Reader System Research Articles

CHICK LIT DALAM DUNIA SASTRA INDONESIA

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Chick lit is a kind of literary works aimed at independent single young women is like the slogan printed on the<br />outside front cover. To learn more about chick lit, this study aims to describe the beginning of chick lit in the<br />world of Indonesian literature. This study uses a qualitative description to give an aid for the readers to know<br />what is happening in the environment, under observation, such as what the participants' point of views, events<br />and activities occuring in the setting. Theory referenced in this study is the theory of Seger‟ reception<br />aesthetics , which states that the aesthetic reception views the value of literature as a concept of constant<br />change depending on the system of readers‟ norms . The analysis conducted to describe the history of the<br />emergence of chick lit, the style of the author (authorship), and Indonesian readers‟ response . The<br />conclusion is that novels classified as chick lit written by women and aimed at female readers. Readers of the<br />novels are indeed mostly women, both women of mature aged and those who can be classified as beginner<br />readers.</p><p>Keywords: literature, style of the authors, women, beginner reader</p>

Flexible circuits and materials for large-area UHF RFID reader antenna systems

RF electronics commonly incorporate PCB materials with low loss tangents, which limits its use for large-area applications due to its high cost. This work verifies one alternative solution how non-conventional flexible circuit materials can be used to manufacture large functional surfaces for RF-based applications. Laminated Al foils are used for conducting layers and a flexible foam material is used for substrate. An RFID reader system has been developed to demonstrate the functionality, comprising of eight microstrip antenna elements arranged in a SP4T switching structure covering an area of 1.2 m × 0.6 m. Each antenna element is individually addressable with aid of distributed digital and analogue multiplexer circuitry and it is shown how these components can be soldered directly onto the Al conductors. The constructed system shows good RF performance, both with regards to the materials and to the interconnections with the distributed multiplexer circuitry. It can perform far-field RFID tag reading above its surface without dead zones and the system characterization implies that the concept can be further expanded to cover geometrical areas up to 1000 square meters.

Preclinical characterization of three transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor 1 antagonists for early use in human intradermal microdose analgesic studies.

The transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor 1 (TRPV1) is a nonselective cation channel involved in the mediation of peripheral pain to the central nervous system. As such, the TRPV1 is an accessible molecular target that lends itself well to the understanding of nociceptive signalling. This study encompasses preclinical investigations of three molecules with the prospect to establish them as suitable analgesic model compounds in human intradermal pain relief studies. The inhibitory effectiveness was evaluated by means of invitro assays, TRPV1 expressing Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO-K1) and rat dorsal root ganglion cultures in fluorescent imaging plate reader and whole cell patch clamp systems, as well as invivo by capsaicin-evoked pain-related behavioural response studies in rat. Secondary pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and preclinical safety were also assessed. In vitro, all three compounds were effective at inhibiting capsaicin-activated TRPV1. The concentration producing 50% inhibition (IC50 ) determined was in the range of 3-32nmol/L and 10-501nmol/L using CHO-K1 and dorsal root ganglion cultures, respectively. In vivo, all compounds showed dose-dependent reduction in capsaicin-evoked pain-related behavioural responses in rat. None of the three compounds displayed any significant activity on any of the secondary targets tested. The compounds were also shown to be safe from a toxicological, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic perspective, for usage in microgram doses in the human skin. The investigated model compounds displayed ideal compound characteristics as pharmacological and translational tools to address efficacy on the human native TRPV1 target in human skin insitu. This work details the pharmaceutical work-up of three TRPV1-active investigational compounds, to obtain regulatory approval, for subsequent use in humans. This fast and cost-effective preclinical development path may impact research beyond the pain management area, as it allows human target engagement information gathering early in drug development.

Collision Detection and Signal Recovery for UHF RFID Systems

In this paper, we present a novel high-throughput anti-collision algorithm for passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. Our algorithm utilizes signal recovery techniques of collided tag signals to both recover tag communications and obtain an accurate count of all tags in the field. Passive UHF RFID systems are used for long-range passive communications for applications including supply chain management and electronic tolling. Anti-collision algorithms are used to ensure successful RFID tag communications due to the likelihood of multiple tags being in the field and attempting to communicate simultaneously. The limited on-tag functionality necessitates the use of simple anti-collision algorithms such as a dynamic frame slotted Aloha (DFSA) algorithm. With our novel collision detection and signal recovery anti-collision algorithm, the RFID reader can retrieve multiple valid communications from each collided slot in a DFSA-based anti-collision protocol, while our algorithm allocates an optimal number of slots resulting in more collided but recoverable slots and fewer empty slots. Our algorithm achieves a nearly 100% throughput improvement with an expected throughput of 0.85 compared with an expected throughput of 0.426 for a standard DFSA algorithm. The reader receiver with the proposed algorithm is implemented in a field-programmable gate array and the whole reader system is verified using the communication tests with commercial tags. According to the synthesized results in an SMIC 0.13- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology, the collision detection and signal recovery module consumes about 135k GE. Note to Practitioners —Signal recovery methods are capable of extracting information from collided signals. In this paper, we introduce and analyze a signal recovery method based on the voltage histogram of the received signal. Both the original signals and the number of collided signals are recovered. The information of tags is used by our novel algorithm to increase the system throughput in DFSA-based anti-collision algorithms. The recovered signals allow our algorithm to directly obtain the tag identifier. By determining the number of collided signals, our algorithm is able to calculate an accurate estimate of the total number of tags in the reader’s field. With signal recovery and an accurate tag count, our algorithm is able to reduce the total number of slots needed to identify all tags, thereby increasing the throughput. We present a novel frame length optimization method that increases throughout by shrinking the number of slots, thereby intentionally causing collisions and reducing the total number of empty slots. In addition, we present a hardware implementation of our novel method that is suitable for integration into RFID readers. When the signal strengths of the tags in collision in the in-phase or quadrature path are not close to each other, the performance of our method is much better than that of the traditional method in which the collision signal is treated as ineffective and ignored.

Mastering the Computational Challenges of Elispot Plate Evaluation.

Much has been written about Elispot and how to optimally run the assay for a wide variety of applications. But only a limited number of articles exist addressing the analysis step, the plate evaluation. Comparing that fact with the vast amount of analysis advise available for other single cell immune assay, for example, intracellular cytokine staining, the overall impression may be that Elispot evaluation is just simple enough to not require extensive elaboration and guidance. At first thought this appears reasonable because how difficult can it be counting colored spots on a white background. In addition, automated Elispot readers were already introduced more than 20 years ago (Herr et al., J Immunol Methods 203, 141-152, 1997), easing the strenuous load of manual counting and providing means to decrease the subjectivity in Elispot analysis. Just shortly thereafter however, the first report was published about the subjectivity and operator-dependency of plate evaluation even when using automated reader systems (Janetzki et al., J Immunol Methods 291, 175-183, 2004). Later, the plate evaluation was identified as a main factor causing variability in Elispot results, triggering the inclusion of recommendations on handling of artifacts and the audits of plate reading results in the Initial Elispot Harmonization guidelines (Janetzki et al., Cancer Immunol Immunother 57, 303-315, 2008; Britten et al., Cancer Immunol Immunother 57, 289-302, 2008). In follow-up, a large international study with 75 laboratories was conducted to address the current approaches taken to evaluate Elispot plates and to establish consensus guidelines for plate evaluation (Janetzki et al., Nat Protoc 10, 1098-1115, 2015). This article addresses the special challenges of plate evaluation, gives explanations for unusual observation, and provides overall recommendations on how to work through the labyrinth of available algorithms and reader settings to obtain reliable Elispot data.

A very fast tags polling protocol for single and multiple readers RFID systems, and its applications

In this paper, we present a very fast and simple protocol for polling tags in an RFID system formed by one or more readers, and a multitude of tags. Actually, the protocol is time-optimal for single reader systems, while being very fast for multiple readers systems. The main idea of the protocol described in this paper, is to associate a short and unique number (called “nickname” in the following) to each tag in the reader’s range, and by using such nicknames as the polling order. We first describe the single reader version of the protocol. For this version, the used nicknames are the integers 1,2,…,n if the set of tags to be polled is formed by n tags. They can be seen as the time slot in which a tag has to communicate with the reader. We also provide a procedure to assign a nickname for a new tag, as well as a way to delete a tag from the polling order, while keeping the above consecutivity property about nicknames. When polled, the tags transmit a proper (usually short) message. Polling protocols, sometime with little changes, sometime with no change, can be efficiently used for solving several practical problems related to the use of RFID systems. Some of the most prominent ones, and those considered in this paper, are the problems of exactly determine missing tags, the collection of information associated to the tags, the probabilistic determination of missing tags (useful for raising a warning), and the determination of the presence of cloned tags, again for raising a proper warning. We formally show that the protocol is time-optimal. Besides, the protocol is privacy preserving since tags ID’s are never transmitted during the polling procedure.In the protocol version for large, multireader RFID systems, we take an approach completely different from that used so far for any multireader protocol. Up to now, in the proposed protocols for this and related problems, first readers are scheduled so that those with overlapping ranges never operate at the same time. Then, single reader protocol for each so scheduled reader are applied. Here, we schedule the tags instead of the readers so that tags whose transmission can be received by a common reader, never operate at the same time. Then, we show that our polling protocol for single reader systems can be effectively used along with such a tags scheduling strategy, in multireader systems. The time performance improvement of our protocol over the known ones for multireader systems is very large, going from two to seven times, as shown by a simulation experiment we set up, and whose results are also presented.

Enhancing the Usability of an Optical Reader System to Support Point-of-Care Rapid Diagnostic Testing: An Iterative Design Approach.

BackgroundIn today’s health care environment, increasing costs and inadequate medical resources have created a worldwide need for more affordable diagnostic tools that are also portable, fast, and easy to use. To address this issue, numerous research and commercial efforts have focused on developing rapid diagnostic technologies; however, the efficacy of existing systems has been hindered by usability problems or high production costs, making them infeasible for deployment in at-home, point-of-care (POC), or resource-limited settings.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to create a low-cost optical reader system that integrates with any smart device and accepts any type of rapid diagnostic test strip to provide fast and accurate data collection, sample analysis, and diagnostic result reporting.MethodsAn iterative design methodology was employed by a multidisciplinary research team to engineer three versions of a portable diagnostic testing device that were evaluated for usability and overall user receptivity.ResultsRepeated design critiques and usability studies identified a number of system requirements and considerations (eg, software compatibility, biomatter contamination, and physical footprint) that we worked to incrementally incorporate into successive system variants. Our final design phase culminated in the development of Tidbit, a reader that is compatible with any Wi-Fi-enabled device and test strip format. The Tidbit includes various features that support intuitive operation, including a straightforward test strip insertion point, external indicator lights, concealed electronic components, and an asymmetric shape, which inherently signals correct device orientation. Usability testing of the Tidbit indicates high usability for potential user communities.ConclusionsThis study presents the design process, specification, and user reception of the Tidbit, an inexpensive, easy-to-use, portable optical reader for fast, accurate quantification of rapid diagnostic test results. Usability testing suggests that the reader is usable among and can benefit a wide group of potential users, including in POC contexts. Generally, the methodology of this study demonstrates the importance of testing these types of systems with potential users and exemplifies how iterative design processes can be employed by multidisciplinary research teams to produce compelling technological solutions.

Combination of the Endogenous lhcsr1 Promoter and Codon Usage Optimization Boosts Protein Expression in the Moss Physcomitrella patens.

The moss Physcomitrella patens is used both as an evo-devo model and biotechnological production system for metabolites and pharmaceuticals. Strong in vivo expression of genes of interest is important for production of recombinant proteins, e.g., selectable markers, fluorescent proteins, or enzymes. In this regard, the choice of the promoter sequence as well as codon usage optimization are two important inside factors to consider in order to obtain optimum protein accumulation level. To reliably quantify fluorescence, we transfected protoplasts with promoter:GFP fusion constructs and measured fluorescence intensity of living protoplasts in a plate reader system. We used the red fluorescent protein mCherry under 2x 35S promoter control as second reporter to normalize for different transfection efficiencies. We derived a novel endogenous promoter and compared deletion variants with exogenous promoters. We used different codon-adapted green fluorescent protein (GFP) genes to evaluate the influence of promoter choice and codon optimization on protein accumulation in P. patens, and show that the promoter of the gene of P. patens chlorophyll a/b binding protein lhcsr1 drives expression of GFP in protoplasts significantly (more than twofold) better than the commonly used 2x 35S promoter or the rice actin1 promoter. We identified a shortened 677 bp version of the lhcsr1 promoter that retains full activity in protoplasts. The codon optimized GFP yields significantly (more than twofold) stronger fluorescence signals and thus demonstrates that adjusting codon usage in P. patens can increase expression strength. In combination, new promotor and codon optimized GFP conveyed sixfold increased fluorescence signal.

Detection of Adulterated Diesel Using Fluorescent Test Strips and Smartphone Readout

The fluorescence properties of three molecular rotors, related to 4-dimethylamino-4-nitrostilbene (4-DNS), are studied versus different diesel/kerosene blends. In nonviscous solvents, these compounds can populate a twisted intramolecular charge transfer state which deactivates nonradiatively, successfully suppressing fluorescence emission. Solution experiments with diesel/kerosene blends showed a good linear correlation between the fluorescence intensity of the probe molecules and the diesel fraction of the blend. The dyes have been immobilized on paper, retaining their fluorescence behavior, i.e., negligible emission in the presence of nonviscous organic solvents and increasing fluorescence when the environment is increasingly viscous. When the impregnated paper is devised as a test strip, the latter is compatible with a newly designed smartphone reader system, which allows in-the-field measurements. The method can safely detect the presence of kerosene in diesel at ≥7%, which competes favorably with cur...

Correlation of cholinergic drug induced quenching of acetylcholinesterase bound thioflavin-T fluorescence with their inhibition activity

The development of new acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) and subsequent assay of their inhibition efficiency is considered to be a key step for AD treatment. The fluorescence intensity of thioflavin-T (ThT) bound in the active site of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) quenches substantially in presence of standard AChEI drugs due to the dynamic replacement of the fluorophore from the AChE active site as confirmed from steady state emission as well as time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy measurement and molecular dynamics simulation in conjunction with docking calculation. The parametrized % quenching data for individual system shows excellent correlation with enzyme inhibition activity measured independently by standard Ellman AChE assay method in a high throughput plate reader system. The results are encouraging towards design of a fluorescence intensity based AChE inhibition assay method and may provide a better toolset to rapidly evaluate as well as develop newer AChE-inhibitors for AD treatment.

Automated low-contrast pattern recognition algorithm for magnetic resonance image quality assessment.

Low contrast (LC) detectability is a common test criterion for diagnostic radiologic quality control (QC) programs. Automation of this test is desirable in order to reduce human variability and to speed up analysis. However, automation is challenging due to the complexity of the human visual perception system and the ability to create algorithms that mimic this response. This paper describes the development and testing of an automated LC detection algorithm for use in the analysis of magnetic resonance (MR) images of the American College of Radiology (ACR) QC phantom. The detection algorithm includes fuzzy logic decision processes and various edge detection methods to quantify LC detectability. Algorithm performance was first evaluated using a single LC phantom MR image with the addition of incremental zero mean Gaussian noise resulting in a total of 200 images. A c-statistic was calculated to determine the role of CNR to indicate when the algorithm would detect ten spokes. To evaluate inter-rater agreement between experienced observers and the algorithm, a blinded observer study was performed on 196 LC phantom images acquired from nine clinical MR scanners. The nine scanners included two MR manufacturers and two field strengths (1.5 T, 3.0 T). Inter-rater and algorithm-rater agreement was quantified using Krippendorff's alpha. For the Gaussian noise added data, CNR ranged from 0.519 to 11.7 with CNR being considered an excellent discriminator of algorithm performance (c-statistic = 0.9777). Reviewer scoring of the clinical phantom data resulted in an inter-rater agreement of 0.673 with the agreement between observers and algorithm equal to 0.652, both of which indicate significant agreement. This study demonstrates that the detection of LC test patterns for MR imaging QC programs can be successfully developed and that their response can model the human visual detection system of expert MR QC readers.

Assistive lesion-emphasis system: an assistive system for fundus image readers.

Computer-assisted diagnostic (CAD) tools are of interest as they enable efficient decision-making in clinics and the screening of diseases. The traditional approach to CAD algorithm design focuses on the automated detection of abnormalities independent of the end-user, who can be an image reader or an expert. We propose a reader-centric system design wherein a reader's attention is drawn to abnormal regions in a least-obtrusive yet effective manner, using saliency-based emphasis of abnormalities and without altering the appearance of the background tissues. We present an assistive lesion-emphasis system (ALES) based on the above idea, for fundus image-based diabetic retinopathy diagnosis. Lesion-saliency is learnt using a convolutional neural network (CNN), inspired by the saliency model of Itti and Koch. The CNN is used to fine-tune standard low-level filters and learn high-level filters for deriving a lesion-saliency map, which is then used to perform lesion-emphasis via a spatially variant version of gamma correction. The proposed system has been evaluated on public datasets and benchmarked against other saliency models. It was found to outperform other saliency models by 6% to 30% and boost the contrast-to-noise ratio of lesions by more than 30%. Results of a perceptual study also underscore the effectiveness and, hence, the potential of ALES as an assistive tool for readers.

Development of driving cycles for passenger cars and motorcycles in Chennai, India

Road transport is a significant contributor of pollutant emissions in the cities of developing countries. Driving cycles are required for the estimation of fuel consumption and exhaust emissions from vehicles for emission testing and certification, with many cities having unique cycles for different types of vehicles and roads. However, no driving cycle has been developed for passenger cars and motorcycles in Chennai, India. Thus, the aim of the present study was to develop representative driving cycles for passenger cars and motorcycles which reflect the real-world driving conditions in Chennai, India. On-board diagnostic (OBD) reader and Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers were used to collect second-by-second vehicle speed from a representative set of vehicles for developing the driving cycles. Eleven assessment measures were used in the construction of the driving cycles from the micro-trips. The developed cycles for motorcycles and passenger cars were of 1448 and 1065s (peak-hour), which were further compared with existing driving cycles. Significant differences were observed between the cycles, thus highlighting the need for city-specific cycles.

Detection of sub micro Gray dose levels using OSL phosphor LiMgPO4:Tb,B

Detection of sub micro Gray doses finds application in personnel and environmental monitoring, and nuclear forensics. Recently developed LiMgPO4:Tb,B (LMP) is highly sensitive Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) phosphor with excellent dosimetric properties. The OSL emission spectrum of LMP consists of several peaks attributed to characteristic Tb3+ emission. The OSL emission peak at 380nm is favorable for bi-alkali PMT used in RISO reader system. It is demonstrated that significant improvement in dose detection threshold can be realized for LMP by optimization of continuous wave (CW–) OSL parameters like stimulation intensity and readout time. The minimum measurable dose (MMD) as low as 0.49µGy in readout time of less than 1s at stimulation intensity of 32mW/cm2 has been achieved using this phosphor. The recommendations for choice of parameters for personnel and environmental monitoring are also discussed.

Practical Tips for Cellular Quantification and Imaging Using Thermo Scientific Varioskan LUX Multimode Reader and Invitrogen EVOS FL Auto Cell Imaging System

Practical Tips for Cellular Quantification and Imaging Using Thermo Scientific Varioskan LUX Multimode Reader and Invitrogen EVOS FL Auto Cell Imaging System

Proper Electronic Order Linkage of Electrocardiograms at a Large Children's Hospital Improves Reporting and Revenue

Electrocardiograms (ECGs) are performed to determine an individual's cardiac rhythm. Approximately 25,000 ECGs are performed yearly throughout our hospital system. Historically only 68% of all ECGs were performed with the...

Dual-Band RFID Antenna for 0.92 GHz Near-Field and 2.45 GHz Far-Field Applications

A novel antenna used in the near field of a 0.92 GHz and the far field of a 2.45 GHz RFID reader system is investigated. The new antenna achieves strong magnetic field distribution over 0.92 GHz with good performance of detecting tags when applied in FCC RFID systems, as well as a good performance of circular polarization at 2.45 GHz. Furthermore, the investigation shows the operation principle by circuit models and the advantages of the structure in terms of the operation frequency and field performances. The advantages of these two bands could be achieved by this novel RFID reader antenna.

Identification of Salmonella H antigens by xTAG technology

Objective To develop a microsphere-based suspension array for simultaneous detection and identification of Salmonella H antigens by using Luminex xTAG technology and to evaluate its capability in serotyping Salmonella strains. Methods The fliC and fljB genes, encoding the H antigen of Salmonella, were selected as the target genes. Universal upstream primers were designed based on the highly conserved regions of fliC and fljB genes, and the corresponding specific reverse primers were designed based on the variable regions. While synthesizing, the 5′ end of each upstream primer was labeled with biotin and the 5′ end of each specific reverse primer was modified with its certain TAG sequence. After amplified and labeled with biotin and TAG sequence, the PCR products of specimens were hybridized with the mixture of various MagPlex-xTAG™ microspheres. Each set of microspheres contained its unique anti-TAG sequences. The results of hybridization were analyzed by using Luminex MagPix reader system and the median fluorescence intensity (MFI) was reported. The H antigens of 145 Salmonella strains were identified with this developed xTAG suspension array, and the results were compared with those obtained by using traditional serum agglutination test. Results The PCR products of different H antigens ranged from 94 bp to 245 bp and could be identified by hybridizing with MagPlex-xTAG™ microspheres. There was no cross-reaction between different H antigens or with DNAs derived from Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Shigella flexneri. Compared with the traditional serum agglutination test, the sensitivity and specificity of the xTAG suspension array in the identification of H antigens of 145 Salmonella strains were 95.1% and 100%, respectively. Conclusion The developed xTAG suspension array was a specific, accurate and effective method for simultaneous detection and identification of 31 H antigens of common Salmonella serovars strains. It could be used for determining the H antigens of more than 90 Salmonella strains within 5 hours. Key words: Salmonella; H antigen; xTAG technology

Computational face reader based on facial attribute estimation

Chinese face reading has demonstrated the often satisfying capabilities to tell the characteristics (mostly exaggerated as fortune) of a person by reading his/her face, i.e. understanding the fine-grained facial attributes (e.g., length of nose, single/double-fold eyelid, density of eyebrows, etc.). Thus, a smart face reading system should estimate the fine-grained facial attributes well. Therefore, In this paper, we first study the fine-grained facial attribute estimation problem and propose a novel deep convolutional network equipped with a new facial region pooling layer (called FRP-net), to accurately estimate the fine-grained facial attributes. To capture the characteristics of fine-grained facial attributes, the embedded FRP layer implements the pooling operation on the searched facial region windows (locates the region of each facial attribute) instead of the commonly-used sliding windows. Further, we push the proposed fine-grained facial attribute estimation method into the face reading problem and present a computational face reader system to automatically infer the characteristics of a person based on his/her face. For example, it can estimate the attractive and easy-going characteristics of a Chinese person from his/her big eyes according to the Chinese anthroposcopy literature. The experimental results on facial attribute estimation demonstrate the superiority of the proposed FRP-net compared to the baselines, and the qualitative and quantitative evaluations on face reading validate the excellence of the presented face reader system.

Design of Smart Switched-beam RFID Reader Based on DSP

The reader system of the UHF RFID is based on AS3992. And its read-distance is about 20m. The hardware’s design and software’s programming are introduced in detail. The design of the hardware is composed of the MCU (TMS320C5509A) circuit, the RF front-end circuit, the power divider and the phase shifter circuit. The programming of the software contains the ISO/IEC18000-6C protocol, the smart switched-beam algorithm, the power control algorithm, and the communication between the microcontroller and the PC through UART. The experimental results show that the reader has many features such as fast recognition speed, long read-distance, large coverage, anti-interference. The system can operate stably, so it has good application prospect.