RF energy harvesters for wireless sensors, state of the art, future prospects and challenges: a review

The power consumption of portable gadgets, implantable medical devices (IMDs) and wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) has reduced significantly with the ongoing progression in low-power electronics and the swift advancement in nano and microfabrication. Energy harvesting techniques that extract and convert ambient energy into electrical power have been favored to operate such low-power devices as an alternative to batteries. Due to the expanded availability of radio frequency (RF) energy residue in the surroundings, radio frequency energy harvesters (RFEHs) for low-power devices have garnered notable attention in recent times. This work establishes a review study of RFEHs developed for the utilization of low-power devices. From the modest single band to the complex multiband circuitry, the work reviews state of the art of required circuitry for RFEH that contains a receiving antenna, impedance matching circuit, and an AC-DC rectifier. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages associated with various circuit architectures are comprehensively discussed. Moreover, the reported receiving antenna, impedance matching circuit, and an AC-DC rectifier are also compared to draw conclusions towards their implementations in RFEHs for sensors and biomedical devices applications

Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications

The International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications (MAVEBA) came into being in 1999 from the particularly felt need of sharing know-how, objectives and results between areas that until then seemed quite distinct such as bioengineering, medicine and singing. MAVEBA deals with all aspects concerning the study of the human voice with applications ranging from the neonate to the adult and elderly. Over the years the initial issues have grown and spread also in other aspects of research such as occupational voice disorders, neurology, rehabilitation, image and video analysis. MAVEBA takes place every two years always in Firenze, Italy. This edition celebrates twenty years of uninterrupted and succesfully research in the field of voice analysis

Immune contexture monitoring in solid tumors focusing on Head and Neck Cancer

Forti evidenze dimostrano una stretta interazione tra il sistema immunitario e lo sviluppo biologico e la progressione clinica dei tumori solidi. L'effetto che il microambiente immunitario del tumore può avere sul comportamento clinico della malattia è indicato come "immunecontexture". Nonostante ciò, l'attuale gestione clinica dei pazienti affetti da cancro non tiene conto di alcuna caratteristica immunologica né per la stadiazione né per le scelte terapeutiche. Il tumore della testa e del collo (HNSCC) rappresenta il 7° tumore più comune al mondo ed è caratterizzato da una prognosi relativamente sfavorevole e dall'effetto negativo dei trattamenti sulla qualità della vita dei pazienti. Oltre alla chirurgia e alla radioterapia, sono disponibili pochi trattamenti sistemici, rappresentati principalmente dalla chemioterapia a base di platino-derivati o dal cetuximab. L'immunoterapia è una nuova strategia terapeutica ancora limitata al setting palliativo (malattia ricorrente non resecabile o metastatica). La ricerca di nuovi biomarcatori o possibili nuovi meccanismi target è molto rilevante quindi nel contesto clinico dell'HNSCC. In questa tesi ci si concentrerà sullo studio di tre possibili popolazioni immunitarie pro-tumorali studiate nell'HNSCC: i neutrofili tumore-associati (TAN), le cellule B intratumorali con fenotipo immunosoppressivo e i T-reg CD8+. Particolare attenzione è data all'applicazione di moderne tecniche biostatistiche e bioinformatiche per riassumere informazioni complesse derivate da variabili cliniche e immunologiche multiparametriche e per validare risultati derivati ​​in situ, attraverso dati di espressione genica derivati da dataset pubblici. Infine, la seconda parte della tesi prenderà in considerazione progetti di ricerca clinica rilevanti, volti a migliorare l'oncologia di precisione nell'HNSCC, sviluppando modelli predittivi di sopravvivenza, confrontando procedure oncologiche alternative, validando nuovi classificatori o testando l'uso di nuovi protocolli clinici come l'uso dell'immunonutrizione.Strong evidences demonstrate a close interplay between the immune system and the biological development and clinical progression of solid tumors. The effect that the tumor immune microenvironment can have on the clinical behavior of the disease is referred as the immuno contexture. Nevertheless, the current clinical management of patients affected by cancer does not take into account any immunological features either for the staging or for the treatment choices. Head and Neck Cancer (HNSCC) represents the 7th most common cancer worldwide and it is characterized by a relatively poor prognosis and detrimental effect of treatments on the quality of life of patients. Beyond surgery and radiotherapy, few systemic treatments are available, mainly represented by platinum-based chemotherapy or cetuximab. Immunotherapy is a new therapeutical strategy still limited to the palliative setting (recurrent not resectable or metastatic disease). The search for new biomarkers or possible new targetable mechanisms is meaningful especially in the clinical setting of HNSCC. In this thesis a focus will be given on the study of three possible pro-tumoral immune populations studied in HNSCC: the tumor associated neutrophils (TAN), intratumoral B-cells with a immunosuppressive phenotype and the CD8+ T-regs. Biostatistical and bioinformatical techniques are applied to summarize complex information derived from multiparametric clinical and immunological variables and to validate in-situ derived findings through gene expression data of public available datasets. Lastly, the second part of the thesis will take into account relevant clinical research projects, aimed at improving the precision oncology in HNSCC developing survival prediction models, comparing alternative oncological procedures, validating new classifiers or testing the use of novel clinical protocols as the use of immunnutrition

Models and analysis of vocal emissions for biomedical applications

This book of Proceedings collects the papers presented at the 4th International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications, MAVEBA 2005, held 29-31 October 2005, Firenze, Italy. The workshop is organised every two years, and aims to stimulate contacts between specialists active in research and industrial developments, in the area of voice analysis for biomedical applications. The scope of the Workshop includes all aspects of voice modelling and analysis, ranging from fundamental research to all kinds of biomedical applications and related established and advanced technologies

A novel optogenetics-based therapy for obstructive sleep apnoea

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is characterised by repeat upper airway narrowing and/or collapse during sleep. Many patients are sub-optimally treated due to poor tolerance or incomplete response to established therapies. We propose a novel, optogenetics-based therapy, that enables light-stimulation induced upper airway dilator muscle contractions to maintain airway patency. The primary aims of this thesis were to determine feasibility in a rodent model of OSA, and identify effective optogenetic constructs for activating upper airway muscles. Chapters 2 and 3 outline the development of a novel construct for the expression of light-sensitive proteins (opsins) in upper airway muscles, comparing two promotors and two recombinant adeno-associated virus capsids (rAAV) for optogenetic gene transfer. Results show that a muscle-specific promotor (tMCK) was superior to a non-specific promotor (CAG). With tMCK, opsin expression in the tongue was 470% greater (p=0.013, RM-ANOVA), brainstem expression was abolished, and light stimulation facilitated a 66% increase in muscle activity from that recorded during unstimulated breaths in an acute model of OSA (p<0.001, linear mixed model) (Chapter 2). Moreover, a novel, highly myotropic rAAV serotype, AAVMYO, was superior to a wild-type serotype, AAV9. The AAVMYO serotype driven by tMCK facilitated a further increase in muscle activity with light stimulation to 194% of that recorded during unstimulated breaths (p<0.001, linear mixed model) (Chapter 3). Finally, ultrasound imaging confirmed that the optimised construct was able to generate effective light-induced muscle contractions and airway dilation (Chapter 4). A secondary aim was to advance preclinical trials for the proposed therapy. To this end, a surgical protocol for chronic implantation of light delivery hardware and recording electrodes in rodents was developed (Chapter 5). The final protocol will allow us to determine the effects of acute and chronic light stimulation on opsin-expressing upper airway muscles during natural sleep. In summary, Chapters 2 to 4 provide proof-of-concept for a non-invasive optogenetics-based OSA therapy. The combination of a muscle-specific promotor and a muscle-specific viral vector presents a novel and highly effective method of inducing light sensitivity into skeletal muscle and facilitating light-evoked airway dilation. Finally, Chapter 5 commences the development of a surgical protocol that will aid ongoing preclinical trials