A Hybrid-Powered Wireless System for Multiple Biopotential Monitoring

Chronic diseases are the top cause of human death in the United States and worldwide. A huge amount of healthcare costs is spent on chronic diseases every year. The high medical cost on these chronic diseases facilitates the transformation from in-hospital to out-of-hospital healthcare. The out-of-hospital scenarios require comfortability and mobility along with quality healthcare. Wearable electronics for well-being management provide good solutions for out-of-hospital healthcare. Long-term health monitoring is a practical and effective way in healthcare to prevent and diagnose chronic diseases. Wearable devices for long-term biopotential monitoring are impressive trends for out-of-hospital health monitoring. The biopotential signals in long-term monitoring provide essential information for various human physiological conditions and are usually used for chronic diseases diagnosis. This study aims to develop a hybrid-powered wireless wearable system for long-term monitoring of multiple biopotentials. For the biopotential monitoring, the non-contact electrodes are deployed in the wireless wearable system to provide high-level comfortability and flexibility for daily use. For providing the hybrid power, an alternative mechanism to harvest human motion energy, triboelectric energy harvesting, has been applied along with the battery to supply energy for long-term monitoring. For power management, an SSHI rectifying strategy associated with triboelectric energy harvester design has been proposed to provide a new perspective on designing TEHs by considering their capacitance concurrently. Multiple biopotentials, including ECG, EMG, and EEG, have been monitored to validate the performance of the wireless wearable system. With the investigations and studies in this project, the wearable system for biopotential monitoring will be more practical and can be applied in the real-life scenarios to increase the economic benefits for the health-related wearable devices

Biocompatibility studies of low temperature nitrided and collagen-I coated AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel.

The biocompatibility of austenitic stainless steels can be improved by means of surface engineering techniques. In the present research it was investigated if low temperature nitrided AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel may be a suitable substrate for bioactive protein coating consisting of collagen-I. The biocompatibility of surface modified alloy was studied using as experimental model endothelial cells (human umbilical vein endothelial cells) in culture. Low temperature nitriding produces modified surface layers consisting mainly of S phase, the supersaturated interstitial solid solution of nitrogen in the austenite lattice, which allows to enhance surface microhardness and corrosion resistance in PBS solution. The nitriding treatment seems to promote the coating with collagen-I, without chemical coupling agents, in respect of the untreated alloy. For biocompatibility studies, proliferation, lactate dehydrogenase levels and secretion of two metalloproteinases (MMP-2 and MMP-9) were determined. Experimental results suggest that the collagen protection may be favourable for endothelial cell proliferation and for the control of MMP-2 release

uwb pulse propagation into human tissues

In this paper the propagation of a UWB pulse into a layered model of the human body is studied to characterize absorption and reflection of the UWB signal due to the different body tissues. Several time behaviours for the incident UWB pulse are considered and compared with reference to the feasibility of breath and heartbeat activity monitoring. Results show that if the UWB source is placed far from the human body, the reflection coming from the interface between air and skin can be used to detect the respiratory activity. On the contrary, if the UWB source is placed close to the human body, a small reflection due to the interface between the posterior lung wall and the bone, which is well distanced in time from the reflections due to the first layers of the body model, can be used to detect lung and heart changes associated with the cardio-respiratory activity

Wireless hydrotherapy smart suit for monitoring handicapped people

This paper presents a smart suit, water impermeable, containing sensors and electronics for monitoring handicapped people at hydrotherapy sessions in swimming-pools. For integration into textiles, electronic components should be designed in a functional, robust and inexpensive way. Therefore, small-size electronics microsystems are a promising approach. The smart suit allows the monitoring of individual biometric data, such as heart rate, temperature and movement of the body. Two solutions for transmitting the data wirelessly are presented: through a low-voltage (3.0 V), low-power, CMOS RF IC (1.6 mm x 1.5 mm size dimensions) operating at 433 MHz, with ASK modulation and a patch antenna built on lossy substrates compatible with integrated circuits fabrication. Two different substrates were used for antenna implementation: high-resistivity silicon (HRS) and Corning Pyrex #7740 glass. The antenna prototypes were built to operate close to the 5 GHz ISM band. They operate at a center frequency of 5.705 GHz (HRS) and 5.995 GHz (Pyrex). The studied parameters were: substrate thickness, substrate losses, oxide thickness, metal conductivity and thickness. The antenna on HRS uses an area of 8 mm2, providing a 90 MHz bandwidth and ~0.3 dBi of gain. On a glass substrate, the antenna uses 12 mm2, provides 100 MHz bandwidth and ~3 dBi of gain.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), project (SFRH/BD/4717/2001 and POCTI/ESE/38468/2001

Design and evaluation of novel electroconductive alginate hydrogels based on graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide with applications in tissue engineering

193 p.El alginato es uno de los mejores biomateriales para la preparación de estos hidrogeles debido a sus excelentes propiedades, entre ellas su alta biocompatibilidad y facilidad de gelificación. Los hidrogeles de alginato han sido particularmente efectivos en la curación de heridas, administración de fármacos,terapias basadas en células y aplicaciones de ingeniería de tejidos. Estos hidrogeles a base de alginato conservan una estructura similar a las matrices extracelulares. Sin embargo, los hidrogeles de alginato tienen una adhesión celular deficiente, una resistencia mecánica débil y una liberación rápida del fármaco. Para compensar este inconveniente, muchos investigadores han incorporado diferentes materiales en la matriz de alginato para proporcionar soporte biomimético. El grafeno y sus derivados(óxido de grafeno y óxido de grafeno reducido) han demostrado ser candidatos adecuados para mejorarlas propiedades superficiales y la resistencia mecánica del alginate. Anteriormente observamos que GO,recubierto con suero bovino fetal (FBS) dentro de hidrogeles de alginato, mejora la viabilidad de los mioblastos incrustados. En la investigación actual, nuestro objetivo es estudiar varias proteínas,específicamente albúmina sérica bovina (BSA), colágeno tipo I y elastina, para discernir su impacto en la mejora observada previamente en mioblastos incrustados dentro de hidrogeles de alginato que contienenGO recubierto con FBS. Por lo tanto, describimos los mecanismos de formación de capas de proteína BSA, colágeno y elastina en la superficie GO y rGO. GO muestra una alta adsorción por BSA y elastina,mientras que rGO muestra una alta adsorción por colágeno. encontramos que la integración de GO y rGOdisminuye la impedancia y la capacitancia de GO y rGO. Además, describimos una mejor viabilidad celular y liberación de proteínas de las células incrustadas dentro de hidrogeles que contienen GOrecubierto de proteínas. Concluimos que estos hidrogeles híbridos podrían suponer un paso adelante en lamedicina regenerativ