Development of a portable reflectance confocal microscope and its application in the noninvasive in vivo evaluation of mesenchymal stem cell-promoted cutaneous wound healing

The process of wound healing is routinely evaluated by histological evaluation in the clinic,which may cause scarring and secondary injury.Reflectance confocal microscopy(RCM)represents a noninvasive,real-time imaging technique that allows in vivo evaluation of the skin.Traditional RCM was wide-probe-based,which limited its application on uneven and covered skin.In this study,we report the development of a portable reflectance confocal microscope(PRCM)in which all components were assembled in a handheld shell.Although the size and weight of the PRCM were reduced based on the use of a microelectromechanical system,the resolution was kept at 0.91μm,and the field of view of the system was 343μm×532μm.When used in vivo,the PRCM was able to visualize cellular and nuclear morphology for both mouse and human skin.PRCM evaluations were then performed on wounds after topically applied mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs)or saline treatment.The PRCM allowed visualization of the formation of collagen bundles,re-epithelization from the wound edge to the wound bed,and hair follicle regeneration,which were consistent with histological evaluations.Therefore,we offer new insights into monitoring the effects of topically applied MSCs on the process of wound healing by using PRCM.This study illustrates that the newly developed PRCM represents a promising device for real-time,noninvasive monitoring of the dynamic process of wound healing,which demonstrates its potential to diagnose,monitor,or predict disease in clinical wound therapy.

Thermoacoustic imaging:From single-element scanning to portable and array-based imaging

The microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(TAI)technology has both the advantages of high contrast of microwave imaging and high resolution of ultrasound imaging(UI),so it has carried out exploratory application research in various areas,such as the early detection of breast tumors and cerebrovascular diseases.However,the microwave generator used in the traditional TAI technology is huge and expensive,and the temporal resolution is also too low due to the single-element scanning mechanism.Thus,it is difficult to meet the needs of clinical applications.In this paper,the iterative process and the analysis of related application scenarios from single-element scanning to portable and array-based TAI,such as the miniaturized microwave generator,handheld antenna,multi-channel data acquisition,and UI/TAIdual-modality imaging,are reviewed,and the future trends of this technology are discussed.This review helps researchers in the field of TAI learn the technological development process and future trends.It also deepens clinicians’understanding of TAI so as to put forward more application requirements.

Portable FBAR based E-nose for cold chain real-time bananas shelf time detection

Being cheap,nondestructive,and easy to use,gas sensors play important roles in the food industry.However,most gas sensors are suitable more for laboratory-quality fast testing rather than for cold-chain continuous and cumulative testing.Also,an ideal electronic nose(E-nose)in a cold chain should be stable to its surroundings and remain highly accurate and portable.In this work,a portable film bulk acoustic resonator(FBAR)-based E-nose was built for real-time measurement of banana shelf time.The sensor chamber to contain the portable circuit of the E-nose is as small as a smartphone,and by introducing an air-tight FBAR as a reference,the E-nose can avoid most of the drift caused by surroundings.With the help of porous layer by layer(LBL)coating of the FBAR,the sensitivity of the E-nose is 5 ppm to ethylene and 0.5 ppm to isoamyl acetate and isoamyl butyrate,while the detection range is large enough to cover a relative humidity of 0.8.In this regard,the E-nose can easily discriminate between yellow bananas with green necks and entirely yellow bananas while allowing the bananas to maintain their biological activities in their normal storage state,thereby showing the possibility of real-time shelf time detection.This portable FBAR-based E-nose has a large testing scale,high sensitivity,good humidity tolerance,and low frequency drift to its surroundings,thereby meeting the needs of cold-chain usage.

Impact of Portable Executable Header Features on Malware Detection Accuracy

One aspect of cybersecurity,incorporates the study of Portable Executables(PE)files maleficence.Artificial Intelligence(AI)can be employed in such studies,since AI has the ability to discriminate benign from malicious files.In this study,an exclusive set of 29 features was collected from trusted implementations,this set was used as a baseline to analyze the presented work in this research.A Decision Tree(DT)and Neural Network Multi-Layer Perceptron(NN-MLPC)algorithms were utilized during this work.Both algorithms were chosen after testing a few diverse procedures.This work implements a method of subgrouping features to answer questions such as,which feature has a positive impact on accuracy when added?Is it possible to determine a reliable feature set to distinguish a malicious PE file from a benign one?when combining features,would it have any effect on malware detection accuracy in a PE file?Results obtained using the proposed method were improved and carried few observations.Generally,the obtained results had practical and numerical parts,for the practical part,the number of features and which features included are the main factors impacting the calculated accuracy,also,the combination of features is as crucial in these calculations.Numerical results included,finding accuracies with enhanced values,for example,NN_MLPC attained 0.979 and 0.98;for DT an accuracy of 0.9825 and 0.986 was attained.

In Search of Portable Water Supplies within a Brine and Mine Water-Invaded Region for Serving Some Communities around Ishiagu, Afikpo and Environs in Abakaliki Basin, Southeast Nigeria

The study investigates the hydrogeochemical characteristics of some towns in the Abakaliki Basin, comprising, Ishiagu, Aka Eze, Amaseri, Afikpo and Okposi communities, with the aim of sourcing for portable water in the area. The basin is underlain by Albian sediments, essentially shales, in the lowlands, which were affected by low-grade metamorphism that had produced slates. The highlands comprise basic intrusives from episodes of magmatism and metallic ore mineralisation. Injection of brines into the aquifer system and low, seasonal aquifer recharge from rainfall results in poor water quality in the area. The study analyzes the geochemical distribution in water sources in the area and identifies sources of pollutants to guide the better choice of portable water. Results of hydrogeochemical analysis of both surface and groundwater from the communities were compared with World Health Organization to identify portable water locations in the area. While the salt lake at Okposi is the main source of brine intrusion in the study area, the Pb/Zn mine at Ishiagu is the main source of mine-water pollution in the study area. Most chemical parameters, (especially Cl-, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, SO42-, HCO3-) maintain high concentrations within the salt lake area, with the values declining away from the salt lake. The main anthropogenic source of pollution in the area, especially at Ishiagu, is the indiscriminate surface mining of lead-zinc without proposer waste management practices. Possible sourcing for portable water in the study area includes a deep borehole at Ishiagu, away from lead-zinc intrusives. At the Okposi axis, searching for portable water in boreholes should target shallower aquifers that do not communicate with the deeper-seated brine zones, likewise targeting zones farther away from these brine-invaded areas. A controlled pumping rate could potentially ensure that the cone of depression was not low enough to reach the brine zone at depth. In addition, desalination could also potentially render the salt water drinkable if properly handled to eliminate the high concentration of salts in the water to the level of acceptable limit by the WHO. Based on the study, the best area to target for portable water in the study area is Afikpo, with most geochemical elements naturally occurring within WHO’s standard concentration while portable water could be harnessed in areas further away from mining sites, especially at deep groundwater.

Update on the use of portable monitoring system for the diagnosis of sleep apnea in specific population

The prevalence and severity of obstructive sleep apnea(OSA) is higher in specific population: children, elderly,obese and patients with pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases, compared to the general population. OSA is associated with greater morbidity and mortality in these patients. Although full-night polysomnography is still the gold standard diagnostic sleep study for OSA, it is a time consuming, expensive and technically demanding exam. Over the last few years, there is growing evidence on the use of portable monitors(PM) as an alternative for the diagnosis of OSA. These devices were developed specially for sleep evaluation at home, at a familiar environment, with easy selfapplication of monitoring, unattended. The use of PM is stablished for populations with high pre-test probability of OSA. However, there is a lack of studies on the use of PM in age extremes and patients with comorbidities. The purpose of this review is to present the studies that evaluated the use of PM in specific population, as well as to describe the advantages, limitations and applications of these devices in this particular group of patients. Although the total loss rate of recordings is variable in different studies, the agreement with fullnight polysomnography justifies the use of PM in this population.

Portable System for CWA Detection Using Micro Array Gas Sensor

Biochemistry weapon is raising new tools of war and terror.This research is an experiment about portable system for CWAs (chemical warfare agents) detection using micro array gas system.CWAs were divided into four types such as blood, nerve,vesicant,and choking agent.To detect various CWAs,semiconductor thick film sensor array based on tin oxide was fabricated and their gas responses were examined.Operating temperature was range of 250℃to 350℃and gas concentration was range of 0.1μg/g to 10μg/g.Sensor array was measured as operating temperatures,concentrations for four simulant agents of CWAs.Extracted parameters from results were carried out classification among CWAs through the principal component analysis (PCA).Also,classification of gases is studied using adaptive resonance theory (ART) that is one of neural network algorithm.Results displayed using PDA system.

Portable and automated analyzer for rapid and high precision in vitro dissolution of drugs

We developed a novel portable and automated dissolution test analyzer for rapid and high precision in vitro dissolution testing of drugs.The analyzer consists of a flow-through-cell drug dissolution system,an automated sequential sampling system,a high-speed capillary electrophoresis(HSCE)system,and a data acquisition system.Combining the high-temporal resolution flow-gating sampling approach with HSCE,which has outstanding advantages of efficient separation and resolution,the analyzer can achieve rapid analysis and exhibits the ability in miniaturization for on-site assessment of different active pharmaceutical ingredients.To integrate the flow-through-cell dissolution system with HSCE,a specially designed flow-gating-injection(FGI)interface was employed.The performance of the analyzer was investigated by analyzing the dissolution of immediate-release drugs including single dose(amoxicillin dispersible tablets)and fixed dose combination(amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium)drug tablets with the high-temporal resolutions of 12 s and 20 s,respectively.The dissolution profiles of different active pharmaceutical ingredients could be simultaneously and automatically monitored with high repeatability and accuracy.The analyzer was successfully utilized for the pharmaceutical quality control and bio-relevant dissolution testing,as well as in vivo-in vitro correlation analysis.Our portable analyzer is miniaturized,convenient and of low-cost,and will provide a valuable tool for dissolution testing in pharmaceutical research and development.

Real-Time Black Carbon Emissions from Light-Duty Passenger Vehicles Using a Portable Emissions Measurement System

Black carbon(BC)is considered the second largest anthropogenic climate forcer,but the radiative effects of BC are highly correlated with its combustion sources.On-road vehicles are an important source of anthropogenic BC.However,there are major uncertainties in the estimates of the BC emissions from on-road light-duty passenger vehicles(LDPVs),and results obtained with the portable emissions measurement system(PEMS)method are particularly lacking.We developed a PEMS platform and evaluated the on-road BC emissions from ten in-use LDPVs.We demonstrated that the BC emission factors(EFs)of gasoline direction injection(GDI)engine vehicles range from 1.10 to 1.56 mg.km^(-1),which are higher than the EFs of port fuel injection(PFI)engine vehicles(0.10–0.17 mg.km^(-1))by a factor of 11.The BC emissions during the cold-start phase contributed 2%–33%to the total emissions.A strong correlation(R^(2)=0.70)was observed between the relative BC EFs and average vehicle speed,indicating that traffic congestion alleviation could effectively mitigate BC emissions.Moreover,BC and particle number(PN)emissions were linearly correlated(R^(2)=0.90),and compared to PFI engine vehicles,the instantaneous PN-to-BC emission rates of GDI engine vehicles were less sensitive to vehicle specific power-to-velocity(VSPV)increase in all speed ranges.

Collecting Traffic Video Data Using Portable Poles: Survey, Proposal, and Analysis

Several initiatives have been launched to help prevention of traffic accidents and near-accidents across the European Union. To aid the overall goal of reducing deaths and injuries related to traffic, one must understand the causation of the traffic accidents in order to prevent them. Rather than deploying a person to physically monitor a location, the task is eased by camera equipment installed in existing infrastructure, e.g. poles, and buildings, etc. In rural areas there is however a very limited infrastructure available which complicates the data acquisition. But even if there is infrastructure available in either the rural area or the urban area, this might not serve as an ideal position to capture video data from. In this work, we survey and provide an overview of available and relevant portable poles setups with respect to capturing data in both urban areas and rural areas. The conclusion of the survey shows a lack of a mobile, lightweight, compact, and easy deployable portable pole. We therefore design and develop a new portable pole meeting these requirements. The new proposed portable pole can be deployed by 2 persons in 2 hours in both rural areas as well as urban areas due to its compactness. The deployment and usage of the new portable pole is a complimentary tool, which may improve the camera capturing angle in case existing infrastructure is insufficient. This ultimately improves the traffic monitoring opportunities. Further, the survey of selected portable poles provides an excellent overview and can aid multiple applications within road traffic.

Automatic Measurement of Fetal Abdominal Biometric Parameters—Feasibility on a Portable Ultrasound Device

An automatic method for measuring the fetal mean abdominal diameter (MAD) or abdominal circumference (AC) with ultrasound is proposed. From a correctly presented abdominal section suitable for MAD or AC measurement, the location of fetal abdomen is detected by image processing. Thereafter, an active contour model is converged along the abdominal boundary for measurement purposes. The validation data set contained 310 images of fetuses with gestational age (GA) from 14 to 41 weeks. The measurement success rate was 88.1%. By manually indicating the location of the abdomen, the success rate was further improved to 95.8% for the failed cases. The correlation between manual and automatic measurements was 0.95 and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.976 (95% confidence interval (CI);0.969 - 0.981). The average method execution time was 0.3 s. The mean error was lower in young fetuses (0.4%) than in older fetuses (-2.1%). The proposed cross-platform method was implemented on a portable, low-cost ultrasound machine prototype targeted for low- and middle-income countries (LMIC);the results achieved were comparable to those of other state-of-the-art automatic methods.

Application of a Portable XRF Spectrometer for <i>In-Situ</i>and Nondestructive Investigation of Pigments in Two 15th Century Icons

A simple portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer was successfully used for in-situ and nondestructive identification of the painting materials in two 15th century icons from the Onufri Museum in Beart, Albania. The spectrometer is based on a low power X-ray tube, a thermoelectrically cooled Si PIN detector and the spectrum acquisition system. It was assembled and adjusted at our laboratory for the investigation of the icons. A small number of pigments were clearly identified by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) measurements in both icons. This includes Lead white for the white color, gold and yellow ochre for the yellow color, red lead, cinnabar and red ochre for the red color, as well as cooper based pigments for the green color. At the same time, the investigation raised some new questions that need further investigations by the use of additional analytical techniques. The results show that in both icons are used similar pigments, which are in accordance with the Byzantine icon painting tradition.

RESEARCH OF A NEW PORTABLE GC INSTRUMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

-A Portable gas chromatograPhy (GC) instrument is presented in this paper. In this GC instrument a new gaseous sampling device was used in place of conventional sampling valves.It has no quantitative tube or movable components in the sample Path. The sampling size si determined by time with a high precision,which is not sensitive to the sample temperature and pressure.Especially,the sample can not only inject into the column head,but also the carrier gas blow the column reversely and clean it.The portable GC instrument based on the sampling device can be used in enviromental and biomedical monitoring.

Condition Assessment of August A. Busch Bridge Deck Using Portable Seismic Property Analyzer and Ground Penetrating Radar

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and the portable seismic property analyzer (PSPA) have been extensively used in the past two decades for monitoring, quantifying, and mapping the deterioration of bridge decks. Using PSPA and GPR ensures regular monitoring of bridge conditions, leads to the early detection of deterioration. This research is to address the condition of August A. Busch bridge deck owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation. Visual inspection, GPR, and PSPA data were acquired on the bridge deck. Over 90% of the bridge deck was in fair to good condition with an average compressive strength of over 2500 psi. GPR data showed no indication of significant deterioration. The overall bridge deck was determined to be in fair to good condition.

Application of Dynamic Linear Detecting Method in Data Processing of the Portable Blood Sugar Analyzer

In this paper,a dynamic linear detecting method,that the non-linear coefficient NL% was led and the non-linearity of data were estimated continuously and dynamically and determined when NL% exceeded reference value (5%),was used for data processing and could solve the problem caused by the phenomenon of substrate depleting occurred following the redox reaction in portable blood sugar analyzer.By contrast to the conventional end-point method,the dynamic linear detecting method is based on multipoint data collecting.Experiments of measuring the calibration glucose solution with 8 various concentrations from 50 mg/dl to 400 mg/dl were carried out with the analyzer developed by our group.The linear regression curve,whose correlation for the data was 0.9995 and the residual was 2.8080,were obtained.The obtained correlation,residual, and the computation workload are all fit for the portable blood sugar analyzer.

PHOTOTHERAPY FOR MILD TO MODERATE ACNE VULGARIS WITH PORTABLE BLUE AND RED LED

In this paper,we studied portable blue and red light-emitting-diode(LED)light sources in phototherapy for mild to moderate acne vulgaris to evaluate the efficacy and tolerance of patients.Patients,randomly divided into blue and red groups,received either blue or red LED phototherapy twice a week for four weeks.After complete treatment,the number of lesions reduced by 71.4% in the blue group,in contrast to 19.5% in the red group.No obvious side effects were observed during and one month after the treatment,except for some mild dryness mentioned by several patients.

A Universal Portable Appliance for Stellarator W7-X Power Supply Controlling

In the project Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), the popular fieldbus Profibus has been determined as a uniform connection between the central control system and all the subordinate systems. A universal embedded control system has been developed for W7-X power supply controlling. Siemens 80C167CR microcontroller is used as the central control unit of the system. With a user-defined printed circuit board (PCB) several control buses, i.e., Profibus, CAN, IEEE 488, RS485 and RS 232 have been connected to the microcontroller. The corresponding hardware interfaces for the control buses have been designed. A graphic liquid crystal display(LCD) and a user-defined keyboard are used as user interface. The control software will be developed with a C-like language, i.e., C166 for the controller.

Automatic Detection and Measurement of Fetal Biparietal Diameter and Femur Length —Feasibility on a Portable Ultrasound Device

An automatic method able to recognize a presented section through the biparietal plane of the fetal head and a section through the fetal femur in ultrasound images is developed. Once the correct anatomical section for measurement is identified by the machine, the placement of the measurement calipers is automatically determined by fitting an active contour model to the structure of interest. The fetal biparietal diameter (BPD) and femur length (FL) are then measured automatically. The validation data set contained 167 and 197 B-mode images for BPD and FL measurements, respectively. The images were acquired using 4 different ultrasound scanners, which resulted in varied image quality and gain settings. The mean gestational age (GA) of the fetuses was 19.4 weeks, range 16 to 41 weeks. A measurement success rate of 90% was achieved for both BPD and FL. The correlation coefficients between the manual and automatic measurements were 0.995 (BPD) and 0.967 (FL), mean errors were 0.5 mm (BPD) and -1.7 mm (FL) and error range with 95% confidence interval (CI) were ﹣3.8 - 4.8 mm (BPD) and ﹣11.4 - 8.1 mm (FL). The automatic measurement results were consistent in both high and low gain settings. The intraclass correlation coefficients between manual and automatic measurements were 0.995 (95% CI;0.981 - 0.999) for BPD in high gain, 1.0 (95% CI;0.998 - 1.0) for BPD in low gain, 0.998 (95% CI;0.991 - 0.999) for FL in high gain and 0.999 (95% CI;0.996 - 1.0) for FL in low gain settings. The method was implemented on a prototype, portable ultrasound machine designed to be used in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The overall performance of the method supports our hypothesis that automated methods can be used and are beneficial in a clinical setting.

Design of Experiment (DoE): Implementation in Determining Optimum Design Parameters of Portable Workstation

In the modern era of manufacturing, it is important to optimize every design parameter in product development stage to reduce cost, material usage and to achieve the desired efficacy level. There are various models which serve those purposes, for instance, Design of Experiment (DoE) is used to check the parameters after adopting optimization tactics which results in reduced cost or saving operating time. In this regard, this research aims to construct a DoE model on a portable workstation to optimize its design parameters. The methodology of DOE would be a 2 level 3 factors full factorial DOE which is conducted to determine the optimal value for three design parameters (factors) which are material density, the length of the table and the length of the table stand in terms of the response which is the required time of fold ability function of the portable workstation. Based upon the evaluated interactions between the parameters, the optimized parameters are chosen for responses. Here, the resultant design parameters are at their lowest level, so the goal of time efficiency in fold ability function is achieved. This similar sort of DoE can be implemented in the furniture and other manufacturing industries who wish to optimize their material usage as well as increase efficiency and reduce cycle time.

Application of Portable Near-Infrared Spectrometer for Analysis of Organic Carbon in Marine Sediments

The performance of a portable near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer to determine organic carbon (OC) in marine sediments was evaluated. The NIR reflection spectra of 180 samples in the range 950 - 1650 nm were acquired using an ultra-compact spectrometer. NIR spectroscopy combined with the partial least squares (PLS) regression and Savitzky-Golay (SG) smoothing was successfully applied to rapid and reagent-free determination of OC. Using the PLS-SG model with 1nd order derivative, 2th polynomial and eleven smoothing points, the root-mean-square errors (RMSEPM) and correlation coefficients (RP,M) of prediction for modeling were 0.073% and 0.894, respectively, the root-mean-square errors (RMSEPV) and correlation coefficients (RP,V) of prediction for validation were 0.075% and 0.883, respectively. Results showed that the small portable NIR instrument achieved well prediction effect for the analysis of OC in marine sediments, which had advantages of rapid, easy to carry and operate suitable for large-scale applications to analyze marine sediments.