Laboratory Workstations Research Articles

Przegląd rozwiązań stanowisk laboratoryjnych stosowanych podczas nauki zdalnej

The paper presents some practical solutions that have been used to convert stationary laboratory workstations (used in the teaching of analog and digital electronics, microcontroller programming and embedded systems) to remote learning. The presented solutions enabled students to work in conditions similar to standard teaching in classroom – using real circuits and measuring instruments. Examples of the laboratory workstations are: stepper motor control, generation of a PWM signal, reading information from switches, using SPI and I2C buses, measuring of dynamic parameters of logic gates, measuring of active filters, measuring of dynamic parameters of a transistor switch. A characteristic feature of the described solutions is the low cost and the possibility of quickly adapting the stationary workstation to remote work (and vice-versa), which was particularly important under the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic in recent years and dynamic changes in the form of teaching method. The presented ideas can be useful for teachers working at technical universities, where the issue of providing practical skills to students is crucial.

Study on the Effect of Helium on the Dielectric Strength of Medium-Voltage Vacuum Interrupters

This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of the dielectric strength of disconnecting vacuum interrupters operating on air and helium. The breakdown voltage Ud was measured in the pressure range from 8.0 × 10−4 Pa to 3.0 × 101 Pa for air and from 8.0 × 10−4 Pa to 7.0 × 102 Pa for helium, while varying the interelectrode distance from 1.0 to 5.0 mm. Dedicated laboratory workstations were used to determine the actual pressure values in the vacuum interrupters tested and to precisely measure and record the dielectric strength results of the test object. It was found that the helium-filled vacuum interrupter maintains its full dielectric strength in significantly larger pressure ranges, while the air-filled vacuum interrupter loses its insulating properties. Thus, it is possible to make vacuum interrupters based on the working medium associated with pure helium, with larger working pressure ratings. Under such conditions, it is easier to maintain the tightness of the device and to limit cut-off currents and overvoltages associated with vacuum switchgear.

Extended diffusion theory: Recovering dynamics from biased/accelerated molecular simulations.

Dynamical properties are of great importance in determining the behavior of synthetic and natural molecules, but capturing them by computational methods is a nontrivial task. Very often the time scales of the relevant phenomena are far beyond the typical time windows accessible by classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, currently limited to the order of microseconds on standard laboratory workstations. On the other hand, biased and accelerated simulations allow for fast and thorough exploration of the molecular conformational space, but they lose the dynamic information. The problem of recovering dynamics from biased/accelerated simulations is a very active field of research, but no totally robust/reliable solutions have been given yet. In this paper it is shown how the Smoluchowski equation, in the framework of Diffusion Theory (DT), can be used to bridge this gap, and dynamical properties, in the form of time correlation functions (TCFs), can be extracted also from such kind of simulations. DT is first extended (EDT) to express the mobility tensors entering the Smoluchowski operator in terms of a recently introduced unified and regularized Rotne-Prager-Yamakawa approximation, [P. J. Zuk, E. Wajnryb, K. A. Mizerski, P. Szymczak, J. Fluid. Mech. 2014, 741, R5, 1-13] also involving mixed rotation-translation contributions, and rotation-rotation terms beside the classical translation-translation ones, so far used in DT. Then, the method is applied to recover the dynamics of a nontrivial example of a peptide in explicit water from the first 200 ns of a Replica Exchange Molecular Dynamics simulation, which is a popular computational method that destroys the long time dynamics. EDT dynamics were found to favorably compare against those coming from a standard MD simulation of the same system, requiring a time window of 30 μs to converge. This result shows that EDT is a tool of practical value to recover the long time dynamics of systems in diffusive regimes from biased/accelerated simulations, to be exploited in those cases when direct evaluation by standard MD is unfeasible.

Somatic Vigilance and Sonic Skills in Experimental Plasma Physics

ABSTRACT In contemporary laboratory workstations, automation promises a technological fix for producing more robust workflows. By insulating the experiment from tacit or embodied knowledge, it is expected to produce more reliable output. This apparent tension between trustworthy disembodied protocols and the unreliable human factor should not, however, be taken at face value. Instrument operators routinely face uncertainties and instrument opacity, and their concerns may be further aggravated when processes are automated. In some contexts, therefore, researchers cultivate such embodied practices precisely to assure themselves of the reliability of automated instruments and protocols. This qualitative study of research practice in a multi-disciplinary research group in physics and materials science shows that researchers complement instrument readings with ‘somatic vigilance’, a set of laboratory practices that emphasize hands-on instrument knowledge, material witnessing and rely on sensory experience to monitor experimental processes. Equating physical and epistemic proximity to an instrument, operators use these techniques to monitor their instruments and to manage their own expectations. Operators’ reliance on auditory information and sonic skills to monitor their instruments and their environment illustrates the value of somatic vigilance on the laboratory’s work-floor. Connecting scholarship in science and technology studies on trust management and embodied practice, somatic vigilance calls attention to the continuous maintenance of both instruments and user expectations as well as the situated and often embodied techniques that are required to manage trust in instruments. More than an unreliable human factor, it suggests that researchers instead, conversely, consider embodied knowledge a way to fix automation.

Instructional laboratory for practical investigation of electric drive control

The study discusses the design principles of instructional laboratory equipment applied for practical investigations of electric drive control. The laboratory workstations comprise of two-motor hardware systems where each motor is controlled by a real-time DSP board. A control structure under test is assembled at the software level using a number of control elements, which is then compiled into a control algorithm for the microcontroller. In order to provide safe test execution, the control algorithm operates under the supervision of a real-time core software ensuring protection of the motors and the power converters. Due to the improvement in the reliability of hardware operation, the rated power of the motors and converters is increased to >1 kW to provide a proper characterisation of electric drives similar to industrial installations. The study also describes the laboratory hardware and software details using an example of the control system for an induction motor based on flux-vector control strategy. The example demonstrates configuring the control systems, compiling it into the execution code, the test procedure and result analysis.

Problems of integration of a manufacturing system with the business area of a company on the example of the Integrated Manufacturing Systems Laboratory

The paper presents issues related to data acquisition and communication between the manufacturing system and the business area of a company, understood as the transmission of real-time information about the status of the production system (the state of equipment, production tasks, workers, the flow of materials, work in progress and products), and, production orders, which is the basis of the Industry 4.0 concept. Data can be acquired from various sensors, PLCs and automatic identification systems, through interfaces (e.g. IO-Link, OPC, MTConnect), providing translation of data between different producer’s equipment and software. The article presents assumptions, concept, interfaces, as well as hardware and software equipment of the Integrated Manufacturing Systems Laboratory, allowing research and teaching of integration of production and business areas. Laboratory workstations equipped with PLCs (3 different producers), sensors (e.g. distance, proximity, colour, position), actuators, HMI panels, hardware interfaces, RFID readers, barcode readers and vision systems, interfacing through OPC, IO-Link or Profinet with SCADA and other IT systems have been presented. An example of systems integration has also been presented.

Decentralized Online Social Network Using Peer-to-Peer Technology

This paper presents a social network with a peer-to-peer architecture that facilitates social computing services in distributed environments. This social network aims to provide users the capability of managing the dissemination of user data, searching user data on the data silos of the network, and consolidating user data from various social networks. The social network employs a super peer peer-to-peer architecture that contains peers and super peers. Users use peers to participate the network and services. Peers with sufficient storage, bandwidth and processing power become super peers that support peers for complex operations such as user authentication or group communication. We have extended the Gnutella protocol to provide the authentication and posting services on the social network. The design of these services copes with the distributed setting of the social network. The evaluation of the prototyping social network has performed on a number of laboratory workstations to investigate its scalability, reliability and performance.

Solid-phase cloning for high-throughput assembly of single and multiple DNA parts

We describe solid-phase cloning (SPC) for high-throughput assembly of expression plasmids. Our method allows PCR products to be put directly into a liquid handler for capture and purification using paramagnetic streptavidin beads and conversion into constructs by subsequent cloning reactions. We present a robust automated protocol for restriction enzyme based SPC and its performance for the cloning of >60 000 unique human gene fragments into expression vectors. In addition, we report on SPC-based single-strand assembly for applications where exact control of the sequence between fragments is needed or where multiple inserts are to be assembled. In this approach, the solid support allows for head-to-tail assembly of DNA fragments based on hybridization and polymerase fill-in. The usefulness of head-to-tail SPC was demonstrated by assembly of >150 constructs with up to four DNA parts at an average success rate above 80%. We report on several applications for SPC and we suggest it to be particularly suitable for high-throughput efforts using laboratory workstations.

Q‐Chem: an engine for innovation

AbstractQ‐Chem is a general‐purpose electronic structure package featuring a variety of established and new methods implemented using innovative algorithms that enable fast calculations of large systems on regular laboratory workstations using density functional and wave‐function‐based approaches. It features an integrated graphical interface and input generator, a large selection of functionals and correlation approaches including methods for electronically excited states and open‐shell systems. In addition to serving the computational chemistry community, Q‐Chem also provides an excellent development platform. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.This article is categorized under: Software > Quantum Chemistry

A Collaborative Approach to Lean Laboratory Workstation Design Reduces Wasted Technologist Travel

Lean methodologies have been applied in many industries to reduce waste. We applied Lean techniques to redesign laboratory workstations with the aim of reducing the number of times employees must leave their workstations to complete their tasks. At baseline in 68 workflows (aggregates or sequence of process steps) studied, 251 (38%) of 664 tasks required workers to walk away from their workstations. After analysis and redesign, only 59 (9%) of the 664 tasks required technologists to leave their workstations to complete these tasks. On average, 3.4 travel events were removed for each workstation. Time studies in a single laboratory section demonstrated that workers spend 8 to 70 seconds in travel each time they step away from the workstation. The redesigned workstations will allow employees to spend less time travelling around the laboratory. Additional benefits include employee training in waste identification, improved overall laboratory layout, and identification of other process improvement opportunities in our laboratory.

Técnicas GPGPU para acelerar el modelado de sistemas ultrasónicos

The development of acoustic field simulation in real time for non destructive ultrasonic evaluation applications would be an useful tool for both the planning and evaluation of inspections in-situ. However, they are algorithms which require high computing power, not due to their complexity but because of the large number of points to be analysed, which limits their use to laboratory workstations for high performance. The parallelization resources currently available in computer systems, such as multicore processors and GPGPU techniques, are a very interesting chance for the development of such applications. This work analyses the parallelization model of both alternatives in order to develop a portable ultrasonic field simulation system for real-time. The changes for both algorithms are described, in order to adapt it to GPGPU philosophy and a estimation of the computational cost of both implementations is given

An Energy Conversion Laboratory Using Industrial-Grade Equipment

Laboratory experiences are an important component of the education of engineering students. Rotating machinery laboratories assist with the visualization of the three-dimensional and rotating equipment. Contemporary use of rotating machines in industry often includes adjustable speed drives and digital controllers. Additionally, instrumentation is used to feedback electrical and mechanical variables to the drives and controls. Using an equipment grant from an industrial automation manufacturer, cost-effective laboratory workstations have been developed. Industrial-grade equipment is not designed for student experimentation but was adapted for this use. The workstations described in this paper incorporate modern power electronic-based drives and motors, electrical and mechanical sensors, and a computer-based control system with data acquisition. The advantages of these workstations include cost-effectiveness and the use of actual industrial devices that students might encounter in industry. Additionally, the workstations can be accessed by remote users, enabling off-campus students to also perform experiments on the workstations. The paper includes details of the workstation and its components, the data acquisition and control system, and sample experimental results.

Peptide Nucleic Acids and Biosensor Technology for Real-Time Detection of the Cystic Fibrosis W1282X Mutation by Surface Plasmon Resonance

In this paper we demonstrate that peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are excellent probes able to detect the W1282X point mutation of the cystic fibrosis (CF) gene when biospecific interaction analysis (BIA) by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and biosensor technologies is performed. The results reported here suggest that BIA is an easy, fast, and automatable approach for detecting mutations of CF, allowing real-time monitoring of hybridization between 9-mer CF PNA probes and target biotinylated PCR products generated from healthy, heterozygous subjects and homozygous W1282X samples and immobilized on streptavidin-coated sensor chips. This method is, to our knowledge, the first application of PNAs, BIA, and SPR to a human hereditary mutation, and demonstrates the feasibility of these approaches for discriminating between normal and mutated target DNA. We like to point out that the procedure described in this paper is rapid and informative; results are obtained within a few minutes. This could be of great interest for molecular pre-implantation diagnosis to discriminate homozygous CF embryos from heterozygous and healthy embryos. Other advantages of the methodology described in the present paper are (a) that it is a nonradioactive methodology and (b) that gel electrophoresis and/or dot-spot analysis are not required. More importantly, the demonstration that SPR-based BIA could be associated with microarray technology allows us to hypothesize that the method described in the present paper could be used for the development of a protocol employing multispotting on SPR biosensors of many CF-PCR products and a real-time simultaneous analysis of hybridization to PNA probes. These results are in line with the concept that SPR could be an integral part of a fully automated diagnostic system based on the use of laboratory workstations, biosensors, and arrayed biosensors for DNA isolation, preparation of PCR reactions, and identification of point mutations.

A fast algorithm for the analysis of radiation and scattering from microstrip arrays on finite substrates

The analysis of radiation and scattering from a multiregion () quasiplanar structure using the conentional method of moments MoM is computationally expensie. To circument this difficulty, a computa- tional scheme that supplements the classical MoM with the steepest descent fast-multipole algorithm is presented in this paper. This proposed methodology is particularly well suited to the analysis of finite microstrip antenna arrays. Q 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 23: 306)310, 1999. . ory costs of a naive approach . The SDFMM achieves its efficiency by casting terms in an MoM matrix)vector product in the form of discrete, inhomogeneous plane-wave expan- sions arising from a representation of the homogeneous medium Green's function in terms of a steepest descent-path integral and a two-dimensional fast-multipole expansion. The presented fast iterative solution permits the analysis of scattering and radiation from large and complex structures within realistic CPU times on laboratory workstations. These structures include large microstrip patch arrays on finite substrates and ground planes modeled using 100,000 or more MoM basis functions.

Biosensor technology and surface plasmon resonance for real-time detection of HIV-1 genomic sequences amplified by polymerase chain reaction

Background: The recent development of biosensor technologies for biospecific interaction analysis enables the monitoring of a variety of molecular reactions in real time by surface plasmon resonance (SPR). If the ligand is a biotinylated single stranded DNA, this technology could monitor DNA-DNA hybridization. This approach could be of great interest in virology, since the hybridization step is oftenly required to confirm specificity of molecular diagnosis. Objectives: To determine whether real-time molecular diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV-1) could be performed using biosensors and SPR technology. Study design: Specific hybridization of a biotinylated HIV-1 oligonucleotide probe immobilized on a sensor chip to single stranded DNA obtained by asymmetric polymerase-chain reaction (PCR) was determined using the BIAcore biosensor. Results: Direct injection of asymmetric PCR to a sensor chip carrying an internal HIV-1 oligonucleotide probe allows detection of hybridization by SPR using biosensor technology. This enabled us to apply a real-time, one-step, non-radioactive protocol to demonstrate the specificity of amplification of HIV-1 genomic sequences by PCR. Conclusion: The procedure described in this study for HIV-1 detection is simple, fast (PCR and SPR analyses take 30 min), reproducible and could be proposed as an integral part of automated diagnostic systems based on the use of laboratory workstations and biosensors for DNA isolation, preparation of PCR reactions and analysis of PCR products.

Clinical Laboratory Engineering in a Multidisciplinary Platform: A Perspective from France

The clinical laboratory is moving from an activity focused on the analysis to an in vitro diagnostic service network. Laboratory analysis is a disassembly process, very different from manufacturing processes which are assembly processes. Specific quality goals must be discussed before adopting robots. As an example, in order to achieve the ultimate quality goals in our laboratory, it was necessary to use automation for sample handling. We developed automation in a new multidisciplinary model at the Institute of Biology of Nantes. Our multidisciplinary laboratory included clinical laboratories, research laboratories, and start-up companies in an open space of 10,000 m2 shared between two floors. Sample transportation is automated from clinical wards to laboratory workstations.

Approaches to automation for high-throughput screening

Automation of high-throughput screening (HTS) assays can occur by one of two approaches. One involves design and implementation of systems employing robot arms for the tasks that comprise an assay. While this approach may offer excellent capacity, it usually takes time and large capital outlays to implement, debug, and maintain. Such systems also require specialists for operation and maintenance. The other approach is more stepwise in nature. It involves acquisition of automated workstations from different vendors and installing them in a concatenated fashion to comprise an assay protocol. This method is a more straightforward approach to establishing a turnkey HTS facility. As the fully automated approach is termed robotic, the stepwise method may be termed hubotic, insofar as it reflects the synergies obtainable by allowing people to provide the work flow between optimized laboratory workstations. Specific examples of these approaches will be described for different aspects of HTS, particularly for running complex cell-based assays. In addition, emerging robotic systems that are capable of ultrahigh-throughput screening capacities and utilize novel design principles will be discussed. We term these ubotic HTS approaches. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Approaches to automation for high‐throughput screening

Automation of high-throughput screening (HTS) assays can occur by one of two approaches. One involves design and implementation of systems employing robot arms for the tasks that comprise an assay. While this approach may offer excellent capacity, it usually takes time and large capital outlays to implement, debug, and maintain. Such systems also require specialists for operation and maintenance. The other approach is more stepwise in nature. It involves acquisition of automated workstations from different vendors and installing them in a concatenated fashion to comprise an assay protocol. This method is a more straightforward approach to establishing a turnkey HTS facility. As the fully automated approach is termed robotic, the stepwise method may be termed hubotic, insofar as it reflects the synergies obtainable by allowing people to provide the work flow between optimized laboratory workstations. Specific examples of these approaches will be described for different aspects of HTS, particularly for running complex cell-based assays. In addition, emerging robotic systems that are capable of ultrahigh-throughput screening capacities and utilize novel design principles will be discussed. We term these ubotic HTS approaches. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Modular Control Laboratory Architecture

The laboratory developed under European Community program TEMPUS Joint European Project JEP-0886 "Higher Education in Control Engineering" is described. The laboratory architecture is based on the hierarchical network of PCs controlling the real world represented by numerous scale models of dynamical systems and processes. Every part of software and hardware of the network of laboratory workstations is regarded as a module which can be removed or updated without influencing the rest of the system. The laboratory runs under modular MATLAB2 software environment in real time. Courses in Process Dynamics and Identification, Classical and Modern Control Theory, Intelligent Control and others are supported by the experiments. The laboratory equipment supports simple demos as well as advanced research projects.

Capillary electrophoresis: detection of hybridization between synthetic oligonucleotides and HIV-1 genomic DNA amplified by polymerase-chain reaction

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of the most efficient techniques for measuring the viral load of HIV-infected samples. Determination of the specificity of PCR products is usually based on Southern blotting and hybridization of the amplified DNA to radioactive oligonucleotide probes specific for sequences comprised between the PCR primers. The recent introduction of capillary electrophoresis (CE) for identification of HIV-1 and HTLV-I PCR products appears interesting in light of its reproducibility, sensitivity and because it is fast and suitable for detection of DNA/DNA and DNA/RNA hybrids. We demonstrate that specific hybridization of a HIV-1 oligonucleotide probe to single-stranded DNA obtained by unbalanced PCR is detectable by capillary electrophoresis. This enabled us the application of a one-step, non-radioactive protocol to demonstrate the specificity of amplification of HIV-1 genomic sequences by PCR. This procedure is simple, reproducible and is suggested as an integral part of automated diagnostic systems based on the use of laboratory work stations for DNA isolation, preparation of PCR reactions and analysis of PCR products.