An open-source and easily replicable hardware for Electrical Impedance Tomography.

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a powerful imaging tool for investigating electrical properties of tissues such as that of human bodies. The cheap, harmless and portable nature of this tool has made EIT a popular choice in many biomedical applications. However, performing EIT requires strong development at both hardware and software levels.

Fully Electrical Post-Fabrication Trimming of Resistive Sensors.

A compact and efficient IC architecture is presented as an alternative to laser-trimmed precision thin-film resistors or look-up tables. The objective is to keep the device, such as a four-terminal Wheatstone bridge, but to compensate for post-manufacturing offset and to avoid the so-induced degradation of performances in terms of full-scale, non-linearity, power supply noise rejection and scale factor. Expected advantages are a reduced cost due to the electrical-only implementation and a possible on-field calibration of high-end sensors.

A Temperature-Hardened Sensor Interface with a 12-Bit Digital Output Using a Novel Pulse Width Modulation Technique.

A fully integrated sensor interface for a wide operational temperature range is presented. It translates the sensor signal into a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal that is then converted into a 12-bit digital output. The sensor interface is based on a pair of injection locked oscillators used to implement a differential time-domain architecture with low sensitivity to temperature variations.

Inclusion probability with dropout: an operational formula.

In forensic genetics, a mixture of two or more contributors to a DNA profile is often interpreted using the inclusion probabilities theory. In this paper, we present a general formula for estimating the probability of inclusion (PI, also known as the RMNE probability) from a subset of visible alleles when dropouts are possible. This one-locus formula can easily be extended to multiple loci using the cumulative probability of inclusion.

Increase in external glutamate and NMDA receptor activation contribute to H2O2-induced neuronal apoptosis.

The present study aims to investigate the role of extracellular glutamate and NMDA receptor stimulation in the neuronal death induced by a transient exposure to H2O2 of cultured neurons originating from mouse cerebral cortex. Most of the neuronal loss following a transient exposure to H2O2 of cortical neurons results from an apoptotic process involving a secondary stimulation of NMDA receptors, which occurs after H2O2 washout. Indeed, (a) the neurotoxic effect of H2O2 was strongly reduced by antagonists of NMDA receptors, (b) the neurotoxic effect of H2O2 was enhanced in the absence of Mg2+, (c) the protective effect of MK-801 progressively decayed when it was applied with increasing delay time after H2O2 exposure, and (d), finally, the extracellular concentration of glutamate was increased after H2O2 exposure.