Pad-Printing as a Fabrication Process for Flexible and Compact Multilayer Circuits.

The purpose of this paper is to present a newly developed process for the fabrication of multilayer circuits based on the pad-printing technique. Even though the maturity level, in terms of accuracy, substrate type and print size of several printing industrial processes is relatively high, the fabrication complexity of multilayer printed electronics remains relatively high. Due to its versatility, the pad-printing technique allows the superposition of printed conductive and insulating layers. Compared to other printing processes, its main advantage is the ability to print on various substrates even on flexible, curved or irregular surfaces. Silver-based inks were used for the formulation of conductive layers while UV inks were employed to fulfil the functionality of the insulating layers. To demonstrate the functionality of the pad-printing results, a multilayer test pattern has been designed and printed on Kapton®. Furthermore, to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach, a multilayer circuit composed of three stacked layers has been designed and printed on various substrates including Kapton®, paper and wood. This electronic circuit controls an array of LEDs through the manipulation of a two-key capacitive touch sensor. This study, allowed us to define recommendations for the different parameters leading to high printing quality. We expect a long-term beneficial impact of this study towards a low-cost, fast, and environmental-friendly production of printed electronics.

Fabrication and Characterization of a Flexible Fluxgate Sensor with Pad-Printed Solenoid Coils.

This paper presents the fabrication and characterization of a flexible, flat, miniaturized fluxgate sensor with a thin amorphous rectangular magnetic core fabricated by the pad/printing technique. Both the design and the various printing steps of the sensor are presented. The fluxgate sensor comprises of solenoid coils, and to the best of our knowledge, is the first to be printed with a conventional micro-printing technique. The magnetic core is a non-printed component, placed between the printed layers. The sensor's linear measuring range is ±40 µT with 2% full-scale linearity error, at 100 kHz excitation frequency. The highest measured sensitivity reaches 14,620 V/T at 200 kHz, while the noise of the sensor was found to be 10 nT/ Hz at 1 Hz.

Computer-automated ABCD versus dermatologists with different degrees of experience in dermoscopy.

BACKGROUND: Dermoscopy is a very useful and non-invasive technique for in vivo observation and preoperative diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions (PSLs) inasmuch as it enables analysis of surface and subsurface structures that are not discernible to the naked eye. METHODS: The authors used the ABCD rule of dermoscopy to test the accuracy of melanoma diagnosis with respect to a panel of 165 PSLs and the intra- and inter-observer diagnostic agreement obtained between three dermatologists with different degrees of experience, one General Practitioner and a DDA for computer-assisted diagnosis (Nevuscreen(®), Arkè s.a.s., Avezzano, Italy). RESULTS: 165 Pigmented Skin Lesions from 165 patients were selected. Histopathological examination revealed 132 benign melanocytic skin lesions and 33 melanomas. The kappa statistic, sensitivity, specificity and predictive positive and negative values were calculated to measure agreement between all the human observers and in comparison with the automated DDA. CONCLUSION: Our results revealed poor reproducibility of the semi-quantitative algorithm devised by Stolz et al. independently of observers' experience in dermoscopy. Nevuscreen(®) (Arkè s.a.s., Avezzano, Italy) proved to be 'user friendly' to all observers, thus enabling a more critical evaluation of each lesion and representing a helpful tool for clinicians without significant experience in dermoscopy in improving and achieving more accurate diagnosis of PSLs.

Efficacy and tolerability of 5-aminolevulinic acid 0.5% liposomal spray and intense pulsed light in wrinkle reduction of photodamaged skin.

BACKGROUND: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) is effective for the treatment of photoaging. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of PDT using a novel 0.5% liposome-encapsulated 5-ALA spray and an intense pulsed light (IPL) system (Ellipse Flex PPT) in reduction of periorbital and nasolabial wrinkles. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Thirty healthy volunteers, aged 35-65 years, skin type I-III, with type 2 photoaging underwent a baseline visit, three ALA-IPL treatments once every 3 weeks, an end-of-treatment visit and a final visit 3 months after the end-of-treatment visit. Wrinkle depth was evaluated according to the modified Fitzpatrick wrinkle scale (MFWS). At the final visit, patients rated their degree of overall improvement. RESULTS: For periorbital and nasolabial wrinkles, the differences of the average MFWS evaluation between baseline versus end-of-treatment visit, baseline versus final visit and end-of-treatment visit versus final visit were statistically significant (p < 0.001). The average overall improvement was greater for periorbital than for nasolabial wrinkles (p < 0.001). No side effects were observed during and after treatment. The degree of overall improvement was scored as excellent by 47% of the volunteers. CONCLUSIONS: ALA-IPL treatment using 0.5% liposome-encapsulated 5-ALA spray and Ellipse Flex PPT system is effective and safe for the treatment of type 2 photoaging reducing the PDT-associated side effects.