Journal articles on the topic 'Abnormal Battery Drain issue'

Nexus 6P smartphones have been beset by battery drain issues, which have been causing premature shutdown of the phone even when the charge indicator displays a significant remaining runtime. To investigate the premature battery drain issue, two Nexus 6P smartphones (one new and one used) were disassembled and their batteries were evaluated using computerized tomography (CT) scan analysis, electrical performance (capacity, resistance, and impedance) tests, and cycle life capacity fade tests. The “used” smartphone battery delivered only 20% of the rated capacity when tested in a first capacity cycle and then 15% of the rated capacity in a second cycle. The new smartphone battery exceeded the rated capacity when first taken out of the box, but exhibited an accelerated capacity fade under C/2 rate cycling and decreased to 10% of its initial capacity in just 50 cycles. The CT scan results revealed the presence of contaminant materials inside the used battery, raising questions about the quality of the manufacturing process.

Power consumption is a key factor in how final users rate the quality of service in mobile networks; however, its characterization is a challenging issue due to the many parameters involved and the complexity of their dependencies. Traditional battery drain testing in the field does not provide a suitable environment to reach accurate conclusions. In this paper we address this problem providing a controlled environment, more compact and accurate than those currently found in the literature, designed to measure the effects that different factors have on the global energy consumption.

Battery driven computing devices such as laptops and cellular phones have become a necessity in this era. Mobile applications help us in daily life activities and with the rise of Internet of Things (IoT) new opportunities are open up to automate different task. However, batteries have their own limitations such as weight, cost, and size. Multiple applications and background processes running in parallel easily drain phone’s battery within 24 hours consequently annoying users by limited battery capacity. Repeated charge, recharge cycles steadily diminish the full capacity of batteries resulting in the immense decreased performance of the device. Therefore, mobile devices and mobile applications are in great need of energy-aware modules. In this paper, a survey is performed to identify the needs of the mobile user in the context of energy consumption problem. The results of survey lead authors to propose a middle layer energy aware framework to address this issue. The proposed framework highly relies on the association between the operating system, application, and end user. The main objective of the proposed framework is to maintain an energy-aware capability to facilitate end user and mobile applications. The major components of the proposed framework are processing engine, application classifier, application resource management, system profiling, application modes, power estimator and power policy management. Proposed framework also offers a policy manager algorithm based on research community feedback and survey's results. Proposed framework emphasizes on energy efficient execution of mobile operations for end user and operating systems.

In battery energy storage stations (BESSs), the power conversion system (PCS) as the interface between the battery and the power grid is responsible for battery charging and discharging control and grid connection. Any anomaly in the data of a PCS will threaten the security of the BESS. It is difficult to detect anomalies in real-time data because of the large scale, chaos, and small deviations between normal and abnormal values. In this paper, the density-based clustering algorithm DBSCAN is used for data anomaly detection. However, the traditional DBSCAN has a limitation in that it has difficulty in the parameter selection and the parameter is strongly correlated to the detection accuracy. To address this issue, we propose a parameter self-selection-based improved DBSCAN model for detecting PCS anomalies in BESSs. The detection is achieved by mining the correlations between data sets and combining them with the DBSCAN algorithm, and the model is updated in real time based on the normal data of the PCSs. The proposed method is further validated using a comparative experiment based on real-world BESS data.

In this paper, a c ´ uk converter balancing method by using a coupled inductor for lithium based batteries is investigated. The proposed circuit is an active balancing circuit that will equalize eight battery cells in a series. In electrical vehicles (EV), a battery management system (BMS) is a vital task to achieve the best performance of the batteries and longer lifetime. The problem of voltage difference in a battery pack is an important issue to be improved. To overcome the voltage differences in battery string, an equalizing method is mandatory. The conventional c ´ uk converter requires 2(n − 1) switches to balance n cells, while the proposed circuit requires only n switches for n cells in series. In addition, the proposed developed topology uses coupled inductors instead of un-coupled inductors, unlike the traditional c ´ uk converter balancing method. Since the c ´ uk balancing transfers the energy among two adjacent cells, it requires a proportionately long equalization time particularly for long string battery packs, but the coupled inductor c ´ uk converter type overcomes this problem. The switches are N-channel metal-oxide field-effect transistor (MOSFET) to achieve lower drain-source on-resistance, R D S ( o n ) , and less voltage drop as compared to the P-channels. The switches are triggered by complementary signals. The coupled inductor is made in such a way to hold the same magnetizing inductance. It can be done by using five wires in one hand. The circuit contains five inductors, one magnetic core, with five winding for eight cells, and one capacitor for two cells. Therefore, the overall circuitry and complexity of the circuit are reduced, resulting in a more cost-effective and easy to implement circuit. The system also does not demand complicated control for battery equalizing. The experimental circuit was implemented and simulation results were obtained to confirm the validity of the proposed system.

The introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data applications have garnered a massive amount of digital data. Processing and analysing these data demand vast computing resources, proportionately. The major downside of producing and using computing resources in such volumes is the deterioration of the Earth's environment. The production process of the electronic devices involves hazardous and toxic substances which not only harm human and other living being’s health but also contaminate the water and soil. The production and operations of these computers in largescale also results in massive energy consumption and greenhouse gas generation. Moreover, the low use cycle of these devices produces a huge amount of not-easy-to-decompose e-waste. In this outlook, instead of buying new devices, it is advisable to use the existing resources to their fullest, which will minimize the environmental penalties of production and e-waste. This paper advocates for using smartphones and smartphone crowd computing (SCC) to ease off the use of PCs/laptops and centralized high-performance computers (HPCs) such as data centres and supercomputers. The paper aims to establish SCC as the most feasible computing system solution for sustainable computing. Detailed comparisons, in terms of environmental effects (e.g., energy consumption, greenhouse gas generation, etc.), between SCC and supercomputers and other green computing initiatives such as Grid and Cloud Computing, are presented. The key enablers of SCC are identified and discussed. One of them is today's computationally powerful smartphones. A comprehensive statistical survey of the various commercial CPUs, GPUs, SoCs for smartphones is presented confirming the capability of the SCC as an alternative to HPC. The challenges involved in realizing SCC are also considered. One of the major challenges is handling the issue of limited battery in smartphones. The reasons for battery drain are recognized with probable measures. An exhaustive survey is presented on the present and optimistic future of the continuous improvement and research on different aspects of smartphone battery and other alternative power sources which will allow users to use their smartphones for SCC without worrying about the battery running out.

Background Smartphone use is widely spreading in society. Their embedded functions and sensors may play an important role in therapy monitoring and planning. However, the use of smartphones for intrapersonal behavioral and physical monitoring is not yet fully supported by adequate studies addressing technical reliability and acceptance. Objective The objective of this paper is to identify and discuss technical issues that may impact on the wide use of smartphones as clinical monitoring tools. The focus is on the quality of the data and transparency of the acquisition process. Methods QuantifyMyPerson is a platform for continuous monitoring of smartphone use and embedded sensors data. The platform consists of an app for data acquisition, a backend cloud server for data storage and processing, and a web-based dashboard for data management and visualization. The data processing aims to extract meaningful features for the description of daily life such as phone status, calls, app use, GPS, and accelerometer data. A total of health subjects installed the app on their smartphones, running it for 7 months. The acquired data were analyzed to assess impact on smartphone performance (ie, battery consumption and anomalies in functioning) and data integrity. Relevance of the selected features in describing changes in daily life was assessed through the computation of a k-nearest neighbors global anomaly score to detect days that differ from others. Results The effectiveness of smartphone-based monitoring depends on the acceptability and interoperability of the system as user retention and data integrity are key aspects. Acceptability was confirmed by the full transparency of the app and the absence of any conflicts with daily smartphone use. The only perceived issue was the battery consumption even though the trend of battery drain with and without the app running was comparable. Regarding interoperability, the app was successfully installed and run on several Android brands. The study shows that some smartphone manufacturers implement power-saving policies not allowing continuous sensor data acquisition and impacting integrity. Data integrity was 96% on smartphones whose power-saving policies do not impact the embedded sensor management and 84% overall. Conclusions The main technological barriers to continuous behavioral and physical monitoring (ie, battery consumption and power-saving policies of manufacturers) may be overcome. Battery consumption increase is mainly due to GPS triangulation and may be limited, while data missing because of power-saving policies are related only to periods of nonuse of the phone since the embedded sensors are reactivated by any smartphone event. Overall, smartphone-based passive sensing is fully feasible and scalable despite the Android market fragmentation.

The issue of progressive cognitive decline in patients with schizophrenia has been debated. We performed a cross-sectional study of patients with chronic schizophrenia, aged from 18 to 69 years, in order to address this issue. The patients included in this study passed a rigorous screen for any comorbid condition with an adverse impact on central nervous system function. We assessed intellectual deterioration with a battery of neuropsychological tests known to be sensitive to cognitive impairment in progressive dementia. No evidence of accelerated intellectual decline was found. No significant differences were found between the five age-derived cohorts (18–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, and 60–69 years of age) on the Mini-Mental State Examination, Dementia Rating Scale, or other tests sensitive to dementia. While performance on the Boston Naming Test significantly declined with age, this was mainly due to age rather than duration of illness. However, it is important to note that mean performances on the majority of the tests were abnormal across all cohorts studied. These results suggest that intellectual function does not markedly decline during the adulthood of patients with schizophrenia. The course of schizophrenia is more consistent with a static encephalopathy than a dementing disorder.

Recently, IoT devices have become the targets of large-scale cyberattacks, and their security issues have been increasingly serious. However, due to the limited memory and battery power of IoT devices, it is hardly possible to install traditional security software, such as antivirus software for security defense. Meanwhile, network-based traffic detection is difficult to obtain the internal behavior states and conduct in-depth security analysis because more and more IoT devices use encrypted traffic. Therefore, how to obtain complex security behaviors and states inside IoT devices and perform security detection and defense is an issue that needs to be solved urgently. Aiming at this issue, we propose IoT-DeepSense, a behavioral security detection system of IoT devices based on firmware virtualization and deep learning. IoT-DeepSense constructs the real operating environment of the IoT device system to capture the fine-grained system behaviors and then leverages an LSTM-based IoT system behavior abnormality detection approach to effectively extract the hidden features of the system’s behavior sequence and enforce the security detection of the abnormal behavior of the IoT devices. The design and implementation of IoT-DeepSense are carried out on an independent Internet of things behavior detection server, without modifying the limited resources of IoT devices, and have strong scalability. The evaluation results show that IoT-DeepSense achieves a high behavioral detection rate of 92%, with negligible impact on the performance of IoT devices.

Although, dynamic power in portable mobile devices can be reduced by reducing power supply VDD on the cost of increased leakage current. Therefore, maintaining low leakage current in the device is serious issue for minimizing overall power consumption of the circuit and improving the battery life. The conventional Metal Oxide Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) requires at least 60 mV of gate voltage for better current drive at room temperature which is difficult to achieve due to thermal limit. This limitation of gate voltage requirement degrades the performance of the device at lower VDD. Tunnel Field Effect Transistor (TFET) is a potential candidate to replace CMOS in deep-submicron region due to its lower subthreshold slope SS (< 60 mV/decade) at room temperature. Steep switching in TFET can extend the supply voltage scaling with improved energy efficiency for both digital and analog applications. Despite those advantages, TFETs are suffering from lower ON current and larger ambipolar current. To overcome these shortcomings, a new structure, known as Hetero-dielectric gate TFET (HDG TFET), has been proposed in the literature. Since, in the absence of the compact analytical model, it is difficult to understand the electrical behaviour of the HDG TFET device, therefore, the present paper presents an analytical model of transconductance parameter of HDG TFET device. The electrical performance analysis of HDG TFET device reflects that on current can be increased considerably by choosing gate material of higher work function near the source region which also suppresses the ambipolar current. It is also observed that a thinner silicon film and larger drain bias result in larger transconductance value.

Abstract Background Direct photon exposure of pacemakers (PMs) or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) during oncologic radiotherapy may transiently or permanently affect normal device function. To evaluate potential malfunctions by direct exposure to doses up to 10 Gy in 6-MV oncologic radiotherapy, commonly considered unsafe or even not recommended, 145 PMs and 65 ICDs were observed in three different centres. Methods All devices had a baseline interrogation and reprogramming to VVI/40 or to DDD/40 mode, depending on type and model. Rate-adaptive function was disabled in all the devices, whereas in ICDs, even antitachycardia therapies were disabled with the ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation (VT/VF) windows left enabled. To build the corresponding treatment plan, a centring computed tomography was performed with different Treatment Plan Systems among the centres. The devices were blinded randomized to receive either 2-, 5- or 10-Gy direct exposure by a 6-MV linear accelerator (different among the three centres) in a water phantom (600 MU/min). The effective dose received was assessed by a random in-vivo dosimetry. All devices had a telemetry interrogation immediately after exposure and once monthly during a six-month follow-up. Results Immediately after photon exposure, no changes in device parameters or software errors were observed in 209 devices (99.5%). A non-reprogrammable reset to emergency back-up mode (VVI/65) occurred in a PM (0.5% overall; 0.7% among PMs). Seven PMs reached the Elective Replacement Indicator immediately after exposure (3.3% overall; 4.8% among PMs). Sixteen ICDs (7.6% overall; 24.6% among ICDs) had multiple VT/VF detections stored in the device memory. Two PMs (1% overall; 1.4% among PMs) reported atrial fibrillation detections. During a six-month follow-up, a non-reprogrammable software reset (back-up to VVI/65 mode) was reported in one PM three months after a single exposure of 2 Gy (0.5% overall; 0.7% among PMs). Abnormal battery drain was observed in thirteen PMs (6.2% overall; 9% among PMs), and in one ICD (0.5% overall; 1.5% among ICDs). All events presented regardless of exposure dose of either 2, 5, or 10 Gy. Conclusions Last-generation devices, both PMs and ICDs, withstood direct 6-MV photon exposure up to 10 Gy, commonly considered not recommended or even unsafe by manufacturer statements and clinical guidelines. The most common failures were referred to battery issues. Malfunctions occurred solely in less recent devices, regardless of photon dose. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: None

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements None Backgroung. Direct photon exposure of cardiac implantable devices (CIEDs), both pacemakers (PMs) or implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), during oncologic radiotherapy (RT) courses may transiently or permanently affect normal device function. Purpose To evaluate CIED damage by direct exposure to doses up to 10 Gy in oncologic RT, commonly considered unsafe or even potentially harmful, 206 CIEDs (143 PMs and 63 ICDs) from three different centres, with at least 4 months to Elective Replacement Indicator (E.R.I.) were observed. Methods. All CIEDs had a baseline telemetry interrogation. Single chamber devices were programmed in the VVI/40 mode and dual or triple chamber ones were programmed in the DDD/40 mode. Rate adaptive function was disabled. In ICDs, antitachycardia therapies were disabled with the ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation window left enabled. A centering Computed Tomography was performed to build the corresponding treatment plan and CIEDs were blinded randomized to receive either 2, 5 or 10 Gy (direct exposure) by a 6 MV linear accelerator in a home-made water phantom. An in-vivo dosimetry randomly assessed the effective dose received by the CIEDs. All CIEDs were interrogated immediately after exposure and monthly during a three-month follow-up. Results. Immediately after photon exposure, no changes in device setting or software errors were observed in 205 CIEDs (99·5%). Reset to emergency back-up mode was observed in a PM (0·49% overall; 0·7% among PMs). Seven PMs reached the E.R.I immediately after exposure (3·4% overall; 4·9% among PMs). Sixteen ICDs (7·8% overall; 25·4% among ICDs) reported multiple ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation detections stored in the device memory. During follow-up, a non-reprogrammable software reset (emergency backup VVI/65 mode) was observed in one PM after a single dose of 2 Gy (0·49% overall; 0.7% among PMs), whereas an abnormal battery drain was observed in 6 PMs (2.9% overall; 4.2% among PMs). No battery issues were observed in ICDs. All reported events occurred regardless of either 2, 5, or 10 Gy direct exposure. Malfunctions were observed in only older CIEDs. Conclusions. Recent CIEDs have shown to be safe during oncologic RT, withstanding direct exposure up to 10 Gy, commonly considered not recommended or even unsafe by manufacturers statements and clinical guidelines. Malfunctions occurred solely in older devices.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Sudden fire accident is one of the most serious issue, which is mainly caused by unpredicted internal short circuit. Metal particle defect is a key factor in internal short circuit it will not show an obvious abnormal change in battery external characteristic just like mechanical and thermal abuse. So, a non-destructive testing of battery internal metal defect is very necessary. This study is first time to scan and analyze different types of defects inside a battery by using ultrasonic technology, and it shows the detection capability boundary of this methodology. A non-contact ultrasonic scanning system with multi-channel was built to scan the battery sample with aluminum foil, copper foil and copper powder defects. The position and shape of those defects were clearly shown by using tomography methodology. It was found that the acoustic properties difference between metal defects and battery active materials has a strong influence on detection sensitivity. Compared with aluminum foil, copper foil and copper powder are easier to be detected and change the ultrasonic signal greatly, they will produce an obvious shadowing artifacts and speed displacement phenomena in tomography images. Ultrasonic tomography technology is an effective method for non-destructive testing of lithium-ion batteries.

Energy efficiency is an important criterion to judge the quality of mobile apps, but one third of our arbitrarily sampled apps suffer from energy issues that can quickly drain battery power. To understand these issues, we conduct an empirical study on 36 well-maintained apps such as Chrome and Firefox, whose issue tracking systems are publicly accessible. Our study involves issue causes, manifestation, fixing efforts, detection techniques, reasons of no-fixes and debugging techniques. Inspired by the empirical study, we propose a novel testing framework for detecting energy issues in real-world mobile apps. Our framework examines apps with well-designed input sequences and runtime context. We develop leading edge technologies, e.g. pre-designing input sequences with potential energy overuse and tuning tests on-the-fly, to achieve high efficacy in detecting energy issues. A large-scale evaluation shows that 90.4% of the detected issues in our experiments were previously unknown to developers. On average, these issues can double the energy consumption of the test cases where the issues were detected. And our test achieves a low number of false positives. Finally, we show how our test reports can help developers fix the issues.

Due to the advancement in personal health care devices, healthcare monitoring of an individual at anytime and from any location becomes a reality. The major issue with most personal healthcare device is their high power consumption and frequent charging. It prevents such devices from being used in critical regions where there is no provision for continuous power or medical infrastructure. Energy harvesting is one of the methodologies extending the lifetime of a battery. This paper presents the design of an Internet of Things enabled personalized healthcare device for monitoring human vital signs. The hardware prototype is developed with a low cost Wi-Fi enabled embedded board known as NodeMCU. The NodeMCU interfaced with vital signs monitoring sensors, an activity monitoring sensor, a rechargeable battery, and a solar panel. The vital signs of a person, such as body temperature, heart rate and activity are collected in a cloud environment and an alert is sent to the caregiver under abnormal circumstances. The results show that the prototype can successfully monitor the vital signs and activity such as idle or fallen, and also the lifetime of the battery has been extended for long term use, contributing to a healthier life style.

The conventional method of wired charging system isn’t portable. The units must be connected to power plugs in order to function or to charge. Moving the units require time, energy, space and staff which makes the process quite difficult as well as expensive. The system arrangement can limit the options for users and the equipment placement. Wires can be damaged in case of faults, electrical surges or storms whereas the wireless units can be unplugged in any abnormal conditions. The core of this project is to design a system for a wireless power transfer; the wireless power transfer was acknowledged by Nikola Tesla. Wireless power transfer brings a remarkable change in the field of the electrical engineering which knockout the issue of conventional copper cable and current holding wires. It can be used for charging the battery of electric vehicle, charging the battery of mobile, in medical equipment, running the DC fans and other DC loads. In this project we transfer the power wirelessly and run a 12V DC fan and a CFL bulb.

Medical prosthetics, such as insulin pumps, are used to augment the management of chronic illnesses, such as Type 1 diabetes (T1D). I was diagnosed at the age of eight with this illness, but the few years before my diagnosis, I was like a huge sponge that was continually squeezed. My bladder was out of control. I peed while marching in a parade at my kindergarten. I let loose on a stranger’s welcome mat because I couldn’t make it to my toilet. Everyone thought it was just a phase, something I would “grow out of”. After about two years, I hadn’t.The easiest thing to blame was my excessive intake of water. I would drink an inordinate amount of water at all hours of the day. In the middle of the night, I would wake up and get myself a glass. Or two. Or three. During these times, my friends were in awe that I could walk alone, without fear, in the dark. For a seven-year-old that was tantamount to being a hero. But the only thing on my mind was the refreshing gush of water.I was a bottomless pit. Any amount of liquid and food that I swallowed seemed to disappear. I rapidly lost weight despite my enormous appetite. A few months after my eighth birthday, my Uncle John, a student doctor at the time, suspected I had diabetes. Although I didn’t know what diabetes was, it seemed like it would change my life forever. I wasn’t ready for change. But with great anxiety, I did the urine test. And it changed my life by saving it. If I hadn’t been diagnosed as having Type One diabetes, I would have died. With this auto-immune illness, the pancreatic cells which secrete a hormone called insulin (used to regulate blood glucose levels) are incapacitated. Consequently, for those who have T1D, external administration of insulin is needed.Fig. 1. Injection.Unlike those with Type 2 diabetes, those with T1D always need insulin injections, regardless of how well they maintain their exercise and dietary regimes. For many, insulin injections are needed. For others, an insulin pump is used to administer insulin in a manner that seeks to mimic a functional, biological pancreas. In this context, an insulin pump is an option used to keep those with T1D alive and can improve how diabetes care proceeds. For instance, in my 28 years of having T1D, I have injected myself with insulin daily to stay alive. In the early years of having the illness, I needed two injections a day. This increased to five insulin injections for two years. The toll this took on my body could be evidenced in scars, bruises and fatty lump deposits from where a syringe had punctured my flesh. However, after transitioning to insulin pump therapy, I only needed to inject myself once every three days, allowing my flesh more time to heal. In this case, insulin pump therapy helped the appearance and health of my skin, while also enabling me to feel more empowered in the face of an incurable illness. This article explores insulin pump usage as a means to manage T1D. In regards to this, the article also asks broader questions: What happens when insulin pump technologies fail? What then happens to the human body that is attached to the pump? How can we speak, write and think about re-organised bodies in which, for example, an internal organ’s pancreatic beta cells (those that secrete insulin), are external to the body and battery operated? Re-Organising the “Whole” BodyAnnemarie Mol and John Law specify, “In western theoretical tradition ‘the body’ is characteristically evoked as the exemplary case of what it is to be whole” (57). Yet, despite this characterisation of a coherent body, the body itself is a “set of tensions” (54). In the context of diabetes, Mol and Law write, “there are tensions between the interests of its various organs. Regulating blood sugar tightly may be good for the arteries, the eyes and the neurons, but since it increases the risk of hypoglycaemia [low blood glucose levels], it is bad for the brain” (54). While one area of the body can benefit, another can simultaneously be compromised. In this context, the body is a site of contradiction and tension that “hangs together” through its incoherence and inconsistency. In the case of T1D, while the pancreatic cells which secrete insulin are destroyed, other cells within the body (and within the pancreas itself) continue to function “normally”. However, this continued “normality” brings heath complications. For instance, the pancreas also releases glucagon, which is the sugar found in the body. As a result of the lack of insulin in T1D, glucagon becomes unmanageable and causes blood glucose levels within the body to rise. The “normal” secretion of glucagon, in this case, produces complications to do with high blood sugar (for example, neuron damage and retinopathy). In this case, insulin pump therapy can be used to compensate for the “normal” and “abnormal” functions of the pancreas. The insulin pump thus attempts to bring the body, as much as possible, to a cohesive whole. However, this cohesiveness is arranged in a manner that pushes those with diabetes to rethink how the body is organised. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), an insulin pump is “a small computerised device that delivers a slow continuous level of rapid acting insulin throughout the day. It can be programmed to give more or less insulin when and if required. The insulin is delivered through a tiny tube (cannula) under the skin that is changed every three days”. It is in Section C in the Australian Government Prostheses list.Fig. 2. Insulin pump.The insulin pump is thus a medical prosthetic designed to communicate with the functioning cells within the pancreas, and the rest of the body, in order to keep the body alive. Usually, only one AA or AAA battery is needed to power most insulin pumps. Life hangs on the life span of that battery, and if the pump is on low battery, then one’s body is also in danger of shutting down.The pump is also located on the outside of the body, with a small cannula being the only thing inserted beneath the skin. On the front of the pump is a visual display designed similarly to the appearance of a mobile phone. The display has a “home page” which shows the time, how much insulin is in the pump, as well as the status of the battery (low battery or not). By clicking onto one of the buttons on the pump, the display shows a menu divided into different sections, such as “bolus” (insulin needed when eating or correcting high blood glucose levels), “suspend” (to stop the pump from administering insulin), “basal” (which regulates the continuous amount of insulin administered 24/7), etc. By scrolling onto a specific category, the pump user can access other sub-categories which enable the user to program the pump. The pump makes visible something that is not usually visible, that is, how much insulin is administered into the body. The use of an insulin pump thus reorganises what can and cannot be seen, smelt, touched and heard. With the pump, users connect to insulin in a number of ways that those without diabetes do not. My experiences with the pump enable me to smell the synthetic insulin that courses through my pump’s tubing when it leaks and when I inject myself. With the pump, insulin becomes connected to certain sounds. The pump alarms when the insulin in its reservoir has been depleted. It beeps to signal certain basal rates. Sometimes it beeps for no identifiable reason. Additionally, I relate to the feel of insulin: the puncture of the syringe, the smoothness of the cannula, the tug of the tubing, the weight of the pump itself. Pump users also develop a tactile relationship with insulin through pressing the pump buttons to program how their pump delivers their insulin. This tactility becomes a daily sensation as the pump is attached to its user for most of their sleeping and waking hours. The pump is their bedtime companion, it is there during exercise, and it is there during rest. It becomes a daily reminder of the need to augment oneself in terms of one’s T1D. This is a daily reminder that is disseminated through the information the user programs into the pump and what the pump also displays for its user. For instance, before eating a meal, the pump user can input their blood glucose level (through first pricking their fingertip to extract blood and place this blood onto a test-strip which is inserted into a blood glucose machine), and how many grams of carbohydrates they are going to consume.Fig. 3. Checking blood glucose.A separate device, called a Continuous Glucose Monitor, can also be used in conjunction with the insulin pump to track blood glucose trends. The pump then calculates how much insulin is needed by assessing the user’s blood glucose level and the amount of carbohydrates they will eat/drink. This information is based on prior data the user and/or the user’s doctor has programmed into the pump to determine how sensitive the user is to insulin. In this context, the pump’s information can be accessed and programmed by its user, but this same data can also be seen and programmed by others (e.g. doctors, nurses, anyone who has access to the pump). This intercorporeality can be dangerous as the pump can be manipulated by people who are not even attached to it. Hacking the Insulin Pump and Other Technological limitsBarnaby Jack, a security researcher, “devised an attack that hijacks nearby insulin pumps, enabling him to surreptitiously deliver fatal doses to diabetic patients who rely on them” (Goodin). In this attack, Jack did not have to physically touch the pump or the person attached to it. Instead, Jack designed software and special antenna to communicate with the radio transmitters contained in some insulin pumps. Administering insulin, in this case, is about the communication between technologies, but in such a way that positions the person attached to the pump as a technology themselves. They are packaged in such a way that their body is the site through which radio transmitters, software and antenna can impinge on the life of their body. Consequently, the body, insulin pump technologies and computer software cannot fully function without the other. Thus, while the insulin pump can help with diabetes self-care, it can also put those attached to pumps at risk of being technologically hacked. There are also more limits to wearing the pump. In my experience, this has ranged from my pump malfunctioning (it has administered insulin without stopping) to the tubing which connects me to the pump catching on doors and getting tangled in car seat-belts. In regards to the latter, the way in which I walk into and sit in certain spaces has to be reconfigured in order to account for how well (or not well) the insulin pump can be accommodated. Additionally, being twice pregnant while using the insulin pump provided further complications as to how the pump could stay attached to my stomach as it enlarged. My body thus becomes spatialised in terms of how well my pump can fit into certain spaces without being damaged or without my body feeling any pain from it “getting in the way”. Additionally, while the pump is attached to its user by a cannula, the pump itself needs to clip onto an article of clothing or be placed in a pocket so that it does not dangle or drop to the ground. The need to attach the pump in order to secure it can be annoying. Anna Presswell, a woman with T1D and an insulin pump has written: “It has been 3 years since I was able to sleep pyjama-less. This may not seem like a big deal, but having tried it once in 42 degree heat in Thailand, almost completely tieing [sic] myself up overnight like a cartoon baddy, being tubing free and able to sleep 'al fresco' again, would be devine [sic]” (1). In Presswell’s case, being attached to the pump means that she is also attached to feelings of discomfort and a lack of freedom. She expresses this sense of being restricted through her desire to be “tubing free”. Presswell’s insulin pump is not the only thing that constricts her, but it is ultimately her T1D that inhibits how she can move, feel, and sleep. In this context, while the pump is dominantly used to augment T1D self-care management, it does not erase the reality of having to live with T1D. The pump is a reminder of the illness which no amount of augmentation can cure. In terms of my experience, the pump is a harsh reminder of having T1D, but it also signifies the biomedical advances in treatment and how privileged I am to be attached to such a device. Being connected to my pump means being connected to my body by having awareness of it in medical terms (hypoglycaemia, hyperglycaemia, etc.) and in terms of feeling (feeling “low” or feeling “high” in terms of blood glucose levels). Such awareness manifests in how I program information into the pump and is complicated through the paradoxical feelings of safety, annoyance, frustration and inhibition I, and others, feel about being attached to an insulin pump. This intimate connection between myself and my pump blurs the boundary between where I begin and where the pump ends. As the pump acts as the medium through which I deal with my body (and live in my body), I experience it as a part of my body. This experience necessitates the question I posed earlier: how then do we contend with re-organised bodies, wherein an internal organ’s pancreatic beta cells (those that secrete insulin), are external to the body and battery operated?Soma and techné?The concept of somatechnology may be a useful way to think through this connection between bodies and technologies. This concept of somatechnology emerged through conversations between colleagues in the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University in 2004 (Pugliese and Stryker 1). These conversations pointed towards an imperative to name the connection between embodied practice and technologies of power, rather than to constitute them as separate and distinct from one another. The term “Somatechnics” was established to meet this need and fused the terms soma (body) and techné (technologies) to illustrate their symbiotic operation. Joseph Pugliese and Susan Stryker attest that the term “Somatechnics” can work as a “shorthand notation for the notion ... that the body is not so much a naturally occurring object that becomes available for representation or cultural interpretation as it is the tangible outcome of historically and culturally specific techniques and modes of embodiment processes” (2). Somatechnics thus point to the dynamic means through which corporealities are constituted through techné that are “continuously engendered in relation to others and to a world” (Sullivan and Murray 3). In this context, everyday belonging to the world becomes constituted through somatechnics, thus illuminating how technologies of power/knowledge become consolidated through embodied practice. Stryker argues that in supplanting the “and” in “embodiment and technology”, somatechnics enables a critique of understanding identity as separate from the technologies that constitute bodily becoming (80). Somatechnics, in this case, becomes the means through which bodies can be seen as “inextricably conjoined with the techniques and technologies (technics) through which bodies are formed and transformed” (Stryker 80). As I’ve specified in another publication, these include both hard and soft technologies that constitute bodily being in the world … hard technologies are normatively slated as the products that are separate from the human body, such as computers and other gadgets. Conversely, soft technologies are normatively considered as techniques that constitute the norms people maintain in order to manage themselves and others. (Laforteza 28)The Greek etymological root of technology, techné, signals both types of technology, phrasing particular importance on the conception of soft technologies. David Rooney specifies that techné “means belonging to the arts, crafts or skill, and is also related to tactics. Therefore, to the ancients, technology was more than ‘gadgets’, it was also … to do with skills, know-how, and the art of doing things; [techné thus comprises] ... knowledge, actions and ‘gadgets’” (3). Rooney further attests that comprehending technologies as an “indissoluble” partnership between the hard and soft provides a comprehensive account of how social orders become technologised. In doing this, Rooney uses Michel Foucault’s conception of technologies (of production, sign-systems, power, and the self) to go beyond a hard/soft and technological/social boundary. The concept of somatechnology goes even further by specifying that social networks and their norms are technologised, and vice-versa. Moreover, the concept of somatechnics argues that this technologisation of society cannot exist outside the body. Here, the normative idea of hard technologies as outside the body is challenged. In context to users of insulin pumps, this enmeshment of soma and techné is brought to the fore through the pump standing in for certain pancreatic cells, to the point that it enables the body to live and “function” as a human body. Simultaneously, the pump is redundant without the input of human agency and the ways in which the user of the pump programs the pump to work. In light of this, the pump “re-organises” the body in such a way that already speaks to the inherent incoherence and inconsistency of the body. Using the pump also engenders the cultivation of norms, roles, rules and assumptions that constitute pump users as specific medicalised bodily beings. Operating the pump thus makes visible the body as technologised and technologies as bodily. The body that is attached to an insulin pump cannot simply be named and understood as soma, but as somatechnology.ConclusionIn terms of having T1D and an insulin pump, the concept of somatechnology can be used as a theoretical framework to investigate the discourses of health and “normality” that inform how users of insulin pumps deal with their diabetes and their bodies. Discourses of health and “normality” involve a preoccupation with augmentation to either fix, cure, treat, and/or maintain the “healthy” and “normal” body. Insulin pumps act in this capacity to augment diabetes care by transcending the limits of the illness, but in such a way that can make users fully aware of such limits. This is because the insulin pump is a prosthetic developed to constitute bodies with T1D as primed for life, not as a body built to decay and die because of its illness. In this case, the insulin pump as a prosthetic is premised on the hope of improving and sustaining a life that is always-already involved with the threat and expectation of diabetes related complications and death. At stake in using a prosthetic device to ‘manage’ the body is the push to understand and make knowable a body that is unknowable, un-mappable, and unpredictable. 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