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The double layer present at the interface of an electrode and an analyte causes electrode polarization (EP) in impedance spectroscopy, which hinders acquiring the actual impedance of biological samples at a lower frequency region. In this work, a novel carbon paste (CP) electrode material prepared by mixing the pencil graphite powder with transparent glue has been reported to reduce the EP by depositing its two coplanar electrodes on a chromatography paper substrate. Furthermore, two other devices having silver paste and pencil electrodes on the chromatography paper have been fabricated, analyzed for the EP, and compared with the CP electrode. The EP is quantified by fitting the impedance data to an equivalent electrical circuit having double layer capacitance as a constant phase element, and the CP electrode shows the lowest EP among the electrodes. The cyclic voltammetry analysis reveals blocking electrode property of the CP, which diminishes dc current flow at the electrode/electrolyte interface. Furthermore, the chromatography paper is found to increase the effective surface area of the deposited electrode by enhancing its surface roughness, which helps reduce the EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, nanoparticles of copper and silver synthesized via pulsed laser ablation of the respective targets in distilled water are applied to cellulose filter paper to check their effectiveness in the annihilation of bacteria from contaminated water. The treatment of the filter paper with the nanoparticles is found to be an excellent way to get rid of two common bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, from contaminated water. The spread plate method on agar, employed to test the antibacterial efficacy of the nanoparticle-treated papers, clearly shows the absence of bacterial growth upon coming into contact with the nanoparticles in the filter paper. These results were further substantiated by the growth kinetic study of the bacteria that exhibited slow growth of the bacteria that were exposed to the nanoparticles. The morphology of the bacteria that came into contact with the nanoparticles is found to be adversely affected by the nanoparticles. Both copper and silver nanoparticles show a similar extent of antibacterial activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed and characterized a paper-based microfluidic sensor for the on-site diagnosis of drought stress in plants. Proline was used as a biomarker for analyzing drought stress, which was extracted by a colorimetric method using the proline-ninhydrin reaction. Paper was used as the main sensor material for the on-site detection of proline as it is easily transportable and cost-effective. The paper-based sensor was fabricated using wax-printing and origami methods, and the sensor was precoated with ninhydrin to allow for easy and convenient on-site use. Furthermore, a sample-to-ninhydrin ratio of 1:2 was found to confer optimal sensitivity to the drought diagnosis sensor. The concentration of proline in a sample was quantified by red-green-blue analysis to determine the change in green color intensity levels in response to distinct proline concentrations, which were detected by the sensor. The limit of detection of proline using the devised sensor was 657 µM, and the green color intensity level decreased with increasing proline concentration. In addition, the sensor was validated in an experimental drought stress model with Arabidopsis and subjected to drought stress for 21 days, and the amount of proline detected was 10 mM. The devised paper-based microfluidic sensor highlights the possibility of the on-site evaluation of drought stress in plants with potential to be utilized in various agricultural areas in the future.

Accurate measurement of the moisture content of paper is essential in papermaking and is also important in some paper-based microfluidic devices. Traditional measurement techniques provide very limited spatiotemporal resolution and working range. This article presents a novel method for moisture content measurement whose operating principle is the strong correlation between the optical transparency of paper and its moisture content. Spectrographic and microscopic measurement techniques were employed to characterize the relation of moisture content and relative transparency of four types of paper: hardwood chemi-thermomechanical pulp paper, Northern bleached softwood kraft paper, unbleached softwood kraft paper, and General ElectricR Whatman grade 1 chromatography paper. It was found that for all paper types, the paper transparency increased monotonically with the moisture content (as the ratio of the mass-of-water to the mass-of-dry-paper increased from 0% to 120%). This significant increase in relative transparency occurred due to the refractive index matching role of water in wet paper. It is further shown that mechanical loading of the paper has little impact on the relative transparency, for loadings that would be typical on a paper machine. The results of two transient water absorption experiments are presented that show the utility and accuracy of the technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion dynamics of water and oil are observed in real-time using video images. Savitzky–Golay derivative filtering ensures accurate localization of the liquid front. System identification demonstrates that a fractional-order model with only two parameters may be used to describe the dynamics of the diffusion process. The method paves the way for video-based cellulose filter paper microfluidics and lateral flow assays, which are low cost and have broad diagnostic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note reports on a novel method for the rapid reduction of graphene oxide (GO) paper using a glow discharge plasma reactor. Glow discharge is produced and sustained between two parallel-plate graphite electrodes at a pressure of 240 mTorr. By exposing GO paper at the junction of negative-glow and Faraday-dark area for 4 min, the oxygen-containing groups can be effectively removed (C/O ratio increases from 2.6 to 7.9), while the material integrality and flexibility are kept well. Electrochemical measurements demonstrate that the as-obtained reduced GO paper can be potentially used for supercapacitor application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microscale measurements of halftone dots allow us to investigate the ink transmittance as a function of the position on the halftone dots and to characterize the edges of the halftone dots. In this work, an optical microscope mounted with a commercial camera and a High Dynamic Range (HDR) capture method were combined to measure accurately the printed dots at the microscale. Each stage of the method development has been quantified and compared to simple imaging. On the equipment, the parameters of acquisition have been optimized: size of the observed area under the microscope, exposure time, and fusion of different images resulting from the HDR method. The development of this method allowed comparing three types of printing: offset, inkjet, and electrophotography. The interest of microscopic analysis is to retrieve information that is not accessible at the macroscopic level: descriptors of the ink dot shape and a more precise model of the light diffusion in paper. Furthermore, variables classically measured at the macroscopic level can be assessed: optical densities and colorimetric values. Compared to the single method, the HDR method makes it possible to measure accurately the print characteristics. The coefficient of variation is reduced from 30% to 5%. The perspective of this work is to provide additional information for authenticating printed documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluxgate sensors are currently widely used for weak magnetic field measurement because of their relatively great performance, such as resolution, power consumption, and measurement of vector magnetic fields directly. Since the analog fluxgate sensor has some drawbacks, e.g., it would be influenced by the noise of the analog circuit. Hence, in recent years, the analog circuit is gradually inclined to be realized by digital processing in which the software parameter adjustment is employed to replace the analog components, which can greatly improve the flexibility of the design. This paper proposes a digital single-axis fluxgate sensor according to the cobalt-based amorphous effect. To be specific, the analog signal output by the fluxgate is sampled directly by an analog-to-digital converter to obtain the signal waveform in digital form after amplification. The demodulation, filtering, and integration of the signal are all solved by mathematical algorithms. Based on the working principle of the fluxgate sensor, the selection of the magnetic core material and coil winding method of the fluxgate sensor probe is introduced in detail. The design and function of the excitation circuit and preamplifier circuit, as well as the specific realization of digital signal processing, are described. Finally, the performance test of the digital fluxgate sensor was performed under laboratory conditions, and the magnetic anomaly detection comparison experiment was performed outdoors with commercial fluxgate sensors. To sum up, the linearity of the digital single-axis fluxgate sensor is better than 1 × 10−5, and the root mean square noise value is below 0.1 nT. At the same time, it has good magnetic field tracking performance and is extremely sensitive to the magnetic field of the measurement area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many low-noise applications, extracting information from the extremely noisy signal is required. This task can be accomplished by a lock-in amplifier if the frequency of the signal is known before detection. Error signal output from the physics package of the rubidium atomic clock (RbAC) is one of those noisy signals. A lock-in amplifier extracts the desired information from such a signal as the frequency of the error signal is known beforehand. The Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation is developing the Indian Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard (IRAFS) for Navigation with Indian Constellation. We have developed a digital lock-in amplifier with a very high-resolution frequency control voltage for IRAFS. This paper demonstrates the digital lock-in amplifier with a novel method of combining two 12-bit digital-to-analog converters (DACs) to get higher resolution 20-bit output for precise frequency control and tuning. This design technique allows a digital lock-in amplifier to be used for high-performance RbAC for space applications as precision DACs with higher resolution are not available in space-qualified versions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note reports on a novel method for the rapid reduction of graphene oxide (GO) paper using a glow discharge plasma reactor. Glow discharge is produced and sustained between two parallel-plate graphite electrodes at a pressure of 240 mTorr. By exposing GO paper at the junction of negative-glow and Faraday-dark area for 4 min, the oxygen-containing groups can be effectively removed (C/O ratio increases from 2.6 to 7.9), while the material integrality and flexibility are kept well. Electrochemical measurements demonstrate that the as-obtained reduced GO paper can be potentially used for supercapacitor application.

Paper spray (PS) ionization is a recently developed ion source that has been used to analyze samples in their native environments at ambient pressure without requiring sample preparation or pre-separation. The design of an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) coupled with PS ionization can help expand IMS applications to on-site detection of complex liquid samples. We report a paper spray ionization ion mobility spectrometer prototype that consists of a PS source and an ion mobility spectrometer optimized using a numerical simulation. The performance of the design was evaluated by measuring 2, 6-di-tert-butylpyridine (2, 6-DtBP). The mobility spectra of the 2, 6-DtBP exhibited a single-product ion peak with reduced mobility calculated at 1.42 cm2/(V s) and a linear response of 0.1-10 μg/ml, with an estimated detection limit of 0.05 μg/ml. The Relative Standard Deviation for 1 μg/ml was 5.7% over 11 measurements. The highest resolving power (47) was measured for 2, 6-DtBP. Based on these preliminary results, the present PSIMS design is expected to become a tool of choice for the rapid analysis of complex liquid samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several deep learning partial discharge (PD) diagnostic approaches have been developed in recent years to guarantee the security and stability of gas-insulated switchgear (GIS). The centralized training method requires multiple clients to jointly obtain as much data as possible to train the model to achieve excellent performance, which is impractical due to conflicts of interest and privacy protection. Furthermore, because of differences in the distribution of client data and the presence of a small sample, achieving high-precision and robust diagnosis for each client is an urgent problem. To that end, a novel personalized federated meta-learning (FML) is proposed in this paper to address the aforementioned issues. It develops reliable and personalized PD diagnosis models by collaborating with multiple clients and solves the problem of small sample diagnosis through scenario training under the premise of protecting data privacy. The experimental results show that the FML proposed can diagnose GIS PD with high precision and robustness for each client while maintaining privacy. The diagnostic accuracy of the FML proposed in this paper, especially for on-site unbalanced small sample clients, is 93.07%, which is significantly higher than that for other methods. It serves as a model for the collaborative development of an effective GIS PD diagnostic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of authors from the Joint European Torus-European Fusion Development Agreement that contributed to nineteen papers that were published in the October 2008 issue of "Review of Scientific Instruments," including G. Agarici, M. Airila, and R. Akers.

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is a popular method of substance identification and mapping in many fields. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be introduced as an active light source, which have been widely used with the distinct advantages of small size, low energy consumption, long lifetime, and fast switching. In this paper, we propose an active HSI system that is based on a multi-wavelength LED-array light source. This LED-based HSI system has a simple and stable configuration, without the complex dispersive spectrometer and mechanical scanning device. The proposed HSI system has been validated using the standard color checker, showing a reliable spectral performance. Moreover, the spatial-spectral information of Chinese paper-cuttings has been successfully extracted, which indicates the great potential in practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Develops an instrument for measuring rapid local mass density formation in fibrous network and films using electron beam transmission imaging. Purpose of modifying the electron microscope; Determination of local optical density; Use of single charge coupled device imaging system for the electron and light transmission methods.

Describes a low-pressure flow reactor operated as a Knudsen cell and intended for chemical kinetic studies. Design of the reactor to study heterogeneous reactions; Measurement principle; Details of the low temperature support; Measurement of the water vapor pressure above ice; Reduction of errors and uncertainties.

Describes the development of a Monte Carlo program to simulate the gas dynamics inside flow reactors, also known as Knudsen cell, specially adapted to study heterogeneous reactions. Application of the Monte Carlo technique to calculate trajectories of individual molecules considering only gas-wall collisions.

Moisture ingress is one of the major causes of aging in oil–paper insulated transformers; the measurement of the moisture content of the insulating material is thus necessary during transformer disassembly for maintenance. One critical engineering consideration is the need for rapid and nondestructive moisture content measurement of the oil–paper insulation to minimize the power-outage time. Herein, a rapid characterization method for the moisture content of oil–paper insulation based on the dielectric response obtained using a microstrip petal-like ring resonator (MPRR) is proposed. The geometric parameters of the resonator and dielectric response model were established based on simulations and theoretical analysis. The geometry of the resonant ring was optimized by modifying the originally circular ring structure of the microstrip ring resonator (MRR) into a petal-like ring structure; this increases the number of resonant peaks from five to seven in the frequency range of 0.5–6.0 GHz for the same electrode area. The effects of the coupling mode, coupling gap, and microstrip ring size on the resonance characteristics of the MPRR were simulated and analyzed. Compared with the MRR, the MPRR has the advantages of a reduced fundamental resonant frequency and a smaller resonant-ring area that improves radiation efficiency. The impact of moisture content on the dielectric response of the pressboard obtained using the MPRR was studied. A moisture-calculation equation based on the measured dielectric response for a selected type of pressboard was established by the Lasso regression. The results of verification experiments show that the error of the proposed method is sufficient for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of large tooling size, environmental vibration, and equipment errors at the aircraft assembly site leads to errors in the enhanced reference system (ERS) point measurement information. ERS point errors directly reduce the accuracy of the assembly measurement field. This paper proposes ERS point error prediction and registration compensation based on the neural network to address this problem. First, the effects of equipment measurement errors and environmental vibration factors on the measurement field are studied. The ERS point error prediction model based on the neural network is established. On this basis, model evaluation is used to assess the prediction model of this paper. Then, a measurement field registration compensation model is constructed based on the neural network error results for ERS point compensation analysis. Finally, an experimental validation platform was built to predict the ERS point errors and compensate for the constructed measurement fields using the method in this paper. The experimental results show that, compared with the conventional method, the maximum registration errors in the X, Y, and Z directions are reduced from 0.0812, −0.0565, and −0.2810 to −0.0184, −0.0010, and 0.0022 mm, respectively, after compensation in this paper. The method proposed in this paper can not only predict the ERS point error state and provide a reference for designers but also guide the selection of appropriate ERS points when constructing the measurement field. The compensation method in this paper effectively reduces the measurement field registration error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]