Modern Virtual Fencing Application: Monitoring and Controlling Behavior of Goats Using GPS Collars and Warning Signals.

This paper describes our virtual fence system for goats. The present invention is a method of controlling goats without visible physical fences and monitoring their condition. Control occurs through affecting goats, using one or more sound signals and electric shocks when they attempt to enter a restricted zone. One of the best Machine Learning (ML) classifications named Support Vector Machines (SVM) is used to observe the condition. A virtual fence boundary can be of any geometrical shape. A smart collar on goats' necks can be detected by using a virtual fence application. Each smart collar consists of a global positioning system (GPS), an XBee communication module, an mp3 player, and an electrical shocker. Stimuli and classification results are presented from on-farm experiments with a goat equipped with smart collar. Using the proposed stimuli methods, we showed that the probability of a goat receiving an electrical stimulus following an audio cue (dog and emergency sounds) was low (20%) and declined over the testing period. Besides, the RBF kernel-based SVM classification model classified lying behavior with an extremely high classification accuracy (F-score of 1), whilst grazing, running, walking, and standing behaviors were also classified with a high accuracy (F-score of 0.95, 0.97, 0.81, and 0.8, respectively).

Constructing RBAC based security model in u-healthcare service platform.

In today's era of aging society, people want to handle personal health care by themselves in everyday life. In particular, the evolution of medical and IT convergence technology and mobile smart devices has made it possible for people to gather information on their health status anytime and anywhere easily using biometric information acquisition devices. Healthcare information systems can contribute to the improvement of the nation's healthcare quality and the reduction of related cost. However, there are no perfect security models or mechanisms for healthcare service applications, and privacy information can therefore be leaked. In this paper, we examine security requirements related to privacy protection in u-healthcare service and propose an extended RBAC based security model. We propose and design u-healthcare service integration platform (u-HCSIP) applying RBAC security model. The proposed u-HCSIP performs four main functions: storing and exchanging personal health records (PHR), recommending meals and exercise, buying/selling private health information or experience, and managing personal health data using smart devices.

Preparation of Novel Pyridine-Based Aromatic Polyimides and Effect of Fluorine Functionality.

Novel pyridine-containing linear and branched polyimides (Li-PIs and Br-PIs) were prepared by aromatic diamine and triamine monomers. The fluorinated, non-fluorinated and trifunctional pyridine-based monomers, 4-(4-(trifluoromethylphenyl))-2,6-bis(4-aminophenyl)pyridine (FDAPP), 4-phenyl-2,6-bis(4-aminophenyl)pyridine (DAPP) and 4,4',4"-(pyridine-2,4,6-triyl)tribenzenamine (TAPP) amino compounds were synthesized by a modified Chichibabin reaction of different benzaldehydes and p-nitroacetophenone, followed by a reduction of the resulting nitro compounds with hydrazine monohydrate. Functional amine monomers were used to synthesize a series of pyridine-containing linear and branched polyimides, by polycondensation with aromatic dianhydride in N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) via the conventional two-step method. The obtained novel polyimides (PIs) exhibited good solubility in common organic solvents, such as m-Cresol, NMP, DMF, DMSO and DMAc. Moreover, obtained PI films were flexible and showed excellent thermal stability, with the glass transition temperature (T(g)) of 264-331 degrees C and the temperature at 10% weight loss of 580-620 degrees C in a nitrogen atmosphere. The protonated polymer showed UV-vis absorption in the region of 200-400 nm, good optical transparency with the cut-off wave lengths of 372-392 nm, as well as a low dielectric constant (ε) in the range of 3.897-4.276 at 1 MHz. Moreover, the resulted PIs derived from DAPP, FDAPP and TAPP were compared on the basis of fluorine functionality with non-fluorinated parallels, and the effect of branching units was compared with linear polymers.

A practical method for the detection of freezing of gait in patients with Parkinson's disease.

PURPOSE: Freezing of gait (FOG), increasing the fall risk and limiting the quality of life, is common at the advanced stage of Parkinson's disease, typically in old ages. A simple and unobtrusive FOG detection system with a small calculation load would make a fast presentation of on-demand cueing possible. The purpose of this study was to find a practical FOG detection system. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A sole-mounted sensor system was developed for an unobtrusive measurement of acceleration during gait. Twenty patients with Parkinson's disease participated in this study. A simple and fast time-domain method for the FOG detection was suggested and compared with the conventional frequency-domain method. The parameters used in the FOG detection were optimized for each patient. RESULTS: The calculation load was 1,154 times less in the time-domain method than the conventional method, and the FOG detection performance was comparable between the two domains (P=0.79) and depended on the window length (P<0.01) and dimension of sensor information (P=0.03). CONCLUSION: A minimally constraining sole-mounted sensor system was developed, and the suggested time-domain method showed comparable FOG detection performance to that of the conventional frequency-domain method. Three-dimensional sensor information and 3-4-second window length were desirable. The suggested system is expected to have more practical clinical applications.

Sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)s containing pyridine moiety for PEMFC.

Sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)s with varied degree of sulfonation (DS) were prepared via post-sulfonation of synthesized pyridine based poly(ether sulfone) (PPES) using concentrated sulfuric acid as sulfonating agent. The DS was varied with different mole ratio of 4,4'-(2,2-diphenylethenylidene)diphenol, DHTPE in the polymer unit. PPES copolymers were synthesized by direct polycondensation of pyridine unit with bis-(4-fluorophenyl)-sulfone, 4, 4'-sulfonyldiphenol and DHTPE. The structure of the resulting PPES copolymer membranes with different sulfonated units were studied by 1H NMR spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Sorption experiments were conducted to observe the interaction of sulfonated polymer with water. The ion exchange capacity (IEC) and proton conductivity were evaluated according to the increase of DS. The water uptake (WU) of the resulting membranes was in the range of 17-58%, compared to that of Nafion 211 28%. The membranes provided proton conductivities of 65-95 mS/cm in contrast to 103 mS/cm of Nafion 211.