When it comes to monitoring human health, accuracy is not a choice. Accuracy in blood pressure (BP) estimation is essential for proper diagnosis and management of hypertension. An error of 5 mmHg is so serious, it can be responsible for doubling or halving number of patients diagnosed with hypertension. Motion artifacts are external sources of inaccuracy and can be due to sudden arm motion, muscle tremor, shivering, and transport vehicle vibration. Medium term drift, due to changing environmental factors, such as ambient temperature, can also contribute to the inaccuracy. Long term drift (ageing), can reach 9 mmHg during the first three months of usage. In this thesis, a new stage is added to current cuff based BP devices. This stage is responsible for adjusting the pressure reading before displaying it to end users. The proposed stage is provided with a 3-axis accelerometer, which makes the detection of motion artifacts during measurement possible. Moreover, it monitors changes in the ambient temperature and sensor ageing, so that it will adaptively compensate for these inaccuracies. These sources of inaccuracy are suppressed using algorithms based on Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), which has the feature of removing unwanted noise components little effect on the phase or the frequency distribution of the measured signal. With motion artifacts, measurements show that the proposed algorithms considerably improved the accuracy of the blood pressure estimates in comparison with the commonly-used conventional oscillometric algorithm that does not include a stage for artifact suppression, and allowed the estimates to consistent with the international ANSI/AAMI/ISO standard. Moreover, simulations based on experimental results show that the system is able to compensate for drift due to temperature changes and ageing with excellent performance. Results show promise towards building a robust BP monitor, with very low errors due to motion artifacts, environmental changes, and ageing.

The urban landscape is a diverse environment that is constantly evolving. Such change does not remove and replace all of the remnants of the city\'s past, however, and the remaining artifacts become key pieces of local identity as a result of their persistence. Even so, artifacts are also complex entities and their definition and value can be drastically different given the context in which they exist. Nonetheless, artifacts can be broadly understood as interactive elements in the urban landscape that become enmeshed in their surrounding community, and serve a vital role as a result. This enquiry examines that role of artifacts in the urban landscape and seeks to uncover how such a role can inform effective design practice into the future. / Master of Landscape Architecture

No description available.

In the course of studying the effects of programming in multiple languages, we unearthed troubling trends in SourceForge artifacts. Our initial studies suggest that programming in multiple languages concurrently negatively affects developer productivity. While addressing our initial question of interest, we discovered a pattern of monolithic commits in the SourceForge community. Consequently, we also report on the effects that this pattern of commits can have when using SourceForge as a data-source for temporal analysis of open source projects or for studies of individual developers.

No description available.

Digital products are rapidly shaping our world into a ubiquitous computing world. Because of its unique characteristics, digital artifacts are generative and highly evolving through the recombination of existing elements as well as by the invention of new elements. In this thesis, I first propose an evolutionary view to examine how digital artifacts can evolve over time based on the discussion of limitations of existing approaches. Then, inspired by contemporary evolutionary thinking and phylogenetics in biology, I develop a set of analytic approaches to classify different evolutionary patterns based on the evolutionary rate and evolutionary direction of the digital artifact. In three studies, I investigate digital evolution in specific contexts: web Mashup development, open source software development and digital design practice. I conclude my thesis by highlighting the contributions of my work, and summarizing current limitations and opportunities for future research. / Business Administration/Management Information Systems

Diplomová práce se zabývá hybridním vyšetřením fMRI-EEG. V EEG signálu jsou přítomny dva základní artefakty, gradientní a balistokardiografický. Po odstranění gradientního artefaktu a detekce R vln v kanálu EKG byl navržen postup pro odstranění balistokardiografického artefaktu, pomocí metody odečtu artefaktového vzoru, pomocí metody ICA (metody nezávislých proměnných) a metody spojující obě uvedené. Byla vyhodnocena úspěšnost všech metod a jejich vliv na evokované potenciály v signálu EEG.

The new approach for motion artifact suppression in optical action potential records is presented in this thesis. Presented approach is based on independent component analysis utilization. Efficiency of proposed approach is evaluated here as well as its comparison with state of the art motion artifact suppression approaches.

No description available.

The metaphors “tipping point” and “paradigm shift” are used to describe the moments surrounding social and scientific changes; however, I argue that in examining changes in culture and communication, the role of technology suggests the need for a new metaphor. Weaving together cultural studies, digital rhetoric and technology theories, I offer a complimentary metaphor, the cultural gateway, defined as specific artifacts that are simultaneously familiar and strange, providing a comfortable bridge between “before and after.” This thesis posits that the iPhone behaves as such a gateway to our current, fully mobile paradigm, and has changed the face of everyday composition. Employing the circuit of culture, I examine evidence found in early media accounts of iPhone’s impact, literacy narratives that name smartphones and iPhones as literacy agents, and early advertising. Investigations suggest that these quotidian artifacts have additional, unintended purposes that are quite human and intrinsic to our ordered realities.