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Heart and Breathing Rate Measurement Using Low Intrusive Monitoring Systems
No full textIn many cases continuous monitoring of vital signals is required and low intrusiveness is an important requirement. Incorporating monitoring systems in the hospital or home bed could have benefits for patients and caregivers. The objective of this work is the definition of a measurement protocol and the creation of a data set of measurements using commercial and low-cost prototypes devices to estimate heart rate and breathing rate. The experimental data will be used to compare results achieved by the devices and to develop algorithms for feature extraction of vital signals
Gamification System to Improve the Personal Health of Bedridden Patients in Long-Term Care
No full textGamification is one of the recognized methods of motivating people in various life processes, and it has spread to many spheres of life, including healthcare. This article proposes a system design for long-term care patients using the method mentioned. The proposed system aims to increase patient engagement in the treatment and rehabilitation process via gamification. Literature research on available and earlier proposed systems was conducted to develop a suited system design. The primary target group includes bedridden patients and a sedentary lifestyle (predominantly lying in bed). One of the main criteria for selecting a suitable option was its contactless realization for the mentioned target groups in long-term care cases. As a result, we developed the system design for hardware and software that could prevent bedsores and other health problems from occurring because of low activity. The proposed design can be tested in hospitals, nursing homes, and rehabilitation centers
Evaluation of substituting a sleep diary by smartwatch measurement
No full textThe importance of sleep for human life is enormous. It affects physical, mental, and psychological health. Therefore, it is vital to recognise sleep disorders in a timely manner in order to be able to initiate therapy. There are two methods for measuring sleep-related parameters - objective and subjective. Whether the substitution of a subjective method for an objective one is possible is investigated in this paper. Such replacement may bring several advantages, including increased comfort for the user. To answer this research question, a study was conducted in which 75 overnight recordings were evaluated. The primary purpose of this study was to compare both ways of measurement for total sleep time and sleep efficiency, which are essential parameters for, e.g., insomnia diagnosis and treatment. The evaluation results demonstrated that, on average, there are 32 minutes of difference between the two measurement methods when total sleep time is analysed. In contrast, on average, both measurement methods differ by 7.5% for sleep efficiency measurement. It should also be noted that people typically overestimate total sleep time and efficiency with the subjective method, where the perceived values are measured
Decoding of Generalized Concatenated Codes Over the One-Lee Error Channel for the McEliece Cryptosystem
No full textThe code-based McEliece cryptosystem is a promising candidate for post-quantum cryptography. The sender encodes a message, using a public scrambled generator matrix, and adds a random error vector. In this work, we consider q-ary codes and restrict the Lee weight of the added error symbols. This leads to an increased error correction capability and a larger work factor for information-set decoding attacks. In particular, we consider codes over an extension field and use the one-Lee error channel, which restricts the error values to Lee weight one. For this channel model, generalized concatenated codes can achieve high error correction capabilities. We discuss the decoding of those codes and the possible gain for decoding beyond the guaranteed error correction capability
Backstepping Control of a Fully-actuated Surface Vessel for Tracking a Docking Maneuver
No full textThe trajectory tracking problem for a fully-actuated real-scaled surface vessel is addressed in this paper by designing a backstepping controller with a multivariable integral action, considering the thruster allocation problem. The performance and robustness of this controller are evaluated in simulation, taking into account environmental disturbance forces and modeling mismatch, using a docking maneuver as a reference trajectory. Furthermore, a comparison between the backstepping controller and a nonlinear position PID-Control with flatness based-feedforward is also analyzed
Anti-Korruptions-Compliance und Integrity Management in Hochrisikoländern
Get PDFWie gehen mittelständische Unternehmen mit internationaler Geschäftstätigkeit mit Compliance-Risiken um? Wie gelingt das Risikomanagement spezifischer Herausforderungen der Regelkonformität in Wachstumsländern, die aus Compliance-Gesichtspunkten als Hochrisikoländer eingestuft werden? Und was beschäftigt dabei Compliance-Officer im Mittelstand?
Diesen Fragen widmete sich ein anwendungsorientiertes Forschungsprojekt am Konstanz Institut für Corporate Governance.
Die nachfolgende Publikation stellt die zentralen Studienergebnisse vor und fokussiert dabei auf Herausforderungen und Lösungen für das Compliance- und Integrity Management
Austempering of Martensitic Stainless Steels – A possible heat treatment to improve material properties?
No full textMaturity Models and Cost Justification for PLM
No full textIn recent years, there has been a noticeable trend towards a general contractor strategy for plant engineering companies. Multiple disciplines and departments must be administered in a joint project. In the process, different work results are often managed in various systems without any associative relationship. A possible way to address this complexity is to implement a specifically tailored PLM strategy to gain a competitive advantage. Maturity models as well as methods to evaluate possible benefits constitute increasingly applied tools during this journey. Both methods have been theoretically described in previous publications. However, this paper should provide insights in the practical application within machinery industry. Therefore, a medium-sized German plant engineering company serves as an example for determining the scope and value of a multi-national overarching Product Lifecycle Management architecture as the central piece of a future digitalization strategy. The company’s current maturity levels for several digitalization capabilities are evaluated, prioritized and benchmarked against a set of similar companies. This allows to derive suitable target states in terms of maturity levels as well as the technical specification of digitalization use cases. In order to provide profound data for cost justification the resulting benefits are quantified
Mutual Information Analysis for Generalized Spatial Modulation Systems With Multilevel Coding
Get PDFGeneralized Spatial Modulation (GSM) enables a trade-off between very high spectral efficiencies and low hardware costs for massive MIMO systems. This is achieved by transmitting information via the selection of active antennas from a set of available antennas besides the transmission of conventional data symbols. GSM systems have been investigated concerning various aspects like suitable signal constellations, efficient detection algorithms, hardware implementations, spatial precoding, and error control coding. On the other hand, determining the capacity of GSM is challenging because no closed-form expressions have been found so far. This paper investigates the mutual information for different GSM variants. We consider a multilevel coding approach, where the antenna selection and IQ modulation are encoded independently. Combined with multistage decoding, such an approach enables low-complexity capacity-achieving coded modulation. The influence of the data symbols on the mutual information is illuminated. We analyze the portions of mutual information related to antenna selection and the IQ modulation processes which depend on the GSM variant and the signal constellation. Moreover, the potential of spatial modulation for massive MIMO systems with many transmit antennas is investigated. Especially in systems with many transmit antennas much information can be conveyed by antenna selection
Lassen sich aus der auditiven Wahrnehmung gestaltungsrelevante Parameter ableiten?
Get PDFDie vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der Frage, ob aus der auditiven Wahrnehmung allgemeingültige Gestaltungsparameter abgeleitet werden können. Hierzu wurde sowohl eine Grundlagenrecherche betrieben als auch eigene Experimente durchgeführt um sich einer Antwort auf die Frage qualitativ anzunähern.
Die Ergebnisse, die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit erbracht werden konnten, legen nahe, dass die Transformation von auditiven in gestalterische Parameter möglich ist, jedoch zum Teil auf subjektiven Empfindungen beruht, die von verschiedenen Person in individuell wahrgenommen werden können. Dennoch zeigen sich klare Tendenzen, die durch Analyse der Forschungsergebnisse und Befragung der Probanden Rückschlüsse auf Gemeinsamkeiten bei der Assoziation auditiver Variablen zulassen. Durch eine schrittweise Reduzierung der audiobezogenen Faktoren, wie Tonhöhe, Schalldruck oder Balance, kann gezeigt werden, dass beim Erfassen von auditiven Reizen, bildliche Ableitungen vorgenommen werden können und diese formspezifischer werden, je qualitativer die Klänge bewertet werden können.
Klangmuster mit vielen sich verändernden Variablen hingegen, werden im überwiegenden Maße rational und stark technisiert in Zeichenform wiedergegeben, da die Probanden offenbar versuchen, die für sie wahrnehmbaren Klangparameter auf dem Papier abzubilden. Da sich diese Parameter im Laufe der Untersuchung und Befragung als trivial herausgestellt haben, war die weitere Forschung auf die intuitive Formgebung gerichtet