ELECTRONIC TRACKING

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    What exactly is electronic tracking? According to our understanding from the Oxford English Dictionary, electronic tracking is act of finding something in particular after a thorough or difficult search by means of a computer or other electronic devices. Since before the turn of the century, gadgets that are aided by electronic tracking have helped people in many different ways. Listed below are some examples to name a few:

Crime

    As many of us have seen in television shows such us CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI Miami, John Doe, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and many more crime-related shows, a crime scene can leave thousands of pieces of physical evidence be it blood, a piece off of a torn shirt or a piece of shattered glass. These pieces of evidence can help the investigators and police track down the criminals. Any of this evidence is the key to construct a case and should be kept safely, organized and easily accessible for the authority.

    Databases are aided by electronic tracking systems and hence, police departments are now equipped with computer databases and other technologies to manage evidences. As evidence is brought in, police enter the complete documentation about the evidence into a handheld computer, which wirelessly transmits the information to the evidence database. It then prints out a bar code sticker that the officer affixes to the evidence container. A quick scan of the bar code will access the evidence database and display information about the item. Each time the item is scanned, the scan is logged in the database so the officials can know exactly who handled the evidence at any point in time.

    Databases also are used to monitor other types of evidence, including DNA. FBI’s use a database called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) – a database with three levels of DNA data: local, state and national. When DNA evidence is gathered from a crime scene, the DNA profile is entered into the system. The system uses two key indexes: the forensic index – containing DNA collected as crime scene evidence, and the offender index – containing DNA profiles of violent crime convicts. CODIS allows federal, state and local crime labs to compare DNA profile electronically, so that they can better identify and convict previous offenders.

    Another type of database system that helps solve crime is the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The system allows law enforcement officials to search and match previous arrests. This eliminates the long periods of time matching fingerprints ‘manually’. A scan system captures fingerprint images electronically. After capturing the image enters the data – name, date of birth, and arrest information – using the scan system keyboard. This data is transmitted to a central AFIS system that can be accessed by officials around the country to identify the owner of the fingerprint.

 Storing Criminal Records

    Technology has made searchable databases of criminal records widely available to law enforcement agencies, including officers on the street. Listed below are just some examples of database systems used by the FBI:

·        National Crime Information Center (NCIC) – database with a computerised index of criminal justice of criminal justice information such as criminal records and information on fugitives, stolen properties, and missing people. After arresting a subject, law enforcement officials can access the database to see if other warrants for the subject’s arrest are open or if the subject’s name is connected with other crimes.

·        National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) – database to help gun dealers perform background check on prospective firearms buyers to ensure that convicted felons, among others, cannot buy guns from a dealer. To ensure the full effectiveness of the system, records in the database must be updated and as accurate as possible. Even a delay in entering the data could mean that a criminal leaves a store with a new gun. For this reason, many states have waiting periods before a customer can actually take a gun from a store, just to ensure that all of the latest data has been entered in the database.

·        Other databases are used to make relevant information about sexually violent offenders available to the public.

    Currently, European countries are trying to use satellites to monitor movements of offenders. Convicted burglars, robbers and car thieves will be fitted with an electronic device that can be tracked by satellite 24 hours a day. The electronic device will be monitored by a control station, which records the location of the offender to within a few metres.

    If the offender strays into an area they are excluded from the police are alerted. The system will also be used to prevent sex offenders going to playgrounds and schools and to stop people convicted of domestic violence from approaching their victims. Offenders will be required to wear the device as part of a community sentence, or as a condition of their release from prison. The trials are being made in Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Hampshire.

 1.      Tag is attached to offender's ankle.

2.      System detects when offender enters banned area, such as school premises or victim's house.

3.      Satellites track offender's movements and alert control center.

4.      Control center informs police. 

Enforcing Traffic Laws

    Now, traffic lights are using computer technology to ensure drivers do not run a red light. Red light systems include 3 key elements: one or more digital cameras, one or more triggers and a computer. Typically, cameras are positioned at the corners of an intersection so they can photograph cars driving through the intersection. Each red light has a trigger or a sensor loop, which is a length of electrical wire, charged with an electric current to generate a magnetic field. When a car passes over the sensor loop it changes the magnetic field and sets off the trigger.

    The camera is the core of the system: it is connected to the cameras, and the traffic light and constantly monitors the traffic signal and the triggers. If a car moves over the sensor loops at a particular speed when the light is red, the camera instructs the cameras to take two pictures to document the violation – one as the car enters the intersection and one when the car is in the middle of the intersection. To document the violation fully, the date, time, intersection location and other relevant information is recorded.

 Tracking Stolen Vehicles

    Cargo theft, vehicle burglary, bicycle theft, and other types of property theft cause enormous financial losses in every community and are a huge burden on law enforcement. According to the New Haven Police Department, over half of all vehicle thefts occur in residential areas where more than two thirds of it happen at night. Not only are these criminals difficult to catch in the act but most thieves are serial in nature and will continue their criminal behavior, committing countless thefts, until they are captured. Good anti-theft devices slow down thieves and increase their risk of discovery.

    Pegasus Technologies, Inc. has developed the ProAct-IV Stolen Property Tracking System to combat many types of property theft. It is a completely portable, self-contained monitoring and tracking system, compatible and interoperable with existing citywide law enforcements. It allows easy integration into existing electronic tracking programs.

     Other recovery system include the LoJack. A wireless radio-frequency transceiver is placed somewhere in the car (unknown by the owner of the car).  When the car is reported stolen, the incident is entered into the NCIC database, which allows police to match the vehicle identification number of the car with the LoJack devices then automatically send a signal to the device on a special FM frequency. This signal activates the LoJack device hidden in the car, which in turn sends out a homing signal to a special tracking computer in police cars. The tracking computer displays arrows to the direction of the car to be located.

 Finding Missing Children

     Electronic Tracking also helps in the race to find missing children. An example of a system that does so is the AMBER Alert system. The goal of the AMBER (short for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and safe return of the child.

     When a law enforcement agency decides to issue an Amber Alert, an officer fist faxes key information – pictures of the missing child, the suspected abductor, a suspected vehicle and any other information available to radio stations where they immediately interrupt their programming to broadcast the alert on the air.

    The alert begins with a burst of data coded by a low-speed modem; the followed by the familiar eight-second alert tone, spoken emergency information, and instructions. Another burst of data then terminates the message.

    Other AMBER Alert messages are displayed on dynamic message signs that enable transportation officials to type in any relevant notice, including an alert on a child kidnapping. Law enforcement officials and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) also provide alerts via e-mail, mobile phones, pagers or AOL Instant Messenger. Alerts are also displayed on headers on Web Sites.

    Statistics showed that the number of recoveries were as followed, ending September 28, 2004 EST:

     A recent event in Brunei Darussalam that happened last August dealt with a stolen saloon car with a five-year-old girl inside. The alert was provided via mobile phones. According to the police, the incident happened at about 6.45am while her mother was buying some food near the KACA building of the RIPAS Hospital in the capital.

    The police said an Investigation Officer of the Central Police Station in the capital received a report of car theft around 7.03am. At the same time, the message was spread to the public through SMS seeking their assistance in tracing the stolen car with the child inside.

    The car, a white Nissan bluebird with registration number KG 4007, was stolen and driven away by a culprit along with the girl. The police also confirmed at about 8.30am that a friend of the victim's father found the car and the girl at Kampung Sungai Kebun in the Brunei Muara District. The girl was sent to the RIPAS Hospital for examination. It is learnt that the child was found safe and sound and reportedly unhurt but appeared traumatised by the ordeal.

    The 36-year-old man charged with kidnapping a five-year-old girl who was left in a car is now facing a charge of kidnapping a child below 16 years of age from a lawful guardian that carries a maximum punishment of 10 years' imprisonment.

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Communication

    Communication is now especially important to keep in touch not only for personal matters but for business-related issues as well as world news. How does one communicate in the 21^st century?

 Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite navigation system funded by and controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). While there are many thousands of civil users of GPS world-wide, the system was actually designed for and is operated by the U.S. military. It provides specially coded satellite signals that can be processed in a GPS receiver, enabling the receiver to compute position, velocity and time. Four GPS satellite signals are used to compute positions in three dimensions and the time offset in the receiver clock.

    GPS car tracking or vehicle tracking is often used for covert tracking of the driver in the car. Cars, trucks, trailers, railcars, containers and boats can be tracked, using GPS car tracking.

    To improve transportation safety, relieving congestion and enhancing productivity, automotive companies are creating a new generation of vehicles that integrate personal computing, the Internet, and wireless communications.

    Integrating Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) navigation systems with online road and city maps enables drivers to easily find their way or locate hotels, restaurants, and gas stations in the area. A wireless peer-to-peer networking system enables cars to exchange information or forward Internet data to the nearest wireless base station. Together the automotive companies are interfacing in-vehicle data acquisition and telematics systems with global telecommunications infrastructures to provide a collection of diagnostic services for the transportation/automotive market

    Telematics provides a convergence of electronic technologies and embedded processing for automotive diagnostics, control, entertainment, cellular communication, ubiquitous computing (e.g., Internet, laptops, PDA, computing nodes on wheels), GPS, GIS, and human interfaces. The main objective of this project is the development of the hardware and software necessary to perform two-way communications with a vehicle and to collect critical vehicle performance and sensing data. This will be accomplished by integrating existing on-board measurement information available in most current vehicles through industry-standard interfaces, to new cellular modem technology that allows high-speed wireless data connections. This unique data collection capability will be used to fuel research and evaluation of new alternative power trains.

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Science, Health and Medicine

    Over the last few decades, computer technology has transformed the disciplines of medicine and science – completely altering the way the data is collected, analysed, communicated, and stored.

    One of the biggest challenges of any medical practice or hospital is to keep accurate and up-to-date patient records. This can be overcome when using a computer-based patient record (CPR) – a patient record maintained electronically. It is also referred to as an Electronic Medical record (EMR) or Electronic Patient Record (EPR). Patient records are entered, stored and maintained with the help of an EMR system, which is management software for the health care industry.

    An example of an EMR system is the HealthMatics^® ED that enables concurrent staff and provider management of a single, seamless patient record. It delivers current & past patient information faster with complete mobile access to patient charts, including order details and reduces encounter time with point of care orders & results.

Equipped with a Tracking Board it provides a dynamic representation of patient activity within the Emergency Department providing immediate access to changes in patient status.

• Passive tracking enables constant communication on patient locations

• Colorful icons indicate orders & normal vs. abnormal results

• Review orders sent & results received

• Sort by acuity, arrival time, user, last name or status

• Filter for specific areas of ED – urgent care, critical care, etc.

• Filter by individual user’s patients only or by all patients

• Occupied & empty beds view vs. patient view

• Change patient room assignments

• Report on standard & or newly defined status

• Indicators for each patient’s primary physician & primary care nurse

Improving Patient Diagnosis and Monitoring

    Today, many diagnostic tools widely used in medicine rely on computer technology to provide accurate and detailed clinical data to allow physicians to make a sound diagnosis. Listed below are the examples of tracking devices to diagnose a patient:

     As technology continues to advance, even more unique diagnostic tools are available to health care professionals. For example, a pill-sized camera that patients swallow allows doctors to travel virtually through a patient’s small intestine to detect ulcers and tumors.

     Electronic tracking also provide new tools to help monitor patients after a diagnosis is made, during surgery and throughout the course of treatment. Diabetes patients have used finger prick tests for years to monitor and control blood sugar levels. With computer technology and electronic tracking, a patient can wear a device, such as a GlucoWatch G2 Biographer, which looks like a regular watch with an LCD display. The patient uses a small single-use sensor into the back of the watch and wears it on the forearm. After calibrating the watch, the devise is set to sound an alarm when the blood sugar level is too high, too low or are likely to be too low in about 20 minutes.

Tracking in the Operating Room

    The operating room of any hospital relies on numerous technological advances to ensure the highest quality patient care. Endoscopy is one way of electronic tracking in the operating room. It is a surgical technique that involves the use of an endoscope (the tracking device) that allows the surgeon to see the body’s internal structures. An endoscope consists of two basic parts: a tubular probe fitted with a tiny camera and bright light (inserted through a small incision) and a viewing screen, which magnifies the transmitted images.

    Another example is the Surgical Navigation, which is the GPS “Global Positioning System” for Minimally Invasive Surgery. It provides the surgeon with 3D visualization of the patient’s anatomy, along with the ability to track the position and orientation of instrumentation during surgery.

    The enhanced visualization assist the surgeon in locating and avoiding critical structures while safely navigating instruments to the diseased or injured area.

    At Mercy's Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery, highly trained specialists use technology featuring an Imaging Tracking Device with digital resolution that allows delicate procedures to be performed more safely, yielding a better result. In the common problem of Endometriosis, a surgeon can now easily spot subtle areas of trouble providing patients with superb care.

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Business

    Electronic tracking has also helped the face of business around the globe. Today, most retail sales locations, be it the department store, drugstore or bookstore, are filled with computers and systems used to make the browsing and buying experience more efficient by eliminating the manual entry of data.

    Electronic tracking in retail sales exist in the Point-of-Sale (POS) System – a special kind of order-processing system that records purchases, processes credit or debit cards, and updates inventory. For example in a grocery store, the POS system consists of the electronic cash register, bar code scanner, and printer. These can be aided electronically using input devices such as optical character recognition (OCR) devices, optical mark recognition (OMR) devices, bar code scanners and magnetic-ink character recognition readers.

    Optical readers are devices using light source to read characters, marks and codes, converted into digital data that can be processed by a computer. The bar code scanner, for example, uses the laser beams to read bar codes – identification code consisting a set of vertical lines and spaces of different widths that represent some data that identifies the item. It is usually printed on a product’s package or an affixed label. The bar code scanner uses the light patterns from the bar code lines to identify the item.

Each industry uses their own type of bar code. 

 Another example is the use of Radio ID tags to aid in tracking in libraries. Radio ID tag is a wafer-thin, microchip-based tag the size of a postage stamp. Librarians can affix materials with security tags that contain microchips and an antenna that transmits information to a wireless reader using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

Unlike bar codes, which need to be scanned manually and read individually, radio ID tags do not require line-of-sight for reading. Multiple tags can be read simultaneously, through packaging or book covers.

With radio ID tags, librarians can automate check-ins and returns. Patrons can speed through self-checkout without any assistance or ever even opening a book.An RFID tag can be read from just inches away, so librarians can simply wave a wireless wand while walking through stacks to record what books are on the shelves. The hand-held unit reads the chips and stores data that can be downloaded into the library's circulation system. Instead of weeks or months, collection inventory would take just hours.

Electromagnetic sensors guard library exits, so that only checked-out books leave the building. If a book isn't signed out properly, a hidden RFID tag will trigger the sensors and an alarm will sound to alert librarians to a possible theft.

The tags contain a silicon chip, which can carry a large amount of information and an antenna able to transmit that information to a reading device. This is where RFID chips are brought about.

    The chips would also speed up stock-taking as an RFID scanner can read up to 100 chips a second. Not only would RFID chips make goods more difficult to steal in the first place, they would also assist the police in identifying and recovering stolen merchandise. Each chip can carry a record of where it was produced and to whom it was sold. The information is also expected to be admissible as evidence in court.

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Sports

    Remote experience of sporting events has thus far been limited mostly to watching video and the scores and statistics associated with the sport. However, a fast-developing trend is the use of visualization techniques to give new insights into performance, style, and strategy of the players. Automated techniques can extract accurate information from video about player performance that not even the most skilled observer is able to discern. When presented as static images or as a three-dimensional virtual replay, this information makes viewing a game an entirely new and exciting experience.

    One such sports visualization system called LucentVision, which has been developed for the sport of tennis. LucentVision uses real-time video analysis to obtain motion trajectories of players and the ball, and offers a rich set of visualization options based on this trajectory data. The system has been used extensively in the broadcast of international tennis tournaments, both on television and the Internet.

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Fashion

    Fashion is an ever-changing industry and now apparels are equipped with electronic tracking devices (‘Intelligent Garments’) that may provide short-term solutions to particular problems.

    Examples include a toddler’s coat with a tracking device that can help parents allocated their children when they go missing in public places such as shopping malls or amusement parks, a sports bra that monitor's a jogger's heart rate for the conscious women who engage in aerobic activities and a golf jacket that registers arm action and records it so that the ambitious player can subsequently study it to improve his swing.

     Thanks to these gadgets in apparels, this can help improve a better life for the society.

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References:

Jedlicka, L.S. 2004. Computers In Our World. USA: Course Technology.

Computers and Information Processing. Singapore Informatics.

Background courtesy of Absolute Background Texture Archive