Estimating the common agricultural policy milestones and targets by neural networks.

The New Delivery Model, introduced by the 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy, shifts the focus of policy programming and design from a compliance-based approach to one based on performance. The objectives indicated in the national strategic plans are monitored through the definition of a set of milestones and targets. This makes it necessary to define realistic and financially consistent target values. The aim of this paper is to outline a methodology to quantify robust target values for result indicators. As the main method, a machine learning model based on multilayer feedforward neural networks is put forward. This method is chosen for its ability to model possible non-linearities in the monitoring data and estimate multiple outputs. The proposed methodology is applied to the Italian case, more specifically to estimate target values for the result indicator related to enhancing performance through knowledge and innovation for 21 regional managing authorities. The related performance is then compared with that of traditional methods adopted to estimate target values. Results demonstrate the superiority of neural networks and suggest that this methodology might be used as a tool to help all Member States fulfill the key task of setting coherent and realistic targets for all result indicators.

Stretchable screen-printed PEDOT:PSS electrodes for upper-arm surface electromyography.

In the past ten years, wearable electronics underwent tremendous growth. Undoubtedly, one of the fields that led this trend is represented by biomedical applications. In this field, wearable technologies can provide unique features such as the unobtrusive monitoring of biopotentials. Polymerbased electrodes developed for this purpose can take advantage of their seamless integration in the garments. However, the available solutions exhibit fragility in relation with the stretchability of the fabric, causing significant performance degradation.In this work, this problem is tackled by a novel deposition approach based on screen-printing technology. The electrodes are deposited onto the pre-stretched fabric to ensure the full functionality during common operating conditions. To this aim, a novel PEDOT:PSS conductive ink formulation and printing procedure were conceived. In order to prove the electrode performance for surface electromyography, we printed the electrodes directly onto a commercial stretchable polyester sleeve for sport applications. The electrodes allowed to reliably record the muscular activity of the forearm with performance comparable to that of commercial gelled Ag/AgCl electrodes. The obtained results suggest that the proposed approach can be valuably used in health and fitness applications.

Validation of Polymer-Based Screen-Printed Textile Electrodes for Surface EMG Detection.

In recent years, the variety of textile electrodes developed for electrophysiological signal detection has increased rapidly. Among the applications that could benefit from this advancement, those based on surface electromyography (sEMG) are particularly relevant in rehabilitation, training, and muscle function assessment. In this work, we validate the performance of polymer-based screen-printed textile electrodes for sEMG signal detection. We obtained these electrodes by depositing poly-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene doped with poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) onto cotton fabric, and then selectively changing the physical properties of the textile substrate. The manufacturing costs are low and this process meets the requirements of textile-industry production lines. The validation of these electrodes was based on their functional and electrical characteristics, assessed for two different electrode sizes and three skin-interface conditions (dry, solid hydrogel, or saline solution), and compared to those of conventional disposable gelled electrodes. Results show high similarity in terms of noise amplitude and electrode-skin impedance between the conventional and textile electrodes with the addition of solid hydrogel or saline solution. Furthermore, we compared the shape of the electrically induced sEMG, as detected by conventional and textile electrodes from tibialis anterior. The comparison yielded an [Formula: see text] value higher than 97% for all measurement conditions. Preliminary tests in dynamic conditions (walking) revealed the exploitability of the proposed electrode technology with saline application for the monitoring of sEMG for up to 35 min of activity. These results suggest that the proposed screen-printed textile electrodes may be an effective alternative to the conventional gelled electrodes for sEMG acquisition, thereby providing new opportunities in clinical and wellness fields.

An organic neurophysiological tool for neuronal metabolic activity monitoring.

Monitoring cell metabolism in vitro is considered a relevant methodology in several scientific fields ranging from fundamental biology research to neuro-toxicology. In the last 20 years, several in vitro neuro-pharmacological and neuro-toxicological approaches have been developed, with the intent of addressing the increasing demand for real-time, non-invasive in vitro systems capable of continuously and reliably monitoring cellular activity. In this paper, an Organic Charge Modulated Field Effect Transistor-based device is proposed as a promising tool for neuro-pharmacological applications, thanks to its ultra-high pH sensitivity and a simple fabrication technology. The preliminary characterization of this versatile organic device with primary neuronal cultures shows how these remarkable properties can be exploited for the realization of ultra-sensitive metabolic probes, which are both reference-less and low cost. These features, together with the already assessed capability of this sensor to also monitor the electrical activity of electrogenic cells, could provide important advances in the fabrication of multi-sensing lab-on-chip devices, thus opening up interesting perspectives in the neuro-pharmacological field.

Textile Organic Electrochemical Transistors as a Platform for Wearable Biosensors.

The development of wearable chemical sensors is receiving a great deal of attention in view of non-invasive and continuous monitoring of physiological parameters in healthcare applications. This paper describes the development of a fully textile, wearable chemical sensor based on an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) entirely made of conductive polymer (PEDOT:PSS). The active polymer patterns are deposited into the fabric by screen printing processes, thus allowing the device to actually "disappear" into it. We demonstrate the reliability of the proposed textile OECTs as a platform for developing chemical sensors capable to detect in real-time various redox active molecules (adrenaline, dopamine and ascorbic acid), by assessing their performance in two different experimental contexts: i) ideal operation conditions (i.e. totally dipped in an electrolyte solution); ii) real-life operation conditions (i.e. by sequentially adding few drops of electrolyte solution onto only one side of the textile sensor). The OECTs response has also been measured in artificial sweat, assessing how these sensors can be reliably used for the detection of biomarkers in body fluids. Finally, the very low operating potentials (<1 V) and absorbed power (~10-4 W) make the here described textile OECTs very appealing for portable and wearable applications.

An organic transistor-based system for reference-less electrophysiological monitoring of excitable cells.

In the last four decades, substantial advances have been done in the understanding of the electrical behavior of excitable cells. From the introduction in the early 70's of the Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistor (ISFET), a lot of effort has been put in the development of more and more performing transistor-based devices to reliably interface electrogenic cells such as, for example, cardiac myocytes and neurons. However, depending on the type of application, the electronic devices used to this aim face several problems like the intrinsic rigidity of the materials (associated with foreign body rejection reactions), lack of transparency and the presence of a reference electrode. Here, an innovative system based on a novel kind of organic thin film transistor (OTFT), called organic charge modulated FET (OCMFET), is proposed as a flexible, transparent, reference-less transducer of the electrical activity of electrogenic cells. The exploitation of organic electronics in interfacing the living matters will open up new perspectives in the electrophysiological field allowing us to head toward a modern era of flexible, reference-less, and low cost probes with high-spatial and high-temporal resolution for a new generation of in-vitro and in-vivo monitoring platforms.

A simple all-PEDOT:PSS electrochemical transistor for ascorbic acid sensing.

An ascorbic acid (AA) sensor was developed by employing an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) based only on PEDOT:PSS as a conductive material. The device was prepared by spin coating using the CLEVIOS™ PH 1000 suspension (PEDOT:PSS) masking the gate and the channel areas with tape. The device was electrically characterized while the doping level of the PEDOT:PSS in the channel was controlled using both the gate electrode and the potentiostat. It was demonstrated that the current that flows in channel (Id) is controlled by the concentration of oxidized sites in the examined potential range. AA reacts with the conductive polymer leading to the extraction of charge carriers from the channel, and thus resulting in a decrease of the absolute value of Id. It was observed that Id linearly depends on the logarithm of the AA concentration between 10-6 and 10-3 M. The OECT response to AA was studied by varying the gate voltage or the PEDOT:PSS thickness. The performance of the device for optimized conditions shows a limit of detection equal to 10-8 M and a sensitivity of 4.5 ± 0.1 × 10-6 A decade-1.

Dopamine amperometric detection at a ferrocene clicked PEDOT:PSS coated electrode.

Chemically modified electrodes are widely employed in electroanalytical chemistry and an important goal is to strongly anchor redox mediators on the electrode surface. In this work, indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes have been coated with PEDOT:PSS that has been ferrocene-functionalized, by a two-step procedure consisting of the electrodeposition of PEDOT-N3 followed by copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition of ethynylferrocene. The coated electrodes have been characterized by XPS, showing successful ferrocene immobilization, by AFM, and by cyclic voltammetry (CV), which is dominated by the stable and highly reversible response of ferrocene. The electrocatalytical performance of the device is assessed by analyzing 3,4-dihydroxyphenyl ethylamine, also commonly known as dopamine (DA). The sensor presents a linear range between 0.01 and 0.9 mM, a mean sensitivity of 196 mA M-1 cm-2 and a limit of detection (LoD) of 1 µM.

Occurrence of white striping under commercial conditions and its impact on breast meat quality in broiler chickens.

The aims of this study were to evaluate the incidence of white striping (WS) under commercial conditions and assess its effect on some quality traits in broiler breast fillets. In the first experiment, occurrence of WS (absence = normal; presence classified in 2 levels as moderate or severe) was assessed in a major commercial processing plant on 28,000 breast fillets (pectoralis major muscles) chosen at random from 56 flocks of broilers processed at 45 to 54 d of age. In the second experiment, 153 fillets were selected based on WS degree (normal, moderate, or severe) and used to assess ultimate pH, color, drip loss, cook loss, and Allo-Kramer-shear force on raw meat as well to determine marinade uptake, purge loss, cook loss, total yield, and Allo-Kramer-shear force after tumbling with a 15% (wt/wt) solution containing sodium tripolyphosphate (2.3%) and sodium chloride (7.6%). The total incidence of white striped breast fillets was 12.0% (8.9 and 3.1% in moderate and severe degree, respectively). Considering the effect of genotype, high-breast yield hybrids exhibited a higher overall incidence of WS compared with standard breast yield birds (15.2 vs. 10.0%; P ≤ 0.001). Severe fillets showed higher pH than moderate and normal groups (5.95 vs. 5.88 and 5.86; P ≤ 0.05). Fillets with severe and moderate WS also exhibited lower marinade uptake compared with normal fillets (7.92 vs. 10.97 vs. 12.67%; P ≤ 0.05). Moreover, cook losses increased as the degree of WS increased from normal to severe groups in both raw (21.27 vs. 23.20 vs. 26.74%; P ≤ 0.05) and marinated meat (14.59 and 14.84 vs. 15.93%; P ≤ 0.05). Finally, nonmarinated fillets with severe striping had lower Allo-Kramer-shear force compared with moderate and normal ones (3.69 vs. 4.41 and 4.91 kg/g; P ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, this study revealed the importance achieved by WS defects in the production of broiler meat as well as its very negative impact on water holding and binding capacity of breast meat.

Ultralow voltage, OTFT-based sensor for label-free DNA detection.

An organic ultralow voltage field effect transistor for DNA hybridization detection is presented. The transduction mechanism is based on a field-effect modulation due to the electrical charge of the oligonucleotides, so label-free detection can be performed. The device shows a sub-nanometer detection limit and unprecedented selectivity with respect to single nucleotide polymorphism.

Biosensing and environmental sensing for emergency and protection e-Textiles.

The ProeTEX project introduced for the first time a complete set of smart garments integrating sensors for the physiological and environmental monitoring of emergency operators. These "smart" garments have been deeply tested in emergency-like contexts by professional rescuers, in order to assess real-time acquisition, processing and transmission of data from moving subjects while operating in harsh conditions. Here we report an overview of the main results obtained during field trials performed in 2010 by Italian and French professional firefighters, in specialized training centers, while dressing the ProeTEX prototypes. Results clearly demonstrate the benefit and step forward of such a system in order to monitor and coordinate rescuers even during intervention far away from the emergency headquarter.

A high-resolution near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure investigation of the molecular orientation in the pentacene/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) pentacene/system.

We present x-ray photoemission spectroscopy and highly resolved near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy measurements taken on pentacene thin films of different thicknesses deposited on a spin coated poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) substrate. Thin films of pentacene were prepared by using organic molecular beam deposition in situ using strictly controlled evaporation conditions. Our investigations show that pentacene thin films on PEDOT:PSS are characterized by upright standing molecules. Due to the strong dichroic behavior, the calculated values of the molecular orientation give a clear indication not only of the real molecular arrangement in the films but also of a high orientational order. This high degree of molecular orientation order is a characteristic already of the first layer. The films show the tendency to grow on the PEDOT:PSS substrate following an island-fashion mode, with a relatively narrow intermixing zone at the interface between the pentacene and the polymer blend. The peculiarity of the growth of pentacene on PEDOT:PSS is due to the fact that the substrate does not offer any template for the nucleated films and thus exerts a lateral order toward the crystal structure arrangement. Under these conditions, the upright orientation of the molecules in the films minimizes the energy required for the system stability.

Pressure sensing using a completely flexible organic transistor.

In this paper, we report on pressure sensors based on completely flexible organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). A flexible and transparent plastic foil (Mylar) is employed both as substrate and gate dielectric. Gold source and drain electrodes are patterned on the upper side of the foil while the gate electrode lies on the opposite side; a vacuum-sublimed pentacene film is used as active layer. The pressure dependence of the output current has been investigated by applying to the gate side of the device a mechanical stimulus by means of a pressurized airflow. Experimental results show a reversible dependence of the current on the pressure. The data analysis suggests that the current variations are due to pressure-induced variations of mobility, threshold voltage and possibly contact resistance. The drain current variation is reproducible, linear and reversible even though it displays a hysteresis. Moreover, the sensor responds very fast to the mechanical stimulus (i.e. within tens-hundreds of milliseconds) but the time required to reach the steady state is much higher (tens-hundreds of seconds). Electrical characteristics with and without applied pressure have been carried out in air without any extra ad hoc read-out circuit or equipment. The reported devices show potential advantages of flexibility of the structure, low cost and versatility of the device structure for sensor technologies. Many innovative and attractive applications as wearable electronics, e-textiles, e-skin for robots can be considered.

A feasibility study of yarns and fibers with annexed electronic functions: the ARIANNE project.

In this paper several issues concerning the development of fibers endowed with electronic functions will be presented and discussed. In particular, issues concerning materials, structures, electronic models and the mechanical constraints due to textile technologies will be detailed. All these aspects have been studied in the framework of the project ARIANNE, funded by the European Community during the V Frame Programme.

Electron microscopy of life-tested semiconductor laser diodes

Electron Microscopy on life-tested 980 nm SL SQW InGaAs/AlGaAs laser diodes is able to find and analyze lattice defects responsible for the detected failures. Anyway, the origin and evolution of those defects remains questionable. Only the comparative analysis of life-test measurements, EBIC-FIB/TEM images, and charge-transport physics is able to point out a coherent framework for complete decoding of the failure kinetics. Minority-carrier diffusion and their enhanced recombination at defective lattice points are indicated, as the energy supply required for defect reaction and growth. The rules of charge diffusion drive both the reaction model, the interpretation of EBIC images and the expected electrical and optical effects. Strain release at the ultimate propagation of defects into the strained InGaAs quantum layer is then easily related to the final state of the failed devices.

Use of two-dimensional echocardiography for the diagnosis of pulmonary embolus.

We investigated the diagnostic utility of transthoracic echocardiogram (2-D ECHO) in identifying acute right heart strain in patients with suspected pulmonary embolus (PE) undergoing a pulmonary angiogram during their hospitalization. A retrospective case control study was conducted over a 3-year period at a tertiary, community teaching hospital. Patients were eligible if they had a pulmonary angiogram and a transthoracic echocardiogram. Cases were defined as an angiogram positive for PE and controls were defined as an angiogram negative for PE. We excluded cases in which the time interval between 2-D ECHO and angiogram was greater than 2 days. The 2-D ECHO was considered positive for right heart strain if two of the following were present: enlarged right ventricle, moderate or severe tricuspid regurgitation, increased right ventricular pressures, or paradoxical septal wall motion. We were able to identify 71 patients, of whom 24 met our criteria for PE. Of these, 13 had an echocardiogram consistent with our definition of acute right heart strain, for a sensitivity of 0.54. Forty-six of the 47 patients without PE did not have findings of acute right heart strain. The echocardiogram was positive in 14 patients, for a positive predictive value of 0.93. In seven patients with systolic blood pressures of less than 100 mmHg, five had a PE, all of whom met our criteria for acute right heart strain. We conclude that 2-D ECHOs show promise in identifying PE and hemodynamic compromise as a result of PE, and that further studies are warranted.

Subcellular details of early events of differentiation induced by retinoic acid in human neuroblastoma cells detected by atomic force microscope.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is gaining ever-increasing attention in biology as it allows us to achieve very high resolution both in air and in liquid. Recently, this technique has been employed for the observation of dynamic phenomena of cells in their culture medium. We employed this technology for comparing different morphologies, neuronal and substrate-adherent type, of cell lines of human neuroblastoma, a tumor derived from neuroectodermal tissue. The AFM image allows to confirm and enrich the information given by optical microscopes adding further details especially on the neural protrusions. Furthermore, we took advantage of the possibility to perform the observation of the cells in their culture medium for studying the neuroblastoma cell differentiation. For the first time, we detected the very early events of the outgrowth of neurite-like structures induced by retinoic acid. A time-course experiment has showed that the acid induces changes in the cellular membrane and dramatic modifications in the cytoskeleton already within 2 h.