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The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 caused the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerated vaccine development to prevent the spread of the virus and control the disease. Given the sustained high infectivity and evolution of SARS-CoV-2, there is an ongoing interest in developing COVID-19 serology tests to monitor population-level immunity. To address this critical need, we designed a paper-based multiplexed vertical flow assay (xVFA) using five structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2, detecting IgG and IgM antibodies to monitor changes in COVID-19 immunity levels. Our platform not only tracked longitudinal immunity levels but also categorized COVID-19 immunity into three groups: protected, unprotected, and infected, based on the levels of IgG and IgM antibodies. We operated two xVFAs in parallel to detect IgG and IgM antibodies using a total of 40 μL of human serum sample in <20 min per test. After the assay, images of the paper-based sensor panel were captured using a mobile phone-based custom-designed optical reader and then processed by a neural network-based serodiagnostic algorithm. The serodiagnostic algorithm was trained with 120 measurements/tests and 30 serum samples from 7 randomly selected individuals and was blindly tested with 31 serum samples from 8 different individuals, collected before vaccination as well as after vaccination or infection, achieving an accuracy of 89.5%. The competitive performance of the xVFA, along with its portability, cost-effectiveness, and rapid operation, makes it a promising computational point-of-care (POC) serology test for monitoring COVID-19 immunity, aiding in timely decisions on the administration of booster vaccines and general public health policies to protect vulnerable populations.

The rapid discrimination of bacteria is currently an emerging trend in the fields of food safety, medical detection, and environmental observation. Traditional methods often require lengthy culturing processes, specialized analytical equipment, and bacterial recognition receptors. In response to this need, we have developed a paper-based fluorescence sensor array platform for identifying different bacteria. The sensor array is based on three unique carbon quantum dots (CQDs) as sensing units, each modified with a different antibiotic (polymyxin B, ampicillin, and gentamicin). These antibiotic-modified CQDs can aggregate on the bacterial surface, triggering aggregation-induced fluorescence quenching. The sensor array exhibits varying fluorescent responses to different bacterial species. To achieve low-cost and portable detection, CQDs were formulated into fluorescent ink and used with an inkjet printer to manufacture paper-based sensor arrays. A smartphone was used to collect the responses generated by the bacteria and platform. Diverse machine learning algorithms were utilized to discriminate bacterial types. Our findings showcase the platform's remarkable capability to differentiate among five bacterial strains, within a detection range spanning from 1.0 × 10 3  CFU/mL to 1.0 × 10 7  CFU/mL. Its practicality is further validated through the accurate identification of blind bacterial samples. With its cost-effectiveness, ease of fabrication, and high degree of integration, this platform holds significant promise for on-site detection of diverse bacteria., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

A new analytical method for chronic kidney disease (CKD) detection utilizing paper spray mass spectrometry (PS-MS) combined with machine learning is presented. The analytical protocol is rapid and simple, based on metabolic profile alterations in urine. Anonymized raw urine samples were deposited (10 μL each) onto pointed PS-MS sample strips. Without waiting for the sample to dry, 75 μL of acetonitrile and high voltage were applied to the strips, using high resolution mass spectrometry measurement (15 s per sample) with polarity switching to detect a wide range of metabolites. Random forest machine learning was used to classify the resulting data. The diagnostic performance for the potential diagnosis of CKD was evaluated for accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, achieving results >96% for the training data and >91% for validation and test data sets. Metabolites selected by the classification model as up- or down-regulated in healthy or CKD samples were tentatively identified and in agreement with previously reported literature. The potential utilization of this approach to discriminate albuminuria categories (normo, micro, and macroalbuminuria) was also demonstrated. This study indicates that PS-MS combined with machine learning has the potential to be used as a rapid and simple diagnostic tool for CKD.

[Display omitted] • Micro-NIR spectrometer was proposed to identify the paper types. • Four machine learning algorithms were discussed in both Micro-NIR and ATR-FTIR. • The performance of Micro-NIR model was better than ATR-FTIR. Quick identification of paper types for customs is extremely crucial. Although there are a variety of researches focus on the discrimination of paper, these techniques either require complex preprocessing or large-scale instruments, which are not suitable for customs environments. In this study, we predicted the type of customs paper by using a Micro-NIR spectrometer, and compared the results with Attenuated Total Reflection-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Four different classification algorithms, including linear and non-linear classifiers: K-nearest neighbor (KNN), soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA), partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), and least squares-support vector machine (LS-SVM) were employed to classify the type of paper. 20 groups of datasets were selected by Monte Carlo sampling. For Micro-NIR data, the performances of KNN and LS-SVM were outstanding than SIMCA and PLS-DA, with the average accuracies 96.06% and 98.91%, respectively. The outcome of SIMCA and PLS-DA were similar, with the average accuracies 93.00% and 93.97%. Based on the standard derivation, the best stability of models was LS-SVM (1.06%), followed by PLS-DA (1.12%), KNN (1.22%) and SIMCA (3.07%). Compared with ATR-FTIR, the effects of Micro-NIR were better, which were embodies in the better KNN and SIMCA models, and the comparable LS-SVM model. The result demonstrated that the Micro-NIR combined with machine learning algorithms was an effective method to classify the type of customs paper efficiently and quickly, even better than ATR-FTIR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]