Clothing provides protection from the environment; it conveys passion, in the sense that it communicates the personal style of the wearer; it is pervasive-virtually every culture around the world uses it in some form; and it is a passive medium. Today, however, there is a growing proportion of active and dynamic individuals seeking connectivity and interactivity with surrounding objects and the environment. A well-designed information-processing system should facilitate access of information anytime anyplace by anyone. The ultimate information-processing system would not only provide for large bandwidth, but also have the ability to see, sense, think, and act. Such a system should be totally customizable and in synch with the human user. Since clothing, in most cultures, presents a "universal" interface, 1 it has the potential to meet this emerging need of today's consumers. Also, textiles provide the ultimate flexibility in system design by virtue of the broad range of fibers, yarns, fabrics, and manufacturing techniques that Abstract Protection and aesthetics are the two common dimensions or attributes typically associated with textiles as clothing. However, with the rapidly changing needs of today's consumers, a third dimension is emerging-that of "intelligence"-that is being integrated into fabrics to produce interactive textiles, or i-textiles. This new class of wearable electronic systems is being designed to meet new and innovative applications in the military, public safety, healthcare, space exploration, sports, and consumer fitness fields. In this article, the concept of i-textiles is presented, along with the building blocks for its realization. This is followed by an overview of the design and development of the Smart Shirt, an "intelligent" garment that provides an extremely versatile framework for the incorporation of sensing, monitoring, and information-processing devices. The key applications of the Smart Shirt technology and their impact in transforming healthcare are discussed. Finally, the need to advance this paradigm and identify opportunities to transform passive textiles into the new generation of interactive, or "smart," textiles is discussed.

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Virtual reality (VR) has been making inroads into medicine in a broad spectrum of applications, including medical education, surgical training, telemedicine, surgery and the treatment of phobias and eating disorders. [he extensive and innovative applications of VR in medicine, made possible by the rapid advancements in information technology, have been driven by the need to reduce the cost of heatthcare while enhancing the quality of life for human beings.In this paper, we discuss the design, development and realisation of an innovative technology' known as the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard T~ (GTWM), or the "Smart Shirt". The principal advantage of GTWM is that it provides, for the first time, a very systematic way of monitoring the vital signs of humans in an unobtrusive manner. The flexible data bus integrated into the structure transmits the information to monitoring devices such as an EKG machine, a temperature. recorder, a voice recorder, etc. GTWM is lightweight and can be worn easily by anyone, from infants to senior citizens. We present the universal characteristics of the interface pioneered by the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard TM and explore the potential app!ications of the techno!ogy in areas ranging from combat to geriatric cam. The GTWM is the realisation of a persona[ information processing system that gives new meaning to the term ubiquitous computing. Just as the spreadsheet pioneered the field of information processing that brought "computing to the masses", it is anticipated that the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard ~ wilt bring personalised and affordable healthcare monitoring to the population at large.

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Patients with Huntington’s disease (HD), an autosomal-dominant neurodegenerative disease, show substantial variability in age-of-onset, symptom severity and course of illness, warranting the need for biomarkers to anticipate and monitor these features. The HD gene encodes the disease protein huntingtin (Htt), a potentially useful biomarker for this disease. In the current study, we determined whether total Htt protein (normal plus mutant; “tHtt”) could be reliably measured in human saliva, a body fluid that is much more accessible compared to cerebral spinal fluid or even blood, and whether salivary levels of tHtt were clinically meaningful. We collected 146 saliva samples from manifest HD patients, early-premanifest individuals, late-premanifest patients, gene-negative family members and normal controls. We found that tHtt protein could be reliably and stably detected in human saliva and that tHtt levels were significantly increased in saliva from HD individuals compared to normal controls. Salivary tHtt showed no gender effects, nor were levels correlated with total protein levels in saliva. Salivary tHtt was significantly positively correlated with age, but not age-of-onset or CAG-repeat length. Importantly, salivary tHtt was significantly correlated with several clinical measures, indicating relevance to disease symptom onset and/or severity. Measurements of salivary tHtt offer significant promise as a relevant, non-invasive disease biomarker for HD, and its use could be implemented into clinical applications.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of abating, public health strategies have transitioned from containment to harm reduction. In light of this paradigm shift, it is critical that individuals take steps to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In the United States, the CDC recommends that individuals wear face coverings in public places, such as grocery stores. As lockdowns are being phased out around the world, authorities are requiring the use of such masks in public places while maintaining social distance. Individuals (including healthcare professionals outside of their clinical settings) and manufacturers are following the CDC's recommendation. But, many currently available masks are not form-fitting, are not customizable, and are uncomfortable with even short-term use, thereby undercutting their effectiveness. Moreover, because cotton absorbs and retains the moisture found in an exhaled breath masks made of cotton have the potential to increase the wearer's risk of infection. Thus, as we shift to harm reduction and social distancing measures relax, it is imperative that these shortcomings in fabric masks are addressed and that is the motivation for this research. The overall objective of the research is to design, develop, and test a fabric mask that is effective while being comfortable during continuous use over long periods of time. As the first step in the design process, we reviewed the modes of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus. We analyzed a medical mask and a fabric mask in the market and identified their shortcomings. We carried out an in-depth analysis of user needs and developed the performance requirements of the proposed mask. We defined the architecture of the mask comprising the following principal components: Barrier, Form-Fitting, Positioning, and Fastening. We tested and evaluated candidate materials for the components and developed the design specifications and construction details for the mask. We produced the mask and carried out subjective testing on a user in a typical workplace setting; we demonstrated that the mask was form-fitting, customizable, washable, and could be worn continuously and routinely over extended periods of time by individuals and therefore could serve as an effective means to reduce the harm from SARS-CoV-2.