Bio-integrated wearable systems can measure a broad range of biophysical, biochemical, and environmental signals to provide critical insights into overall health status and to quantify human performance. Recent advances in material science, chemical analysis techniques, device designs, and assembly methods form the foundations for a uniquely differentiated type of wearable technology, characterized by noninvasive, intimate integration with the soft, curved, time-dynamic surfaces of the body. This review summarizes the latest advances in this emerging field of “bio-integrated” technologies in a comprehensive manner that connects fundamental developments in chemistry, material science, and engineering with sensing technologies that have the potential for widespread deployment and societal benefit in human health care. An introduction to the chemistries and materials for the active components of these systems contextualizes essential design considerations for sensors and associated platforms that appear in f...

Bio-Integrated Wearable Systems: A Comprehensive Review

Wearable sensors have recently seen a large increase in both research and commercialization. However, success in wearable sensors has been a mix of both progress and setbacks. Most of commercial progress has been in smart adaptation of existing mechanical, electrical and optical methods of measuring the body. This adaptation has involved innovations in how to miniaturize sensing technologies, how to make them conformal and flexible, and in the development of companion software that increases the value of the measured data. However, chemical sensing modalities have experienced greater challenges in commercial adoption, especially for non-invasive chemical sensors. There have also been significant challenges in making significant fundamental improvements to existing mechanical, electrical, and optical sensing modalities, especially in improving their specificity of detection. Many of these challenges can be understood by appreciating the body's surface (skin) as more of an information barrier than as an information source. With a deeper understanding of the fundamental challenges faced for wearable sensors and of the state-of-the-art for wearable sensor technology, the roadmap becomes clearer for creating the next generation of innovations and breakthroughs.

/pdf/wearable-sensors-modalities-challenges-and-prospects-2tjpw1t9kz.pdf

Wearable sensors: modalities, challenges, and prospects

Chronic health conditions have been on the rise across the world. But few health care systems, have proved able to cope with managing this dramatic increase in chronic conditions. This report from the World Health Organization (WHO) provides a comprehensive framework for the prevention framework for the prevention and management of Chronic health conditions around the world. Chronic health conditions were defined in this report as “health problems that persist across time and require some degree of health care management”. This new report addresses how policy makers can take effective and innovative action to tackle these conditions. The report addresses the following issues: Exploring chronic conditions, including how and why they are increasing, what is their economic impact on patients, families, communities, and governments, and how to reduce their prevalence. The deficits in current systems of health to successfully manage chronic conditions because the acute care model dominates health care systems. The acute care model increased health care expenditures without improving populations health status. A new framework for health care systems to improve care for chronic conditions. This framework is comprised of fundamental components within the patient, health care organization and community, and policy levels. These components were described as “building blocks” that can be used to re-design a health care system to manage long-term health problems more effectively. The report describes eight essential elements for improving and creating innovations in the care of chronic conditions. These elements include: Supporting a shift in attitudes, so that decision­ makers, health workers and patients are aware that a shift in resources from the acute, episodic model of care is needed to meet the different of chronic conditions. Building political commitment to the process of preventing and managing chronic conditions. Avoiding fragmentation of services, to ensure that the care for chronic conditions is integrated. To align and analyze policies which affect chronic conditions, such as agricultural regulations, labor laws and health education. To use new, team care models and evidence-based skills for managing chronic conditions, worth more efficient use of health care personnel. To re-oriented Health care for chronic conditions around the patient and family. To support patients within their communities, because communities can fill a crucial gap in health services that are not provided by organized health care. To emphasize prevention, as many of the complications of chronic conditions can be prevented or reduced. This report provides a well-formulated framework for decision-makers and health service planners to implement strategies for comprehensively managing chronic conditions.

/pdf/innovative-care-for-chronic-conditions-building-blocks-for-2yk23tyhwa.pdf

Innovative care for chronic conditions: building blocks for action

The role of fractional calculus in modeling biological phenomena: A review

Advances and challenges in sustainable tourism toward a green economy.

Microwave material processing is a novel energy efficient technology with improved mechanical properties, minimized defects and economical and environmental advantages making it a convenient application for various types of materials. Although, microwave interaction with matter has been largely investigated and published in food processing, ceramics and chemistry, no particular work has been involved in collecting the interactions of microwaves with metals and placing a special emphasis on their interaction with metals and metal-based formulations, and here resides the aim of the review: consolidating the fundamentals of microwave heating applications as a time and energy saving application and addressing its various applications and mechanisms with metal interactions seeking a more sustainable environment. This review reports the latest literature findings on microwave processing fundamentals and highlights the advanced technological improvement applied on metals in this field. It focuses on the relevant industrial applications related to the development of microwave technology on metals and its possible future processing in this specific scope of investigation.

Microwave dielectric heating: Applications on metals processing

The demand for improved food quality has been accompanied by a technological boost. This fact enhances the possibility of improving the quality of horticultural products, leading towards healthier consumption of fruits and vegetables. A better electrical characterization of the dielectric properties of fruits and vegetables is required for this purpose. Moreover, a focused study of dielectric spectroscopy and advanced dielectric sensing is a highly interesting topic. This review explains the dielectric property basics and classifies the dielectric spectroscopy measurement techniques. It comprehensively and chronologically covers the dielectric experiments explored for fruits and vegetables, along with their appropriate sensing instrumentation, analytical modelling methods and conclusions. An in-depth definition of dielectric spectroscopy and its usefulness in the electric characterization of food materials is presented, along with the various sensor techniques used for dielectric measurements. The collective data are tabulated in a summary of the dielectric findings in horticultural field investigations, which will facilitate more advanced and focused explorations in the future.

/pdf/fruit-and-vegetable-quality-assessment-via-dielectric-1cm7l2wc97.pdf

Fruit and Vegetable Quality Assessment via Dielectric Sensing

This paper presents a wireless medical monitoring system. The system permits to receive and process in a single concentrator node (e.g. a laptop or a simple handheld device) the pulse-oximetry signals from one ore several monitored patients without using any wired infrastructure. The system, which is based on a piconet of Bluetooth sensors, can retransmit the medical signals by WLAN and GPRS. The paper describes the practical application scenarios in which this type of systems could be of great utility.

/pdf/a-wireless-monitoring-system-for-pulse-oximetry-sensors-3nkfu5oxia.pdf

A wireless monitoring system for pulse-oximetry sensors

Cleaner quality control system using bioimpedance methods: a review for fruits and vegetables

This paper summarized an overview of energy balance and greenhouse gas emissions at UAE in order to prompt renewable and sustainable energy practices. Electricity demand has been increasing dramatically in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the last decade. Electricity production increased 5.39 TWh each year from 2000 (39.9 TWh) to 2013 (110 TWh), which means an annual increase of more than 13.5%. The electric power consumption has increased 5.14 TWh each year in the same period; which is 13.3% each year. The electricity consumption per capita is an indicator that places UAE in the group of highest consumption countries worldwide; namely, UAE ranks 10th in 2012 with 10.13 MWh per capita. UAE׳s population and economic growth are the main causes of a sharp increase in energy demand. On the other hand, UAE ranked 25th worldwide for CO2 emissions. However, UAE is not in the top pollutant countries in the world with respect to CO2 emissions per capita. More specifically, UAE has dropped from the 2nd position in the period 2000–2004 to 8th in 2010 and in year 2013 occupied again 2nd position among the global most pollutant countries. On the other hand, UAE has huge amount of available solar resources; the active and passive use of solar energy could be an approach to reduce even more the fossil energy consumption and the greenhouse gas emissions. It is essential to define the future role of the different sources of energy and to outline the required steps to move into a sustainable future energy system. These may achieve environmentally sustainable power development.

J.A. Gazquez

Papers

Microwave dielectric heating: Applications on metals processing

Fruit and Vegetable Quality Assessment via Dielectric Sensing

A wireless monitoring system for pulse-oximetry sensors

Cleaner quality control system using bioimpedance methods: a review for fruits and vegetables

An overview of energy balance compared to sustainable energy in United Arab Emirates