Energy autonomous wireless sensing system enabled by energy generated during human walking

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.PowerMEMS 2016,December 6 – 9, 2016. The 16th International Conference on Micro and Nanotechnology for Power Generation and Energy Conversion Applications, Paris, FranceRecently, there has been a huge amount of work devoted to wearable energy harvesting (WEH) in a bid to establish energy autonomous wireless sensing systems for a range of health monitoring applications. However, limited work has been performed to implement and test such systems in real-world settings. This paper reports the development and real-world characterisation of a magnetically plucked wearable knee-joint energy harvester (Mag-WKEH) powered wireless sensing system, which integrates our latest research progresses in WEH, power conditioning and wireless sensing to achieve high energy efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate that with walking speeds of 3~7 km/h, the Mag-WKEH generates average power of 1.9~4.5 mW with unnoticeable impact on the wearer and is able to power the wireless sensor node (WSN) with three sensors to work at duty cycles of 6.6%~13%. In each active period of 2 s, the WSN is able to measure and transmit 482 readings to the base stationThe authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the EPSRC through project EP/K017950/2

T-cell receptor gene expression in tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes and peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

The T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire expression of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) from 19 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) biopsies was compared with those of lymphocytes from 18 control nasopharyngeal biopsies. mRNA was extracted from these lymphocytes and the cDNA transcribed. A panel of 18 V alpha- and 21 V beta-specific primers was used to detect the TCR gene use from cDNA. The use of V alpha and V beta genes was restricted in TILs compared with lymphocytes from biopsies. The frequencies of V alpha 2, V alpha 3, V alpha 9, V alpha 10, V alpha 11, V alpha 13, V alpha 14, V alpha 15, V beta 11, V beta 15 and V beta 20 were decreased and the frequencies of V alpha 10 [Pc = 0.04; relative risk (RR) = 0.05], V alpha 11 (Pc = 0.02; RR = 0.07), V alpha 13 (Pc = 0.002; RR = 0), V alpha 14 (Pc = 0.04; RR = 0.05), V beta 14 (Pc = 0.001; RR = 0.03) and V beta 20 (Pc = 0.001; RR = 0.03) remained significantly reduced after correction for the number of families typed. The frequency of V alpha 17 was higher in NPC biopsies than in NPC PBLs (P = 0.05), and the frequency of V beta 15 was lower in NPC biopsies than in NPC PBLs (P = 0.02). The frequencies of V alpha 17 and V alpha 18 in HLA-B46+ patients were significantly lower (P = 0.009; P = 0.044) than in B46+ controls. The results suggest that the restriction of TCR gene use in NPC patients may be important in NPC pathogenesis

Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of high dose short duration enrofloxacin treatment regimen for uncomplicated urinary tract infections in dogs.

BackgroundUncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTI) in dogs usually are treated with antimicrobial drugs for 10-14 days. Shorter duration antimicrobial regimens have been evaluated in human patients.HypothesisA high dose short duration (HDSD) enrofloxacin protocol administered to dogs with uncomplicated UTI will not be inferior to a 14-day treatment regimen with amoxicillin-clavulanic acid.AnimalsClient-owned adult, otherwise healthy dogs with aerobic bacterial urine culture yielding ≥ 10(3) CFU/mL of bacteria after cystocentesis.MethodsProspective, multicenter, controlled, randomized blinded clinical trial. Enrolled dogs were randomized to group 1 (enrofloxacin 18-20 mg/kg PO q24h for 3 days) or group 2 (amoxicillin-clavulanic acid 13.75-25 mg/kg PO q12h for 14 days). Urine cultures were obtained at days 0, 10, and 21. Microbiologic and clinical cure rates were evaluated 7 days after antimicrobial treatment was discontinued. Lower urinary tract signs and adverse events also were recorded.ResultsThere were 35 dogs in group 1 and 33 in group 2. The microbiologic cure rate was 77.1 and 81.2% for groups 1 and 2, respectively. The clinical cure rate was 88.6 and 87.9% for groups 1 and 2, respectively. Cure rates between groups did not differ according to the selected margin of noninferiority.Conclusions and clinical importanceHDSD enrofloxacin treatment was not inferior to a conventional amoxicillin-clavulanic acid protocol for the treatment of uncomplicated bacterial UTI in dogs. Further research is warranted to determine if this protocol will positively impact owner compliance and decrease the emergence of antimicrobial resistance

Exterior optical cloaking and illusions by using active sources: a boundary element perspective

Recently, it was demonstrated that active sources can be used to cloak any objects that lie outside the cloaking devices [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{103}, 073901 (2009)]. Here, we propose that active sources can create illusion effects, so that an object outside the cloaking device can be made to look like another object. invisibility is a special case in which the concealed object is transformed to a volume of air. From a boundary element perspective, we show that active sources can create a nearly "silent" domain which can conceal any objects inside and at the same time make the whole system look like an illusion of our choice outside a virtual boundary. The boundary element method gives the fields and field gradients (which can be related to monopoles and dipoles) on continuous curves which define the boundary of the active devices. Both the cloaking and illusion effects are confirmed by numerical simulations

Magnetic field energy harvesting from current-carrying structures: electromagnetic-circuit coupled model, validation and application

This is the final version. Available on open access from IEEE via the DOI in this record. Magnetic field energy harvesters (MFEHs) from current-carrying structures/conductors are usually modelled as decoupled electromagnetic and electrical systems. The current-carrying structures may affect the performance of MFEH through the generation of the eddy current and the alteration of the magnetic reluctance. Moreover, the load circuit affects the current generated in the coil and therefore the flux density and eddy current generated. The effects of the current-carrying structure and the load circuit cannot be fully described by the decoupled models. This work develops a finite element model (FEM) that fully couples the electromagnetic and electrical systems by simulating both the magnetic field and eddy current distribution of an MFEH connected to an electrical circuit. The FEM first simulates the coil inductance and resistance of a magnetic field energy harvester (MFEH) placed close to a current-carrying structure exemplified by a rail track. The FEM then simulates the outputs of the MFEH connected to an electrical circuit consisting of a compensating capacitor and optimal load resistor determined by the first step. An MFEH was fabricated and tested under a section of current-carrying rail track. Both experiment and simulation show an increase of both coil resistance and inductance when the MFEH is placed close to the rail track. The good agreement between experimental and simulation results validates that the FEM can predict the full-matrix performances of the MFEH, including the coil parameters, power output and magnetic flux density under the influence of the current-carrying structure and the load circuit. Simulation results reveal that in addition to the permeability of the magnetic core, the electrical conductivity and magnetic permeability of the current-carrying structure considerably affect the performance of the MFEH, which cannot be predicted by decoupled models.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)Royal Societ

Discarding orbital decay in WASP-19b after one decade of transit observations

We present an empirical study of orbital decay for the exoplanet WASP-19b, based on mid-time measurements of 74 complete transits (12 newly obtained by our team and 62 from the literature), covering a 10-yr baseline. A linear ephemeris best represents the mid-transit times as a function of epoch. Thus, we detect no evidence of the shortening of WASP-19b's orbital period and establish an upper limit of its steady changing rate, P' = −2.294 ms yr−1, and a lower limit for the modified tidal quality factor Q'* = (1.23 ± 0.231) × 106. Both are in agreement with previous works. This is the first estimation of Q' directly derived from the mid-times of WASP-19b obtained through homogeneously analysed transit measurements. Additionally, we do not detect periodic variations in the transit timings within the measured uncertainties in the mid-times of transit. We are therefore able to discard the existence of planetary companions in the system down to a few M in the first-order mean-motion resonances 1:2 and 2:1 with WASP-19b, in the most conservative case of circular orbits. Finally, we measure the empirical Q'* values of 15 exoplanet host stars, which suggest that stars with Teff ≲ 5600 K dissipate tidal energy more efficiently than hotter stars. This tentative trend needs to be confirmed with a larger sample of empirically measured Q'*.Fil: Petrucci, Romina Paola. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba. Departamento de Astrofísica Estelar; ArgentinaFil: Jofre, Jorge Emiliano. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba. Departamento de Astrofísica Estelar; Argentina. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; México. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Gómez Maqueo Chew, Y.. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Hinse, T. C.. Chungnam National University; Corea del SurFil: Mazek, M.. Institute Of Physics Czech Academy Of Sciences; República ChecaFil: Tan, T. -G.. Perth Exoplanet Survey Telescope; AustraliaFil: Gomez, Mercedes Nieves. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba. Departamento de Astrofísica Estelar; Argentin