Biomedical Sensors

Author(s):  
Sverre Grimnes ◽  
Jan Olav Høgetveit

This chapter addresses biomedical sensors, which are important factors for the quality of measurement of biological and physiological variables, and thus deserve close attention both with respect to the medical functions and the technical requirements. There are special demands for biomedical sensors, particularly for invasive sensors that must pass sterilization by temperature or radiation at much higher levels than the rest of the medical equipment. On the other hand, miniaturization, mechanical strength, electrical safety, and sterility are important elements of the sensor design process. The sensor determines the accessibility, spatial resolution, accuracy, sensitivity, selectivity, and response time of the measurement. In order to convert the parameter of interest into an electrical signal suited for medical use, a transducing element is necessary. Knowledge of the complete chain of transducer materials, their electrical properties, and integration with bio-amplifiers are therefore necessary to design high-quality biomedical sensors.

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Paterson

George, Kallie. The Melancholic Mermaid. Illus. Abigail Halpin. Vancouver: Simply Read Books, 2010. Print. Upon reading a plot summary of Kallie George’s The Melancholic Mermaid, you might first wonder if you’ve read the book before. Humans befriending mermaids, outsiders uniting, and children learning that their differences make them special are all plots that have been told and retold in a variety of mediums. It will be no surprise to readers that, though Maude the two-tailed mermaid has twice the speed, twice the strength, and twice the grace, these same qualities isolate her from the other mer-children. Similarly, when two-legged Tony’s webbed hands are revealed, an unlikely friendship with Maude is inevitable. However, while the plot and themes rarely venture outside established cliché, there are two aspects of The Melancholic Mermaid that not only make it well worth the read but push it over and above similar fare. Firstly, George’s poetic rhythms perfectly capture the lulling melancholy of the seashore. At times, she dances the line between poetry and prose, evoking the rolling tides of a calm day at the beach. Of particular note is her command of alliteration, which when well-executed, rarely fails to captivate children and draw them into a fairy tale world. Secondly, Abigail Halpin’s illustrations are positively breathtaking. Her use of colour, space, and contrast are all wonderful to behold and do a remarkable job of highlighting the settings and mood of George’s story. While the scenes on land are depicted in vibrant purples and reds, the seashore is dominated by calm and subtle shades of blue and green. If you are the type to choose a book by its cover, The Melancholic Mermaid should most certainly be a popular choice. The high quality of the illustrations make The Melancholic Mermaid a great book for beginning readers to grow into, and it will be ideally suited for children transitioning from picture books into shorter chapter books. While the story features both male and female protagonists, it will most likely hold a broader appeal for girls than for boys. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer:  Amy Paterson Amy Paterson is a Public Services Librarian at the University of Alberta’s H. T. Coutts Education Library. She was previously the Editor of the Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management and is very happy to be involved in the Deakin Review and the delightful world of children’s literature.


Author(s):  
Naokazu Murata ◽  
Naoki Saito ◽  
Kinji Tamakawa ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Hideo Miura

Both mechanical and electrical properties of electroplated copper thin films were investigated experimentally with respect to changes in their micro texture. Clear recrystallization was observed after the annealing even at low temperature of about 150°C. The fracture strain of the film annealed at 400°C increased from the initial value of about 3% to 15%, and at the same time, the yield stress of the annealed film decreased from about 270 MPa to 90 MPa. In addition, it was found that there were two fatigue fracture modes in the film annealed at the temperatures lower than 200°C. One was a typical ductile fracture mode with plastic deformation and the other was brittle one. When the brittle fracture occurred, the crack propagated along weak or porous grain boundaries which remained in the film after electroplating. The brittle fracture mode disappeared after the annealing at 400°C. These results clearly indicated that the mechanical properties of electroplated copper thin films vary drastically depending on their micro texture. Next, the electrical reliability of electroplated copper thin film interconnections was discussed. The interconnections used for electromigration (EM) tests were made by damascene process. The width of the interconnections was varied from 1 μm to 10 μm. An abrupt fracture mode due to local fusion appeared in the as-electroplated films within a few hours during the test. Since the fracture rate increased linearly with the increase of square of the applied current density, this fracture mode was dominated by local Joule heating. It seemed that the local resistance of the film increased due to the porous grain boundaries and thus, the local temperature around the porous grain boundaries increased drastically. On the other hand, the life of the interconnections annealed at 400°C was improved significantly. This was because of the increase of the average grain size and the improvement of the quality of grain boundaries in the annealed films. The electrical properties of the electroplated copper films were also dominated by their micro texture. However, the stress migration occurred in the interconnections after the annealing at 400°C. This was because of the high residual tensile stress caused by the constraint of the densification of the films by the surrounding oxide film in the interconnection structures during the annealing. Finally, electroplating condition was controlled to improve the electrical properties. Both the resistance of electromigration and electrical resistivity were improved significantly. However, electromigration of copper atoms still occurred at the interface between the electroplated copper and the thin tantalum (Ta) layer sputtered as base material. Therefore, it is very important to control the crystallographic quality of electroplated copper films and the interface between different materials for improving the reliability of thin film interconnections.


Author(s):  
Anđela Jakšić-Stojanović ◽  
Neven Šerić

The modern phenomenon of tourism is more focused on specific forms of tourism in which sports and health tourism play a very important role. That fact is not surprising having in mind that they represent interconnected activities that complement each other and give each other completely new dimension. On one side, sports and health represent very important content of tourist offer because of the fact they enable tourists to become active participants in various activities, and on the other side, they represent important driving force for visiting particular destination. The idea of this chapter is to provide a theoretical and practical framework of this issue with a special focus on case study of Montenegro. According to the results of the research that was carried out, the general conclusion is that Montenegro has extremely valuable natural resources and potentials for the development of sports and health tourism, but there are still a lot of challenges that should be faced in the future in order to improve the quality of tourist offer and the level of tourists’ satisfaction as well as to create completely new image of the destination and position it as high-quality sports and health tourist destination on international market.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.35) ◽  
pp. 569
Author(s):  
Norhazwani Abd Malek ◽  
Siti Zulaika Osman ◽  
Nurhusna Mohamad Ehsan ◽  
Nurzanariah Roslan ◽  
Mohd Fakhri Rosli

This paper presents the design and development of a mini portable cooler that utilizes the Peltier effect to cool the human expressed breast milk (EBM) within 24 hours at the temperature range between 4°C-15°C to maintain the high quality of the EBM for use at a later date and the health of the baby who consume it. It is developed to overcome the tediousness of using cooler bag/box, which requires ice packs that need repetitive freezing. A few prototypes with different sizes and body materials, namely polystyrene, polypropylene and aluminium, were successfully developed and tested to get the minimum temperature using 5V power supply. In all graphs, the temperature is decreasing with time. The smallest size of the cooled space (18cm of width, 12cm of length and 14cm of height) has the lowest temperature compared to the other sizes for each body material. However, the lowest temperature of all body materials is obtained from aluminium with 11.2°C at 100 minutes. It also reaches below 15°C the fastest which is at 80 minutes compared to the other prototypes that need longer time. All in all, aluminium is the best body material for the mini portable cooler developed in this project.


Author(s):  
Nilamadhab Mishra

The progressive data science and knowledge analytic tasks are gaining popularity across various intellectual applications. The main research challenge is to obtain insight from large-scale IoE data that can be used to produce cognitive actuations for the applications. The time to insight is very slow, quality of insight is poor, and cost of insight is high; on the other hand, the intellectual applications require low cost, high quality, and real-time frameworks and algorithms to massively transform their data into cognitive values. In this chapter, the author would like to discuss the overall data science and knowledge analytic contexts on IoE data that are generated from smart edge computing devices. In an IoE-driven e-BI application, the e-consumers are using the smart edge computing devices from which a huge volume of IoE data are generated, and this creates research challenges to traditional data science and knowledge analytic mechanisms. The consumer-end IoE data are considered the potential sources to massively turn into the e-business goldmines.


On the afternoon of Friday 22 July, a premiere of films was given at the Royal Festival Hall and was followed by a Reception at Tea when Mr F. J. Stephens acted as host for the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies. The programme was introduced by Sir Cyril Flinshelwood, President of the Royal Society, who said: . ‘In the Charter of the Royal Society the improvement of natural knowledge is coupled with that of the useful arts. Now the tradition fortunately exists in this country of good relations between the great industries on the one hand and the cultivators of natural science on the other: or I would prefer to say the very nebulous line that there is between these two branches of activity is evidence of the fact that this part of the Charter has in fact not been ignored. That the Shell Group of Companies, one of the greatest and most important, has made the extremely generous gesture of preparing the very splendid film that you will presently see in honour of the Tercentenary of the Royal Society proves that the tradition that I have spoken of is alive and vigorous. ‘You will presently agree that the film also demonstrates the very high quality of the Film Unit which the Company has maintained for, I understand, something over a quarter of a century.


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Hofmann ◽  
A. M. Steiner

AbstractHydration-dehydration seed pretreatments are well-known to improve germination rate, germination and vigour. However, contradictory results have been reported concerning the effect of a pretreatment on longevity. The present paper shows that the effect of a seed pretreatment on longevity is largely dependent on the quality of the seed at the time of pretreatment. Pretreating wheat seeds of high quality increased the rate of viability loss during subsequent storage. On the other hand, pretreating wheat seeds of relatively low quality decreased the rate of seed deterioration during subsequent storage. In the light of these findings, hitherto contradictory results in the literature could be explained.


Author(s):  
Igor Vasilevich Soldatov ◽  
Petr Salaš

Within the framework of hybridization of domestic prunes and black apricots (Prunus domestica L. x Armeniaca dasycarpa Ehrh.) altogether sixteen plants were obtained, of which twelve were identified as hybrids and were kept alive, the same as the variety Jibeck. In hybrids, various degrees of domination of morphological traits of domestic prune were observed. Traits of black apricot were manifested weakly in seven hybrids and in the other five and in the variety Jibeck more perfect, semi dominant. In latter the effect of double set of genes was manifested, which was brought into the zygote by unreduced microspores of the black apricot. Some important properties of unmodified status, such as resistance to abiotic and biotic environmental factors, growth inhibition, yielding capacity, earliness, and high quality of fruit, were combined in these hybrids. The obtained hybrids are very interesting from the viewpoint of selection and breeding of new varieties of domestic prune, obtaining tetraploid and hybrid varieties of black apricot, and breeding and selection of individuals of ordinary apricot with some valuable traits of domestic prune.


2021 ◽  

Objective: The aim of this research was to investigate if the distance travelled in a ‘rescue’ is associated with differences in the quality of the CPR provided. Methods: A group of 10 lifeguards performed simulated CPR for 2 minutes at rest. Next, they performed 2 rescues, one of 50 meters and the other of 100 meters. After each rescue, the lifeguards immediately performed simulated CPR. Results: The time invested in the rescue of 50 meters was significantly lower than in the 100 meters (P < 0.001). Simulated CPR at rest obtained high quality values in the compressions (94.8 ± 9.6%) but not in the ventilations (41.0 ± 22.8%). 50 and 100 meter rescues were associated with a significant decline in the overall quality of CPR (68.4 ± 11.0 vs. 51.0 ± 9.3 vs. 49.7 ± 7.2%, P = 0.002), correctness of hand position (100% vs. 91.0 ± 7.0 vs. 85.9 ± 12.3, P = 0.006), and in the quality of the ventilations (41.0 ± 22.8 vs. 12.0 ± 17.5 vs. 11.0 ± 12.8%, P = 0.001). The quality of the above measures was similar in 50 and 100 meter rescues. Conclusions: Rescues of 50 and 100 meters were similarly associated with a decrease in the quality of simulated CPR vs. at rest simulated CPR. Lifeguards should practice performing CPR following rescue activities with added focus on performing rescue ventilations correctly.


1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 169-187
Author(s):  
M. D. Knowles

Ayear ago our theme was the work of the Bollandists. Their name suggests immediately, to all acquainted with European historiography, the name of another body of religious, many of them the contemporaries of Henskens and Papebroch, and it would be impossible to omit from even the shortest list of great historical enterprises the achievement of the Maurists. The two bodies of men and their work, nevertheless, have little in common save an equal devotion to accurate scholar-ship. What impresses us in the history of Bollandism is its continuity of spirit and undeviating aim over more than three hundred years, during which a very small but perpetually self-renewing group has pursued a single narrowly defined task, which is still far from completion. With the Maurists, on the other hand, it is the magnitude, the variety and the high quality of the achievement that strikes the imagination. While the Bollandists, a small family in a single house, have in three centuries produced in major work no more than a row of sixty-seven folios, the Maurists, in a little more than a hundred years, published matter enough to stock a small library, and left behind them letters, papers and transcripts which have been used and exploited by scholars for nearly two centuries since. Indeed, it would be both impossible and alien to the scope of our interests to attempt the briefest survey of Maurist scholarship in its entirety, and my remarks to-day will be confined to their publications on European history after the decline of the Roman Empire. Who were the Maurists, and wherein lay their peculiar excellence?


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