Comparison of the Effects of Aromatherapy With Damask Rose and Chamomile Essential Oil on Preoperative Pain and Anxiety in Emergency Orthopedic Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

PURPOSE: Patients who are awaiting emergency surgery experience high levels of anxiety and pain. This study aimed to compare the effects of aromatherapy with damask rose and chamomile essential oil on the preoperative pain and anxiety associated with emergency orthopedic surgery. DESIGN: A parallel-group randomized controlled design was used. METHODS: Ninety participants were selected and randomly assigned to three groups: the damask rose group (n = 30), the chamomile group (n = 30), and the control group (n = 30). In the damask rose and chamomile groups, three drops of 40% essential of each plant were used for inhalation aromatherapy (three drops every hour for 3 hours) Visual Analog Scales were used to evaluate participants' pain and anxiety levels at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 1 hour after the intervention. FINDINGS: The results of repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) showed that both of the intervention groups experienced a decrease in pain and anxiety over time compared to the control group (P < .001). ANOVA results showed that immediately after the intervention, the anxiety level of the damask rose group compared to the chamomile and control groups was significantly lower (P = .01). However, there was no significant difference in terms of anxiety between the damask rose and chamomile groups 1 hour after the intervention (P = .07). CONCLUSIONS: The use of damask rose and chamomile in aromatherapy was found to effectively lower anxiety and pain levels in emergency orthopedic surgery patients. The antianxiety effect of damask rose is faster than chamomile.

Kinetic analysis of nanoparticle-protein interactions using a plasmon waveguide resonance.

A plasmon waveguide resonance (PWR) sensor is proposed for studying the interaction between gold nanoparticles and proteins. The ability of the PWR sensor to operate in both TM and TE Polarizations, i.e. its polarization diversity, facilitates the simultaneous spectroscopy of the nanoparticles surface reactions using both polarizations. The response of each polarization to streptavidin-biotin binding at the surface of gold nanoparticles is investigated in real time. Finally, using the principles of multimode spectroscopy, the nanoparticle's surface reactions are decoupled from the bulk solution refractive index variations. Schematic diagram of the NP-modified PWR sensor.

Self-referenced spectroscopy using plasmon waveguide resonance biosensor.

A plasmon waveguide resonance (PWR) sensor is designed, fabricated, and tested for self-referenced biosensing. The PWR sensor is able to support two different polarizations, TM and TE. The TM polarization has a large sensitivity to variations in the background refractive index while the TE polarization is more sensitive to the surface properties. The ability of the PWR sensor to simultaneously operate in both TM and TE modes is used to decouple the background index variations (bulk effects) from the changes in adlayer thickness (surface effects) via multimode spectroscopy. To benchmark the performance of the PWR, a conventional surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor is fabricated and tested under the same conditions.

Multimode spectroscopy using dielectric grating coupled to a surface plasmon resonance sensor.

A new platform is proposed to solve one of the main shortcomings of surface plasmon resonance biosensors, namely, the cross sensitivity to surface and bulk effects. This approach is based on multimode spectroscopy in which three different modes are excited simultaneously. The proposed design consists of an SPR sensor loaded with a dielectric grating. The design parameters (dimensions and wavelength) are optimized with a genetic algorithm. The optimized design has two resonance modes excited with TM polarized light, each sensitive to surface effects, and one TE mode mostly sensitive to variations in the bulk fluid refractive index. Numerical and analytical methods are used to justify the simulation results, which are in good agreement. Finally, it is shown that, by applying three-mode spectroscopy, decoupling the properties of the attached biomaterial from the background index variations is possible with the proposed design.

An improved refractive index sensor based on genetic optimization of plasmon waveguide resonance.

Plasmon waveguide resonance (PWR) sensors are particularly useful for biosensing due to their unique ability to perform sensing with two different polarizations. In this paper we report a comprehensive performance comparison between the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor and the PWR sensor in terms of the sensitivity and the refractive index resolution. Both sensors were optimized using a genetic algorithm to acquire their best performance for bulk sensing applications. The experimental results show that the PWR sensor has a refractive index resolution of 5 × 10(-7) RIU which is 6 times smaller than that of the optimized SPR sensor. The TE polarization in the PWR sensor has a resolution of 1.4 × 10(-6) RIU which is smaller than the SPR sensor. The polarization diversity in the PWR sensor is another advantage which can be used to improve the measurement reliability.

Pd-based integrated optical hydrogen sensor on a silicon-on-insulator platform.

We have experimentally demonstrated a compact, integrated optical hydrogen sensor on a silicon-on-insulator platform. The sensor consists of silicon waveguide coated with a thin palladium film. The sensitivity and response time of the sensor was tested for volumetric hydrogen concentrations ranging from 0% to 4%. The proposed hydrogen sensor shows great potential as a building block for an optical nose capable of simultaneous detection of multiple gases as well as environmental effects such as temperature and humidity.