Instrumented wearable belt for wireless health monitoring

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A Preliminary Study on Flexible Temperature Sensors for Eskin Medical Devices

In the latest years, the need of a renewed paradigm for healthcare arose promoting the research towards the idea of remote diagnosis, care and monitoring of physiological parameters. Thus, the wearable and eskin devices arose to be embedded in the standard medical equipment. In this work, a preliminary study on flexible AJP-printed temperature sensors is reported in order to propose a novel approach to evaluate infection sites, monitor the body temperature and compensate the effects of temperature on other on-body sensors. Two different geometries are proposed, designed, produced, evaluated and compared. The results shown a similar dependance on temperature (average TCR = 2.5 ∙ 10 -3 °C-1) and the dependance on substrate deformation was enquired as well as the geometrical features of the sensors

Validation of a modular and wearable system for tracking fingers movements

Supervising manual operations performed by workers in industrial environments is crucial in a smart factory. Indeed, the production of products with superior quality at higher throughput rates and reduced costs with the support of Industry 4.0-enabling technologies is based on the strict control of all resources inside the factory, including workers. This paper shows a protocol for validating a new wearable system for tracking finger movements. The wearable system consists of two measuring modules worn on the thumb and index finger that measure flexion and extension of the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint by a stretch sensor and rotation of the proximal phalanx (PP) by an inertial measurement unit. A marker-based opto-electronic system is used to validate the proposed device by capturing specific finger movements. Four movements that simulate typical tasks and gestures, such as grasp and pinch, were specifically performed. The maximum root-mean-square error is 3.7 deg for the roll angle of PP. The resistance changes of the stretch sensors with respect to flexion and extension of the PIP joint is 0.47 Ω/deg. The results are useful for data interpretation when the system is adopted to monitor finger movements and gestures

Smart Brace for Static and Dynamic Knee Laxity Measurement

Every year in Europe more than 500 thousand injuries that involve the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) are diagnosed. The ACL is one of the main restraints within the human knee, focused on stabilizing the joint and controlling the relative movement between the tibia and femur under mechanical stress (i.e., laxity). Ligament laxity measurement is clinically valuable for diagnosing ACL injury and comparing possible outcomes of surgical procedures. In general, knee laxity assessment is manually performed and provides information to clinicians which is mainly subjective. Only recently quantitative assessment of knee laxity through instrumental approaches has been introduced and become a fundamental asset in clinical practice. However, the current solutions provide only partial information about either static or dynamic laxity. To support a multiparametric approach using a single device, an innovative smart knee brace for knee laxity evaluation was developed. Equipped with stretchable strain sensors and inertial measurement units (IMUs), the wearable system was designed to provide quantitative information concerning the drawer, Lachman, and pivot shift tests. We specifically characterized IMUs by using a reference sensor. Applying the Bland–Altman method, the limit of agreement was found to be less than 0.06 m/s2 for the accelerometer, 0.06 rad/s for the gyroscope and 0.08 μT for the magnetometer. By using an appropriate characterizing setup, the average gauge factor of the three strain sensors was 2.169. Finally, we realized a pilot study to compare the outcomes with a marker-based optoelectronic stereophotogrammetric system to verify the validity of the designed system. The preliminary findings for the capability of the system to discriminate possible ACL lesions are encouraging; in fact, the smart brace could be an effective support for an objective and quantitative diagnosis of ACL tear by supporting the simultaneous assessment of both rotational and translational laxity. To obtain reliable information about the real effectiveness of the system, further clinical validation is necessary

preliminary study of inkjet printed sensors for monitoring cell cultures

Abstract An extremely promising methodology able to obtain feedbacks from cell cultures is represented by the direct integration within culture substrates of specific sensitive elements capable to provide information related to cell adhesion, migration, differentiation and growth. At present, the most common materials used in the implementation of sensors monitoring 2D cell culture are noble metals. However, printed electronics allow instead an innovative approach, from both sensor realization technique and utilization of sensitive materials. This project aims to develop and test 2D ink-jet printed sensors, focusing on biocompatible substrates and conductive inks. Both biocompatibility and printability of two different sensor designs were evaluated, followed by electronic measurements that estimate fibroblast adhesion. Preliminary findings show a good biocompatibility of the Kapton® substrate coupled with PEDOT:PSS ink. This solution allowed us to correlate cell adhesion with an increase of impedance module, in agreement with the optical observation. On-going works rely on the evaluation of different materials used for both substrates and inks, addressing the possibility to monitor cardiomyocyte activity

Data analysis of Permanent GPS networks in Italy and surrounding region: application of a distributed processing approach

We describe the procedures used to combine into a uniform velocity solution the observations of more than 80 continuous GPS stations operating in the central Mediterranean in the 1998-2004 time interval. We used a distributed processing approach, which makes efficient use of computer resources, while producing velocity estimates for all stations in one common reference frame, allowing for an effective merging of all the observations into a self-consistent network solution. We describe the CGPS data archiving and processing procedures, and provide main results in terms of position time-series and velocities for all stations that observed more than three years. We computed horizontal and vertical velocities accounting for the seasonal (annual and semi-annual) signals, and considering the off-sets in the coordinate time-series caused by station equipment changes. Weighted post-fit RMS of the north, east and vertical velocity components are in the range of 1.57-2.08 mm, 1.31-3.28 mm, and 3.60-7.24 mm, respectively, which are reduced by solving for seasonal signals in the velocity estimates. The annual and semi-annual signals in the height components, with amplitudes up to 4.8 mm, are much stronger than those in the horizontal components. The mean amplitudes of annual and semi-annual signals are within 0.18-0.47 mm, 0.23-0.52 mm and 0.55-1.92 mm in the north, east and vertical components, respectively

Screen-Printed Biosensors for the Early Detection of Biomarkers Related to Alzheimer Disease: Preliminary Results

Abstract Alzheimer disease (AD), despite representing the most common type of dementia in elderly, is still lacking reliable methodologies for early diagnosis. A potential biomarker associated to AD development has been recently identified in the open isoform of p53, redox sensitive protein, currently quantified using a specific blood-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In order to overcome ELISA limitations (level of detection, standardization and reliability), this study aimed to realize a low cost highly sensitive portable point-of-care (PoC) testing system based on screen printed electrochemical sensors (SPES). The study specifically reported the design of the platform, including the sensing probe and the electronic circuit devoted to the conditioning of the electric signal. Preliminary results were obtained from circuit testing by using controlled concentrations of electrolytic solutions and from an initial calibration stage by using Anodic Stripping Voltammetry (ASV) measurements. Future works will address the quantification of unknown concentration of unfolded p53 in peripheral blood samples, thus to validate the here-presented low cost, easy to use and highly precise platform

Sea level change and vertical land movements since the last two millennia along the coasts of southwestern Turkey and Israel

This paper provides new relative sea-level data inferred from coastal archaeological sites located along the Turkish coasts of the Gulf of Fethye (8 sites), and Israel, between Akziv and Caesarea (5 sites). The structures selected are those that, for effective functioning, can be accurately related to sea level at the time of their construction. Thus their positions with respect to present sea level provide a measure of the relative sea level change since their time of construction. Useful information was obtained from the investigated sites spanning an age range of ~2.3 to ~1.6 ka BP. The inferred changes in relative sea level for the two areas are distinctly different, from a rise of 2.41 to 4.50 m in Turkey and from 0 to 0.18 m in Israel. Sea level change is the combination of several processes, including vertical tectonics, glacio–hydro-isostatic signals associated with the last glacial cycle, and changes in ocean volume. For the Israel section, the present elevations of the MIS 5.5 Tyrrhenian terraces occur at a few meters above present sea level and vertical tectonic displacements are small. Data from GPS and tide gauge measurements also indicate that any recent vertical movements are small. The MIS-5.5 shorelines are absent from the investigated section of the Turkish coast, consistent with crustal subsidence associated with the Hellenic Arc. The isostatic signals for the Israel section of the coast are also small (ranging from -0.11 mm/year to 0.14 mm/year, depending on site and earth model) and the observed (eustatic) average sea level change, corrected for this contribution, is a rise of 13.5±2.6 cm during the past ~2 ka. This is attributed to the time-integrated contribution to sea level from a combination of thermal expansion and other increases in ocean volume. The observed sea levels from the Turkish sites, in contrast, indicate a much greater rise of up to 2.2 mm/yr since 2.3 ka BP occurring in a wide area between Knidos and Kekova. The isostatic signal here is also one of a rising sea level (of up to ~ 1mm/year and site and earth-model dependent) and the corrected tectonic rate of land subsidence is ~1.48 mm/year. This is the primary cause of dramatic relative sea level rise for this part of the coast

Cross-validated multi-technique geodetic dataset of the Upper Adriatic Sea coastal area of Italy

The geodetic dataset used in the research article entitled “Multi-technique geodetic detection of onshore and offshore subsidence along the Upper Adriatic Sea coasts” [1] is presented here. It consists of the outcomes of three different techniques, i.e. Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and topographic Levelling surveys. This dataset has been used for the estimation of onshore and offshore deformation in a mineral concession area located along the Upper Adriatic Sea coastal area (Italy), South-East of Ravenna city. InSAR data covers the period from 2002 to 2018, GNSS data from 1998 to 2018 and levelling data from 2002 to 2017.The different measurements have been cross-validated and referred to a common local reference system fixed in the urban area of Ravenna. This data collection will be very useful for deepening the analysis of any type of deformation in the Ravenna coastal area