E-Spectrum Technologies (United States)

Chronic wounds are a major healthcare issue affecting more than 10 million Americans each year, with a 5-year survival similar to cancer and costing the healthcare system billions of dollars annually. Current solutions, such as antiseptics and antibiotics, can be toxic to cells or contribute to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Exposure to germicidal ultraviolet radiation (GUV) at 254 nm has been reported as an effective method for chronic wound management. However, concerns about the health hazards from exposure to 254 nm radiation have limited its use for wound management applications. In contrast, wavelengths of ultraviolet radiation in the range of 200-235 nm have exhibited similar germicidal ability but with a lower penetration range in tissue, potentially making those wavelengths better suited for chronic wound disinfection. In this study, a novel phototherapy device emitting principally at 234 nm was used to assess the killing efficacy against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Potential health hazards from exposure using the device were evaluated using a 3D human skin model. The ultraviolet exposure device tested in this study shows promise for effective decontamination of chronic nonhealing wounds without associated health hazards.

Traffic Flow Management (TFM) functions to minimize airspace congestion and maximize safety and efficiency. TFM personnel at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration use Traffic Situation Display (TSD) software to observe air traffic and weather systems and issue strategic congestion-mitigation initiatives to Air Traffic Control facilities. Since its initial deployment, the TSD has been augmented by many groups of developers. This distributed process has led to an inconsistent interface that does not always adhere to best usability practices, especially because during the initial stages of development there was little human factors involvement. This can have a detrimental effect on new users learning the interface and also may make experienced users more likely to make errors. We developed a style guide for an operational Air Traffic Management tool, and a companion consistency assessment, to help developers (a) adhere to usability principles for future software expansions and (b) bring older portions of the interface into compliance with user-centered design. We discuss the process of style guide development—including the unique aspects of the TFM user population and application domain and their implications for creating a style guide for TFM software—and the applicability of our guide beyond the TSD tool.

A method is introduced for rapid prototyping and benchmarking of arrival sequencing and scheduling algorithms for air traffic management . The method has three main components: 1) algorithm models 2) rec orded air traffic simulation data, and 3) a free software library that interface s the algorithm models with the simulation output database. By accessing simulation data via a relational database, t he method makes it possible to quickly implement prototype algorithms and then to evaluate them without a direct interface to the airspace simulator code . To illustrate this method , a basic first -come, first serve d arrival sequencing and scheduling algorithm was studied . Results are offered as benchmarks for com pari son with future arrival sequencing and scheduling algorithms.

Diagrammatic programming environments provide a unique challenge for the developers of test software. These cost effective environments facilitate access to technologies such as VXI, provide speedy development of highly effective user interfaces, and eliminate many of the tasks often associated with hardware integration in complex test systems. Nonetheless, difficulties can arise when designing functional and diagnostic test software in this environment. This paper introduces VISTA, a promising new architecture which allows users to elude most of the difficulties of building detailed functional and diagnostic Test Program Sets (TPSs), while taking full advantage of the benefits of diagrammatic programming environments. Here we examine an implementation of the VISTA architecture, the integration of advanced diagnostics, and the use of diagrammatic programming as a test language cross compiler.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The optimum (maximum likelihood) multi-element global sequence detector is derived for the multiuser communication channel. The resulting integrated array-detector is composed of retrodirective beamformers in the user's directions followed by a bank of matched filters and a processor implementing a dynamic programming (Viterbi) algorithm. Suboptimal realizations of the multi-element detector are considered, offering reduced complexity as compared to the optimum solution. The performance of the multi-element detector is analyzed in terms of error probability, detection asymptotic efficiency and near-far resistance. In particular, the effects of array beamforming on the performance is discussed and shown to generalize existing results for the scalar (single channel) case. Processing which uses the additional dimension of space can result in significant improvements in performance over the scalar case. Following a general performance analysis, a comparison of several suboptimal multi-element detectors is given. In particular, it is shown that a new combined spatial-temporal processing is always uniformly superior to that of using beamformers which result in separation of signals, followed by single-user detectors.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>