Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Ching-Jen Chen, Florida State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 22, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-83). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M. S.)--Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Tummala, Rao; Committee Member: Pucha, Raghuram V.; Committee Member: Wong, C.P. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Illustrations not reproduced. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-300).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-83). Also available on the Internet.

La télémétrie biomédicale et l’interfaçage neuronal à base de dispositifs miniatures et autonomes sans fil constituent de nouvelles applications en émergence. Elles visent à répondre à de nombreux enjeux y compris dans les domaines de la santé, du sport et bien être, ou encore de la sécurité au travail et de la défense. Parmi les applications typiques de biotélémétrie, nous pouvons citer le monitoring de certains paramètres physiologiques : température corporelle, pression artérielle, rythme cardiaque, taux de glucose et d’anticorps, détection d’agents chimiques, etc. En ce qui concerne l’interfaçage neuronal, il permet de restaurer les informations sensorielles, d’aider à la réadaptation des amputés, des personnes atteintes de paralysie ou des patients atteints de maladies neurodégénératives. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de contribuer au développement de dispositifs miniaturisés et communicants pour le monitoring, en continu, de variables physiologiques d’humains ainsi que d’animaux. Ces dispositifs innovants nécessitent un système de communication fiable. Plus particulièrement, il s’agit d’analyser le milieu de propagation à l’intérieur des tissus biologiques et de développer des antennes miniatures innovantes ainsi que des méthodes pour leur analyse et leur caractérisation. Le verrou majeur concerne le rendement des antennes miniatures. Les effets de forte hétérogénéité, dispersion, pertes très élevées des milieux biologiques et les contraintes de miniaturisation et d’intégration dans des dispositifs in-body limitent la portée des systèmes existants à quelques dizaines de centimètres. Tout d’abord, des outils spécifiques de modélisation et d’optimisation ont été développés en collaboration avec l’Université de Bohème de l’Ouest. Ces outils sont indispensables pour l’analyse des composants de systèmes antennaires complexes : le code Agros2D (CAO interne) utilise des méthodes entièrement adaptatives. Cette approche permet de réduire la complexité d’optimisation des antennes in-body jusqu’un seul dégrée de liberté. Puis, la limite fondamentale de rendement des antennes pour les applications in-body a été définie ; les liens entre cette limite et la taille de l’antenne, sa fréquence de fonctionnement, la polarisation et les matériaux utilisés (dont hypothétiques) ont été quantifiés pour la première fois. Ce travail fondamental a d’abord pour objectif l’optimisation des performances de l’antenne actuelle de la capsule e-Celsius de l’entreprise BodyCAP pour accroître la portée de la gélule, en prenant en compte les caractéristiques des matériaux et le milieu de propagation que constituent les tissus biologiques. Dans cette étape on inclut également la fabrication des prototypes de gélules télémétriques ainsi que leurs mesures d’impédance. L’antenne optimisée a une portée trois fois plus importante que celle actuelle tout en occupant le même volume. En utilisant ces principes de conception, nous avons développé et caractérisé une antenne à 434 MHz adaptée à une large gamme d'applications in-body. Des dimensions ultra-miniatures, une robustesse et un rendement accrus permettent de l'utiliser à la fois pour des applications des capsules à implanter et à avaler. Enfin, en développant davantage les méthodes de conception et d’optimisation, nous avons conçu une antenne double-bande. Ayant la même robustesse que son équivalent actuel mono-bande, elle présente également un rendement encore plus élevé, permettant ainsi de fonctionner au-delà de 10 m. La caractéristique double-bande permet de concevoir les dispositifs in-body rechargeables sans fil dans le corps. Les antennes proposées contribuent au développement ultérieur d'une nouvelle génération de dispositifs miniatures in-body qui impliquent une intégration complexe et dense des capteurs, de la logique et de la source d'alimentation. / Emerging wireless biotelemetry using miniature implantable, ingestible or injectable (in-body) devices allows continuously monitor and yield human or animal physiological parameters while maintaining mobility and quality of life. Recent advances in microelectromechanical systems and microfluidics—along with ongoing miniaturization of electronics—have empowered numerous innovations in biotelemetry devices, creating new applications in medicine, clinical research, wellness, and defense. Among the typical applications, I can mention, for example, the monitoring of physiological variables: body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, detection of antibodies, chemical, or biological agents. Biotelemetry devices require a reliable communication system: robust, efficient, and versatile. Improving the transmission range of miniature in-body devices remains a major challenge: for the time being, they are able to operate only up to a few meters. Among the main issues to face are low radiation efficiencies (< 0.1%), antenna impedance detuning, and strong coupling to lossy and dispersive biological tissues. Thus, the main goal of the thesis is to conduct a multi-disciplinary study on development, optimization and characterization of antennas for in-body biotelemetry devices. After state-of-the-art and the context, I start with the development on both physical and numerical approaches to account for the effect of human tissues on the antenna. I propose the methodology to achieve given electromagnetic properties at a given frequency based on the full factorial experiment and surface response optimization. In addition, I describe the spherical physical phantom for the far-field characterization along with a combination of feed decoupling techniques. I proceed by reviewing the trough-body propagation mechanisms and deriving the optimal frequency for the in-body devices. I formulate the problem using four phantoms (homogeneous and heterogeneous) and perform full-wave analysis using an in-house hp-FEM code Agros 2D. Next, I study the existing antenna used by the BodyCap Company for its e-Celsius capsule and the ways on how to improve its operating range and robustness under strict integration and material constraints. The mechanisms of antenna–body coupling are analyzed and the found solution improves the antenna IEEE gain by 11 dBi (the operating range is at least tripled). The existing matching circuit and balun are optimized too for the given application reducing its size from eleven to seven discrete elements. In the following chapters, I continue studying the decoupling of antennas from a body using specific microstrip designs and dielectric loading via capsule shell. By applying the developed approaches, a high robustness and radiation efficiency can be achieved. At first, I develop a proof-of-concept antenna that demonstrates that the perfect matching (detuning immunity) is achievable for the operation within all human tissues. Based on these results, I develop a miniature and versatile biotelemetry platform: a 17 mm x 7 mm alumina capsule containing a conformal 434 MHz antenna. The antenna is well matched to 50 Ohm within the majority of human tissues and operates with an arbitrary device circuitry. Like this, one can use it ''as is,'' applying it for a wide range of in-body applications. Then, I develop a low profile conformal dual-band antenna operating in 434 MHz and 2.45 GHz bands. Such antenna can integrate both data transmission and wireless powering functionality increasing the available space inside an in-body device and increasing its scope of applications. Finally, I present the perspective developments including in-body sensing methodology. The obtained results contributes to further development of a new generation of miniature in-body devices that involve complex and dense integration of sensors, logic, and power sources.

No description available.

As mass analyzer technology has continued to improve over the last fifty years, the prospect of field-portable mass spectrometers has garnered interest from many research groups and organizations. Designing a field portable instrument entails more than the scaling down of current commercial systems. Additional considerations such as power consumption, vacuum requirements and ruggedization also play key roles. In this research, two avenues were pursued in the initial development of a portable system. First, micrometer-scale mass analyzers and other electrostatic components were fabricated using silicon on insulator-deep reactive ion etching, and tested. Second, the dimensions of an ion trap were scaled to the millimeter level and fabricated from common metals and commercially available vacuum plastics. This instrument was tested for use in ion isolation and collision induced dissociation for secondary mass spectrometry and confirmatory analyses of unknowns. In addition to portable instrumentation, miniature mass spectrometers show potential for usage in process and reaction monitoring. To this end, a commercial residual gas analyzer was used to monitor plasma deposition and cleaning inside of a chamber designed for laser ablation and soft landing-ion mobility to generate metal-main group clusters. This chamber was also equipped for multiple types of spectral analysis in order to identify and characterize the clusters. Finally, a portion of this research was dedicated to method development in sample collection and analysis for forensic study. A new method for the analysis of illicit chemistries collected via electrostatic lifting is presented. This method incorporates surface-enhanced Raman microscopy as a prescreening tool for nanoextraction and nanospray ionization mass spectrometry.

<p> The core of Swift's Tale of a Tub is an allegorical narrative that recounts in miniature the history of the Christian Church. ln the tailorworship and Aeolist sections of his account, however, Swift temporarily suspends the narrative and describes a comprehensive systems of belief founded in each case on a single, all-important but absurd principle: the tailor-worshippers venerate clothes and the Aeolists, wind. This shift in technique is an important indication of Swift's aim in the Tale. Despite their essentially digressive nature, these two sections haves a close relation to the narrative and are obviously intended to comment on it. The most useful approach to an understanding of this shift of technique is by reference to the genre known as the padoxical enconium which was ideally suited for a satirical treatment of the philosophical issues that Swift was dealing with in the Tale. </p> <p> Swift's main target in the Tale is generally acknowledged to be 'modernism.' The combined evidence of the Tale, The Battle of the Books and The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit shows that Swift visualized the ancients-moderns controversy less as a contest between the merits of the learning of two different epochs far removed in time than as an eternally recurring struggle between a philosophic casr of thought (modernism) that would more accurately be called 'progressive rationalism' and the traditional Christian humanism to which Swift himself gave allegiance. Swift's main objection to modernism was that it tended to promote fashionable ideas to an importance far above their worth merely on grounds of novelty, to the detriment of what is of permanent value in human affairs. The typical modern reduction of experience to a naively simple scheme is the central is the central preoccupation of the 'Digression of Madness'. </p> <p> In order to refute not just individual modern thinkers but modernism in general, Swift turned the paradoxical econium into a brilliant burlesque device. Because it characteristically elevates to a position of importance something generally considered base or insignificant, the paradoxical enconium is a humorous, far-fetched counterpart to the kind of reductive logic that modernism attempts in all seriousness. The tailor-worship system is at once a paradoxical enconium of clothes and a modern philosophical system. At the same time, since it has no direct historical equivalent, the tailor-worship stands outside time as a permanent diagnosis of all such kinds of thinking. Both the Aoelist and tailor-worship systems are timeless paradigms of reductive thought that transcend the historical limitations of the examples they parody. For purpose of constructing such paradigms the paradoxical encomium was ideally adapted in a way that the allegorical narrative, with its point-forpoint correspondence with historical events, was not. </p> <p> Swift makes further use of the paradoxical encomium in the 'Digression on Madness', in which he humourously places the most reductive thinkers of history within a reductive framework of his own devising. At the centre of this digression, however, he presents a more engaging paradox: in the most famous passage of the Tale he contrives to prove the superiority of credulity to both reason and the abuse of reason. The terms in which he does so are more than just a practical example of the dangers of rhetoric: they are an inverted restatement of the terms of the ancients-moderns controversy, a warning that modernism at its most extreme is truly insane, and an implicit vindiciation of the values of Christian humanism. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Fluorescence based spectroscopy and imaging techniques provide qualitative and quantitative diagnostic information about biological systems. Some tissue cells have inherent fluorescence characteristics, and when excited with light at a certain frequency, they can emit light of a slightly longer wavelength; a phenomenon known as autofluorescence. Differences in the autofluorescence emission spectra between healthy and diseased tissue may be used as a non-invasive diagnostic tool for the detection of diseases. In this thesis, I describe the design, fabrication, and testing of a miniaturized fluorescence imaging device for non-invasive clinical diagnosis in the gastrointestinal tract. The device is designed such that it can be turned completely wireless. The system includes three sub-modules: optical imaging, electronics control and image acquisition, and information processing and transmission. These modules were individually developed and tested before being integrated into a complete, externally powered device. The final integrated system is small in size (diameter: ~ 2.5 cm; length: ~ 11 cm). The performance of each individual module and the overall integrated system has been evaluated using fluorescent phantoms. It has been demonstrated that the miniaturized device can acquire spectrally-resolved fluorescence images. It has also been separately demonstrated that the image stream can be transmitted wirelessly. An important outcome of this feasibility study is the identification of important technological issues and pathways for future prototype development. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)