Faced with social problems such as rapidly aging society, the solutions have been expected in sports medicine. Humans became widely distributed on the earth from their birth by acquiring abilities to walk in an upright position and to adapt themselves to various natural environments. However, seeking a ‘comfortable environment’ in modern civilization has deteriorated these genetic characteristics of humans, and the consumption of resources and energy to acquire such a ‘comfortable environment’ has induced global warming-associated natural disasters and the destruction of social order. To halt this vicious cycle, we may reactivate the genetic characteristics in humans by doing exercise. To do this, we have developed a health promotion program for middle aged and older people, Jukunen Taiikudaigaku Program, in cooperation with the Japanese government, developed high-intensity interval walking training (IWT), and examined the physical and mental effects on 5,400 people for these 10 years. We found that IWT for 4 months increased physical fitness by 10-20%, decreased the indices of life-style related diseases by 10-20%. Since a prescription of IWT can be conducted by using an IT network system called e-Health Promotion System, the participants in the program were able to receive the prescription even if they lived remote from trainers, enabling them to perform IWT at their favored places and times, and also at low cost. Moreover, we found some single nucleotide polymorphisms closely related to inter-individual differences in the responses to IWT. Further, the system enables us to assess the inactivation/activation of genes for inflammatory responses which has been suggested to be involved in life-style related diseases. Also, the system enables us to search foods to promote health when they are consumed during exercise training. Thus, the system would have strong potential to promote health of middle-aged and older people in advanced aging society.

This study looks at how an e-Health System can reduce morbidity (poor health) in unreached communities. The e-Health system combines affordable sensors and Body Area Networking technology with mobile health concepts and is called a Portable Health Clinic. The health clinic is portable because all the medical devices fit inside a briefcase and are carried to unreached communities by a healthcare assistants. Patient morbidity is diagnosed using software stratification algorithm and categorized according to triage color-coding scheme within the briefcase. Morbid patients are connected to remote doctor in a telemedicine call center using the mobile network coverage. Electronic Health Records (EHR) are used for the medical consultancy and e-Prescription is generated. The effectiveness of the portable health clinic system to target morbidity was tested on 8690 patients in rural and urban areas of Bangladesh during September 2012 to January 2013. There were two phases to the experiment: the first phase identified the intensity of morbidity and the second phase re-examined the morbid patients, two months later. The experiment results show a decrease in patients to identify as morbid among those who participated in telemedicine process.

One of the most important requirements for a routing protocol in wireless body area networks (WBANs) is to lower the network's temperature increase. The temperature of a node is closely related to its activities. The proactive routing approach, which is used by existing routing protocols for WBANs, tends to produce a higher temperature increase due to more frequent activities, compared to the on-demand reactive routing approach. In this paper, therefore, we propose a reactive routing protocol for WBANs called priority-based temperature-aware routing (PTR). In addition to lowering the temperature increase, the protocol also recognizes vital nodes and prioritizes them so they are able to achieve higher throughput. Simulation results show that the PTR protocol achieves a 50% lower temperature increase compared to the conventional temperature-aware routing protocol and is able to improve throughput of vital nodes by 35% when the priority mode is enabled.

Providing diverse Quality of Service (QoS) with ultra-low power consumption and support of mobility is the most important and challenging issue in wireless body area networks (WBANs). The IEEE 802.15.4 standard exhibits a desirable feature for WBAN, but its inability of mobility support makes it insufficient. In this paper, we show what is required for node mobility support and propose two strategies for the support. We observed that the amount of time required for the association process is the key reason IEEE 802.15.4 is unable to handle mobility. In this paper, we present a new fast association technique, which prevents nodes from scanning multiple channels. In the proposed scheme, by scanning just a single channel, a node can learn about all the coordinators working in different channels. The single channel scanning scheme is able to decrease the association time of IEEE 802.15.4 operating in 2.4GHz by 32 times. Furthermore, in this paper, a method to increase the node connectivity time with its coordinator in IEEE 802.15.4 beacon-enabled mode is introduced. The method tries to anticipate whether the node is moving towards or away from the coordinator by analyzing the signal strength of multiple beacons received from the same coordinator. Thus, the connectivity time is increased by choosing the coordinator with good signal strength, but located both furthest from the node and toward the direction which mobile node is moving. Our approach results in significant improvement by reducing the number of times the moving node switches coordinators. Experimental results have verified that our schemes work well in the mobile sensor network environment.

This paper proposes and investigates a multiplexing and error control scheme for Body Area Network (BAN). In February 2012, an international standard of WBAN, IEEE802.15.6, was published and it supports error control schemes. This standard also defines seven different QoS modes however, how to utilize them is not clearly specified. In this paper, an optimization method of the QoS is proposed. In order to utilize the QoS parameters, a multiplexing scheme is introduced. Then, the Hybrid ARQ in IEEE 802.15.6 is modified to employ decomposable codes and Weldon's ARQ protocol for more associations with channel conditions and required QoS. The proposed scheme has higher flexibility for optimizing the QoS parameters according to the required QoS.

Space diversity reception is well known as a technique that can improve the performance of wireless communication systems without any temporal and spectral resource expansion. Implant body area networks (BANs) require high-speed transmission and low energy consumption. Therefore, applying spatial diversity reception to implant BANs can be expected to fulfill these requirements. For this purpose, this paper presents a local frequency offset diversity system with π/4-differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) for implant BANs that offer improved communication performance with a simpler receiver structure, and evaluates the proposal's bit error rate (BER) performance by theoretical analysis. In the theoretical analysis, it is difficult to analytically derive the probability density function (pdf) on the combined signal-to-noise power ratio (SNR) at the local offset frequency diversity receiver output. Therefore, this paper adopts the moment generating function approximation method and demonstrates that the resulting theoretical analyses yield performances that basically match the results of computer simulations. We first confirm that the local frequency offset diversity reception can effectively improve the communication performance of implant BANs. Next, we perform an analysis of a realistic communication performance, namely, a link budget analysis based on derived BER performance and evaluate the link parameters including system margin, maximum link distance and required transmit power. These analyses demonstrate that the local frequency offset diversity system can realize a reliable communication link in a realistic implant BAN scenario.

Tracking capsule endoscope location is one of the promising applications offered by implant body area networks (BANs). When tracking the capsule endoscope location, i.e., continuously localize it, it is effective to take the weighted sum of its past locations to its present location, in other words, to low-pass filter its past locations. Furthermore, creating an exact mathematical model of location transition will improve tracking performance. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate two tracking methods with received signal strength indicator (RSSI)-based localization in order to solve the capsule endoscope location tracking problem. One of the two tracking methods is finite impulse response (FIR) filter-based tracking, which tracks the capsule endoscope location by averaging its past locations. The other one is particle filter-based tracking in order to deal with a nonlinear transition model on the capsule endoscope. However, the particle filter requires that the particle weight is calculated according to its condition (namely, its likelihood value), while the transition model on capsule endoscope location has some model parameters which cannot be estimated from the received wireless signal. Therefore, for the purpose of applying the particle filter to capsule endoscope tracking, this paper makes some modifications in the resampling step of the particle filter algorithm. Our computer simulation results demonstrate that the two tracking methods can improve the performance as compared with the conventional maximum likelihood (ML) localization. Furthermore, we confirm that the particle filter-based tracking outperforms the conventional FIR filter-based tracking by taking the realistic capsule endoscope transition model into consideration.

A self-powered urinary-incontinence sensor with a flexible wire-type urine-activated battery has been developed as an application for wireless biosensor networks. It is disposable and can be embedded in a diaper. The battery consists of two long film-type line electrodes printed on a flexible plastic sheet that abuts the absorbent material of the diaper. It conforms to the shape of the diaper when the diaper is worn. The stress produced by the curvature of the diaper presses the electrodes firmly against the diaper material, providing greater contact with any urine present. Thus, the battery generates more power than when it is flat, as in an unworn diaper. To verify the effectiveness of the battery, we fabricated a battery and a prototype sensor, which consists of an intermittent-power-supply circuit and a wireless transmitter, and embedded the battery in a diaper. The anode of the battery also acts as a wide ground plane for the antenna of the wireless transmitter, which radiates a large amount of power. When 80cc of urine is poured onto the diaper, the battery outputs a voltage of around 1V, which allows the sensor to transmit an ID signal over a distance of 5m every 40 seconds or so.

Detection of human respiration and heartbeat is an essential demand in medical monitoring, healthcare vigilance, as well as in rescue activities after earthquakes. Radar is an important tool to detect human respiration and heartbeat. Compared to body-attached sensors, radar has the advantage of conducting detection without contacting the subject, which is favorable in practical usage. In this paper, we conduct fundamental studies on ultra-wideband (UWB) radar for detection of the respiration and heartbeat by computer simulations. The main achievement of our work is the development of a UWB radar simulation system. Using the developed simulation system, three UWB frequency bands, i.e., 3.4-4.8GHz, 7.25-10.25GHz, as well as 3.1-10.6GHz, are compared in terms of their respiration and heartbeat detection performance. Our results show that the first two bands present identical performance, while the third one presents much better performance. The effects of using multiple antennas are also evaluated. Our results show that increasing the number of antennas can steadily increase the detection ability.

Methods for in-network joins of sensing data with tuples, in partitioned condition tables stored in sensor nodes, have been studied for efficient event detection. A recently proposed method performs the join operation after distributing the tuples of a condition table evenly among homogeneous sensor nodes with the same storage capacity. In the method, the condition table is horizontally partitioned, and each partition is allocated to the corresponding node, along the path from the highest level to the leaf level. If the path length is larger than the number of partitions, the second round distribution of the partitions resumes from the node at the next level, and so on. Thus, the last node at each round can be assigned the partition that is smaller than the others, which would otherwise cause wasted internal fragmentation. Further, little research has been conducted on methods for the cases of heterogeneous sensor nodes with different available spaces, as well as the vertical partitioning of condition table. In this study, we propose a method of partitioning a condition table that utilizes the internal fragmentation, by treating the tuples of a condition table as a circular list. The proposed method is applicable to the case in which nodes have different available spaces. Furthermore, a new method for vertically partitioning a condition table is suggested. Experiments verify the reduction in the data transmission amount offered by the proposed methods, as compared to existing methods.

We have already proposed a service discovery scheme using mobile agents for mobile ad hoc networks where node positions in the network and the network topology change frequently. Mobile agents autonomously migrate among nodes and then perform a given task at a node. In the service discovery scheme using mobile agents, mobile agents collect and disseminate services in the network so it is most important how the mobile agents migrate in the network. Therefore, we propose two types of mobile agent migration mechanisms in this paper. One is that mobile agents migrate to the nodes at which other mobile agents do not stay, the other is that mobile agents migrate to the nodes to which mobile agents can disseminate a lot of service information. Finally, we conducted simulation experiments to investigate the performance of the proposed migration mechanisms with respect to the service dissemination time and rate.

A novel analog decoding method using only 90-degree phase shifters is proposed to simplify the decoding method for short-range multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission. In a short-range MIMO transmission, an optimal element spacing that maximizes the channel capacity exists for a given transmit distance between the transmitter and receiver. We focus on the fact that the weight matrix by zero forcing (ZF) at the optimal element spacing can be obtained by using dividers and 90-degree phase shifters because it can be expressed by a unitary matrix. The channel capacity by the proposed method is next derived for the evaluation of the exact limitation of the channel capacity. Moreover, it is shown that an optimal weight when using directional antennas can be expressed by using only dividers, 90-degree phase shifters, and attenuators, regardless of the beam width of the directional antenna. Finally, bit error rate and channel capacity evaluations by both simulation and measurement confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The objective of this paper is to extend the dosimetric assessment of 35mm Petri dishes exposed in the standing wave of R18 waveguides operated at 1950MHz for a medium-oil two-layer configuration for cells in monolayer and suspension. The culture medium inside the Petri dish is covered by oil that prevents evaporation and seals the cells below in the medium. The exposure of the cells was analyzed for one suspension-medium configuration, two different suspension-multilayer configurations, and one monolayer-multilayer configuration. The numerical dosimetry is verified by dosimetric temperature measurements. The non-uniformity of the specific absorption rate (SAR) distribution is 30% for monolayer, and 59-75% for suspension configurations. The latter should be taken into account when biological experiment is performed.

Per-User Unitary Rate Control (PU2RC) performs poorly when the number of users is small and suffers from the sum-rate ceiling effect in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. In this paper, we propose a multimode transmission (MMT) strategy to overcome these inherent shortcomings of PU2RC. In the proposed MMT strategy, the transmitter finds out the optimal transmission mode and schedules users using each user's instantaneous channel quality information (CQI) parameters. First we assume that each user's CQI parameters are perfectly reported in order to introduce the proposed MMT strategy. Then we consider the quantization of CQI parameters using codebooks designed by the Lloyd algorithm. Moreover, we modify the CQI parameters to improve the system's robustness against quantization error. Finally, in order to reduce the quantization error, we design a hierarchical codebook to jointly quantize the modified CQI parameters by considering the correlation between them. Simulation results show that the proposed MMT strategy effectively overcomes the shortcomings of PU2RC and is robust against low quantization level of CQI parameters.

Attenuated and delayed versions of the pulse signal overlap in multipath propagation. Previous algorithms can resolve them only if signal sampling is ideal, but fail to resolve two counterparts with non-ideal sampling. In this paper, we propose a novel method which can resolve the general types of non-ideally sampled pulse signals in the time domain via Taylor Series Expansion (TSE) and estimate multipath signals' precise time delays and amplitudes. In combination with the CLEAN algorithm, the overlapped pulse signal parameters are estimated one by one through an iteration method. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Broadband wireless channels are frequency selective in nature. In this paper, a novel precoder with finite impulse response (FIR) structure is proposed to maximize the throughput of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) frequency-selective multicast channel. An iteration mechanism is investigated to obtain the desired FIR precoding matrix. In the iterative process, two associated parameters, namely the innovation orientation and the iteration step size, are jointly derived by the convex optimization program and the traditional Gauss-Newton algorithm. Convergence and complexity analyses are presented, and the numerical simulations indicate that the proposed method outperforms the existing schemes in the moderate to high signal to noise ratio (SNR) regime.

In this paper, we consider a two-way multi-relay scenario and analyze the bit error rate (BER) and outage performance of an amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying protocol. We first investigate the bit error probability by considering channel estimation error. With the derivation of effective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the transceiver and its probability density function (PDF), we can obtain a closed form formulation of the total average error probability of two-way multi-relay system. Furthermore, we also derive exact expressions of the outage probability for two-way relay through the aid of a modified Bessel function. Finally, numerical experiments are performed to verify the analytical results and show that our theoretical derivations are exactly matched with simulations.

This paper investigates interference coordination for 3-dimension (3D) antenna array systems in multicell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA) wireless networks. Cell-center user and cell-edge user specific downtilts are accordingly partitioned through dynamic vertical beamforming in the 3D MIMO-OFDM communication systems. Taking these user specific downtilts into consideration, the objective of our proposed interference coordination scheme is to maximize both the cell-edge users' and cell-center users' throughput, subject to per base-station (BS) power, cell-center user and cell-edge user specific downtilt constraints. Here, two coordination techniques, consisting of the fractional frequency reuse (FFR) scheme and partial joint process (JP) coordinated multiple point (COMP) transmission mode, are introduced in this paper. To solve the interference coordination problem, two resource block (RB) partitioning schemes are proposed for the above-mentioned coordination techniques accordingly. Based on such RB partitioning, JP CoMP-based dual decomposition method (JC-DDM) and FFR-based dual decomposition method (FDDM) are proposed, where RB assignment, power allocation (RAPA) and downtilts adjustment are jointly optimized. To simplify the computation complexity, a suboptimal algorithm (SOA) is presented to decouple the optimization problem into three subproblems by using FFR scheme. Simulation results show that all of our proposed algorithms outperform the interference coordination scheme with fixed downtilts. JC-DDM and FDDM find the local optimal throughput with different transmission techniques, while SOA iteratively optimize the downtilts and RAPA which shows close-to-optimal performance with much lower computation complexity.

In this paper, we study the impact of opportunistic user scheduling on the outage probability of cognitive radio (CR) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems in the high power region where the peak transmit power constraint is higher than the peak interference constraint. The primary contributions of this paper are the derivation of exact closed-form expressions of the proposed scheduled CR-MIMO systems for outage probability and asymptotic analysis to quantify the diversity order and signal to noise ratio (SNR) gain. Through exact analytical results, we provide the achievable outage probability of the proposed scheduled systems as a function of SNR. Also, through asymptotic analysis, we show that the scheduled CR-MIMO systems provide some diversity order gain over the non-scheduled CR-MIMO systems which comes from multi-user diversity (MUD). Also, the SNR gain of the proposed scheduled systems is identical to that of the non-scheduled CR-MIMO systems.

In this paper, a new method is proposed for unsupervised speckle level estimation in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. It is assumed that fully developed speckle intensity has a Gamma distribution. Based on this assumption, estimation of the equivalent number of looks (ENL) is transformed into noise variance estimation in the logarithmic SAR image domain. In order to improve estimation accuracy, texture analysis is also applied to exclude areas where speckle is not fully developed (e.g., urban areas). Finally, the noise variance is estimated by a 2-dimensional autoregressive (AR) model. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified with several SAR images from different SAR systems and simulated images.