Association of serum uric acid with proteinuria in type 2 diabetic patients

Background: Various findings suggest that uric acid is an inflammatory factor and may have a role in endothelial dysfunction and act as a mediator of diabetic nephropathy. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationships between serum uric acid level and level of proteinuria in type 2 diabetic (T2D) patients. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted in 60 patients with T2D without a history of gout. None was treated with allopurinol. Venous blood samples were obtained in fasting state for determinations of serum creatinine, uric acid, and hemoglobin A(1c) (HbA(1c)) (reference range 3.8-5.5%); 24-h urine proteinuria was also measured. Results: Mean age of the patients was 57 +/- 8.3 years. Mean +/- standard error (SE) of serum creatinine was 0.98 +/- 0.028 mg/dL, mean +/- SE of serum uric acid was 4.5 +/- 0.15 mg/dL, and mean +/- SE of proteinuria was 388 +/- 28.7 mg/day (median = 303.5 mg/day). There was no significant difference in serum uric acid, HbA(1c), and creatinine level between males and females (P > 0.05). There was a significant positive association between body mass index (BMI) and serum uric acid levels (r = 0.428, P = 0.001). After adjustment for weight, a significant positive association of serum uric acid with level of proteinuria was seen (r = 0.47, P < 0.001). Conclusion: Serum uric acid had a significant positive association with diabetic nephropathy. It might be hypothesized that serum uric acid plays a role in diabetic nephropathy in T2D

Angular displacement and velocity sensors based on coplanar waveguides (CPWs) loaded with S-shaped split ring resonators (S-SRR)

In this paper, angular displacement and angular velocity sensors based on coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission lines and S-shaped split ring resonators (S-SRRs) are presented. The sensor consists of two parts, namely a CPW and an S-SRR, both lying on parallel planes. By this means, line-to-resonator magnetic coupling arises, the coupling level being dependent on the line-to-resonator relative angular orientation. The line-to-resonator coupling level is the key parameter responsible for modulating the amplitude of the frequency response seen between the CPW ports in the vicinity of the S-SRR fundamental resonance frequency. Specifically, an amplitude notch that can be visualized in the transmission coefficient is changed by the coupling strength, and it is characterized as the sensing variable. Thus, the relative angular orientation between the two parts is measured, when the S-SRR is attached to a rotating object. It follows that the rotation angle and speed can be inferred either by measuring the frequency response of the S-SRR-loaded line, or the response amplitude at a fixed frequency in the vicinity of resonance. It is in addition shown that the angular velocity can be accurately determined from the time-domain response of a carrier time-harmonic signal tuned at the S-SRR resonance frequency. The main advantage of the proposed device is its small size directly related to the small electrical size of the S-SRR, which allows for the design of compact angular displacement and velocity sensors at low frequencies. Despite the small size of the fabricated proof-of-concept prototype (electrically small structures do not usually reject signals efficiently), it exhibits good linearity (on a logarithmic scale), sensitivity and dynamic range.Jordi Naqui, Jan Coromina, Ali Karami-Horestani, Christophe Fumeaux and Ferran Martí

New structure for adder with improved speed, area and power

Adders are the main parts of processing circuits and play an important role in all mathematical operations like subtraction, multiplication, division, etc. Carry Look ahead Adder (CLA) is one of the fastest adder structures that is widely used in the processing circuits. In this article a new structure for adder is proposed. The results show that compared to the previous common Modified Carry Look ahead Adder (MCLA) structure, the proposed structure has very smaller on-chip area and delay and also it has lower power consumption. Using the proposed structure a 64-bit adder is designed and results are presented. The circuit is designed in TSMC 0.18μm CMOS technology with 1.8v power supply and simulated with HSPICE.Fatemeh Karami H. and Ali K. Horestan

Rotation Sensor Based on Horn-Shaped Split Ring Resonator

This paper presents a rotation sensor based on a modified split ring resonator (SRR) coupled to a coplanar waveguide. It is shown that compared with previous SRR-based rotation sensors, the proposed sensor benefits from a higher dynamic range and superior linearity. It is shown that the geometry of the SRR can be optimized to compensate for the non-uniformity of the magnetic flux through the SRR, in order to suppress the unwanted frequency shift in the resonance. This is a significant improvement because the sensor can be operated as an inexpensive single frequency system. The concept and simulation results are validated by experimental measurements.Ali Karami Horestani, Derek Abbott, Christophe Fumeau

Metamaterial-inspired displacement sensor with high dynamic range

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics, META 2013, United Arab Emirates, 18 Mar - 22 Mar 201: pp.274-276http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/conferencedetails/index.html?Conf_ID=3070

Designing of high-Q slow-wave coplanar strips for CMOS MMICs

In contrast to conventional coplanar transmission lines, slow-wave coplanar transmission lines offer higher quality factor and smaller on-chip area. Among coplanar transmission lines, coplanar strips have the advantage of higher level of integration and a balanced structure that has favourable features for integrated voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) and low noise and power amplifiers. In this article, the affect of geometrical dimensions of slow-wave coplanar strips on the quality factor, characteristic impedance, and on-chip wavelength are investigated. Based on the presented guidelines mm-wave slow-wave coplanar strips operating at 60 GHz in a standard CMOS process were optimised for a 50 Ω characteristic impedance with a 250% improvement in quality factor of 31.Ali Karami Horestani, Said Al-Sarawi, and Derek Abbot

A multi-layered tunable stepped-impedance resonator for liquid crystal characterization

The characterization of a tunable band-pass filter based on stepped-impedance resonator (SIR) is presented in this work. The designed filter uses a half-wavelength resonator patch above a multi-layer substrate, with liquid crystal as its central layer, making it continuously tunable at frequencies around S-band. Two liquid crystal samples are considered for three different approaches: lumped-element circuit simulation, full-wave electromagnetic simulations and prototype measurements. The results demonstrate the possibility of using a simple lumped-element circuit simulation for rapid calculation of the performances of liquid crystal devices at microwave frequencies.Pouria Yaghmaee, Ali K. Horestani, Bevan Bates and Christophe Fumeau

Displacement sensor based on diamond-shaped tapered split ring resonator

Split-ring resonators (SRRs) are ideal structures for the realization of compact high-sensitivity and high-resolution sensors due to their high-quality factor resonance, compact size, and high sensitivity to changes in the constituent materials and physical dimensions. This paper presents a displacement sensor based on a diamond-shaped tapered SRR coupled to a coplanar waveguide. Two significant improvements over previous designs are reported. Firstly, the proposed sensor has higher dynamic range and linearity for displacement sensing. Secondly, compared with previous designs, where the displacement changes both the resonant frequency and depth of the transmission notch, the proposed sensor has a fixed resonant frequency. This is an important improvement since the sensor can be operated at a single fixed frequency and bypass the need for a frequency-sweeping microwave source and measurement system such as an expensive network analyzer. It is shown that, while preserving the compact size, the proposed sensor also benefits from a lower operating frequency. The design principle and simulation results are validated through measurement.Ali Karami Horestani, Christophe Fumeaux, Said F. Al-Sarawi, and Derek Abbot

An efficient 60 GHz resonator using harmony search

In this paper we utilize the newly devised Harmony Search (HS) method to optimize the geometrical profile of a slow-wave tapered coplanar strips (CPS) resonator within a 90nm standard CMOS process for 60 GHz applications. Our results show the merit of harmony search in finding an improved Q-factor of 28.4 which is an improvement of around 90% in comparison with the conventional tapered CPS resonators. Our structure is estimated to be significantly more efficient than the conventional uniform CPS resonator by 220% in Q-factor.Arash Mehdizadeh, Ali K. Horestani, Said F. Al-Sarawi and Derek Abbot

Split ring resonators with tapered strip width for wider bandwidth and enhanced resonance

This article presents a modified edge-coupled split ring resonator (SRR). The proposed SRR is composed of two concentric metallic rings with a nonuniform strip width, which is tapered based on the current and voltage profile in the SRR structure. In contrast to other SRR miniaturization methods, which are based on increasing the equivalent capacitance of the SRR, the proposed SRR benefits from both increased capacitance and inductance to preserve the strength and bandwidth of the resonance. It is also shown that compared to a uniform SRR, a tapered SRR with the same electrical size provides a stronger resonance with 84% wider bandwidth, as desired in wideband filter design. The theory and simulation results are validated through measurement.A.K. Horestani, C. Fumeaux, S.F. Al-Sarawi and D. Abbot