It has been observed that the normal process of aging is associated with a decline in muscle strength and mass. It has also been observed that total body potassium and intracellular water (ICW) decrease with age, reflecting a loss of body cell mass (BCM), 60% of which is the skeletal muscle. It is generally accepted that traditional high-intensity strength training (ST) regimens can not only attenuate, but in some cases, reverse some of these aging-related changes. Periodization, a nontraditional approach to strength training, has been demonstrated to stimulate more rapid increases in muscle strength than traditional approaches in young adults; however, it has not been comprehensively evaluated in postmenopausal women. Investigators have consistently reported an increase in muscle strength in older adults undergoing both short- and long-term traditional ST programs. It is fairly well accepted that early increases in muscle strength are attributable to neurologic adaptations. There has been less consistency in the literature regarding the timing and nature of changes in muscle quality and mass with ST. Although several investigators have reported increased muscle protein synthesis rates as early as 2 weeks after ST initiation in older adults, the majority of published reports support the notion that significant NET gains in intracellular protein, and thus, gains in muscle mass/volume/hypertrophy do not occur before 9-10 weeks. Changes in intracellular water, which would be expected to occur with changes in intracellular protein, have not been studied during short-term ST interventions in older adults. Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) has been validated as a field technique to accurately measure ICW (and BCM) changes in HIV infected individuals. The primary aim of the current study was to determine if muscle strength would increase in postmenopausal women undergoing a novel (periodized) ST intervention of 10 weeks duration. A secondary aim was to determine if BIS would detect a change in ICW in the study subjects from baseline to study conclusion. Study participants were eleven, healthy postmenopausal women between the ages of 60 and 74 (mean age: 65 ± 4.4 y) who had not engaged in ST in the six months preceding the study. ICW and muscle strength were assessed at baseline and at study conclusion. The ST program was conducted twice a week for 10 weeks at the Senior Center in Blacksburg, VA. Participants performed seven different exercises incorporating upper body and lower body muscle groups. The women performed one set of 8-12 repetitions at an intensity of 80% of one repetition maximum (1 RM) the first week, progressing to 2 sets of 8-12 repetitions at the same intensity during the second week. The remaining weeks consisted of three sets of 8-12 repetitions, performed at an intensity of 80%, 75%, and 70% of their current 1 RM, respectively. One RM was reassessed every other week. The major result from this study was that muscle strength of all trained muscle groups increased in postmenopausal women undergoing 10 weeks of pyramid ST (P<0.05). In addition, the pyramid ST protocol utilized in this study was well-tolerated and resulted in no injuries in any of the older women in the study, indicating that this approach may be used safely in this population. Mean ICW measured by the field method BIS did not change over the course of the study. This result was consistent with other published data reporting no changes in lean body mass or muscle volume/area by more sophisticated techniques. / Master of Science

Electrical bioimpedance spectroscopy (EBIS) has been used to assess the status or composition of various types of tissue, and examples of EBIS include body composition analysis (BCA) and tissue characterisation for skin cancer detection. EBIS is a non-invasive method that has the potential to provide a large amount of information for diagnosis or monitoring purposes, such as the monitoring of pulmonary oedema, i.e., fluid accumulation in the lungs. However, in many cases, systems based on EBIS have not become generally accepted in clinical practice. Possible reasons behind the low acceptance of EBIS could involve inaccurate models; artefacts, such as those from movements; measurement errors; and estimation errors. Previous thoracic EBIS measurements aimed at pulmonary oedema have shown some uncertainties in their results, making it difficult to produce trustworthy monitoring methods. The current research hypothesis was that these uncertainties mostly originate from estimation errors. In particular, time-varying behaviours of the thorax, e.g., respiratory and cardiac activity, can cause estimation errors, which make it tricky to detect the slowly varying behaviour of this system, i.e., pulmonary oedema. The aim of this thesis is to investigate potential sources of estimation error in transthoracic impedance spectroscopy (TIS) for pulmonary oedema detection and to propose methods to prevent or compensate for these errors.   This work is mainly focused on two aspects of impedance spectrum estimation: first, the problems associated with the delay between estimations of spectrum samples in the frequency-sweep technique and second, the influence of undersampling (a result of impedance estimation times) when estimating an EBIS spectrum. The delay between frequency sweeps can produce huge errors when analysing EBIS spectra, but its effect decreases with averaging or low-pass filtering, which is a common and simple method for monitoring the time-invariant behaviour of a system. The results show the importance of the undersampling effect as the main estimation error that can cause uncertainty in TIS measurements.  The best time for dealing with this error is during the design process, when the system can be designed to avoid this error or with the possibility to compensate for the error during analysis. A case study of monitoring pulmonary oedema is used to assess the effect of these two estimation errors. However, the results can be generalised to any case for identifying the slowly varying behaviour of physiological systems that also display higher frequency variations.  Finally, some suggestions for designing an EBIS measurement system and analysis methods to avoid or compensate for these estimation errors are discussed. / <p>QC 20140604</p>

No intervalo de valores de frequência de poucos kHz até 1 MHz, nomeado às vezes como região de dispersão ?, as estruturas das células são o principal determinante da impedância do tecido. Esse é o fundamento básico da Espectroscopia da Bioimpedância Elétrica - EBE, a qual tem importância significativa como ferramenta de diagnóstico do câncer de colo no útero - CCU. A EBE consiste na medição de impedância elétrica do tecido cervical para diferentes valores de frequência. A diferença do comportamento no valor da impedância na frequência entre o tecido normal e o cancerígeno é usada para detectar o nível de neoplasia. Um bloco importante do Sistema EBE é o bloco gerador de sinal, o qual está composto principalmente de: a) Oscilador Controlado Numericamente - NCO, b) Conversor Digital - Analógico - DAC e c) Fonte de Corrente Controlada por Tensão - VCCS. O Objetivo do presente trabalho foi o projeto dos blocos principais do Gerador de Sinal para aplicação da Espectroscopia da Bioimpedância Elétrica na Detecção do Câncer no colo do Útero. O Gerador de Sinal é composto de: Oscilador Controlado Numericamente baseado no algoritmo de CORDIC, Conversor Digital - Analógico de 10 bits e Fonte de Corrente Controlada por Tensão. É apresentado o projeto do Oscilador Controlado Numericamente (NCO) de 10 bits baseado na arquitetura iterativa do CORDIC e otimizado em termos da área. O NCO foi implementado na Tecnologia CMOS do Processo da TSMC 180 nm por meio do FREE MINI@SIC IMEC-TSMC 2015. As especificações do projeto foram obtidas dos requerimentos da aplicação da Espectroscopia da Bioimpedância Elétrica - EBE na detecção do Câncer no Colo do Útero - CCU. A arquitetura proposta é composta fundamentalmente de: seletor de frequência de 5 bits, gerador do valor angular, bloco de pré-rotação, unidade aritmética do CORDIC, Unidade de Controle e tabela de busca da referência para arco-tangente. A área do núcleo para este componente foi de 133µmx133µm, ou seja, 0,017689 mm². Foi configurado para gerar 32 valores de frequência de sinais sinusoidais no intervalo de valores de frequência de 100 Hz até 1 MHz com um erro máximo de 0,00623% entre os valores de frequência obtidos da simulação e os resultados experimentais. O Conversor Digital - Analógico foi projetado no nível do esquemático numa arquitetura Current-Steering Segmentada 6-4 com valores de DNL<0,1 LSB e INL<0,2 LSB obtidos na análise de corners. O circuito VCCS foi projetado, simulado e fabricado em Tecnologia CMOS da TSMC 130 nm com polarização de 1,3 V. A Fonte de Corrente de Howland proposta foi baseada no amplificador operacional auto polarizado complementar de cascode dobrado (SB-CFC). De acordo com os requerimentos do padrão internacional IEC:60601-1 o valor pico da corrente sinusoidal foi ajustado em 10 µA. De acordo com aplicação da EBE para a CCD, as especificações do SB-CFC-AO foram calculadas para obter uma corrente sinusoidal na faixa de frequência de 100 Hz até 1 MHz com impedância de saída maior do que 1 MOhm a 1 MHz de frequência. Foram executadas simulações post-layout e os principais resultados foram: 10±0,0035 µA para a amplitude na corrente de saída na faixa de frequência especificada com 5 kOhm de resistência de carga, valores de impedância de saída maiores do 1,6 MOhm a 1 MHz; variações na amplitude da corrente de saída menores do que 0,4% para impedância de carga de 10 Ohm até 5 kOhm. O resultado experimental em termos de não-linearidade apresentou o máximo de 2% da plena escala. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, o desempenho do VCCS é adequado para aplicações da EBE na CCD. / In the frequency range of a few kHz to 1 MHz, sometimes referred to as the ? dispersion region, cell structures are the main determinant of tissue impedance. That is a basic fundamental of Electrical Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy - EBS, which has a significant importance as a diagnostic tool for Cervical Cancer Detection - CCD. EBS consists in the measurements of Electrical Impedance of cervical tissue at different values of frequency. The difference of behavior of impedance value in the frequency of normal tissue and cancerous tissue is used to detect the level of neoplasia. An important block of EBS System is the block signal generator, which is mainly composed of: a) Numerically Controlled Oscillator - NCO, b) Digital to Analog Converter - DAC and c) Voltage Controlled Current Source - VCCS. The aims of this work was to design the main blocks of a Signal Generator for Electrical Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy applied to Cervical Cancer Detection. The signal generator is composed by: CORDIC-Based Numerically Controlled Oscillator, 10-bits Digital-to-Analog Converter and Voltage Controlled Current Source - VCCS. A 10-bit Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO) based on the iterative architecture of COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer (CORDIC) optimized in terms of area is presented. The NCO was implemented in a TSMC CMOS 180 nm technology process on the FREE MINI@SIC IMEC-TSMC. The design specifications were obtained from the requirements for application of Electrical Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy (EBS) to Cervical Cancer Detection (CCD). The proposed architecture is basically composed by: 5-bit frequency selector, angle generator, pre-rotator block, CORDIC Arithmetic Unit, Control Unit and lookup table for arctangent reference. The area of this IC for the CORE circuit was 133µm X 133µm, i.e. 0,017689 mm². It was configured in order to generate 32 different frequencies for output sinusoidal signals in the frequency range of 100Hz up to 1MHz with maximum error of 0,00623% in frequency values obtained of comparison of theoretical and experimental results. The 10 bits DAC was implemented in a 6-to-4 Current Steering Segmented architecture with DNL<0,1 LSB and INL<0,2LSB obtained from corners analysis. The circuit VCCS was designed, simulated and fabricated in TSMC 130 nm CMOS technology at 1.3V power supply. The proposed Howland Current Source is based on Self-Biased Complementary Folded Cascode (SB-CFC) Operational Amplifier (OA). Complying with the requirements for medical electrical equipment of international standard ABNT-NBR-IEC-60601-1 the sinusoidal current peak amplitude was settled at 10 µA. In accordance with the requirements of the EBS for CCD, the specifications for the SB-CFC-OA were calculated to meet the 100 Hz to 1 MHz frequency range for the sinusoidal output current and the output impedance higher than 1 MOhm at 1 MHz frequency. Post-layout simulations were run and the main results were: 10 ± 0.0335 µA for the output current peak amplitude over the specified frequency range and with 5 kOhm load impedance; values above 1.6 MOhm output impedance @ 1 MHz; nominal current amplitude variations lower than 0.4% for load impedances in the range of 10 Ohm up to 5 kOhm. And the experimental result for maximum non-linearity was 2% of full scale. From these results, the performance of the VCCS is adequate for EBS-CCD applications.

Nowadays, the Electrical Bioimpedance (EBI) measurements have become a commonpractice as they are useful for different clinical applications. EBI technology and EBImeasurement systems are relatively simple when compared to other type of medicalinstrumentation. But even in such simple measurement systems measurement artifact mayoccur. One of the most common artifacts present measurements is the Hook Effect, which isidentifiable by the hook-alike deviation on the EBI data that it produces on the impedanceplot.The Hook Effect influences typical EBI data analysis processes like Cole fitting processand the estimation of the Cole parameters, which are critical for several EBI applications.Therefore the Hook Effect must be corrected, compensated or removed before the any fittingprocess.With the goal of finding a reliable correction method the origin and the impact on theEBI measurement of the Hook Effect is studied in this thesis. The currently used Tdcompensation method is also studied and a new approach for compensation and correction ispresented.The results indicate that the proposed method truly corrects the Hook Effect and that themethodology to select the correcting parameters is solid based on the origin of the Hook Effectand it is extracted from the EBI measurement it-self avoiding any external dependency.

The concept of Electrical Bio Impedance prevails in this thesis. The EBI measurement which is used for obtaining the body composition is, by virtue of time becoming of great use as its one of the easiest method of finding out the body composition. In simple words, EBI is the opposition offered by the body to the current. It is just like another analysis tool. The result is only as good as the test is done. In this thesis, we have done the analysis on the neonatal EBI measurements of two kinds.In this work, 293 measurements are obtained from 12 babies and 230 measurements are obtained from 7 babies have been analyzed with the purpose of obtaining reference values for the spectrum of complex EBI. The analysis uses both statistical and model approach of obtaining reference values and in order to fit the given data, Cole model analysis is used.Filters were applied to get the highest degree of correctness. In the due course of the filtering, it was found that the measurements from some babies have been deleted. The Standard Error of Estimation (S.E.E.) is a parameter used for obtaining the further reliable and most probable output. The further analysis is done using MATLAB and the results are been compared to the previous analysis report.

Electrical Bioimpedance (EBI) is the opposition offered by the biological material to theflow of electric current. Nowadays EBI technology is widely used for total body compositionand body fluid distribution.In this project a software suite is developed by using the GUI tool of Matlab, thissoftware is meant to help to remove artefacts from the EBI measurement and to visualize theEBIS measurements and the processing performed on them.Hook effect is one of the major artefacts found in EBI measurements, which createsproblems in any analysis. To eliminate the Hook effect some methods are followed. The data’sare processed using these methods and they are visualized. For the better understanding, bothraw data and the corrected data are plotted in impedance and admittance plots. The correcteddata is stored for further use and analysis.

No description available.

No description available.

TDCS is a form of non-invasive neurostimulation that is comprised of injection of current via strategically placed scalp electrodes into targeted areas of the brain. TDCS has shown therapeutic benefit for numerous clinical applications. This technique has not however been widely adopted due to high variability of response to the stimulation. Current state of the art methods for optimizing tDCS are based on FEM models that generally model tissue as isotropic and homogeneous and do not take into account inter subject variability of head tissue electrical properties. We therefore develop an in-vivo method of measuring and analyzing bioimpedance spectroscopy measurements of the head to estimate change to tDCS dose in neural tissues for different subjects. Finite element simulations are implemented on a realistic MRI derived head model. 5\% random Gaussian noise is added. Experimental bioimpedance measurements are taken of the heads of 8 subjects. We simulate sensitivity distribution and impedance for a variety of 2 and 4 electrode configurations over a wide frequency range. We also extract Cole parameters and implement PCA on simulated and experimental impedance. We demonstrate that the Cole model of the head can be accurately approximated by the sum in series of Cole systems of each tissue. Comparison of Cole parameters from various simulated electrode configurations show statistical differences (paired t test $p<.05$). PCA shows that close to 100\% of the variance between two impedance spectra is described along a single principal component. Variation described by the second principal component increases as a function of increasing inter electrode gap which may be related to changes in dose. FEM and experimentally derived Cole parameters show different trends for various electrode configurations, good agreement is however shown for the PCA results. The outcome of this research may lead to a higher tDCS efficacy by improving standardization and control of stimulation by relation of dose and bioimpedance spectra characteristics.

No intervalo de valores de frequência de poucos kHz até 1 MHz, nomeado às vezes como região de dispersão ?, as estruturas das células são o principal determinante da impedância do tecido. Esse é o fundamento básico da Espectroscopia da Bioimpedância Elétrica - EBE, a qual tem importância significativa como ferramenta de diagnóstico do câncer de colo no útero - CCU. A EBE consiste na medição de impedância elétrica do tecido cervical para diferentes valores de frequência. A diferença do comportamento no valor da impedância na frequência entre o tecido normal e o cancerígeno é usada para detectar o nível de neoplasia. Um bloco importante do Sistema EBE é o bloco gerador de sinal, o qual está composto principalmente de: a) Oscilador Controlado Numericamente - NCO, b) Conversor Digital - Analógico - DAC e c) Fonte de Corrente Controlada por Tensão - VCCS. O Objetivo do presente trabalho foi o projeto dos blocos principais do Gerador de Sinal para aplicação da Espectroscopia da Bioimpedância Elétrica na Detecção do Câncer no colo do Útero. O Gerador de Sinal é composto de: Oscilador Controlado Numericamente baseado no algoritmo de CORDIC, Conversor Digital - Analógico de 10 bits e Fonte de Corrente Controlada por Tensão. É apresentado o projeto do Oscilador Controlado Numericamente (NCO) de 10 bits baseado na arquitetura iterativa do CORDIC e otimizado em termos da área. O NCO foi implementado na Tecnologia CMOS do Processo da TSMC 180 nm por meio do FREE MINI@SIC IMEC-TSMC 2015. As especificações do projeto foram obtidas dos requerimentos da aplicação da Espectroscopia da Bioimpedância Elétrica - EBE na detecção do Câncer no Colo do Útero - CCU. A arquitetura proposta é composta fundamentalmente de: seletor de frequência de 5 bits, gerador do valor angular, bloco de pré-rotação, unidade aritmética do CORDIC, Unidade de Controle e tabela de busca da referência para arco-tangente. A área do núcleo para este componente foi de 133µmx133µm, ou seja, 0,017689 mm². Foi configurado para gerar 32 valores de frequência de sinais sinusoidais no intervalo de valores de frequência de 100 Hz até 1 MHz com um erro máximo de 0,00623% entre os valores de frequência obtidos da simulação e os resultados experimentais. O Conversor Digital - Analógico foi projetado no nível do esquemático numa arquitetura Current-Steering Segmentada 6-4 com valores de DNL<0,1 LSB e INL<0,2 LSB obtidos na análise de corners. O circuito VCCS foi projetado, simulado e fabricado em Tecnologia CMOS da TSMC 130 nm com polarização de 1,3 V. A Fonte de Corrente de Howland proposta foi baseada no amplificador operacional auto polarizado complementar de cascode dobrado (SB-CFC). De acordo com os requerimentos do padrão internacional IEC:60601-1 o valor pico da corrente sinusoidal foi ajustado em 10 µA. De acordo com aplicação da EBE para a CCD, as especificações do SB-CFC-AO foram calculadas para obter uma corrente sinusoidal na faixa de frequência de 100 Hz até 1 MHz com impedância de saída maior do que 1 MOhm a 1 MHz de frequência. Foram executadas simulações post-layout e os principais resultados foram: 10±0,0035 µA para a amplitude na corrente de saída na faixa de frequência especificada com 5 kOhm de resistência de carga, valores de impedância de saída maiores do 1,6 MOhm a 1 MHz; variações na amplitude da corrente de saída menores do que 0,4% para impedância de carga de 10 Ohm até 5 kOhm. O resultado experimental em termos de não-linearidade apresentou o máximo de 2% da plena escala. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, o desempenho do VCCS é adequado para aplicações da EBE na CCD. / In the frequency range of a few kHz to 1 MHz, sometimes referred to as the ? dispersion region, cell structures are the main determinant of tissue impedance. That is a basic fundamental of Electrical Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy - EBS, which has a significant importance as a diagnostic tool for Cervical Cancer Detection - CCD. EBS consists in the measurements of Electrical Impedance of cervical tissue at different values of frequency. The difference of behavior of impedance value in the frequency of normal tissue and cancerous tissue is used to detect the level of neoplasia. An important block of EBS System is the block signal generator, which is mainly composed of: a) Numerically Controlled Oscillator - NCO, b) Digital to Analog Converter - DAC and c) Voltage Controlled Current Source - VCCS. The aims of this work was to design the main blocks of a Signal Generator for Electrical Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy applied to Cervical Cancer Detection. The signal generator is composed by: CORDIC-Based Numerically Controlled Oscillator, 10-bits Digital-to-Analog Converter and Voltage Controlled Current Source - VCCS. A 10-bit Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO) based on the iterative architecture of COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer (CORDIC) optimized in terms of area is presented. The NCO was implemented in a TSMC CMOS 180 nm technology process on the FREE MINI@SIC IMEC-TSMC. The design specifications were obtained from the requirements for application of Electrical Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy (EBS) to Cervical Cancer Detection (CCD). The proposed architecture is basically composed by: 5-bit frequency selector, angle generator, pre-rotator block, CORDIC Arithmetic Unit, Control Unit and lookup table for arctangent reference. The area of this IC for the CORE circuit was 133µm X 133µm, i.e. 0,017689 mm². It was configured in order to generate 32 different frequencies for output sinusoidal signals in the frequency range of 100Hz up to 1MHz with maximum error of 0,00623% in frequency values obtained of comparison of theoretical and experimental results. The 10 bits DAC was implemented in a 6-to-4 Current Steering Segmented architecture with DNL<0,1 LSB and INL<0,2LSB obtained from corners analysis. The circuit VCCS was designed, simulated and fabricated in TSMC 130 nm CMOS technology at 1.3V power supply. The proposed Howland Current Source is based on Self-Biased Complementary Folded Cascode (SB-CFC) Operational Amplifier (OA). Complying with the requirements for medical electrical equipment of international standard ABNT-NBR-IEC-60601-1 the sinusoidal current peak amplitude was settled at 10 µA. In accordance with the requirements of the EBS for CCD, the specifications for the SB-CFC-OA were calculated to meet the 100 Hz to 1 MHz frequency range for the sinusoidal output current and the output impedance higher than 1 MOhm at 1 MHz frequency. Post-layout simulations were run and the main results were: 10 ± 0.0335 µA for the output current peak amplitude over the specified frequency range and with 5 kOhm load impedance; values above 1.6 MOhm output impedance @ 1 MHz; nominal current amplitude variations lower than 0.4% for load impedances in the range of 10 Ohm up to 5 kOhm. And the experimental result for maximum non-linearity was 2% of full scale. From these results, the performance of the VCCS is adequate for EBS-CCD applications.