Eight small-scale breath alcohol measurement devices were tested for accuracy, precision and the ability to not yield false positive and false negative readings. These pocket-sized breath testers (PMBTs), which provided numerical readout of BrAC to the 100th of a percent, were smaller than evidential and preliminary breath test instruments (EBTs and PBTs). The smallest devices were approximately the same size of a cigarette lighter. Designed to provide drinkers feedback about their individual alcohol levels, the PMBTs ranged in price from $40-100 USD. The devices were first tested under laboratory conditions with alcohol solution simulators providing the alcoholic samples. They were then tested with human drinkers, under controlled field conditions. Each device was tested at multiple alcohol levels. Two of the eight PMBTs failed to complete all levels of testing and were excluded from the study. All PMBTs demonstrated the ability to not yield false positive and false negative readings. No device met NHTSA performance criteria for accuracy (systematic error) in testing EBTs at every alcohol level tested. An interaction between PMBTs and the alcohol test levels was found. Thus, accuracy was found to be dependent upon the alcohol level at which the devices were tested. No device met NHTSA performance criteria for precision in testing EBTs at every alcohol level tested. Precision varied depending on the testing condition. There was less precision under controlled field conditions than under laboratory conditions. Five of the six PMBTs that completed the testing overestimated BrAC; only one device read below actual BrAC. Ramifications of the findings are discussed, regarding the overestimation and underestimation of BrAC and the possibility of manufacturers intentionally calibrating the devices to overestimate BrAC. Potential PMBT users are discussed and areas for future research are addressed.

This diploma thesis is divided into two parts, namely the theoretical and practical part. In the theoretical part, the issue is dismantled from the current state of electric power, share the production of individual sources, the market for photovoltaic and mobile photovoltaic systems through the description of the theory of solar radiation and all the necessary components to build the isolated photovoltaic power plant. The practical part deals with dimensioning, selection of suitable components and the actual one own design and implementation of a mobile photovoltaic power plant.

The threshold friction velocities of potential dust sources in the US Southwest were measured in the field using a Portable Wind Tunnel, which is based on the Desert Research Institute's Portable In-Situ Wind Erosion Laboratory (PI-SWERL). A mix of both disturbed and undisturbed surfaces were included in this study. It was found that disturbed surfaces, such as those at the Iron King Mine tailings site, which is part of the EPA's Superfund program and contains surface concentrations of arsenic and lead reaching as high as 0.5% (w/w), had lower threshold friction velocities (0.32 m s⁻¹ to 0.40 m s⁻¹) in comparison to those of undisturbed surfaces (0.48 to 0.61 m s⁻¹). Surface characteristics, such as particle size distribution, had effects on the threshold friction velocity (smaller grain sized distributions resulted in lower threshold friction velocities). Overall, the threshold friction velocities of disturbed surfaces were within the range of natural wind conditions, indicating that surfaces disturbed by human activity are more prone to causing windblown dust.

Between 250.000 and  300.000 people live with psoriasis in Sweden today. 50% develop psoriasis before they are 25 years old. When living with psoriasis, one have an increased risk of developing comorbidities, which include overweight, joint problems, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases and depression, among others. Based on recent findings, people living with psoriasis can achieve health benefits and improve the symptoms of the condition through living and good life style. I have developed a lifestyle system named "núna", which will empower the patient, encourage a good lifestyle, prevent comorbidities and improve the healthcare personnel and patient communication. The system includes an application which consists of five different main categories (Activity, diet, quit smoking, photography documentation and administrating issues related to ones healthcare providers), and an activity tracker with two different portable docks and a charging station.

In the United State today, many people do not have access to adequate dental treatment, while tooth decay is the single most common chronic childhood disease-five times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever. At the same time, studies show that 80% of dental illness takes place in 25% of the population, which is comprised mostly of lower socioeconomic groups. A study undertaken by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2000, concludes that poor children suffer five times as much tooth decay as their more affluent peers. Furthermore, in poor children with tooth decay, almost 80% remain untreated. Poor dental health there-fore is a major health concern for under privileged families.The goal of this project is to enhance and facilitate the delivery of better dental treatment by designing a new prototype for a portable dental office that will be more flexible and more usable in a variety of situations and locations. For the purpose of this study, this prototype will be considered or tested within the context of three different types of spaces: the single closed room; a large open public space; and within mobile and nonpermanent structures such as tents. Several aspects of working conditions specific to the dental office will be taken into account when developing this design including transportability, degree of flexibility, storability, hygiene, and the creation of a relaxing atmosphere all of which greatly impact both the dentists and patients experience and are essential to the creation of a successful portable dental office.

The research related to designing portable monitoring devices for physiological signals has been at its peak in the last decade or two. One of the main obstacles in building such devices is the effect of the subject's movements on the quality of the signal. There have been numerous studies addressing the problem of removing motion artifact from the electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG) signals in the past few years. However, no such study exists for the Impedance Plethysmography (IP) signal. The IP signal can be used to monitor respiration in mobile devices. However, it is very susceptible to motion artifact. The main aim of this dissertation is to develop adaptive and non-adaptive filtering algorithms to address the problem of motion artifact reduction from the IP signal.

The detection of mineral phases under in situ conditions has become a primary but sometimes also challenging task in many fields of geoscience. Raman spectroscopy has been used as a powerful tool for the identification of various minerals and organic compounds. The advantages and the relative simplicity made this method a promising choice in the future planetary exploration missions to Mars. The deposits of aqueous minerals including sulfates have been found on the Martian surface. With the development of miniaturized handheld spectrometers there is a need for evaluation of Raman spectroscopy as a method of identification of sulfate phases in their natural conditions. In the first part of this work a handheld spectrometer equipped with 532 nm excitation laser was tested under laboratory conditions during which the ability to distinguish mineral samples representing sulfates of different chemical composition and different degree of hydration was investigated. In the second part, two handheld Raman spectrometers equipped with 532 and 785 nm excitation lasers were used for the characterization of sulfate phases on sites of their natural occurrence located in the Czech Republic. The quality of the Raman spectra acquired under outdoor conditions by both spectrometers was rather average but sufficient to...

O interesse científico em se conhecer os efeitos provocados pelo uso da radiação ionizante nos sistemas biológicos, fez com que a área da dosimetria merecesse uma atenção especial na busca de sensores que pudessem traduzir respostas equivalentes às dos tecidos humanos. O presente trabalho mostra a caracterização preliminar e a aplicação de um novo dosímetro químico (FXGA), derivado do FXG, que se diferencia do anterior pela substituição da gelatina de pele de porco \"300 Bloom\" por uma nacional. As leituras de dose absorvida por esse dosímetro são baseadas na absorção ótica e para tal foi desenvolvido um protótipo portátil (RADIARE III), que se mostrou prático e acessível economicamente em relação a um espectrofotômetro. A partir das medidas realizadas pode-se inferir que o dosímetro FXGA possui comportamento linear com a dose absorvida no intervalo de 0,5 à 35 Gy para fótons do 60Co, e de 1 à 7 Gy para elétrons com energias de 5, 8 e 10 MeV. Também a dependência energética para fótons e elétrons foram obtidas e seus comportamentos são coerentes com o esperado. Aplicações na radioterapia foram obtidas, como: perfil, fator de campo e percentual de dose profunda para fótons do 60Co. Dos resultados obtidos da caracterização para fótons e elétrons, bem como dos parâmetros físicos para o equipamento 60Co, o sistema dosimétrico \"gel FXGA + protótipo RADIARE III\" mostrou-se promissor para ser utilizado no controle de qualidade de um serviço de radioterapia. / Researchs with radiation dosimeters look for materials that presents similar response to radiation as biological systems. This work presents preliminar characterization and radiotherapy application from a new chemical dosimeter (FXGA), derived from the FXG with a difference due to the gelatin used (pork skin \"300 Bloom\" for FXG and national gelatin for FXGA). The FXGA absorbed dose reading are based on the optic absorption, and for this reason a reader (RADIARE III) was developed, which is portable and economically accessible when compared with an spectrophotometer. From the measurements done, it can be inferred that FXGA dosimeter possess linear response with the absorbed dose from 0.5 up to 35 Gy for 60Co photons and from up 1 up to 7 Gy for 5, 8 and 10 MeV. The energy dependence for photons and electrons were obtained and their response are coherent those expected. FXGA radiotherapy applications had been done as field factor, profile and percentage depth dose for 60Co photons. From the characterization results for photons and electrons, as well from physical parameters for the 60Co , one can figure out that the dosimetric system \"FXGA gel + RADIARE III reader\" can be an attractive tool for the quality control in a radiotherapy service.

O microscópio é um instrumento de grande relevância para o contexto científico. Dentre as variadas montagens desse instrumento óptico, os microscópios sem lentes têm chamado atenção por serem robustos, reduzidos em tamanho e custo, e ainda possibilitarem imagens com amplo campo de visão (usualmente da ordem de algumas dezenas de mm2). Dentro dessa categoria, existem os microscópios holográficos in-line, os quais obtêm a imagem da amostra a partir da reconstrução numérica de um holograma adquirido por um sensor digital de imagem. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de construir um desses microscópios para observar amostras semitransparentes. O microscópio desenvolvido ao longo deste trabalho tem sua iluminação baseada no uso de um LED associado a um pinhole, cuja finalidade é aumentar a coerência temporal da luz. Com isso, a iluminação proveniente do pinhole percorre uma distância de aproximadamente 10 cm até atingir a amostra, posicionada sobre uma lâmina de vidro. À uma distância mínima da amostra, está posicionado um sensor CMOS, responsável pela aquisição do padrão de interferência da parcela da luz que foi transmitida sem desvio pela amostra e da parte da luz que foi difratada por ela. Esse padrão de intensidade, chamado holograma, é reconstruído numericamente de modo a obter uma boa imagem do objeto-alvo. A reconstrução da imagem medida é feita considerando a propagação da luz de volta ao plano de do objeto e, depois, estimando a fase referente à luz incidente no sensor no instante da medida. Essa primeira etapa resulta na imagem da amostra com a influência de um artefato muito conhecido na holografia: a imagem gêmea. Enquanto a reconstrução de fase reconstrói a imagem de uma forma mais completa, reduzindo a influência de tais artefatos. A reconstrução de fase é feita com o método multialturas, o qual faz uso de mais de uma imagem medida, com distâncias diferentes entre a amostra e o sensor, como entrada para o algoritmo desenvolvido. Utilizando um sensor de 10 MP (3856 x 2764 pixels), com o pixel de 1,67 μm, construímos um microscópio holográfico sem lentes com um campo de visão de quase 30 mm2 e resolução de aproximadamente 3 μm. / The microscope is an instrument of great relevance in the scientific context. Among various assembly of this optic instrument, the lensless microscope have had drawing attention by been robust, with small size and low cost and, in addiction, enable imaging with a large field of view (usually about tens of mm2). Inside this category, there is the in-line holographic microscopes, which achieve the sample image from the numerical reconstruction of a hologram acquired by an image digital sensor. This study have the objective of develop one of these microscopes to image semitransparent samples. The microscope developed over this study has its illumination based on the use of an LED associated with a pinhole, whose purpose is to increase the light temporal coherence. Therefore, illumination from the pinhole goes 10 cm until reach the sample, positioned over the glass slide. From a minimal distance of the sample, a CMOS sensor is positioned, which is responsible to acquire the interference pattern of the transmitted light with the diffracted light. This intensity pattern, called hologram, is numerically reconstructed in order to get a great image of target object. The reconstruction of the measured image is performed considering the back propagation of the light to the object plane and, then, estimating the phase related to the incident light over the sensor at the time of the measurement. This first step results in a sample image influenced by an artifact well-known in the holography: the twin-image. Whereas phase reconstruction reconstruct the image more fully, reducing the artifact influence. Phase reconstruction is performed using the multiheigh method, which uses more than one measured image, with different distances between the sample and sensor, as input to the developed algorithm. Using a 10 MP (3856 x 2764 pixels) sensor, with a pixel size of 1.67 μm, we built a lensless holographic microscope with a field of view near of 30 mm2 and resolution of approximately 3 μm.

by Kwan Kar Kin, Karl. / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 77-79. / Library's copy:Disk for circulation (3.5 in.)