For example, there have recently been outstanding advances in the field of ISFET biosensors for use in biosensing research, including the progress of the enzyme-immobilized FET which detects H+ ion concentration, the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)-modified FET based on DNA hybridization detection, and the cell-based FET for cell metabolism sensing or the measurement of extracellular potential. Currently, the use of ISFET technology encompasses a wide range of applications in a variety of areas, and those in the biomedical and environmental monitoring areas are particularly noteworthy. In the following, this paper reviews recent advances and developments in the bio-analytical use of ISFET-based biosensors.2.

?Operating Principle of FET-Based BiosensorsIn general, a field-effect transistor (FET) consists of three terminals; the source, drain, and gate.

The voltage between the source and drain of the FET regulates the current flow in the gate voltage. Specifically, the current-control mechanism is based on an electric field generated by the voltage applied to the gate. The current is also conducted by only one type of carrier (electrons or holes) depending on the type of FET (n-channel or p-channel). A positive voltage applied to the gate causes positive charges (free holes) to be repelled from the region of the substrate under the gate. These positive Brefeldin_A charges are pushed downward into the substrate, leaving behind a carrier-depletion region.

The depletion region is populated by the bound negative charge associated with the acceptor atoms.

These charges are ��uncovered�� because the neutralizing holes have been pushed downward into the substrate [5]. The positive gate voltage also pulls negative charges (electrons) from the substrate regions into the channel region. When sufficient electrons GSK-3 are induced under the gate, an induced thin n-channel is in effect created, electrically bridging the source and drain regions. The channel is formed by inverting the substrate surface from p-type to n-type (inversion layer). When a voltage is applied between the drain and source with the created channel, a current flows through this n-channel via the mobile electrons (n-type FET).

In the case of a p-type semiconductor, applying a positive gate voltage depletes carriers and reduces the conductance, whereas applying a negative gate voltage leads to an accumulation of carriers and an increase in conductance (the opposite effect occurs in n-type semiconductors). The applied gate voltage generates an electric field which develops in the vertical direction. This field controls the amount of charge in the channel, and thus it determines the conductivity of the channel.

1), methylcyclopentenolone (3.2), and
A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) allows the integration of intelligent, miniaturized, low-power sensor nodes in, on, or around a human body to monitor body functions and the surrounding environment. It has great potential to revolutionize the future of healthcare technology and has attracted a number of researchers both from the academia and industry in the past few years. WBANs support a wide range of medical and Consumer Electronics (CE) applications. For example, WBANs provide remote health monitoring of patients for a long period of time without any restriction on his/her normal activities [1,2].

Different nodes such as Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electromyography (EMG), and Electroencephalography (EEG) are deployed on the human body to collect the physiological parameters and forward them to a remote medical server for further analysis as given in Figure 1.

Generally WBAN consists of in-body and on-body area networks. An in-body area network allows communication between invasive/implanted devices and a base station. An on-body area network, on the other hand, allows communication between non-invasive/wearable devices and a base station.Figure 1.WBAN architecture for medical applications.The consideration of WBANs for medical and non-medical applications must satisfy stringent security and privacy requirements. These requirements are based on different applications ranging from medical (heart monitoring) to non-medical (listening to MP4) applications [3].

In case of medical applications, the security threats may lead a patient to a dangerous condition, and sometimes to death.

Thus, a strict and Entinostat scalable security mechanism is required to prevent malicious interaction with WBAN. A secure WBAN should include confidentiality and privacy, integrity and authentication, key establishment and trust set-up, secure group management and data aggregation. However, the integration of a Dacomitinib high-level security mechanism in a low-power and resource-constrained sensor node increases the computational, communication and management costs.

In WBANs, both security and system performance are equally important, and thus, designing a low-power and secure WBAN system is a fundamental challenge to the designers. In this paper, we present a brief discussion on the major security requirements and threats in WBANs at the Physical, Medium Access Control (MAC), Network, and Transport layers. We analyze the performance of IEEE 802.15.4 [4,5] security framework for WBAN using extensive simulations. Different types of attack on IEEE 802.15.4 superframe are considered in the simulations.

adaptive response to biotic stress. Another hormone, salicylic acid, may also be involved in plant responses to eggs since SA deficient mutants of A. thaliana showed different responses to pierid eggs than wild type plants. Further studies are necessary to understand the role of JA in concert with other phytohormones in signaling in order to regu late egg induced defenses. Gene transcripts for terpenoid biosynthesis were detected at only low levels There is strong evidence that damage dependent JA levels activate distinct sets of defense genes leading to terpenoid formation. To elucidate the molecular basis underlying volatile biosynthesis associated with the indirect defenses of elm in response to egg laying, we compared the different treatments with reference to transcripts involved in terpenoid metabolism.

Although it has been established previously that a volatile blend with an enhanced fraction of terpenoids that is attractive to egg parasitoids is produced by these elms 2 3 d after egg laying, we detected only a few transcripts involved in terpenoid metabolism in the elm leaves fol lowing egg treatment. The respective genes may be dif Entinostat ferentially expressed, but below the detection threshold of our analysis or else possibly the expression is not con trolled at the transcript level. In general it is supposed that herbivore induced de novo production of terpenoids takes place several hours following the activation of ter pene synthase genes.

Enhanced abundance of transcripts for terpene synthases were also found in samples taken from the needles of Pinus sylvestris, that were laden with eggs of the herbivorous sawfly Diprion pini, these egg laden pine needles emit a volatile terpen oid blend that attracts egg parasitoids. However, tran script levels for a sesquiterpene synthase from P. sylvestris which produces B farnesene, the compound re sponsible for the attraction of an egg parasitoid of sawfly eggs, were not enhanced by D. pini egg laying. The time window in which egg induced elm leaf ma terial was harvested for sequencing and the large size of our database should have enabled the detection of even relatively rare transcripts associated with the early and late direct and indirect defense responses against the leaf beetle. In A. thaliana the number of up or down regulated genes increased as time elapsed from 1 3 d after pierid eggs have been laid on plants.

Because transcripts for terpenoid metabolism are under represented in our database, we can only speculate about the molecular basis of egg induced volatile production for indirect defense in elm. We hypothesize that egg enhanced JA levels increase transcript abundances for JA biosynthesis genes, thereby activating so far unidenti fied genes which stimulate the emission of a volatile blend of terpenoids from elms, but by a mechanism that does not involve an increase in the transcript levels for the genes associated with the formation of these com pounds, as has been demonstrated for oth

EtOH e tract had no effect and was thus considered to be not suitable for further investigations, the curcuma DMSO e tract as well as the DMSO soluble compound curcumin reduced levels of some disc specific, major proinflammatory cytokines and matri degrading enzymes in our in vitro e periments. We were able to demonstrate that the observed effect was not due to the biologic activity of the solvents DMSO and EtOH, although the anti inflammatory properties of DMSO have most recently been described in human intestinal cells. Specifically, we could demonstrate a reduction in gene e pression of IL 6, MMP1, MMP3 and MMP13 when treating IL 1B prestimulated cells with the curcuma DMSO e tract. Additionally, IL 1B and IL 8 were reduced by cur cumin treatment after 6 hours.

As effects were comparable between the curcuma DMSO e tract and curcumin and as curcumin was detected at high concentrations in the DMSO e tract by HPLC MS, we hypothesize that the major bioactive substance in curcuma DMSO e tracts acting on human intervertebral disc cells could be curcumin. Due to the Entinostat beneficial effects of curcumin, this natural compound may be of benefit for patients with inflammation related back pain, with the potential mode of application being intradiscal injection. Albeit curcumin is whether this effect would also occur on the protein level and in vivo. Therefore, further studies are thus required to demonstrate safety and usefulness of curcumin in human application. So far, only one study investigated the effect of curcumin on human intervertebral disc cells.

This study tested curcumin for its effects on matri protein gene e pression, but not on the e pression of proinflammatory cytokines or matri degrading enzymes. Results of Yu et al. s study indi cated that curcumin is also able to attenuate an IL 1 induced inhibition of SO 9 and collagen II e pression at 20 ug ml, which is higher than the concentra tions used in the present study and which was shown to be a damaging concentration for other cell types. Further more, it has to be noted that both, Yus as well as our study were performed in a 2D culture system, which can cause certain phenotypic changes of disc cells and may thus pos sibly influence cellular behavior to the tested treatment. Pathway analysis Curcumin seems to e hibit its anti inflammatory and anti catabolic effects through versatile mechanisms.

So far, in different cell types, mainly inhibition of NF ��B, MAP kinases and Toll like receptors have been shown to play a role. NF ��B Inhibition of the transcription factor NF ��B is the best described mechanism of action of curcumin in the literature. A recent study in chondrocytes well known for its low bioavailability in case of oral con sumption, in vivo concentrations after injections should not be a limiting factor. The observed gene e pression results are similar to effects that were observed when treating other cell types with curcumin, e. g. leading to a reduction in IL 1B, IL 6, IL 8, MMP1, MMP

However additional sensors significantly increase the cost of the system. By utilizing data available from smartphones, the comparable cost is significantly reduced, only requiring users to download an appropriate software application and a cheap garment for securing their smartphone.Accelerometers have been used for human activity recognition in a large amount of existing work [10�C12]. Research has shown that accelerometers can be used to identify human activity for high energy actions such as walking, jogging, jumping, etc. [13]. In sports, accelerometers have been used to monitor elite athletes in competition or training environments. In swimming applications, accelerometers have allowed the comparison of stroke characteristics for a variety of training strokes and therefore have helped to improve swimming technique [14].

When used in competitive rowing and coupled with other monitoring techniques such as impeller velocity, they allow for the recovery of intra- and inter-stroke phases as a means to assess performance and this has been used by competition rowers to improve performance at national and international competitions [10].Most approaches in human activity recognition have relied on multiple expensive sensors. With the increase in smartphone ownership there has been more research conducted utilizing the sensors embedded within smartphones. Human activity recognition using smartphones have been employed to support patient monitoring [15], to identify the user’s current mobility [16] and for monitoring daily activities [17].

However in this work we will show how smartphones can be used to recognize human activity in sport. To the best of our knowledge this is the first such study conducted.In any activity recognition problem, feature extraction is a vital operation to determine those features with relatively small intra-class yet large inter-class variations that can be used as the basis for effective classification. It is preferable to have a low number of features due to the associated reduction of the computational load of the classification process. One method to extract discriminative features from a signal is to use the wavelet GSK-3 transform. The wavelet transform splits a signal into different frequency components, and then analyses each component with a resolution matched to its scale.

Wavelets have advantages over traditional Fourier methods in analyzing physical situations where the signal contains discontinuities and sharp spikes.In this paper, we take advantage of the embedded accelerometer within a smartphone and position it on the upper crevice of a user’s back as seen in Figure 1 to classify sporting events. There is a large amount of literature for activity recognition but it is limited for classifying sporting activities.

Moseley proposed that the static stretching was used with the muscle in a relaxed position, and the flexibility assessment was made by measuring the distance from the starting position to the end of the movement, or stretch [7]. The indirect measurement consists of clinical examination of joint ranges, but this is subject to a number of systematic and random errors. Some factors must be taken into account when establishing muscle flexibility by the methods mentioned above, such as joint structure, ligaments, tendons, muscles, skin tissue, fat (or adipose) tissue, which may influence an individual’s range of motion about a joint [8].Little attention has been paid to the assessment of muscle flexibility from the microcirculatory aspect point of view, while vascular impairment is widely acknowledged as an important factor in acute and chronic muscle lesions.

Recently, Otsuki investigated the changes in muscle blood perfusion and tissue oxygenation determined by non-invasive near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signals between subjects with different flexibility [9]. He concluded that the muscle blood flow and muscle oxygenation in ballet-trained subjects were less interfered with by passive muscle stretching than in untrained subjects. Another relative research also suggested that the vascular stability was essential for tissue health, while an instable microcirculatory supplement might further impair blood-tissue oxygen exchange and therefore caused the consequent impairment of tissue function [10].

In the studies of muscle physiology on office workers with low level, repetitive and static computer tasks by using Laser-Doppler Flowmetry (LDF), researchers found a significant association between the chronic musculoskeletal pain and trapezius vasodilatation [11�C13]. This vasodilative characteristic was shown to be more sensitive than the muscle activity from the records by electromyography. Unfortunately, the tissue perfusion signals were determined by the single-fiber LDF technique with optic-fiber probe inserted invasively into the upper trapezius in these investigations, Dacomitinib which therefore made it not practical for use in clinical applications.Recently, a high power LDF with wide separation probe was developed to explore its potential for the assessment of deeper tissues in humans for non-invasive application [14].

Since the microvascular perfusion function may be associated with muscle flexibility, the aim of this study is to develop convenient indices for the assessment of muscle flexibility by analyzing the characteristics of blood perfusion determined by non-invasive LDF technique during different muscle stretching and relaxed states. After the signal processing with the modified beat-to-beat algorithm [15,16], the flexibility indices can be defined in participants with different flexibility levels of calf muscle.2.?Materials and Methods2.1.

..For the special case of human sinuses, where the turbid medium involved is dominated by a few large cavities, the discrepancy in optical properties for these two wavelengths could be comparatively small. On the other hand, water vapor actually has quite a few strong absorption lines around the oxygen absorption region, e.g., at 819.151 nm, which has the same level of absorption cross section as the one for oxygen at 760 nm. By utilizing a more close-lying absorption line, the discrepancy would be much smaller. However, the absorption cross section at 819 nm is much smaller than the one at 935 nm, which will decrease the signal-to-noise ratio and might increase the error in pathlength for this wavelength.If the saturation condition for water vapor is not fully satisfied for some reason the pathlength of water vapor would be underestimated.

However, for those cases with fully saturated water vapor concentration, the present method is a very powerful tool to evaluate the oxygen concentration, especially considering the use of a closer water vapor absorption line, i.e., 819.151 nm.5.?Pathlength Resolved GASMAS5.1. Time-of-Flight Spectroscopy and Optical PorosityWhen facing the pathlength problems in GASMAS, one could simply go around it and measure the pathlength by using other methods. For a turbid medium, the MOPL (Lm) can be obtained by using TOFS, as has been discussed above. A picosecond TOFS system and the typical time-of-flight distribution through a 10.2-mm slab of polystyrene foam are given in Figure 4.

The first combination of TOFS and GASMAS measurements was already demonstrated in the very early development stage of the GASMAS Dacomitinib technique [40], where polystyrene foams with physical porosity of around 98% were studied. The measured oxygen concentration (CO2) in the polystyrene foam can be deduced by using the mean physical pathlength (Lpm) through the medium as the gas absorption pathlength, given as:CO2=CO2airLeqO2/Lpm(4)Here CO2air is the oxygen concentration in ambient air, LeqO2 is the mean equivalent pathlength of oxygen in the polystyrene foam, obtained from Equation (2). Lpm can be given by Lpm = Lm/neff, where neff, is the effective refractive index of the turbid media. In the case of unknown neff,, Lm could also be used in Equation (4). Clearly, Lpm is not the true pathlength through the pores (Lgas), but also includes the pathlength through the matrix material (Ls), i.e., Lpm = Ls + Lgas, and Lm = nsLs + Lgas. Here ns is the refractive index of the matrix material. Thus, Equation (3) only gives an average gas concentration in the porous medium. The value of Lpm can be used as a good approximation of Lgas for extremely high porosity media, e.g., polystyrene foam, as shown in [40].

2.?Experimental Procedure2.1. FabricationThis study used commercial PI films and screen printing technology to design and fabricate a flexible large area electronics sensor. PI films with copper foils are widely used in flexible electronics sensors for flexible printed circuits [26-28]. The PI film’s mechanical hardness and stress characteristics are about 0.181 GPa, and 87.14 MPa, respectively [29]. The sensor structures mainly include two PI films, one cover layer, and bump protrusions. Two PI films were used as the top and bottom films of the flexible electronics sensor. The top film contains the row electrodes, the organic resistance layers, and the bump structures. The bottom film includes the column electrodes and a cover film, which was laminated into the PI film using hot pressing to form the post layer for supporting the membrane of the top film.

The fabrication process mainly used a Model EKRA-E1 screen printer (Ekra, Japan), for printing materials on a flexible substrate. During the fabrication process, materials were transferred onto a substrate using a squeegee via an attached stencil mask. The fabrication process was carried out as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1.Fabrication procedures of flexible electronics sensors for large area manufacturing using screen printing technology.First, the electrode patterns on the bottom film with a 12 ��m copper foil (I), were defined for column and sensing electrodes using the photolithography method. The bottom film was then put into a solution of CuSO4 for electroless plating of Au, to a thickness of about 5 ��m, to avoid the oxidation of the copper foil.

Next, a cover layer with lattice patterns was laminated on the bottom film using hot pressing to form post structures (II). The hot-press process was performed at a temperature of 180��C for 20 minutes.The second part of the top film, which contains the row electrodes (i), is similar to that of the bottom substrate, except that it has pass-through holes that were drilled using the punching method. Cu was coated on the side of these holes using a chemical plating to transfer the output signal from the back to the top view of top film. An organic resistance material (ii), Model EPO 4X330, with a viscosity of 8 �� 104cp and a glass transition temperature of 190��C, was printed on sensing electrode areas using a screen stencil mask.

The organic resistance was synthesized using a phenolic resin, organic solvents, filler, and carbon black. The phenolic resin is a bisphenol A (C15H16O2) type of organic compound with two phenol functional groups. The organic solvents included Drug_discovery dimethylformamide (formula C3H7NO) and diethylene glycol monobutyl ether (formula CH3CH2OCH2CH2OCH2CH2OH). Dimethylformamide (N,N-dimethylformamide), is a hydrophilic aprotic solvent of the organic compound material that facilitates chemical reactions by polar mechanisms.

Obnoxious odors from Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) have been of concern for many years. Recently there has been a greater social focus on odor related problems due to strict air quality regulations and increasing public concern with health and environmental deterioration [9]. Generally, odor emissions from WWTPs are from both point and area sources and are characterized by low concentrations and high air volumes over large areas. To determine the odor emission rate, knowledge of the flow rate and corresponding odor concentration are required. Usually large open area sources are significant contributors to overall odor emissions at WWTPs [10]. When measuring emissions from area sources, an enclosure device (flux chamber) is commonly employed to sample gaseous emissions from a defined surface area of the source.

This involves determining the concentration of volatile compounds under a special cover in which aerodynamics and flow rates are controlled. The emission rate is expressed as the product of this concentration and flow rate.Various types of reduced sulfur and nitrogen compounds behave as the key components of odor (and nuisance) [2, 9, 11]. Therefore, a precise description of the gas composition from Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) can be highly valuable in assessing the environmental impact of malodor issues in both the WWTPs and its surrounding areas [12-14]. This study has been initiated to explore the emission characteristics of Reduced Sulfur Compounds – hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methyl mercaptan (CH3SH), dimethyl sulfide ((CH3)2S), dimethyl disulfide ((CH3)2S2) – ammonia (NH3), and trimethyl amine ((CH3)3N) from a typical medium-sized Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Korea.

Table 1 presents the selected odorous compounds and their corresponding odor threshold values associated with Batimastat domestic wastewater.Table 1.Selected Odorous Compounds from Wastewater Treatment Plant and their Corresponding Odor Threshold values.The odor threshold refers to the minimum concentration required for an individual to perceive the odor, although the exact type of odor may not be identifiable [2]. A Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), located at Sun-Cheon, Chonlanam-Do was chosen as the test facility (Figure 1). It was chosen as it represents a typical medium sized WWTPs in Korea.

It employs the activated sludge treatment process, which is the most common treatment process for the Korean wastewater treatment plant.Figure 1.Location of Sun-Cheon Wastewater Treatment Plant.In this study, emission characteristics of six selected odorous compounds from a WWTPs were investigated. Also, this study evaluated flux profiles of the six selected odorous compounds emitted from the water surface of the WWTP using a Dynamic Flux Chamber (DFC) which is found to be a suitable sampling device for area sources such as wastewater treatment plants.

Scheme 1.The general reaction of luminol to produce light for determination of aqueous Fe(II). Fe2+(aq) ��catalyzes�� the second step in this reaction scheme. The light emitted after the third step proportional to [Fe2+(aq)] within a certain concentration …An FIA-CL instrument has been developed (FeLume �C Waterville Analytical, Waterville, ME) that may be configured to determine several analytes (Co2+, Cu2+, Fe2+, Cr2+, NO3-, PO43- and H2O2). The FeLume has been used specifically to determine sub-nanomolar concentrations of ferrous iron in both marine and freshwaters [30,42,43].When an iron-containing sample is free of organic matter, the relationship between chemiluminescence and [Fe(aq)2+] is approximately linear between 1 �C 1,000 nM Fe(aq)2+.

In the presence of fulvic acid, the linear dynamic range (LDR) is reduced to 1 �C 32 nM [34]. It has been suggested that FIA-CL analysis of freshwater samples will not work well due to interferences by dissolved organic carbon (DOC) [44], while in coastal seawater, O’Sullivan et al. [32] found that DOM reduced the sensitivity of FIA-CL analysis of Fe(II). Similar results were obtained by Ussher et al. [36] in their evaluation of the effect of model ligands on Fe(II) analysis in seawater. Recently, researchers demonstrated other potential interferences that may occur with redox-active metals that produce CL of luminol [45] or species that interfere with the peroxy-luminol reaction leading to CL (step 2 in Scheme 1) [46].Coordination of Fe2+ by organic chelators and low pH both contribute to stabilizing iron against oxidation by O2 [47-49].

Dacomitinib Such stabilization may either depress or enhance the CL and resultant signal returned by the FeLume. Tight coordination of Fe2+ by organic species that persist in the mixing chamber of the FeLume results in lowering of the signal due to slower formation of the ROS required for CL of luminol. Low pH may produce a higher signal by slowing pre-injection oxidation of Fe2+(aq), yielding more H2O2 in the mixing chamber. Species that have strong affinity for ROS like ascorbate also act to suppress the CL of luminol by scavenging radicals necessary for step 2 in the mechanism shown in Scheme 1.Typical injection peaks (Figure 1) from this work demonstrate that certain organic compounds reduce the sensitivity of ferrous iron quantitation. The ��doublet�� peak shown in Figure 1 (typical at nanomolar [Fe2+]) is due to the acid in the samples overcoming the buffer capacity of the luminol solution. Lower pH decreases the signal by reducing luminol dehydrogenation (step 1 in the mechanism in Scheme 1) at nanomolar [Fe2+], but otherwise does not alter the relationship between signal and [Fe2+].