Translation Stage Research Articles

Polyhydroxyalkanoates: the natural biopolyester for future medical innovations.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of natural microbial biopolyesters with the same basic chemical structure and diverse side chain groups. Based on their excellent biodegradability, biocompatibility, thermoplastic properties and diversity, PHAs are highly promising medical biomaterials and elements of medical devices for applications in tissue engineering and drug delivery. However, due to the high cost of biotechnological production, most PHAs have yet to be applied in the clinic and have only been studied at laboratory scale. This review focuses on the biosynthesis, diversity, physical properties, biodegradability and biosafety of PHAs. We also discuss optimization strategies for improved microbial production of commercial PHAs via novel synthetic biology tools. Moreover, we also systematically summarize various medical devices based on PHAs and related design approaches for medical applications, including tissue repair and drug delivery. The main degradation product of PHAs, 3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB), is recognized as a new functional molecule for cancer therapy and immune regulation. Although PHAs still account for only a small percentage of medical polymers, up-and-coming novel medical PHA devices will enter the clinical translation stage in the next few years.

Adjuvant physiochemistry and advanced nanotechnology for vaccine development.

Vaccines comprising innovative adjuvants are rapidly reaching advanced translational stages, such as the authorized nanotechnology adjuvants in mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 worldwide, offering new strategies to effectively combat diseases threatening human health. Adjuvants are vital ingredients in vaccines, which can augment the degree, extensiveness, and longevity of antigen specific immune response. The advances in the modulation of physicochemical properties of nanoplatforms elevate the capability of adjuvants in initiating the innate immune system and adaptive immunity, offering immense potential for developing vaccines against hard-to-target infectious diseases and cancer. In this review, we provide an essential introduction of the basic principles of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccination, key roles of adjuvants in augmenting and shaping immunity to achieve desired outcomes and effectiveness, and the physiochemical properties and action mechanisms of clinically approved adjuvants for humans. We particularly focus on the preclinical and clinical progress of highly immunogenic emerging nanotechnology adjuvants formulated in vaccines for cancer treatment or infectious disease prevention. We deliberate on how the immune system can sense and respond to the physicochemical cues (e.g., chirality, deformability, solubility, topology, and chemical structures) of nanotechnology adjuvants incorporated in the vaccines. Finally, we propose possible strategies to accelerate the clinical implementation of nanotechnology adjuvanted vaccines, such as in-depth elucidation of nano-immuno interactions, antigen identification and optimization by the deployment of high-dimensional multiomics analysis approaches, encouraging close collaborations among scientists from different scientific disciplines and aggressive exploration of novel nanotechnologies.

3D Visualisation of Navigation Catheters for Endovascular Procedures Using a 3D Hub and Fiber Optic RealShape Technology: Phantom Study Results

Fiber Optic RealShape (FORS) is a new technology that visualises the full three dimensional (3D) shape of guidewires using an optical fibre embedded in the device. Co-registering FORS guidewires with anatomical images, such as a digital subtraction angiography (DSA), provides anatomical context for navigating these devices during endovascular procedures. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility and usability of visualising compatible conventional navigation catheters, together with the FORS guidewire, in phantom with a new 3D Hub technology and to understand potential clinical benefits. The accuracy of localising the 3D Hub and catheter in relation to the FORS guidewire, was evaluated using a translation stage test setup and a retrospective analysis of prior clinical data. Catheter visualisation accuracy and navigation success was assessed in a phantom study where 15 interventionists navigated devices to three pre-defined targets in an abdominal aortic phantom using an Xray or computed tomography angiography (CTA) roadmap. Additionally, the interventionists were surveyed about the usability and potential benefits of the 3D Hub. The location of the 3D Hub and catheter along the FORS guidewire was detected correctly 96.59% of the time. During the phantom study, all 15 interventionists successfully reached the target locations 100% of the time and the error in catheter visualisation was 0.69 mm. The interventionists agreed or strongly agreed that the 3D Hub was easy to use and the greatest potential clinical benefit over FORS is in offering interventionists choice over which catheter they used. This set of studies has shown that FORS guided catheter visualisation, enabled by a 3D Hub, is accurate and easy to use in a phantom setting. Further evaluation is needed to understand the benefits and limitations of the 3D Hub technology during endovascular procedures.

The Next Generation Heterodyne Laser Interferometer in Joule Balance

In the joule balance, it is important to measure the relative displacement between the exciting magnet and the suspended coil. So we have designed and applied a compact dual-axis heterodyne interferometer, which is vacuum compatible, and have been carefully aligned for dual parallel measurement arms. However, with the wear of the linear translation stage and the coupling of 3-axis relative displacement locking, the periodic nonlinearity error may drift during the displacement measurement of joule balance, and so the performance of the existing laser interferometer system is not so stable. In order to solve this problem, in this paper, we have designed and employed a new heterodyne interferometer based on spatially separated beams (SPB) to restrain the periodic nonlinearity error caused by the double-frequency mixing. As to this SPB heterodyne interferometer, the input and output (I/O) beams can share the same optical space, which will contribute a lot to a compact structure in the joule balance. Meanwhile, the spatial attitude of interferometer is precisely controlled to restrain the error caused by ghost reflections. The experimental result shows the validation of this SPB heterodyne interferometer for the displacement measurement in the joule balance.

A flexible lateral chromatic aberration correction method for a color-encoded fringe projection system

A flexible correction method is proposed for improving the performance of a color-encoded fringe projection system which suffers from lateral chromatic aberration (LCA) effects. The method uses a white plate with discrete markers and orthogonal fringe patterns projected on its surface to establish the relationships between depth information and pixel deviations among three color channels, and then corrects color-encoded fringe patterns affected by LCA with the acquired relationship for three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction. Compared with the methods that use a translation stage to accurately locate the plate to several parallel positions, the proposed method is flexible because the plate can be placed at arbitrary positions and directions in the measuring volume without an extra translation stage. Two experiments, including 3D shape measurement of a white plate and 3D shape measurement of a regular spherical object are carried out to verify the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method.

Dynamic Rotational Sensor Using Polymer Optical Fiber for Robot Movement Assessment Based on Intensity Variation

A complex signal processing technique is usually required to process the data in most sensor design structures, and integration into real applications is also challenging. This work presents a dynamic rotational sensor using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) fiber for robot movement assessment. The sensor design structure is based on the coupling of light intensity, in which two PMMA fibers are twisted together. Both fibers are bent after twisting and attached on the linear translation stage, which is further attached to the robot. The variation in bending radius causes the bending loss, and that loss is coupled in the second fiber. The change in the macro-bend radius corresponds to the rotation of the robot. Experimental results indicate that the sensor can operate in full rotational cycle (i.e., 0°-360°) as well as for clock and anti-clockwise rotation. Moreover, different rotational speeds (2°/s, 3°/s, 5°/s, and 10°/s) were carried out. The hysteresis loss of the sensor was about 0.77% and the sensitivity was 8.69 nW/°. The presented dynamic rotational sensor is cost-effective and easily integrated into the robot structure to analyze the robot's circular motion.

County-level jail incarceration, community economic distress, rurality, and preterm birth among women in the US South.

The USA has higher rates of preterm birth and incarceration than any other developed nation, with rates of both being highest in Southern states and among Black Americans, potentially due to rurality and socioeconomic factors. To test our hypothesis that prior-year county-level rates of jail admission, economic distress, and rurality were positively associated with premature birth rates in the county of delivery in 2019 and that the strength of these associations is greater for Black women than for White or Hispanic women, we merged five datasets to perform multivariable analysis of data from 766 counties across 12 Southern/rural states. We used multivariable linear regression to model the percentage of babies born premature, stratified by Black (Model 1), Hispanic (Model 2), and White (Model 3) mothers. Each model included all three independent variables of interest measured using data from the Vera Institute, Distressed Communities Index, and Index of Relative Rurality. In fully fitted stratified models, economic distress was positively associated with premature births among Black (F = 33.81, p < 0.0001) and White (F = 26.50, p < 0.0001) mothers. Rurality was associated with premature births among White mothers (F = 20.02, p < 0.0001). Jail admission rate was not associated with premature births among any racial group, and none of the study variables were associated with premature births among Hispanic mothers. Understanding the connections between preterm birth and enduring structural inequities is a necessary scientific endeavor to advance to later translational stages in health-disparities research.

Extrinsic calibration method for 3D scanning system with four coplanar laser profilers

3D scanning is a crucial step to ensuring the machining quality of the workpiece and is an essential part of intelligent manufacturing. However, existing scanning systems usually have only one profiler, which must be combined with a dynamic tracking system to achieve a complete scan of a workpiece. This scanning method has low efficiency and complicated path planning for ring-shaped workpieces. Therefore, in this article, an efficient and high-accuracy 3D scanning system composed of a linear translation stage and four uniformly distributed laser profilers is built, and its extrinsic calibration method is studied. At first, based on the working parameters and spatial layout of multiple profilers, a stereoscopic calibrator composed of three non-collinear target balls (TBs) is designed. Then, a multi-profiler data fusion method is proposed, which utilizes a linear encoder to trigger the four profilers synchronously. Finally, by simultaneously using all data from the multiple profilers and the spherical constraint of each TB, all extrinsic parameters are accurately calibrated at the same time. Experimental results show that the average probing size error of the TB with a 38.1 mm diameter is stable at about 0.007 mm, and its extended uncertainty is about 0.100 mm (k = 2). In addition, standard cylinders and bend tubes are scanned. The results show that the proposed method can meet the high-accuracy calibration requirements of the tube-bending deformation detection system.

The Translation Stage in LSP Lexicography: A Mixed Translation Model for LSP Bilingual Dictionary Terms

Abstract This paper focuses on the translation stage in LSP bilingual lexicography, where the condition of equivalence lies in the terminological/conceptual identity of the terms used in different linguistic systems. To this end, case study research was done on the corpus of the English-Serbian Dictionary of Waste Management. Seeking to provide a more extensive picture of the rendition of specialized terms, the authors propose a systematic translation framework by combining traditional Translation Theory with the modern Function Theory of Lexicography. Therefore, the LSP dictionary counterparts were analyzed from the perspectives of both theories, using a mixed translation model for both single and compound words. This paper aims to resolve the question of why the translation of the specialized dictionary terms produced the result it had, the explanation of which might help compile modern LSP bilingual dictionaries from English into Serbian, or into other languages of South-East Slavic origin.

Analytical interpretation of microscale fiber deviation in designing for polymer melt electrohydrodynamic-based additive manufacturing

Aided by translational material collection, melt electrowriting is an additive electrohydrodynamic-based materials processing technique capable of fabricating fibrous 3D structured materials with customizable microscale architectures suitable for spatially defined tissue models. An inherent phenomenon of the melt electrowriting process is the characteristic jet lag, which results in spatial differences between the nozzle position ( np ) and the jet contact point ( cp ). Moreover, cp does not deterministically follow the np trajectory when the movement of np relative to the collector is directionally altered. Instead, fiber deviation related to the toolpath deteriorates the printing accuracy and is ubiquitous for curly fiber printing. In order to address this bottleneck, an analytical construct informed by fiber placement prediction and control is advanced. Specifically, by way of vector analysis and differential geometry, the position and speed relationships between np and cp are found to be governed by position- and speed-matching equations. Representations of these equations can be elaborated into the specific cases of straight and steady curly fiber printing, which are investigated and verified herein. Finally, the real-time identification of cp as well as dynamic control of translational stage speed are identified as critical steps towards reliable implementation of the toolpath design in curly fiber printing.

Next-Generation Infrared Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Electrospray Ionization Source for Mass Spectrometry Imaging and High-Throughput Screening.

Infrared matrix-assisted laser desorption electrospray ionization (IR-MALDESI) is a hybrid, ambient ionization source that combines the advantages of electrospray ionization and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization, making it a versatile tool for both high-throughput screening (HTS) and mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) studies. To expand the capabilities of the IR-MALDESI source, an entirely new architecture was designed to overcome the key limitations of the previous source. This next-generation (NextGen) IR-MALDESI source features a vertically mounted IR-laser, a planar translation stage with computerized sample height control, an aluminum enclosure, and a novel mass spectrometer interface plate. The NextGen IR-MALDESI source has improved user-friendliness, improved overall versatility, and can be coupled to numerous Orbitrap mass spectrometers to accommodate more research laboratories. In this work, we highlight the benefits of the NextGen IR-MALDESI source as an improved platform for MSI and direct analysis. We also optimize the NextGen MALDESI source component geometries to increase target ion abundances over a wide m/z range. Finally, documentation is provided for each NextGen IR-MALDESI part so that it can be replicated and incorporated into any lab space.

Development of a Dual-Modality Gamma-ray/Fast Neutron Imaging System for Air Cargo Inspection

High-energy radiation sources have provided a strong security inspection capability using a non-invasive imaging system. The use of multiple radiation sources in one imaging system can also lead to a more powerful system that can classify various materials compared to using a single radiation source. The Advanced Radiation Technology Institute of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has developed an air cargo inspection system using multiple radiation sources such as fast neutrons and gamma-rays to classify the plastics, metals, and organics among various sample materials. The fast neutron beam with an energy of 14.1 MeV, generated using the D-T neutron generator, and the gamma-ray beam with an energy of 6 MeV, generated by an electron linear accelerator, are projected onto the vertically aligned scintillator-based radiation detectors. The neutron and gamma-ray images of a cargo container moved by a motorized linear translation stage are acquired, and the image data processing shows good material classification results. In this paper, we describe a multi-radiation imaging system for air cargo inspection and investigate its material classification capability using various sample materials.

Microbiome engineering: engineered live biotherapeutic products for treating human disease.

The human microbiota is implicated in many disease states, including neurological disorders, cancer, and inflammatory diseases. This potentially huge impact on human health has prompted the development of microbiome engineering methods, which attempt to adapt the composition and function of the human host-microbiota system for a therapeutic purpose. One promising method is the use of engineered microorganisms that have been modified to perform a therapeutic function. The majority of these products have only been demonstrated in laboratory models; however, in recent years more concepts have reached the translational stage. This has led to an increase in the number of clinical trials, which are designed to assess the safety and efficacy of these treatments in humans. Within this review, we highlight the progress of some of these microbiome engineering clinical studies, with a focus on engineered live biotherapeutic products.

Creatinine-Detecting Laser Diode-Induced Fluorescence Detection System

Under highly alkaline conditions, creatinine reacts with 3.5-dinitrobenzoic acid (DNB) to produce a product that can absorb ultraviolet light at a wavelength of 400 nm and emit fluorescence at a wavelength of 491 nm. Thus, creatinine concentration can be calculated using fluorescence intensity. A novel fluorescence-based bioassay for rat creatinine that is capable of rapid detection at a low cost was developed in this study. A fluorescence sensing system was established using a micro-spectrometer, a 3-D translation stage, and a laser diode (LD) to measure various concentrations of serum creatinine. The measurable range was 12.5– <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$300 ~\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> mol/L ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${R}^{2} $ </tex-math></inline-formula> = 0.996), and the limit of detection (LOD) was <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5 ~\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> mol/L. The intraday precision and accuracy ranges were 7.33%–10.11% and 81.82%–99.75%, respectively, while the interday precision and accuracy ranges were 3.08%–9.39% and 86.75%–87.85%, respectively. Additionally, the test results for rat serum were compared with those from the National Laboratory Animal Center of National Applied Research Laboratories in Taiwan, and the correlation coefficient was determined to be 0.80.

Compact, low-cost Blu-Ray pickup-based digital holographic microscope

The concept of point-of-care testing is an active area of research. The trend nowadays is to develop cost-effective yet efficient units that can be used at home by non-professionals. Digital holography is an optical technique of great interest as it provides quantitative phase images from a single recorded image. However, the available setups either employ the in-line lensless configuration (which involve an iterative phase recovery process) or the complex, bulky and expensive classical Mach-Zehnder configuration. Self-referencing digital holographic systems are ideal as only few components are needed. Blu-Ray pickup heads contain a high quality objective lens and a laser diode which have been used in the past in optical microscopy. However, it has been rarely uses in digital holography. In this paper, we present for the first time a low-cost self-referencing digital holography microscope in a transmission configuration using a Blu-Ray pickup coupled with a Raspberry-Pi computer, making the whole setup very compact. A low-cost 2D motorized translation stage is developed using the mechanical components found in the Blu-Ray drive. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) written in Python allows the user to control the hardware components and to reconstruct the holograms from which continuous phase images are extracted. The interferometer is successfully tested on microspheres and red blood cells after estimating the magnification of the microscope using a USAF target.

Moiré artifacts reduction in Talbot-Lau X-ray phase contrast imaging using a three-step iterative approach.

Talbot-Lau X-ray phase contrast imaging is a promising technique in biological imaging since it can provide absorption, differential phase contrast, and dark-field images simultaneously. However, high accuracy motorized translation stages and high stability of the imaging system are needed to avoid moiré artifacts in the reconstructed images. In this work, the effects of the stepping errors and the dose fluctuations on the transmission, differential phase contrast, and dark-field images are theoretically derived and systematically summarized. A novel three-step iterative method is designed for image reconstruction in Talbot-Lau interferometry with phase-stepping errors and dose fluctuations. Phase distributions, phase-stepping errors, and dose fluctuation coefficients are iteratively updated via the least square method until the convergence criteria are met. Moiré artifacts are mostly reduced via the proposed method in both the numerical simulations and experiments. The reconstructed images are highly coincident with the ground truth, which verifies the high accuracy of this method. The proposed algorithm is also compared with other moiré artifacts reduction algorithms, which further demonstrates the high precision of this algorithm. This work is beneficial for reducing the strict requirements for the hardware system in the conventional Talbot-Lau interferometry, such as the high accuracy motorized stages and the X-ray tube with high stability, which is significant for advancing the X-ray phase contrast imaging towards the practical medical applications.

Three Stage Drawing Transfer

This project creates a visual-mental-physical circuit between a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), a co-robotic arm, and a five-year-old child. From training images to the latent space of a GAN, through pen on paper to a live human collaborator, it establishes a series of translational stages between humans and non-humans played out through the medium of drawing. Trained on a subset of the Rhoda Kellogg Child Art Collection, the neural network at the center of this piece learns its own representations of these images. The generated results, synthetic children's drawings, are of interest both for being outside of adult conventions and learned expression-like Dubuffet's art brut or Surrealist automatism-and for how they align machine learning with the human act of learning to draw. The project layers many kinds of agency and embodiment: from the thousands of anonymous children who produced the original artwork used as training data, through the co-robot drawing from GAN-generated imagery, to the human child's active perception and graphic response to the robot. These questions of where we search for the other; when we attribute autonomy and intelligence; and why we might wish to escape our human subjectivities speak to core issues in the design and use of AI systems. This project is one attempt to think through those questions in an embodied way.

Design and implementation of a versatile magnetic field mapper for 3D volumes

Magnetic field mapping is an essential step in research, manufacturing, and maintenance. It helps one find out what’s under the surface of any object and identify areas of high-flux density. Our magnetic field mapper is easy-to-use and has a user-friendly interface. It comprises a triple axis Hall effect-based magnetometer, meaning that it can measure the strength of magnetic fields in 3D. It is made up of three Hall sensors which are mounted on a triple-slot sensor probe which in turn is attached to translation stages allowing motion in three dimensions. The translation in X and Y motion (independent) is from -50 to +50 mm while in Z is from -150 to +150 mm with a nominal resolution of 0.1 mm. The height of the magnetometer is 1000 mm and it’s originally designed for mapping the magnetic field of permanent magnet assemblies for low-field and mobile magnetic resonance scanners. Sometimes, you need to find out how strong the magnetic field in a particular region is or you may want to measure all the three components of the magnetic flux density to find out the homogeneity or isotropy of the field. In high resonant NMR spectroscopy, the magnetic field needs to be highly uniform and homogeneous and to assess such a field, we need a device which can measure the magnetic field, precisely, accurately and reproducibly. The proposed field mapper is useful in all of these situations. It is low cost and easy to manufacture. The maximum measurable magnetic field is ±2 T. Furthermore, all the material required for building this device is easily accessible.

Induction-Coil Measurement System for Normal- and Superconducting Solenoids

The magnetic measurement of solenoids relies on different methods to characterize the field quality and locate the magnetic axis. Usually, Hall mappers and stretched-wire systems are used for these tasks. This paper presents an alternative, fluxmetric method to measure the radial field dependence and the magnetic axis with a single instrument. The solenoidal-field transducer is based on a disc-shaped induction-coil array with concentric coils and 90 deg. arc segments mounted on a translation stage. This allows to sample the magnet along its axis and to extract both the longitudinal and transversal field components. The design, development, and validation of the new instrument are described. The induction coil, which is the core of this instrument, is fabricated in printed-circuit board technology, which has become the new standard for these applications. Results of recent measurements of a normal-conducting solenoid magnet are given.

Adaptation of the Indonesian quality of life-5 questionnaire

The QoL5 questionnaire is five items self-report to measure the quality of life, based on the integrated quality of life (IQOL) theory by S. Ventegodt. The validation test aims to determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. The translation and adaptation stages are carried out based on the International Test Committee (ITC) manual. The sample consisted of 217 people obtained a convenience sampling. Data analysis showed that the questionnaire was reliable (α=.78). Item discrimination ranges from .41-.74 (very good item). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) shows that the unidimensional model QoL5 has a good fit to the data (RMSEA=.07, CFI=.99, and SRMR=.05). The factor loading significance test shows a value of .5 or above means all items are valid. Tests of content validity (CVI=.87), convergent validity (AVE=.55), and criterion validity (r=.399-.581) showed that all items were valid. The results of the analysis indicate that the QoL5 questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring the quality of life.