Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of any external acoustic stimulation. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has shown promising though heterogeneous therapeutic outcomes for tinnitus. The present study aims to review the recent advances in applications of tDCS for tinnitus treatment. In addition, the clinical efficacy and main mechanisms of action of tDCS on suppressing tinnitus are discussed. The study was performed in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. The databases of the PubMed (1980–2018), Embase (1980–2018), PsycINFO (1850–2018), CINAHL, Web of Science, BIOSIS Previews (1990–2018), Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (1990–2018), and google scholar (1980–2018) using the set search terms. The date of the most recent search was 20 May, 2018. The randomized controlled trials that have assessed at least one therapeutic outcome measured before and after tDCS intervention were included in the final analysis. Different tDCS protocols were used for tinnitus ranging single to repeated sessions (up to 10) consisting of daily single session of 15 to 20-min and current intensities ranging 1–2 mA. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and auditory cortex are the main targets of stimulation. Both single and repeated sessions showed moderate to significant treatment effects on tinnitus symptoms. In addition to improvements in tinnitus symptoms, the tDCS interventions particularly bifrontal DLPFC showed beneficial outcomes on depression and anxiety comorbid with tinnitus. Heterogeneities in the type of tinnitus, tDCS devices, protocols, and site of stimulation made the systematic reviews of the literature difficult. However, the current evidence shows that tDCS can be developed as an adjunct or complementary treatment for intractable tinnitus. TDCS may be a safe and cost-effective treatment for tinnitus in the short-term application. The current literature shows moderate to significant therapeutic efficacy of tDCS on tinnitus symptoms. Further randomized placebo-controlled double-blind trials with large sample sizes are needed to reach a definitive conclusion on the efficacy of tDCS for tinnitus. Future studies should further focus on developing efficient disease- and patient-specific protocols.

The work carried out in this paper consists of the classification of the physiological signal generated by eye movement called Electrooculography (EOG). The human eye performs simultaneous movements, when focusing on an object, generating a potential change in origin between the retinal epithelium and the cornea and modeling the eyeball as a dipole with a positive and negative hemisphere. Supervised learning algorithms were implemented to classify five eye movements; left, right, down, up and blink. Wavelet Transform was used to obtain information in the frequency domain characterizing the EOG signal with a bandwidth of 0.5 to 50 Hz; training results were obtained with the implementation of K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) 69.4%, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) of 76.9% and Decision Tree (DT) 60.5%, checking the accuracy through the Jaccard index and other metrics such as the confusion matrix and ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curve. As a result, the best classifier for this application was the SVM with Jaccard Index.

People with severe disabilities require assistance to perform their routine activities; a Human–Machine Interface (HMI) will allow them to activate devices that respond according to their needs. In this work, an HMI based on electrooculography (EOG) is presented, the instrumentation is placed on portable glasses that have the task of acquiring both horizontal and vertical EOG signals. The registration of each eye movement is identified by a class and categorized using the one hot encoding technique to test precision and sensitivity of different machine learning classification algorithms capable of identifying new data from the eye registration; the algorithm allows to discriminate blinks in order not to disturb the acquisition of the eyeball position commands. The implementation of the classifier consists of the control of a three-wheeled omnidirectional robot to validate the response of the interface. This work proposes the classification of signals in real time and the customization of the interface, minimizing the user’s learning curve. Preliminary results showed that it is possible to generate trajectories to control an omnidirectional robot to implement in the future assistance system to control position through gaze orientation.

It is worldwide known that the most common type of cancer among women is breast cancer. Traditional procedures involve surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy; however, these treatments are invasive and have serious side effects. For this reason, minimally invasive thermal treatments like microwave ablation are being considered. In this study, thermal behavior of three types of slot-coaxial antennas for breast cancer microwave ablation is presented. By using finite element method (FEM), all antennas were modeled to estimate the heat transfer in breast tumor tissue surrounded by healthy breast tissue. Experimentation was carried out by using the antennas inserted inside sphere-shaped-tumor phantoms with two different diameters, 1.0 and 1.5 cm. A microwave radiation system was used to apply microwave energy to each designed antenna, which were located into the phantom. A non-interfering thermometry system was used to measure the temperature increase during the experimentation. Temperature increases, recorded by the thermal sensors placed inside the tumor phantom surrounded by healthy breast phantom, were used to validate the FEM models. The results conclude that, in all the cases, after 240 s, the three types of coaxial slot antenna reached the temperature needed produce hyperthermia of the tumor volume considered in this paper.

Most phantom models do not include distinct definitions of tumor and normal tissue. This article proposes a novel solid breast - tumor phantom for microwave hyperthermia in breast cancer treatment. According to tissue dielectric properties reported, we performed phantom. A Network Analyzer and Dielectric Probe Kit measured dielectric constant and electrical conductivity for both breast normal tissue and tumor phantom. Measurements were through at frequency range from 2 to 3 GHz due microwave operation frequency is usually 2.45 GHz. At 2.45 GHz breast phantom had an electrical conductivity of 0.1304±0.0680 S/m and a dielectric constant of 4.4401 ± 1.2514. At the same frequency, tumor phantom had an electrical conductivity of 2.7015 ± 0.0783 S/m and a dielectric constant of 55.2566 ± 1.1899. The presented results highly correlate with the expected values. Therefore this phantom can be used for microwave hyperthermia in breast cancer treatment and antenna performance analysis and optimization.

Microwave ablation (MWA) by using coaxial antennas is a promising alternative for breast cancer treatment. A double short distance slot coaxial antenna as a newly optimized applicator for minimally invasive treatment of breast cancer is proposed. To validate and to analyze the feasibility of using this method in clinical treatment, a computational model, phantom, and breast swine in vivo experimentation were carried out, by using four microwave powers (50 W, 30 W, 20 W, and 10 W). The finite element method (FEM) was used to develop the computational model. Phantom experimentation was carried out in breast phantom. The in vivo experimentation was carried out in a 90 kg swine sow. Tissue damage was estimated by comparing control and treated micrographs of the porcine mammary gland samples. The coaxial slot antenna was inserted in swine breast glands by using image-guided ultrasound. In all cases, modeling, in vivo and phantom experimentation, and ablation temperatures (above 60°C) were reached. The in vivo experiments suggest that this new MWA applicator could be successfully used to eliminate precise and small areas of tissue (around 20–30 mm²). By modulating the power and time applied, it may be possible to increase/decrease the ablation area.