How stressed are we? A sensor vest will soon be able to tell us. From sports training to computer games, the garment registers the electrical excitation of the muscles at any given time and determines the level of physical stress.

Stressed out? Time to take a break? It will not be long before our clothing gives us the answer. In the EU’s CONTEXT project, companies and research institutes are developing a comfortable vest that will read muscle tension and deduce stress levels at any given time. At the core of the vest is “wearable electronics”. This consists of sensors woven into the fabric that register the electrical excitation of the muscle fibers, and thin conducting metallic fibers that pass the signals to an electronic analysis system.

More info here.

A broad range of PhD, postdoctoral, and administrative positions are available from September 2008 at the new CLARITY centre in Ireland for Sensor Web Technologies. The centre, which has a respectful track record on sensor networking, data mining and user personalised data, is offering competitive salaries for all positions, strong collaborations with industry and great international visibility.

General enquires about WSN-relaed PhDs and postdocs can be sent to Dr. Antonio Ruzzelli:

Fore more information about the vacancies, click here.

Science Foundation Ireland, the main governmental funding agency in Ireland, has recently awarded €11.8 million to the new CLARITY centre for Sensor Web Technologies to research on adaptive sensing and information discovery. Further €4.6 million funding has been provided by strong industry partnership and national agencies including: IBM, Vodafone, Ericsson, Foster-Miller, ChangingWorlds, Fidelity Investments and Critical Path, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Irish Marine Institute. The center is a partnership between University College Dublin and Dublin City University, supported by research at the Tyndall National Institute (TNI) Cork.

More information can be found here

Surface processes in cold mountains are laterally highly variable and often investigated using spatially-distributed measurements and models. However, the full exploitation of distributed environmental measurements and models is often hindered by imperfect data (measurement errors, gaps, changing protocols, spatial autocorrelation effects) and a lack of methods and tools.

Within the NCCR-MICS (www.mics.org) project PermaSense, this PhD candidate will also be responsible for the conceptual design of the data management backend (based on existing SwissExperiment infrastructure) and interface with project partners at the ETH Zurich, the EPF Lausanne and the University of Basel.

More info here.

District of Columbia police plan to expand a gunshot sound sensor program to cover almost a quarter of the city, which would make it among the largest networks in the country.

The network of ShotSpotter sensors has been deployed to high-crime neighborhoods since 2006, pinpointing the exact location of gunfire. Police say by September, they expect to cover 16 of D.C.’s 68 square miles with the sensors.

The sensors, roughly the size of coffee cans, are hidden atop buildings and connect directly to police dispatchers by wireless radio or telephone lines.

Officers said since the program began, police have been able to quickly find 13 homicide victims and 49 assault victims. They have also helped police make nine arrests and determine the best places to strengthen patrols, officials added.

More info here.

From Crossbow’s blog:

What is smart attire? To some it may be clothes that tell you when they are mismatched, or that figure out how to conform to your body type or inform you that these clothing articles do not belong on your body unless you look like Gisele Bundchen. Smart attire like that would soon get rid of the numerous ‘What not to wear’ blogs and shows we watch, but unfortunately, that is not what we are talking about today. Smart Attire is the next generation of attire that will embed computing and sensing power in clothes, aiding in the development of novel personal monitoring services such as healthcare for the elderly in the comfort of their own home, safety of people working in dangerous situations such as firefighters, construction workers, etc., personal and medical monitoring for joggers, bicyclists, etc. and even entertainment in offering a personal tourist guide system or for social networking. Smart attire can be useful in many ways to help, benefit and entertain those that use them by personally monitoring their environment and bringing technology into their wardrobe.