Occupational heat stress could impose a greater risk of heat-related morbidities among the exposed users, declining their work productivity and contributing to a financial burden. This necessitate the implementation of adequate preventive measures and control policies to improve the users’ well-being and productive capacity. The emergence of modernistic sensors gives rise to workplace heat stress monitoring at a substantially lower cost than expensive conventional equipment. Present work unveils the productive role of sensor-based safety helmet, which could monitor the environmental variables, heat stress indices, and users’ physiological variables as an indicator of heat strain.
The proposed safety helmet was tested under three different work environments with users’ engaged in specific work activities. Notable variations were perceived among the measured data under respective work conditions and physical activity performed. Higher heat risk exposures were attributable to the outdoor condition compared to indoor work conditions. For wet bulb globe temperature index, strong association (p-value < 0.01) was observed with fighter index of thermal stress (R 2-value = 0.959) followed by Bio Basic Temperature Control Equipment discomfort index (R 2-value = 0.899) and heat index (R 2-value = 0.867).
Results revealed a rise in measured physiological parameters under the heavy workload activity (shoveling task; outdoor location) followed by hacksaw cutting task (indoor location), while least values were associated with light workload activity (drilling task; indoor location). The proposed design intervention could be considered an effective site-specific solution for monitoring heat stress exposures and keeping exposed users well aware of the prevalent thermal work conditions at the individual level.
A programmable and skin temperature-activated electromechanical synergistic dressing for effective wound healing
Mechanical regulation and electric stimulation hold great promise in skin tissue engineering for manipulating wound healing. However, the complexity of equipment operation and stimulation implementation remains an ongoing challenge in clinical applications. Here, we propose a programmable and skin temperature-activated electromechanical synergistic wound dressing composed of a shape memory alloy-based mechanical metamaterial for wound contraction and an antibacterial electret thin film for electric field generation.
This strategy is successfully demonstrated on rats to achieve effective wound healing in as short as 4 and 8 days for linear and circular wounds, respectively, with a statistically significant over 50% improvement in wound closure rate versus the blank control group. The optimally designed electromechanical synergistic stimulation could regulate the wound microenvironment to accelerate healing metabolism, promote wound closure, and inhibit infection. This work provided an effective wound healing strategy in the context of a programmable temperature-responsive, battery-free electromechanical synergistic biomedical device.
Molecular diagnostics of Salmonella and Campylobacter in human/animal fecal samples remain feasible after long-term sample storage without specific requirements
Rapid advances in the development of sequencing technologies, numbers of commercial providers and diminishing costs have made DNA-based identification and diagnostics increasingly accessible to doctors and laboratories, eliminating the need for local investments in expensive technology and training or hiring of skilled technicians. However, reliable and comparable molecular analyses of bacteria in stool samples are dependent on storage and workflow conditions that do not introduce post-sampling bias, the most important factor being the need to keep the DNA at a stable detectable level. For that reason, there may remain other prohibitively costly requirements for cooling or freezing equipment or special chemical additives.
This study investigates the diagnostic detectability of Salmonella and Campylobacter DNA in human, pig and chicken stool samples, stored at different temperatures and with different preservation methods. Stool samples were spiked with 106 CFU/mL of both Salmonella and Campylobacter strains stored at -20 °C, 5 °C and 20 °C (Room temperature, RT) and treated with either RNAlater, EDTA or Silica/ethanol. DNA was extracted at 9 different time points within 30 days and quantified by Qubit (total DNA) and qPCR (Salmonella and Campylobacter DNA).
We found no statistically significant differences among the different preservation methods, and DNA from both species was easily detected at all time points and at all temperatures, both with and without preservation. This suggests that infections by these bacteria can be diagnosed and possibly also analysed in further detail simply by taking a stool sample in any suitable sealed container that can be transported to laboratory analysis without special storage or preservation requirements. We briefly discuss how this finding can benefit infection control in both developed and developing countries.
Rapid Deployment of Inexpensive Open-Source Orbital Shakers in Support of High-Throughput Screening: Open-source orbital shakers for HTS
Open-source projects continue to grow in popularity alongside open-source educational resources, software, and hardware tools. The impact of this increased availability of open-source technologies is that end users are empowered to have greater control over the tools that they work with. This trend extends in the life science laboratory space, where new open-source projects are routinely being published that allow users to build and modify scientific equipment specifically tailored to their needs, often at a reduced cost from equivalent commercial offerings. Recently, we identified a need for a compact orbital shaker that would be usable in temperature and humidity-controlled incubators to support the development and execution of a high-throughput suspension cell-based assay.
Based on the requirements provided by staff biologists, an open-source project known as the DIYbio orbital shaker was identified on Thingiverse, then quickly prototyped and tested. The initial orbital shaker prototype based on the DIYbio design underwent an iterative prototyping and design process that proved to be straightforward due to the open-source nature of the project. The result of these efforts has been the successful initial deployment of ten shakers as of August 2021.
This afforded us the scalability and efficacy needed to complete a large-scale screening campaign in less time and at less cost than if we purchased larger, less adaptable orbital shakers. Lessons learned from prototyping, modifying, validating, deploying and maintaining laboratory devices based on an open-source design in support of a full-scale drug discovery high-throughput screening effort are described within this manuscript.
Fast-Response Oxygen Optical Fiber Sensor based on PEA 2 SnI 4 Perovskite with Extremely Low Limit of Detection
Oxygen sensor is an important technique in various applications including industrial process control, medical equipment, biological fabrication, etc. The reported optical fiber-based configurations so far, using gas-sensitive coating do not meet the stringent performance targets, such as fast response time and low limit of detection (LOD). Tin-based halide perovskites are sensitive to oxygen with potential use for sensor applications. Here, the halide perovskite-based oxygen optical fiber sensor by combining phenylethylammonium tin iodide (PEA2 SnI4 ) and tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) is demonstrated.
The PEA2 SnI4 -based oxygen optical fiber sensor is reversible at room temperature with a response time of about 10 s, and the experimental LOD approaches to an extremely low oxygen concentration of about 50 ppm. The as-fabricated oxygen sensor shows a relative response change of 0.6 dB for an oxygen concentration increase from 50 ppm to 5% with good gas selection against NO2 , CO, CO2 , H2 . This work extends the sensor applications of halide perovskites, providing a novel technique for rapid and repeatable oxygen gas detection at a low level.
Stuart Temperature Controller SCT1 - EACH |
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| STI5500 | Scientific Laboratory Supplies | EACH | 384.75 EUR |
Heidolph Electronic Temperature Controller EKT SS Sensor - EACH |
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| STI2100 | Scientific Laboratory Supplies | EACH | 876.87 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with universal input, 0-750C, 1800W, 120V |
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| 104APL612 | Glascol | each | 1121 EUR |
Temp-O-Trol digital temperature control for use with platinum RTD sensor (not included), 1800W, 120V |
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| 108ATOTL9-1800RTD | Glascol | each | 1541 EUR |
Eppendorf Centrifuge 5702RH temperature controlled without rotor - EACH |
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| E5704000060 | Scientific Laboratory Supplies | EACH | 6107.4 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with type J thermocouple. 0-750C, 2400W, 240V |
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| 104APL624 | Glascol | each | 1290 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with type K thermocouple. -200-1250C, 2400W, 240V |
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| 104APL624K | Glascol | each | 1290 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with type T thermocouple. -200-350C, 2400W, 240V |
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| 104APL624T | Glascol | each | 1290 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with type J thermocouple. 0-750C, 2400W, 240V, CE |
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| 104APL624CE | Glascol | each | 1353 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with type K thermocouple. -200-1250C, 2400W, 240V, CE |
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| 104APL624KCE | Glascol | each | 1353 EUR |
DigiTrol, auto tuning temperature control, digital readout, with type T thermocouple. -200-350C, 2400W, 240V, CE |
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| 104APL624TCE | Glascol | each | 1353 EUR |
Eppendorf Centrifuge 5702RH temperature controlled without rotor- IVD Only - EACH |
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| E5704000067 | Scientific Laboratory Supplies | EACH | 6413.85 EUR |
Temp-O-Trol digital temperature control with thermocouple input - for type J thermocouple (not included). 1800W, 120V |
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| 108ATOTL9-1800TCJ | Glascol | each | 1541 EUR |
Temp-O-Trol digital temperature control with thermocouple input - for type K thermocouple (not included). 1800W, 120V |
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| 108ATOTL9-1800TCK | Glascol | each | 1541 EUR |
Temp-O-Trol digital temperature control with thermocouple input - for type T thermocouple (not included). 1800W, 120V |
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| 108ATOTL9-1800TCT | Glascol | each | 1541 EUR |
Temperature Probe |
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| 2-128-0006 | Biologics | each | 266 EUR |
Temperature sensor NT55 |
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| 1002012 | Phoenix instrument | each | 83 EUR |
External Temperature Probe |
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| BSH-TP1 | Benchmark Scientific | 1 PC | 234.84 EUR |
Temperature Probe 400oc - EACH |
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| HEA5262 | Scientific Laboratory Supplies | EACH | 510.3 EUR |
Temperature Probe 800oc - EACH |
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| HEA5264 | Scientific Laboratory Supplies | EACH | 569.7 EUR |
Agarose, Low Melt Temperature |
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| 40100156-1 | Bio-WORLD | 10 g | 88.25 EUR |
Agarose, Low Melt Temperature |
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| 40100156-2 | Bio-WORLD | 25 g | 176.17 EUR |
Agarose, Low Melt Temperature |
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| 40100156-3 | Bio-WORLD | 50 g | 332.59 EUR |
Agarose, Low Melt Temperature |
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| 40100156-4 | Bio-WORLD | 100 g | 601.08 EUR |
PH, GLASS, HIGH TEMPERATURE, S7 |
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| SP22X | Consort | ea | 180 EUR |