Fuzz sensoring

Treball desenvolupat en el marc del programa "European Project Semester".Traffic congestion is a significant problem which affects smoothness in transportation in many cities around the world. It is unavoidable due to increasing numbers of vehicles and overuse of roads in large and growing metropolises. Although, there are several policies that are implemented to reduce traffic congestion, such as improvement of public transport, car and motorcycle restriction on several roads, and an even-odd license plate policy, the major problem involves getting data in order to predict and avoid traffic. Information can be collected from many sources such as: city sensors, GPS, as well as, from many application programming interfaces (API) provided by different companies. The project involves gathering sources and information about traffic congestion in order to create guidelines which can be essential in creating a traffic map of Vilanova i la Geltrú in the future. Eventually, the guidelines to the city of Vilanova i la Geltrú are provided, consisting of analysis of traffic inside the city, IoT management, choices of APIs, effective selection of sensors, and cost analysis to vastly improve traffic flow.Incomin

An Ambient Agent Model for Monitoring and Analysing Dynamics of Complex Human Behaviour

In ambient intelligent systems, monitoring of a human could consist of more complex tasks than merely identifying whether a certain value of a sensor is above a certain threshold. Instead, such tasks may involve monitoring of complex dynamic interactions between human and environment. In order to enable such more complex types of monitoring, this paper presents a generic agent-based framework. The framework consists of support on various levels of system design, namely: (1) the top level, including the interaction between agents, (2) the agent level, providing support on the design of individual agents, and (3) the level of monitoring complex dynamic behaviour, allowing the specification of the aforementioned complex monitoring properties within the agents. The approach is exemplified by a large case study concerning the assessment of driving behaviour, and is applied to two smaller cases as well (concerning fall detection of elderly, and assistance of naval operations, respectively), which are briefly described. These case studies have illustrated that the presented framework enables developers within ambient intelligence to build systems with more expressiveness regarding their monitoring focus. Moreover, they have shown that the framework is easy to use and applicable in a wide variety of domains. © 2011 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved

Bottom-up surface engineering for the construction of (bio) sensoring systems: design strategies and analytical applications

Specifically outlining the work achieved in this PhD thesis, the work is organised into separate articles that have been published, submitted or are under preparation for submission.Chapter 1 is an introduction, in which the state of the art and objectives are presented. In Chapters 2-4, different potential mediators that could be used for the catalytic interaction with the enzymatic product o-AP were evaluated and due to their well characterized properties, hydrazine, NADH and ascorbic acid were selected for further study. Hydrazine is used as an antioxidant and reducing agent; NADH plays an important rule in oxidoreductases and dehydrogenase systems and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is an antioxidant whose detection is important in clinical and food applications. The electrocatalytic properties of o-aminophenol films grafted on glassy carbon surfaces have been employed for the electrochemical evaluation of hydrazine, NADH and ascorbic acid, to select the most relevant as a recycling mediator in the planned signal amplification strategy. To evaluate the best mediator, the reaction kinetics between mediators and the o-AP/o-QI were extensively studied using different techniques such as cyclic voltammetry, hydrodynamic voltammetry, double potential step chronoamperometry, and double potential step chronocoulometry. Of them, ascorbic acid was selected as the mediator for regeneration of the o-AP film and substrate recycling. We had thus demonstrated an interesting catalytic system for the oxidation of ascorbic acid, which is stable, sensitive and reproducible, and we decided to explore this system for clinical and food applications. In the first application, we targeted the determination of uric acid (UA) in the presence of ascorbic acid (AA), which commonly co-exist in biological fluids of humans, mainly in blood and urine (Chapter 4). In Chapters 5 and 6, the selective electrocatalytic properties of the grafted o-AP film toward ascorbic acid were also applied to its detection in real samples of fruits and vegetables using disposable one-shot screen printed electrodes. The o-AP modified screen printed electrodes showed high catalytic responses toward the electrocatalytic oxidation of ascorbic acid. The o-AP SPE sensor exhibited high sensitivity and selectivity toward ascorbic acid with excellent storage and operational stability, as well as a quantitatively reproducible analytical performance. In the second part of the thesis, different surface engineering strategies of antibody immobilization for immunosensor construction using a linker or via direct attachment onto a Au surface using a strategy of self assembly were evaluated and compared. An alternative strategy explored was the direct anchoring of the antibody with or without a linker via the electrochemical reduction of their diazonium cations.In Chapter 7, a comparison between these different surface chemistries methodologies for the construction of immunosensors towards the model analyte of coeliac toxic gliadin was carried out. Firstly, the self-assembled monolayer approach was evaluated based on the modification of gold surfaces with two bipodal carboxylic acid terminated thiols (thioctic acid and a benzyl alcohol disubstituted thiol, DT2). A stable SAM of DT2 was rapidly immobilized (3 h) on Au as compared with thioctic acid (100 h), although both surface chemistries resulted in highly sensitive electrochemical immunosensors for gliadin detection using an anti-gliadin antibody (CDC5), with detection limits of 11.6 and 5.5 ng/mL, respectively. The developed immunosensors were then applied to the detection of gliadin in commercial gluten-free and gluten-containing food products, showing an excellent correlation when compared to results obtained with ELISA. In Chapter 8, another approach was explored to further improve immunosensor sensitivity and stability and furthermore to reduce the time necessary for sensor preparation was investigated looking at the direct attachment of the SATA modified full length antibody, and their F(ab) fragments onto Au electrodes. Spontaneously adsorbed SAMs of Fab-SH and CDC5-SH onto Au were rapidly formed in less than 15 minutes. The amperometric immunosensors based on Fab fragments exhibited a vastly improved detection limit as compared to the thiolated antibody with a highly sensitive response toward gliadin detection (LOD, 3.29 ng/ml for amperometric detection and 0.42 g/ml for labelless (impedimetric) detection). Moreover, the self-assembled monolayer of F(ab) fragments was extremely stable with almost no loss in response after 60 days storage at 4oC.In Chapter 9, an alternative surface chemistry approach was explored for the modification of Au electrodes via electrochemical and spontaneous reduction of diazonium cations of a conjugate prepared from the monoclonal full length anti-gliadin antibody (CDC5) and the linker 3,5-bis(aminophenoxy)benzoic acid (DAPBA). Cylic voltammetry was chosen for surface modification via applying three potential cycles, but it was observed that an extensive washing process was necessary after each potential cycle to remove the non-specifically adsorbed molecules or formed multilayers. The affinity of the immobilized antibody toward gliadin was studied using EIS and amperometry. The modified CDC5-DAPBA surface showed a reasonable amperometric response after incubation with 5 g/ml gliadin, and exhibited excellent specificity with no response observed in the absence of the analyte.In Chapter 10, general conclusions and future work are presented. From the different surface chemistry strategies evaluated in this work we can conclude that the best approach is the immunosensor based on the spontaneous adsorption of thiolated F(ab) fragments on gold. This surface is easy and fast to prepare, very stable and sensitive and can be stored for long times in the appropriate conditions without lost of affinity. A good alternative to this approach seems to be the electrodeposition of antibody-diazonium conjugates, although further work is needed in order to optimize this system.Overall, this work has contributed significantly to the vision we have for an immunosensor that avoids washes and reagent addition, where we have selected an excellent mediator for co-encapsulation with alkaline phosphatase enzymes within liposome reporter molecules, for regeneration of surface immobilised substrate following enzymatic dephosporylation, facilitating substrate recycling and increase in sensitivity and reduction in detection limit. Furthermore, we have selected an optimum surface chemistry for co-immobilisation of capture antibody molecules and enzyme substrate via the formation of self-assembled monolayers of antibody fragments on gold surfaces. Future work will focus on combining the selected mediator and surface chemistry into a sandwich immunosensor with a target sensitive liposome reporter molecule, to demonstrate a reagentless, washless ultrasesensitive immunosensing platform.El trabajo descrito en la presente tesis ha sido organizado en capitulos en los que se detallan diferentes artículos publicados, enviados para su publicación o en preparacion en los cuales esta basada la tesis. El Capitulo 1 es una introducción en la que se presenta el estado del arte del tema y los objetivos de la tesis. En los Capítulos 2 a 4 se evalúan las propiedades electrocatalíticas de diferentes mediadores (hidracina, NADH y ácido ascórbico) que podrían ser utilizados en reacciones de reciclado de substratos enzimáticos en estrategias de amplificación de señal en biosensores. La hidracina es usada como antioxidante y agente reductor, el NADH es fundamental para el funcionamiento de oxidorreductasas y deshidrogenasas y el ácido ascórbico (AA, vitamina C) es de gran importancia como antioxidante. Las propiedades electrocatalíticas de monocapas de o-aminofenol (o-AP) en superficies de carbón vítreo fueron empleadas en la caracterización electroquímica de estos mediadores con el objetivo de seleccionar el mediador más adecuado. Para ello se determinaron diferentes parámetros cinéticos asociados empleando voltametría cíclica e hidrodinámica, así como cronoamperometría y cronocoulometría de doble potencial, siendo el acido ascórbico es mas adecuado en términos de coste, respuesta electroquímica y estabilidad. Teniendo en cuenta estas propiedades del AA, se decidió explorar otras posibles aplicaciones clínicas y en análisis de alimentos de este sistema. En primer lugar se estudio la determinación de acido úrico en presencia de AA, el cual coexiste en diferentes fluidos biológicos y se estudió su determinación en muestras reales de orina (Capítulo 4). En los Capítulos 5 y 6 se detalla la utilización de electrodos desechables modificados con o-AP fabricados con la técnica de screen-printing en la determinación de AA de ácido ascórbico en una amplia variedad de frutas y vegetales frescos y zumos comerciales. La selectividad, reproducibilidad y estabilidad de estos electrodos fueron también estudiadas.En la segunda parte de la tesis se evalúan diferentes estrategias para la inmovilización de anticuerpos para la construcción de inmunosensores. Estas estrategias consisten en la deposición de los anticuerpos en superficies de oro mediante autoensamblaje de compuestos tiolados o la electrodeposición de sales de diazonio. En el Capítulo 7 se compara el uso de dos compuestos ditiolados para la modificación de superficies de oro. Estos compuestos se emplearon para la inmovilización de anticuerpos en la construcción de un inmunosensor electroquímico para la detección de gliadina en muestras reales.El Capítulo 8 es la continuación del trabajo anterior y está basado en la adsorción espontánea de fragmentos de anticuerpos o anticuerpos tiolados en superficies de Au para la detección de gliadina. Para ello se compararon las respuestas amperométricas de ambos sistemas, observándose una excelente sensibilidad en el caso de los fragmentos de anticuerpos, asi como una mayor estabilidad (hasta 60 dias a 4ºC) de este sistema. En el Capítulo 9, se estudia una alternativa consistente en la electrodeposición de sales de diazonio conjugadas a anticuerpos. Para ello se estudiaron diferentes métodos de deposicion (electroquímicos o adsorción espontánea), siendo la deposición empleando voltametría ciclica la más adecuada. Sin embargo, esta metodología requirió de un gran número de pasos de lavado para la eliminaciñon de compuestos adsorbidos no específicamente. A pesar de esto, el anticuerpo inmovilizado mostró una buena afinidad hacia la gliadina al ser evaluada por amperometría con una excelente especificidad.El Capítulo 10 consiste en las conclusiones generales y un plan de trabajo para el futuro.De forma general, este trabajo ha contribuido significativamente a la culminación de una estrategia que evita pasos de lavado y de adición de reactivo en el diseño de inmunosensores. Para ello se la seleccionado el mediador más adecuado para coencapsulación con fosfatasa alcalina en liposomas para la regeneración de sustratos inmovilizados en superficies, lo cual facilita su reciclado, así como incrementa la sensibilidad y disminuye los limites de detección. Paralelamente, se han estudiado diferentes superficies para la inmovilización de anticuerpos consistentes en la deposición de los anticuerpos y sus fragmentos en superficies de oro mediante autoensamblaje de compuestos tiolados o la electrodeposición de sales de diazonio. Se propone en el futuro combinar ambas estrategias en la construcción de plataformas inmunosensoras de fácil operatividad y ultrasensibles

Citrate and Polyvinylpyrrolidone Stabilized Silver Nanoparticles as Selective Colorimetric Sensor for Aluminum (III) Ions in Real Water Samples

The use of silver nanoparticles stabilized with citrate and polyvinylpyrrolidone as a sensor for aluminum ions determination is proposed in this paper. These non-functionalized and specific nanoparticles provide a highly selective and sensitive detection system for aluminum in acidic solutions. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy. Surface plasmon band deconvolution analysis was applied to study the interaction between silver nanoparticles and aluminum ions in solution. The interaction band in the UV-visible region was used as an analytical signal for quantitation purposes. The proposed detection system offers an effective AND wide linearity range (0.1-103 nM), specificity for Al(III) in THE presence of other metallic ions in solution, as well as high sensitivity (limit of detection = 40.5 nM). The proposed silver-nanoparticles-based sensor WAS successfully used for detecting Al(III) in real water samples.Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, MinECo, CTQ2016-78703-P (AEI/FEDER, UE)España, Universidad de Sevilla ,V Plan Propio Grupos Emergentes (PP2016-5937)Junta de Andalucía (2017/FQM-386)CITIUS VI PP USO SSGG (1804031606

Robot Excitation Trajectories for Dynamic Parameter Estimation using Optimized B-Splines

In this paper we adressed the problem of finding exciting trajectories for the identification of manipulator link inertia parameters. This can be formulated as a constraint nonlinear optimization problem. The new approach in the presented method is the parameterization of the trajectories with optimized B-splines. Experiments are carried out on a 7 joint Light-Weight robot with torque sensoring in each joint. Thus, unmodeled joint friction and noisy motor current measurements must not be taken into account. The estimated dynamic model is verified on a different validation trajectory. The results show a clear improvement of the estimated dynamic model compared to a CAD-valued model

Sensoring Leakage Current to Predict Pollution Levels to Improve Transmission Line Model via ANN

Pollution insulator is a serious threat to the safety operations of electric power systems. Leakage current detection is widely employed in transmission line insulators to assess pollution levels. This paper presents the prediction of pollution levels on insulators based on simulated leakage current and voltage in a transmission tower.The simulation parameters are based on improved transmission line model with leakage current resistance insertion between buses. Artificial neural network (ANN) is employed to predict the level of pollution with different locations of simulated leakage current and voltage between two buses. With a sufficient number of training, the test results showed a significant potential for pollution level prediction with more than 95% Correct Classification Rate (CCR) and output of the ANN showed high agreement with Simulink results

Performance prediction and assessment of reusability and recycling of refractory materials using the NDT sensoring approach and Machine Learning

Refractory materials are necessary for the Iron and Steel (I&S) sector to endure the demanding conditions of its manufacturing processes. These materials' brief service lives, which can range from a few minutes to several months, create substantial problems for consumption, disposal, and environmental effect. There is a rising need for sustainable solutions that are compliant with the European Green Deal's standards for reduced greenhouse gas emissions, increased energy efficiency, and life cycle assessments. The Concerted European Activity on Sustainable Applications of REFractories (Doctoral Network CESAREF), which aims to enhance research and practices linked to refractory material in the Iron & Steel industry, was founded in 2022 to address these concerns