In India, majority of patients on dialysis are ‘self paying’ because of limited health insurance coverage available from government as well as private insurance providers. Hence, cost of treatment becomes one deciding factor to choose between the two modalities of dialysis – hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD). Aim is to compare the monthly cost of maintenance hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis at our center. Majority of patients at our center are on thrice a week hemodialysis and three times a day peritoneal dialysis. These patients were asked to submit their total direct cost of treatment of last three months. It included cost of dialysis, erythropoietin, other medicines, monthly laboratory tests, hospitalization cost, travel cost, and any other directly involved in the treatment. Monthly cost (Indian Rupees, ) was then calculated by averaging the three month cost for each patient. The monthly cost of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis was then compared using ‘independent sample t-test’. Thirty five patients were finally included in the analysis (21 on HD and 14 on PD). Demographic profile between the two groups was similar in terms of age, sex ratio, period on dialysis, hemoglobin, blood urea nitrogen, and creatinine. Total monthly cost of dialysis was similar in both the groups ( 29,252 ± 6859 vs. 28,763 ± 5486, P = 0.85). The lower cost of hemodialysis procedure per se as compared to peritoneal dialysis procedure cost ( 14,669 ± 1376 vs. 19,528 ± 4072, P = 0.000) was compensated by higher cost of erythropoietin ( 7160 ± 3353 vs. 3093 ± 1889, P = 0.002) and travel cost ( 1654 ± 1085 vs. 76 ± 66, P < 0.0001) to equalize the monthly cost between the two groups. Our analysis showed no difference in the monthly cost of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis and hence, for self-paying patient in India, cost of treatment should not be a deciding factor while choosing between the two modalities.

-This paper describes the development of intelligent sensors as part of an integrated systems

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received the Engineering Diploma and M.S. degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania, and the PhD degree from Rutgers University, all in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her research interests are in the general areas of communication systems, control theory, and signal processing. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Technology, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She serves as the program director for the electrical engineering technology program. In the past she has worked for the

This paper proposes the development of intelligent sensors as an integrated systems approach, i.e. one treats the sensors as a complete system with its own sensing hardware (the traditional sensor), A/D converters, processing and storage capabilities, software drivers, self-assessment algorithms, communication protocols and evolutionary methodologies that allow them to get better with time. Under a project being undertaken at the Stennis Space Center, an integrated framework is being developed for the intelligent monitoring of smart elements. These smart elements can be sensors, actuators or other devices. The immediate application is the monitoring of the rocket test stands, but the technology should be generally applicable to the Intelligent Systems Health Monitoring (ISHM) vision. This paper outlines progress made in the development of intelligent sensors by describing the work done till date on Physical Intelligent Sensors (PIS) and Virtual Intelligent Sensors (VIS).