New Techniques in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

As result of progress, endoscopy has became more complex, using more sophisticated devices and has claimed a special form. In this moment, the gastroenterologist performing endoscopy has to be an expert in macroscopic view of the lesions in the gut, with good skills for using standard endoscopes, with good experience in ultrasound (for performing endoscopic ultrasound), with pathology experience for confocal examination. It is compulsory to get experience and to have patience and attention for the follow-up of thousands of images transmitted during capsule endoscopy or to have knowledge in physics necessary for autofluorescence imaging endoscopy. Therefore, the idea of an endoscopist has changed. Examinations mentioned need a special formation, a superior level of instruction, accessible to those who have already gained enough experience in basic diagnostic endoscopy. This is the reason for what these new issues of endoscopy are presented in this book of New techniques in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Using Fluorescence – Polarization Endoscopy in Detection of Precancerous and Cancerous Lesions in Colon and Pancreatic Cancer

Colitis-associated cancer (CAC) arises from premalignant flat lesions of the colon, which are difficult to detect with current endoscopic screening approaches. We have developed a complementary fluorescence and polarization reporting strategy that combines the unique biochemical and physical properties of dysplasia and cancer for real time detection of these lesions. Utilizing a new thermoresponsive sol-gel formulation with targeted molecular probe allowed topical application and detection of precancerous and cancerous lesions during endoscopy. Incorporation of nanowire-filtered polarization imaging into NIR fluorescence endoscopy served as a validation strategy prior to obtaining biopsies. In order to reduce repeat surgeries arising from incomplete tumor resection, we demonstrated the efficacy of the targeted molecular probe towards margins of sporadic colorectal cancer (SCC). Fluorescence-polarization microscopy using circular polarized (CP) light served as a rapid, supplementary tool for assessment and validation of excised tissue to ensure complete tumor resection for examining tumor margins prior to H&E-based pathological diagnosis. We extended our platform towards non-invasive directed detection of pancreatic cancer utilizing fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) and NIR laparoscopy using identified targeted molecular probe. We were able to non-invasively distinguished between pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer and guide pancreatic tumor resection using NIR laparoscopy

VLSI Design

This book provides some recent advances in design nanometer VLSI chips. The selected topics try to present some open problems and challenges with important topics ranging from design tools, new post-silicon devices, GPU-based parallel computing, emerging 3D integration, and antenna design. The book consists of two parts, with chapters such as: VLSI design for multi-sensor smart systems on a chip, Three-dimensional integrated circuits design for thousand-core processors, Parallel symbolic analysis of large analog circuits on GPU platforms, Algorithms for CAD tools VLSI design, A multilevel memetic algorithm for large SAT-encoded problems, etc

Modern Telemetry

Telemetry is based on knowledge of various disciplines like Electronics, Measurement, Control and Communication along with their combination. This fact leads to a need of studying and understanding of these principles before the usage of Telemetry on selected problem solving. Spending time is however many times returned in form of obtained data or knowledge which telemetry system can provide. Usage of telemetry can be found in many areas from military through biomedical to real medical applications. Modern way to create a wireless sensors remotely connected to central system with artificial intelligence provide many new, sometimes unusual ways to get a knowledge about remote objects behaviour. This book is intended to present some new up to date accesses to telemetry problems solving by use of new sensors conceptions, new wireless transfer or communication techniques, data collection or processing techniques as well as several real use case scenarios describing model examples. Most of book chapters deals with many real cases of telemetry issues which can be used as a cookbooks for your own telemetry related problems

Design and implementation of miniaturised capsule for autofluorescence detection with possible application to the bowel disease

Early signs of intestinal cancer may be detected through variations in tissue autofluorescence (AF), however current endoscope-based AF systems are unable to inspect the small intestine. This thesis describes the design, fabrication, implantation, testing and packaging of a wireless pill capable of detecting the autofluorescence from cancerous cells, and able to reach parts of the gastrointestinal tract that are inaccessible to endoscopes. The pill exploits the fact that there is a significant difference in the intensity of autofluorescence emitted by normal and cancerous tissues when excited by a blue or ultra violet light source. The intensity differences are detected using very sensitive light detectors. The pill has been developed in two stages. The first stage starts with using an off-chip multi-pixel photon counter (MPPC) device as a light detector. In the second stage, the light detector is integrated into an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The pill comprises of an ASIC, optical filters, an information processing unit and a radio transmission unit, to transmit acquired data to an external base station. Two ASICs have been fabricated, the first stage of this work involved implementing an ASIC that contains two main blocks; the first block is capable of providing a variable DC voltage more than 72 V from a 3 V input to bias the MPPC device. The second main block is a front-end consisting of a high speed transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and voltage amplifiers to capture the very small current pulses produced by the MPPC. The second ASIC contains a high voltage charge pump up to (37.9 V) integrated with a single photon avalanche detector (SPAD). The charge pump is used to bias the SPAD above its breakdown voltage and therefore operate the device in Geiger mode. The SPAD was designed to operate in the visible region where its photon detection efficiency (PDE) peaks at 465 nm, which is near to human tissues autofluorescence peaking region (520±10 nm). The use of the ultra low light detector to detect the autofluorescence permits a lower excitation light intensity and therefore lower overall power consumption. The two ASICs were fabricated using a commercial triple-well high-voltage CMOS process. The complete device operates at 3V and draws an average of 7.1mA, enabling up to 23 hours of continuous operation from two 165mAh SR44 batteries

Medical Robotics

The first generation of surgical robots are already being installed in a number of operating rooms around the world. Robotics is being introduced to medicine because it allows for unprecedented control and precision of surgical instruments in minimally invasive procedures. So far, robots have been used to position an endoscope, perform gallbladder surgery and correct gastroesophogeal reflux and heartburn. The ultimate goal of the robotic surgery field is to design a robot that can be used to perform closed-chest, beating-heart surgery. The use of robotics in surgery will expand over the next decades without any doubt. Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a revolutionary approach in surgery. In MIS, the operation is performed with instruments and viewing equipment inserted into the body through small incisions created by the surgeon, in contrast to open surgery with large incisions. This minimizes surgical trauma and damage to healthy tissue, resulting in shorter patient recovery time. The aim of this book is to provide an overview of the state-of-art, to present new ideas, original results and practical experiences in this expanding area. Nevertheless, many chapters in the book concern advanced research on this growing area. The book provides critical analysis of clinical trials, assessment of the benefits and risks of the application of these technologies. This book is certainly a small sample of the research activity on Medical Robotics going on around the globe as you read it, but it surely covers a good deal of what has been done in the field recently, and as such it works as a valuable source for researchers interested in the involved subjects, whether they are currently “medical roboticists” or not

Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments

The demand for mobile connectivity is continuously increasing, and by 2020 Mobile and Wireless Communications will serve not only very dense populations of mobile phones and nomadic computers, but also the expected multiplicity of devices and sensors located in machines, vehicles, health systems and city infrastructures. Future Mobile Networks are then faced with many new scenarios and use cases, which will load the networks with different data traffic patterns, in new or shared spectrum bands, creating new specific requirements. This book addresses both the techniques to model, analyse and optimise the radio links and transmission systems in such scenarios, together with the most advanced radio access, resource management and mobile networking technologies. This text summarises the work performed by more than 500 researchers from more than 120 institutions in Europe, America and Asia, from both academia and industries, within the framework of the COST IC1004 Action on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green and Smart Environments". The book will have appeal to graduates and researchers in the Radio Communications area, and also to engineers working in the Wireless industry. Topics discussed in this book include: • Radio waves propagation phenomena in diverse urban, indoor, vehicular and body environments• Measurements, characterization, and modelling of radio channels beyond 4G networks• Key issues in Vehicle (V2X) communication• Wireless Body Area Networks, including specific Radio Channel Models for WBANs• Energy efficiency and resource management enhancements in Radio Access Networks• Definitions and models for the virtualised and cloud RAN architectures• Advances on feasible indoor localization and tracking techniques• Recent findings and innovations in antenna systems for communications• Physical Layer Network Coding for next generation wireless systems• Methods and techniques for MIMO Over the Air (OTA) testin

Barrett’s Oesophagus - studies of novel optical diagnostic tools and minimally invasive therapies

Dysplasia arising in Barrett’s oesophagus (BO) confers risk of progression to oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC), but it is variable and confounded by sampling error and diagnostic inter-observer variability. There is a need for biomarkers to accurately define risk and guide surveillance and treatment strategies. Oesophagectomy is the preferred treatment of high grade dysplasia (HGD), although this has been challenged by the emergence of endoscopic therapy. This thesis has shown image cytometric DNA ploidy analysis (ICDA) is accurate when compared to flow cytometry. In a multi centre biomarker validation study, ICDA predicted cancer risk in non dysplastic BO. ICDA also predicted relapse following photodynamic therapy (PDT). Nucleotyping (NT) is an imaging technique that evaluates textural changes of nuclei, which correlate with chromatin content and organisation. In this thesis NT was demonstrated to yield additional diagnostic information over ICDA alone, and the combination was highly accurate for dysplasia classification. In an experiment evaluating replication licensing factors in OAC, those representing the S-G2-M phases of the cell cycle correlated with aneuploidy. Polo like kinase 1 upregulation had the strongest correlation, the first time this has been shown in BO. Elastic scattering spectroscopy detected DNA ploidy abnormalities with equal accuracy using a standard or near infra-red enhanced spectrometer. In a prospective in vivo surveillance study, fewer biopsies were taken without a change in the diagnostic yield for dysplasia. A field carcinogenesis effect was also demonstrated, independent of both dysplasia and DNA ploidy abnormalities. Finally, in a randomised control trial of PDT for HGD, patients with BO less than 7cm had significantly higher efficacy and better tolerability with ALA than photofrin. Radiofrequency ablation was shown to be a safe and effective rescue therapy for patients that failed PDT. In summary these studies advance our understanding of biomedical optics for the risk stratification and treatment of Barrett’s oesophagus

Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments

The demand for mobile connectivity is continuously increasing, and by 2020 Mobile and Wireless Communications will serve not only very dense populations of mobile phones and nomadic computers, but also the expected multiplicity of devices and sensors located in machines, vehicles, health systems and city infrastructures. Future Mobile Networks are then faced with many new scenarios and use cases, which will load the networks with different data traffic patterns, in new or shared spectrum bands, creating new specific requirements. This book addresses both the techniques to model, analyse and optimise the radio links and transmission systems in such scenarios, together with the most advanced radio access, resource management and mobile networking technologies. This text summarises the work performed by more than 500 researchers from more than 120 institutions in Europe, America and Asia, from both academia and industries, within the framework of the COST IC1004 Action on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green and Smart Environments". The book will have appeal to graduates and researchers in the Radio Communications area, and also to engineers working in the Wireless industry. Topics discussed in this book include: • Radio waves propagation phenomena in diverse urban, indoor, vehicular and body environments• Measurements, characterization, and modelling of radio channels beyond 4G networks• Key issues in Vehicle (V2X) communication• Wireless Body Area Networks, including specific Radio Channel Models for WBANs• Energy efficiency and resource management enhancements in Radio Access Networks• Definitions and models for the virtualised and cloud RAN architectures• Advances on feasible indoor localization and tracking techniques• Recent findings and innovations in antenna systems for communications• Physical Layer Network Coding for next generation wireless systems• Methods and techniques for MIMO Over the Air (OTA) testin