Monitoring driver health status in real time.

Nowadays, surveillance systems have evolved significantly; hence, in order to meet the specific needs of the health sector and to monitor the patients' health conditions, intelligent systems have been proposed. These innovations represent a primordial role in road safety, which reduce the risk of traffic accidents. This paper describes an intelligent system design for remote monitoring (tele-monitoring) of a driver's health condition in real time. The measurement using new hardware and software devices is made possible through the contact between the driver contact and an intelligent steering wheel, which is coupled either to an integrated monitor or to a bluetooth link with a local Android smartphone. The driver's heart rate is calculated through the continuous collection of the electrocardiographic signal as well as the blood oxygen saturation SpO2 by using the photoplethysmographic technique. Consequently, it is necessary to monitor the two vital functions of the driver, cardiac and respiratory activity. This information is transmitted to a remote tele-vigilance center in the case of abnormalities in these functions under the transmission control protocol/internet protocol involving a 4G/3G connection. The application is associated with the system that triggers high and low alarms locally and remotely in the events of tachycardia, bradycardia, or cardiac arrhythmia. Furthermore, another alarm is also triggered in the event of respiratory decompensation.

Passive wideband concentric rings resonator for vocal cords abnormalities detection: Application on larynx cancer pathologies.

This work addresses the study and design of a diagnostic device consisting of a thin-film sensor array based on 8-mm concentered rings, acting as an autonomous acoustic sensor covering a wide range of resonance frequencies (0.1 KHz-2 MHz). In addition to its advantageous shape, this device integrates both the active vibratory element and the embedded electronics dedicated to coding, control, and analysis. The results show that the experimental device could be the basis of a telemedical platform for the objective assessment and monitoring of chronic laryngeal dysphonia through the spectro-temporal analysis of the vibration of the vocal cords. Furthermore, this non-invasive, non-intrusive protocol does not require the physical cooperation of the patient.

Renal Echinococcosis mistaken for a cystic renal tumor: A case report.

Renal Echinococcosis is a rare medical entity (2-4%). The preoperative clinical, biological and radiological diagnosis is quite challenging. We report herein the case of a 63 year-old female patient, operated for a suspicious renal cystic mass that resulted full of grape-like cysts intraoperatively.

SU-8-based nanocomposites for acoustical matching layer.

SU-8, an epoxy-based photoresist, was introduced as the acoustical matching layer between silicon and water for lab-on-chip applications integrating acoustic characterization. Acoustical performances, including the acoustic longitudinal wave velocity and attenuation of the SU-8-based matching layer, were characterized at a frequency of 1 GHz at room temperature. The gain in echo characterization with a SU-8/SiO2 bilayer and with different nanocomposite monolayers made of SU-8 and TiO2 nanoparticles (size around 35 nm) between silicon and water was characterized as being above 10 dB in each case. With the increase of concentration of TiO2 in SU-8 based composites from 0 to 30 wt%, acoustical impedance of the nanocomposites increased from about 3 to 6 MRayls, respectively. The acoustical attenuation in the nanocomposites is between 0.5 and 0.6 dB/microm. The most efficient matching was obtained with the nanocomposite integrating 30 wt% TiO2 nanoparticles, with which the enhanced loss is about 0.34 dB as the attenuation is about 0.5 dB/microm. This type of matching layer has potential applications in lab-on-chip technology for high frequency transducers or in the fabrication of high frequency piezocomposites.