Many applications for the analysis and processing of biological materials require the enrichment of cell subpopulations. Conventional cell sorting systems are large and expensive with complex equipment that necessitates specialized personnel for operation. Employing microfluidics technology for lab-on-a-chip adaptation of these devices provides several benefits: improved transport control, reduced sample volumes, simplicity of operation, portability, greater accessibility, and reduced cost. The designs of microfluidic cell sorting chips vary widely in literature; evaluation and optimization efforts are rarely reported. This study intends to investigate the primary components of the design to understand the effect of various parameters and to improve the performance of the microfluidic chip. Optimized individual elements are incorporated into a proposed cell sorter chip with the ability to dynamically sort target cells from a non-homogeneous solution using electrical driving forces. Numerical and experimental results are used to evaluate the sample focusing element for controlled cell dispensing, the sorting configuration for target cell collection, and the flow elements for reduced pressure effects and prevention of flow blockages. Compact models are adapted to solve the potential field and flow field in the chip and to predict the focused sample stream width. A commercial CFD package is used to perform 2-D simulations of the potential, velocity, and concentration fields. A fluorescence microscopy visualization system is implemented to conduct experiments on several generations of chip designs. The data from sample focusing experiments, performed with fluorescent dye samples, is analyzed using a Gaussian distribution model proposed in this work. A technique for real-time monitoring of fluorescent microspheres in the microfluidic chip enables the use of dynamic cell sorting to emulate fully autonomous operation. The performance values obtained from these experiments are used to characterize the various design configurations. Sample focusing is shown to depend largely on the relative size of the sheath fluid channel and the sample channel, but is virtually independent of the junction shape. Savings in the applied potential can be achieved by utilizing the size dependency. The focusing performance also provides information for optimizing the widths of the channels relative to the cell size. Successful sorting of desired cells is demonstrated for several designs. Key parameters that affect the sorting performance are discussed; a design employing the use of supplemental fluid streams to direct the particle during collection is chosen due to a high sorting evaluation and a low sensitivity to flow anomalies. The necessary reduction of pressure influences to achieve reliable flow conditions is accomplished by introducing channel constrictions to increase the hydrodynamic resistance. Also, prolonged operation is realized by including particle filters in the proposed design to prevent blockages caused by the accumulation of larger particles. A greater understanding of the behaviour of various components is demonstrated and a design is presented that incorporates the elements with the best performance. The capability of the microfluidic chip is summarized based on experimental results of the tested designs and theoretical cell sorting relationships. Adaptation of this chip to a stand-alone, autonomous device can be accomplished by integrating an optical detection system and further miniaturization of the critical components.

In this thesis, various designs of VLSI sorter architectures are proposed. This thesis first presents a baseline serial sorter architecture built on a central memory module equipped with a single compare-and-swap (C&S) functional unit. A dedicated low-cost address generation circuit which controls the order of data accesses and C&S operation in order to support sorting of data sequences with any length is proposed. By exploring the bit-permutation technique to create the access orders suitable for different C&S steps, the address generator can be built by only two adders and three shifters plus some control circuits, and consumes only about 1K gates. Next, this thesis also proposes a two-bank memory architecture to reduce the required memory ports from four to two such that the sorter memory can be realized by on-chip SRAM blocks. Our experimental results show that the overall silicon cost can be reduced by more than 56% for the sorter circuit which can sort the data sequence of length up to 1024. In addition to the serial sorter architecture, this thesis further proposes three possible parallel sorter architectures including the pipeline sorter, cascade sorter, and block sorter. Among these three architectures, the pipeline sorter can deliver the best throughput although it can be used only for fixed-length data sequences. On the other hand, the block sorter is the most flexible design suitable for sequences with variable length. It is designed based on the block-level even-odd merge sort algorithm. It significantly outperforms the previous block sorter design by using more efficient algorithm, architectural pipelining, and better block C&S(BC&S) unit which can realize separate pre-sort and merge processes efficiently. Our implementation results show that by using the 0.18um technology, the core size of the proposed sorter with block-size of four is about 0.509mm2, and can sorting a 1024-point sequence within 32.84us.

Many applications for the analysis and processing of biological materials require the enrichment of cell subpopulations. Conventional cell sorting systems are large and expensive with complex equipment that necessitates specialized personnel for operation. Employing microfluidics technology for lab-on-a-chip adaptation of these devices provides several benefits: improved transport control, reduced sample volumes, simplicity of operation, portability, greater accessibility, and reduced cost. The designs of microfluidic cell sorting chips vary widely in literature; evaluation and optimization efforts are rarely reported. This study intends to investigate the primary components of the design to understand the effect of various parameters and to improve the performance of the microfluidic chip. Optimized individual elements are incorporated into a proposed cell sorter chip with the ability to dynamically sort target cells from a non-homogeneous solution using electrical driving forces. Numerical and experimental results are used to evaluate the sample focusing element for controlled cell dispensing, the sorting configuration for target cell collection, and the flow elements for reduced pressure effects and prevention of flow blockages. Compact models are adapted to solve the potential field and flow field in the chip and to predict the focused sample stream width. A commercial CFD package is used to perform 2-D simulations of the potential, velocity, and concentration fields. A fluorescence microscopy visualization system is implemented to conduct experiments on several generations of chip designs. The data from sample focusing experiments, performed with fluorescent dye samples, is analyzed using a Gaussian distribution model proposed in this work. A technique for real-time monitoring of fluorescent microspheres in the microfluidic chip enables the use of dynamic cell sorting to emulate fully autonomous operation. The performance values obtained from these experiments are used to characterize the various design configurations. Sample focusing is shown to depend largely on the relative size of the sheath fluid channel and the sample channel, but is virtually independent of the junction shape. Savings in the applied potential can be achieved by utilizing the size dependency. The focusing performance also provides information for optimizing the widths of the channels relative to the cell size. Successful sorting of desired cells is demonstrated for several designs. Key parameters that affect the sorting performance are discussed; a design employing the use of supplemental fluid streams to direct the particle during collection is chosen due to a high sorting evaluation and a low sensitivity to flow anomalies. The necessary reduction of pressure influences to achieve reliable flow conditions is accomplished by introducing channel constrictions to increase the hydrodynamic resistance. Also, prolonged operation is realized by including particle filters in the proposed design to prevent blockages caused by the accumulation of larger particles. A greater understanding of the behaviour of various components is demonstrated and a design is presented that incorporates the elements with the best performance. The capability of the microfluidic chip is summarized based on experimental results of the tested designs and theoretical cell sorting relationships. Adaptation of this chip to a stand-alone, autonomous device can be accomplished by integrating an optical detection system and further miniaturization of the critical components.

Three different topics associated with their respective applications are proposed in this thesis. The first application is the implementation of a fast tagged sorter. A novel and high-speed realization of the tagged sorting algorithm is presented. Meanwhile, the problems to detect whether the queue is empty or full is also resolved without increasing any hardware cost. The second topic is focused on the implementation of a fast dynamic 64-bit comparator with small transistor count. The entire 64-bit comparator is composed of equality comparators and zero/one detectors, which are proposed by C.-F. Wu. The problem to handle a large fan-in requirement is also resolved in our design. The third topic is to carry out a power demand monitor system for factories. Not only can it monitor the factory¡¦s power network with a graphical user interface, but also can turn off the unessential equipments automatically when the total power consumed by the factory is larger than what was expected.

In the past few years, several articles have been devoted to the study of molecular computing based on DNA in order to implement the algorithm to solve some NP-complete problems and simulate logic gates in silicon-based computers. A great deal of effort has been made on using DNA to implement simple logic gates, such as simple 1-bit comparators and simple adders, or to solve NP-complete problems, such as the Hamiltonian path problem, the traveling salesperson problem and the satisfiability problem. All of the methods rely on the capability of DNA computing which could perform computation in huge parallelism to produce all possible solutions where the answer may be derived from. In this thesis, we will first design a full bit-serial comparator that can perform the feedback operation. Then, we will design a word-parallel bit-serial sorter which uses our comparators as the elementary building components. Our design of sorters can be applied to any sorting network, such as bitonic sorter and odd-even merge sorter.

No description available.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / In order to comply with lima beans peruvian export standards, this study develops an automatic sorter machine. This system uses vibratory conveying to linearly move the grains and to allow their faces to rotate. In addition, image processing algorithms were used for the detection and rejection of defective lima beans. After performing 2200 sorting tests, an industrial performance with an efficiency of 96.81% in acceptance and 95.26% in product rejection was obtained

This study proposes a navel method for continuously particle sorting utilizing cascade squeeze jumping effect under microfluidic configuration. Microparticles with different sizes can be successfully separated at different stages of squeezing sheath flow. The method is based on that particles can not flow stably within a flow stream with the smaller stream width than their sizes. Big particles will jump from their original flow stream into the wider neighboring sheath flow. In this study, we have successfully designed and fabricated two kinds of particles/cells sorters using MEMS (Micro-electro-mechanical Systems) technology. The proposed microchip device includes a multi-stage sheath flow particles/cells sorter and an improved design of a cascade squeezed flow scheme. In the study, theoretical formulations, computer simulations and experimental operations are used to analyze the flow field in the microchip and evaluate the sorting performance of the devices. Results show the good sorting performance with cell recovery rate of 87.7% and yield rate of 94.1% can be obtained using the proposed micro particles/cells sorter. Furthermore, it is also important to continiously prepare reagents for in-column bio-chemical reactions. Therefore, this study presents a sheath-flow based microfluidic device for concentration fraction delivery of liquid samples. The simple and novel structure proposed in this study is able to prepare reagent with different concentration and is also easy to be integrated with other multifunctional microfluidic device. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of the proposed concentration fraction delivery device, this study designs an integrated microchip device for in-line preparation of lysin reagent for cell lysis and an integrated T-form microfluidic mixer for demonstration of RBC lysis in the same microchip. Reagents for cell lysis are firstly prepared by the concentration faction delivery part of the chip. The prepared reagent is mixed with RBC sample downstream in the reaction channel using the T-form mixer. Results show a high RBC lysing rate of upto 100% in 10 mm downstream the T-junction can be achieved utilizing the proposed chip. In this study, we have successfully demonstrated three kinds of microfluidic device including a micro particles/cells sorter, a concentration fraction delivery device and a cell lysis reactor. Numerical analysis and experimental investigation confirm the proposed concepts and performance of the microfluidic devices. The contributions of the study are highly potential for developing a low-cost bioreactor system in the

Decorticated flax contains a significant amount of shive content, which limits applications of flax fibre. Separation of shives from the fibre is essential to improve the quality of flax fibre. Pneumatic method and a Sorter were implemented to meet the above objective. Terminal velocities of individual flax fibre and shive particles were investigated and their width, length, and mass were recorded. A sorting method was used for separation of short and long fibre for two grades of fibre: Grade 1 and Grade 2, with initial fibre purities of 51% and 15%, respectively. The ranges of terminal velocities for shive and fibre particles were 1.13 to 4.09 m/s and 0.51 to 1.07 m/s, respectively, which were significantly different. Fibre purity of approximately 80% for Grade 1 and 66% for Grade 2 were recorded from sorting, which were a significant improvement when compared to the initial purities. This study demonstrated the potential of the pneumatic and sorting methods for improving fibre quality. With the increase in resistant strains of microorganisms to antibiotics, researchers have started to explore plant parts to discover new antimicrobials. Since medieval times all portions of plants were used medicinally. Plant tissues, including stems, possess secondary metabolites (SMs), which have known antimicrobial properties. The purpose of this study was to investigate: the presence of antimicrobial compounds in stem extracts of canola, flax, hemp, and sweet clover; and study sorption-desorption behavior of their powdered stem material. GC-MS analysis of all extracts showed the presence of many SMs, including fatty acids, terpenoids, steroids, and sterols, etc. Many of the SMs found in the extracts have previously shown antimicrobial activity against a broad spectrum of organisms according to literature. Water sorption isotherms of stems showed a typical IUPAC Type II sigmoid curve similar to natural fibres. Equilibrium moisture content (EMC) of canola and sweet clover was significantly higher than flax and hemp at 95% RH, which were all higher than the fibre saturation point of wood (27%). The preliminary investigation via GC-MS showed promising results and water absorptivity results of stems can be used as the initial key property for many applications. / October 2015

Fusarium head blight (FHB) or head scab, caused by Fusarium graminearum Schwabe [telomorph: Gibberella zeae Schwein.(Petch)], is one of the most destructive diseases of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) worldwide. Numerous strategies for scab resistance breeding are in use, including phenotypic selection for low severity and marker-assisted selection for resistance QTL. The most destructive consequences of scab are evidenced through a reduction in grain quality, and the presence of mycotoxins, the most common of which is deoxynivalenol (DON). Thus, there is great interest among breeders in selecting for resistance to both of these traits. To this end, a study was devised as follows. In 2010, 20 bulk F3 SRW wheat populations with scab resistant parents in their pedigrees were harvested by population from unreplicated plots near Lexington, KY. The plots were affected by a naturally occurring mild-moderate scab epidemic. The grain was sorted on a USDA/ARS and National Manufacturing Seed Sorter System with color camera according to a calibration that reflected visual differences between asymptomatic grain and grain showing FHB symptoms. This process was repeated in 2011 using grain from plots that had conidial suspension applied at anthesis. In 2012, an unreplicated plot study of the C0, C1 and C2 cycles of selection, inoculated with grain spawn and conidial suspension, was evaluated for Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) and DON concentration. An additional cycle of selection was conducted by running the bulk grain through the sorter. In October 2012, 4 selection cycles of the 20 populations were planted in a RCB experiment at Lexington and Princeton, KY. Bulk populations were planted in both scab nursery and plots, and C3 accepted and rejected of all populations and derived lines of 2 populations were planted in the scab nursery in Lexington, KY. Some populations had FDK and DON reduction with selection, and some derived lines had either numerical or significant reduction with selection. Although the accepted fraction had non-significant reduction compared with the rejected fraction over the populations, FDK and DON means were obviously lower in accepted than in rejected fractions.