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Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Dec 2021The leakage of hazardous gases and chemical vapors is considered one of the dangerous accidents that can occur in laboratories, workshops, warehouses, and industrial... (Review)
Review
The leakage of hazardous gases and chemical vapors is considered one of the dangerous accidents that can occur in laboratories, workshops, warehouses, and industrial sites that use or store these substances. The early detection and alarming of hazardous gases and volatile chemicals are significant to keep the safety conditions for the people and life forms who are work in and live around these places. In this paper, we investigate the available mobile detection and alarming systems for toxic, hazardous gases and volatile chemicals, especially in the laboratory environment. We included papers from January 2010 to August 2021 which may have the newest used sensors technologies and system components. We identified (236) papers from Clarivate Web of Science (WoS), IEEE, ACM Library, Scopus, and PubMed. Paper selection has been done based on a fast screening of the title and abstract, then a full-text reading was applied to filter the selected papers that resulted in (42) eligible papers. The main goal of this work is to discuss the available mobile hazardous gas detection and alarming systems based on several technical details such as the used gas detection technology (simple element, integrated, smart, etc.), sensor manufacturing technology (catalytic bead, MEMS, MOX, etc.) the sensor specifications (warm-up time, lifetime, response time, precision, etc.), processor type (microprocessor, microcontroller, PLC, etc.), and type of the used communication technology (Bluetooth/BLE, Wi-Fi/RF, ZigBee/XBee, LoRa, etc.). In this review, attention will be focused on the improvement of the detection and alarming system of hazardous gases with the latest invention in sensors, processors, communication, and battery technologies.
Topics: Gases; Humans; Laboratories
PubMed: 34884132
DOI: 10.3390/s21238128 -
Advanced Science (Weinheim,... Mar 2024Soft metamaterials have attracted extensive attention due to their remarkable properties. These materials hold the potential to program and control the morphing behavior...
Soft metamaterials have attracted extensive attention due to their remarkable properties. These materials hold the potential to program and control the morphing behavior of soft machines, however, their combination is limited by the poor reprogrammability of metamaterials and incompatible communication between them. Here, printable and recyclable soft metamaterials possessing reprogrammable embedded intelligence to regulate the morphing of soft machines are introduced. These metamaterials are constructed from interconnected and periodically arranged logic unit cells that are able to perform compound logic operations coupling multiplication and negation. The scalable computation capacity of the unit cell empowers it to simultaneously process multiple fluidic signals with different types and magnitudes, thereby allowing the execution of sophisticated and high-level control operations. By establishing the laws of physical Boolean algebra and formulating a universal design route, soft metamaterials capable of diverse logic operations can be readily created and reprogrammed. Besides, the metamaterials' potential of directly serving as fluidic processors for soft machines is validated by constructing a soft latched demultiplexer, soft controllers capable of universal and customizable morphing programming, and a reprogrammable processor without reconnection. This work provides a facile way to create reprogrammable soft fluidic control systems to meet on-demand requirements in dynamic situations.
PubMed: 38161221
DOI: 10.1002/advs.202305501 -
Molecular Microbiology Apr 2017Transporters are essential players in bacterial growth and survival, since they are key for uptake of nutrients on the one hand, and for defence against endogenous and... (Review)
Review
Transporters are essential players in bacterial growth and survival, since they are key for uptake of nutrients on the one hand, and for defence against endogenous and environmental stresses on the other hand. Remarkably, in addition to their primary role in substrate translocation, it has become clear that some transporters have acquired a secondary function as sensors and information processors in signalling pathways. In this review, we describe recent advances in our understanding of the role of transporters in such signalling cascades, and discuss some of the emergent dynamic behaviour found in hallmark examples. A particular focus is placed on new insights into mechanistic details of information transfer between transporters and regulatory proteins. Quantitative considerations reveal that these signalling complexes can implement a remarkable diversity of regulatory logic functions, where the transporter can act as activity switch, as positive or negative reporter of transport flux, or as a signalling hub for the integration of multiple inputs. Such a dual use of transport proteins not only enables efficient substrate translocation but is also an elegant strategy to integrate important information about the cell's external conditions with its current physiological state.
Topics: Bacterial Proteins; Carrier Proteins; Membrane Transport Proteins; Signal Transduction
PubMed: 28152228
DOI: 10.1111/mmi.13633 -
Journal of Experimental Botany Jul 2023The fascination produced by the possibility of engineering plants with augmented capabilities has accompanied plant biotechnology since its origins. This prospect has... (Review)
Review
The fascination produced by the possibility of engineering plants with augmented capabilities has accompanied plant biotechnology since its origins. This prospect has become even more relevant in present times under the pressure imposed by climate change and population growth. Today's plant biotechnologists approach this challenge with the tools of synthetic biology, which facilitate the assembly of synthetic gene circuits (SGCs) from their modular components. Transcriptional SGCs take environmental or endogenous inputs and operate them using transcriptional signals in ways that do not necessarily occur in nature, generating new physiological outputs. Many genetic components have been developed over the years that can be employed in the design and construction of plant SGCs. This review aims to provide an updated view of the components available, proposing a general scheme that facilitates the classification of circuit components in sensor, processor, and actuator modules. Following this analogy, we review the latest advances in the design of SGCs and discuss the main challenges ahead.
Topics: Genes, Synthetic; Gene Regulatory Networks; Biotechnology; Plants; Synthetic Biology
PubMed: 37204924
DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erad167 -
Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer... Oct 2021Liquid-based preparation (LBP) cytology is commonly used in most laboratories these days due to its convenience and reliable results for the cervical cancer screening...
UNLABELLED
Liquid-based preparation (LBP) cytology is commonly used in most laboratories these days due to its convenience and reliable results for the cervical cancer screening program. The PathTezt™ Liquid-based Pap smear is a second-generation LBP, which uses a filter-based concentration technique in processing the sample.
OBJECTIVE
This study was done to evaluate the cellular fixation, morphology, quality of smear in gynae cytology, and diagnostic interpretation of cervical cytological smears produced by the PathTezt liquid-based processor.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A total of 400 pap smear samples were taken and processed using the PathTezt 2000 processor. The slides were evaluated in terms of sample adequacy, percentage of the circle covered by epithelial cells, cellular distribution, obscuring factors, and cell fixation.
RESULTS
About 95.25% (381) of the samples were satisfactory for the evaluation. In 19 (4.75%) of the samples, epithelial cells covered less than 50% of the circle. A sample with good cellular distribution was seen in 92% of the cases, while 354 (88.5%) samples showed minimal inflammatory background. Almost all the smears (95.75%) had no erythrocytes in the background. All smears showed good quality fixation features toward nuclear, cytoplasm, and microorganisms. The total performance rate was 99%.
CONCLUSION
Although the PathTezt liquid-based processor is still new compared to other first-generation LBP, the smears produced by this method were of high quality and it was cost-effective.
Topics: Adult; Aged; Cervix Uteri; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Epithelial Cells; Female; Humans; Malaysia; Middle Aged; Papanicolaou Test; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears; Young Adult
PubMed: 34711003
DOI: 10.31557/APJCP.2021.22.10.3261 -
PloS One 2021Gordon Moore famously observed that the number of transistors in state-of-the-art integrated circuits (units per chip) increases exponentially, doubling every 12-24...
Gordon Moore famously observed that the number of transistors in state-of-the-art integrated circuits (units per chip) increases exponentially, doubling every 12-24 months. Analysts have debated whether simple exponential growth describes the dynamics of computer processor evolution. We note that the increase encompasses two related phenomena, integration of larger numbers of transistors and transistor miniaturization. Growth in the number of transistors per unit area, or chip density, allows examination of the evolution with a single measure. Density of Intel processors between 1959 and 2013 are consistent with a biphasic sigmoidal curve with characteristic times of 9.5 years. During each stage, transistor density increased at least tenfold within approximately six years, followed by at least three years with negligible growth rates. The six waves of transistor density increase account for and give insight into the underlying processes driving advances in processor manufacturing and point to future limits that might be overcome.
Topics: Electronics; Humans; Miniaturization; Transistors, Electronic
PubMed: 34407116
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256245 -
Biomedical Engineering Letters May 2022Conventional spike sorting and motor intention decoding algorithms are mostly implemented on an external computing device, such as a personal computer. The innovation of...
Conventional spike sorting and motor intention decoding algorithms are mostly implemented on an external computing device, such as a personal computer. The innovation of high-resolution and high-density electrodes to record the brain's activity at the single neuron level may eliminate the need for spike sorting altogether while potentially enabling in vivo neural decoding. This article explores the feasibility and efficient realization of in vivo decoding, with and without spike sorting. The efficiency of neural network-based models for reliable motor decoding is presented and the performance of candidate neural decoding schemes on sorted single-unit activity and unsorted multi-unit activity are evaluated. A programmable processor with a custom instruction set architecture, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, is designed and implemented for executing neural network operations in a standard 180-nm CMOS process. The processor's layout is estimated to occupy 49 mm of silicon area and to dissipate 12 mW of power from a 1.8 V supply, which is within the tissue-safe operation of the brain.
PubMed: 35529345
DOI: 10.1007/s13534-022-00217-z -
Nature Communications Dec 2022Tensor analytics lays the mathematical basis for the prosperous promotion of multiway signal processing. To increase computing throughput, mainstream processors...
Tensor analytics lays the mathematical basis for the prosperous promotion of multiway signal processing. To increase computing throughput, mainstream processors transform tensor convolutions into matrix multiplications to enhance the parallelism of computing. However, such order-reducing transformation produces data duplicates and consumes additional memory. Here, we propose an integrated photonic tensor flow processor (PTFP) without digitally duplicating the input data. It outputs the convolved tensor as the input tensor 'flows' through the processor. The hybrid manipulation of optical wavelengths, space dimensions, and time delay steps, enables the direct representation and processing of high-order tensors in the optical domain. In the proof-of-concept experiment, an integrated processor manipulating wavelengths and delay steps is implemented for demonstrating the key functionalities of PTFP. The multi-channel images and videos are processed at the modulation rate of 20 Gbaud. A convolutional neural network for video action recognition is demonstrated on the processor, which achieves an accuracy of 97.9%.
PubMed: 36577748
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35723-2 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Mar 2018The Gaofen-3 (GF-3) data processor was developed as a workstation-based GF-3 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data processing system. The processor consists of two vital...
The Gaofen-3 (GF-3) data processor was developed as a workstation-based GF-3 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data processing system. The processor consists of two vital subsystems of the GF-3 ground segment, which are referred to as data ingesting subsystem (DIS) and product generation subsystem (PGS). The primary purpose of DIS is to record and catalogue GF-3 raw data with a transferring format, and PGS is to produce slant range or geocoded imagery from the signal data. This paper presents a brief introduction of the GF-3 data processor, including descriptions of the system architecture, the processing algorithms and its output format.
PubMed: 29534464
DOI: 10.3390/s18030835 -
The Journal of International Advanced... Nov 2023RONDO 2 is a lightweight, compact, wirelessly charged, and fully integrated single-unit speech processor. Single-unit processors provide an effective and convenient...
BACKGROUND
RONDO 2 is a lightweight, compact, wirelessly charged, and fully integrated single-unit speech processor. Single-unit processors provide an effective and convenient alternative to behind-the-ear processors for adults. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate if RONDO 2 is suitable for and did not compromise the hearing performance of young children in everyday life.
METHODS
Thirteen children aged -lt;4 years were fitted with the RONDO 2 speech processor at the first activation of the cochlear implant. They were evaluated with the LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire, LittlEARS® Early Speech Production Questionnaire, and the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale 12 pre-implantation. In addition to these measures, they were evaluated with the Audio Processor Satisfaction Questionnaire post-implantation. Duration of daily use and troubleshooting data were acquired. Evaluation occurred at 4 time points: before implantation and 1, 3, and 12 months post-initial activation.
RESULTS
Ten out of 13 children continued using RONDO 2 after the study. Twelve months after implantation, they used it on average 11.6 hours per day and had an average Audio Processor Satisfaction Questionnaire score of 9.1 out of 10. Average hearing performance scores continuously improved throughout the follow-up period across measures. Twelve months after implantation, the mean scores were 30.1 out of 35 for the LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire, 19.9 out of 27 for the LittlEARS® Early Speech Production Questionnaire, and 7.4 out of 10 for the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale 12.
CONCLUSION
Participants demonstrated high levels of satisfaction and good hearing performance with RONDO 2, which indicates that this single-unit processor could be a viable and comfortable alternative to behind-the-ear processors in young children, although larger controlled experiments are warranted.
Topics: Adult; Child; Humans; Child, Preschool; Cochlear Implants; Cochlear Implantation; Hearing; Speech Perception; Hearing Tests
PubMed: 38088315
DOI: 10.5152/iao.2023.22979