scholarly journals Flow Control in Passive 3D Paper-Based Microfluidic Pump by Variable Porosity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Syed Farhad Shah ◽  
Gohar Hussain ◽  
Ali Turab Jafry
Keyword(s):  
Point Of Care ◽  
Microfluidic Channel ◽  
New Class ◽  
Variable Porosity ◽  
Cellulose Material ◽  
Whatman Filter Paper ◽  
Large Size ◽  
External Power ◽  
Diagnostic Applications ◽  
And Control

Active pumps are often used in microfluidic devices for programmable fluid flowrate in a microchannel. Active pumps have some drawbacks due to their large size and requirement of external power. To overcome them, a new class of passive pumps based on capillary action in cellulose material, known as paper-based microfluidic pumps, has recently been explored. In this study, fluid flow in 3D paper-based pumps was investigated using flowrate measurements in microchannels. In order to develop 3D cylindrical pumps, Whatman filter paper grade 1 was shredded, mixed with water, molded and dried. The patterned serpentine channel was created using a CO2 Laser Cutting/Engraving machine. The 3D paper-based pump was integrated with microfluidic channel. The effect of paper pumps of different porosities on the fluid flowrate through a serpentine microchannel was investigated. It was found that flowrate of the fluid flowing through the channel increases with an increase in the pump’s porosity. Moreover, these pumps have the ability to transport larger volumes of liquid with improved flowrate, programmability and control, in addition to being inexpensive and simple to design and fabricate. These 3D pumps will help researchers move closer to developing an effective miniaturized diagnostic platform for point-of-care (POC) diagnostic applications.

Trends in Diagnosis for Active Tuberculosis Using Nanomaterials

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 1946-1959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Le Minh Tu Phan ◽  
Lemma Teshome Tufa ◽  
Hwa-Jung Kim ◽  
Jaebeom Lee ◽  
Tae Jung Park
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity And Specificity ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Point Of Care ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Diagnostic Methods ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Treatment And Prevention ◽  
Clinical Tools ◽  
Diagnostic Applications

Background:Tuberculosis (TB), one of the leading causes of death worldwide, is difficult to diagnose based only on signs and symptoms. Methods for TB detection are continuously being researched to design novel effective clinical tools for the diagnosis of TB.Objective:This article reviews the methods to diagnose TB at the latent and active stages and to recognize prospective TB diagnostic methods based on nanomaterials.Methods:The current methods for TB diagnosis were reviewed by evaluating their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, the trends in TB detection using nanomaterials were discussed regarding their performance capacity for clinical diagnostic applications.Results:Current methods such as microscopy, culture, and tuberculin skin test are still being employed to diagnose TB, however, a highly sensitive point of care tool without false results is still needed. The utilization of nanomaterials to detect the specific TB biomarkers with high sensitivity and specificity can provide a possible strategy to rapidly diagnose TB. Although it is challenging for nanodiagnostic platforms to be assessed in clinical trials, active TB diagnosis using nanomaterials is highly expected to achieve clinical significance for regular application. In addition, aspects and future directions in developing the high-efficiency tools to diagnose active TB using advanced nanomaterials are expounded.Conclusion:This review suggests that nanomaterials have high potential as rapid, costeffective tools to enhance the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for the accurate diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of TB. Hence, portable nanobiosensors can be alternative effective tests to be exploited globally after clinical trial execution.

After the Ivory Tower: Gender, Commodification and the ‘Academic’

1997 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna de Groot
Keyword(s):  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Academic Identities ◽  
Loss Of Autonomy ◽  
External Power ◽  
Key Features ◽  
And Control ◽  
Radical Transformation ◽  
Do So

This piece uses a feminist approach to explore various aspects of ‘commodification’ in the lives and work of those teaching and researching in UK universities, and in particular its gender dimensions. After setting a historical context for the radical transformation of UK universities during the 1980s, it considers how this transformation was experienced by academics in terms of alienation, anxiety and accountability. Key features of that experience are loss of autonomy and control to the external power of competition and managerialism, insecurity and casualization in employment, and exposure to increasing judgemental scrutiny. For women academics job insecurity and discrimination continue to be disproportionately important, although some of the challenges to old established academic convention and practice have opened up real possibilities to progress more pro-women agendas. In the future they will confront quite depressing developments in the reconstruction of academic identities and labour, but have the legacy of the gains/insights of feminist analysis and politics over the last twenty years with which to do so.

A point-of-care diagnostic for differentiating Ebola from endemic febrile diseases

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (471) ◽  
pp. eaat0944 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sebba ◽  
Alexander G. Lastovich ◽  
Melody Kuroda ◽  
Eric Fallows ◽  
Joshua Johnson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ebola Virus ◽  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Point Of Care ◽  
Hemorrhagic Fever ◽  
Diagnostic Methods ◽  
Outbreak Detection ◽  
Molecular Diagnostic ◽  
Clinical Samples ◽  
Live Virus ◽  
And Control

Hemorrhagic fever outbreaks such as Ebola are difficult to detect and control because of the lack of low-cost, easily deployable diagnostics and because initial clinical symptoms mimic other endemic diseases such as malaria. Current molecular diagnostic methods such as polymerase chain reaction require trained personnel and laboratory infrastructure, hindering diagnostics at the point of need. Although rapid tests such as lateral flow can be broadly deployed, they are typically not well-suited for differentiating among multiple diseases presenting with similar symptoms. Early detection and control of Ebola outbreaks require simple, easy-to-use assays that can detect and differentiate infection with Ebola virus from other more common febrile diseases. Here, we developed and tested an immunoassay technology that uses surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) tags to simultaneously detect antigens from Ebola, Lassa, and malaria within a single blood sample. Results are provided in <30 min for individual or batched samples. Using 190 clinical samples collected from the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, along with 163 malaria positives and 233 negative controls, we demonstrated Ebola detection with 90.0% sensitivity and 97.9% specificity and malaria detection with 100.0% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. These results, along with corresponding live virus and nonhuman primate testing of an Ebola, Lassa, and malaria 3-plex assay, indicate the potential of the SERS technology as an important tool for outbreak detection and clinical triage in low-resource settings.

scholarly journals Schistosomiasis: from established diagnostic assays to emerging micro/nanotechnology-based rapid field testing for clinical management and epidemiology

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 439-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Mutro Nigo ◽  
Georgette Salieb-Beugelaar ◽  
Manuel Battegay ◽  
Peter Odermatt ◽  
Patrick Hunziker
Keyword(s):  
Point Of Care ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Low Grade ◽  
Analytical Strategy ◽  
Diagnostic Assays ◽  
And Control ◽  
Analytical Platforms ◽  
Selection Of

Schistosomiasis is a neglected invasive worm disease with a huge disease burden in developing countries, particularly in children, and is seen increasingly in non-endemic regions through transfer by travellers, expatriates, and refugees. Undetected and untreated infections may be responsible for the persistence of transmission. Rapid and accurate diagnosis is the key to treatment and control. So far, parasitological detection methods remain the cornerstone of Schistosoma infection diagnosis in endemic regions, but conventional tests have limited sensitivity, in particular in low-grade infection. Recent advances contribute to improved detection in clinical and field settings. The recent progress in micro- and nanotechnologies opens a road by enabling the design of new miniaturized point-of-care devices and analytical platforms, which can be used for the rapid detection of these infections. This review starts with an overview of currently available laboratory tests and their performance and then discusses emerging rapid and micro/nanotechnologies-based tools. The epidemiological and clinical setting of testing is then discussed as an important determinant for the selection of the best analytical strategy in patients suspected to suffer from Schistosoma infection. Finally, it discusses the potential role of advanced technologies in the setting near to disease eradication is examined.

scholarly journals Design and Implementation of an IoT System for Smart Energy Consumption and Smart Irrigation in Tunnel Farming

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3427 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Safdar Munir ◽  
Imran Sarwar Bajwa ◽  
M. Asif Naeem ◽  
Bushra Ramzan
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Plant Type ◽  
Efficient Utilization ◽  
Mobile Phone Application ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Sweet Water ◽  
Daily Water ◽  
Plant Data ◽  
Intelligent Approach ◽  
And Control

Efficient and cost effective ways of irrigation have emerged as the need of the hour due to limited sweet water resources, especially the countries that are seriously hit by a lack of sweet water reservoirs. The majority of the water is wasted due to inefficient ways of watering plants. In this paper, we propose an intelligent approach for efficient plant irrigation that has a database of daily water needs of a type of plant and decides the amount of water for a plant type on the basis of the current moisture in soil, humidity, and time of the day. This approach not only saves sweet water by efficient utilization, but also supports smart consumption of energy. Our approach employs IoT and a set of sensors to efficiently record plant data and their watering needs and the approach is implemented with a mobile phone application interface that is used to continuously monitor and control the efficient watering system. The results of this study are easy to reproduce as the sensors used are cheap and easy to access. The study discusses in this paper is experimented on small area (such as tunnel farm) but the results of the experiments show that the used approach can be generalized and can be used for large size fields for efficient irrigation. The results of the experiments also outperform the manual approach and the similar approaches for sensor based irrigation systems.

Production of Monoclonal Antibodies against a New Carcinoma-associated Marker in View of Developing a Serological Test

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Tagliabue ◽  
F. Centis ◽  
A. Mastroianni ◽  
S. Martignone ◽  
S. Ménard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lung Carcinoma ◽  
Serological Test ◽  
Small Cell Lung Carcinoma ◽  
Metastatic Breast ◽  
Cell Lung Carcinoma ◽  
Normal Tissues ◽  
Diagnostic Applications ◽  
Low Sensitivity ◽  
Nsclc Patients ◽  
And Control

By immunizing a mouse with human metastatic breast tumor cells from patient effusions and infiltrated lymph nodes, a monoclonal antibody (MLuC2), which identifies a new carcinoma-associated marker, was raised. The reactivity of this reagent was studied by immunohistochemistry on live and fixed cells from tumor cell lines and on frozen sections from surgical specimens. Besides reacting with 73% of breast carcinomas, MLuC2 also reacted with 93% of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) and with a few normal tissues. The MLuC2-recognized molecule (CaMLuC2), whose MW was 90 KDa according to immunoblotting experiments, was found to be detectable in the serum and could therefore be of particular interest for serological diagnostic applications. Since the CaMLuC2 epitope was not polyexpressed on the bearing molecule, we produced a new generation of MAbs in order to define epitopes coexpressed with CaMLuC2 on the same 90 KDa molecule, and which are therefore suitable to develop a double-determinant immunoradiometric assay (DDIRMA) for the detection of this marker in the sera of lung carcinoma patients. Different analyses by immunohistochemistry, binding inhibition tests and DDIRMA, proved that the two new reagents developed, MLuC8 and MLuC9, recognize the same or closely related epitopes, which are however different from CaMLuC2, but which are all present on the same molecule. Preliminary immunoradiometric tests performed on sera from lung cancer and control patients showed a good specificity but a low sensitivity. In fact, only 42% of the 28 tested sera samples from NSCLC patients scored positive despite the fact that more than 90% of the NSCLC expressed the relevant antigen

scholarly journals Theoretical Modeling of Viscosity Monitoring with Vibrating Resonance Energy Transfer for Point-of-Care and Environmental Monitoring Applications

Micromachines ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gorkem Memisoglu ◽  
Burhan Gulbahar ◽  
Joseba Zubia ◽  
Joel Villatoro
Keyword(s):  
Energy Transfer ◽  
Environmental Monitoring ◽  
System Design ◽  
Point Of Care ◽  
Resonance Energy Transfer ◽  
Microfluidic Channel ◽  
Resonance Energy ◽  
Polluted Water ◽  
Hardware Complexity ◽  
Monitoring Applications

Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between two molecules in nanoscale distances is utilized in significant number of applications including biological and chemical applications, monitoring cellular activities, sensors, wireless communications and recently in nanoscale microfluidic radar design denoted by the vibrating FRET (VFRET) exploiting hybrid resonating graphene membrane and FRET design. In this article, a low hardware complexity and novel microfluidic viscosity monitoring system architecture is presented by exploiting VFRET in a novel microfluidic system design. The donor molecules in a microfluidic channel are acoustically vibrated resulting in VFRET in the case of nearby acceptor molecules detected with their periodic optical emission signals. VFRET does not require complicated hardware by directly utilizing molecular interactions detected with the conventional photodetectors. The proposed viscosity measurement system design is theoretically modeled and numerically simulated while the experimental challenges are discussed. It promises point-of-care and environmental monitoring applications including viscosity characterization of blood or polluted water.

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