IBM's Linux watch, the challenge of miniaturization

Nearly four years in development, the IBM Linux watch contains a complete computer system that runs Linux, displays X11 graphics, and has wireless connectivity. The system fits in a case that could pass as a slightly unusual analog timepiece with a somewhat odd shape and an extraordinarily brilliant face. The developers have created two versions of the watch, one with an organic light-emitting diode display and the other with a liquid crystal display. Still considered a research prototype, the watch already runs some personal information management applications, and it can communicate with PCs, PDAs, and other wireless-enabled devices, viewing condensed e-mail and directly receiving pager-like messages. Eventually, users will be able to access various Internet-based services, such as up-to-the-minute information about weather, traffic conditions, the stock market, and sports     

Securing Pocket Hard Drives

Today, affordable storage media comes in various form factors with a wide range of capacities. USB is the most popular PC interface, offering data transfer rates as high as 480 Mbps (version 2.0), with enough power to operate storage devices such as 2.5" hard-disk drives. The Fire Wire interface offers similar capabilities. A few vendors offer software that lets users synchronize their email and network folders with USB storage. This lets them access these data items from several different computers. The U3 industry consortium promotes a model that lets users run programs, such as a Firefox Web browser, directly from the USB storage device, so users can access these applications even on PCs that don't have these applications preinstalled. Similarly, commonly used live CD-ROMs let you boot a PC from an OS resident on the CD-ROM. In this new mobile computing model called portable storage-based personalization, users can personalize a computer by booting from the USB storage media. Users' portable storage devices act as a pocket hard drive.     

User Interfaces for Applications on a Wrist Watch

Advances in technology have made it possible to package a reasonably powerful processor and memory subsystem coupled with an ultra high-resolution display and wireless communication into a wrist watch. This introduces a set of challenges in the nature of input devices, navigation, applications, and other areas. This paper describes a wearable computing platform in a wrist watch form-factor we have developed. We built two versions: one with a low resolution liquid crystal display; and another with a ultra high resolution organic light emitting diode display. In this paper we discuss the selection of the input devices and the design of applications and user interfaces for these two prototypes, and the compare the two versions.     

Design of serial concatenated MSK schemes based on density evolution

We consider the design of convolutional codes and low density parity check (LDPC) codes with minimum-shift keying (MSK) when the receiver employs iterative decoding and demodulation. The main idea proposed is the design of coded schemes that are well matched to the iterative decoding algorithm being used rather than to hypothetical maximum-likelihood decoding. We first show that the design is crucially dependent on whether the continuous phase encoder (CPE) is realized in recursive form or in nonrecursive form. We then consider the design of convolutionally coded systems and low density parity check codes with MSK to obtain near-capacity performance. With convolutional codes, we show that it is possible to improve the performance significantly by using a mixture of recursive and nonrecursive realizations for the CPE. For low density parity check codes, we show that codes designed for binary phase shift keying are optimal for MSK only if the nonrecursive realization is used; for the recursive realization, we design new LDPC codes based on the concept of density evolution. We show that these codes outperform the best known codes for MSK and have lower decoding complexity.     

NC Machining of Freeform Pockets with Arbitrary Wall Geometry Using a Grid-Based Navigation Approach

A tool path must be determined in an efficient manner to generate NC (numerical control) code for machining. This is particularly important when machining freeform pockets with arbitrary wall geometry on a three-axis CNC machine. In this paper, a grid-based 3D navigation algorithm for generating NC tool-path data for both linear interpolation and a combination of linear and circular interpolation is presented for three-axis CNC milling of general pockets with sculptured bottom surfaces. The pocket surface is discretised by defining a grid and the navigation algorithm plans the tool motion. The grid size and the cutter diameter are chosen so that a predefined tolerance for surface roughness is satisfied. The grid-based navigation algorithm is simulated graphically and verified experimentally.     

Interhelical contacts are required for the helix bundle fold of apolipophorin III and its ability to interact with lipoproteins

Skin cancer is the most common human malignancy and is strongly associated with exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR). Several mechanisms including an increase in immediate early gene activation have been postulated to be involved in UVR-mediated carcinogenesis. We show that in a dose-dependent manner, UVR induces the expression of messenger RNA of a novel immediate early response gene, IEX-1, in human keratinocytes. Human keratinocytes and mouse fibroblasts transfected with an expression plasmid for IEX-1 grow at a faster rate than keratinocytes transfected with a similar plasmid that does not contain the IEX-1 sequence. IEX-1 protein is localized predominantly in the nucleus of keratinocytes by fluorescent antibody methods and by examination of the location of a green fluorescence IEX-1 fusion protein. Epidermal growth factor (EGF), a major mitogen of keratinocytes, and a tumor-promoting phorbol ester increase IEX-1 mRNA expression. IEX-1 may play a role in keratinocyte proliferation especially following UVR.     

User-Generated Content

Pervasive user-generated content takes the traditional idea of user-generated content and expands it off the desktop into our everyday world. The six articles in this special issue give innovative examples of gathering and using such content.     

Guest Editors' Introduction: Pervasive Computing in Healthcare

Pervasive computing has great potential to improve healthcare, from enriching data collection and distribution to virtually bringing experts to an emergency site. This special issue samples this developing area through five theme articles that go beyond current applications to find a wider range of applicability. This article is part of a special issue on Healthcare.     

Fostering a symbiotic handheld environment

Although researchers have already begun building the infrastructure to make a symbiotic environment of handheld systems and related devices possible, business needs will drive this technology's real growth.