Iontophoresis

Iontophoresis
The method of iontophoresis was described by Pivati in 1747.Galvani and Volta, two well-known scientists working in the 18th century, combined the knowledge that electricity can move different metal ions, and that movements of ions produce electricity. The method of administrating pharmacological drugs by iontophoresis became popular at the beginning of the 20th century due to the work of Leduc (1900) who introduce the word iontotherapy and formulated the laws for this process.

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Neuroprosthetics

Neuroprosthetics
Neuroprosthetics is an area of neuroscience concerned with neural prostheses, that is, artificial devices used to replace or improve the function of an impaired nervous system. The neuroprosthetic seeing the most widespread use is the cochlear implant, which is in approximately 85,000 people worldwide as of 2005.An early difficulty in the development of neuroprosthetics was reliably locating the electrodes in the brain, originally done by inserting the electrodes with needles and breaking off the needles at the desired depth. Recent systems utilize more advanced probes, such as those used in deep brain stimulation to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinsons Disease. The problem with either approach is that the brain floats free in the skull while the probe does not, and relatively minor impacts, such as a low speed car accident, are potentially damaging. Some researchers, such as Kensall Wise at the University of Michigan, have proposed tethering 'electrodes to be mounted on the exterior surface of the brain' to the inner surface of the skull. However, even if successful, tethering would not resolve the problem in devices meant to be inserted deep into the brain, such as in the case of deep brain stimulation [DBS].

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JINI

JINI
Sun engineers have been working quietly on anew Java technology called Jini since 1995. Part of the original vision for Java, it was put on the back burner while Sun waited for Java to gain widespread acceptance. As the Jini project revved up and more than 30technology partners signed on, it became impossible to keep it under wraps. So Sun cofounder Bill Joy, who helped dream up Jini, leaked the news to the media earlier this month. It was promptly smothered in accolades and hyperbolic prose.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
When you plug a new Jini-enabled device into a network, it broadcasts a message to any lookup service on the network saying, in effect, Here I am. Is anyone else out there? The lookup service registers the new machine, keeps a record of its attributes and sends a message back to the Jini device, letting it know where to reach the lookup service if it needs help. So when it comes time to print, for example, the device calls the lookup service, finds what it needs and sends the job to the appropriate machine. Jini actually consists of a very small piece of Java code that runs on your computer or device.
WHY WILL JINI BE THE FUTURE OF DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING?
Jini lets you dynamically move code, and not just data, from one machine to another. That means you can send a Java program to any other Jini machine and run it there, harnessing the power of any machine on your network to complete a task or run a program.
WHY WON T JINI BE THE FUTURE OF DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING?
So far, Jini seems to offer little more than basic network services. Don t expect it to turn your household devices into supercomputers; it will take some ingenious engineering before your stereo will start dating your laptop. Jini can run on small handheld devices with little or no processing power, but these devices need to be network-enabled and need to be controlled by another Jini-enabled hardware or software piece by proxy.

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Graphics tablet

Graphics tablet
A graphics tablet is a computer peripheral device that allows one to hand-draw images directly into a computer, generally through an imaging program. Graphics tablets consist of a flat surface upon which the user may 'draw' an image using an attached stylus, a pen-like drawing apparatus. The image generally does not appear on the tablet itself but, rather, is displayed on the computer monitor.
It is interesting to note that the stylus, as a technology, was originally designed as a part of the electronics, but later it simply took on the role of providing a smooth, but accurate 'point' that would not damage the tablet surface while 'drawing'.

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Serial Attached SCSI

Serial Attached SCSI
In computer hardware, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a computer bus technology primarily designed for transfer of data to and from devices like hard disk, cd-rom and so on. SAS is a serial communication protocol for direct attached storage (DAS) devices. It is designed for the corporate and enterprise market as a replacement for parallel SCSI, allowing for much higher speed data transfers than previously available, and is backwards-compatible with SATA. Though SAS uses serial communication instead of the parallel method found in traditional SCSI devices, it still uses SCSI commands for interacting with SAS End devices. SAS protocol is developed and maintained by T10 committe. The current draft revision of SAS protocol can be downloaded from SAS 2 draft

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MAC address

MAC address
In computer networking a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier attached to most forms of networking equipment. Most layer 2 network protocols use one of three numbering spaces managed by the IEEE: MAC-48, EUI-48, and EUI-64, which are designed to be globally unique. Not all communications protocols use MAC addresses, and not all protocols require globally unique identifiers. The IEEE claims trademarks on the names 'EUI-48' and 'EUI-64'. (The 'EUI' stands for Extended Unique Identifier.)
ARP/RARP is commonly used to map the layer 2 MAC address to an address in a layer 3 protocol such as Internet Protocol (IP). On broadcast networks such as Ethernet the MAC address allows each host to be uniquely identified and allows frames to be marked for specific hosts. It thus forms the basis of most of the layer 2 networking upon which higher OSI Layer protocols are built to produce complex, functioning networks.

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PolyBot - Modular, self-reconfigurable robots

PolyBot - Modular, self-reconfigurable robots

Modular, self-reconfigurable robots show the promise of great versatility, robustness and low cost. Polybot is a modular, self-reconfigurable system that is being used to explore the hardware reality of a robot with a large number of interchangeable modules. Three generations of Polybot have been built over the last three years which include ever increasing levels of functionality and integration. Polybot has shown versatility, by demonstrating locomotion over a variety of terrain and manipulating a variety of objects.

Polybot is the first robot to demonstrate sequentially two topologically distinct locomotion modes by self-reconfiguration. Polybot has raised issues regarding software scalability and hardware dependency and as the design evolves the issues of low cost and robustness are being addressed while exploring the potential of modular, self-reconfigurable robots.

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