a laser beam incident to an AOM through varying the acoustic frequency propagating inside the AOM. The receiver with multiple photo diodes, spatially distributed and aligned to the preplanned diffracted angles, receive the laser signal and retrieve the transmitted bits. In this paper, we study the performance of AOM–FSO system over negative exponential turbulent channel. A closed-form expression for the average bit error probability is derived and shown to be precise over wide range of channel and system parameters. The performance of the system is compared to the ideal case of no fading and log normal channel.

Wireless Charging (WC) is a promising technology that has recently attracted the research community and several companies. WC has a myriad of advantages and diverse applications especially in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), where energy harvesting and conservation are very crucial to prolonging network lifetime. Several companies have launched WC products and solutions and made them available to the end-users. This paper provides experimental and practical insights about this technology utilizing off-the-shelf (commercially available) products provided by Powercast Inc.; a pioneering company that has made their wireless charging kits and solutions available to the research and academic communities. In addition, a theoretical study of this technology is presented, where a close match between the theoretical and practical results is demonstrated. This will in turn assist the learners and technology adopters to better understand the technology and adopt it in various application scenarios. Furthermore, the paper presents the potential of using WC in unsupervised clustered WSN, where the Cluster Head (CH) node is proposed to be a mobile Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) equipped with a wireless charging station. The UGV position is chosen to be in the centroid of the cluster in order to ensure that wireless charging takes place in the context of the cluster nodes efficiently.

Q-switch Nd: YAG laser of wavelengths 235nm and 1,460nm with energy in the range 0.2 J to 1J and 1Hz repetition rate was employed to synthesis Ag/Au (core/shell) nanoparticles (NPs) using pulse laser ablation in water. In this synthesis, initially the silver nano-colloid prepared via ablation target, this ablation related to Au target at various energies to creat Ag/Au NPs. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), surface morphology and average particle size identified employing: UV-visible spectrophotometer, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The absorbance spectra of Ag NPs and Ag/Au NPs showed sharp and single peaks around 400nm and 410nm, respectively. The average diameter achieved for Ag/Au NPs were as 30nm and 25nm corresponding to 532nm and 1064nm, respectively. The TEM images showed that Ag/Au NPs possess a spherical shape, while the samples average size were in range from 20 to 30nm. There was an obvious increase in size during the use of 532nm laser. As for the effects of toxicity, results on human blood components showed that these nanoparticles have no effect on RBCs, WBCs and HB Therefore; these particles considered promising in the biological and medical applications.

In this work, copper substituted cobalt ferrite nanoparticles Co1-xCuxFe2O4 (×=0, 0.3, and 0.7), has been synthesized via laser assisted hydrothermal synthesis (LAHS) methods. The XRD patterns showed single phase spinel structure, comparative study between the two preparation methods, effect of laser irradiation on the structural properties, and average crystallite size that is evaluated from most intense peak (311) utilizing Scherrer formula. Further studies for laser assisted hydrothermal as-prepared ferrite samples using each of Field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) which revealed the study of topography, shape, particle size, vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) with in 15kOe as maximum field. That was used to study the magnetic properties and confirmed the super-paramagnetic property of the prepared ferrite nanoparticles. Coercivity (Hc), remanence (Mr), saturation magnetization (Ms) and sequarness ratio were directly extracted from hysteresis loops. Moreover, results showed that the magnetic characteristics are on the basis of each particle size as well as cation distribution. In addition, the antibacterial property of the prepared nanoparticles against S. aureus and E. coli found to be improved after substitution of Cu in Co ferrite matrix.