Development of rapid, automated diagnostics for infectious disease: advances and challenges

The last 2 years has seen an exponential rise in the amount of research funding made available for the development of rapid diagnostic devices for infectious agents of medical importance. This review reports on several such projects. These highlight the development of fully automated devices for rapid diagnostics, ranging from fully automated real-time PCR-based detection methods to fully automated PCR- and array-based machines for the detection and typing of influenza. This review will also highlight the importance of refocusing work on classical immunoassay techniques, showing how biosensor-based immunoassays can greatly enhance existing assays and at a much reduced cost to molecular-based methods

Satellite Imagery Multiscale Rapid Detection with Windowed Networks

Detecting small objects over large areas remains a significant challenge in satellite imagery analytics. Among the challenges is the sheer number of pixels and geographical extent per image: a single DigitalGlobe satellite image encompasses over 64 km2 and over 250 million pixels. Another challenge is that objects of interest are often minuscule (~pixels in extent even for the highest resolution imagery), which complicates traditional computer vision techniques. To address these issues, we propose a pipeline (SIMRDWN) that evaluates satellite images of arbitrarily large size at native resolution at a rate of > 0.2 km2/s. Building upon the tensorflow object detection API paper, this pipeline offers a unified approach to multiple object detection frameworks that can run inference on images of arbitrary size. The SIMRDWN pipeline includes a modified version of YOLO (known as YOLT), along with the models of the tensorflow object detection API: SSD, Faster R-CNN, and R-FCN. The proposed approach allows comparison of the performance of these four frameworks, and can rapidly detect objects of vastly different scales with relatively little training data over multiple sensors. For objects of very different scales (e.g. airplanes versus airports) we find that using two different detectors at different scales is very effective with negligible runtime cost.We evaluate large test images at native resolution and find mAP scores of 0.2 to 0.8 for vehicle localization, with the YOLT architecture achieving both the highest mAP and fastest inference speed.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, 1 appendix. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1805.0951

Real-time, step-wise, electrical detection of protein molecules using dielectrophoretically aligned SWNT-film FET aptasensors

Aptamer functionalized addressable SWNT-film arrays between cantilever electrodes were successfully developed for biosensor applications. Dielectrophoretically aligned SWNT suspended films made possible highly specific and rapid detection of target proteins with a large binding surface area. Thrombin aptamer immobilized SWNT-film FET biosensor resulted in a real-time, label-free, and electrical detection of thrombin molecules down to a concentration of ca. 7 pM with a step-wise rapid response time of several seconds.X113338sciescopu

Fire protection and recompression systems for a hypobaric research chamber Final report, Jul. - Dec. 1967

Fire detection-extinguishment and automatic rapid recompression systems for hypobaric spacecraft cabin simulator

Detection of rapid orbital expansion of Saturn’s moon Titan

The Saturn satellite system is a complex dynamical system with several gravitational interactions happening between the satellites, the rings and the central body, such as resonances, librations and tides. These intricate dynamics carry information on the formation and evolution of the Saturn and Solar systems

Rapid detection of bacteria in foods and biological fluids

Simple and inexpensive apparatus, called "redox monitoring cell," rapidly detects presence of bacteria. Bacteria is detected by measuring drop in oxygen content in test solution. Apparatus consists of vial with two specially designed electrodes connected to sensitive voltmeter

Shiga Toxin Detection Methods : A Short Review

The Shiga toxins comprise a family of related protein toxins secreted by certain types of bacteria. Shigella dysenteriae, some strain of Escherichia coli and other bacterias can express toxins which caused serious complication during the infection. Shiga toxin and the closely related Shiga-like toxins represent a group of very similar cytotoxins that may play an important role in diarrheal disease and hemolytic-uremic syndrome. The outbreaks caused by this toxin raised serious public health crisis and caused economic losses. These toxins have the same biologic activities and according to recent studies also share the same binding receptor, globotriosyl ceramide (Gb3). Rapid detection of food contamination is therefore relevant for the containment of food-borne pathogens. The conventional methods to detect pathogens, such as microbiological and biochemical identification are time-consuming and laborious. The immunological or nucleic acid-based techniques require extensive sample preparation and are not amenable to miniaturization for on-site detection. In the present are necessary of techniques of rapid identification, simple and sensitive which can be employed in the countryside with minimally-sophisticated instrumentation. Biosensors have shown tremendous promise to overcome these limitations and are being aggressively studied to provide rapid, reliable and sensitive detection platforms for such applications.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure

Rapid detection of Listeria monocytogenes in food using culture enrichment combined with real-time PCR.

A rapid method for the detection of Listeria monocytogenes in foods combining culture enrichment and real-time PCR was compared to the ISO 11290-1 standard method. The culture enrichment component of the rapid method is based on the ISO standard and includes 24h incubation in half-Fraser broth, 4h incubation in Fraser broth followed by DNA extraction and real-time PCR detection of the ssrA gene of L. monocytogenes. An internal amplification control, which is co-amplified with the same primers as the L. monocytogenes DNA, was also included in the assay. The method has a limit of detection of 1-5CFU/25g food sample and can be performed in 2 working days compared to up to 7days for the ISO standard. A variety of food samples from retail outlets and food processing plants (n=175) and controls (n=31) were tested using rapid and conventional methods. The rapid method was 99.44% specific, 96.15% sensitive and 99.03% accurate when compared to the standard method. This method has the potential to be used as an alternative to the standard method for food quality assurance providing rapid detection of L. monocytogenes in food