Non-Destructive Inspection of Concrete Structures Using an Acceleration Pickup
The present paper proposes a method for detecting cracks or honeycombs in concrete structures using an acceleration pickup. The sensor on the concrete surface observes the stationary waves which are generated inside the structures depending on the depth of the crack (if there is a crack) or the bottom of the structure (if there are no cracks or honeycombs). The method measures the depths of the reflection planes (such as cracks or honeycombs) accurately by modeling the sensor output as an output of a linear dynamic system with unknown parameters and by applying a maximum likelihood method. The method is shown to be quite effectively applied to measure the depths of cracks and honeycombs
Intelligent BioRobot Platform for Integrated Clinical Test
Recently, automation in clinical test is raised as a fusion of bio and robotic technology. Particularly, automation in clinical test becomes a new application area of the robotic technology. In this paper, we present a robot platform for clinical test suitable for small or medium size of hospitals. The platform is designed to minimize the consumption of reagents, and easily integrate various testing equipments since it is functionally modularized. The platform is aimed for accommodating almost 70 kinds of clinical tests, which are the most frequently conducted in the hospitals. The platform consists of several major function blocks such as manipulation, transportation and detection, incubation, reservation, and each of them is designed as a module of the system. Basic ideas of the design are described and each functional block is explained in details
Robotic automation of cyclosporine analysis in whole blood.
Cyclosporin A (CsA) is currently the most selective immunosuppressant used clinically to prevent organ rejection after transplantation. We used a reprogrammable robot, the Benchmate (Zymark Inc., Hopkinton, MA), to automate much of the sample preparation involved in solid-phase extraction of CsA. Lysed whole-blood specimens containing previously added internal standard were placed on the Benchmate in the specimen-holding area, and a C18 Bond-Elut column was placed in the top of the sample tube. Specimen extraction from this point was handled automatically by the Benchmate, after which we manually injected the sample into the HPLC system for quantification. Analytical recovery of CsA in two concentrations of calibrator was similar for the manual and Benchmate methods. Analytical imprecision for the Benchmate was less than for manual extraction: within-run imprecision (CV) was less than 8% at either concentration. Between-run imprecision, determined by having the Benchmate extract CsA from two specimens each day for 20 days, was less than 9%. Patients' specimens were extracted manually (x) or by using the Benchmate robot (y); the results, compared by linear regression, agreed well: (y = 0.99 (SD 0.02)x + 2.6 (SD 2.8) micrograms/L (Sy[x = 7.59 micrograms/L, n = 27). We conclude that the Benchmate usefully reduces the manual steps necessary to extract specimens before HPLC analysis for CsA.