Canadian Researchers Create Unique Computerized Fabrics

A team of two Canadian researchers is creating fabrics able to change color and shape. Concordia University associate professor Joanna Berzowska and École Polytechnique de Montréal professor Maksim Skorobogatiy, developed different types of smart textiles with technology woven into the fiber and have created prototype garments able to change shape and color. One of their prototype garments is constructed with a pleated structure into which photonic band-gap fibers are woven. Custom electronics control how these fibers are lit, which creates different patterns and textures. The technology could also potentially capture energy from human movement that could, for example, charge a mobile telephone. (EurekAlert)(Concordia University)

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Negative effects of computerized surveillance at home: Cause of annoyance, concern, anxiety, and even anger

ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2012) — To understand the effects of continuous computerized surveillance on individuals, a Finnish research group instrumented ten Finnish households with video cameras, microphones, and logging software for personal computers, wireless networks, smartphones, TVs, and DVDs. The twelve participants filled monthly questionnaires to report on stress levels and were interviewed at six and twelve months. The study was carried out by Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, a joint research institute of Aalto University and the University of Helsinki, Finland.

The results expose a range of negative changes in experience and behavior. To all except one participant, the surveillance system proved to be a cause of annoyance, concern, anxiety, and even anger. However, surveillance did not cause mental health issues comparable in severity to depression or alcoholism, when measured with a standardized scale. Nevertheless, one household dropped out of the study at six months, citing that the breach of privacy and anonymity had grown unbearable.

The surveillees' privacy concerns plateaued after about three months, as the surveillees got more used to surveillance. The researchers attribute this to behavioral regulation of privacy. Almost all subjects exhibited changes in behavior to control what the system perceives. Some hid their activities in the home from the sensors, while some transferred them to places outside the home. Dr. Antti Oulasvirta explains: -- Although almost all were capable of adapting their daily practices to maintain privacy intrusion at a level they could tolerate, the required changes made the home fragile. Any unpredicted social event would bring the new practices to the fore and question them, and at times prevent them from taking place.

The researchers were surprised that computer logging was as disturbing as camera-based surveillance. On the one hand, logging the computer was experienced negatively because it breaches the anonymity of conversations. -- The importance of anonymity in computer use is symptomatic of the fact that a large proportion of our social activities today are mediated by computers, Oulasvirta says.

On the other hand, the ever-observing "eye," the video camera, deprived the participants of the solitude and isolation they expect at home. The surveillees felt particularly strong the violation of reserve and intimacy by the capture of nudity, physical appearance, and sex. -- Psychological theories of privacy have postulated six privacy functions of the home, and we find that computerized surveillance can disturb all of them, Oulasvirta concludes.

More experimental research is needed to reveal the effects of computerized surveillance. Prof. Petri Myllymäki explains: -- Because the topic is challenging to study empirically, there is hardly any published research on the effects of intrusive surveillance on everyday life. In the Helsinki Privacy Experiment project, we did rigorous ethical and legal preparations, and invested into a robust technical platform, in order to allow a longitudinal field experiment of privacy. The present sample of subjects is potentially biased, as it was selected from people who volunteered based on an Internet advertisement. While we realize the limits of our sample, our work can facilitate further inquiries into this important subject.

The first results were presented at the 14th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2012) in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

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Computerized osteoporosis detection

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2012) — A computerized approach to examining patient bone X-rays for diagnosis of osteoporosis could side-step the subjectivity associated with visual examination, according to a new research paper in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology published in October.

Neelesh Kumar of the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation in Chandigarh, India, and colleagues recognized that the bone disorder osteoporosis is on the increase but that diagnosis using X-ray images of the patient's skeleton often lead to false positives and false negatives because visual examination, no matter how expert, is subjective. They have now developed a new approach based on the digitization of the X-ray images and estimation of the bone porosity associated with osteoporosis based on a sophisticated computer algorithm. X-rays are used in four times out of five for the diagnosis of osteoporosis, usually where other more expensive or inconvenient tests such as dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) are precluded.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines osteoporosis as "a skeletal disorder characterized by compromised bone strength predisposing a person to an increased risk of fracture." X-ray examination usually confirms the diagnosis at the severe or late-stage of development. However, a computerized system could allow much earlier diagnosis to be made and so give patients the opportunity to be treated more successfully before the disorder becomes a potentially debilitating illness.

The addition of a reference index to the X-ray image is key to the success of the new computerized technique. In conventional methods, the X-ray source quality, the film and its processing quality are possible sources of error but in the new system these sources are all but removed by the digital index on the film, the team says.

The team has tested the system on 40 elderly Asian patients with known diagnoses. 9 out of 10 of the females had osteoporosis, almost two-thirds of the men. The error rate is less than 2 percent, the team says. The team has begun the compilation of a knowledge base contained validated X-ray images to which the computer algorithm compares new X-rays. This database can be added to with new verified images once a definitive diagnosis has been made and so the system will improve with use.

"The new tool is a cost-effective solution, as it uses the existing facilities available in hospitals and thus, imparts no extra financial burden on healthcare providers or patients for quantitative estimation of osteoporosis," the researchers say. They point out that the same computerized diagnosis could be adapted to analyze bone deformity, scoliosis measurement, X-ray cracks and fractures.

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Journal Reference:

Neelesh Kumar et al. Computer aided diagnostic tool for osteoporosis estimation. Int. J. Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2012, 9, 316-324

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