No abstract

Multiple simultaneous exposures to electromagnetic signals induced adjustments in mammal nervous systems. In this study, we investigated the non-thermal SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) in the cerebral or cerebellar hemispheres of rats exposed in vivo to combined electromagnetic field (EMF) signals at 900 and 2450 MHz.Forty rats divided into four groups of 10 were individually exposed or not exposed to radiation in a GTEM chamber for one or two hours. After radiation, we used the Chemiluminescent Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ChELISA) technique to measure cellular stress levels, indicated by the presence of heat shock proteins (HSP) 90 and 70, as well as caspase-3-dependent pre-apoptotic activity in left and right cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres of Sprague Dawley rats.Twenty-four hours after exposure to combined or single radiation, significant differences were evident in HSP 90 and 70 but not in caspase 3 levels between the hemispheres of the cerebral cortex at high SAR levels. In the cerebellar hemispheres, groups exposed to a single radiofrequency (RF) and high SAR showed significant differences in HSP 90, 70 and caspase-3 levels compared to control animals. The absorbed energy and/or biological effects of combined signals were not additive, suggesting that multiple signals act on nervous tissue by a different mechanism.

The present work develops an innovative methodology for fixing deep nulls in radiation patterns of symmetrical thinned arrays while maintaining a low side lobe level (SLL) and a high directivity, implementing an optimization strategy based on the simulated annealing algorithm (SA). This procedure optimizes a cost function that has a term for each characteristic of the desired radiation pattern and can distinguish between the deep nulls and the filled ones depending on whether they are on the Schelkunoff unit circle or not. Then, a direct extension of the methodology for planar arrays based on the separable distribution procedure is addressed. Consequently, some examples with half-wavelength spacing are presented, where the fixing of one, two, or three deep nulls in arrays of 40, 60, and 80 elements are illustrated as well as an extension to a 40 × 40-element planar array with rectangular grid and rectangular boundary, with two deep nulls fixed on each one of its main axes. Additionally, a comparison of the obtained results with a genetic algorithm (GA) alternative is performed. The main advantage of the proposed method is its ability to fix deep nulls in the radiation patterns, while maintaining an easy feeding network implementation.

In this work, the application of a technique for monitoring changes of the dielectric constant of the atmosphere caused by the presence of pollution is discussed. The method is based on changes in the reflection coefficient of the device induced by these dielectric constant variations of the surrounding medium. To that end, several Yagi–Uda-like antenna designs with different size limitations were simulated by using a Method-of-Moments software and optimized by means of a simulated annealing strategy. It has been found that the larger the optimal elements of the array are allowed to be, the higher the sensitivity reached. Thus, in a trade-off between sensitivity and moderate length (regarding flexibility purposes), the most promising solution has been built. This prototype has been experimentally tested in presence of an artificial aerosol made of PAO (polyalphaolefin) oil and black carbon inclusions of a size of 0.2 μm. As a result, potentials for developing a measurement procedure by means of changes in the characteristic parameters of the antenna led by different concentration levels of suspended particles in the surrounding medium are shown. In this manner, a local mapping of polluted levels could be developed in an easy, real-time, and flexible procedure.

No abstract