Because battery-powered nodes are required in wireless sensor networks and energy consumption represents an important design consideration, alternate energy sources are needed to provide more effective and optimal function. The main goal of this work is to present an energy harvesting wireless sensor network platform, the Open Wireless Sensor node (WiSe). The design and implementation of the solar powered wireless platform is described including the hardware architecture, firmware, and a POSIX Real-Time Kernel. A sleep and wake up strategy was implemented to prolong the lifetime of the wireless sensor network. This platform was developed as a tool for researchers investigating Wireless sensor network or system integrators.

Villaseñor, L.; Simó Ten, JE.; Chávez, M.; Crespo Lorente, A. (2011). uDDS: A Middleware for Real-time Wireless Embedded Systems.Abstract A Real-Time Wireless Distributed Embedded System (RTWDES) is formed by a large quantity of small devices with certain computing power, wireless communication and sensing/actuators capabilities. These types of networks have become popular as they have been developed for applications which can carry out a vast quantity of tasks, including home and building monitoring, object tracking, precision agriculture, military applications, disaster recovery, industry applications, among others. For this type of applications a middleware is used in software systems to bridge the gap between the application and the underlying operating system and networks. As a result, a middleware system can facilitate the development of applications and is designed to provide common services to the applications. The development of a middleware for sensor networks presents several challenges due to the limited computational resources and energy of the different nodes. This work is related with the design, implementation and test of a micro middleware for RTWDES; the proposal incorporates characteristics of a message oriented middleware thus allowing the applications to communicate by employing the publish/subscribe model. Experimental evaluation shows that the proposed middleware 1 provides a stable and timely service to support different Quality of Service (QoS) levels.

Millions of electrocardiograms (ECG) are interpreted every year, requiring specialized training for accurate interpretation. Because automated and accurate classification ECG signals will improve early diagnosis of heart condition, several neural network (NN) approaches have been proposed for classifying ECG signals. Current strategies for a critical step, the preprocessing for noise removal, are still unsatisfactory. We propose a modular NN approach based on artificial noise injection, to improve the generalization capability of the resulting model. The NN classifier initially performed a fairly accurate recognition of four types of cardiac anomalies in simulated ECG signals with minor, moderate, severe, and extreme noise, with an average accuracy of 99.2%, 95.1%, 91.4%, and 85.2% respectively. Ultimately we discriminated normal and abnormal heartbeat patterns for single lead of raw ECG signals, obtained 95.7% of overall accuracy and 99.5% of Precision. Therefore, the propose approach is a useful tool for the detection and diagnosis of cardiac abnormalities.Povzetek: V članku je opisana metoda modularnih nevronskim mrež za prepoznavanje šumnih ECG signalov. Materials and methodsThe NN classification comprises five stages: (i) simulation of ECG signal, (ii) extraction of features that indicate cardiac abnormalities, (iii) computer generation of normal and abnormal heartbeat patterns, (iv) artificial noise injection, and (v) cardiac rhythm classification on simulated and real ECG signals.

<p>Natural disasters should be examined within a risk-perspective framework where both natural threat and vulnerability are considered as intricate components of an extremely complex equation. The trend toward more frequent floods and landslides in Mexico in recent decades is not only the result of more intense rainfall, but also a consequence of increased vulnerability. As a multifactorial element, vulnerability is a low-frequency modulating factor of the risk dynamics to intense rainfall. It can be described in terms of physical, social, and economical factors. For instance, deforested or urbanized areas are the physical and social factors that lead to the deterioration of watersheds and an increased vulnerability to intense rains. Increased watershed vulnerability due to land-cover changes is the primary factor leading to more floods, particularly over pacific Mexico. ln some parts of the country, such as Colima, the increased frequency of intense rainfall (i.e., natural hazard) associated with high-intensity tropical cyclones and hurricanes is the leading cause of more frequent floods.</p><p> </p><p>In this research an intelligent rain management-system is presented. The object is built to forecast and to simulate the components of risk, to stablish communication between rescue/aid teams and to help in preparedness activities (training). Detection, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of the hazards and scenarios that promote floods and landslides, is the main task. The developed methodology is based on a database that permits to relate heavy rainfall measurements with changes in land cover and use, terrain slope, basin compactness and communities’ resilience as key vulnerability factors. A neural procedure is used for the spatial definition of exposition and susceptibility (intrinsic and extrinsic parameters) and Machine Learning techniques are applied to find the If-Then relationships. The capability of the intelligent model for Colima, Mexico was tested by comparing the observed and modeled frequency of landslides and floods for ten years period. It was found that over most of the Mexican territory, more frequent floods are the result of a rapid deforestation process and that landslides and their impact on communities are directly related to the unauthorized growth of populations in high geo-risk areas (due to forced migration because of violence or extreme poverty) and the development of civil infrastructure (mainly roads) with a high impact on the natural environment. Consequently, the intelligent rain-management system offers the possibility to redesign and to plan the land use and the spatial distribution of poorest communities.</p>