A dual-flow RootChip enables quantification of bi-directional calcium signaling in primary roots.

Bi-directional-dual-flow-RootChip to track calcium signatures in primary roots responding to osmotic stress. Plant growth and survival is fundamentally linked with the ability to detect and respond to abiotic and biotic factors. Cytosolic free calcium (Ca) is a key messenger in signal transduction pathways associated with a variety of stresses, including mechanical, osmotic stress and the plants' innate immune system.

Identification of the Origin of Ultralow Dark Currents in Organic Photodiodes.

Organic bulk heterojunction photodiodes (OPDs) attract attention for sensing and imaging. Their detectivity is typically limited by a substantial reverse bias dark current density (J ). Recently, using thermal admittance or spectral photocurrent measurements, J has been attributed to thermal charge generation mediated by mid-gap states.

Printed Stretchable Graphene Conductors for Wearable Technology.

Skin-compatible printed stretchable conductors that combine a low gauge factor with a high durability over many strain cycles are still a great challenge. Here, a graphene nanoplatelet-based colloidal ink utilizing a skin-compatible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) binder with adjustable rheology is developed. Stretchable conductors that remain conductive even under 100% strain and demonstrate high fatigue resistance to cyclic strains of 20-50% are realized via printing on TPU.

Multidimensional Perovskites for High Detectivity Photodiodes.

Low-dimensional perovskites attract increasing interest due to tunable optoelectronic properties and high stability. Here, it is shown that perovskite thin films with a vertical gradient in dimensionality result in graded electronic bandgap structures that are ideal for photodiode applications. Positioning low-dimensional, vertically-oriented perovskite phases at the interface with the electron blocking layer increases the activation energy for thermal charge generation and thereby effectively lowers the dark current density to a record-low value of 5 × 10  mA cm without compromising responsivity, resulting in a noise-current-based specific detectivity exceeding 7 × 10 Jones at 600 nm.

Predicting 6-minute walking test outcomes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease without physical performance measures.

Background And Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) requires a multifactorial assessment, evaluating the airflow limitation and symptoms of the patients. The 6-min walk test (6MWT) is commonly used to evaluate the functional exercise capacity in these patients. This study aims to propose a novel predictive model of the major 6MWT outcomes for COPD assessment, without physical performance measurements.

Interpretable Assessment of ST-Segment Deviation in ECG Time Series.

Nowadays, even with all the tremendous advances in medicine and health protocols, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) continue to be one of the major causes of death. In the present work, we focus on a specific abnormality: ST-segment deviation, which occurs regularly in high-performance athletes and elderly people, serving as a myocardial infarction (MI) indicator. It is usually diagnosed manually by experts, through visual interpretation of the printed electrocardiography (ECG) signal.

Spatial atmospheric pressure molecular layer deposition of alucone films using dimethylaluminum isopropoxide as the precursor.

Trimethylaluminum is the most used aluminum precursor in atomic and molecular layer deposition (ALD/MLD). It provides high growth-per-cycle (GPC), is highly reactive and is relatively low cost. However, in the deposition of hybrid alucone films, TMA tends to infiltrate into the films requiring very long purge steps and thereby limiting the deposition rate (nm s) of the process.

The European Green Deal and nephrology: a call for action by the European Kidney Health Alliance.

The world faces a dramatic man-made ecologic disaster and healthcare is a crucial part of this problem. Compared with other therapeutic areas, nephrology care, and especially dialysis, creates an excessive burden via water consumption, greenhouse gas emission and waste production. In this advocacy article from the European Kidney Health Alliance we describe the mutual impact of climate change on kidney health and kidney care on ecology.

Relation between Reactive Surface Sites and Precursor Choice for Area-Selective Atomic Layer Deposition Using Small Molecule Inhibitors.

Implementation of vapor/phase dosing of small molecule inhibitors (SMIs) in advanced atomic layer deposition (ALD) cycles is currently being considered for bottom-up fabrication by area-selective ALD. When SMIs are used, it can be challenging to completely block precursor adsorption due to the inhibitor size and the relatively short vapor/phase exposures. Two strategies for precursor blocking are explored: (i) physically covering precursor adsorption sites, i.

Data Augmentation and Transfer Learning for Data Quality Assessment in Respiratory Monitoring.

Changes in respiratory rate have been found to be one of the early signs of health deterioration in patients. In remote environments where diagnostic tools and medical attention are scarce, such as deep space exploration, the monitoring of the respiratory signal becomes crucial to timely detect life-threatening conditions. Nowadays, this signal can be measured using wearable technology; however, the use of such technology is often hampered by the low quality of the recordings, which leads more often to wrong diagnosis and conclusions.

Ultralow dark current in near-infrared perovskite photodiodes by reducing charge injection and interfacial charge generation.

Metal halide perovskite photodiodes (PPDs) offer high responsivity and broad spectral sensitivity, making them attractive for low-cost visible and near-infrared sensing. A significant challenge in achieving high detectivity in PPDs is lowering the dark current density (J) and noise current (i). This is commonly accomplished using charge-blocking layers to reduce charge injection.

Analytical Optimal Load Calculation of RF Energy Rectifiers Based on a Simplified Rectifying Model.

Wireless power transfer (WPT) is an essential enabler for novel sensor networks such as the wireless powered communication network (WPCN). The efficiency of an energy rectifier is dependent on both input power and loading condition. In this work, to maximize the rectifier efficiency, we present a low-complexity numerical method based on an analytical rectifier model to calculate the optimal load for different rectifier topologies, including half-wave and voltage-multipliers, without needing time-consuming simulations.

Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma-Enhanced Spatial ALD of SiO Studied by Gas-Phase Infrared and Optical Emission Spectroscopy.

An atmospheric-pressure plasma-enhanced spatial atomic layer deposition (PE-s-ALD) process for SiO using bisdiethylaminosilane (BDEAS, SiH[NEt]) and O plasma is reported along with an investigation of its underlying growth mechanism. Within the temperature range of 100-250 °C, the process demonstrates self-limiting growth with a growth per cycle (GPC) between 0.12 and 0.

Technical aspects of cardiorespiratory estimation using subspace projections and cross entropy.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a form of cardiorespiratory coupling. Its quantification has been suggested as a biomarker to diagnose different diseases. Two state-of-the-art methods, based on subspace projections and entropy, are used to estimate the RSA strength and are evaluated in this paper.

Wearable Bioimpedance Monitoring: Viewpoint for Application in Chronic Conditions.

Currently, nearly 6 in 10 US adults are suffering from at least one chronic condition. Wearable technology could help in controlling the health care costs by remote monitoring and early detection of disease worsening. However, in recent years, there have been disappointments in wearable technology with respect to reliability, lack of feedback, or lack of user comfort.

About the importance of purge time in molecular layer deposition of alucone films.

The deposition rate and properties of MLD films are for a large part determined by what happens during the reactant exposure step. In some cases, however, the purge step is of equal importance, for example in MLD of alucone using trimethylaluminum (TMA) and ethylene glycol (EG). We show that infiltration of TMA into the alucone film followed by its continuous outgassing during the subsequent EG exposure step can lead to undesired CVD effects.

Artefact Detection in Impedance Pneumography Signals: A Machine Learning Approach.

Impedance pneumography has been suggested as an ambulatory technique for the monitoring of respiratory diseases. However, its ambulatory nature makes the recordings more prone to noise sources. It is important that such noisy segments are identified and removed, since they could have a huge impact on the performance of data-driven decision support tools.

On the potential of wearable bioimpedance for longitudinal fluid monitoring in end-stage kidney disease.

Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) has proven to be a promising non-invasive technique for fluid monitoring in haemodialysis (HD) patients. While current BIS-based monitoring of pre- and post-dialysis fluid status utilizes benchtop devices, designed for intramural use, advancements in micro-electronics have enabled the development of wearable bioimpedance systems. Wearable systems meanwhile can offer a similar frequency range for current injection as commercially available benchtop devices.

The Role of Features Types and Personalized Assessment in Detecting Affective State Using Dry Electrode EEG.

Assessing the human affective state using electroencephalography (EEG) have shown good potential but failed to demonstrate reliable performance in real-life applications. Especially if one applies a setup that might impact affective processing and relies on generalized models of affect. Additionally, using subjective assessment of ones affect as ground truth has often been disputed.

Short-Term Exercise Progression of Cardiovascular Patients throughout Cardiac Rehabilitation: An Observational Study.

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a highly recommended secondary prevention measure for patients with diagnosed cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, participation rates are low due to enrollment and adherence issues. As such, new CR delivery strategies are of interest, as to improve overall CR delivery.

Relationship Between Chronic Stress and Heart Rate Over Time Modulated by Gender in a Cohort of Office Workers: Cross-Sectional Study Using Wearable Technologies.

Background: Chronic stress is increasing in prevalence and is associated with several physical and mental disorders. Although it is proven that acute stress changes physiology, much less is known about the relationship between physiology and long-term stress. Continuous measurement of vital signs in daily life and chronic stress detection algorithms could serve this purpose.

Towards personalized fluid monitoring in haemodialysis patients: thoracic bioimpedance signal shows strong correlation with fluid changes, a cohort study.

Background: Haemodialysis (HD) patients are burdened by frequent fluid shifts which amplify their comorbidities. Bioimpedance (bioZ) is a promising technique to monitor changes in fluid status. The aim of this study is to investigate if the thoracic bioZ signal can track fluid changes during a HD session.

Wearable Monitoring and Interpretable Machine Learning Can Objectively Track Progression in Patients during Cardiac Rehabilitation.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are often characterized by their multifactorial complexity. This makes remote monitoring and ambulatory cardiac rehabilitation (CR) therapy challenging. Current wearable multimodal devices enable remote monitoring.