The Comparison of Apotel plus Low Dose of Morphine and Full Dose of Morphine in Pain ‎Relief in Patients with Acute Renal Colic

Background: Renal colic is an acute flank pain which may radiate to the groin, lower abdomen, or external genitalia due to the passage of a urinary stones. Pain management is the most important task in emergency wards when a patient with renal colic attends. This study aims to compare intravenous acetaminophen plus a low dose of morphine with a full dose of morphine in renal colic. Methods: In present randomized clinical trial, 100 patients with confirmed renal colic were recruited from the emergency ward of Imam Reza Teaching Hospital affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran, during a one-year period. These patients randomly received either intravenous acetaminophen (Apotel, 1 g) plus a low dose of morphine (n = 50), or a high dose of morphine (5 mg) (n = 50). Visual analogue scale was used for reporting pain during 35 minutes. Side effects and rescue analgesic demand were recorded after 30 minutes. Findings: The two groups were matched for the patients' age and gender. Intra-group analysis showed significant gradual decreases in pain intensity after 35 minutes for both groups. Inter-group analysis, however, did not show a significant difference between the two groups in this regard. There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of side effects. The rate of rescue analgesic demand was 36% in the first and 40% in the second group (P = 0.68). Conclusion: According to the results study, Apotel plus a low dose of morphine is at least as effective and safe as a full dose of morphine in patients with renal colic

Wearable and Stretchable Strain Sensors: Materials, Sensing Mechanisms, and Applications

Recent advances in the design and implementation of wearable resistive, capacitive, and optical strain sensors are summarized herein. Wearable and stretchable strain sensors have received extensive research interest due to their applications in personalized healthcare, human motion detection, human–machine interfaces, soft robotics, and beyond. The disconnection of overlapped nanomaterials, reversible opening/closing of microcracks in sensing films, and alteration of the tunneling resistance have been successfully adopted to develop high-performance resistive-type sensors. On the other hand, the sensing behavior of capacitive-type and optical strain sensors is largely governed by their geometrical changes under stretching/releasing cycles. The sensor design parameters, including stretchability, sensitivity, linearity, hysteresis, and dynamic durability, are comprehensively discussed. Finally, the promising applications of wearable strain sensors are highlighted in detail. Although considerable progress has been made so far, wearable strain sensors are still in their prototype stage, and several challenges in the manufacturing of integrated and multifunctional strain sensors should be yet tackled

Optimisation-driven design of sliding mode triboelectric energy harvesters

With the increasing demand of emerging technologies for autonomous sensing, the modelling and optimisation of complete energy harvesting systems are essential to achieve efficient power output. To date, most of the optimisation efforts in enhancing the performance of triboelectric energy harvesters have been focused on the improvement of material properties and on the establishment of figures of merit to assist in the definition of parameters. However, these efforts do not consider the complex relationship between the device structure and power output, physical constraints in place, and varying excitation conditions. This paper fills that gap for the first time by applying an optimisation algorithm to establish mechanisms for optimisation-driven design of sliding-mode triboelectric energy harvesters. A global optimisation methodology is developed to improve its performance, having experimentally validated the numerical model adopted. This work highlights the need for a more robust design framework for applications of triboelectric energy harvesting and proposes a hybrid approach combining the finite element method with analytical models to consider different energy harvesting parameters including the degradation of the charge transfer efficiency due to the edge effect. A novel high-power output sliding-mode triboelectric energy harvesting concept is proposed and its performance is optimised, using the proposed methodology

Wearable, Ultrawide-Range, and Bending-Insensitive Pressure Sensor Based on Carbon Nanotube Network-Coated Porous Elastomer Sponges for Human Interface and Healthcare Devices

Flexible and wearable pressure sensors have attracted a tremendous amount of attention due to their wider applications in human interfaces and healthcare monitoring. However, achieving accurate pressure detection and stability against external stimuli (in particular, bending deformation) over a wide range of pressures from tactile to body weight levels is a great challenge. Here, we introduce an ultrawide-range, bending-insensitive, and flexible pressure sensor based on a carbon nanotube (CNT) network-coated thin porous elastomer sponge for use in human interface devices. The integration of the CNT networks into three-dimensional microporous elastomers provides high deformability and a large change in contact between the conductive CNT networks due to the presence of micropores, thereby improving the sensitivity compared with that obtained using CNT-embedded solid elastomers. As electrical pathways are continuously generated up to high compressive strain (∼80%), the pressure sensor shows an ultrawide pressure sensing range (10 Pa to 1.2 MPa) while maintaining favorable sensitivity (0.01–0.02 kPa–1) and linearity (R2 ∼ 0.98). Also, the pressure sensor exhibits excellent electromechanical stability and insensitivity to bending-induced deformations. Finally, we demonstrate that the pressure sensor can be applied in a flexible piano pad as an entertainment human interface device and a flexible foot insole as a wearable healthcare and gait monitoring device

Thin Circular Diamond Membrane with Embedded Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers for Hybrid Spin-Mechanical Quantum Systems

Coupling mechanical degrees of freedom to single well-controlled quantum systems has become subject to intense research recently. Here, we report on the design, fabrication, and characterization of a diamond architecture consisting of a high-quality thin circular diamond membrane with embedded near-surface nitrogen-vacancy centers (NVCs). To demonstrate this architecture, we employ the NVCs by means of their optical and spin interfaces as nanosensors of the motion of the membrane under static pressure and in-resonance vibration. We also monitor the static residual stress within the membrane using the same method. Driving the membrane at its fundamental resonance mode, we observe coupling of this vibrational mode to the spin of the NVCs. Our realization of this architecture can manifest the applications of diamond structures in 3D piezometry such as mechanobiology and vibrometry, as well as mechanically mediated spin-spin coupling in quantum-information science

Stretchable Dual-Capacitor Multi-Sensor for Touch-Curvature-Pressure-Strain Sensing

We introduce a new type of multi-functional capacitive sensor that can sense several different external stimuli. It is fabricated only with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films and silver nanowire electrodes by using selective oxygen plasma treatment method without photolithography and etching processes. Differently from the conventional single-capacitor multi-functional sensors, our new multifunctional sensor is composed of two vertically-stacked capacitors (dual-capacitor). The unique dual-capacitor structure can detect the type and strength of external stimuli including curvature, pressure, strain, and touch with clear distinction, and it can also detect the surface-normal directionality of curvature, pressure, and touch. Meanwhile, the conventional single-capacitor sensor has ambiguity in distinguishing curvature and pressure and it can detect only the strength of external stimulus. The type, directionality, and strength of external stimulus can be determined based on the relative capacitance changes of the two stacked capacitors. Additionally, the logical flow reflected on a tree structure with its branches reaching the direction and strength of the corresponding external stimulus unambiguously is devised. This logical flow can be readily implemented in the sensor driving circuit if the dual-capacitor sensor is commercialized actually in the future

Carbon nanotubes-ecoflex nanocomposite for strain sensing with ultra-high stretchability

We developed highly stretchable, flexible and very soft conductors based on the carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-silicone rubber (Ecoflex®) nanocomposite thin films. The resistance of the CNTs-Ecoflex nanocomposite thin film was recovered to its original value under cyclic loading/unloading for strains as large as 510%. Failure strain of the CNTs-Ecoflex nanocomposite was measured to be about ~ 1380% showing its ultra-high stretchability and robustness. As an application of our highly stretchable conductors, we utilized them as skin-mountable and wearable strain sensors for human motion detection. The strain sensors possess high linearity and low hysteresis performance. We observed overshoot behavior of the strain sensors with maximum normalized overshooting peaks 15%. Finally, motion detection of the finger and wrist joints was conducted by using CNTs-Ecoflex nanocomposite thin film strain sensors

Sensitive and stable strain sensors based on the wavy structured electrodes

Herein, we develop capacitive type strain sensors composed of the CNTs-PDMS nanocomposite thin films as electrodes and PDMS dielectric layer. The strain sensing performances of the strain sensors made of the flat and wavy structured electrodes are compared. Both types of strain sensors can measure strains up to 100%. We found that wavy structured based strain sensors possess higher sensitivity with quite stable and reliable responses due to the resistance stability and very low resistance standard deviation of the wavy structured electrodes. To illustrate the applicability of our strain sensors as flexible and wearable devices, we conducted the human motion detection by attaching the wavy structured strain sensors to the human body