Polymers used for imprinting and its glass transition temperature.
\r\n\tNearly 25% - 30% of the world population is affected by neurological diseases exerting a hard financial strain on the healthcare system. The costs are estimated at around $800 billion annualy, expected to exponentially increase as the elders, at high risk of debilitating neurological diseases, will double by 2050. A varied spectrum of neuroprotective strategies has been suggested, including combined antioxidative-anti-inflammatory treatments, ozone autohemotherapy, hypothermia, cell therapy, the administration of neurotrophic factors, hemofiltration, and others. Distressingly, none of the currently available neuroprotective approaches has so far proven to prolong either life span or the cardinal symptoms of the patients suffering from brain injury. Last but not least, translational studies are still lacking.
\r\n\r\n\tThe book aims to revisit, discuss, and compile some promising current approaches in neuroprotection along with the current goals and prospects.
",isbn:"978-1-83880-440-4",printIsbn:"978-1-83880-439-8",pdfIsbn:null,doi:null,price:0,priceEur:0,priceUsd:0,slug:null,numberOfPages:0,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"10acd587ca2c942616bfc09c4b79df39",bookSignature:"Dr. Matilde Otero-Losada, Dr. Francisco Capani and Dr. Santiago Perez Lloret",publishedDate:null,coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/8087.jpg",keywords:"IKKβ/NF-κB pathway, neuroendocrine studies, anti-inflammatory agents, Bipolar disorder, oxidative metabolism, metabolic syndrome, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, neurotrophins, growth factors, ATP-mediated calcium signalling, glutathione peroxidase",numberOfDownloads:162,numberOfWosCitations:0,numberOfCrossrefCitations:0,numberOfDimensionsCitations:0,numberOfTotalCitations:0,isAvailableForWebshopOrdering:!0,dateEndFirstStepPublish:"September 10th 2019",dateEndSecondStepPublish:"October 1st 2019",dateEndThirdStepPublish:"November 30th 2019",dateEndFourthStepPublish:"February 18th 2020",dateEndFifthStepPublish:"April 18th 2020",remainingDaysToSecondStep:"2 months",secondStepPassed:!0,currentStepOfPublishingProcess:4,editedByType:null,kuFlag:!1,editors:[{id:"193560",title:"Dr.",name:"Matilde",middleName:null,surname:"Otero-Losada",slug:"matilde-otero-losada",fullName:"Matilde Otero-Losada",profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/193560/images/system/193560.jpeg",biography:"Dr. Matilde Otero-Losada graduated at the School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Argentina; pursued her studies in Neuropharmacology getting her Sci.D. in Neuropharmacology (UBA, Argentina); and completing her Ph.D. in Psychiatry at the Wolverhampton University, WLV, UK. \r\nHer following studies in Psychometrics and Statistical Methods, Radioisotopes and Radiochemistry, Signal Processing and Microcomputers, took her to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for training in human Psychophysics. \r\nBack in Argentina, she carried on studying smell, taste and trigeminal perception at the Hospital de Clínicas, UBA. \r\nShe focused on the study of metabolic syndrome, soft drinks and cardiovascular-renal morbidity for the last ten years, and in the last two years she is back to her roots: Neurosciences. \r\nWith over 90 papers published in prestigious journals indexed in PubMed, Embase and Scopus and book chapters authored, as Senior Researcher of the National Research Council (Argentina), she customarily reviews manuscripts and is acknowledged for her scientific writing, and editing capacities.",institutionString:"University of Buenos Aires",position:null,outsideEditionCount:0,totalCites:0,totalAuthoredChapters:"2",totalChapterViews:"0",totalEditedBooks:"0",institution:null}],coeditorOne:{id:"120703",title:"Dr.",name:"Francisco",middleName:null,surname:"Capani",slug:"francisco-capani",fullName:"Francisco Capani",profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/120703/images/system/120703.jpeg",biography:"Dr. Francisco Capani graduated at the School of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, (UBA) Argentina and completed his doctoral studies in Neurosciences at the Institute of Cell Biology and Neuroscience Prof E. De Robertis, School of Medicine (UBA), Argentina. Then he moved abroad to perform his postdoctoral studies at the University of California San Diego (UCSD-NCMIR) and the Karolinska Institute, Department of Neuroscience. Over an eight-year period, his research focused on synaptic organization, combining electron tomography, 3-D reconstruction, and correlative light and electron microscopy techniques. Upon his return to Argentina in 2006, he devoted to study the mechanisms involved in the pathophysiology of the perinatal asphyxia supported by his broad experience in electron microscopy. He has published 101 papers in recognized journals and has been invited assisting in a speaker capacity to several international conferences.",institutionString:"University of Buenos Aires",position:null,outsideEditionCount:0,totalCites:0,totalAuthoredChapters:"4",totalChapterViews:"0",totalEditedBooks:"0",institution:{name:"University of Buenos Aires",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"Argentina"}}},coeditorTwo:{id:"168475",title:"Dr.",name:"Santiago Perez",middleName:null,surname:"Lloret",slug:"santiago-perez-lloret",fullName:"Santiago Perez Lloret",profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/168475/images/system/168475.jpeg",biography:"Dr. Santiago Perez Lloret is a leading expert in neurophysiology and neuropharmacology with more 90 papers published in international medical journals (H-index= 29). He has been recently awarded Top 1% reviewer in neurosciences (Publons.com). After obtaining his MD and PhD, he pursued master courses in pharmacoepidemiology, clinical pharmacology and biostatistics at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris. Dr. Perez Lloret is Assistant professor of Neurophysiology at the Medicine School of the Buenos Aires University and Associate Researcher at the Cardiology Research Institute, University of Buenos Aires, National Research Council. He is member of the International Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society (MDS), where he is Co-editor of the Webpage and collaborates in several committees, including the Educational and the Evidence-based Medicine Committees.",institutionString:"University of Buenos Aires",position:null,outsideEditionCount:0,totalCites:0,totalAuthoredChapters:"0",totalChapterViews:"0",totalEditedBooks:"0",institution:{name:"University of Buenos Aires",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"Argentina"}}},coeditorThree:null,coeditorFour:null,coeditorFive:null,topics:[{id:"16",title:"Medicine",slug:"medicine"}],chapters:[{id:"69122",title:"Lifestyle Factors, Mitochondrial Dynamics, and Neuroprotection",slug:"lifestyle-factors-mitochondrial-dynamics-and-neuroprotection",totalDownloads:83,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[null]},{id:"69463",title:"Polyphenols as Potential Therapeutic Drugs in Neurodegeneration",slug:"polyphenols-as-potential-therapeutic-drugs-in-neurodegeneration",totalDownloads:36,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[null]},{id:"69376",title:"Trends in Neuroprotective Strategies after Spinal Cord Injury: State of the Art",slug:"trends-in-neuroprotective-strategies-after-spinal-cord-injury-state-of-the-art",totalDownloads:35,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[null]},{id:"70228",title:"Aptamers and Possible Effects on Neurodegeneration",slug:"aptamers-and-possible-effects-on-neurodegeneration",totalDownloads:10,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[null]}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"},personalPublishingAssistant:{id:"301331",firstName:"Mia",lastName:"Vulovic",middleName:null,title:"Mrs.",imageUrl:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/301331/images/8498_n.jpg",email:"mia.v@intechopen.com",biography:null}},relatedBooks:[{type:"book",id:"6550",title:"Cohort Studies in Health Sciences",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"01df5aba4fff1a84b37a2fdafa809660",slug:"cohort-studies-in-health-sciences",bookSignature:"R. 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Chan and Manoj Kumar Tiwari",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/3794.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"252210",title:"Dr.",name:"Felix",surname:"Chan",slug:"felix-chan",fullName:"Felix Chan"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"3621",title:"Silver Nanoparticles",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:null,slug:"silver-nanoparticles",bookSignature:"David Pozo Perez",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/3621.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"6667",title:"Dr.",name:"David",surname:"Pozo",slug:"david-pozo",fullName:"David Pozo"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}}]},chapter:{item:{type:"chapter",id:"8681",title:"Nanoimprint Lithography",doi:"10.5772/8190",slug:"nanoimprint_lithography",body:'\n\t\tImprinting technology is an ancient technique for the reproduction of writings on appropriate supports. Since 1990´s, one of the imprinting techniques, i.e., injection moulding has been used for compact disk (CD) production. More recently, the semiconductor industry is interested in imprint related techniques because of the mass production requirement of future microelectronic circuits with a possible critical dimension down to a few nanometers. At this deep nanometer scale, traditional photolithography is supposed to rule out because of the optical diffraction or material limitations. In fact, the actual minimum feature size in an integrated circuit (IC) is already less than 50 nm and the actual manufacturing systems are already extremely sophisticated and expensive. The semiconductor industry has always been looking for alternative patterning methods in order to follow Moore´s law, which has been formulated to predict the evolution of the technology nodes. Now, extreme UV lithography (EUV), 193 nm immersion lithography, mask less lithography (MLL) techniques and nanoimprint lithography (NIL) are considered as candidates for the so called Next Generation Lithography (NGL) at 32 nm and 22 nm nodes. In parallel, imprint technology has been promoted by a large scientific community and non-IC industry segments including high-density storage, optoelectronics, telecommunication as well as biochips or micro total analysis systems.
\n\t\t\tThe history of imprint technology as lithography method for pattern replication can be traced back to 1970’s but the most significant progress has been made by the research group of S. Chou in the 1990’s. Since then, it has become a popular technique with a rapidly growing interest from both research and industrial sides and a variety of new approaches have been proposed along the mainstream scientific advances. Indeed, the initial proposal of Chou et al. has been made for the mass production of high density magnetic storage media and it has been used to demonstrate the feasibility of all kind of fine structure patterning at a nanometer scale resolution which is now called nanoimprint lithography.
\n\t\t\tNanoimprint lithography is based on surface structuring with a template consisting of topographic patterns. After imprinting, the patterns have to be transferred in order to obtain different functionalities. As lithography method, nanoimprint is fully compatible to the standard micro-fabrication techniques, including different transfer processes such as etching, lift-off, selective re-growth or diffusion. In most cases, a thin layer of resist is deposited on the substrate and then imprinted, resulting in a thickness contrast. This may need a further treatment by reactive ion etching (RIE) to remove the residual resist layer and to transfer the features into the used substrate material. Therefore, the process control of both imprinting and etching are important in order to obtain a suitable resist profile without any residual layer. For some particular applications, the resist layer can be replaced by functional materials or omitted for an imprint directly into the substrate.
\n\t\t\tCurrently, two main types of nanoimprint methods are existing, i.e., hot embossing and UV-based nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL). An overview of the most important nanoimprinting techniques and its related stamp materials is shown in figure 1. Thermal processing has been demonstrated by S. Chou et al., which consists of deforming a thermoplastic polymer layer such as a polymer (e.g. PMMA, COC, PC) spin coated on a substrate or a polymer substrate. After pre-bake and heating up above the glass transition temperature of the polymer, the imprint is performed by applying a contact force on the stack consisting of template and substrate. Then, the template-substrate assembly is cooled down before the template release. Alternatively, the UV-based technique is based on the use of photo-curable resist, which can be easily deformed at room temperature and cured by UV-light exposure. Thus the main difference between the two techniques are the material types of both template and resist, i.e., transparent templates and photosensitive resists for UV-NIL, but in some cases non-transparent templates and thermoplastic resists for thermal-NIL.
\n\t\t\tFor both hot embossing and UV-based processes, the template fabrication is one of the most critical issues because of its high cost. This depends on the required minimum feature size, the density of the features and the patterned area. In general, electron beam lithography and reactive ion etching are used to pattern silicon or quartz glass wafers. High resolution patterning over a large wafer area is time consuming but ideally, once the template has been produced, it can be used for many times. In practice, both silicon and quartz glass templates can be damaged due to process imperfection.
\n\t\t\tCompared to hot embossing, UV-NIL is advantageous when multi-level patterning is needed due to the fact, that high precision alignment can be done much easier with processes performed at room temperature as there are no thermal gradients generated. Basically, the cycle time of UV-NIL is shorter than in hot embossing due to the absence of heating and cooling cycles (heating-up to the imprinting temperature and cooling down to the de-embossing temperature). In addition, both pattern placement accuracy and overlay alignment accuracy of UV-NIL are also inherently higher than in hot embossing processes, because of reduced size variations of templates and wafer materials due to the thermal cycles. It is known that with an increase of the wafer size, the wafer flatness decreases so that a high pressure has to be applied to assure a good imprinting uniformity. Typically, the maximum imprinting area is limited to about 25 mm 25 mm for UV-NIL processes, considering the stiffness and the thickness variations of quartz glass templates and silicon wafers. In particular cases, the step-and-repeat strategy can be applied to replicate the same small sized template many times over the whole wafer area. However, this requires a more sophisticated imprint tool and can not be applied to the general case of large wafer pattern replication. On the other hand hot embossing is superior over UV-NIL if polymer materials need to be imprinted directly.
\n\t\t\tThus, it is highly desirable to have a low cost solution for large area replications, with less risk of template damage but improved process latitude. One possibility is to use soft templates, which are referred to soft working stamps. The use of soft materials should allow for a more conformable imprinting over a large wafer area. Accordingly, soft and hard UV-NIL refers to the material hardness of the template material, hard for a quartz glass template and soft for a soft layer attached to a glass back plane (soft UV-NIL). Another advantage is that such soft working stamps can be easily obtained by casting and curing a liquid precursor of a soft stamp material onto a silicon master. One of the most widely used materials is polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The working stamp fabrication is carried out in the same way as the stamp fabrication for micro-contact printing applications. PDMS stamps have a good optical transparency to the wavelengths used for curing of the UV-NIL resists (between 350 nm and 450 nm) and a low surface energy which ensures an easy separation from the substrate after the UV-NIL process. The drawback of PDMS as a soft stamp material for UV-NIL is that due to the low Young’s module of PDMS extremely high resolution pattern in the sub-50 nm range might not be achievable and the local pattern deformation is more critical than in hard UV-NIL. Other materials like perfluorpolyethers (PFPE´s) can be used instead of PDMS for resolving features in the sub-50 nm range.
\n\t\t\tIn this chapter, we are presenting a general process consideration based on the used materials and equipment concepts. The two most important nanoimprint lithography techniques hot embossing and UV-NIL are described in detail with application examples.
\n\t\t\tThis present book chapter focuses on the principles and technologies of hot embossing and UV-NIL structuring techniques; micro contact printing (µ-CP), also considered as soft lithography, is only mentioned in the introduction and is not considered in subsequent paragraphs. Application pictures are added in various sub-chapters to substantiate the described processes.
\n\t\t\tMain nanoimprint lithography techniques with corresponding stamp materials.
The relevant process parameters used for a nanoimprint lithography process strongly depend on the applied nanoimprint technique. On the one hand hot embossing requires high temperatures and high contact forces, whereas in UV-based NIL processes the imprinted monomer or oligomer is cured by UV-light exposure. A basic process flow of a nanoimprinting process independent on the used technique is demonstrated in figure 2. In case of a hot embossing process using a polymer substrate to be imprinted, the structures are directly transferred into the polymer without any resist and pattern transfer process. A resist is either spin coated or droplet dispensed on a substrate. The template is getting in contact with the resist and distributing the resist evenly in case of droplet dispense. The features on the template are structuring the resist surface in a way that the resist is flowing into the cavities of the topography of the template. Curing of the resist is performed by either cooling down below the glass transition temperature of the resist in case of an HE process or by UV-light exposure in an UV-NIL process. The residual resist layer remaining underneath the elevated features of the template has to be removed in a dry reactive ion etching (DRIE) process in order to transfer the pattern into the substrate by either proceeding with the DRIE process used for the resist removal or by applying a different DRIE process. The alignment keys represented on the template and the substrate surface are used if an aligned imprinting process is required. The structuring process is finished by removing the remaining resist from the substrate.
\n\t\t\tGraphical representation of an UV-NIL process including pattern transfer.
In hot embossing processes a polymer sheet or a spin-on polymer is heated above its glass transition temperature and imprinted by applying high contact forces. The stamp material is chosen depending on the required feature sizes and the materials involved.
\n\t\t\t\tA typical process flow for hot embossing is depicted in figure 3.
\n\t\t\t\tHot embossing process flow.
The temperatures of top and bottom side heaters are ramped-up above the glass transition temperature of the polymer to be imprinted. In general the imprint temperature is about 20-50 C higher than the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the polymer. Only thermoplastic polymers can be imprinted as they can be dissolved in appropriate solvents for spin coating and are deformable upon the application of contact forces. During the heating time, the hot embossing chamber is evacuated to about 5 mbar. After reaching the imprint temperature of the polymer the contact force is applied. Its amount is dependent on various parameters such as the stamp area, the type of polymer and the feature geometry. The contact force remains applied until the temperature of the heaters reach the de-embossing temperature. This is the temperature level, which allows a reliable and residue-free separation of the stamp from the polymer. The total cycle time for a hot embossing process is strongly dependent on the heating and cooling capabilities of the equipment and is in the order of 3 to 20 minutes. In table 1 a summary of polymers used for hot embossing including the glass transition temperature is listed.
\n\t\t\t\tThe fastest possible hot embossing processes are isothermal processes. In this scenario the imprint temperature and the de-embossing temperature of the substrate are the same. The heaters can remain at the same temperature level all the time. The resist is fluid enough to guarantee a very fast imprint as soon as it gets in contact with the template and the contact force is applied. De-embossing is performed outside of the chamber in this case. Cycle times of 2 minutes have been demonstrated with high resolution features down to 50 nm on a 200 mm Si substrate by using a EVG520HE hot embossing equipment.
\n\t\t\t\tThe following stamp materials are widely used for hot embossing processes:
\n\t\t\t\tPolymer | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShort name | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGlass transition temperature [T g] | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Polymer substrates | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
Cyclo olefine copolymer | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCOC | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t60 ? | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Polystyrene | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPS | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
Polymethylmethacrylate | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPMMA | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
Polycarbonate | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPC | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
Spin-on polymers | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
mr-I-7000 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t- | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
mr-I-8000 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t- | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
mr-I-9000E | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t- | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
mr-I T85 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t- | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t |
Polymers used for imprinting and its glass transition temperature.
Silicon
Fused quartz glass
Nickel
Soft working stamps
\n\t\t\t\t\tTable 2 lists commonly used stamp materials for hot embossing including the fabrication process, the type of hot embossing process, the thermal expansion of the stamp material as well as its required surface treatment prior to imprinting. The corresponding thermal expansion coefficient plays a role in case of optical alignment is required. In order to achieve optimized alignment conditions, the thermal expansion of template and substrate should be matched.
\n\t\t\t\tStamp material for hot embossing | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFabrication process | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHot embossing process type | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThermal expansion [10 -6 K -1 ] | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSurface treatment | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Silicon | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\te-beam, optical lithography, | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpin-on layer | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2.6 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSilane | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Fused quartz glass | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\te-beam | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpin-on layer | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.6 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSilane | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Nickel | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOptical lithography, electroplating | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPolymer sheet | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t13 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNot required | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Soft working stamps | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tReplication from a Si or SiO 2 master | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpin-on layer, polymer sheet | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t310 for PDMS 340 for MD-500 PFPE | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNot required | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Stamp materials used for hot embossing and its characteristics.
Soft working stamps can be fabricated from Ni masters, glass masters or directly from resist masters after lithography (e.g. e-beam, optical, laser). In figure 4 the basic process flow of the soft working stamp fabrication process is demonstrated. The liquid pre-cursor of the polymer is dispensed onto the master and squeezed between the master and a glass backplane. Curing of the polymer is achieved by UV-exposure. The soft working stamp attached to the glass backplane is released from the master and represents the reversible image of the master design. The resist master is treated with an anti-sticking layer (fluorinated chemical) in order to ensure a residual-free separation of the polymer from the master. Ni masters are usually not treated as they exhibit good release properties from the master.
\n\t\t\t\tBasic process of soft working stamp fabrication.
In figure 5 and 6 scanning electron microscopy (SEM) pictures of imprinted features are shown replicated by using soft working stamps. In the first case spin-on polymer layers are imprinted whereas in the later case the structures are directly replicated into a polymer.
\n\t\t\t\tSEM images of imprinted features by hot embossing utilizing soft working stamps; left: 50 nm lines, 100 nm high, right: 50 nm and 100 nm meander structures, 100 nm high.
SEM image of 200 µm wide hot embossed micro fluidic channels utilizing working stamp substrate top area.
In UV-based nanoimprint lithography a transparent template with nanostructures on its surface is used to deform a thin resist film or an active material deposited on a substrate followed by a hardening step. The film is cured by photo chemical cross-linking before the stamp is released. When polymer chains are linked together by cross-links, they lose some of their ability to move as individual polymer chains. For example, a liquid polymer (where the chains are freely flowing) can be turned into a "solid" or "gel" by cross-linking the chains together. In polymer chemistry, when a synthetic polymer is cross-linked, it usually means that the entire bulk of the polymer has been exposed to the cross-linking method. The resulting modification of mechanical properties depends strongly on the crosslink density. Low cross-linked densities raise the viscosities of polymers. Intermediate cross-linked densities transform gummy polymers into materials that have elastomeric properties and potentially high strengths. Such materials are usually used as stamp materials. Very high cross-linked densities can cause materials to become very rigid or glassy. Cross-links can be formed by chemical reactions that are initiated by radiation. For example, mixing a non polymerized or partially polymerized resin with specific chemicals called cross-linking reagents results in a chemical reaction that forms cross-links. In hard UV-NIL rigid transparent templates like quartz glass contain the structures whereas in soft UV-NIL polymeric replicas from master templates are used for the imprinting process. Table 3 shows the basic data for both patterning techniques in terms of maximum imprint area and alignment capabilities. Hard- and soft UV-NIL stamps can be re-used many times, in case of hard UV-NIL there is only the need of re-applying the surface release agent called anti sticking layer (ASL), whereas soft stamps are materials with integrated release properties. Soft stamp polymers are cheap and disposable materials, they can be replicated multiple times from the master.
\n\t\t\t\tUV-based imprint lithography can be carried out using different types of imprinting machines: single step, full-field imprinting and step-and-repeat.
\n\t\t\t\tSingle step imprinting machines, like the one shown in figure 7, structure an entire wafer (up to 200 mm) or small areas (called a die) at one time. A step-and-repeat tool (Fig. 8) imprints one die in a hard or soft UV-NIL approach of a wafer at a time and then moves to a new area of the wafer. The process is repeated until the entire wafer is imprinted. One advantage of the step-and-repeat method is that it is easier to achieve a higher alignment accuracy in a smaller area than in a larger area. A second advantage, and probably the most significant for many applications, is that it allows the use of very small hard stamps to create a large imprint
\n\t\t\t\tSingle step semi-automated UV-NIL system.
Step-and-repeat semi-automated UV-NIL system.
area. It is also possible to use such structured areas as large area template for single step imprinting applications.
\n\t\t\t\tNIL has passed the barrier from the laboratory scale to industrial production in various applications such as wafer level camera modules (WLC), optical gratings or LED’s. These applications are described in more detail in the following paragraphs.
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | Soft Stamps | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHard Stamps | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Imprinted area | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUp to | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUp to x 25 mm* | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Resist application | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpin coating, inkjet dispense | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpin coating, inkjet dispense | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Alignment | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAccuracy limited due to distortion of stamp (~ 1 µm) | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHigh precision alignment possible ( < 5 0 nm) | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Comparison of soft and hard stamps based on different process parameters.
*in single step imprinting applications
In hard UV-based nanoimprint lithography processes quartz glass templates are used for replication. Due to the thickness variation of substrates and the rigid templates in hard UV-NIL, the area which can be patterned with one imprint step is limited to about 25 mm x 25 mm. Therefore, in order to pattern large substrates up to 300 mm in diameter, a “step-and-repeat” process has to be applied. In soft UV-NIL processes elastomeric stamps are used as they are able to compensate for any surface roughness and curvature of substrates to be imprinted, offering thereby the possibility to pattern at wafer scale with only one imprint step. Hard UV-NIL is preferred over soft UV-NIL for applications demanding high alignment accuracy. Commercially available resist materials have been used such as Amonil from Amo, UVCur21 from micro resist technology and PAK-01 from Toyo Gosei. All these materials can be spin coated on substrates prior to imprinting.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe adhesion of the resists to the wafer surface has to be increased while the adhesion of the cured resist to the stamp surface has to be as low as possible. In order to get a very low surface energy on the quartz glass template surface an anti-sticking layer (ASL) has to be applied. Silane based ASL´s are covalently bonded onto SiO2 surfaces as shown in figure 9. It has been reported in literature that the anti-sticking layer can be applied in gaseous phase in a vacuum chamber by exclusion of moisture or by simply immersing the template in a
\n\t\t\t\t\tFluorosilanized silicon oxide surface.
liquid ASL and rinse it with solvent. The so called molecular vapor deposition (MVD), proposed by Applied Microstructures, is a room temperature deposition process and takes place in vacuum. Specific chemicals can be deposited on template surfaces such as perfluorodecyltrichlorsilane (FDTS) to serve as hydrophobic coating for the subsequent nanoimprinting process. It was found out empirically that ASL´s deposited from gaseous phase are preferred over liquid deposited films for features sizes smaller than 50 nm.
\n\t\t\t\t\tIn figure 10 an atomic force microscopy (AFM) picture of imprinted sub-µm lines and space features are shown. Figures 11 and 12 demonstrate SEM pictures of imprinted features down to 90 nm resolution using 25 mm x 25 mm quartz glass templates.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThree-dimensional AFM image of an imprinted lines and space structure.
Surface topography investigation - SEM picture of 90 nm imprinted dots (top view).
Cross section investigation - SEM picture of imprinted lines and space structure (chuck tilted by 80 ).
The residual layer and its distribution across the substrate surface is an important characteristic for the subsequent pattern transfer process. It needs to be as thin as possible, usually thinner than 50 nm is requested, and its uniformity should be ± 10% from its average value. Figure 13 shows a cross section SEM picture demonstrating a residual layer thickness of about 50 nm.
\n\t\t\t\t\tClose-up of cross sectional SEM picture of imprinted lines and space structure for residual resist measurement (chuck tilted by 80 ).
Stacking of lines and space structures has been performed by imprinting of features onto SiO2 and pattern transfer into SiO2 with subsequent filling of the etched features with Si. This approach results in 3D photonic crystal woodpile structures exhibiting a full photonic band gap by keeping the required alignment accuracy and the quality of the imprinted layers. In figure 14 all five layers of the Si/SiO2 woodpile structure are shown. The lines and space structures of the first, third and fifth layers are facing towards the observer. The first and fifth layer are above each other and the third layer is shifted by half of the period according to the design rules for the woodpile structure. This is another example where nanoimprint lithography could play a role in the future as manufacturing technique.
\n\t\t\t\t\tSEM picture of 5 layers of the Si/SiO2 woodpile structure.
Templates for nanoimprint lithography are also called stamps or moulds. In case of soft UV-NIL, soft working stamps can be conveniently reproduced by copying from another template which is called master. Silicon masters for soft UV-NIL template replication are fabricated by electron beam lithography, EUV immersion lithography or other high resolution patterning techniques, followed by reactive ion etching and surface coating with a release agent like mentioned in chapter 2.2.1. Both high resolution lithography and reactive ion etching techniques for silicon processing have been well developed, allowing manufacturing of high resolution (better than 50 nm) and high quality masters. However, the cost of high resolution masters increases rapidly with the wafer size and resolution. It is still a big challenge to cover a large area of a wafer because of throughput limitations. The surface treatment of the master with a release agent is still one of the important research topics, although a large number of recipes or processing protocols have been proposed. Fortunately, soft stamp polymers are materials with low surface energy. They can be easily peeled off after curing from a silicon master, which has been simply coated with FDTS by molecular vapor phase deposition. Now, several companies can provide high resolution silicon masters with feature sizes down to < 20 nm at reasonable prices for standard features such as arrays of gratings, checkerboards, dots and holes. Soft working stamps can be obtained by curing the polymer on a master. It may also be necessary to introduce a carrier for the flexible stamp in order to facilitate handling of the soft working stamp in an imprinting system. Such a carrier can either be integrated during the curing process of the template material or thermally bonded after a plasma surface treatment of both glass and back surface of the soft stamp polymer template. The soft template bonded onto a carrier is detached from the master manually after curing. For more advanced fabrication, they can be obtained with a dedicated high accuracy molding unit, to apply highly uniform and repeatable contact forces to ensure that the residual layer is kept thin. This is crucial to avoid distortions during the imprinting process, especially for high resolution features. Finally, UV-curable soft materials are cross-linked via UV-exposure in the UV-imprinting system.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe stiffness of the fabricated working stamps can be adjusted by changing the mixture ratio of the base liquid and the curing agent or by changing the molecule end groups in case of UV curable polymers. For high resolution patterning, it is better to use a thin layer of hard polymer bonded on to a softer block. Such a double layer can be obtained by first spin coating the hard layer on the master and then attaching a soft block. After thermal bonding, the soft block can easily be peeled off together with the hard layer. Alternatively, other types of “hard” materials such as PMMA and PFPE can be used for the top layer fabrication, but both attaching and peeling processes are much more delicate. In most cases, a stamp made of a single layer polymer and glass back-plane will be sufficient for the pattern replication of feature sizes between 50 nm and a few micrometers, but the bi-layer template configuration ensures both higher resolution and higher mechanical stability.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe created soft template usually resembles a negative counterpart from the used master. Nowadays there is also the possibility to replicate positive and negative counterparts from one master design by using different stamp polymers. In contrast to the fabrication of quartz glass templates for hard UV-NIL, where the reproduction by copying is much more difficult, a silicon master for soft UV-NIL can be used for copying of many soft working stamps. Soft working stamps have a relative low surface energy which ensures an easier separation from the substrate after UV-NIL. In addition, because of the inherent properties of the soft materials (elastomers), the risk of mechanical damage of the master is also largely reduced. Therefore, the template cost as well as the processing cost of soft UV-NIL is significantly lower than in other nanoimprint techniques.
\n\t\t\t\t\tSoft UV-NIL can be performed in a very simple manner in R&D environments by running the process manually. However, for sophisticated device fabrication and for achieving reproducible results, dedicated systems are necessary with a better imprinting performance and highly controllable process parameters. In principle, a substrate holder, a template holder and a mechanical system that brings the coated substrate and the soft working stamp into contact and a UV-exposure unit are needed. The flexible and forgiving nature of the soft working stamps compensates for the waviness of the substrate and the working stamp itself in order to get full-field highly homogeneous patterns. However, a wedge compensation process has to be performed to ensure that the working stamp and the substrate are parallel before the imprinting process. In addition to that, the imprint force and exposure dose must be controlled over the whole imprinted area and, a suitable detachment unit must be implemented for highly reproducible process results. Finally, an optical alignment is generally required for multilevel device applications.
\n\t\t\t\t\tWith the rapid growing interest in nanoimprint techniques, commercial systems are now available from several companies. In particular, EV Group has developed dedicated systems for soft UV-NIL.
\n\t\t\t\t\tIQ aligner for large area soft UV NIL (up to 300 mm).
The EVG620 system mentioned in chapter 2.2.1. is able to perform optical lithography as well as hard and soft UV-NIL for R&D applications for substrate sizes up to 150 mm. The IQ aligner like shown in figure 15 is a dedicated system for large area soft UV-NIL applications up to 300 mm substrate size. The available equipment spectrum reaches from semi-automated configurations for research environments to fully automated systems including automated detachment of stamp and substrate. Such systems are already in use for high volume production.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe general imprinting process of soft UV-NIL can be described as follows:
\n\t\t\t\t\tA UV-curable resist layer is coated onto a substrate. For coating of the resists several methods like spin coating, spray coating and droplet or puddle dispense can be used. The applied coating technique is heavily dependent if a pattern transfer process has to be carried out, which requires thin residual layers in the range of below 50 nm. Such a requirement can be fulfilled by either spin coating of thin layers to be imprinted or discrete droplet dispense of small volumes depending on the feature size and feature density. If the residual layer does not play any role, such as the polymer layer is part of the functional device, the resist can be thicker. In this case the resist can be applied by puddle dispense.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThen, a soft working stamp is brought into contact with the UV-curable resist layer. After applying the contact force on the stack consisting of template, resist, and substrate, the resist is cured by UV-exposure through the transparent working stamp. Finally, the working stamp is separated from the imprinted substrate, resulting in an imprinted resist layer, which is the negative image of any topography preserved on the stamp surface. Due to the double-negative process (master/soft working stamp and soft working stamp/imprint) the imprinted pattern have the same tone as the master.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFigures 16 and 17 show AFM measurements of 50 nm boxes on the master and its replica fabricated by nanoimprint lithography. The two structures show a nearly perfect match in pattern fidelity. There is only a variation of < 5% in horizontal and vertical dimensions.
\n\t\t\t\t\tMaster AFM image of 50 nm dots, 100 nm in height.
Corresponding AFM image of 50 nm replicated dots, 100 nm in height.
Besides the double-negative process (master/soft working stamp and soft working stamp/imprint) there is the possibility, by tuning the stamp polymer, to replicate positive and negative counterpart working stamps from one master design. In this case a second working stamp imprinted from a first working stamp is used to perform the final imprint as shown in Figure 18.
\n\t\t\t\t\tSEM Images of 50 nm boxes in a 3 step counterpart imprint.
To obtain a high quality soft UV-imprint, the material parameters as well as the equipment capabilities need to be optimized. Ideally, resists for soft UV-NIL should exhibit properties like low viscosity, high UV sensitivity and good etch resistivity. Suitable UV-curable resist materials may be organic materials or inorganic/organic composites. Low viscosity materials tend to fill up pattern on the soft working stamp surface faster and are capable to replicate higher resolutions, whereas higher viscosity resists may be used for thick layer fabrication, where no pattern transfer is needed. Finally, high UV sensitivity is required for high speed replication and a good etch selectivity is needed for a high quality pattern transfer. Several companies such as AMO (Germany), Micro resist Technology (Germany), and Toyo Gosei (Japan) have developed resists for commercial uses and most of them allow reaching a high resolution with reasonable exposing time and etching sensitivity to standard reactive ion etching processes.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe choice of substrates for soft UV-NIL strongly depends on the application. In most cases semiconductor materials such as Si wafers (with or without SiO2 layer) are in use. These substrates are sometimes covered with metals, other semiconductors or ceramics, but the process can also be carried out on polymer substrates depending on the adhesion properties of the material combinations.
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe resolution of a lithographic process is of major importance. In case of soft UV-NIL, the resolution is dependent on both materials (soft polymer stamp, UV-NIL resist) and the performance of the imprinting processes. The resolution achievable is definitely better than 50 nm. Figure 19 illustrates an AFM picture of 35 nm half pitch master structures fabricated by extreme-UV interference lithography (EUV-IL) with the corresponding replicated polymeric stamp in figure 20.
\n\t\t\t\t\tAFM image of 35 nm half pitch EUV-IL master template.
AFM image of corresponding 35 nm half pitch polymeric working stamp.
The unique capability of the soft working stamp to compensate for thickness variations of a given substrate makes it possible to imprint over larger area with high uniformity. Therefore, this technology is an ideal candidate for high throughout and high resolution applications. One key parameter to demonstrate the uniformity of an imprint process is the homogeneity of the residual layer thickness. Other assessment parameters are pattern placement accuracy, overlay accuracy, process latitude, defect density, production rate and cost of ownership of a soft UV-NIL process. However, these are depending on the targeted applications and are different for each application as the variety of possible high volume applications are very broad. Soft UV-NIL is best suited for applications where large areas of continuous pattern need to be fabricated without any stitching error. The ability to pattern over large areas in one imprint step can, for sensor application, be used to provide substrates a “larger” surface by introducing a third dimension on a given area. The process can be performed at room temperature by applying small imprint forces, thus it does not impose additional stress on brittle or heat sensitive substrates.
\n\t\t\t\t\tDue to the flexibility of the template curvatures of the substrate may be neglected, yet for the same reason applications that need high definition alignment in the sub-micron range are hard to realize. Up to now the process has found its way into scientific research domains and production lines in micro-optics (Figure 21) and into prototyping for nanophotonics and biotechnology. It is expected to have additional impact in fabrication of memory devices and in display technology.
\n\t\t\t\t\tmm soft stamp replicated lens wafer and 200 mm stacked wafer level camera module.
All imprinting techniques are based on material (polymer) transportation from the recessed area to the non recessed area or template cavities. It is obvious that, no matter how large the pressure and how hard the template material, imprinting is easier if only local or short distance material transportation is involved. Large distance resist flow or large feature size patterning may introduce large working stamp deformation. Therefore, soft UV-NIL is also best suited for applications where only small size features are replicated. For the device fabrication where both small and large size features have to be replicated, a mix-and-match technique can be applied, i.e., only high resolution features (contact holes, grating, dot and hole matrices, etc.) are patterned by soft UV-NIL and all large features (cavities, channels, pads, etc.) by standard optical lithography methods. Being still highly parallel, cost effective, and fully compatible to the requirement of multilevel device manufacturing, such an approach takes the advantage of soft UV-NIL but avoid its inherent drawback.
\n\t\t\t\t\tProbably the most promising high volume application is the fabrication of next generation high density storage medias with a planned capacity in the range of 1 Tb/in². Since the working stamps can be cost-effectively copied from a master and a hard disc media consists of homogenously distributed high resolution features (tracks for disc track recording as shown in figure 22 or dots for bit patterned media), soft UV-NIL can be an attractive candidate for the large scale mass production.
\n\t\t\t\t\tSEM measurement of 50 nm half pitch imprinted data track features utilizing soft stamp imprint lithography.
SEM image of 350 nm photonic crystal holes, structure depth 600 nm utilizing positive and negative counterpart working stamps.
Finally, the soft UV-NIL technique has been used to demonstrate device integration capability. One example is the fabrication of LED devices with photonic crystals. Figure 23 demonstrates a SEM image of photonic crystals replicated with soft UV NIL.
\n\t\t\t\tThe most significant progress in nanoimprint lithography has been made within the last 10 years. Various imprinting modes have been developed and some of them already reached a mature state for research and development environments. Tremendeous progress was seen in building up the infrastructure for NIL. Templates and related fabrication methods, resists and nanoimprinting equipment are commercially available nowadays. This was supported by the foundation of consortia supporting to enhance the infrastructure in NIL. A good example is NILCom, which was founded in 2004 and which aligns activities around the fabrication process for commercial devices.
\n\t\t\tIn addition, a number of potentially high volume future applications have been demonstrated, showing expected performances not only for high resolution patterning, but also for functional device integration. Imprinted micro lenses on up to 200 mm wafers are already in use in wafer-level optics for digital cameras. There are several nanoimprintingprocess modes available. Depending on the type of imprint material and available equipment either hot embossing or UV-NIL processes can be selected. Both types of processes can be performed with either hard template materials (e.g. Silicon, Quartz glass or Nickel) or soft working stamp materials. All of the described techniques have shown resolution capabilities of better than 50 nm. Hot embossing processes are the preferred process for structuring of polymer substrates directly. For devices with tight requirements on the overlay alignment accuracy hard UV-NIL is preferred. Thermal expansion differences of involved materials do not play any role as this process is performed at room temperature. Comparing to hard UV-NIL processes, soft UV-NIL is advantageous because of the possibility of patterning large area at once. Another benefit of soft UV-NIL is the fact that soft working stamps can be easily replicated from a master and each of them can be used for a large number of pattern replications. The risk of damaging the master due to mechanical means is largely reduced due to the soft properties of the working stamp materials. Considering the available infrastructure and the huge market potential, it can be assumed that a range of industrial applications will be realized by applying nanoimprint lithography processes.
\n\t\tThe authors acknowledge the support from the company EV Group for writing this chapter.
\n\t\tAs with many high-resourced countries, low-resourced countries have not been spared the global challenges caused by non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular diseases, coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and obesity [1, 2]. For countries with minimal health budgets, every effort needs to be made to reduce patients’ reliance on costly medical solutions to health problems, including NCDs, for which drugs are often the first line of treatment to reduce the associated morbidity and premature mortality [3]. Prevention efforts within the healthcare system need to take a broader public health approach to motivate people to address their unhealthy lifestyles that result in the development of NCDs. To achieve this, however, Ministries of Health in low-resourced countries needs factual, timely, and reliable NCDs data that can build a comprehensive information system to provide evidence-based decision-making and to develop appropriate prevention strategies for the specific population affected by NCDs [4, 5].
\nAll healthcare organisations, including governmental and non-governmental institutions, have their strategies to prevent and control diseases and to maintain the health of their community effectively and efficiently. Likewise, healthcare organisations have a strategy for disease prevention and control to maintain the health of the community. Most healthcare systems rely on accurate, timely, correct, and factual data to make political and administrative decisions [4, 5, 6]. Moreover, healthcare systems should have a balanced approach in preventing both infectious communicable disease and NCDs, which require factual data at the mega, macro, meso, and micro level of healthcare.
\nThis chapter aims to create a better understanding of the growing global burden and perspectives on NCDs. It also aims to reflect on the prevention of NCDs, the global status and availability of NCDs data, and effective strategies to prevent the growing burden of NCDs in low-resourced countries.
\nNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading public health challenges globally in the twenty-first century, resulting in ill health, economic loss, life loss, diminished quality of life, and poor social development equally in both high-resourced and low-resourced countries [7, 8]. According to the World Health Organisation Global Status Report (GSR) on non-communicable disease, from 38 million deaths due to NCDs each year, more than 40% were premature and were preventable [9]. Based on the projection of the WHO, by 2025 NCDs will account for over 70% of all deaths globally, with 85% of these occurring in developing countries [10]. Evidences show that if proper prevention approaches are not designed and applied, an estimated 41 million people in low-resourced countries will die from NCDs by 2025, mainly due to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) (48%), cancers (21%), chronic respiratory diseases (12%), and diabetes (3%) [11].
\nGlobally, more than 9 million deaths occurred due to NCDs in people under the age of 60, with most being preventable. Untimely losses from NCDs range from 22% amongst men and 35% amongst women in low-resourced countries to 8% amongst men and 10% amongst women in high-resourced countries [10]. According to current research, more than 80% of heart diseases, stroke, hypertension and type 2 diabetes, and over a third of cancers can be prevented by eradicating the common risk factors, mainly tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, and the harmful use of alcohol [12]. The effective prevention and management of common NCDs risk factors require the establishment of a strategic framework which can tackle health problems associated with the growing burden of morbidity and mortality of these diseases [13]. According to evidence by the WHO, globally, NCDs deaths will increase by 17% over the next 10 years, with the most considerable increase being in low-resourced countries such as Africa (27%) and the Eastern Mediterranean region (25%) [7, 8]. Current research indicates that cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and kidney diseases are no longer the illness of high-resourced countries, but also, non-communicable disease hampers the people and the economies of the deprived populations even more than communicable diseases, representing a public health emergency in slow motion [14, 15].
\nAs illustrated in Figure 1, common NCDs account for most of the avoidable morbidity and preventable mortality, these being cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. The percentage of mortality associated with the major NCDs across three regions of the world, such as high-resourced countries, low-resourced countries, and Africa varies. In high-income countries, the percentage of mortality related with NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity decreases, whilst in low-resourced countries and Africa, it continues to raise. For instance, the percentage of mortality due to cardiovascular disease is 38% in high-resourced countries [16] and 42% in low-resourced countries, from which 20% is the share of Africa [17, 18, 19].
\nPercentage of mortality associated with NCDs in Africa, high-resourced and low-resourced countries.
In low-resourced countries, the largest percentage of mortality (70%) is due to coronary heart disease with Africa’s share 10% [19]. In high-resourced countries, coronary heart disease accounts for 20% of mortality. The share of high blood pressure is 46% in Africa, exceeding the total percentage of deaths in low-resourced countries (40%) [20]. In high-resourced countries, high blood pressure accounts for a relatively lower 35% of mortality [21].
\nThe percentage of mortality as a result of diabetes is 8, 12, and 14% in high-resourced, low-resourced countries, and Africa, respectively [22, 23]. The percentage of deaths due to obesity is 29.5% in high-resourced countries and 37.5% in low-resourced countries with the share of Africa 33% [24, 25, 26, 27].
\nIn 2011, the United Nations High-Level Meeting presented and promised a unique opportunity for international communities to take action against the rising epidemic of NCDs. The WHO asserts that the world has reached a decisive point in the history of NCDs and has an unprecedented opportunity to alter its course. In an attempt to alter the damaging progression of NCDs, the WHO Member States agreed on a time-bound set on the following nine voluntary global targets to be attained by 2025 [9, 28]:
A 25% relative reduction in the overall mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory diseases.
At least 10% relative reduction in the harmful use of alcohol, as appropriate, within the national context.
A 10% relative decrease in pervasiveness of deficient physical action.
A 30% relative decrease in mean populace admission of salt/sodium.
A 30% relative decrease in the pervasiveness of current tobacco use in people matured 15+ years.
A 25% relative decrease in the pervasiveness of raised circulatory strain, or regulation of predominance of raised pulse, as indicated by national conditions.
Stop the rise in diabetes and fat.
At least 50% of eligible people receive drug therapy and counselling (including glycaemic control) to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
An 80% accessibility of the moderate fundamental innovations and essential drugs, including generics, required to treat major NCDs in both open and private offices.
Furthermore, the world health assembly set a target of a 25% reduction in overall mortality from four major NCDs, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular-, and chronic respiratory disease by 2025 [28]. The 25 × 25 strategy is today included in the World Health Organisations Global Action Plan 2013–2020. Amongst the nine voluntary national strategies, two are intended to reduce deaths due to the four illnesses mentioned earlier and to stop the increase in obesity and diabetes. The remaining national strategies focus specifically on incorporating decreased alcohol intake, promoting physical exercise, reducing nutritional salt and smoking, enhancing hypertension control, and improving the treatment of those at risk from the main NCDs. Countries need to make progress on all these targets to attain the overarching target of a 25% reduction of premature mortality from the four major NCDs by 2025 [29, 30, 31, 32].
\nThe action plan advocates a comprehensive vision, recognising the social, economic, and political determinants of diseases and the wide-ranging developmental healthcare scheme [29]. Conversely, it is uncertain, in low-resourced countries at a much lower economic level, how these declarations of commitment will be interpreted and implemented [33, 34, 35]. The prioritising of infectious communicable disease, a frail healthcare system, and poorly designed NCDs prevention policies prevent low-resourced countries not to implement these declarations of commitment [1, 4].
\nMoreover, to improve the prevention and control of NCDs, the United Nations High-Level Meeting presented four additional time-bound commitments in 2014 which incorporates: “1) by 2015, consider setting national NCD targets for 2025, 2) by 2015, consider developing national multisector policies and plans to achieve the national targets by 2025; 3) by 2016, reduce risk factors for NCDs, building on guidance set out in the WHO Global NCD Action Plan, and 4) by 2016, strengthen health systems to address NCDs through people-centred primary health care and universal health coverage, building on guidance set out in WHO Global NCD Action Plan” [28]. Despite the formulation of these four additional time-bound commitments by United Nations High-Level meeting, progress made by the majority of low-resourced countries is plodding and incomparable with that of high-resourced countries [1, 36].
\nThe WHO argues that the global epidemic of NCDs can be reversed through modest investments in interventions that are so low in cost that countries’ income levels need not be a significant barrier to successfully implement the nine voluntary global targets and the 25 × 25 strategy. However, what is needed, more importantly, is high levels of commitment, proper planning, community mobilisation, and an intensive focus on a small range of critical actions. The above will ensure quick gains to reduce the significant behavioural risk factors, namely tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, an unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity, as well as biological risk factors, such as blood glucose [29, 37].
\nIf the current trends continue, the probability of dying prematurely from the four main NCDs is projected to increase in Sub-Saharan Africa but will show a relative decrease in areas such as Europe, the western Pacific, Americas, eastern Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia [37]. It is believed that if the risk factor targets set by the WHO are achieved, the 25 × 25 target will be surpassed in Europe amongst both men and women. In the western Pacific, the target will be achieved in women and almost achieved in men, whist the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia will approach the target with the rising trend in Africa be reversed. In most regions, a more striving 50% tobacco reduction instead of the agreed 30% by 2016 will contribute the most to reducing premature NCD mortality amongst men, followed by addressing raised blood pressure [29, 38]. For women, the highest contributing risk factor towards the premature NCD mortality target will be raised blood pressure in every region except Europe and the Americas, where the ambitious but not approved tobacco reduction would have the most substantial benefit [33, 35].
\nDifferent factors predict healthcare systems’ capacity to prevent NCDs and its related risk factors. These predictors are determinants of NCDs prevention including the level of physical exercise, dietary choice, organised infrastructure, urbanisation and related policy, cultural norms, and accessibility of health information.
\nWorldwide industrial expansion and an increased service sector have resulted in less work-related physical exercise, whilst at the same time, modern technology has also made it increasingly convenient to remain sedentary. Many people lead a life with little or no physical exercise, and their leisure time is often spent on sedentary activities such as live online chats, playing computer games, and watching television, with 60% of the world’s population being estimated to lead a sedentary life [39, 40].
\nResearch indicates that low-resourced countries are experiencing rapid nutritional transitions, lifestyle changes, and epidemiological transition following modernisation, westernisation, and increased reliance on technology. As a result, more time is available to pursue leisure activities, which leads to lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetics, hypertension, overweight, and obesity [40, 41].
\nNaturally, the human body is designed for movement; however, planned strenuous physical exercise is not a part of the normal lifestyle. Furthermore, an individual cannot expect his/her body to function optimally and to remain healthy for extended periods if it is abused or is not used as intended [40]. In Figure 2, the diseases associated with a lack of physical exercise that contributes to a rise in NCDs are illustrated.
\nNCDs associated with lack of physical exercise.
Research shows that physical inactivity is the most critical public health problem in the twenty-first century. For many years, scientists and health and fitness professionals have advocated regular physical exercise as the best defence against the development of many diseases, disorders, and illnesses [40]. Due to the recognised health benefits, it has, and the importance of maintaining a good quality of life, regular physical exercise received recognition in the first U.S. surgeon general’s report on physical exercise and health. In this report, physical exercise was identified as a national health objective and recognised physical inactivity as a nationwide severe health problem; it provided clear-cut scientific evidence linking physical activity to numerous health benefits and presented demographic data describing physical exercise patterns and trends in the U.S. population. It also made physical exercise recommendations for improved health [42, 43].
\nConsumption of high levels of trans fats, saturated fats, processed and refined foods, sugar, salt, and sugary drinks is associated with an increased risk of CVD and diabetes, whilst adequate consumption of fruit and vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. Unhealthy diets tend to follow a socio-economic gradient. Higher quality diets are associated with persons of greater affluence, whilst energy-dense nutrient-poor diets are associated with persons of more limited economic means [44, 45]. Education and gender also impact diet, with unhealthy eating habits associated with lower levels of education. Moreover, low fruit intake represented a 50% greater share of the disease burden amongst men than women [46, 47].
\nIn low-resourced countries, the wrong perceptions about body image contribute to consume unhealthy dietary sources such as high level of trans fats, saturated fats, raw beef, goat meats, and fast foods [47]. In some Asian and the majority of African countries, having a big, fat stomach is considered as being charismatic, powerful, healthy, and perceived as a sign of wealthy [1, 48]. Following this perception, a more significant number (52%) of the public consumes high-fatty food substances which spontaneously results in acquiring NCDs [1, 49, 50]. Figures 3a–c depicts examples of red meats, such as raw beef meat called “Kurt Siga”, red raw ground beef with spices and yoghurt called “Kitfo”, and partially roasted meat respectively of which high levels of consumption and frequent consumption increased risk of NCDs due to high fat levels [1, 50]. This dietary practice is very customary amongst the diverse Ethiopian communities. Such unhealthy dietary practices are practised mainly amongst wealthy community groups and high government officials [50]. Practising these dietary choices frequently result in overweight, obesity, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and premature ageing [51, 52]. Additionally, food cooking oil known as “Hayat” and “Palm oil” which is in use amongst the majority of the Ethiopian is full of high cholesterol, and this can easily harm the health of the users [1].
\n(a) Raw fatty beef meat. (b) Raw grinded beef meat with spices and yoghurt. (c) Partially roasted beef meat for consumption.
Another unhealthy dietary practice frequently practised amongst low-resourced populations, particularly in East Africa such as Ethiopia, Eritrean, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Sudan and Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, is “Khat chewing”. Khat is a leafy plant with natural amphetamine content and chewed by 20 million people each day in Arabian peninsula and East African region mainly in Ethiopia (Figure 4) [53]. Khat chewing has incredible stimulation effects on chewers nervous system and predominantly addictive. The practice of Khat chewing is frequent amongst university students, shop keepers, drivers, and majority of the Muslim community, teachers, and some government officials [54]. Evidence shows that Khat chewing is associated with escalated degrees of cardiovascular complications, stroke, myocardial infections, cardiomyopathy, gastritis, poor oral hygiene, neurosis, poor academic performance, periodontal disease, and decreased quality of life [55, 56].
\nChewable leaves of Chat plant.
Khat dependence is associated with wasting of longer working hours and family time. Evidence in Yemen and Saudi Arabia shows that lousy mood, psychosomatic dependence, sleeplessness, and physical indicators were observed amongst Khat chewers, and they spend an aggregate of 6 hours a day and 5.7 days a week for Khat use [57, 58]. Similarly, Khat chewing is associated with diminished antioxidants of saliva Khat chewers [59]. Moreover, Khat chewing is associated with the development of type 2 diabetes. Evidence in Saudi Arabia indicates that Khat chewing increases the likelihoods of developing type 2 diabetic disease four times than non-chewers [60]. Evidence in East African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Eretria, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, and Uganda indicates that Khat chewing is associated with the development of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart failure, mental health problems, group segregation, family cessation, and abandonment of public accountabilities [61, 62].
\nWithin the healthcare framework, the availability of interrelated material and infrastructure are other determinants of healthcare. For NCDs, neighbourhood environments broadly define the conditions in which people live and have a significant influence on the risk of NCDs [40, 63]. A randomised control study in which mothers and families were given the opportunity to move from a neighbourhood with a high level of poverty to one with a lower level found that moving to a better-off neighbourhood was associated with a reduction in NCDs. Multiple mechanisms have been proposed whereby the neighbourhood environment affects the risk of NCDs, including interrelated material mechanisms [64]. These material mechanisms include the nature of the built environment, such as proximity to food outlets selling processed foods, as well as psychosocial mechanisms, such as conforming to social norms of behaviour. Also, children living in unfavourable social conditions, unsafe surroundings, poor housing, and no access to sidewalks, parks, and recreation centres were 20–60% more likely to be overweight or obese compared with children not facing such conditions [2, 39, 64].
\nUrbanisation is associated with an increased prevalence of NCD risk behaviours, which are increasing at a rapid rate. More than half of the global population lived in cities in 2010, a proportion expected to reach 60% in 2030 and 70% in 2050. In countries where rural-to-urban migration is commonplace, urban life may be less conducive to physical exercise than life in rural areas. As countries develop, the sprawling nature of urban expansion and increased disposable income encourages mechanised transport and discourages walking and cycling. The nature of work available in urban areas may require less energy expenditure than subsistence farming in rural areas [63, 64].
\nA study of physical activity concerning hypertension, obesity, and diabetes found that it was lower amongst rural than urban dwellers. The prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension was higher amongst the urban population, and physical inactivity amongst urban groups was associated with a higher BMI, blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose levels. NCD prevention and control may require that cities adopt models of urbanisation that address the health impacts and inequities associated with city living [65, 66, 67].
\nEvidence indicated that beliefs and norms amongst some social groups might include preferences for foods high in animal fat, which is socially acceptable or perceived as a sign of good health but result in overweight, obesity, hypertension, and health problems. Ethnographic studies found that amongst blacks in South Africa, Arabs in Niger, groups in rural Jamaica, Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia, and members of a Fijian village, a big body size and fatness reflect wealth and prosperity, beauty, marriageability, attractiveness, fertility, and “closeness to God”, as is the case of Habesha in Ethiopia [1, 48, 68]. In contrast, much of the industrial West associate fatness with ugliness, undesirability, and lack of self-control, whilst associating slimness with health, beauty, intelligence, wealth, self-discipline, and “goodness”. There is some evidence that the Western slim-body ideal is becoming globalised, with thinness now being desired in many places where fatness was previously preferred. Moreover, the beliefs amongst those who idealise fatness may change when the associated health risks are explained [69].
\nHealth information is a tool that provides data to the healthcare system, which can be used to enhance, promote, improve, and create awareness about the health of a community. It is evidenced that health information systems are an essential tool for collecting data about the health conditions and indicators of a country to help with decision-making. It is documented that reliable health data that is collected, analysed, and interpreted can assist policymakers, health organisations, the healthcare system, and healthcare providers in formulating appropriate disease preventive strategies. It has also been demonstrated that health data can be made available to the public through various health information channels, such as healthcare providers, counselling, teaching, and advice; mass media, such as radio television, internet, social media; and telecommunication, such as mobile short message service (SMS) [4, 70].
\nDespite the wide-ranging health benefits of health information, the attention given to addressing NCDs-related risk factors, morbidity, mortality, the health burden, and preventive mechanisms using the various sources of health information is inadequate in low-resourced countries. Similarly, the attention devoted to the accessibility of health information coverage is deficient in the healthcare system of developing countries [4].
\nThe incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is increasing and resulted in the death of 38 million people in 2012, of which 28 million occurred in low- and middle-income countries, causing an estimated US$ 7 trillion economic loss [7, 9]. A significant number of NCDs, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, can be avoided by addressing the major behavioural and metabolic risk factors associated with such conditions. Their prevention and treatment require reliable, accurate, and timeous information on their symptoms and associated risk factors. The use of credible data has, therefore, become essential to identify current and potential NCDs morbidity, mortality, and related risk factors [4].
\nThe availability of NCDs data at local, regional, and national levels is helpful for decision-makers to prioritise the prevention of NCDs and strengthen distribution and budget allocation in the healthcare system. It is demonstrated that strengthening the health system is a possible way to resist the growing burden of NCDs and ensure enhanced health results. An effective health system is built on a well-functioning information system that collects accurate, reliable, timeous, and relevant health data for optimal healthcare delivery and decision-making. The lack of data in the healthcare system is a hindrance to planning, allocating resources, and implementing appropriate NCDs intervention strategies [4, 71]. The effective prevention of NCDs is based on having consistent morbidity, mortality, and related risk factors data to plan, design, and implement evidence-based decision-making and its preventive strategies at regional and national levels. NCDs surveillance data can be best collected by establishing and implementing data collection standardised protocols in the healthcare system. Such standardised protocols are data collection forms used to obtain morbidity, mortality, and risk factor-related data [4, 72]. A study by Melkamu and Grace [4] indicated that collecting NCDs data alone is not enough to ensure effective prevention and intervention; what is needed is a well-organised healthcare system that periodically evaluates the data quality and is timeous and accurate on mortality, morbidity, and related NCDs risk factors to ensure effective decision-making. Whilst progress has been made to lead the development of national NCDs monitoring programmes, most low-resourced countries are still struggling to adequately establish robust information systems to help with their intervention, treatment, and related NCDs risk factors [4].
\nHealth information systems store information that is obtained from patient records, surveys, health plans, and other data sources. Most first world and high-resourced countries, such as North America, Australia and Europe, have established standards and processes in their healthcare sector to obtain ongoing information on morbidity, mortality, NCDs risk factors, as well as determinants of their care services [73]. Middle-income countries, such as South Africa, and low-resourced countries, such as Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia, conducted studies to investigate the capacity of their national health information systems, which resulted in them developing robust disease surveillance systems to understand the disease profiles of their population. The availability of health information in the healthcare system enabled these countries to exchange health-related data between healthcare providers, organisations, and health service consuming communities.
\nAccording to Diamantidis and Becker [74], the availability of NCDs-related public health data in the healthcare system enables timeous and appropriate healthcare decisions to be made, quick information retrieval, fast information sharing, improved data storage, improved information screening and reporting, all of which enhances the quality of healthcare. Furthermore, having NCDs mortality, morbidity, and risk factor data about a population can help policymakers and healthcare providers to establish relevant preventive strategies in their national healthcare system. In a healthcare system with accessible, accurate, reliable, timeous, and cleaned health information, it is possible to predict the future burden of NCDs in that country [4, 75]. Globally, various countries have established healthcare strategic plans in order to address the burden of NCDs by explicitly focusing on the four major lifestyle risk factors, these being an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol consumption [76].
\nLow-resourced countries have made a concerted effort to improve the health status of its citizens, particularly regarding preventing and treating infectious communicable diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis [77]. However, little attention is devoted to preventing and treating NCDs in these countries, which resulted in an increased burden of such conditions on individuals, communities, and the healthcare system [4]. Despite the growing evidence of NCDs in this population, the operating healthcare system predominantly focuses on preventing and treating infectious communicable disease, with little evidence-based research that evaluates the availability of their morbidity, mortality, and associated risk factors data [78]. In low-resourced countries, the healthcare system must aim to establish the status of NCDs-related data, the presence of mechanisms to periodically evaluate NCDs data quality, reliability and timeliness, and the availability of standardised protocols for NCDs-related data collection.
\nHealthcare that has accurate data that serves as information for decision-making is imperative within the hastened speed of information-oriented universal environment. In the changing world, the desire of the community to obtain up-to-date health-related information has become crucial in both high-resourced and low-resourced countries. The accessibility of appropriate health-related information is associated with the availability of factual, accurate, timeous, and reliable data associated with NCDs [4].
\nThe system approach (SA) was primarily established by Urie Bronfenbrenner in Russia as a human developmental approach in the 1970s. This approach explicates how diverse systems of the community impact the development of an individual. The approach involves the word “system” which refers to the relations of organisms within their setting. Moreover, from the sociological point of view, the system describes the way humans and the public interact with their natural and artificial atmosphere [79]. The term “approach” incorporates the way people are in constant relation with each other and the setting in which they live [80]. However, these chains could either have an encouraging or discouraging effect on an individual. The system approach is applied in social work as a meta-paradigm which is regularly referred to as “a person in the neighbourhoods”. This meta-paradigm explains the way a person and different multifaceted settings interact and impact each other [81, 82]. The primary emphasis of the SA is that people are part of and continuously interact with other organisms in the setting. The system approach has been applied in healthcare to establish intercessions targeted at shifting the intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational, community, and health policies levels [82].
\nThe system approach has four stages or levels of impact known as M4, namely a micro-system, meso-system, macro-system, and mega-system [83]. The micro-system is the stage where the individual belongs, and it includes the impact relating to the person, which can come from the individuals’ family, peer groups, and the neighbourhood collectively stated as social agents. Social agents interrelate directly with an individual and affect a persons’ health behaviour either positively or negatively. For example, using networked communication such as sneezes, it will be easier for individuals to inform their families and friends about risk factors associated with NCDs and possible prevention mechanisms through verbal expression. Sneezes are imperative in NCDs prevention, and healthcare leading organisations need to ascertain who they are and give them incentives and motivations to blowout the conversation of the mouse. The meso-system is the level where the social representatives will be operating, and it is interrelated to the micro-system where the family experiences are associated to the peers’ experiences and the peers’ experiences to the neighbourhood experiences—for example, by using schmoozed messages such as hive, a community who has a common culture, religion, custom, rules, beliefs, and traditions can increase the spread information related to NCDs and its associated risk factors, so that awareness can be easily created [83, 84]. The macro-system is the stage where organisations are involved and demonstrate an individual’s activities within it. An organisation can affect an individual’s life by encouragement or discouragement and vice-versa. For example, by using diversified mediums and amplifiers such as posters, images, slogans or phrases, school mini-media, television and radio broadcasts, short message services (SMS), webpages, and the internet as a means of transmitting information related to NCDs can increase the strength of information as it gets passed across a broad audience. The mega-system level illustrates the state that reflects the culture in which individuals live. Also, the mega-system level incorporates advancement, industrialisation, urbanisation, socio-economic status, poverty, religion, and ethnicity. For example, by applying velocity and smoothness through high government officials involvement, NCDs-related messages can swiftly and efficiently reach a higher number of the public who can be reminded to abstain from behavioural practices that lead to NCDs. Likewise, working with multi sectors such as governmental and non-governmental organisations, developmental partners, religious institutions, and urban planners to increase access and availability to parks, public open spaces, and recreational facilities can lead to effective transfer of information related to NCDs to a large number of the community and its prevention [82, 83, 84].
\nThe system approach, as illustrated in Figure 5, is constructed on a supposition that when an individual, community, healthcare organisations, and the leading government authority are linked and operating together in a setting of a supportive system, the efficiency of preventing and controlling NCDs also increases.
\nSystems approach for NCDs prevention.
The mega-system level help to review and understand the existing NCDs prevention strategy, the practice of health information, the availability and status of data related to NCDs morbidity, mortality, and risk factors for decision-making at a national level. This level of the ecological system theory focuses on the status and availability of data related to NCDs at national level, so that plenty of information can be utilised in the healthcare system for effective decision-making for the prevention of NCDs. Availability of quality and timeous NCDs data and evaluating its status periodically help policymakers to redesign and strengthen the existing healthcare system to revert the growing burden of NCDs at national and international level [1, 4].
\nThe macro-level of the system approach explores and recognises strategies used by healthcare organisations such as health facilities, clinics, and hospital to prevent NCDs. The system approach at the macro level emphasises health professionals’ perceptions of NCDs risk factors and how healthcare professionals use appropriate preventative strategies to prevent NCDs risk factors at the various healthcare organisations. Exploring the perceptions of healthcare professionals can help to understand the magnitude of the disease burden and help healthcare organisations to establish and implement local specific NCDs prevention strategies [1, 4].
\nAt the meso level, the community, community health counsellors, and stakeholders operate together to contribute to the prevention of NCDs. The emphasise of the meso level of the system approach is on creating awareness by community healthcare workers and community representatives on NCDs and related risk factors for the public in collaboration with the media. Telecommunication work together with the community to offer awareness on NCDs risk factors; promote a healthy diet and physical exercise benefits that is required within the community [1, 4, 40].
\nThe micro-healthcare system level is where NCDs prevention is managed and addressed at home and individual level. At this level, the family and the patients take full responsibility for their illness and self-manage their illness and diseases at home by using the advice they acquire from various sources of information and healthcare workers. At this level, NCDs-related education and preventative mechanisms can be thought at family level by family representatives, and home visiting healthcare professionals can help families and individual patients to practise self-management at their homes. At the micro level, NCDs-related data of the family in addition to detecting the challenges to self-management at this level, solutions to overcome the problem can be recorded [1, 4, 40].
\nThe global burden of NCDs is increasing with devastating health consequences mounting swiftly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The response and strategies used to prevent NCDs are inadequate in low-resourced countries due to the unavailability of timeous quality data at various stages of healthcare institutions. Data associated with the prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and risk factors of NCDs are required for evidence-based decision-making to ensure effective management of NCDs. Moreover, multi-sectoral response is required in low-resourced countries to urgently implement a systems approach at micro, meso, macro, and mega-level to prevent and control NCDs and its associated risk factors.
\nI wish to express my thanks to my family for their unconditional and unreservedly support and encouragement.
\nThe authors declare no conflict of interest.
All Works published by IntechOpen prior to October 2011 are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-BC-SA 3.0). Works published after October 2011 are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0), the latter allowing for the broadest possible reuse of published material.
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I am also a member of the team in charge for the supervision of Ph.D. students in the fields of development of silicon based planar waveguide sensor devices, study of inelastic electron tunnelling in planar tunnelling nanostructures for sensing applications and development of organotellurium(IV) compounds for semiconductor applications. I am a specialist in data analysis techniques and nanosurface structure. I have served as the editor for many books, been a member of the editorial board in science journals, have published many papers and hold many patents.",institutionString:null,institution:{name:"Sheffield Hallam University",country:{name:"United Kingdom"}}},{id:"54525",title:"Prof.",name:"Abdul Latif",middleName:null,surname:"Ahmad",slug:"abdul-latif-ahmad",fullName:"Abdul Latif Ahmad",position:null,profilePictureURL:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",biography:null,institutionString:null,institution:null},{id:"20567",title:"Prof.",name:"Ado",middleName:null,surname:"Jorio",slug:"ado-jorio",fullName:"Ado Jorio",position:null,profilePictureURL:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",biography:null,institutionString:null,institution:{name:"Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais",country:{name:"Brazil"}}},{id:"47940",title:"Dr.",name:"Alberto",middleName:null,surname:"Mantovani",slug:"alberto-mantovani",fullName:"Alberto Mantovani",position:null,profilePictureURL:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",biography:null,institutionString:null,institution:null},{id:"12392",title:"Mr.",name:"Alex",middleName:null,surname:"Lazinica",slug:"alex-lazinica",fullName:"Alex Lazinica",position:null,profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/12392/images/7282_n.png",biography:"Alex Lazinica is the founder and CEO of IntechOpen. After obtaining a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, he continued his PhD studies in Robotics at the Vienna University of Technology. Here he worked as a robotic researcher with the university's Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Group as well as a guest researcher at various European universities, including the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). During this time he published more than 20 scientific papers, gave presentations, served as a reviewer for major robotic journals and conferences and most importantly he co-founded and built the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems- world's first Open Access journal in the field of robotics. Starting this journal was a pivotal point in his career, since it was a pathway to founding IntechOpen - Open Access publisher focused on addressing academic researchers needs. Alex is a personification of IntechOpen key values being trusted, open and entrepreneurial. Today his focus is on defining the growth and development strategy for the company.",institutionString:null,institution:{name:"TU Wien",country:{name:"Austria"}}},{id:"19816",title:"Prof.",name:"Alexander",middleName:null,surname:"Kokorin",slug:"alexander-kokorin",fullName:"Alexander Kokorin",position:null,profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/19816/images/1607_n.jpg",biography:"Alexander I. Kokorin: born: 1947, Moscow; DSc., PhD; Principal Research Fellow (Research Professor) of Department of Kinetics and Catalysis, N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.\nArea of research interests: physical chemistry of complex-organized molecular and nanosized systems, including polymer-metal complexes; the surface of doped oxide semiconductors. He is an expert in structural, absorptive, catalytic and photocatalytic properties, in structural organization and dynamic features of ionic liquids, in magnetic interactions between paramagnetic centers. The author or co-author of 3 books, over 200 articles and reviews in scientific journals and books. He is an actual member of the International EPR/ESR Society, European Society on Quantum Solar Energy Conversion, Moscow House of Scientists, of the Board of Moscow Physical Society.",institutionString:null,institution:null},{id:"62389",title:"PhD.",name:"Ali Demir",middleName:null,surname:"Sezer",slug:"ali-demir-sezer",fullName:"Ali Demir Sezer",position:null,profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/62389/images/3413_n.jpg",biography:"Dr. Ali Demir Sezer has a Ph.D. from Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Marmara (Turkey). He is the member of many Pharmaceutical Associations and acts as a reviewer of scientific journals and European projects under different research areas such as: drug delivery systems, nanotechnology and pharmaceutical biotechnology. Dr. Sezer is the author of many scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and poster communications. Focus of his research activity is drug delivery, physico-chemical characterization and biological evaluation of biopolymers micro and nanoparticles as modified drug delivery system, and colloidal drug carriers (liposomes, nanoparticles etc.).",institutionString:null,institution:{name:"Marmara University",country:{name:"Turkey"}}},{id:"61051",title:"Prof.",name:"Andrea",middleName:null,surname:"Natale",slug:"andrea-natale",fullName:"Andrea Natale",position:null,profilePictureURL:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",biography:null,institutionString:null,institution:null},{id:"100762",title:"Prof.",name:"Andrea",middleName:null,surname:"Natale",slug:"andrea-natale",fullName:"Andrea Natale",position:null,profilePictureURL:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",biography:null,institutionString:null,institution:{name:"St David's Medical Center",country:{name:"United States of America"}}},{id:"107416",title:"Dr.",name:"Andrea",middleName:null,surname:"Natale",slug:"andrea-natale",fullName:"Andrea Natale",position:null,profilePictureURL:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",biography:null,institutionString:null,institution:{name:"Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia",country:{name:"United States of America"}}},{id:"64434",title:"Dr.",name:"Angkoon",middleName:null,surname:"Phinyomark",slug:"angkoon-phinyomark",fullName:"Angkoon Phinyomark",position:null,profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/64434/images/2619_n.jpg",biography:"My name is Angkoon Phinyomark. I received a B.Eng. degree in Computer Engineering with First Class Honors in 2008 from Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand, where I received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering. My research interests are primarily in the area of biomedical signal processing and classification notably EMG (electromyography signal), EOG (electrooculography signal), and EEG (electroencephalography signal), image analysis notably breast cancer analysis and optical coherence tomography, and rehabilitation engineering. I became a student member of IEEE in 2008. During October 2011-March 2012, I had worked at School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom. In addition, during a B.Eng. I had been a visiting research student at Faculty of Computer Science, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain for three months.\n\nI have published over 40 papers during 5 years in refereed journals, books, and conference proceedings in the areas of electro-physiological signals processing and classification, notably EMG and EOG signals, fractal analysis, wavelet analysis, texture analysis, feature extraction and machine learning algorithms, and assistive and rehabilitative devices. I have several computer programming language certificates, i.e. Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform 1.4 (SCJP), Microsoft Certified Professional Developer, Web Developer (MCPD), Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, .NET Framework 2.0 Web (MCTS). I am a Reviewer for several refereed journals and international conferences, such as IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Optic Letters, Measurement Science Review, and also a member of the International Advisory Committee for 2012 IEEE Business Engineering and Industrial Applications and 2012 IEEE Symposium on Business, Engineering and Industrial Applications.",institutionString:null,institution:{name:"Joseph Fourier University",country:{name:"France"}}},{id:"55578",title:"Dr.",name:"Antonio",middleName:null,surname:"Jurado-Navas",slug:"antonio-jurado-navas",fullName:"Antonio Jurado-Navas",position:null,profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/55578/images/4574_n.png",biography:"Antonio Jurado-Navas received the M.S. degree (2002) and the Ph.D. degree (2009) in Telecommunication Engineering, both from the University of Málaga (Spain). He first worked as a consultant at Vodafone-Spain. 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