A wearable self-powered active sensor for respiration and healthcare monitoring was fabricated based on a flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator. An electrospinning poly(vinylidene fluoride) thin film on silicone substrate was polarized to fabricate the flexible nanogenerator and its electrical property was measured. When periodically stretched by a linear motor, the flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator generated an output open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current of up to 1.5 V and 400 nA, respectively. Through integration with an elastic bandage, a wearable self-powered sensor was fabricated and used to monitor human respiration, subtle muscle movement, and voice recognition. As respiration proceeded, the electrical output signals of the sensor corresponded to the signals measured by a physiological signal recording system with good reliability and feasibility. This self-powered, wearable active sensor has significant potential for applications in pulmonary function evaluation, respiratory monitoring, and detection of gesture and vocal cord vibration for the personal healthcare monitoring of disabled or paralyzed patients.

2Cosmic-ray-muon spallation-induced radioactive isotopes with β decays are one of the major backgrounds for solar, reactor, and supernova relic neutrino experiments. Unlike in scintillator, production yields for cosmogenic backgrounds in water have not been exclusively measured before, yet they are becoming more and more important in next generation neutrino experiments designed to search for rare signals. We have analyzed the low-energy trigger data collected at Super-Kamiokande-IV in order to determine the production rates of 12 B, 12 N, 16 N, 11 Be, 9 Li, 8 He, 9 C, 8 Li, 8 B and 15 C. These rates were extracted from fits to time differences between parent muons and subsequent daughter β's by fixing the known isotope lifetimes. Since 9 Li can fake an inverse-beta-decay reaction chain via a β + n cascade decay, producing an irreducible background with detected energy up to a dozen MeV, a dedicated study is needed for evaluating its impact on future measurements; the application of a neutron tagging technique using correlated triggers was found to improve this 9 Li measurement. The measured yields were generally found to be comparable with theoretical calculations, except the cases of the isotopes 8 Li/ 8 B and 9 Li.

Artículo escrito por muchos autores, sólo se referencian el primero, los autores que firman como Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y el grupo de colaboración en el caso de que aparezca en el artículoSearch results for nucleon decays p→e+X, p→μ+X, n→νγ (where X is an invisible, massless particle) as well as dinucleon decays np→e+ν, np→μ+ν, and np→τ+ν in the Super-Kamiokande experiment are presented. Using single-ring data from an exposure of 273.4 kton·yr, a search for these decays yields a result consistent with no signal. Accordingly, lower limits on the partial lifetimes of τp→e+X>7.9×1032yr, τp→μ+X>4.1×1032yr, τn→νγ>5.5×1032yr, τnp→e+ν>2.6×1032yr, τnp→μ+ν>2.2×1032yr, and τnp→τ+ν>2.9×1031yr at a 90% confidence level are obtained. Some of these searches are novelThe Super- Kamiokande experiment was built and has been operated with funding from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. National Science Foundatio