Medical Definition of adhesive. 1: an adhesive substance; especially : a substance (as glue, starch, paste, or mucilage) that bonds two materials together by adhering to the surface of each.
The sensors physically measure the tire pressure in each tire and report it to the vehicle's instrument cluster or a corresponding monitor. Some units also measure and alert temperatures of the tire as well. These systems can identify under-inflation in any combination, be it one tire or all, simultaneously.
The pressure sensor on the rims is a little electronic box INSIDE of the rim (or sometimes on the valve) that senses the tire pressure. If you had your tires worked on, they could have knocked it, and it might be malfunctioning. On Toyota applications, the reset procedure is fairly straightforward.