Jennifer Mangold

Wireless Sensor Networks for Home Health Care

Sophisticated electronics are within reach of average users. Cooperation between wireless sensor networks and existing consumer electronic infrastructures can assist in the areas of health care and patient monitoring. This will improve the quality of life of patients, provide early detection for certain ailments, and improve doctor-patient efficiency. The goal of our work is to focus on health-related applications of wireless sensor networks. In this paper we detail our experiences building several prototypes and discuss the driving force behind home health monitoring and how current (and future) technologies will enable automated home health monitoring.

The Sustainability Consortium update: Type III product declaration development for laptops

One of the goals of The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) is to bridge the divide between rigorous scientific analysis of the life cycle of consumer goods and the ability of the purchaser/ consumer to absorb and act on the environmental impact information provided from such an analysis. TSC has approached this issue through the development of the Sustainability Measurement and Reporting System (SMRS), which describes a process that facilitates the communication of environmental impacts derived from life cycle analysis to a broader lay audience. Based on ISO 14025 Type III environmental declarations, the SMRS provides the common rules for reporting impacts and creates a product declaration that can underpin any number of consumer communication modes. This paper presents the SMRS methodology and its application to laptop computers.

Knowledge-Based Evolutionary Linkage in MEMS Design Synthesis

Multi-objective Genetic Algorithms (MOGA) and Case-based Reasoning (CBR) have proven successful in the design of MEMS (Micro-electro-mechanical Systems) suspension systems. This work focuses on CBR, a knowledge-based algorithm, and MOGA to examine how biological analogs that exist between our evolutionary system and nature can be leveraged to produce new promising MEMS designs. Object-oriented data structures of primitive and complex genetic algorithm (GA) elements, using a component-based genotype representation, have been developed to restrict genetic operations to produce feasible design combinations as required by physical limitations or practical constraints. Through the utilization of this data structure, virtual linkage between genes and chromosomes are coded into the properties of pre-defined GA objects. The design challenge involves selecting the right primitive elements, associated data structures, and linkage information that promise to produce the best gene pool for new functional requirements. Our MEMS synthesis framework, with the integration of MOGA and CBR algorithms, deals with the linkage problem by integrating a component-based genotype representation with a CBR automated knowledge-base inspired by biomimetic ontology. Biomimetics is proposed as a means to examine and classify functional requirements so that case-based reasoning algorithms can be used to map design requirements to promising initial conceptual designs and appropriate GA primitives. CBR provides MOGA with good linkage information through past MEMS design cases while MOGA inherits that linkage information through our component-bsased genotype representation. A MEMS resonator test case is used to demonstrate this methodology.

Environmental assessment of information technology products using a triage approach

There is growing need for effective and efficient environmental assessment tools for information technology (IT) products. This paper presents a streamlined life cycle analysis (LCA) methodology using a screening and triage approach. The methodology is applied to the case study of liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Global warming potential uncertainty is reduced by identifying and resolving uncertainty around key drivers of impact. The resolution of impact continues until a meaningful level of reduction of uncertainty is achieved, such as the ability to discriminate one class of LCD from another.

Case-based reasoning and object-oriented data structures exploit biological analogs to generate virtual evolutionary linkages

Multiobjective genetic algorithms (MOGA) and case-based reasoning (CBR) have proven successful in the design of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) suspension systems. Object-oriented data structures of primitive and complex genetic algorithm (GA) elements have been developed to restrict genetic operations to produce feasible design combinations as required by physical limitations or practical constraints. Thus, virtual linkage between genes and chromosomes are coded into the properties of pre-defined GA objects. A new design problem requires selecting the right primitive elements, associated data structures, and linkages that promise to produce the best gene pool for new functional requirements. In this paper, biomimetics is proposed as a means to examine and classify functional requirements so that case-based reasoning algorithms can be used to map design requirements to promising initial conceptual designs and appropriate GA primitives. The concept is demonstrated using micro-mechanical resonators.