NFC Sensors Based on Energy Harvesting for IoT Applications

The availability of low-cost near-field communication (NFC) devices, the incorporation of NFC readers into most current mobile phones, and the inclusion of energy-harvesting (EH) capabilities in NFC chips make NFC a key technology for the development of green Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In this chapter, an overview of recent advances in the field of battery-less NFC sensors at 13.56 MHz is provided, and a comparison to other short-range RFID technologies is given. After reviewing power transfer in NFC, recommendations for the practical design of NFC-based sensor tags and NFC readers are made. A list of commercial NFC integrated circuits with energy-harvesting capabilities is also provided. A survey of recent battery-less NFC sensors developed by the group including soil moisture, water content, pH, color, and implanted NFC sensors is done

Pathogenic Huntingtin Repeat Expansions in Patients with Frontotemporal Dementia and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

We examined the role of repeat expansions in the pathogenesis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by analyzing whole-genome sequence data from 2,442 FTD/ALS patients, 2,599 Lewy body dementia (LBD) patients, and 3,158 neurologically healthy subjects. Pathogenic expansions (range, 40-64 CAG repeats) in the huntingtin (HTT) gene were found in three (0.12%) patients diagnosed with pure FTD/ALS syndromes but were not present in the LBD or healthy cohorts. We replicated our findings in an independent collection of 3,674 FTD/ALS patients. Postmortem evaluations of two patients revealed the classical TDP-43 pathology of FTD/ALS, as well as huntingtin-positive, ubiquitin-positive aggregates in the frontal cortex. The neostriatal atrophy that pathologically defines Huntington's disease was absent in both cases. Our findings reveal an etiological relationship between HTT repeat expansions and FTD/ALS syndromes and indicate that genetic screening of FTD/ALS patients for HTT repeat expansions should be considered

Color Measurement and Analysis of Fruit with a Battery-Less NFC Sensor

This paper presents a color-based classification system for grading the ripeness of fruit using a battery-less Near Field Communication (NFC) tag. The tag consists of a color sensor connected to a low-power microcontroller that is connected to an NFC chip. The tag is powered by the energy harvested from the magnetic field generated by a commercial smartphone used as a reader. The raw RGB color data measured by the colorimeter is converted to HSV (hue, saturation, value) color space. The hue angle and saturation are used as features for classification. Different classification algorithms are compared for classifying the ripeness of different fruits in order to show the robustness of the system. The low cost of NFC chips means that tags with sensing capability can be manufactured economically. In addition, nowadays, most commercial smartphones have NFC capability and thus a specific reader is not necessary. The measurement of different samples obtained on different days is used to train the classification algorithms. The results of training the classifiers have been saved to the cloud. A mobile application has been developed for the prediction based on a table-based method, where the boundary decision is downloaded from a cloud service for each product. High accuracy, between 80 and 93%, is obtained depending on the kind of fruit and the algorithm used

Expression of Pleurotus eryngii versatile peroxidase in Escherichia coli and optimisation of in vitro folding

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Usefulness of peripapillary nerve fiber layer thickness assessed by optical coherence tomography as a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract The use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been suggested as a potential biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease based on previously reported thinning of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) in Alzheimer’s disease’s (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). However, other studies have not shown such results. 930 individuals (414 cognitively healthy individuals, 192 probable amnestic MCI and 324 probable AD) attending a memory clinic were consecutively included and underwent spectral domain OCT (Maestro, Topcon) examinations to assess differences in peripapillary RNFL thickness, using a design of high ecological validity. Adjustment by age, education, sex and OCT image quality was performed. We found a non-significant decrease in mean RNFL thickness as follows: control group: 100,20 ± 14,60 µm, MCI group: 98,54 ± 14,43 µm and AD group: 96,61 ± 15,27 µm. The multivariate adjusted analysis revealed no significant differences in mean overall (p = 0.352), temporal (p = 0,119), nasal (p = 0,151), superior (p = 0,435) or inferior (p = 0,825) quadrants between AD, MCI and control groups. These results do not support the usefulness of peripapillary RNFL analysis as a marker of cognitive impairment or in discriminating between cognitive groups. The analysis of other OCT measurements in other retinal areas and layers as biomarkers for AD should be tested further