12 research outputs found
Remote Monitoring of Internal Bleeding Based on Magnetic Induction and Cellular Phone Technology: A Potential Application in Poor Regions in MĂ©xico
Abstract. The goal of this study is to introduce the
theoretical foundation of a new concept in medical
technology that is centered on the cellular phone. The
concept was conceived with the needs of medically
underserved regions of Mexico in mind. The application
introduced here deals with undetected intraperitoneal
bleeding that is responsible for the death of one of four
women who die at childbirths and that of 20% of accident
trauma deaths; even brain trauma. The concept is made
possible by the wide availability of cellular phone
technology in Mexico, even in the poorest of regions,
where other infrastructure is missing. The biophysical
principles of the technology are based on the observation
that electromagnetic properties of tissue change with
disease and internal bleeding. We introduce a new
paradigm of medical diagnostic in which inexpensive
electromagnetic coils at the patient site are used to take
bulk data from a magnetic field that is generated through
the tissue or organ of interest. Instead of processing the
data with a computer at the remote site the raw data is
send via a cellular phone to a central facility that processes
the raw data for the entire country or region. The
diagnostic is returned in real time to the cellular phone at
the patient site, thereby substantially reducing the cost of
the devices and with good quality of the diagnostics.
Components and functionality required to support the
remote monitoring concept by magnetic fields and cell
phone technology are presented. The study includes
criteria for data processing at the remote site and gives a
linear optimal solution to the problem. More advanced
data processing methods and calibration of the system will
be developed in future. While designed with the needs of
Mexico in mind, this concept could become valuable
worldwide
Data from: Calling louder and longer: how bats use biosonar under severe acoustic interference from other bats
Active-sensing systems such as echolocation provide animals with distinct advantages in dark environments. For social animals, however, like many bat species, active sensing can present problems as well: when many individuals emit bio-sonar calls simultaneously, detecting and recognizing the faint echoes generated by one's own calls amid the general cacophony of the group becomes challenging. This problem is often termed âjammingâ and bats have been hypothesized to solve it by shifting the spectral content of their calls to decrease the overlap with the jamming signals. We tested batsâ response in situations of extreme interference, mimicking a high density of bats. We played-back bat echolocation calls from multiple speakers, to jam flying Pipistrellus kuhlii bats, simulating a naturally occurring situation of many bats flying in proximity. We examined behavioural and echolocation parameters during search phase and target approach. Under severe interference, bats emitted calls of higher intensity and longer duration, and called more often. Slight spectral shifts were observed but they did not decrease the spectral overlap with jamming signals. We also found that pre-existing inter-individual spectral differences could allow self-call recognition. Results suggest that the batsâ response aimed to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and not to avoid spectral overlap
A Real-Time Kinect Signature-Based Patient Home Monitoring System
Assessment of body kinematics during performance of daily life activities at home plays a significant role in medical condition monitoring of elderly people and patients with neurological disorders. The affordable and non-wearable Microsoft Kinect (âKinectâ) system has been recently used to estimate human subject kinematic features. However, the Kinect suffers from a limited range and angular coverage, distortion in skeleton jointsâ estimations, and erroneous multiplexing of different subjectsâ estimations to one. This study addresses these limitations by incorporating a set of features that create a unique âKinect Signatureâ. The Kinect Signature enables identification of different subjects in the scene, automatically assign the kinematics feature estimations only to the subject of interest, and provide information about the quality of the Kinect-based estimations. The methods were verified by a set of experiments, which utilize real-time scenarios commonly used to assess motor functions in elderly subjects and in subjects with neurological disorders. The experiment results indicate that the skeleton based Kinect Signature features can be used to identify different subjects in high accuracy. We demonstrate how these capabilities can be used to assign the Kinect estimations to the Subject of Interest, and exclude low quality tracking features. The results of this work can help in establishing reliable kinematic features, which can assist in future to obtain objective scores for medical analysis of patient condition at home while not restricted to perform daily life activities
Human Body Parts Tracking and Kinematic Features Assessment Based on RSSI and Inertial Sensor Measurements
Acquisition of patient kinematics in different environments plays an important role in the detection of risk situations such as fall detection in elderly patients, in rehabilitation of patients with injuries, and in the design of treatment plans for patients with neurological diseases. Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurements in a Body Area Network (BAN), capture the signal power on a radio link. The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of utilizing RSSI measurements in assessment of human kinematic features, and to give methods to determine these features. RSSI measurements can be used for tracking different body partsâ displacements on scales of a few centimeters, for classifying motion and gait patterns instead of inertial sensors, and to serve as an additional reference to other sensors, in particular inertial sensors. Criteria and analytical methods for body part tracking, kinematic motion feature extraction, and a Kalman filter model for aggregation of RSSI and inertial sensor were derived. The methods were verified by a set of experiments performed in an indoor environment. In the future, the use of RSSI measurements can help in continuous assessment of various kinematic features of patients during their daily life activities and enhance medical diagnosis accuracy with lower costs
An Engineered Nanocomplex with Photodynamic and Photothermal Synergistic Properties for Cancer Treatment
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) are promising therapeutic methods for cancer treatment; however, as single modality therapies, either PDT or PTT is still limited in its success rate. A dual application of both PDT and PTT, in a combined protocol, has gained immense interest. In this study, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were conjugated with a PDT agent, meso-tetrahydroxyphenylchlorin (mTHPC) photosensitizer, designed as nanotherapeutic agents that can activate a dual photodynamic/photothermal therapy in SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells. The AuNP-mTHPC complex is biocompatible, soluble, and photostable. PDT efficiency is high because of immediate reactive oxygen species (ROS) production upon mTHPC activation by the 650-nm laser, which decreased mitochondrial membrane potential (∆ψm). Likewise, the AuNP-mTHPC complex is used as a photoabsorbing (PTA) agent for PTT, due to efficient plasmon absorption and excellent photothermal conversion characteristics of AuNPs under laser irradiation at 532 nm. Under the laser irradiation of a PDT/PTT combination, a twofold phototoxicity outcome follows, compared to PDT-only or PTT-only treatment. This indicates that PDT and PTT have synergistic effects together as a combined therapeutic method. Our study aimed at applying the AuNP-mTHPC approach as a potential treatment of cancer in the biomedical field