Advancing healthcare through laboratory on a chip technology:Transforming microorganism identification and diagnostics

In a recent case report in the World Journal of Clinical Cases,emphasized the crucial role of rapidly and accurately identifying pathogens to optimize patient treatment outcomes.Laboratory-on-a-chip(LOC)technology has emerged as a transformative tool in health care,offering rapid,sensitive,and specific identification of microorganisms.This editorial provides a comprehensive overview of LOC technology,highlighting its principles,advantages,applications,challenges,and future directions.Success studies from the field have demonstrated the practical benefits of LOC devices in clinical diagnostics,epidemiology,and food safety.Comparative studies have underscored the superiority of LOC technology over traditional methods,showcasing improvements in speed,accuracy,and portability.The future integration of LOC with biosensors,artificial intelligence,and data analytics promises further innovation and expansion.This call to action emphasizes the importance of continued research,investment,and adoption to realize the full potential of LOC technology in improving healthcare outcomes worldwide.

A Transient-Pressure-Based Numerical Approach for Interlayer Identification in Sand Reservoirs

Almost all sandstone reservoirs contain interlayers. The identification and characterization of these interlayers iscritical for minimizing the uncertainty associated with oilfield development and improving oil and gas recovery.Identifying interlayers outside wells using identification methods based on logging data and machine learning isdifficult and seismic-based identification techniques are expensive. Herein, a numerical model based on seepageand well-testing theories is introduced to identify interlayers using transient pressure data. The proposed modelrelies on the open-source MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox. The effects of the interlayer thickness, position,and width on the pressure response are thoroughly investigated. A procedure for inverting interlayer parametersin the reservoir using the bottom-hole pressure is also proposed. This method uses only transient pressuredata during well testing and can effectively identify the interlayer distribution near the wellbore at an extremelylow cost. The reliability of the model is verified using effective oilfield examples.

Identification and Antibacterial Activity Study of a Terrestrial Strain of Brevibacterium aureus 431

This study isolated and purified strain 431 from an animal probiotic product.Through staining and microscopic examination,colony morphology analysis,biochemical reaction tests,and 16S rDNA sequence alignment,the strain was identified and named Brevibacterium aureus 431.The study focused on the production of biosurfactants by strain 431,and antibacterial activity tests were conducted on the strain and its secondary metabolites.The results showed that strain 431 exhibited no resistance to 10 commonly used drugs,and its concentrated secondary metabolites were highly sensitive to the indicator bacterium Escherichia coli.Oral administration of strain 431 to BALB/c mice resulted in normal mental state,diet,and bowel movements,with no signs of illness or death,indicating that strain 431 is highly safe and non-pathogenic to mice.The study suggests that Brevibacterium aureus 431 has significant research value as a new source of actinomycetes and that its secondary metabolites have potential application value in the development of antibacterial drugs.

Identification of material parameters from punch stretch test

To accurately describe the mechanical properties of aluminium alloy sheet during deformation, an inverse identification was presented to deal with material parameters from the popular punch stretch test. In the identification procedure, the optimization strategy combines finite element method （FEM）, Latin hypercube sampling （LHS）, Kriging model and multi-island genetic algorithm （MIGA）. The proposed approach is used on material parameter identification of aluminium alloy sheet 2D12. The anisotropic yield criterion Hill’90 is discussed. The results show that the Hill’90 anisotropic yield criterion with identified anisotropic material parameters has a good potential in describing the anisotropic behaviours. It provides a way to obtain the material parameters for FE simulations of sheet metal forming.

Identification and Susceptibility Test of Ralstonia solanacearum Isolated from White Burley

[ Objective ] The paper was to isolate and identify Ralstonia solanacearum from white burley, and determine its susceptibility to 6 fungicides. [ Mcth- od] Using the combination method of semiselective medium （PCCG） and apolymerase chain reaction （PCR） technique, R. solanacearum in stalk of white burley from Dazhou City in Sichnan Province was isolated, and its biochemical type was identified. Through susceptibility test, the susceptibility of R. solanacearum to bismerthiazol, ethylicin, streptomycin, lime sulfur, 47% polylysine, 99% kojic acid was studied in laboratory. [Result] A total of 23 strains OfR. solanacearum were isolated, all belonging to biochemical type Ill. R. solanacearum obtained in the test were more susceptible to ethylicin, streptomycin and bismerthiazol, and ethylicin had good control effect against R. solanacearum with ECso of 0.086 ml/L. [ Conclusion ] The study provide theoretical basis for control of R. solanaceanon in white burley.

Comparison of DUS testing and SNP fingerprinting for variety identification in cucumber

Variety identification plays an important role in protecting the intellectual property of varieties,ensuring seed quality,and encouraging breeding innovation.Currently,morphological evaluation in the field,such as distinctness,uniformity,and stability(DUS)testing,and DNA fingerprinting in the laboratory using molecular markers are two dominant methods used for variety identification.Few studies have compared the results of these approaches,and the relationship between the two methods is obscure.In this study,134 dominant cucumber varieties were evaluated using 50 DUS testing traits and genotyped by 40 single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs).The 40 SNPs were developed in our previous study and arewell suited for variety identification.In the DUS testing,significant positive or negative correlations among 50 DUS traits were observed,and 20 core traits,including 15 fruit traits,were further selected to increase field inspection efficiency.This suggested that fruit shape plays an important role in variety identification.The ratio of fruit length/diameter was themost important trait,explaining 9.2%of the phenotypic variation.In the DNA fingerprinting test,the 40 SNPs were highly polymorphic and could distinguish all of the 134 cucumber varieties,and 14 core SNPs were selected to improve the identification rate.Interestingly,the population structure analysis of 134 cucumber varieties by phenotypic data in the DUS test was in accordance with the genotypic data from the DNA fingerprinting,indicating that all varieties could be divided into the same four subgroups:European type,North China type,South China type,and hybrids of the North China and South China types.Moreover,linear correlativity of distinguishment for each pair of varieties was observed between the DUS test and the DNA fingerprinting.These results indicated that these two methods have good application in future research,especially for the scaled-up analysis of hundreds of varieties.

Construction of EST-SSR Databases for Effective Cultivar Identification and Their Applicability to Complement for Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Distinctness Test

The objectives of this study were to construct a database of expressed sequence tag (EST)-simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to identify lettuce cultivars. A set of 370 EST-SSR primer pairs were applied for fingerprinting the lettuce cultivars. Fifty-eight EST-SSR markers showed hy-per-variability and were able to differentiate 92 cultivars. A total of 176 polymorphic amplified fragments were obtained by the 58 markers, and two to eight SSR alleles were detected for each l&degCus with an average of three alleles per locus. Average polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.425, ranging from 0.022 to 0.743. Cluster analysis was based on Jaccard’s distance coefficients using the method of unweighted pair group. In this method we used arithmetical averages (UPGMA) algorithm categorized 4 major groups, which were in accordance to morphological traits. The eight cultivars of three groups with 100% genetic similarity through SSR analysis were investigated by phenotypic traits. These cultivars including these pairs are very similar in 27 morphological characteristics. Therefore, these EST-SSR markers could be used to select similar cultivars through management of reference collection to complement distinctiveness test of lettuce cultivars.

Structural damage identification using test static data based on grey system theory

A new structural damage identification method using limited test static displacement based on grey system theory is proposed in this paper. The grey relation coefficient of displacement curvature is defined and used to locate damage in the structure, and an iterative estimation scheme for solving nonlinear optimization programming problems based on the quadratic programming technique is used to identify the damage magnitude. A numerical example of a cantilever beam with single or multiple damages is used to examine the capability of the proposed grey-theory-based method to localize and identify damages. The factors of meas-urement noise and incomplete test data are also discussed. The numerical results showed that the damage in the structure can be localized correctly through using the grey-related coefficient of displacement curvature, and the damage magnitude can be iden-tified with a high degree of accuracy, regardless of the number of measured displacement nodes. This proposed method only requires limited static test data, which is easily available in practice, and has wide applications in structural damage detection.

Bayesian system identification and chaotic prediction from data for stochastic Mathieu-van der Pol-Duffing energy harvester

In this paper,the approximate Bayesian computation combines the particle swarm optimization and se-quential Monte Carlo methods,which identify the parameters of the Mathieu-van der Pol-Duffing chaotic energy harvester system.Then the proposed method is applied to estimate the coefficients of the chaotic model and the response output paths of the identified coefficients compared with the observed,which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method.Finally,a partial response sample of the regular and chaotic responses,determined by the maximum Lyapunov exponent,is applied to detect whether chaotic motion occurs in them by a 0-1 test.This paper can provide a reference for data-based parameter iden-tification and chaotic prediction of chaotic vibration energy harvester systems.

Nonlinear Modeling and Identification of Structural Joint by Response Control Vibration Test

Components of mechanical product are assembled by structural joints,such as bolting,riveting,welding,etc.Structural joints introduce nonlinearity to some engineering structures,and the nonlinearity need to be modeled precisely.To meet serious quality requirements,it is necessary to detect and identify nonlinearity of mechanical products for structural optimization.Modal test to acquire a dynamic response has been applied for decades,which provides reliable results for finite element(FE)model updating.Here response control vibration test for identification of nonlinearity is presented.A nonlinear system can be regarded as linearity for particular steady state response,and classical linear analysis tool is applicable to extract modal data for particular response.First,its applicability is illustrated by some numerical simulations.Subsequently,it is implemented on experimental setup with structural joints by shaking table.The stiffness and damping function dependent of relative displacement are fitted to describe its inherent nonlinearity.The spring and damping forces are identified by harmonic balance method(HBM)to predict output response.Based on the identified results,the procedure is recommended that it allows a reliable measurement of nonlinearity with a certain accuracy.

Isolation,Identification and Antibiotics Susceptibility Test of Citrobacter freundii from Procambarus clarkia

This experiment was conducted to clarify species and drug resistance of pathogen from the diseased Procambarus clarkia. Pathogenic bacteria from hepatopancreas of the diseased P. clarkia were examined using conventional methods,and then were isolated. The further tests and analysis of the isolated strain were developed,including the regression experiment to P. clarkia,the morphology,physiological and biochemical characteristics,sequence analysis of their 16 S rRNA and gyr B genes,and the susceptibility test to antibiotics. Large colonies with similar morphology and color were obtained. Strain X120523 was identified as Citrobacter freundii,proved to have strong pathogenicity,and was susceptible to quinolones and aminoglycosides.

Helicobacter Pylori Infection in Brazzaville: Comparative Study of Two Identification Tests

Objective: To determine the place of two identification tests for Helicobacter pylori infection available in Congo. Materials and Methods: This was a comparative study carried out in two digestive endoscopy centers in Brazzaville from 1 January to 31 May 2018. Symptomatic patients referred for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy were included systematically. The frequency of infection was determined from two identification tests, namely the rapid urease test in gastric biopsies and the detection of antigen (Ag) for the germ in the stool. The criterion for judging the presence of the germ in each patient was the positivity of at least one of the two tests. The McNEMAR X2 test (p < 0.05) was used for the comparison of averages. Results: During the study period, 137 consenting patients were included, including 62 men and 75 women. The overall incidence of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection was 79.6% (109/28). Of the 137 patients, 18 were urease positive only;6 were looking for Hp Ag in the stool, and 85 were in the two tests. The frequency of infection was 75.2% (103/137) with the rapid urease test and 66.4% (91/137) with the Hp Ag test in stool. The rapid urease test proved more reliable in the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection than the stool antigen test.

Development and Testing of an Automatic Turning Movement Identification System at Signalized Intersections

Vehicle turning movement data from signalized intersections is utilized for numerous applications in the field of transportation. Such applications include real-time adaptive signal control, dynamic traffic assignment, and traffic demand estimation. However, it is very time consuming and costly to obtain vehicle turning movement information manually. Previous efforts to simplify this process were focused on solving the problem using an O-D matrix, but this method proved to be inaccurate and unreliable with the existing data acquisition system. Another study involved the identification of vehicle turning movements from the detector information, but the presence of shared lanes led to uncertainties in vehicle matching, thus limiting application of the method only to intersections without shared lanes. In light of those unsuccessful attempts, this paper develops and tests a system called the Automatic Turning Movement Identification System (ATMIS), which estimates vehicle turning movements at a signalized intersection in real time, regardless of its geometry. The results from lab experiments as well as a field test show that the algorithm is very promising and may potentially be expanded for field applications.

Precious Metals Identification in Computer Motherboards

Elements can be classified into metals,nonmetals,or metalloids based on their chemical and physical properties.Precious metals are rare and expensive.There are ten known precious metals,three of which are of interest to investors,silver,gold,and platinum.The goal is to find physical methods to identify the presence of precious metals,silver,and gold in the metal components of the computer motherboard,and to confirm its presence by chemical methods for its use and its selling to the jewelry industry after it is physically separated from the computer motherboards.Physical and chemical tests were identified.Physical tests include inscription test,magnet test and specific gravity test for both silver and gold metal pieces and chemical tests include bleach test,nitric acid test,test karat solution kit,and jewelry test kits.

Rainfall-triggered waste dump instability analysis based on surface 3D deformation in physical model test

Landslide is the second largest natural disaster after earthquake. It is of significance to study the evolution laws and failure mechanism of landslides based on its surface 3D deformation information. Based on the rainfall-triggered waste dump instability model test, we studied the failure mechanisms of the waste dump by integrating surface deformation and internal slope stress and proposed novel parameters for identifying landslide stability. We developed a noncontact measurement device, which can obtain millimeter-level 3D deformation data for surface scene in physical model test;Then we developed the similar materials and established a test model for a waste dump. Based on the failure characteristics of slope surface, internal stress of slope body and displacement contours during the whole process, we divided the slope instability process in model test into four stages: rainfall infiltration and surface erosion, shallow sliding, deep sliding, and overall instability. Based on the obtained surface deformation data, we calculated the volume change during slope instability process and compared it with the point displacement on slope surface. The results showed that the volume change can not only reflect the slow-ultra acceleration process of slope failure, but also fully reflect the above four stages and reduce the fluctuations caused by random factors. Finally, this paper proposed two stability identification parameters: the volume change rate above the slip surface and the relative velocity of volume change rate. According to the calculation of these two parameters in model test, they can be used for study the deformation and failure mechanism of slope stability.

Isolation and Identification of Four Strains of Salmonella and Drug Susceptibility Test

In order to isolate and identify the pathogenic bacteria causing dead chickens in a chicken farm in Qinhuangdao area, the liver, heart and other organs of dead chickens suspected of salmonella disease were collected aseptically, and streaked on SS agar medium and chromagar medium. Transparent colonies were observed on SS agar medium, and purple and transparent colonies on CAS medium. The isolate was conducted purification, staining microscopy, biochemical tests, and 16 S rRNA sequence analysis, and the results showed that four strains of the isolated bacte-ria were salmonella. The 16 S rRNA sequence analysis of four strains of salmonella showed that the isolates shared more than 99% homology. Drug susceptibility test was performed using paper method, and the results showed that most of the strains were resistant to tilmicosin, cefradine and sul-famethoxazole, but were sensitive to ceftriaxone.

Isolation, Identification and Drug Susceptibility Test of a Strain of Escherichia coli Causing Fox Pneumonia

[Objective] The paper was to determine the pathogen causing fox pneumonia in a breeding factory in Changli County.[Method]Through autopsy, a dominant strain was isolated from the lung of dead foxes, which was then performed Gram staining, 16 S rRNA sequence analysis and biochemical identification.[Result] The strain was negative in Gram staining, and was identified as E. coli through 16 S rRNA sequence analysis and biochemical identification. Drug susceptibility test was conducted using 15 kinds of drug susceptibility papers. The E. coli was sensitive to florfenicol, enrofloxacin, ceftriaxone, norfloxacin;intermediately sensitive to amikacin, gentamicin;and strongly resistant to penicillin, ampicillin,cefradine, sulfamethoxazole, lincomycin, streptomycin and amoxicillin.[Conclusion] It is difficult to treat E. coli causing fox pneumonia with traditional antibiotics clinically.

Robust Principal Component Test in Gross Error Detection and Identification

Principle component analysis （PCA） based chi-square test is more sensitive to subtle gross errors and has greater power to correctly detect gross errors than classical chi-square test. However, classical principal com- ponent test （PCT） is non-robust and can be very sensitive to one or more outliers. In this paper, a Huber function liked robust weight factor was added in the collective chi-square test to eliminate the influence of gross errors on the PCT. Meanwhile, robust chi-square test was applied to modified simultaneous estimation of gross error （MSEGE） strategy to detect and identify multiple gross errors. Simulation results show that the proposed robust test can reduce the possibility of type Ⅱ errors effectively. Adding robust chi-square test into MSEGE does not obviously improve the power of multiple gross error identification, the proposed approach considers the influence of outliers on hypothesis statistic test and is more reasonable.

Separation and Preliminary Identification of Intestinal Probiotics of Laying Hens

[Objective] The paper was to isolate and identify probiotics in the intestine of laying hens. [Method] The intestinal probiotics in laying hens at peak period were isolated using conventional separation methods; the physical and chemical properties of target strains and in vitro antibacterial effects were measured. Moreover, the safety test of chicks was conducted. [Result] Four strains of lactobacillus were isolated from the jejunum of laying hens, including Lactobacillus plantarum, Bacillus acidophilus, L. delbrueckii subsp. Delbrueckii and L. delbrueckii subsp. Lactis, and their inhibition zone diameters were 18.30, 16.07, 11.45, 17.26 mm, respectively. One strain of Lactobacillus, L. brevis, was isolated from the cecum, with the inhibition zone diameter of 10.26 mm. Three strains of bacillus were isolated from the cecum, including Bacillus subtilis, B. cereus and B. licheniformis, and their inhibition zone diameters were 9.25, 8.46 and 8.37 mm, respectively. Daily drinking 2 billion units of viable bacteria was the safe dosage for chicks. [Conclusion] Eight strains of probiotics had certain inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli O;, and had no toxic side effects to chicks. Lactobacillus had strong antibacterial effect on E. coli O;, while the antibacterial effect of bacillus was relatively weak.

Modification of the Brief Smell Identification Test by Introduction of a Placebo

Objective: To introduce the concept that there might be “nothing to smell” to the Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT), with a view to masking olfactory deficits, particularly from healthy control participants in research studies. Methods: Seventy-one elderly individuals, healthy for their age, were recruited to the study. They were blindfolded and carried out a modified B-SIT where one item had been replaced with a placebo, and one odour alternative answer to three other items was replaced by the alternative “none/other” (actual odour unchanged). Results: There was no overall difference in the median or mean score achieved by the cohort compared to results obtained previously using the conventional B-SIT. The replacement of the item “turpentine” with a placebo resulted in an improved score for the item in a Norwegian setting. The overall scores were not improved. Conclusions: It is possible to introduce the concept that there may be “nothing to smell” to the B-SIT without compromising the test for healthy control individuals. This may be a more appropriate approach to olfactory testing of control individuals or patients with suspected early neurodegenerative diseases.