Design guidelines for developing customised serious games for parkinson's disease rehabilitation using bespoke game sensors

The research presented in this paper proposes a set of design guidelines in the context of a Parkinson's Disease (PD) rehabilitation design framework for the development of serious games for the physical therapy of people with PD. The game design guidelines provided in the paper are informed by the study of the literature review and lessons learned from the pilot testing of serious games designed to suit the requirements of rehabilitation of patients with Parkinson's Disease. The proposed PD rehabilitation design framework employed for the games pilot testing utilises a low-cost, customized and off-the-shelf motion capture system (employing commercial game controllers) developed to cater for the unique requirement of the physical therapy of people with PD. Although design guidelines have been proposed before for the design of serious games in health, this is the first research paper to present guidelines for the design of serious games specifically for PD motor rehabilitation.

The use of carbon and gold electrodes in anodic stripping voltammetric heavy metal sensors.

The use of anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV)has been proven in the past to be a precise and sensitive analytical method with an excellent limit of detection. Electrochemical sensors could help to avoid expensive and time consuming procedures as sample taking and storage and provide a both sensitive and reliable method for the direct monitoring of heavy metals in the aquatic environment. Solid electrodes which have been used in this work, were produced using previously developed methods. Commercially available and newly designed, screen printed carbon and gold plated working electrodes (WE) were compared. Good results were achieved with the screen printed and plated electrodes under conditions optimized for each electrode material. The electrode stability, reproducibility of single measurements and the limit of detection obtained for Pb were satisfactory (3*10-6mol/l on screen printed carbon WEs after 60 s of deposition and 6*10-6 mol/l on gold plated WEs after 5 min of deposition). Complete 3-electrode-sets (counter, reference and working electrode) were screen printed on different substrates (glass, polycarbonate and alumina). Also here, both carbon and gold were used as WE. Using 3-electrode-sets with a gold plated WE on glass was a limit of detection of 7*10-7 mol/l was achieved after only 60 s of deposition.

AgriSense: Multichannel disposable sensors for animal health disease diagnostics

Rapid and sensitive detection of viral infections associated with Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) in live animals is recognized as key to minimizing the impact of this disease. ELISA-based testing is limited as it typically relies on the detection of a single viral antibody subtype within an individual test sample and testing is relatively slow and expensive. We have recently initiated a new project entitled AgriSense to develop a novel low-cost and label-free, integrated bimodal electronic biosensor system for BRD. The biosensor system will consist of an integrated multichannel thin-film-transistor biosensor and an electrochemical impedance spectroscopy biosensor, interfaced with PDMS-based microfluidic sample delivery channels. By using both sensors in tandem, nonspecific binding biomolecules must have the same mass to charge ratio as the target analyte to elicit equivalent responses from both sensors. The system will target simultaneous multiplexed sensing of the four primary viral agents involved in the development of BRD: bovine herpesvirus-1 (BHV-1), bovine parainfluenza virus-3 (BPIV-3), bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), and bovine viral diarrhea (BVD). Optimized experimental conditions derived through model antigen-antibody studies will be applied to the detection of serological markers of BRD-related infections based on IgG interaction with a panel of sensor-immobilized viral proteins. This rapid, “cowside” multiplex sensor capability presents a major step forward in disease diagnosis, helping to ensure the integrity of the agri-food supply chain by reducing the risk of disease spread during animal movement and transport.

The effects of Chronic Lycopene Supplementation on Exercise-Induced Oxidative Stress and Glucose Homeostasis.

Lycopene can exert antioxidant effects against peripheral and cellular oxidative stress and may be associated with reduced diabetic risk. Conversely, exercise-induced free radicals are thought to underpin many of the desirable whole-body adaptations following training and the use of antioxidants within the exercise model remains debatable. PURPOSE: To investigate the effect of lycopene supplementation on oxidative stress and glucose homeostasis following acute aerobic exercise. METHOD: Twenty-eight (n=28) apparently healthy male volunteers were recruited (age 24 ± 4 years; weight 78 ± 10 kg; height 178 ± 8 cm; 2max 40 ± 7 ml·kg-1 ·min-1 ) in a randomised, single blind, placebo-controlled study. Participants were required to attend the Laboratory on two occasions: prior to and following 6 weeks of supplementation of either 10mg lycopene (LG; n=15) or placebo (PG; n=13) followed by a bout of acute exercise for one hour at 65% 2max. Exogenous glucose oxidation was then measured on an isotope ratio mass spectrometer in a sub-group of participants (n=14) following exercise, by administration of a standard oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT; 75g glucose). Venous blood samples were drawn for measurement of oxidative stress parameters, plasma glucose and insulin. RESULTS: Plasma lycopene increased in LG only (0.01 ± 0.004 vs.0.02 ± 0.007 µmol/L; P <0.05) following supplementation and remained elevated post exercise compared to PG (0.01 ± 0.004 vs. 0.02 ± 0.009 µmol/L; P <0.05). There were no changes in other markers of oxidative stress (SOD, LOOHs, F2 ISP and Alkoxyl radical) either between or within the trials, (P >0.05, respectively). A main effect for an increase in insulin was observed two hours post OGTT in the sub-groups (Pooled data, P <0.05) but trends in the HOMA scores were evident with a 57% increase for LG (2.20 ± 1.84 vs. 5.14 ± 2.5; P >0.05) and an 11% decrease for PG (2.17 ± 1.06 vs. 1.94 ± 1.53; P >0.05). No change in plasma glucose was detected at any point, or after the OGTT (P >0.05). CONCLUSION: In healthy males, lycopene supplementation had no effect on post exercise levels of ROS or markers of lipid peroxidation, despite an increase in plasma lycopene. However, lycopene supplementation may affect post exercise insulin sensitivity in response to glucose consumption, but further parallel research is required.

Blind Characterisation of Sensors with Second-Order Dynamic Response

Compensation for the dynamic response of a temperature sensor usually involves the estimation of its input on the basis of the measured output and model parameters. In the case of temperature measurement, the sensor dynamic response is strongly dependent on the measurement environment and fluid velocity. Estimation of time-varying sensor model parameters therefore requires continuous textit{in situ} identification. This can be achieved by employing two sensors with different dynamic properties, and exploiting structural redundancy to deduce the sensor models from the resulting data streams. Most existing approaches to this problem assume first-order sensor dynamics. In practice, however second-order models are more reflective of the dynamics of real temperature sensors, particularly when they are encased in a protective sheath. As such, this paper presents a novel difference equation approach to solving the blind identification problem for sensors with second-order models. The approach is based on estimating an auxiliary ARX model whose parameters are related to the desired sensor model parameters through a set of coupled non-linear algebraic equations. The ARX model can be estimated using conventional system identification techniques and the non-linear equations can be solved analytically to yield estimates of the sensor models. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach under various input and parameter conditions.