Lorenzo Cocola

Noninvasive monitoring of gas in the lungs and intestines of newborn infants using diode lasers: feasibility study.

Abstract. Preterm newborn infants have a high morbidity rate. The most frequently affected organs where free gas is involved are the lungs and intestines. In respiratory distress syndrome, both hyperexpanded and atelectatic (collapsed) areas occur, and in necrotizing enterocolitis, intramural gas may appear in the intestine. Today, these conditions are diagnosed with x-ray radiography. A bed-side, rapid, nonintrusive, and gas-specific technique for in vivo gas sensing would improve diagnosis. We report the use of noninvasive laser spectroscopy, for the first time, to assess gas content in the lungs and intestines of three full-term infants. Water vapor and oxygen were studied with two low-power diode lasers, illuminating the skin and detecting light a few centimeters away. Water vapor was easily detected in the intestines and was also observed in the lungs. The relatively thick chest walls of the infants prevented detection of the weaker oxygen signal in this study. However, results from a previous phantom study, together with scaling of the results presented here to the typical chest-wall thickness of preterm infants, suggest that oxygen also should be detectable in their lungs.

Non-invasive gas monitoring in newborn infants using diode laser absorption spectroscopy: a case study

Non-invasive diode laser spectroscopy was, for the first time, used to assess gas content in the intestines and the lungs of a new-born, 4 kg, baby. Two gases, water vapor and oxygen, were studied with two low-power tunable diode lasers, illuminating the surface skin tissue and detecting the diffusely emerging light a few centimeters away. The light, having penetrated into the tissue, had experienced absorption by gas located in the lungs and in the intestines. Very distinct water vapor signals were obtained from the intestines while imprint from oxygen was lacking, as expected. Detectable, but minor, signals of water vapor were also obtained from the lungs, illuminating the armpit area and detecting below the collar bone. Water vapor signals were seen but again oxygen signals were lacking, now due to the difficulties of penetration of the oxygen probing light into the lungs of this full-term baby. Ultra-sound images were obtained both from the lungs and from the stomach of the baby. Based on dimensions and our experimental findings, we conclude, that for early pre-term babies, also oxygen should be detectable in the lungs, in addition to intestine and lung detection of water vapor. The present paper focuses on the studies of the intestines while the lung studies will be covered in a forthcoming paper.

Passive unmanned sky spectroscopy for remote bird classification

We present a method based on passive spectroscopy with aim to remotely study flying birds. A compact spectrometer is continuously recording spectra of a small section of the sky, waiting for birds to obscure part of the field-of-view when they pass the field in flight. In such situations the total light intensity received through the telescope, looking straight up, will change very rapidly as compared to the otherwise slowly varying sky light. On passage of a bird, both the total intensity and the spectral shape of the captured light changes notably. A camera aimed in the same direction as the telescope, although with a wider field-of-view, is triggered by the sudden intensity changes in the spectrometer to record additional information, which may be used for studies of migration and orientation. Example results from a trial are presented and discussed. The study is meant to explore the information that could be gathered and extracted with the help of a spectrometer connected to a telescope. Information regarding the color, size and height of flying birds is discussed. Specifically, an application for passive distance determination utilizing the atmospheric oxygen A-band absorption at around 760 nm is discussed.

Control software for the Multi-Channel Led starlight simulator

We built a multi-channel led starlight simulator capable to reproduce the radiation of stars of F, G, K and M spectral types in the wavelength range 365-940 nm. This range overlaps the photosynthetic active interval allowing us to use the simulator for biological experiments under radiation and atmospheric conditions close as much as possible to those expected on extrasolar planets. The simulator is a laboratory tool which is part of the “Atmosphere in a Test Tube” project, aimed to study the photosynthetic efficiency of bacteria under alien environmental conditions and their possible impact on the atmosphere of the host planet. This paper describes the software developed to control the simulator. We begin by presenting a conceptual overview of the instruments and then illustrating the top-level requirements and the architecture of the control software. Finally, we give a description of the graphical user interface.

Adaptive multi-wavelength LED star simulator for space life studies

With this work we report on the design of an LED based star simulator. The simulator is the result of a cooperation between the Italian National Astrophysics Institute and LightCube SRL, a University of Padova (Italy) R&D spin-off. The simulator is designed to achieve a luminous output customizable both in spectrum and in intensity. The core of the system is a 25 channels independent LED illuminator specifically designed to replicate the spectral emission of the desired star. The simulated star light intensity can also be carefully tuned to achieve the correct illuminance at a specific distance from the star.

Imaging of gaseous oxygen through DFB laser illumination

A Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy setup with Wavelength Modulation has been used together with a synchronous sampling imaging sensor to obtain two-dimensional transmission-mode images of oxygen content. Modulated laser light from a 760nm DFB source has been used to illuminate a scene from the back while image frames were acquired with a high dynamic range camera. Thanks to synchronous timing between the imaging device and laser light modulation, the traditional lock-in approach used in Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy was replaced by image processing techniques, and many scanning periods were averaged together to allow resolution of small intensity variation over the already weak absorption signals from oxygen absorption band. After proper binning and filtering, the time-domain waveform obtained from each pixel in a set of frames representing the wavelength scan was used as the single detector signal in a traditional TDLAS-WMS setup, and so processed through a software defined digital lock-in demodulation and a second harmonic signal fitting routine. In this way the WMS artifacts of a gas absorption feature were obtained from each pixel together with intensity normalization parameter, allowing a reconstruction of oxygen distribution in a two-dimensional scene regardless from broadband transmitted intensity. As a first demonstration of the effectiveness of this setup, oxygen absorption images of similar containers filled with either oxygen or nitrogen were acquired and processed.

Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy for Gas Sensing in the Agri-Food Industry

A review of TDLAS O2 and CO2 sensors developed for the agri-food industry is presented in this work. The instruments are designed for research labs, for non-destructive package testing and for in-line control at production sites.

A tunable integrated system to simulate colder stellar radiation

In the last years, a lot of extrasolar planets have been discovered in any direction of the Galaxy. More interesting, some of them have been found in the habitable zone of their host stars. A large diversity of spectral type, from early types (A) to colder ones (M), is covered by the planetary system host stars. A lot of efforts are done in order to find habitable planets around M stars and indeed some habitable super earths were found. In this framework, “Atmosphere in a Test Tube”, a project started at Astronomical observatory of Padua, simulates planetary environmental condition in order to understand how and how much the behavior of photosynthetic bacteria in different planetary/star scenarios can modify the planet atmosphere. The particular case of an habitable planet orbiting a M dwarf star is under study for the time being. The irradiation of an M star, due to its lower surface temperature is very different in quality and quantity by the irradiation of a star like our Sun. We would like to describe the study of feasibility of a new kind of tunable led stellarlight simulator capable to recreate the radiation spectrum of M type stars (but with the potential to be expanded even to F, G, K star spectra types) incident on the planet. The radiation source is a multiple LED matrix cooled by means of air fan technology. In order to endow it with modularity this device will be composed by a mosaic of circuit boards arranged in a pie-chart shape, on the surface of which will be welded the LEDs. This concept is a smart way in order to replace blown out pieces instead of changing the entire platform as well as implement the device with new modules suitable to reproduce other type of stars. The device can be driven by a PC to raise or lower the intensity of both each LED and the lamp, in order to simulate as close as possible a portion of the star spectrum. The wavelength intervals overlap the limits of photosynthetic pigment absorption range (280-850 nm), while the range of the radiation source will be between 365 nm and 940 nm. The reason why we chose a higher outer limit is that M stars have the emission peak at about 1000 nm and we want to study the effects of low-light radiation on bacterial vitality. The innovative concept behind this radiative source is the use of the LED components to simulate the main stellar absorption lines and to make this a dynamic-light. Last but not least the use of LED is crucial to keep the device compact and handy. This device could help us to better understand the link between radiation and NIR-photosynthesis and could find applications in the field of photobioreactors as a test bench for the choice of the wavelength to be used in order to maximize the production rate. Other fields of application are the microscopy light sources field and the yeasts growth sector.