Improving fECG signal acquisition in the evaluation of fetal well-being

The ability to monitor fetal heart rate is vital during late pregnancy and labor in order to evaluate fetal well-being. Current monitoring practice is essentially based on external cardiotocography and, less frequently, during labor, invasive fetal scalp electrocardiography. Many current and envisaged applications could benefi t from simpler devices using a 3-lead ECG confi guration. We are designing a maternity support belt with an embedded wireless 3-lead ECG sensor, and have investigated the infl uence of the ground electrode position on signal quality. Data from over 100 pregnant women was collected with the ground electrode placed in 3 locations in order to determine optimum electrode placement and belt form factor.

Applying complex network theory to the understanding of high-aspect-ratio carbon-filled composites

This work demonstrates that the theoretical framework of complex networks typically used to study systems such as social networks or the World Wide Web can be also applied to material science, allowing deeper understanding of fundamental physical relationships. In particular, through the application of the network theory to carbon nanotubes or vapour-grown carbon nanofiber composites, by mapping fillers to vertices and edges to the gap between fillers, the percolation threshold has been predicted and a formula that relates the composite conductance to the network disorder has been obtained. The theoretical arguments are validated by experimental results from the literature.