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Thermal impedance spectroscopy has been investigated as a non-destructive technique to determine the composition of ternary mixtures of biofuels. The principle of the thermal conductivity detector has been extended for measuring both the thermal conductivity and the thermal capacity of biofuel in the range between 1 to 100 Hz, using an AC-operated polysilicon heater for injecting a sinusoidal heat flux, and another polysilicon strip at a well-defined spacing or thermopile sensors for measuring the in-phase and quadrature components of the resulting AC temperature difference., Electronic Instrumentation

Measuring the ethanol/water ratio in biofuel of high ethanol content, such as E85, is important when used in a flex-fuel engine. A capacitive probe is generally used for measuring the ethanol/gasoline ratio. However, the water content in E85 biofuel cannot be disregarded or considered constant and full composition measurement of biofuel is required. Electric impedance spectroscopy with a customized coaxial probe operating in the 10 kHz to 1 MHz frequency range was investigated. An in-depth investigation of the electrical impedance domain has led to the conclusion that additional information is required to unambiguously determine the composition of the ternary biofuel mixture. Among the different options of measurement domains and techniques, optical absorption spectroscopy in the UV spectral range between 230 and 300 nm was found to be the most appropriate. The typical absorbance in the UV range is highly dominated by gasoline, while ethanol and water are almost transparent. This approach is experimentally validated using actual fuels., Electronic Components, Technology and Materials, Electronic Instrumentation

Metamaterial absorbers are photonic structures composed of an array of sub-wavelength metallic patterns. Results in literature are usually based on structures of nominal dimensions, despite the significant effect of fabrication tolerances on performance. This research aims to identify the main sources of uncertainty and to investigate their effect, notably that of an irregular surface quality (i.e., roughness) of the thin metallic layer and the lithography related variations in size and shape. The effect of the shape and positioning of the resonance peak was investigated and validated using mid-infrared metamaterial absorbers. This sensitivity analysis is essential to the batch fabrication of metamaterial absorbers for MEMS applications., Electronic Instrumentation, Mathematical Geodesy and Positioning

A capacitive probe is generally used in a flex-fuel engine for measuring the ethanol content in biofuel. However, the water content in biofuel of high ethanol content cannot be disregarded or considered constant and the full composition measurement of ethanol, gasoline and water in biofuel is required. Electrical impedance spectroscopy with a customized capacitive probe operating in the 10 kHz to 1 MHz frequency range is combined with optical absorption spectroscopy in the UV spectral range between 230 and 300 nm for a full composition measurement. This approach is experimentally validated using actual fuels and the results demonstrate that electrical impedance spectroscopy when supplemented with optical impedance spectroscopy can be used to fully determine the composition of the biofuel and applied for a more effective engine management. A concept for a low-cost combined measurement system in the fuel line is presented., Accepted author manuscript, Electronic Components, Technology and Materials, Electronic Instrumentation

The increasing demand for small, robust and low-cost gas sensors triggers the batch fabrication of highly selective and sensitive miniaturized devices. A linear variable optical filter (LVOF) based microspectrometer enables selectivity in a wide wavelength range, while maintaining the robustness and low cost. To achieve sensitivity in an LVOF based absorption spectrometer, a long gas cell is required. In this paper, we propose an on-chip absorption path that also serves as a gas cell, where the light beam is steered using 45° inclined mirrors. The fabrication of 45° inclined mirrors is demonstrated and optical efficiency of the system is analyzed using ray tracing., Electronic Instrumentation

The design of a metamaterial-based absorber for use in a mid-IR microspectrometer-based gas sensor is reported.The microspectrometer consists of a linear variable optical filter (LVOF) that is aligned with an array of thermopiledetectors, which is fabricated on a SiN membrane and covered with the absorber. Special emphasis was put on theCMOS compatible fabrication, which resulted in an absorber design based on aluminium disk resonators and analuminium background plane that are separated by a SiO2 layer. The fabrication process is described, and thechallenges are discussed., Electronic Instrumentation

Electronic Instrumentation

The optical absorption of water-containing bio-fuel is investigated as a parameter to determine the gasoline content of this fuel. Optical measurements reveal that gasoline shows an interesting and useful spectrum with typical absorption behavior in the UV range between 230 and 300 nm. This result indicates that significant information can be obtained to determine the gasoline concentration in bio-fuel by UV absorption spectroscopy. A concept for a low-cost measurement system in the fuel line is presented, by implementing a LVOF in combination with a wide-band light source and detector arrays., Electronic Instrumentation

A CMOS-compatible approach is presented for the fabrication of a wideband mid-IR metamaterial-based absorber on top of a Si3N4 membrane, which contains poly-Si thermopiles. The application is in IR microspectrometers that are intended for implementation in portable microsystem for use in absorption spectroscopy. Although Au is the conventional material of choice, we demonstrate by simulation that near-perfect absorption can be achieved over a wider band when using the more CMOS-compatible Al. The absorber design is based on Al disk resonators and an Al backplane, which are separated by a SiO2 layer. The fabrication process involves the deposition of Al and SiO2 layers on top of a Si3N4 membrane, lithography and a lift-off process for patterning of the top Al layer., Electronic Instrumentation

The design and CMOS-compatible fabrication of airgap-based optical filters in a surface micromachining process with sacrificial release using thevapour phase is presented. An airgap-dielectric layer combination offers a higher refractive index contrast, as compared to the conventional all-dielectriclayer based filters, which results in a higher peak reflectance and a wider bandwidth in a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR). Several DBRs and Fabry-Perot filters with multiple (low-n) airgap layers separating a stack of (high-n) layers of a dielectric material were designed for operation in the UV-visible spectrum. The fabrication was based on an Al2O3 and SiO2 system. The lateral design includes a set of anchor points and access holes. Finally, a vapour phase HF etching was used to remove the SiO2 layers and release the Al2O3 membranes. This method prevents the stiction of the membranes and provides a higher control and uniformity over the filter area., Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

The design, fabrication and characterization of a highly integrated optical gas sensor is presented. The gas cell takes up most of the space in a microspectrometer and is the only component that has so far not been miniaturized. Using the tapered resonator cavity of a linear variable optical filter as a gas cell enables ultimate miniaturization, while maintaining robustness without any moving parts. Multiple reflections from highly reflective mirrors allow a 24-25.5 ?m long resonator cavity to also act as a gas cell with an equivalent optical absorption path length of 6 mm., Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Contains fulltext : 137293.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), Del(5q) myelodysplastic syndromes defined by the International Prognostic Scoring System as low- or intermediate-1-risk (lower-risk) are considered to have an indolent course; however, recent data have identified a subgroup of these patients with more aggressive disease and poorer outcomes. Using deep sequencing technology, we previously demonstrated that 18% of patients with lower-risk del(5q) myelodysplastic syndromes carry TP53 mutated subclones rendering them at higher risk of progression. In this study, bone marrow biopsies from 85 patients treated with lenalidomide in the MDS-004 clinical trial were retrospectively assessed for p53 expression by immunohistochemistry in association with outcome. Strong p53 expression in >/= 1% of bone marrow progenitor cells, observed in 35% (30 of 85) of patients, was significantly associated with higher acute myeloid leukemia risk (P=0.0006), shorter overall survival (P=0.0175), and a lower cytogenetic response rate (P=0.009), but not with achievement or duration of 26-week transfusion independence response. In a multivariate analysis, p53-positive immunohistochemistry was the strongest independent predictor of transformation to acute myeloid leukemia (P=0.0035). Pyrosequencing analysis of laser-microdissected cells with strong p53 expression confirmed the TP53 mutation, whereas cells with moderate expression predominantly had wild-type p53. This study validates p53 immunohistochemistry as a strong and clinically useful predictive tool in patients with lower-risk del(5q) myelodysplastic syndromes. This study was based on data from the MDS 004 trial (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT00179621).

In CMOS-compatible optical filter designs, SiO2 is often used as the low-index material, limiting the optical contrast (nHi/nLo) to about 2. Using the air as low-index material improves the optical contrast by about 50%, thus increasing the reflectivity and bandwidth at a given design complexity. The design and fabrication of a 4-layered air-dielectric distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) centered at 400 nm using surface micromachining techniques, is presented here. Fabrication is based on the deposition of poly-Si thin films and subsequent thermal oxidation. Selectively removing the Si layers, produces an air/SiO2 filter stack according to the optical design. The width of the air-gaps needed in this application is typically smaller as compared to conventional MEMS devices. The number of layers is also higher, while no electrical contact is required. The concept, the fabrication of 4-layer DBRs and preliminary measurement results are discussed in this paper., Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

This paper presents the design, fabrication and characterization of two Fabry Perot type optical filters (415 nm and 540 nm) for enabling Narrow Band Imaging (NBI) in medical devices (MD). The two-colour illumination should satisfy a highly specific optical design, which is composed of a thin-film optical filter stack of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and silicon dioxide (SiO2) thin-films and commercially available light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The short-wavelength design is the most critical and simulations show a maximum relative optical output of 21% at 415 nm with Full-Width-Half-Maximum (FWHM) of 13 nm for a blue LED with the designed optical filter, which is confirmed by experiment. The green light simulations show a maximum relative optical output of 34% with FWHM 36 nm at 540 nm. The TiO2 and SiO2 thin films were fully characterized., Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

A set-up for optical gas composition measurement based on absorption spectroscopy is composed of a white light source, a gas cell and a spectrometer. The Fabry-Perot optical filter is suitable for miniaturization of this system, as it is composed of only two reflectors with a transparent layer in-between. Varying the width of this optical resonator to cover the wavelength range in which the components to be analyzed have specific features, gives the absorption spectrum. The gas cell remains a separate unit in the conventional microsystem and a MEMS is the implementation of the microspectrometer. The ultimate miniaturization requires the monolithic integration of all these components. In the lossy Fabry-Perot filter that is presented in this paper, the gas cell and the microspectrometer are functionally integrated, using a gas-filled resonator in which the optical path is determined by multiple reflections in the resonator cavity itself., Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

In this paper, we present the fabrication and packaging of a cantilever-based airflow sensor integrated with optical fiber. The sensor consists of a micro Fabry–Perot (FP) cavity including a fiber and a micro cantilever that is fabricated using the photolithography method. Airflow causes a small deflection of the micro cantilever and changes the cavity length of the FP, which makes the fringe shift. The pressure distribution and velocity streamlines across the cantilever resulted from the airflow in the channel have been simulated by the finite element method. The experimental results demonstrate that the sensor has a linear sensitivity of 190 [fringe shift (pm)] per (l /min) and a minimum detectable airflow change of 0.05 (1?min)., Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Background: Interleukin (JL)-β plays a central role in inflammation and atherosclerosis, but levels of IL-1β, its natural antagonist, IL-1Ra, and their balance in human atherosclerotic lesions, are unknown. Knowledge of protein levels in atherosclerosis and the influence of a functional IL-1Rα polymorphism would increase the understanding of atherosclerosis pathogenesis. Methods and Results: Fresh and endotoxin-stimulated explanted human atherosclerotic and normal arteries were analyzed for IL-1β, IL-1Ra and IL-1 receptor 1 (IL-1R1) using TaqMan PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Two hundred forty-three survivors of a first myocardial infarction were genotyped for a polymorphism in IL-1Ra and their coronary atherosclerosis analyzed by using coronary angiography. Levels of IL-1β, IL-1Ra and IL-1R1 mRNA were significantly increased in atherosclerotic arteries compared with normal arteries. Endotoxin stimulation increased IL-1β levels more than IL-1Ra levels (ie, promoted a pro-inflammatory state). A polymorphism in IL-1Ra known to increase levels of IL-1Ra was associated with decreased mean coronary artery plaque area. Conclusions: Activation of innate immunity changed the balance between IL-1β and IL-1Ra in atherosclerotic arteries towards a more pro-inflammatory state. In line with this, the presence of an IL-1Ra intron 2 polymorphism known to increase IL-1Ra levels, and possibly the IL-1Ra:IL-1β ratio, was associated with reduced coronary atherosclerosis.