Tuesday, 2 July 2013
NC State to Lead NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center on Self-Powered Health Monitoring
North Carolina State University will lead a national nanotechnology research effort to create self-powered devices to help people monitor their health and understand how the surrounding environment affects it, the National Science Foundation announced today.
The NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST), to be headquartered on NC State's Centennial Campus, is a joint effort between NC State and partner institutions Florida International University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Virginia. The center, funded by an initial five-year $18.5 million grant from NSF, also includes five affiliated universities and about 30 industry partners in its global research consortium.
"Tackling the world's grand challenges is one of NC State's strategic imperatives," said NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson. "The ASSIST center holds the potential to transform health care, leading to advanced environmental health research and enhanced environmental policy."
With the addition of ASSIST, NC State is the only university in the country currently leading two active NSF Engineering Research Centers (ERCs), among the largest and most prestigious grants made by the engineering directorate of the federal agency. The FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid ERC formed in 2008, is also headquartered at NC State.
ASSIST researchers will use the tiniest of materials to develop self-powered health monitoring sensors and devices. These devices could be worn on the chest like a patch, on the wrist like a watch, as a cap that fits over a tooth, or in other ways, depending on the biological system that's being monitored.
Wireless health monitoring is already a fast-growing industry, but the self-powered technology being developed by ASSIST means that changing and recharging batteries on current devices could soon be a thing of the past. By using nanomaterials and nanostructures - a nanowire is thousands of times thinner than a human hair - and thermoelectric and piezoelectric materials that use body heat and motion, respectively, as power sources, ASSIST researchers want to make devices that operate on the smallest amounts of energy.
Dr. Veena Misra and Dr. John Muth provide leadership for ASSIST.
"Currently there are many devices out there that monitor health in different ways," said Dr. Veena Misra, the center's director and professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. "What's unique about our technologies is the fact that they are powered by the human body, so they don't require battery charging."
These devices could transform health care by improving the way doctors, patients and researchers gather and interpret important health data. Armed with uninterrupted streams of heart rate readings, respiration rates and other health indicators, as well as personalized exposure data for environmental pollutants such as ozone and carbon monoxide, sick people could better manage chronic diseases, and healthy people could make even better decisions to keep themselves fit.
On a larger scale, data gleaned from research studies employing these devices could prove invaluable to lawmakers crafting environmental policy. And if people using the devices make better decisions about where and how healthfully they live, national health care costs, which topped $2.5 trillion in 2010, could come down.
The center's headquarters will be housed in the Larry K. Monteith Engineering Research Center on NC State's Centennial Campus. There, ASSIST researchers will develop thermoelectric materials that harvest body heat and new nanosensors that gather health information from the body such as heart rates, oxygen levels and respiration data. In addition, the researchers will find ways to package the technology developed by the center into wearable devices.
The center's partner institutions will also play important research roles. At Penn State, researchers will create new piezoelectric materials and energy-efficient transistors. The team from the University of Virginia will develop ways to make the systems work on very small amounts of power, while the group from Florida International University will create sensors that gather biochemical signals from the body, such as stress levels.
The results of that work, coupled with low-power radios developed by the University of Michigan, will be used to process and transmit health data gathered by the sensors to computers and consumer devices, such as cell phones, so patients, doctors and researchers can easily digest it. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will provide ASSIST with medical guidance and arrange testing of the center's technology.
ASSIST aims to produce self-powered health-monitoring devices, some of which could be worn on the wrist.
"We have assembled a comprehensive team that works together closely under a systems-driven approach to tackle this challenging set of global health problems," Misra said.
ASSIST also has foreign partnerships with the University of Adelaide, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
"The research conducted at ASSIST will help patients, doctors and scientists make direct correlations between a person's health and the surrounding environment, leading to better prediction and treatment of chronic diseases," said Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering at NC State. "The fact that NC State now leads two NSF Engineering Research Centers is a testament to our world-class engineering faculty, students and facilities."
ASSIST will also draw on the expertise of industry partners to help guide the center's work to the marketplace. These partners include companies and agencies involved in nanomaterials and nanodevices, integrated chip manufacturing, software development, bioengineering and health care.
The center will feature a nanotechnology education program, including an undergraduate concentration and a graduate master's certificate, as well as a personalized professional-development program for graduate students.
The center will also partner with 11 middle and high schools in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania to develop outreach activities that bring nanosystems engineering into K-12 classrooms. Students in partner high schools will have the chance to be involved in ASSIST research.
The five-year NSF grant for ASSIST is renewable for an additional five years and follows a two-year selection process by the federal agency. The grant is among a new group of Engineering Research Center awards that invest in nanosystems.
Dr. John Muth, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State, will serve as the center's deputy director. The ASSIST leadership team also includes Dr. Thomas Jackson, Kirby Professor of Electrical Engineering at Penn State, research director and partner campus director; Dr. David Peden, senior associate dean for translational research at the UNC School of Medicine, medical director; Dr. Benton Calhoun, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia, partner campus director; Dr. Shekhar Bhansali, Alcatel-Lucent Professor and head of electrical and computer engineering at Florida International University, partner campus director; Dr. Mehmet Ozturk, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the NC State Nanofabrication Facility, education and diversity director; Dr. Gail Jones, professor of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in NC State's College of Education, pre-college education director; and Dr. Ted Baker, associate professor of management, innovation and entrepreneurship in NC State's Poole College of Management, industry collaboration and innovation director.
Monday, 1 July 2013
Researchers Obtaining 3D Footprints of Animals to identify, track and monitor their health
Namita Lokare, Wes Snyder & Edgar Lobaton (L to R)
Edgar Lobaton, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University and Wesley Snyder, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering are working with graduate student Namita Lokare to obtain three-dimensional footprints of large animals for computer-based footprint recognition.
Namita Lokare just started her PhD in Electrical Engineering this fall but is already working with staff from a company named Wildtrack (www.wildtrack.org) which has developed a non-invasive Footprint Identification Technique (FIT). Animals have unique feet, in the same way that humans have unique fingerprints and this process can identify endangered animals at the species, individual, age-class and sex levels. This allows researchers to monitor their status and work with decision-makers in environmental and conservation sciences to implement effective policies.
Once researchers have identified and measured features on the footprint, statistical software provided by SAS completes the identification of the animal. WildTrack staff are actively working with SAS staff on this project. Their algorithm is quite accurate, but requires humans to analyze the footprints, and the process of individually identifying the features of the footprint is very time consuming.
In attempt to speed up the process, Lobaton, Snyder and Lokare are developing image analysis algorithms to automate the feature measurement process. In the past, the footprints have been obtained using conventional cameras. In this photograph, the NC State researchers are shown using a three-dimensional camera to measure both extent and depth of the footprints. The work, if successful, will help to more rapidly identify individual animals, track them, and lead to improvements in the monitoring of their health.
Friday, 21 June 2013
Wake up to health problems caused by inadequate sleep
NEW YORK — Think you do just fine on five or six hours of shut-eye? Chances are, you are among the many millions who unwittingly shortchange themselves on sleep.
Research shows that most people require seven or eight hours of sleep to function optimally.
Failing to get enough sleep night after night can compromise your health and may even shorten your life. From infancy to old age, the effects of inadequate sleep can profoundly affect memory, learning, creativity, productivity and emotional stability, as well as physical health.
According to sleep specialists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, among others, a number of bodily systems are negatively affected by inadequate sleep: The heart, lungs and kidneys; appetite, metabolism and weight control; immune function and disease resistance; sensitivity to pain; reaction time; mood; and brain function.
Poor sleep is also a risk factor for depression and substance abuse, especially among people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to Dr Anne Germain, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. People with PTSD tend to relive their trauma when they try to sleep, which keeps their brains in a heightened state of alertness.
Dr Germain is studying what happens in the brains of sleeping veterans with PTSD in hopes of developing more effective treatment for them and others with smaller degrees of stress that interfere with a good night’s sleep.
The elderly are especially vulnerable. Dr Timothy Monk, who directs the Human Chronobiology Research Program at Western Psychiatric, heads a five-year federally funded study of circadian rhythms, sleep strength, stress reactivity, brain function and genetics among the elderly.
“The circadian signal isn’t as strong as people get older,” he said.
He is finding that many are helped by standard behavioural treatment for insomnia, such as maintaining a regular sleep schedule, avoiding late-in-day naps and caffeine and reducing distractions from light, noise and pets.
It should come as no surprise that myriad bodily systems can be harmed by chronically shortened nights.
“Sleep affects almost every tissue in our bodies,” said Dr Michael Twery, a sleep specialist at the National Institutes of Health.
Studies have linked insufficient sleep to weight gain. Not only do night owls with shortchanged sleep have more time to snack, but levels of the hormone leptin, which tells the brain enough food has been consumed, are lower in the sleep-deprived, while levels of ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, are higher. The body’s ability to process glucose is also affected, which may ultimately result in Type 2 diabetes.
In one study, healthy young men who slept for not more than four hours a night for six nights in a row ended up with insulin and blood sugar levels like those of people deemed pre-diabetic. The risks of cardiovascular disease and stroke are also higher in people who sleep less than six hours a night.
Even a single night of inadequate sleep can cause day-long elevations in blood pressure in people with hypertension. Inadequate sleep is also associated with calcification of coronary arteries and raised levels of inflammatory factors linked to heart disease.
The risk of cancer may also be elevated in people who fail to get enough sleep. A Japanese study of nearly 24,000 women aged between 40 and 79 found that those who slept less than six hours a night were more likely to develop breast cancer than women who slept longer.
The increased risk may result from diminished secretion of the sleep hormone melatonin.
Among participants in the Nurses Health Study, Associate Professor Eva Schernhammer of Harvard Medical School found a link between low melatonin levels and an increased risk of breast cancer.
Children can also experience hormonal disruptions from inadequate sleep. Growth hormones, released during deep sleep, not only stimulate growth in children but also boost muscle mass and repair damaged cells and tissues in both children and adults.
Dr Vatsal Thakkar, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York University, recently described evidence associating inadequate sleep with an erroneous diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. In one study, 28 per cent of children with sleep problems had symptoms of the disorder but not the actual disorder.
During sleep, the body produces cytokines, which are cellular hormones that help fight infections. Thus, short sleepers may be more susceptible to everyday infections such as colds and the flu.
In a study of 153 healthy men and women, Dr Sheldon Cohen and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University found that those who slept less than seven hours a night were three times as likely to develop cold symptoms when exposed to a cold-causing virus than people who slept eight or more hours.
Some of the most insidious effects of sleep deficiency involve mental processes like learning, memory, judgment and problem-solving.
During sleep, new learning and memory pathways become encoded in the brain, so adequate sleep is necessary for those pathways to work optimally. People who are well rested are better able to learn a task and more likely to remember what they have learned. The cognitive decline that so often accompanies ageing may result in part from chronically poor sleep.
With insufficient sleep, thinking slows, it is harder to focus and pay attention and people are more likely to make poor decisions and take undue risks.
These effects can be disastrous when operating a motor vehicle or dangerous machinery. In driving tests, sleep-deprived people perform as if drunk and no amount of caffeine or cold air can negate the ill effects.
At your next health check-up, tell your doctor how long and how well you sleep. Be honest: Sleep duration and quality can be as important to your health as your blood pressure and cholesterol level.
The New York Times
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Sunday, 16 June 2013
Licensed Practical Nurse - LPN in Home Care at Gentiva Health (Little Rock, AR) (simplyhired)
Desktop Support Supervisor at Yukon-kuskokwim Health (Bethel, AK) (simplyhired)