Dengue is a disease transmitted primarily through mosquito bites. Innovative solutions have been developed to combat outbreaks. However, in developing countries these dengue detection solutions are often not affordable and easily accessible. Additionally, these traditional approaches are slow to diagnose and treat dengue. We present a dengue detection solution that uses vision sensors in cellular phones, a lightweight object identification algorithm, and a web server that provides spatial information to healthcare providers. Our systems leverages a novel paper based technology developed by researchers at the Harvard University Department of Chemistry (Martinez et al. Angew Chem Int Ed 46:1318-1320, 2007). Our dengue detection algorithm rapidly diagnoses dengue, transmits the results to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for further analysis, and presents healthcare providers with spatial information on outbreaks. This novel approach can improve the quality of life in developing countries by accurately and economically detecting dengue and providing data to the CDC for monitoring of dengue epidemics.
Abstract:The skin care product market is growing due to the threat of ultraviolet (UV) radiation caused by the destruction of the ozone layer, increasing demand for tanning, and the tendency to wear less clothing. Accordingly, there is a potential demand for a personalized UV monitoring device, which can play a fundamental role in skin cancer prevention by providing measurements of UV radiation intensities and corresponding recommendations. This paper highlights the development and initial validation of a wireless and portable embedded device for personalized UV monitoring which is based on a novel software architecture, a high-end UV sensor, and conventional PDA (or a cell phone). In terms of short-term applications, by calculating the UV index, it informs the users about their maximum recommended sun exposure time by taking their skin type and sun protection factor (SPF) of the applied sunscreen into consideration. As for long-term applications, given that the damage caused by UV light is accumulated over days, it displays the amount of UV received over a certain course of time, from a single day to a month.
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