A smartphone‐based U‐Healthcare system for real‐time monitoring of acute myocardial infarction

In recent years, medical service has been evolving from systems designed around centralized hospitals to Ubiquitous Healthcare (U‐Healthcare). U‐Healthcare system can facilitate real‐time monitoring of patient states, and can provide medical checkups and management whenever and wherever the medical staff deems necessary. U‐Healthcare services can provide chronic condition monitoring in the early stages of diseases and help execute decisive medical action in emergencies. However, thus far, the application of U‐Healthcare systems has been limited to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, etc. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is among the most critical chronic diseases and requires early detection and treatment. In this paper, we propose an AMI diagnostic software technique and protocol that can support real‐time communication between the patient and medical personnel. Our monitoring and diagnostic system has been developed using a protocol based on ISO/IEEE 11073. When data is transferred from the patient's smartphone to a server in hospital, the medical personnel consult the patient's biosensor data to determine the status of the relevant disease and provide appropriate medical service. The relevant information is sent back to the patient's smartphone through a wireless network, and patients can view their data in graphical format through their smartphone. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive mode decision for H.264 encoder

An adaptive mode decision algorithm is presented, with rate-distortion optimisation that reduces the complexity of the H.264 encoder without loss of image quality and compression ratio. The proposed algorithm uses the property of an all-zero coefficients block that is produced by quantisation and coefficient thresholding to effectively skip unnecessary modes. Experimental results show that the speed of the adaptive mode decision algorithm is two times faster than the full-mode decision algorithm of the JM72 reference encoder, without any coding loss.     

Acoustooptic Tunable Gap-Type Bandpass Filter With a Broad Stopband

We demonstrate a novel all-fiber gap-type tunable bandpass filter configuration that consists of a broadband hollow optical fiber (HOF) acoustooptic tunable filter (AOTF) concatenated with a narrowband single-mode fiber (SMF)-AOTF. Owing to the unique mode coupling properties of HOF-AOTF and SMF-AOTF, a narrow passband channel of a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of ~4 nm could be formed in a broad stopband platform of a 90-nm FWHM successfully. In this scheme, the center wavelength and rejection efficiency of both passband and stopband were found to be flexibly tunable by adjusting the frequency and the voltage of radio-frequency signals applied to individual acoustic transducers.     

Low-Loss Polymer-Based Long-Range Surface Plasmon-Polariton Waveguide

To improve the propagation loss of polymer-based long-range surface-plasmon-polariton (LR-SPP) waveguide devices at the telecom wavelength range, low-loss LR-SPP waveguides were fabricated in an ultraviolet-curable acrylate polymer with a low refractive index and absorption loss. A propagation loss of 1.72 dB/cm at a wavelength of 1.55 mum was achieved with a 14-nm-thick and 3-mum-wide metal stripe.     

All-Optical Data Vortex Node Using an MZI-SOA Switch Array

We propose and demonstrate a new structure of a Data Vortex switch node for all-optical routing of wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) 10-Gb/s optical packets. The proposed node consists of two Mach-Zehnder interferometers with integrated semiconductor optical amplifier: an optical and gate and a high-speed optical switch. In the experiment, WDM 10-Gb/s data packets are successfully routed with 1-dB power penalty at a bit-error rate of 10^-9.     

n+/p+ Gate Bulk FinFETs With Locally Separated Channel Structure for Sub-50-nm DRAM Cell Transistors

We proposed a new p⁺/n⁺ poly-Si gate bulk fin-type field-effect transistor that has two channel fins separated locally by a shallow trench filled with oxide or p⁺ polygate. Key device characteristics were investigated by changing the n⁺ poly-Si gate length La, the material filling the trench, and the width and length of the trench at a given gate length L_g. It was shown that the trench filled with p⁺ poly-Si gate should not be contacted with the source/drain diffusion region to achieve an excellent I_on/I_off (> 1010) that is suitable for sub-50-nm dynamic random access memory cell transistors. Based on the aforementioned device structure, we designed reasonable Ls/Lg and channel fin width W_cfin at given L_g 's of 30, 40, and 50 nm.     

Effect of displacement rate on ball shear properties for Sn–37Pb and Sn–3.5Ag BGA solder joints during isothermal aging

The interfacial reactions and ball shear properties of ball grid array (BGA) solder joints aged at 170 °C for up to 21 days were investigated with different displacement rates. Two different kinds of solders, Sn–37Pb and Sn–3.5Ag (all wt.%), and an electroplated Ni/Au BGA substrate were employed in this work. A continuous Ni₃Sn₄ intermetallic compound (IMC) layer was formed at the interfaces between both the Sn–37Pb and Sn–3.5Ag solders and the substrate during reflow. After aging, two different reaction layers, consisting of (Au_xNi_1−x)Sn₄ IMC and Pb-rich phase, were additionally observed between the Sn–37Pb solder and the Ni₃Sn₄ IMC layer. The thicknesses of these interfacial reaction layers increased with increasing aging time. After reflow, all the fractures occurred inside the bulk solder. The fracture location of the Sn–37Pb solder joints was shifted toward the solder/Ni interface with increasing aging time and displacement rate, whereas the fracture of the Sn–3.5Ag solder joints mainly occurred inside the bulk solder, irrespective of the aging time and displacement rate. Consequently, the shear properties of the Sn–37Pb solder joints significantly decreased with increasing aging time, whereas those of the Sn–3.5Ag solder joints slightly decreased. The tendency toward brittle fracture of the Sn–37Pb solder joints was intensified with increasing displacement rate. The shear properties of the ductile solder joints increased with increasing displacement rate, while the displacement until fracture, deformation energy and displacement rate sensitivity of the brittle solder joints significantly decreased with increasing displacement rate.     

Lineage of non-cranial neural crest cell in the dental mesenchyme: using a lacZ reporter gene during early tooth development

The tooth is one of the ectodermal organs controlled by reciprocal interactions between the epithelium and the mesenchyme. Mesenchymal cells in the developing tooth, so-called dental mesenchymal cells, are derived from two different origins: the cranial neural crest (CNC) and the non-CNC. These CNC-derived cells migrate, proliferate and differentiate into odontoblasts, cementoblasts, fibroblasts, osteoblasts and chondroblasts. Tooth germs of wild-type mice were transplanted into the kidney of adult lacZ-transgenic mice. After 1 week of transplantation, a few lacZ-expressing cells and many red blood cells were found near or inside the blood vessels in the pulp of wild-type tooth germs. This result shows that circulating cells of the adult host could invade the dental pulp during tooth development, through the blood vessels, and be a part of dental pulp tissue. Therefore, it can be suggested that these circulating progenitor cells could be the origin of non-CNC-derived cells in tooth germ and their migration pathways would be the blood vessels invading the dental pulp during tooth development. If variations of this experiment were suitably adjusted, such as the embryonic stage of the tooth germ, duration of transplantation, etc., this transplantation experiment using adult lacZ-transgenic mice could be a good system to reveal the origin and migration pathway of cells in developing organs as well as in dental mesenchymal cells.     

Design and fabrication of a significantly shortened multimode interference coupler for polarization splitter application

We report that we have successfully designed and fabricated a significantly shortened multimode interference coupler for application in polarization splitter, using a phenomenon that we termed "quasi-state" (QS) imaging effect. First, we identified and analyzed the QS imaging effect, and, based on the QS analysis, designed and fabricated a novel multimode interference (MMI) device with its split length shortened to 1/5 of a normally designed MMI split length. The fabrication is simple and cost effective and the fabricated device shows outstanding characteristics in extinction ratio, signal homogeneity, excess loss, and tolerance in the length of the splitter.     

Biodegradable Thin Metal Foils and Spin‐On Glass Materials for Transient Electronics

Biodegradable substrates and encapsulating materials play critical roles in the development of an emerging class of semiconductor technology, generally referred as “transient electronics”, whose key characteristic is an ability to dissolve completely, in a controlled manner, upon immersion in ground water or biofluids. The results presented here introduce the use of thin foils of Mo, Fe, W, or Zn as biodegradable substrates and silicate spin‐on‐glass (SOG) materials as insulating and encapsulating layers, with demonstrations of transient active (diode and transistor) and passive (capacitor and inductor) electronic components. Complete measurements of electrical characteristics demonstrate that the device performance can reach levels comparable to those possible with conventional, nontransient materials. Dissolution kinetics of the foils and cytotoxicity tests of the SOG yield information relevant to use in transient electronics for temporary biomedical implants, resorbable environmental monitors, and reduced waste consumer electronics.