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Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEACAM5), as a broad-spectrum tumor biomarker, plays a crucial role in analyzing the therapeutic efficacy and progression of cancer. Herein, we propose a novel biosensor based on specklegrams of tapered multimode fiber (MMF) and two-dimensional convolutional neural networks (2D-CNNs) for the detection of CEACAM5. The microfiber is modified with CEA antibodies to specifically recognize antigens. The biosensor utilizes the interference effect of tapered MMF to generate highly sensitive specklegrams in response to different CEACAM5 concentrations. A zero mean normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC) function is explored to calculate the image matching degree of the specklegrams. Profiting from the extremely high detection limit of the speckle sensor, variations in the specklegrams of antibody concentrations from 1 to 1000 ng/mL are measured in the experiment. The surface sensitivity of the biosensor is 0.0012 (ng/mL)−1 within a range of 1 to 50 ng/mL. Moreover, a 2D-CNN was introduced to solve the problem of nonlinear detection surface sensitivity variation in a large dynamic range, and in the search for image features to improve evaluation accuracy, achieving more accurate CEACAM5 monitoring, with a maximum detection error of 0.358%. The proposed fiber specklegram biosensing scheme is easy to implement and has great potential in analyzing the postoperative condition of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fiber speckle sensor (FSS) based on a tapered multimode fiber (TMMF) has been developed to measure liquid analyte refractive index (RI) in this work. By the lateral and axial offset of input light into TMMF, several high-order modes are excited in TMMF, and the speckle pattern is spatially modulated, which affects an asymmetrical speckle pattern with a random intensity distribution at the output of TMMF. When the TMMF is immersed in the liquid analyte with RI variation, it influences the guided modes, as well as the mode interference, in TMMF. A digital image correlations method with zero-mean normalized cross-correlation coefficient is explored to digitize the speckle image differences, analyzing the RI variation. It is found that the lateral- and axial-offsets-induced speckle sensor can enhance the RI sensitivity from 6.41 to 19.52 RIU−1 compared to the one without offset. The developed TMMF speckle sensor shows an RI resolution of 5.84 × 10−5 over a linear response range of 1.3164 to 1.3588 at 1550 nm. The experimental results indicate the FSS provides a simple, efficient, and economic approach to RI sensing, which exhibits an enormous potential in the image-based ocean-sensing application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection of trace tumor markers in blood/serum is essential for the early screening and prognosis of cancer diseases, which requires high sensitivity and specificity of the assays and biosensors. A variety of label-free optical fiber-based biosensors has been developed and yielded great opportunities for Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) of cancer biomarkers. The fiber biosensor, however, suffers from a compromise between the responsivity and stability of the sensing signal, which would deteriorate the sensing performance. In addition, the sophistication of sensor preparation hinders the reproduction and scale-up fabrication. To address these issues, in this study, a straightforward lasso-shaped fiber laser biosensor was proposed for the specific determination of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-related cell adhesion molecules 5 (CEACAM5) protein in serum. Due to the ultra-narrow linewidth of the laser, a very small variation of lasing signal caused by biomolecular bonding can be clearly distinguished via high-resolution spectral analysis. The limit of detection (LOD) of the proposed biosensor could reach 9.6 ng/mL according to the buffer test. The sensing capability was further validated by a human serum-based cancer diagnosis trial, enabling great potential for clinical use. The high reproduction of fabrication allowed the mass production of the sensor and extended its utility to a broader biosensing field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metasurface‐based spatial phaser, exhibiting dispersive group delay responses, is able to perform real‐time analogue signal processing on the temporal spectrum of spatial electromagnetic waves, e.g., Fourier transformation, pulse chirping, pulse spread, and compression. The functionality of a spatial phaser is closely related to its group delay dispersion slope. For instance, for an up‐chirped incident pulse, the positive‐slope‐dispersion phaser spreads the pulse whereas the negative‐slope‐dispersion one compresses the pulse. Most reported spatial phasers exhibit fixed dispersion slopes and hence perform single functionality only, which cannot meet the demand of multifunctional systems in communication and sensing applications. In this paper, a new way is proposed to control and tune the dispersion slope of spatial phasers using polarization of incident waves, which is simpler and more efficient than conventional approaches based on tunable circuits. To verify the proposed method, a first‐order spatial phaser is designed and experimentally demonstrated within 9.4–10.6 GHz. It is able to generate negative‐slope, positive‐slope, and zero‐slope group delay dispersions, in case of x‐, y‐, and ±45°‐polarized waves. Such a reconfigurable phaser may find wide applications in integrated communication and sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an ytterbium (Yb) doped fiber Mach Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on the up-taper fiber structure in a fiber ring laser (FRL) cavity. Different from the traditional FRL sensing system, in which additional filters are required, the designed structure simultaneously acts as a filter, sensor and gain medium. Furthermore, thanks to the high thermal–optical coefficient of Yb doped fiber, the temperature sensitivity of 0.261 nm/°C can be achieved in the range of 10–50 °C. In addition, benefiting from the unique characteristics of the laser system itself, the designed structure has a narrower linewidth (−0.2 nm) and a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (−40 dB) than the sensor system based on a broadband light source (BBS). Meanwhile, the refractive index (RI) response and stability of the system are measured. The RI sensitivity is up to 151 nm/RIU, and the wavelength fluctuation range within two hours is less than 0.2 nm. Therefore, the designed structure is expected to play a significant role in human life safety monitoring, aircraft engine temperature monitoring, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presented a new kind of salinity and temperature dual-parameter sensor based on a fiber ring laser (FRL) with tapered side-hole fiber (SHF) embedded in a Sagnac interferometer. The sensing structure is majorly composed of tapered SHF located in the middle of SHF inside the Sagnac interferometer loop structure. The influences of the SHF's diameters of different tapered in the Sagnac interferometer loop on the FRL sensing system are studied. The presence of air holes in the SHF makes the cladding mode easier to excite, and the interaction between the cladding mode with its surroundings is enhanced, thus having higher salinity sensitivity. Besides, the unique advantages of high resolution, narrower linewidth, and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of fiber laser make the measurement results more accurate. In this experiment, the SHF with different taper diameters was made, and it was found that reducing the diameter of the taper waist diameter could further improve the salinity sensitivity. When the waist diameter was 9.70 μm, the maximum salinity sensitivity of 0.2867 nm/‰ was achieved. Temperature sensing experiments were also carried out. The maximum temperature sensitivity of the FRL sensing system was −0.3041 nm/°C at the temperature range from 20 to 30 °C. The sensor has the characteristics of easy manufacture, good selectivity, and high sensitivity, proving the feasibility of simultaneous measurement of seawater salinity and temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrated a new method for temperature measurement inside a fiber ring laser (FRL) cavity. Different from traditional FRL temperature sensing system which need additional filter working as a sensor, a micro-fiber coupler (MFC) was designed as a beam splitter, filter, and temperature sensor. In addition, isopropanol, a liquid with very high photothermal coefficient, is selectively filled in the MFC in order to improve the sensitivity of the system on temperature. In the dynamic range of 20–40 °C, we obtained a good temperature sensitivity of −1.29 nm/°C, with linear fitting up to 0.998. Benefiting from the advantages of laser sensing, the acquired laser has a 3 – dB bandwidth of less than 0.2 nm and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of up to 40 dB. The proposed sensor has a low cost and high sensitivity, which is expected to be used in biomedical health detection, real-time monitoring of ocean temperature, and other application scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-time Fourier transform (STFT) algorithm with Lorentzian fitting is popular in distributed Brillouin optical fiber sensors to acquire Brillouin frequency. However, STFT often suffers from the tradeoff between Brillouin frequency measurement resolution and computation complexity. To lower the complexity of Brillouin frequency analysis and speedup measurement, a novel method based on instantaneous frequency (IF) analysis is proposed. The instantaneous Brillouin frequency can be obtained through the instantaneous phase change between two adjacent samples in the time domain. The requirement on the spectral resolution is, therefore, greatly relaxed, significantly reducing computation complexity and lowering measurement time cost. A Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR) scheme is demonstrated with a spatial resolution of 1.2 m over a 5-km sensing fiber. For an average count of 4096 over measurements, experiments show that the IF algorithm can reduce computation complexity by 122 times at a standard deviation (STD) of 0.5065 MHz for BFS estimation which is comparable to the STD obtained through STFT in conjunction with Lorentzian fitting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data storage is a problem that cannot be ignored in the long-term monitoring of a phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) system. In this paper, we proposed a data-reduction approach for heterodyne Φ-OTDR using an ultra-low sampling resolution and undersampling techniques. The operation principles were demonstrated and experiments with different sensing configurations were carried out to verify the proposed method. The results showed that the vibration signal could be accurately reconstructed from the undersampled 1-bit data. A space saving ratio of 98.75% was achieved by converting 128 MB of data (corresponding to 268.44 ms of sensing time) to 1.6 MB. The proposed method led to a potentially new data-reduction approach for heterodyne Φ-OTDR, which also provided economical guidance for the selection of the data-acquisition device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new ultrawideband frequency selective surface(FSS) is proposed, which exhibits six resonances to achieve a flat passband. It consists of a three-dimensional (3-D) configuration. However, unlike many other 3-D FSSs, the proposed structure can be assembled through simple steps involving single-layer printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication only. Its unit-cell consists of a wire-loop conducting pattern, printed on a dielectric substrate. The pattern excites four resonances while two resonances are contributed by the dielectric. These six resonances are properly tuned and coupled to form an ultrawide frequency band from 7.53 to 29.45 GHz. It translates to a $-$ 3 dB bandwidth of 119 $\%$. Our design guidelines and discussions are validated through both simulation and measurement results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical current monitoring plays an important role in power transmission system, electric instruments, etc. The stability of the monitoring system is highly demanded. In this paper, a new interrogation scheme for a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) current sensor based on a dual-loop optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with high stability, high precision and simple structure is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The wavelength shift of the FBG, which is bonded on a magnetostrictive alloy-strip, is converted into the frequency shift of the microwave signal through the OEO system utilizing the wavelength to frequency mapping mechanism. Different from previous single-loop OEO schemes, a length of ∼1 km single mode fiber is used to form the second loop in the OEO-cavity, which can enhance the mode-selection ability and reduce the total gain requirement of the system. In addition, a fiber-ring-laser (FRL) cavity is adopted by integrating the sensing FBG-head as the wavelength-selective component to improve the quality of the optical carrier signal. The measured side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) is up to 62.59 dB and the free spectral range (FSR) is five times larger than the single-loop structure, resulting in highly-enhanced stability and so the precision. Most importantly, the frequency fluctuation is as low as 0.277 ppm, which is the minimum to the best of our knowledge. Compensating methods for the influence of the temperature and the hysteresis are also discussed. The proposed scheme provides a feasible solution to promoting the development of OEO-based interrogation technology and its commercial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optical fiber temperature sensor based on Mach–Zehnder interferometer and thermo-optic effect of the liquid crystal (LC) in fiber ring laser (FRL) system is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The LC is infiltrated into the core of hollow core fiber, and the resonant wavelength is more sensitive to temperature variation due to the interaction between the incident light and the cavity infiltrating liquid crystal with high thermal light coefficient. Meanwhile, the FRL system was further used to make the sensor have good performance in the case of high signal-to-noise ratio (∼35 dB), narrow half-height width (FWHM = 0.15 nm), and high sensitivity in the temperature range from 20 °C to 50 °C, with the maximum sensitivity of 1.318 nm/°C. As far as we know, in the FRL system, the liquid crystal material has a better temperature sensing performance than the previous fiber. Nevertheless, the system has the advantages of good repeatability, low cost, simple production, small volume, high sensitivity. In marine microbial culture and detection, it is necessary to carry out high sensitivity measurement within a small temperature variation range. This reliable and excellent temperature performance has a potential application prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new temperature fiber ring laser (FRL) sensor based on a cascaded Sagnac loops fiber structure is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The optical FRL sensor consists of cascaded Sagnac loops by inserting two polarization-maintaining optical fibers (PMF) with slightly different lengths. PMF with length of 56 cm and 75 cm are used in Sagnac loops as a filter and sensing unit in laser cavity. The working principle of the sensor is based on the phase shift (θ) caused by birefringence between two principal polarization modes and enhance the sensitivity by constructing a Vernier-scale. In an appropriate temperature range (25 °C - 31 °C), the detection sensitivity of FRL sensor based on a cascaded Sagnac structure is significantly higher than other FRL sensors. Thanks to the laser sensing system, the sensitivity can be modulated by changing the free spectral range (FSR). The experimental results show that the temperature sensitivity of the cascade Sagnac structure sensor is - 4.031 nm / °C, which is five times higher than that of FRL sensor base on the single Sagnac structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction/Background Dupilumab has previously shown to significantly improve signs, symptoms, and quality of life in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic hand and foot dermatitis. Objective To investigate the efficacy of dupilumab across morphological subtypes in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic hand and foot dermatitis. Methods: The phase 3, randomized, double-blind LIBERTY-AD-HAFT (NCT04417894) trial enrolled patients aged =12 years with moderate-to-severe (Investigator's Global Assessment [IGA] score of 3/4) atopic hand and foot dermatitis. Patients were randomized to dupilumab monotherapy 300 mg every 2 weeks (q2w) in adults; 200/300 mg q2w in adolescents, or placebo for 16 weeks. This analysis reports the percent change from baseline in modified total lesion sign score (mTLSS) by hand and foot morphological subtypes: chronic dry fissured, hyperkeratotic (palmar/plantar), and other. Results: 133 patients enrolled into this study and were randomized to dupilumab (n = 67) or placebo (n = 66). Atopic hand and foot morphologies were reported in 3 categories: chronic dry fissured (n = 63), hyperkeratotic (palmar/plantar; n = 37), and other (n = 33) In the "other" category, dyshidrotic was the most frequent morphology (n = 13). mTLSS values were similar at baseline for all morphological subtypes. At Week 16, greater improvements were seen in the percent change from baseline (SE) in mTLSS for patients receiving dupilumab vs placebo in all categories: chronic dry fissured (-65.6% [5.1] vs -31.5% [6.2]), hyperkeratotic (palmar/plantar; -58.2% [7.6] vs -11.8% [7.7]), and other (-64.5% [11.6] vs -29.9% [9.0]). Safety was consistent with the known dupilumab safety profile in patients with atopic dermatitis. Conclusions: The efficacy of dupilumab remains consistent across different hand and foot dermatitis morphologies and shows higher treatment benefit across subtypes compared with placebo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel microfiber sensor is proposed and demonstrated based on a singlemode-tapered hollow core-singlemode (STHS) fiber structure. Experimentally a STHS with taper waist diameter of $26.5~\mu \text{m}$ has been fabricated and RI sensitivity of 816, 1601.86, and 4775.5 nm/RIU has been achieved with RI ranges from 1.3335 to 1.3395, from 1.369 to 1.378, and from 1.409 to 1.4175 respectively, which agrees very well with simulated RI sensitivity of 885, 1517, and 4540 nm/RIU at RI ranges from 1.3335 to 1.337, from 1.37 to 1.374, and from 1.41 to 1.414. The taper waist diameter has impact on both temperature and strain sensitivity of the sensor structure: (1) the smaller the waist diameter, the higher the temperature sensitivity, and experimentally 26.82 pm/°C has been achieved with a taper waist diameter of $21.4~\mu \text{m}$ ; (2) as waist diameter decrease, strain sensitivity increase and 7.62 pm/ $\mu \varepsilon $ has been achieved with a taper waist diameter of $20.3~\mu \text{m}$. The developed sensor was then functionalized for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) detection as an example for biosensing application. Experimentally for hCG concentration of 5 mIU/ml, the sensor has 0.5 nm wavelength shift, equivalent to limit of detection (LOD) of 0.6 mIU/ml by defining 3 times of the wavelength variation (0.06 nm) as measurement limit. The biosensor demonstrated relatively good reproducibility and specificity, which has potential for real medical diagnostics and other applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, two special photonic jets, photonic hooks and twin photonic jets, have been proposed to deal with complex conditions in nanoscale manipulation. Photonic hooks are generated by a single light plane wave and an asymmetric microparticle, while the twin photonic jets are produced by two incident light beams. In this letter, we presented and demonstrated a method to combine photonic hooks and twin photonic jets. A single light plane wave and a symmetric microparticle, twin-ellipse microcylinder, are used in this research. The curvature degree, length and maximum E2 field enhancement of twin photonic hooks are varied significantly, with the change of refractive indices and shape of twin-ellipse microcylinder. And a liquid-immersed core-shell is built to achieve a flexible tunability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a detailed study on volume and surface refractive index (RI) sensitivity of cladding modes for a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based sensor is presented. Surface RI sensitivity of the cladding mode of FBGs has been illustrated and quantified with the concept of add-layer sensitivity for the first time to the best of our knowledge. A detailed investigation of mode transition of higher-order cladding modes has been revisited and important characteristics of the cladding modes are observed which could open a new designing path of fabrication and innovative way of the use of this family of optical fiber grating-based sensors. The effect of “mode transition” of higher-order cladding modes, higher operating wavelength for respective cladding mode and “mode stretching” effects are combined together to achieve higher volume and surface RI sensitivity of cladding mode of FBG. It has been shown numerically that with proper designing, sub-nanometer (∼0.04 nm) attachment of target analyte could be recognized by cladding mode of FBG which is quite promising for application in optical fiber grating bio-sensors. This critical designing method of FBG based surface refractometer would be very helpful in case of the fabrication of highly sensitive sensors for distinct biochemical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique type of refractive index (RI) sensor is proposed using a dual Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure based on side-hole fibers (SHFs). The MZI structure contains two single-mode fibers (SMFs), two coreless fiber (CLF) sections and an SHF section, which are spliced together in the order of SMF-CLF-SHF-CLF-SMF. The SMFs and the CLFs enable light lead in/out and beam splitting/combining, respectively. As a special feature of the structure, one hole of SHF is exposed for liquid filling and to form two MZIs as well. Three types of sensors are fabricated, namely S1, S2 and S3. Numerical simulation and experimental studies have been conducted to characterize the sensing performance. The RI sensitivity of the S1 using the ∼550 μm long SHF section reaches 14,000 nm/RIU. When a shorter SHF section is used in S2, the detectable RI range is broadened due to larger FSR. When the closed hole of SHF in S3 is filled with liquid to introduce the Vernier effect, the sensitivity can be further enhanced to over 44,000 nm/RIU (i.e., Refractive Index Unit), which corresponds to the detection limit at the level of 1.0 × 10−5 RIU. This sensor design is original and easy to package, which gives it potential for label-free biochemical analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions between light and various cells in cultures, such as bacteria or mammalian cells, are widely applied for optical sensors and optofluidic systems. These microorganisms need to be kept in proper aqueous media, referred to as buffers or cell culture media, that are required, respectively, for stable storage or delivering biochemical nutrients for their growth. When experiments or numerical analyses on optical devices are performed, the properties of these media are usually considered to be similar to those of pure water, with negligible influence of biochemical compounds on the medium's optical properties. In this work, we investigated the transmission, material dispersion, and scattering properties of selected and widely used buffers and cell culture media. We show that the optical properties of these media may significantly vary from those of water. Well-defined properties of buffers and cell culture media are essential for proper design of various optical sensing or future optofluidic systems dealing with biological structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our bioassay protocol, the Ag@4MBA@DNA-biotin probes were synthesized by linking biotin-modified DNA and 4-mercaptobenzoic acid-covered Ag nanoparticles, and the Si@Ag@anti-digoxin/digoxin-DNA substrate was fabricated by immune linking of digoxin-DNA and anti-digoxin immobilized on a Ag-coated wafer. Then, the probes, miRNA-21 and the substrate were constructed into a “sandwich structure” to detect the variation in the SERS signals with respect to miRNA-21 concentrations. Next, streptavidin and extra probes were alternately introduced to implement the cascade amplification of the SERS signal to increase the detection sensitivity. The results show that the limit of detection (LOD) with cascade amplification is remarkably improved from 97.81 pM to 38.02 fM, which is three orders of magnitude higher than the original data without cascade amplification. Furthermore, the SERS-based cascade amplification mechanism was analyzed and is attributed to the “hot spots effect” of the noble metal nanostructure. The biotin-streptavidin (B–S) system was introduced into the SERS detection platform, and the novel SERS-based cascade amplification bioassay protocol has significant creativity for the detection of nucleic acids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the microwave photonics (MWP) concept has been evolved from laboratory tests to practical applications, and related techniques have been widely deployed in many fields including such as wireless communications, medicine, sensing, radars, electronic warfare, and space explorations. In this paper, we concentrate on the featured applications of MWP in the high-speed railways (HSRs), an emerging field and massive market, and an overview about our recent work is presented. The radio-over-fiber based wireless communications in high-mobility scenarios, photonic-assisted electromagnetic interference detection along HSR lines, and fiber sensing for safety protection of railways are investigated systematically in our group. Experiments are then performed to verify the basic functionalities of the three MWP-enabled systems mentioned above. In particular, field trials have been successfully implemented along two in-service HSR lines located in Southwest China, i.e., the Chengdu–Chongqing and the Chengdu–Mianyang–Leshan HSR lines. With these results and achievements, we can expect more MWP-enabled striking applications in the HSR field in near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a combined metasurface consisting of an aluminum substrate and an array of TiO2 blocks to achieve a wideband terahertz absorber. We incorporated several similar dielectric blocks with different side length into each unit cell. Each dielectric block could cause magnetic-resonance-inducing absorption effect with different peak wavelengths. Thus, our combined metasurface could achieve wider absorption frequency band than the traditional design when these dielectric blocks were properly designed. The absorption bandwidth could be widened nearly 2.5 times and 5 times compared to a single block case when there were four and nine blocks, respectively, andcouldbe further improved by increasing the number of combinations in structures (variable parameters included number, spacing, dimensions etc.). For both TE00 (the electric fields of the light polarized along the y-axis) and TM00 (the electric fields of the light polarized along the x-axis) polarization states, the absorption bandwidth could be widened effectively; even when the incident angle was 45°, the absorption rate could still reach about 75%. This structure is simple and easy to fabricate, and this design concept can also be used in various other application fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adaptive image restoration algorithm based on 2-D bilateral filtering has been proposed to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the intrusion location for phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (Ф-OTDR) system. By converting the spatial and time information of the Ф-OTDR traces into 2-D image, the proposed 2-D bilateral filtering algorithm can smooth the noise and preserve the useful signal efficiently. To simplify the algorithm, a Lorentz spatial function is adopted to replace the original Gaussian function, which has higher practicability. Furthermore, an adaptive parameter setting method is developed according to the relation between the optimal gray level standard deviation and noise standard deviation, which is much faster and more robust for different types of signals. In the experiment, the SNR of location information has been improved over 14 dB without spatial resolution loss for a signal with original SNR of 6.43 dB in 27.6 km sensing fiber. The proposed method has the potential to precisely extract intrusion location from a harsh environment with strong background noise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children’s blood lead concentrations have been closely monitored over the last two decades in the United States. The bio-monitoring surveillance data collected in local agencies reflected the local temporal trends of children’s blood lead levels (BLLs). However, the analysis and modeling of the long-term time series of BLLs have rarely been reported. We attempted to quantify the long-term trends of children’s BLLs in the city of Syracuse, New York and evaluate the impacts of local lead poisoning prevention programs and Lead Hazard Control Program on reducing the children’s BLLs. We applied interrupted time series analysis on the monthly time series of BLLs surveillance data and used ARMA (autoregressive and moving average) models to measure the average children’s blood lead level shift and detect the seasonal pattern change. Our results showed that there were three intervention stages over the past 20 years to reduce children’s BLLs in the city of Syracuse, NY. The average of children’s BLLs was significantly decreased after the interventions, declining from 8.77μg/dL to 3.94μg/dL during1992 to 2011. The seasonal variation diminished over the past decade, but more short term influences were in the variation. The lead hazard control treatment intervention proved effective in reducing the children’s blood lead levels in Syracuse, NY. Also, the reduction of the seasonal variation of children’s BLLs reflected the impacts of the local lead-based paint mitigation program. The replacement of window and door was the major cost of lead house abatement. However, soil lead was not considered a major source of lead hazard in our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to evaluate the health status of continuous welded rail accurately, a deduction on the FBG sensing principle has been made with regard to the temperature variation of test specimens under different constraint conditions. A long seamless rail testing solution and its on-site application are designed based on this deduction. According to the verification experiments of sensing principle inside, the effect of the reference temperature on the FBG temperature and strain sensitivity coefficient within −30°C~30°C is not higher than 0.05%; the maximum relative error of single point between the tested and theoretical results of test specimen under constrained condition is 3.2%; and the maximum relative error of slopes of fitted straight lines based on the tested and theoretical results within the entire test temperature range is 2.3%, verifying the deduced FBG sensing principle with regard to the test specimen under constrained condition. The maximum error of the longitudinal temperature force between the on-site tested results and calculated results in long seamless rails is only 6.1 kN, the corresponding rail temperature variation is 0.3°C, and the accumulated error is controllable within 5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Besides distinct features on RF/optical signal generation, optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs) have also been rapidly developed as emerging techniques towards sensing, measurement, and detection. In this paper, we start with the conceptual architecture and the analytical model of OEOs. Then, three operation principles behind sensing, measurement, and detection applications are categorized, including the variation on the time delay of loop, the passband reconfiguration of microwave photonic filter in loop, and the oscillation gain from injection locking, which clearly clarify the X-to-frequency mapping (X denotes target parameter or signal) for supporting practical solutions and approaches. Next, a comprehensive review to advances in OEO-based sensing, measurement, and detection applications is presented, including length change and distance measurement, refractive index estimation, load and strain sensing, temperature and acoustic sensing, optical clock recovery, and low-power RF signal detection. As a new application example, a novel approach for in-line position finding is proposed. When a long fiber Bragg grating inserted into OEO is locally heated to slightly broaden its reflection spectrum, the target position heated is mapped into the oscillating frequency shift, according to the first operation principle. A sensitivity of 254.66 kHz/cm is obtained for position finding in the experiment. Afterward, solutions for calibration and stabilization are briefly introduced, which enable us to improve the accuracy and reliability. Finally, features and future prospects on the sensing, measurement, and detection applications are discussed, such as compact and integrated OEOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-resolution Doppler frequency shift (DFS) estimation in a wide frequency range is essential for radar, microwave/millimeter-wave, and communication systems. In this paper, a photonic approach to DFS estimation is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, providing a high-resolution and frequency-independent solution. In the proposed approach, the DFS between the transmitted microwave signal and the received echo signal is mapped into a doubled frequency spacing between two target optical sidebands by using two cascaded electrooptic modulators. Subsequently, the DFS is then estimated through the spectrum analysis of a low-frequency electrical signal generated from the frequency beating of the two target sidebands with an improved resolution by a factor of 2. In the experiments, DFSs from -\90 to 90 kHz are successfully estimated for microwave/millimeter-wave signals at 10, 15, and 30 GHz, where the estimation errors are lower than \pm \5 \times \10^-10 Hz. For radial velocity measurement, these results reveal a range from 0 to 900 m/s and a resolution of \1 \times \10^-11 m/s at 15-GHz frequency band, or a range from 0 to 450 m/s and a resolution of \5 \times \10^-12 m/s at 30-GHz band. To eliminate the estimation ambiguity, a reference branch is introduced for generating an indicator frequency to discriminate the sign of DFS and the direction of radial velocity for approaching or receding motion. In addition, extended discussions on the signal-to-noise ratio, the minimum measurable DFS, and other detection features of the proposed approach are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a real-time multi-class disturbance detection algorithm based on YOLO for distributed fiber vibration sensing. The algorithm achieves real-time detection of event location and classification on external intrusions sensed by distributed optical fiber sensing system (DOFS) based on phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR). We conducted data collection under perimeter security scenarios and acquired five types of events with a total of 5787 samples. The data is used as a spatial–temporal sensing image in the training of our proposed YOLO-based model (You Only Look Once-based method). Our scheme uses the Darknet53 network to simplify the traditional two-step object detection into a one-step process, using one network structure for both event localization and classification, thus improving the detection speed to achieve real-time operation. Compared with the traditional Fast-RCNN (Fast Region-CNN) and Faster-RCNN (Faster Region-CNN) algorithms, our scheme can achieve 22.83 frames per second (FPS) while maintaining high accuracy (96.14%), which is 44.90 times faster than Fast-RCNN and 3.79 times faster than Faster-RCNN. It achieves real-time operation for locating and classifying intrusion events with continuously recorded sensing data. Experimental results have demonstrated that this scheme provides a solution to real-time, multi-class external intrusion events detection and classification for the Φ-OTDR-based DOFS in practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An automatic control algorithm for flattening the gain of a fiber Raman amplifier is derived from the Raman scattering equations. A pseudo-inverse gain matrix is introduced to adjust the powers of the pump lasers. The algorithm is simple, fast, effective, robust and insensitive to the length and type of the fiber. It is demonstrated experimentally that the gain flattening for Raman amplifiers comprising various types and lengths of fiber and with different target gains can be achieved automatically with this algorithm. The algorithm converges for both small and large input signal. Flattened Raman gain with a fluctuation less than 0.40 dB over a 50-nm bandwidth for a 50-km SMF or less than 0.20 dB over a 40-nm bandwidth for a 6.6-km dispersion compensated fiber is realized in the experiment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We demonstrate a highly sensitive and practical fiber-based temperature sensor system. The sensor is constructed based on a fiber ring laser (FRL) as well as a side-polished fiber filled with isopropanol. The laser cavity of the sensing part fiber is polished by the wheel fiber polishing system with residual thickness (RT) is selected to detect the temperature in the FRL. Thanks to the high thermo-optic coefficient of isopropanol, the sensitivity of the proposed temperature sensor could be effectively improved by filling isopropanol in the cost-less side polished single mode fiber. Refractive index (RI) of isopropanol changes with the surrounding temperature variation allowing high-sensitivity temperature sensing. Experimental results demonstrate that the side polished fiber can efficiently excite high-order cladding modes which enhance the modular interference increase the interaction between the evanescent wave and the isopropanol. Besides, the results show that the sensitivity can be as high as 2 nm/°C in the temperature range of 25–35 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a new concept for an all-fiber inclinometer based on a tapered fiber Bragg grating (tFBG) in a fiber ring laser (FRL) with the capability of measuring the tilt angle and temperature simultaneously. The sensor performance is analyzed theoretically and investigated experimentally. The dependence of tilt angle on the spectral response in variable temperature conditions was measured. Two inclinometers with different lengths have been fabricated and characterized in FRL. The sensitivity is 0.583 dB/° and 0.849 dB/°, respectively, in the range of 0° to 90°. Thanks to the FRL system, narrow 3-dB bandwidth (<0.1 nm) and high optical signal-to-noise ratio (~60 dB) are achieved. The tFBG in the FRL system can be used for working as a temperature insensitive inclinometer. The results suggested that the proposed inclinometer has the advantages of compact size and convenient manufacture, enhancing its potential for application prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]