Millimeter-scale RF Integrated Circuits and Antennas for Energy-efficient Wireless Sensor Nodes

Recently there has been increased demand for a millimeter-scale wireless sensor node for applications such as biomedical devices, defense, and surveillance. This form-factor is driven by a desire to be vanishingly small, injectable through a needle, or implantable through a minimally-invasive surgical procedure. Wireless communication is a necessity, but there are several challenges at the millimeter-scale wireless sensor node. One of the main challenges is external components like crystal reference and antenna become the bottleneck of realizing the mm-scale wireless sensor node device. A second challenge is power consumption of the electronics. At mm-scale, the micro-battery has limited capacity and small peak current. Moreover, the RF front-end circuits that operates at the highest frequency in the system will consume most of the power from the battery. Finally, as node volume reduces, there is a challenge of integrating the entire system together, in particular for the RF performance, because all components, including the battery and ICs, need to be placed in close proximity of the antenna. This research explores ways to implement low-power integrated circuits in an energy-constrained and volume constrained application. Three different prototypes are mainly conducted in the proposal. The first is a fully-encapsulated, autonomous, complete wireless sensor node with UWB transmitter in 10.6mm3 volume. It is the first time to demonstrate a full and stand-alone wireless sensing functionality with such a tiny integrated system. The second prototype is a low power GPS front-end receiver that supports burst-mode. A double super-heterodyne topology enables the reception of the three public GPS bands, L1, L2 and L5 simultaneously. The third prototype is an integrated rectangular slot loop antenna in a standard 0.13-μm BiCMOS technology. The antenna is efficiently designed to cover the bandwidth at 60 GHz band and easily satisfy the metal density rules and can be integrated with other circuitry in a standard process.PHDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143972/1/hskims_1.pd

Elevated IFNA1 and suppressed IL12p40 associated with persistent hyperinflammation in COVID-19 pneumonia

IntroductionDespite of massive endeavors to characterize inflammation in COVID-19 patients, the core network of inflammatory mediators responsible for severe pneumonia stillremain remains elusive. MethodsHere, we performed quantitative and kinetic analysis of 191 inflammatory factors in 955 plasma samples from 80 normal controls (sample n = 80) and 347 confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia patients (sample n = 875), including 8 deceased patients. ResultsDifferential expression analysis showed that 76% of plasmaproteins (145 factors) were upregulated in severe COVID-19 patients comparedwith moderate patients, confirming overt inflammatory responses in severe COVID-19 pneumonia patients. Global correlation analysis of the plasma factorsrevealed two core inflammatory modules, core I and II, comprising mainly myeloid cell and lymphoid cell compartments, respectively, with enhanced impact in a severity-dependent manner. We observed elevated IFNA1 and suppressed IL12p40, presenting a robust inverse correlation in severe patients, which was strongly associated with persistent hyperinflammation in 8.3% of moderate pneumonia patients and 59.4% of severe patients. DiscussionAberrant persistence of pulmonary and systemic inflammation might be associated with long COVID-19 sequelae. Our comprehensive analysis of inflammatory mediators in plasmarevealed the complexity of pneumonic inflammation in COVID-19 patients anddefined critical modules responsible for severe pneumonic progression

The Interplay of Adipokines and Pancreatic Beta Cells in Metabolic Regulation and Diabetes

The interplay between adipokines and pancreatic beta cells, often referred to as the adipo-insular axis, plays a crucial role in regulating metabolic homeostasis. Adipokines are signaling molecules secreted by adipocytes that have profound effects on several physiological processes. Adipokines such as adiponectin, leptin, resistin, and visfatin influence the function of pancreatic beta cells. The reciprocal communication between adipocytes and beta cells is remarkable. Insulin secreted by beta cells affects adipose tissue metabolism, influencing lipid storage and lipolysis. Conversely, adipokines released from adipocytes can influence beta cell function and survival. Chronic obesity and insulin resistance can lead to the release of excess fatty acids and inflammatory molecules from the adipose tissue, contributing to beta cell dysfunction and apoptosis, which are key factors in developing type 2 diabetes. Understanding the complex interplay of the adipo-insular axis provides insights into the mechanisms underlying metabolic regulation and pathogenesis of metabolic disorders. By elucidating the molecular mediators involved in this interaction, new therapeutic targets and strategies may emerge to reduce the risk and progression of diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and its associated complications. This review summarizes the interactions between adipokines and pancreatic beta cells, and their roles in the pathogenesis of diabetes and metabolic diseases

Electronic Skin with Localized Piezoresistive Material for Omni-Directional Pressure Profiling

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CMOS depth sensor with programmable filter circuits for environment-adaptive noise suppression

This Letter introduces a CMOS depth sensor with a multi-resolution single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array and area-efficient filter circuit with a programmable reference for environment-adaptive noise suppression. Four SPADs compose a macro-pixel for detecting targets at a short distance with high resolution, whereas 4 ?? 4 SPADs are reconfigured to a super-pixel for a long distance with enhanced signal-to-noise ratio. To provide environment-adaptive noise suppression in the miniaturised SPAD array, an area-efficient filter circuit with a programmable reference is proposed: a digital macro-filter corresponding to a macro-pixel and an analogue super filter corresponding to a super-pixel. The prototype chip was fabricated with a 110 nm CMOS image-sensor process, including 128 SPAD farm arrays and 128 analogue front-end circuits. With high background light of over 90 klx and a high dark-count rate of over 27.1 kHz, the time-of-flight could be measured by filtering out invalid pulses from noise without using multiple time-to-digital converters per pixel, which enables the implementation of miniaturised LiDAR-sensor systems on a chip

Skin-inspired electrochemical tactility and luminescence

© 2022Animal skin is deformable, yet capable of consistently sensing external stimuli (mechanical, thermal, chemical) without morphological and functional deterioration. This high deformability and signal stability are ensured because the receptors and the signal transmission systems are based on the electrochemical change in the embedded cells. Further, in the skin of various nocturnal animals and deep-sea creatures, electrochemical changes triggered by mechanical stimuli lead to bioluminescence, which can be effective or direct visual feedback that responses to environmental stress in the biological system. In this regard, recently, researches to artificially imitate electrochemical mechanisms of tactile sensation and luminescence in the skin have made remarkable advances in the field of electronic skin (e-skin). This perspective article introduces recent pivot advances in the ion-based tactile sensors and electrochemiluminescent skins, and suggests the technological challenges, then the article ends with perspectives to the skin-inspired ionic artificial devices.11Nsciescopu

Accuracy, Robustness, and Efficiency of the Linear Boundary Condition for the Black-Scholes Equations

We briefly review and investigate the performance of various boundary conditions such as Dirichlet, Neumann, linear, and partial differential equation boundary conditions for the numerical solutions of the Black-Scholes partial differential equation. We use a finite difference method to numerically solve the equation. To show the efficiency of the given boundary condition, several numerical examples are presented. In numerical test, we investigate the effect of the domain sizes and compare the effect of various boundary conditions with pointwise error and root mean square error. Numerical results show that linear boundary condition is accurate and efficient among the other boundary conditions