Education Corner Research Articles

Prize-Winning Ohio University Students Present Their Work on an Antenna for Body Area Networks [Education Corner

This article provides details on the OU BAN system that was submitted to the 2015 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Student Design Contest: Antenna for Body Area Networks. The team completed this project as its undergraduate senior capstone design sequence. The system senses heart rate with a chest-mounted heart rate monitor and transmits these data to a bodymounted receiver using a 5.5-kHz data link; the low frequency of this link helps minimize body effects. Additionally, temperature and provisions for fall detection using an IMU are incorporated. Sensor data are provided to an Arduino microcontroller and interfaced with a BLE transceiver to transmit data via a specifically designed inset-fed patch antenna. The torso-mounted BLE patch antenna provided good match efficiency and good radiation coverage in the forward and downward directions. Sensor data were transmitted from the torso-mounted BLE antenna to a Nexus 5 smartphone running a custom-built Android application on the smartphone. Various subsystem and anechoic chamber system-level tests were performed. The data indicate satisfactory performance of the demonstrated OU BAN system with the Bluetooth antenna mounted to the user's torso and the smartphone in three test locations: held in the hand 1 m in front of the torso, in the front pocket, and in the back pocket. The OU BAN configuration could be improved by miniaturizing the system to be more easily worn by the user.

Is It Time to Reexamine the U.S. Research Funding System? [Education Corner

Is It Time to Reexamine the U.S. Research Funding System? [Education Corner

Big Data and Intelligence

This paper is a short introduction on Big Data for the RDA educational corner. The purpose of this presentation is to motivate a greater discussion of what is Big Data, how it is transforming the future of finance and what are the essential opportunities and concerns when using Big Data. “Intelligence” in Big Data is used to emphasize that mathematics is an essential part of the algorithmic and the statistical approaches we use when searching, estimating or seeking answers to our problems when we use the power of IT, Mathematical Statistics with Big Data. While Mathematical and Statistical Intelligence embedded in numerous applications and studies seeking to bridge theoretical constructs and their numerical-computational realizations are well known, their integration as a complete system of automatic and learning know how (we may call AI, Learning Machines or what not and by any other name), is now expanded by systemic computing, data analytics and management to do much more with a lot less. However, in the long run, doing more without Intelligence, replacing intentionality by machine rationality, lead to an evolution where choices are no longer made but instead, are imposed by a data complexity and self-designed expert systems that may embed far greater risks than we can expect. In this case, without the power of a human intelligence and mathematical (objective) rationality, our search in BIG data are similar to seeking to go or be somewhere without a map to direct us.

Six Easy Steps That Explain the Radiation of the Rectangular Patch Antenna [Education Corner

This article revisits a classic in antenna theory: the rectangular patch antenna (RPA). The radiated electric field is computed from its physical sources, i.e., the conduction and polarization currents, whose contributions are clearly identified. The symmetrical equivalent of the antenna is first analyzed, and a coordinate system is chosen with the z-axis parallel to the conduction currents. The radiation of these currents appears as close to that of two parallel dipoles carrying opposite currents, which means a very simple and easy-to-understand system. It is further shown that the effect of the polarization currents is typically much smaller. The analysis is fully self-sufficient (no reference specific to the subject is needed). The radiation is summarized by a figure with six parts that graphically explains the topic step by step.

Student and Young Professionals Activities at the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation [Education Corner

Student and Young Professionals Activities at the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation [Education Corner

The 2016 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Student Design Contest [Education Corner

Presents information on the 2016 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Student Design contest.

Illustrating MIMO Transmission by Means of Sound Waves [Education Corner

This article shows how the fundamental concepts of multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) transmission can be illustrated using cheap audio equipment. Experiments are proposed that cover both diversity and spatial multiplexing techniques. Regarding the former, maximal-ratio combining (MRC) receive diversity and Alamouti transmit diversity are examined. For the latter, vertical-Bell Laboratories layered space?time (V-BLAST) and singular-value decomposition (SVD)- based methods are demonstrated, and their functioning is compared. The experiments allow the students to observe the most important features of MIMO and can be helpful for wireless communication courses.

Teaching and Learning Electromagnetics: An Analytical Problem-Solving Approach [Education Corner

In this issue’s “Education Corner” article, Rob Maaskant and Andreas Rosen from Chalmers University in Sweden present an analytical solution for a problem with educational value in electromagnetic theory. With increasing reliance on computational tools in our discipline, it is important to retain the ability to develop and use these kinds of techniques. Lead author Maaskant is an expert in the development of highly advanced integral equation-based analysis methods, which lends credibility to the arguments in the article on the value of analytical methods in teaching and learning electromagnetics.

Preserving the Legacy of Eugene F. Knott [Education Corner

Recounts the career and contributions of Eugene F. Knott.

Promoting Effective Education in Electromagnetics: Taiwan's School of Accessible and Visualized Electromagnetics Formed [Education Corner

The School of Accessible and Visualized Electromagnetics (SAVE), a teaching and learning resource management consortium in Taiwan, has been formed to coordinate teachers from the field of electromagnetics (EM) to develop and share innovative teaching materials. Based on the cloud concept and following the simplicity, accessibility, visualization, and edutainment (S.A.V.E.) principles, various types of teaching resources, such as slides, problem sets, video clips, and interactive online laboratories, are available on the SAVE website for online learning. Teachers are able to customize a distinctive learning path to address the needs of a specific student group. To provide students with a means of evaluating their competence in EM, a large-scale online proficiency test was conducted concurrently at multiple sites. Analyses of test results and website uses are provided to assess the SAVE program performance and to draw future work topics.

The Education Corner: updates on new and established core concepts and methods in epidemiology

The Education Corner: updates on new and established core concepts and methods in epidemiology

Educational Corner

Educational Corner

Educational Corner Adjuvant vaginal brachytherapy as a part of management in early endometrial cancer

Endometrial cancer is the most frequent cancer of female genital tract. Metro- and menorrhagia or postmenopausal bleeding results in its early presentation. It allows radical treatment. However, controversies remain on surgery coverage or adjuvant therapies in early endometrial women cancer. Optimal management should minimize intervention instead of aggressive approach, as showed by recent studies. There is a role for brachytherapy as an adjuvant irradiation. Crucial publications including PORTEC-1, GOG 99, MRC ASTEC, ASTEC/EN.5, PORTEC-2 or Italian lymphadenectomy trial are discussed. Moreover, there is attention paid on adjuvant vaginal brachytherapy analyses for the past fifteen years.

Educational corner of the issue

Genetics Unit, Pediatrics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, EgyptReceived 17 June 2011; accepted 12 July 2011Available online 3 December 2011Part I: Educational caseA 3.5-year-old boy, the second in order of birth of first cousinparents presented to the genetics clinic for counseling. The pa-tient had normal development till the age of 2 years then hestarted to have abnormal ataxic gait with frequent falls. Atthe age of 2.5 years, he started to lose previously acquired cog-nitive skills and speech and to develop convulsions. Neurolog-ical examination showed hypotonia and increased deep tendonreflexes. The patient had a sister and a paternal cousin with thesame clinical picture who both died at the age of 5 and 6 years.MRI brain showed brain atrophy. Fundus examinationshowed cherry-red spot (Fig. 1). The mother is 10 weeks preg-nant and asks about prenatal diagnosis.Q1: What is the most probable diagnosis?The most probable diagnosis is Tay Sachs disease which is aneurodegenerative disorder caused by intralysosomal storageof the specific glycosphingolipid GM2 ganglioside. Commonclinical findings include progressive weakness and loss of mo-tor and cognitive skills, decreased attentiveness and an in-creased startle response. The typical findings on physicalexamination are generalized muscular hypotonia, ankle clonus,hyperreflexia and normal-sized liver and spleen. This is fol-lowed by signs of progressive neurodegeneration, seizures,blindness, and spasticity. A cherry-red spot of the fovea cen-tralis of the macula of the retina is usually found on fundusexamination [1].Our patient has the juvenile (subacute) form. The diseaseoften begins between the age of 2 and 10 years by loss of pre-viously acquired skills and speech followed by spasticity andseizures. Loss of vision occurs much later than in the acuteinfantile form of the disease, and a cherry-red spot – in con-trary to our case – is not consistently observed. Instead, opticatrophy and retinitis pigmentosa may be seen late in thecourse. A vegetative state with decerebrate rigidity developsby age 10–15 years, followed within few years by death, usuallyfrom infection. In some cases, the disease pursues a particu-larly aggressive course, culminating in death in 2–4 years [2].Q2: Are there other phenotypes of the disease?Other phenotypes include [1]: Acute infantile (Tay-Sachs disease) with rapid progressionand death before age 4 years. Chronic and adult-onset Tay Sachs disease with long-termsurvival. Affected individuals have several different pheno-types, including progressive dystonia, spinocerebellardegeneration, motor neuron disease with muscle weaknessand fasciculations, and/or psychosis. ActivatordeficientTaysachsdisease:itisarareinfantileform(phenotype identical to classic disease) where the enzymaticactivityofbothhexosaminidaseA(HEXA)andhexosamin-idase B (HEX B) are normal, but GM2 ganglioside accumu-lation occurs because of a deficit of the intralysosomal

Educational Corner of the Issue

Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, EgyptReceived 1 October 2010; accepted 1 November 2010Educational case of the issueA 1 year old male infant is brought to the pediatrician by hismother because of a copious nasal discharge and developmen-tal delay. He is noted to have coarse features with thick lips, alarge tongue, a large bulging head and a flattened nose. Onexamination he is found to have an enlarged liver and spleen.His perinatal history was unremarkable. He was born by nor-mal vaginal delivery and was examined and thought to be nor-mal at birth.A likely diagnosis is:(a) Osteopetrosis.(b) b thalassemia.(c) Achondroplasia.(d) Hurler’s syndrome.(e) Rickets.Diagnosis is (d) Hurler’s syndromeExamples of other case presentations with Hurler’s syndromeClinical presentation [1]A 3 year old female presented in an outpatient Pediatric Clinicwith persistent nasal discharge and progressive abdominalenlargement of 2 years and 8 months duration. Other associ-ated problems included delayed speech development, hearingimpairment, and knock knees. At 6 months of age, her parentsobserved she did not look normal hence they confined her in-doors most of the time. None of her other siblings (four) hadsimilar problems. On examination she had coarse facies withfrontal bossing, bilateral corneal clouding and depressed nasalbridge. She had copious nasal discharge. Her apex beat was atthe fifth left intercostal space lateral to the mid clavicular line.Auscultation of the lung fields yielded transmitted sounds. Theabdomen was distended with hepatomegaly of 6 cm below thecostal margin in the midclavicular line. She also had short stur-dy fingers, swelling of both wrists, kyphoscoliosis, and bilateralgenu valgus [1].What was the diagnosis of this case?A clinical diagnosis of Hurler’s syndrome was made. Urinaryglycosaminoglycans level could not be obtained in the reportedcase but alkaline phosphatase level was raised. There were clas-sical radiological features both of Hurler’s syndrome and rick-ets. She had vitamin D replacement therapy but abscondedfrom follow up. A search for this association of Hurler’s syn-drome with rickets was not easily available in documented lit-erature hence the need to publish it [1].Clinical presentation [2]A 2-year-old patient with Hurler’s syndrome underwentbone marrow transplantation. Although the bone marrowtransplantation improved many of the systemic effects of Hur-ler’s syndrome, the patient presented at 8 years of age with acervical myelopathy. Magnetic resonance imaging revealedsoft tissue compression of the upper cervical cord. The litera-ture review demonstrates that spastic tetraparesis, secondaryto cervical cord compression, is the most common presentationof this subgroup of patients.

On the Scalability of BGP: The Role of Topology Growth

The scalability of BGP routing is a major concern for the Internet community. Scalability is an issue in two different aspects: increasing routing table size, and increasing rate of BGP updates. In this paper, we focus on the latter. Our objective is to characterize the churn increase experienced by ASes in different levels of the Internet hierarchy as the network grows. We look at several what-if growth scenarios that are either plausible directions in the evolution of the Internet or educational corner cases, and investigate their scalability implications and interaction with different failure types. Our findings explain the dramatically different impact of multihoming and peering on BGP scalability, highlight negative and positive effects of multihoming on churn and reachability, and identify which topological growth scenarios will lead to faster churn increase for different failure types.

Writing Up Your Research Results for Publication

The abstract is the entire paper reduced to its essence and may be all that many readers will see. It Manuscript received November 3, 2008; revision accepted November 8, 2008. Affiliations: From the Division of Physiology, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA. © 2009 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/site/ misc/reprints.xhtml). Correspondence to: Peter D. Wagner, MD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Bioengineering, Division of Physiology, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr, Department 0623A, La Jolla, CA 92093-0623A; e-mail: pdwagner@ucsd.edu DOI: 10.1378/chest.08-2620 CHEST Postgraduate Education Corner MEDICAL WRITING TIP OF THE MONTH www.chestjournal.org CHEST / 136 / 2 / AUGUST, 2009 639 Copyright © 2009 American College of Chest Physicians at University of British Columbia on August 13, 2009 www.chestjournal.org Downloaded from should contain all of the major elements listed in Table 1, especially introduction, hypothesis, methods, results, and conclusion. Obviously each of these has to be brief, and contain only essential, high-level information. To stay within word limits, and also to maintain reader attention, nonessential data should not be included. The introduction should in one to two sentences bring the reader to the point of expecting the next item (the hypothesis), which should fit within a single sentence. Next should be the overview of the experimental methods/strategy. It should include species and number of subjects (or cells or molecules, as appropriate) including control subjects, and give a high-level statement of the study design. Results should follow, limited to those that are key. If space permits, include data values and statistical outcomes. Finally, present the conclusion allowed by the data, referring back to the hypothesis and whether it is supported or not. In practical terms, it is common to write the first draft of the abstract without too much concern for word limits, just to set the major elements in place, and then refine the text to fit the allowed space in a second step. Most journals ask for a list of 5 to 10 key words, which are used to facilitate reader searches for your paper. These are usually words not already in the formal title of the paper. They should identify key issues of interest to potential readers, and be chosen to try and help them find your paper once published. In the above example (“Hypoxia reduces exercise capacity in the rat by limiting O2 diffusion within muscle”), one might consider as additional key words the following: altitude; maximum oxygen uptake; and oxygen transport. But, choose them carefully as this may well determine who does and does not see your paper.

Medical education corner: They taught us

Medical education corner: They taught us

Medical Education Corner: Reforming Asian psychiatry—Facing the educational gap

Medical Education Corner: Reforming Asian psychiatry—Facing the educational gap