Lateral Flow Nucleic Acid Biosensor for the Detection of Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Nucleic acid detection is of central importance for the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases, infectious agents, bio-warfare agents, and drug discovery. Nucleic acid testing for diseases is exclusively performed in laboratories using high-end instrumentation and personnel. However, this has developed the need for point of care diagnostics which can provide near-patient testing in a clinic, doctor’s office, or home. Such diagnostic tools can prove advantageous when rapid response is required or when suitable facilities are unavailable. Compared to equivalent methods used in laboratories, point of care testing is more affordable, as it eliminates the need for expensive instrumentation and skilled labor. One option involves the use of lateral flow assays. Pre-fabricated strips of dry reagents activated upon fluid application are already used in diagnostics, such as to ascertain pregnancy. Nucleic acid based detection assays on lateral flow offer several advantages over traditional microbiological detection methods. In this work we introduce a lateral flow biosensor that can combine the optical properties of nanoparticles (such as gold nanoparticles) with conventional immunoassay techniques to deliver a simple platform for rapid analysis of DNA with high sensitivity and selectivity. The quick 30 minute assay provides a platform to detect multiple nucleic acids with high efficiency achieved via chromatographic separation sandwich-type DNA hybridization reactions. Captured gold nanoparticles on the device can provide qualitative analysis by observing the color change to red and a semi-quantitative analysis via a strip reader. The biosensor was applied to the detection of human genomic DNA directly with high sensitivity and selectivity. The work was further expanded to detect Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae samples using nucleic acid amplification to generate large numbers of target copies. Improvements were made in the preparation of the biosensor to enable detection of Human Papilloma Virus Type-16. The clinical samples obtained were amplified using PCR for direct detection on the lateral flow biosensor without interference from other HPV types (e.g. HPV 18). The feasibility of the biosensor shows great potential for further development to assure its use in point of care diagnosis. The promising properties of the biosensor are reported in this dissertation

Kinematic control design for wheeled mobile robots with longitudinal and lateral slip

The motion control of wheeled mobile robots at high speeds under adverse ground conditions is a difficult task, since the robots' wheels may be subject to different kinds of slip. This work introduces an adaptive kinematic controller that is capable of solving the trajectory tracking problem of a nonholonomic mobile robot under longitudinal and lateral slip. While the controller can effectively compensate for the longitudinal slip, the lateral slip is a more involved problem to deal with, since nonholonomic robots cannot directly produce movement in the lateral direction. To show that the proposed controller is still able to make the mobile robot follow a reference trajectory under lateral and longitudinal time-varying slip, the solutions of the robot's position and orientation error dynamics are shown to be uniformly ultimately bounded. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the robot's performance using the proposed adaptive control law

Transport in the Laughlin quasiparticle interferometer: Evidence for topological protection in an anyonic qubit

We report experiments on temperature and Hall voltage bias dependence of the superperiodic conductance oscillations in the novel Laughlin quasiparticle interferometer, where quasiparticles of the 1/3 fractional quantum Hall fluid execute a closed path around an island of the 2/5 fluid. The amplitude of the oscillations fits well the quantum-coherent thermal dephasing dependence predicted for a two point-contact chiral edge channel interferometer in the full experimental temperature range 10.2<T<141 mK. The temperature dependence observed in the interferometer is clearly distinct from the behavior in single-particle resonant tunneling and Coulomb blockade devices. The 5h/e flux superperiod, originating in the anyonic statistical interaction of Laughlin quasiparticles, persists to a relatively high T~140 mK. This temperature is only an order of magnitude less than the 2/5 quantum Hall gap. Such protection of quantum logic by the topological order of fractional quantum Hall fluids is expected to facilitate fault-tolerant quantum computation with anyons.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

MWNT Surface Self-Assembling in Fire Retardant Polyethylene-Carbon nanotubes nanocomposites

Multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWNT) were melt blended at different concentration with linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE). The nanotubes impart the fire-retardant characteristics to the polymer by formation of a thin protective film of MWNT/carbon char generated on the surface of the nanocomposites. The film formation mechanism is discussed

OWL-POLAR : semantic policies for agent reasoning

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comPostprin

Inverse Control and Stabilization of Free-flying Flexible Robots

The question of control and stabilization of flexible space robots is considered. Although, this approach is applicable to space robots of other configurations, for simplicity, a flexible planar two-link robot, mounted on a rigid floating platform, is considered. The robotic arm has two revolute joints and its links undergo elastic deformation in the plane of rotation. Based on nonlinear inversion technique, a control law is derived for controlling output variables describing the position and orientation of the platform and the joint angles of the robot. Although, the inverse controller accomplishes reference trajectory tracking, it excites the elastic modes of the arm. For the vibration suppression, three different stabilizer are designed. Using linear quadratic optimal control theory, a composite stabilizer for stabilization of the rigid and flexible modes and a decoupled flexible mode stabilizer are designed for regulating the end point of the robot to the target point and vibration suppression. Stabilization using only elastic mode velocity feedback is also considered. For large maneuvers, first the inverse controller is active, and the stabilizer is switched for regulation when the motion of the robot lies in the neighborhood of the terminal equilibrium state. Simulation results are presented to show that in the closed-loop system including the inverse controller and each of the stabilizers, trajectory tracking and stabilization of elastic modes are accomplished

Caracterización fisicoquímica y estabilidad oxidativa de aceites comestibles de semillas de sacha inchi microencapsulados y secados por aspersión

The aim of this work was to obtain sacha inchi oil (SIO) microcapsules from two different species, Plukenetia volubilis L. (SIVO) and Plukenetia huayllabambana L. (SIHO), using different biopolymers as wall materials and spray drying technology. The physicochemical characteristics such as encapsulation efficiency, particle size, morphology and oxidative stability were analyzed in order to select the best formulation that could potentially be used as an ingredient in the development of functional food. Bulk SIO and four formulations were tested for each oil ecotype, using different encapsulating agents: maltodextrin (MD), Arabic gum (AG), whey protein concentrate (WPC) and modified starch HI-CAP®-100 (H). Microcapsules made of H presented the highest oxidative stability and encapsulation efficiency compared to AG, AG:MD or AG:MD:WPC formulations.El objetivo de este trabajo fue obtener microcápsulas de dos especies de aceite de sacha inchi (SIO), Plukenetia volubilis L. (SIVO) y Plukenetia huayllabambana L. (SIHO), utilizando diferentes biopolímeros como materiales de pared y la tecnología de secado por aspersión. Se analizaron tanto las características fisicoquímicas como la eficiencia de encapsulación, el tamaño de partícula, la morfología y la estabilidad oxidativa para seleccionar la mejor formulación que podría utilizarse como ingrediente en el desarrollo de alimentos funcionales. Se analizaron los aceites y cuatro formulaciones para cada ecotipo, usando diferentes agentes encapsulantes: maltodextrina (MD), goma Arábiga (AG), concentrado proteico de lactosuero (WPC) y almidón modificado HI-CAP®-100 (H). Las microcápsulas hechas con H presentaron la mayor estabilidad oxidativa y eficiencia de encapsulación en comparación con las formulaciones: AG; AG:MD o AG:MD:WPC