Advancements and Breakthroughs in Ultrasound Imaging

Ultrasonic imaging is a powerful diagnostic tool available to medical practitioners, engineers and researchers today. Due to the relative safety, and the non-invasive nature, ultrasonic imaging has become one of the most rapidly advancing technologies. These rapid advances are directly related to the parallel advancements in electronics, computing, and transducer technology together with sophisticated signal processing techniques. This book focuses on state of the art developments in ultrasonic imaging applications and underlying technologies presented by leading practitioners and researchers from many parts of the world

Optical Fiber Interferometric Sensors

The contributions presented in this book series portray the advances of the research in the field of interferometric photonic technology and its novel applications. The wide scope explored by the range of different contributions intends to provide a synopsis of the current research trends and the state of the art in this field, covering recent technological improvements, new production methodologies and emerging applications, for researchers coming from different fields of science and industry. The manuscripts published in the Special issue, and re-printed in this book series, report on topics that range from interferometric sensors for thickness and dynamic displacement measurement, up to pulse wave and spirometry applications

Optical Methods in Sensing and Imaging for Medical and Biological Applications

The recent advances in optical sources and detectors have opened up new opportunities for sensing and imaging techniques which can be successfully used in biomedical and healthcare applications. This book, entitled ‘Optical Methods in Sensing and Imaging for Medical and Biological Applications’, focuses on various aspects of the research and development related to these areas. The book will be a valuable source of information presenting the recent advances in optical methods and novel techniques, as well as their applications in the fields of biomedicine and healthcare, to anyone interested in this subject

Measuring blood flow and pro-inflammatory changes in the rabbit aorta

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease that develops as a consequence of progressive entrapment of low density lipoprotein, fibrous proteins and inflammatory cells in the arterial intima. Once triggered, a myriad of inflammatory and atherogenic factors mediate disease progression. However, the role of pro-inflammatory activity in the initiation of atherogenesis and its relation to altered mechanical stresses acting on the arterial wall is unclear. Estimation of wall shear stress (WSS) and the inflammatory mediator NF-κB is consequently useful. In this thesis novel ultrasound tools for accurate measurement of spatiotemporally varying 2D and 3D blood flow, with and without the use of contrast agents, have been developed. This allowed for the first time accurate, broad-view quantification of WSS around branches of the rabbit abdominal aorta. A thorough review of the evidence for a relationship between flow, NF-κB and disease was performed which highlighted discrepancies in the current literature and was used to guide the study design. Subsequently, methods for the measurement and colocalization of the spatial distribution of NF-κB, arterial permeability and nuclear morphology in the aorta of New Zealand White rabbits were developed. It was demonstrated that endothelial pro-inflammatory changes are spatially correlated with patterns of WSS, nuclear morphology and arterial permeability in vivo in the rabbit descending and abdominal aorta. The data are consistent with a causal chain between WSS, macromolecule uptake, inflammation and disease, and with the hypothesis that lipids are deposited first, through flow-mediated naturally occurring transmigration that, in excessive amounts, leads to subsequent inflammation and disease.Open Acces

Advances in Sensors and Sensing for Technical Condition Assessment and NDT

The adequate assessment of key apparatus conditions is a hot topic in all branches of industry. Various online and offline diagnostic methods are widely applied to provide early detections of any abnormality in exploitation. Furthermore, different sensors may also be applied to capture selected physical quantities that may be used to indicate the type of potential fault. The essential steps of the signal analysis regarding the technical condition assessment process may be listed as: signal measurement (using relevant sensors), processing, modelling, and classification. In the Special Issue entitled “Advances in Sensors and Sensing for Technical Condition Assessment and NDT”, we present the latest research in various areas of technology

Imaging Sensors and Applications

In past decades, various sensor technologies have been used in all areas of our lives, thus improving our quality of life. In particular, imaging sensors have been widely applied in the development of various imaging approaches such as optical imaging, ultrasound imaging, X-ray imaging, and nuclear imaging, and contributed to achieve high sensitivity, miniaturization, and real-time imaging. These advanced image sensing technologies play an important role not only in the medical field but also in the industrial field. This Special Issue covers broad topics on imaging sensors and applications. The scope range of imaging sensors can be extended to novel imaging sensors and diverse imaging systems, including hardware and software advancements. Additionally, biomedical and nondestructive sensing applications are welcome

Electrophysiology

The outstanding evolution of recording techniques paved the way for better understanding of electrophysiological phenomena within the human organs, including the cardiovascular, ophthalmologic and neural systems. In the field of cardiac electrophysiology, the development of more and more sophisticated recording and mapping techniques made it possible to elucidate the mechanism of various cardiac arrhythmias. This has even led to the evolution of techniques to ablate and cure most complex cardiac arrhythmias. Nevertheless, there is still a long way ahead and this book can be considered a valuable addition to the current knowledge in subjects related to bioelectricity from plants to the human heart

Point-of-Care Detection Devices for Healthcare

With recent technological advances in multiple research fields such as materials science, micro-/nano-technology, cellular and molecular biology, bioengineering and the environment, much attention is shifting toward the development of new detection tools that not only address needs for high sensitivity and specificity but fulfil economic, environmental, and rapid point-of-care needs for groups and individuals with constrained resources and, possibly, limited training. Miniaturized fluidics-based platforms that precisely manipulate tiny body fluid volumes can be used for medical, healthcare or even environmental (e.g., heavy metal detection) diagnosis in a rapid and accurate manner. These new detection technologies are potentially applicable to different healthcare or environmental issues, since they are disposable, inexpensive, portable, and easy to use for the detection of human diseases or environmental issues—especially when they are manufactured based on low-cost materials, such as paper. The topics in this book (original and review articles) would cover point-of-care detection devices, microfluidic or paper-based detection devices, new materials for making detection devices, and others