Biomedical Lance Ion Sensitive System

The fabrication of a pH sensor which can be used in practical applications in biological and niedical fields was designed and manufactured using a new lance style ion sensitive field effect transistor. The lance can be used to measure pH levels in micro biological cultures without disruption of the culture and can be a powerful tool in real time Invitro medical diagnostics tool. The reference electrode can be placed onto the chip by depositing a noble metal contact in the field region. This is referred as a Pseudo Reference Electrode, PRE. By bringing the PRE design closer to the membrane, the active test area for the ISFET will then be contained to the small perimeter of the gate. Also, with the PRE being very close to the gate membrane, a larger percentage of charged ions will interact with the membrane which can allow for a smaller gate membrane and still have strong sensitivity. The combination of these two benefits can create a very compact Perimeters PRE ISFET design. With this compact design, it can be implemented on a MEMS cantilever for new testing methods in the medical and biological fields. By combining the ISFET device at the tip of a cantilever, the device can be put into use to test with minimum impact. Deep silicon etching was attempted using a protective front side coat and a hot KOH bath to etch a patterned backside. Complications in preserving sensitive ISFET components needs to be resolved before completion of freestanding cantilever lance MEMS probe with ISFET sensor

Next Generation Traffic Signal Performance Measures: Leveraging Connected Vehicle Data

High-resolution connected vehicle (CV) trajectory and event data has recently become commercially available. With over 500 billion vehicle position records generated each month in the United States, these data sets provide unique opportunities to build on and expand previous advances on traffic signal performance measures and safety evaluation. This report is a synthesis of research focused on the development of CV-based performance measures. A discussion is provided on data requirements, such as acquisition, storage, and access. Subsequently, techniques to reference vehicle trajectories to relevant roadways and movements are presented. This allows for performance analyses that can range from the movement- to the system-level. A comprehensive suite of methodologies to evaluate signal performance using vehicle trajectories is then provided. Finally, uses of CV hard-braking and hard-acceleration event data to assess safety and driver behavior are discussed. To evaluate scalability and test the proposed techniques, performance measures for over 4,700 traffic signals were estimated using more than 910 million vehicle trajectories and 14 billion GPS points in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The contents of this report will help the industry transition towards a hybrid blend of detector- and CV-based signal performance measures with rigorously defined performance measures that have been peer-reviewed by both academics and industry leaders

The Journal of Microelectronic Research 2008

https://scholarworks.rit.edu/meec_archive/1016/thumbnail.jp

Plasmid-Cured Chlamydia caviae Activates TLR2-Dependent Signaling and Retains Virulence in the Guinea Pig Model of Genital Tract Infection

Loss of the conserved “cryptic” plasmid from C. trachomatis and C. muridarum is pleiotropic, resulting in reduced innate inflammatory activation via TLR2, glycogen accumulation and infectivity. The more genetically distant C. caviae GPIC is a natural pathogen of guinea pigs and induces upper genital tract pathology when inoculated intravaginally, modeling human disease. To examine the contribution of pCpGP1 to C. caviae pathogenesis, a cured derivative of GPIC, strain CC13, was derived and evaluated in vitro and in vivo. Transcriptional profiling of CC13 revealed only partial conservation of previously identified plasmid-responsive chromosomal loci (PRCL) in C. caviae. However, 2-deoxyglucose (2DG) treatment of GPIC and CC13 resulted in reduced transcription of all identified PRCL, including glgA, indicating the presence of a plasmid-independent glucose response in this species. In contrast to plasmid-cured C. muridarum and C. trachomatis, plasmid-cured C. caviae strain CC13 signaled via TLR2 in vitro and elicited cytokine production in vivo similar to wild-type C. caviae. Furthermore, inflammatory pathology induced by infection of guinea pigs with CC13 was similar to that induced by GPIC, although we observed more rapid resolution of CC13 infection in estrogen-treated guinea pigs. These data indicate that either the plasmid is not involved in expression or regulation of virulence in C. caviae or that redundant effectors prevent these phenotypic changes from being observed in C. caviae plasmid-cured strains