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Current biometrics rely on images obtained from the structural information of physiological characteristics, which is inherently a fatal problem of being vulnerable to spoofing. Here, we studied personal identification using the frequency-domain information based on human body vibration. We developed a bioacoustic frequency spectroscopy system and applied it to the fingers to obtain information on the anatomy, biomechanics, and biomaterial properties of the tissues. As a result, modulated microvibrations propagated through our body could capture a unique spectral trait of a person and the biomechanical transfer characteristics persisted for two months and resulted in 97.16% accuracy of identity authentication in 41 subjects. Ultimately, our method not only eliminates the practical means of creating fake copies of the relevant characteristics but also provides reliable features.

We present a novel biometric authentication system enabled by ratiometric analysis of impedance of fingers. In comparison to the traditional biometrics that relies on acquired images of structural information of physiological characteristics, our biological impedance approach not only eliminates any practical means of making fake copies of the relevant physiological traits but also provides reliable features of biometrics using the ratiometric impedance of fingers. This study shows that the ratiometric features of the impedance of fingers in 10 different pairs using 5 electrodes at the fingertips can reduce the variation due to undesirable factors such as temperature and day-to-day physiological variations. By calculating the ratio of impedances, the difference between individual subjects was amplified and the spectral patterns were diversified. Overall, our ratiometric analysis of impedance improved the classification accuracy of 41 subjects and reduced the error rate of classification from 29.32% to 5.86% (by a factor of 5).

An Nd:YAG laser is generally used as the optical source for photoacoustic imaging (PAI) systems, which support a high-power pulsed laser. However, PAI systems based on Nd:YAG lasers have several disadvantages, such as instability against impact and vibration, poor mobility, and large size. To overcome the limitations, we demonstrate a PAI system using a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) fiber laser and an arrayed ultrasound transducer. The fabricated MOPA fiber laser has a variable repetition rate in the range of 1–50 kHz, a pulse width of 10–70 ns, and an output power of 160 μJ. Furthermore, it is stable to impact and vibration, mobile, and compact with a size of 427×250×170 mm3. We achieved PAI 150 times faster using MOPA fiber laser than using Nd:YAG laser with the arrayed ultrasound transducer composed of 128 elements. Therefore, we believe that the PAI system based on the MOPA fiber laser has significant potential for use as a clinical ultrasound imaging system.

With the number of cellular phone users rapidly increasing, there is a considerable amount of public concern regarding the effects that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from cellular phones have on health. People with self-attributed electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) complain of subjective symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, and memory loss, and attribute these symptoms to radio frequency (RF) radiation from cellular phones and/or base stations. However, EHS is difficult to diagnose because it relies on a person's subjective judgment. Various provocation studies have been conducted on EHS caused by Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phones in which heart rate and blood pressure or subjective symptoms were investigated. However, there have been few sham-controlled provocation studies on EHS with Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) phones where physiological parameters, subjective symptoms, and perception of RF radiation for EHS and non-EHS groups were simultaneously investigated. In this study, two volunteer groups of 18 self-reported EHS and 19 non-EHS persons were tested for both sham and real RF exposure from CDMA cellular phones with a 300 mW maximum exposure that lasted half an hour. We investigated not only the physiological parameters such as heart rate, respiration rate, and heart rate variability (HRV), but also various subjective symptoms and the perception of EMF. In conclusion, RF exposure did not have any effects on physiological parameters or subjective symptoms in either group. As for EMF perception, there was no evidence that the EHS group better perceived EMF than the non-EHS group.

It is important to prevent obesity in childhood given that many obese adults have been obese since childhood. An activity monitor could provide an effective aid in preventing obesity if it records not only the calorie assessment but also activity detection to check how active a child is in daily life. The current study is for activity monitoring algorithm and we designed 3-stage cascaded artificial neural network. To develop the algorithm, we recruited 76 participants, made 3-axis accelerometer for them, and acquired activity data and calorie consumption data through them. Finally, we designed 3-stage cascaded network to classify the activities and to assess energy consumption. The 3-stage network classifies 4 activities of walking, running, stairs moving, and jumping rope with overall accuracy of 94.70%, and predicts calorie consumption with average accuracy of 81.91%, which is better than the results of the 2-stage network. Future work would include the enhancement of the network performance.

We propose a compact and easy to use photoacoustic imaging (PAI) probe structure using a single strand of optical fiber and a beam combiner doubly reflecting acoustic waves for convenient detection of lymph nodes and cancers. Conventional PAI probes have difficulty detecting lymph nodes just beneath the skin or simultaneously investigating lymph nodes located in shallow as well as deep regions from skin without any supplementary material because the light and acoustic beams are intersecting obliquely in the probe. To overcome the limitations and improve their convenience, we propose a probe structure in which the illuminated light beam axis coincides with the axis of the ultrasound. The developed PAI probe was able to simultaneously achieve a wide range of images positioned from shallow to deep regions without the use of any supplementary material. Moreover, the proposed probe had low transmission losses for the light and acoustic beams. Therefore, the proposed PAI probe will be useful to easily detect lymph nodes and cancers in real clinical fields.

We have proposed the planar backing array electrodes implementation of a 2D ultrasonic transducer, which can minimize the complexity of backing electrodes interconnection with two dimensional transducer elements. The implementation consists of specially designed two layered planar top electrodes, instead of the complex circuit boards three-dimensionally interconnected with piezo-elements. Bias electrodes apply the voltage and control electrodes select the elements at which we want to apply the bias by shielding the field stretched on other elements. Potential distribution in a piezo-element was simulated to see the feasibility of the new concept using field shielding by two layered top electrodes array. The results indicate that the structural implementation of two layered electrode array is very important and specially designed two layered electrodes are enough to control the perfect ON/OFF state, showing that most of the voltage (>98%) applied across the sensor element can be shielded.

We suggest a sequential algorithm for the detection of the ventricular fibrillation (VF) and ventricular tachycardia (VT) of a rate above 180 bpm, so called shockable rhythms. The built-in algorithm for ECG analysis embedded in the portable bio-signal sensing module is aimed to discriminate between shockable and non-shockable rhythms and its accuracy is analyzed. An algorithm for VF/VT detection is proposed to analyze every 1 s ECG episode using the past 8 s episodes. The method is tested with 844,587 ECG episodes from the widely accepted databases. A sensitivity of 86.8 % and a specificity of 99.4 % were obtained and compared with the previous results.

A patch type embedded cardiac function monitoring system was developed to detect arrhythmias such as PVC (Premature Ventricular Contraction), pause, ventricular fibrillation, and tachy/bradycardia. The overall system is composed of a main module including a dual processor and a Bluetooth telecommunication module. The dual microprocessor strategy minimizes power consumption and size, and guarantees the resources of embedded software programs. The developed software was verified with standard DB, and showed good performance.

Most countries face high and increasing rates of cardiovascular disease. Each year, heart disease kills more Americans than cancer. Therefore, there has been a promising market for portable ECG equipment and it is increasing. To use portable ECG measuring devices, it is essential to define a suitable location for the measuring as we need to reduced electrode size and distance. This research proposes to study how the inter-electrode distance affects the signal and how the electrode pair should be placed on the chest in order to obtain a sufficiently reliable ECG signal to detect heart arrhythmias in any environment, such as home or work. Therefore, we developed a compact, portable patch type ambulatory ECG monitoring system, Heart Tracker, using a microprocessor for preliminary study of signal analysis. To optimize the electrode arrangement in wireless environment, we compared HT and standard 12 lead with changing electrode position.

A waist belt type simple device was designed to monitor the individuals who are obese and want to maintain their consumed calories and waist circumference changes. Relatively long term monitoring with this device could help them maintain their health conditions. This devised system is composed of calorie tracking and waist circumference module. This study suggests feasible and meaningful results. If users' data are collected largely with this developed system, we can reveal the relationship between obesity and daily life pattern.

A compact and portable device was designed for preliminary study of patch type ambulatory 3-electrode ECG monitoring system for limb leads and augmented unipolar limb leads signal analysis. The developed system also can measure and send the acceleration signals wirelessly during daily life to analyze the user's information. The 3-electrode system is feasible to provide the information of limb leads and augmented unipolar limb leads for further arrhythmia analysis and simultaneously shows lots of issues to be more broadly applicable and more powerful device.

Hemorrhagic shock is a common cause of death in emergency rooms. Since the symptoms of hemorrhagic shock occur after shock has considerably progressed, it is difficult to diagnose shock early. The purpose of this study was to improve early diagnosis of hemorrhagic shock using a survival prediction model in rats. We measured ECG, blood pressure, respiration and temperature in 45 Sprague-Dawley rats, and then obtained a logistic regression equation predicting survival rates. Area under the ROC curves was 0.99. The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit chi-square was 0.86 (degree of freedom=8, p=0.999). Applying the determined optimal boundary value of 0.25, the accuracy of survival prediction was 94.7%.

Hearing loss is one of the most common birth defects among infants. Most hearing-impaired children are not diagnosed until one to three years of age, which is too late to treat for normal speech and language development. If hearing impairment is identified and treated in its early stage, a child's speech and language skills could be comparable to his or her normal-hearing peers. Auditory brain-stem response (ABR) is nowadays one of the most reliable diagnostic tools in the early detection of hearing impairment. In this study, we applied the ‘Fsp’ method to distinguish between normal and impaired hearing. We have developed a battery-operated portable automated auditory brainstem response (A-ABR) system that automatically detects hearing impairment in neonates or infants. We partially validated the accuracy of this system in twenty normal-hearing adults.

A new structure of triode-type carbon nanotube-field emitter arrays (CNT-FEAs) is proposed whose extraction gate is surrounded by CNT emitters. 3-dimensional numerical calculations of electrostatic potential for the proposed CNT-FEA was carried out using the finite element method and the results were compare with those of conventional CNT-FEAs.