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This pilot study aimed to test a comprehensive experience sampling method (ESM) protocol for investigating the relationship between stress and personality functioning (PF) in the daily lives of outpatients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Participants (N = 22) responded to a 32-item ESM questionnaire 10 times a day for 1 week while wearing two stress detection devices. Results showed that the protocol was feasible. There was a high level of compliance (i.e. average of 85%), and no serious adverse events. The main indices, that is, Stress and PF, demonstrated acceptable to excellent internal consistency and provisional evidence for their validity. We found that 64% of the variability in PF was due to within-subject differences. Mixed modelling showed that the momentary changes in stress (p < .001) and body position (i.e. active vs passive; p < .001) explained an estimated 46% of this within-subject variance. We found no significant within-subject effects when we used parameters of autonomic nervous system (ANS)–activity as predictors. Data loss during recording and artefact detection of electrophysiological data were substantial but not related to momentary changes in PF. The preliminary findings suggest that PF is a volatile aspect of personality pathology and that there is a strong, concurrent relationship between stress and PF in daily life. This pilot study constitutes the first demonstration of PF fluctuations within a clinical sample and initiates an examination of their association with ANS activity.

This paper presents a methodology to design reconfigurable switched-capacitor delta-sigma modulators (ΔΣMs) capable of keeping their corresponding power efficiency figures constant and optimal for a set of resolutions and signal bandwidths. This method is especially suitable for low-bandwidth, medium-to-high-resolution specifications, which are common in biomedical application range. The presented methodology is based on an analytic model of all different contributions to the power dissipation of the ΔΣM. In particular, a novel way to predict the static power dissipated by integrators based on class A and class AB operational transconductance amplifier is presented. The power-optimal solution is found in terms of filter order, quantizer resolution, oversampling ratio, and capacitor dimensions for a targeted resolution and bandwidth. As the size of the sampling capacitors is crucial to determine power consumption, three approaches to achieve reconfigurability are compared: sizing the sampling capacitors to achieve the highest resolution and keep them constant, change only the first sampling capacitor according to the targeted resolution, or program all sampling capacitors to the required resolution. The second approach results in the best trade-off between power efficiency and simplicity. A reconfigurable ΔΣM for biomedical applications is designed at transistor level in a 0.18-µm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor process following the methodology discussed. A comparison between the power estimated by the proposed analytic model and the transistor implementation shows a maximum difference of 17%, validating thus the proposed approach.

Accepted Author Manuscript, Electronic Instrumentation

A sub- µW ECG acquisition IC is presented for a single-chamber leadless pacemaker applications. It integrates a low-power, wide dynamic-range ECG readout front end together with an analog QRS-complex extractor. To save ASIC power, a current-multiplexed channel buffer is introduced to drive a 7 b-to-10 b self-synchronized SAR ADC which utilizes 4 fF/unit capacitors. The ASIC consumes only 680nA and achieves CMRR >90 dB, PSRR >80 dB, an input-referred noise of 4.9 µVrms in a 130 Hz bandwidth, and has rail-to-rail DC offset rejection. Low-power heartbeat detections are evaluated with the help of the ASIC acquiring nearly 20,000 beats across 10 different records from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. In the presence of muscle noise, both the average Sensitivity (Se) and Positive Predictivity (PP) show more than 90% when the input SNR >6 dB.

Accepted Author Manuscript, Electronic Instrumentation

The Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) is one of the three science instruments on ESA's far infrared and submillimetre observatory. It employs two Ge:Ga photoconductor arrays (stressed and unstressed) with 16x25 pixels, each, and two filled silicon bolometer arrays with 16x32 and 32x64 pixels, respectively, to perform integral-field spectroscopy and imaging photometry in the 60-210\mu\ m wavelength regime. In photometry mode, it simultaneously images two bands, 60-85\mu\ m or 85-125\mu\m and 125-210\mu\ m, over a field of view of ~1.75'x3.5', with close to Nyquist beam sampling in each band. In spectroscopy mode, it images a field of 47"x47", resolved into 5x5 pixels, with an instantaneous spectral coverage of ~1500km/s and a spectral resolution of ~175km/s. We summarise the design of the instrument, describe observing modes, calibration, and data analysis methods, and present our current assessment of the in-orbit performance of the instrument based on the Performance Verification tests. PACS is fully operational, and the achieved performance is close to or better than the pre-launch predictions.

The navigational strategies of insects using skylight polarization are interesting for applications in autonomous agent navigation because they rely on very little information for navigation. A polarization navigation sensor using the Stokes parameters to determine the orientation is presented. The working principle of the sensor is based on egocentric navigation predominant in insects. The Stokes parameters computed from the measured intensities using a metallic wire grid micropolarizer are used to retrieve positional information. The computation of the Stokes parameters is simplified to allow for a future on-chip computational algorithm implementation, which would result in highly miniaturized navigational sensors. The image sensor consist of an array of 128×128 pixels, occupies an area of 5×4 mm2 and it has been designed and fabricated in a 180 nm CMOS process., Electronic Instrumentation, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

The Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) is one of the three science instruments on ESA's far infrared and submillimetre observatory. It employs two Ge:Ga photoconductor arrays (stressed and unstressed) with 16x25 pixels, each, and two filled silicon bolometer arrays with 16x32 and 32x64 pixels, respectively, to perform integral-field spectroscopy and imaging photometry in the 60-210\mu\ m wavelength regime. In photometry mode, it simultaneously images two bands, 60-85\mu\ m or 85-125\mu\m and 125-210\mu\ m, over a field of view of ~1.75'x3.5', with close to Nyquist beam sampling in each band. In spectroscopy mode, it images a field of 47"x47", resolved into 5x5 pixels, with an instantaneous spectral coverage of ~1500km/s and a spectral resolution of ~175km/s. We summarise the design of the instrument, describe observing modes, calibration, and data analysis methods, and present our current assessment of the in-orbit performance of the instrument based on the Performance Verification tests. PACS is fully operational, and the achieved performance is close to or better than the pre-launch predictions.

The navigational strategies of insects using skylight polarization are interesting for applications in autonomous agent navigation because they rely on very little information for navigation. A polarization navigation sensor using the Stokes parameters to determine the orientation is presented. The working principle of the sensor is based on egocentric navigation predominant in insects. The Stokes parameters computed from the measured intensities using a metallic wire grid micropolarizer are used to retrieve positional information. The computation of the Stokes parameters is simplified to allow for a future on-chip computational algorithm implementation, which would result in highly miniaturized navigational sensors. The image sensor consist of an array of 128×128 pixels, occupies an area of 5×4 mm2 and it has been designed and fabricated in a 180 nm CMOS process., Electronic Instrumentation, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

The rapid evolution of electronic devices since the beginning of the nanoelectronics era has brought about exceptional computational power in an ever shrinking system footprint. This has enabled among others the wealth of nomadic battery powered wireless systems (smart phones, mp3 players, GPS, …) that society currently enjoys. Emerging integration technologies enabling even smaller volumes and the associated increased functional density may bring about a new revolution in systems targeting wearable healthcare, wellness, lifestyle and industrial monitoring applications.

The rapid evolution of electronic devices since the beginning of the nanoelectronics era has brought about exceptional computational power in an ever shrinking system footprint. This has enabled among others the wealth of nomadic battery powered wireless systems (smart phones, mp3 players, GPS, …) that society currently enjoys. Emerging integration technologies enabling even smaller volumes and the associated increased functional density may bring about a new revolution in systems targeting wearable healthcare, wellness, lifestyle and industrial monitoring applications.

This paper presents a polycrystalline silicon germanium (poly-SiGe) thermopile specially designed for thermoelectric generators used on human body. Both the design of the single thermocouple and the arrangement of the thermocouple array have been described. A rim structure has been introduced in order to increase the temperature difference across the thermocouple junctions. The modeling of the thermocouple and the thermopile has been performed analytically and numerically. An output power of about 1 $\mu$W at an output voltage of more than 1 V is expected from the current design of thermopiles in a watch-size generator. The key material properties of the poly-SiGe have been measured. The thermopile has been fabricated and tested. Experimental results clearly demonstrate the advantage of the rim structure in increasing output voltage. In presence of forced convection, the output voltage of a non-released thermopile can increase from about 53 mV/K/cm2 to about 130 mV/K/cm2 after the rim structure is formed. A larger output voltage from the thermopile is expected upon process completion., Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing)

This paper presents the different processing steps of a new generic surface micromachining module for MEMS hermetic packaging at temperatures around 180 degrees C based on nickel plating and photoresist sacrificial layers. The advantages of thin film caps are the reduced thickness and area consumption and the promise of being a low-cost batch process. Moreover, sealing happens by a reflow technique, giving the freedom of choosing the pressure and atmosphere inside the cavity. Sacrificial etch holes are situated above the device allowing shorter release times compared to the state-of-the-art. With the so-called over-plating process, small etch holes can be created in the membrane without the need of expensive lithography tools. The etch holes in the membrane have been shown to be sufficiently small to block the sealing material to pass through, but still large enough to enable an efficient release., Comment: Submitted on behalf of TIMA Editions (http://irevues.inist.fr/tima-editions)

Nanocrystalline diamond is a promising material for the fabrication of highly sensitive flexural plate wave (FPW) sensors. The design of the FPW sensor requires the determination of the mechanical properties of a thin film membrane. In this paper we investigate the mechanical resonance of nanocrystalline diamond membranes with a stroboscopic interferometer optical system. Membranes with lateral dimensions in the range 0.8 to 6 mm and about 1 mu m thick were excited in air by a loudspeaker. The resonance frequencies helped to determine the mechanical properties of the diamond membrane and give directly the parameter of interest for the FPW sensor design. Our method allows the rapid investigation of the material without requiring an integrated transduction system and can be used to analyze structures with the actual dimensions of the FPW sensor., Anglais