New insight in biomedical measurements

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Ethanol breath measuring system

Driving after drinking is considered extremely dangerous and severe limits to alcohol drink before driving are enforced in several countries. This paper describes a simple and cheap device which is capable of estimating the blood ethanol level from the expired breath. The device employs a 3 mm×6 mm gas sensor based on Nb 2 O 5 thin-film which features good sensing performance towards ethanol. A suitable electronic circuit is employed in order to measure the conductivity of the gas sensor and to control its working temperature. The circuit is based on a small microcontroller board (Teensy 3.2) and some additional analog circuitry. Similar devices are already available off-theshelf, however, most of them do not guarantee an accuracy suitable for a quantitative measurement of breath ethanol. The proposed system, instead, has been developed trying to optimize accuracy, power consumption and size. Furthermore, such a system employs a novel gas sensor based on a Nb 2 O 5 sensing film, which has not yet been employed in such a field. The system allows one to set the working temperature of the sensor at its optimal value (350 °C) and to simultaneously measure the sensor resistance in the range between 10 MΩ and approximately 1 GΩ. The quite low power consumption together with the very small size of the system make it very suitable for portable applications such as alcohol drive tests which can warn drivers before starting driving

Calcium oxide, potassium phosphite and a Trichoderma enriched compost water suspension protect Capsicum annuum against Phytophthora capsici by priming the immune system

BACKGROUND: Proper management of Phytophthora capsici in pepper cultivation is extremely important, since Phytophthora blight is the main disease of this crop worldwide. In the past, the main strategy adopted had been the use of fungicides, causing, in some cases, the development of P. capsici resistant strains. In this work three different treatments selected from previous studies (potassium phosphite, calcium oxide and a water suspension from Trichoderma sp. TW2 enriched compost) were tested to prove their ability to activate the systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in pepper against P. capsici; acibenzolar‐s‐methyl was used as positive control. Two independent growth chamber pot experiments were performed, spatially dividing the site of treatments application (as radical drench) and the site of inoculation (as agar plug on the third leaf). RESULTS: Leaf lesions were measured, showing a significant reduction on all treated plants compared to the untreated control. To further confirm this hypothesis, the expression levels of three SAR key genes (CaPBR1, CaPO1 and CaDEF1) were evaluated though RT‐Real Time PCR at the three end‐point times: T0, T6 and T24. A significant increase of target genes expression at least in one end‐point time in each treated plant was observed. Eventually, statistical overaccumulation of salicylic acid was observed in the upper leaves at the same end‐point times, through HPLC‐MS/MS analysis. CONCLUSION: This work confirmed the hypothesis that the three treatments tested have the ability to prime the plant immune system, leading pepper to an alert status able to confer a better defence against P. capsici. © 2021 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry

Effect of Cold Rolling on Microstructural and Mechanical Properties of a Dual-Phase Steel for Automotive Field

A new advanced dual-phase (DP) steel characterized by ferrite and bainite presence in equal fractions has been studied within this paper. The anisotropy change of this steel was assessed as a progressively more severe cold rolling process was introduced. Specifically, tensile tests were used to build a strain-hardening curve, which describes the evolution of this DP steel's mechanical properties as the thinning level increases from 20 to 70% with 10% step increments. As expected, the cold rolling process increases mechanical properties, profoundly altering the material's microstructure, which was assessed in depth using Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) analysis coupled with the Kernel Average Misorientation (KAM) maps. At the same time, the process strongly modifies the material planar anisotropy. Microstructural and mechanical assessment and the Kocks-Mecking model applied to this steel evidenced that a 50% strain hardening makes the DP steel isotropic. The material retains or resumes anisotropic behavior for a lower or higher degree of deformation. Furthermore, the paper evaluated the forming limit of this DP steel and introduced geometric limitations to testing the thin steel plates' mechanical properties

Employment of Nb2O5 thin-films for ethanol sensing

Gas sensors attract the attention of research since years because of their good performance and the extremely wide field of application. Environmental monitoring, chemical and industrial processes, automotive, medical diagnosis and healthcare are few of such applications. Chemical gas sensors are able to detect specific gases in a wide range of concentration going from few ppb to hundreds ppm. This paper deals with such a topic and presents a novel gas sensor for ethanol based on a Nb 2 O 5 thin sensing film. The sensor was realized by depositing the niobium oxide layer on a tiny alumina substrate by means of a lab-scale plasma sputtering reactor. Subsequently, the sensor was characterized and it revealed good sensing performance towards ethanol. Ethanol monitoring finds application in several fields including breath analyzers for assessing drunk-driving situations, industrial monitoring, medical diagnosis and environmental safety. The proposed sensor, thanks to its good sensitivity, selectivity, wide concentration range, low-cost and low power consumption, can be a suitable solution in such applications

An inertial-based system for golf assessment

This paper describes a sensor which is designed to help golf players to increase their capabilities by tuning their movements. The proposed solution is characterized by having the sensing unit to be attached to the golf club near to its head so that the sensor placement is easy and the sensor can be moved when the club is changed by the player. The sensor is able to communicate with either a smart-phone or a PC by using the bluetooth LE protocol so that there is no reason to remove the sensor from the club during its use. A GPS unit is used to track the club position so that it is also possible to recreate a golf session including the stroke positions to review the procedure. The system is arranged by using all commercial off-the-shelf components embedded into a 3D printed case. The overall cost is of less than 100$ making it an easy and simple tool for assessing and improving the player skills

Review of Aluminum-To-Steel Welding Technologies for Car-Body Applications

Hybrid car bodies fabricated by joining parts made with steel and aluminum alloys are becoming increasingly common. This provides an affordable mean to decrease the car weight by using lighter or more advanced materials only where they can achieve the maximum benefit. This development is driven mainly by recent regulations on carbon dioxide emissions, and hinges on the deployment of effective joining technologies. In most cases, such technologies were not previously used in the car sector, and must be adapted to its requirements. Several dissimilar welding technologies, based on either fusion welding or solid-state welding, are reviewed here, focusing on dissimilar joining among steels and wrought aluminum alloys. These technologies are either presently being introduced in the car industry, or are used in other sectors and could be applied in the car industry in the near future

Electrochemical measurements to predict the antifungal properties of nanostructured thin films

Fungi and bacterial infections are an important problem in modern medicine and in hospitals. Even though specific drugs are available to treat these infections, a preventive solution to avoid the proliferation of such bacteria would be extremely interesting in many biotechnological applications. Silver and copper metals have antifungal and bacteriostatic properties, however a real challenge will be to obtain a continuous release of metal species in a controlled way. In this work metal/polymer nanocomposite coatings were deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering; Cu nanoparticles were incorporated in a SiOx thin film to obtain a large effective surface for metal ion release. The nanocomposite coatings were characterised by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy and ion release measurements were performed to assess their bioactive behaviour against fungi. Specific tests have been performed by using both a direct measurement of the released ions amount and by means of an electrochemical impedance measurement. Both tests confirmed the possibility of obtaining such a release for more then ten days by using extremely thin coatings of the order of 100 nm, which could easily be added to any implant

Calcium oxide, potassium phosphite and a Trichoderma

BACKGROUND: Proper management of Phytophthora capsici in pepper cultivation is extremely important, since Phytophthora blight is the main disease of this crop worldwide. In the past, the main strategy adopted had been the use of fungicides, causing, in some cases, the development of P. capsici resistant strains. In this work three different treatments selected from previous studies (potassium phosphite, calcium oxide and a water suspension from Trichoderma sp. TW2 enriched compost) were tested to prove their ability to activate the systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in pepper against P. capsici; acibenzolar‐s‐methyl was used as positive control. Two independent growth chamber pot experiments were performed, spatially dividing the site of treatments application (as radical drench) and the site of inoculation (as agar plug on the third leaf). RESULTS: Leaf lesions were measured, showing a significant reduction on all treated plants compared to the untreated control. To further confirm this hypothesis, the expression levels of three SAR key genes (CaPBR1, CaPO1 and CaDEF1) were evaluated though RT‐Real Time PCR at the three end‐point times: T0, T6 and T24. A significant increase of target genes expression at least in one end‐point time in each treated plant was observed. Eventually, statistical overaccumulation of salicylic acid was observed in the upper leaves at the same end‐point times, through HPLC‐MS/MS analysis. CONCLUSION: This work confirmed the hypothesis that the three treatments tested have the ability to prime the plant immune system, leading pepper to an alert status able to confer a better defence against P. capsici. © 2021 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry

Caratterizzazione delle proprietà di sensing di film nanostrutturati di Nb2O5 realizzati mediante magnetron sputtering

La memoria descrive il lavoro di ricerca condotto nell'ambito dello sviluppo di sensori di acetone per applicazioni biomedicali nel campo della breath analysis. Diversi prototipi di sensori sono stati realizzati depositando film sottili di Nb2O5 su piccoli substrati di allumina. I sensori sono stati caratterizzati ed hanno dimostrato ottime prestazioni per il rilevamento di acetone nell'espirato umano