Self-assembled porous polymer films for improved oxygen sensing.

Absolute oxygen sensors based on quenching of phosphorescence have been the subject of numerous studies for the monitoring of biological environments. Here, we used simple fabrication techniques with readily available polymers to obtain high performance phosphorescent films. Specifically, evaporation-based phase separation and the breath figure technique were used to induce porosity. The pore sizes ranged from ∼37 nm to ∼141 µm while the maximum average porosity achieved was ∼74%. The oxygen sensing properties were evaluated via a standarised calibration procedure with an optoelectronic setup in both transmission and reflection based configurations. When comparing non-porous and porous films, the highest improvements achieved were a factor of ∼7.9 in dynamic range and ∼7.3 in maximum sensitivity, followed by an improved linearity with a half-sensitivity point at 43% O2 V/V. Also, the recovery time was reduced by an order of magnitude in the high porosity film and all samples prepared were not affected by variations in the humidity of the surrounding environment. Despite the use of common polymers, the fabrication techniques employed led to the significant enhancement of oxygen sensing properties and elucidated the relation between porous film morphologies and sensing performance.

EVM Loss: A Loss Function for Training Neural Networks in Communication Systems.

Neural networks and their application in communication systems are receiving growing attention from both academia and industry. The authors note that there is a disconnect between the typical objective functions of these neural networks with regards to the context in which the neural network will eventually be deployed and evaluated. To this end, a new loss function is proposed and shown to increase the performance of neural networks when implemented in a communication system compared to previous methods. It is further shown that a 'split complex' approach used by many implementations can be improved via formalisation of the 'concatenated complex' approach described herein. Experimental results using the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM) modulation formats with varying bandwidth compression factors over a wireless visible light communication (VLC) link validate the efficacy of the proposed method in a real system, achieving the lowest error vector magnitude (EVM), and thus bit error rate (BER), across all experiments, with a 5 dB to 10 dB improvement in the received symbols EVM overall compared to the baseline implementation, with bandwidth compressions down to 40% compared to OFDM, resulting in a spectral efficiency gain of 67%.

A 40 Mb/s VLC System Reusing an Existing Large LED Panel in an Indoor Office Environment.

With advances in solid-state lighting, visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a promising technology to enhance existing light-emitting diode (LED)-based lighting infrastructure by adding data communication capabilities to the illumination functionality. The last decade has witnessed the evolution of the VLC concept through global standardisation and product launches. Deploying VLC systems typically requires replacing existing light sources with new luminaires that are equipped with data communication functionality. To save the investment, it is clearly desirable to make the most of the existing illumination systems. This paper investigates the feasibility of adding data communication functionality to the existing lighting infrastructure. We do this by designing an experimental system in an indoor environment based on an off-the-shelf LED panel typically used in office environments, with the dimensions of 60 × 60 cm2. With minor modifications, the VLC function is implemented, and all of the modules of the LED panel are fully reused. A data rate of 40 Mb/s is supported at a distance of up to 2 m while using the multi-band carrierless amplitude and phase (CAP) modulation. Two main limiting factors for achieving higher data rates are observed. The first factor is the limited bandwidth of the LED string inside the panel. The second is the flicker due to the residual ripple of the bias current that is generated by the panel's driver. Flicker is introduced by the low-cost driver, which provides bias currents that fluctuate in the low frequency range (less than several kilohertz). This significantly reduces the transmitter's modulation depth. Concurrently, the driver can also introduce an effect that is similar to baseline wander at the receiver if the flicker is not completely filtered out. We also proposed a solution based on digital signal processing (DSP) to mitigate the flicker issue at the receiver side and its effectiveness has been confirmed.

Visible light communications: increasing data rates with polarization division multiplexing.

In this Letter, we propose a new configuration for visible light communication systems, which results in doubling of the data rate due to the use of polarization division multiplexing. As light-emitting diodes are unpolarized incoherent light sources, we isolate both the perpendicular s and parallel p modes for independent modulation. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we show that it is possible to transmit and successfully recover two separate orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals on each polarization (pol-OFDM). Furthermore, we compare the performance of the pol-OFDM system with the transmission of a single conventional OFDM signal without a polarizer over the same physical link. We show that similar bit error rates can be achieved while obtaining ∼45% improvement in both the data rate and spectral efficiency due to polarization multiplexing.

Filter-less WDM for visible light communications using colored pulse amplitude modulation.

This Letter demonstrates, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a new wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) scheme for visible light communications using multi-level colored pulse amplitude modulation. Unlike traditional WDM, no optical bandpass filters are required, and only a single optical detector is used. We show that, by transmitting n independent sets of weighted on-off keying non-return-to-zero data on separate wavelengths over a line-of-sight transmission path, the resultant additive symbols can be successfully demodulated. Hence, the data rates can be aggregated for a single user or divided into individual colors for multiple user access schemes. The system is empirically tested for M=4 and 8 using an off-the-shelf red, green, and blue (RGB) chip light-emitting diode (LED). We demonstrate that for M=4, using the R and B chips, a bit error rate (BER) of ≤10-6 can be achieved for each wavelength at bit rates up to 10 Mbps, limited by the LEDs under test. For M=8 using R, G, and B, a BER of ≤10-6 can be achieved for each wavelength at bit rates up to 5 Mbps.

Indoor Intruder Tracking Using Visible Light Communications.

This paper proposes a comprehensive study of indoor intruder tracking using visible light communication (VLC). A realistic indoor VLC channel was developed, taking into consideration reflections, shadowing, and ambient noise. The intruder was considered smart and aiming to escape tracking. This was modelled by adding noise and disturbance to the intruder's trajectory. We propose to extend the application of minimax filtering from state estimation in the radio frequency (RF) domain to intruder tracking using VLC. The performance of the proposed method was examined and compared with Kalman filter for both VLC and RF. The simulation results showed that the minimax filter provided marginally better tracking and was more robust to the adversary behavior of the intruder than Kalman filter, with less than 0.5 cm estimation error. In addition, minimax was significantly better than Kalman filter for RF tracking applications.

Fiber nonlinearity-induced penalty reduction in CO-OFDM by ANN-based nonlinear equalization.

We experimentally demonstrate ∼2 dB quality (Q)-factor enhancement in terms of fiber nonlinearity compensation of 40 Gb/s 16 quadrature amplitude modulation coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing at 2000 km, using a nonlinear equalizer (NLE) based on artificial neural networks (ANN). Nonlinearity alleviation depends on escalation of the ANN training overhead and the signal bit rate, reporting ∼4 dBQ-factor enhancement at 70 Gb/s, whereas a reduction of the number of ANN neurons annihilates the NLE performance. An enhanced performance by up to ∼2 dB in Q-factor compared to the inverse Volterra-series transfer function NLE leads to a breakthrough in the efficiency of ANN.

Visible light communications: real time 10 Mb/s link with a low bandwidth polymer light-emitting diode.

This paper presents new experimental results on a polymer light-emitting diode based visible light communications system. For the first time we demonstrate a 10 Mb/s link based on the on-off keying data format with real time equalization on a field programmable gate array. The 10 Mb/s transmission speed is available at a bit error rate less than 4.6 × 10(-3), which is the limit for forward error correction. At a BER of 10(-6) a transmission speed of 7 Mb/s is readily achievable.

Nonwoven fiber meshes for oxygen sensing.

Accurate oxygen sensing and cost-effective fabrication are crucial for the adoption of wearable devices inside and outside the clinical setting. Here we introduce a simple strategy to create nonwoven polymeric fibrous mats for a notable contribution towards addressing this need. Although morphological manipulation of polymers for cell culture proliferation is commonplace, especially in the field of regenerative medicine, non-woven structures have not been used for oxygen sensing. We used an airbrush spraying, i.e. solution blowing, to obtain nonwoven fiber meshes embedded with a phosphorescent dye. The fibers serve as a polymer host for the phosphorescent dye and are shown to be non-cytotoxic. Different composite fibrous meshes were prepared and favorable mechanical and oxygen-sensing properties were demonstrated. A Young's modulus of 9.8 MPa was achieved and the maximum oxygen sensitivity improved by a factor of ∼2.9 compared to simple drop cast film. The fibers were also coated with silicone rubbers to produce mechanically robust sensing films. This reduced the sensing performance but improved flexibility and mechanical properties. Lastly, we are able to capture oxygen concentration maps via colorimetry using a smartphone camera, which should offer unique advantages in wider usage. Overall, the introduced composite fiber meshes show a potential to significantly improve cell cultures and healthcare monitoring via absolute oxygen sensing.

Bandwidth limits of luminescent solar concentrators as detectors in free-space optical communication systems.

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) have recently emerged as a promising receiver technology in free-space optical communications due to their inherent ability to collect light from a wide field-of-view and concentrate it into small areas, thus leading to high optical gains. Several high-speed communication systems integrating LSCs in their detector blocks have already been demonstrated, with the majority of efforts so far being devoted to maximising the received optical power and the system's field-of-view. However, LSCs may pose a severe bottleneck on the bandwidth of such communication channels due to the comparably slow timescale of the fluorescence events involved, a situation further aggravated by the inherent reabsorption in these systems, and yet, an in-depth study into such dynamic effects remains absent in the field. To fill this gap, we have developed a comprehensive analytical solution that delineates the fundamental bandwidth limits of LSCs as optical detectors in arbitrary free-space optical links, and establishes their equivalence with simple RC low-pass electrical circuits. Furthermore, we demonstrate a time-domain Monte Carlo simulation platform, an indispensable tool in the multiparameter optimisation of LSC-based receiver systems. Our work offers vital insight into LSC system dynamic behaviour and paves the way to evaluate the technology for a wide range of applications, including visible light communications, high-speed video recording, and real-time biological imaging, to name a few.

Visible light communication with efficient far-red/near-infrared polymer light-emitting diodes.

Visible light communication (VLC) is a wireless technology that relies on optical intensity modulation and is potentially a game changer for internet-of-things (IoT) connectivity. However, VLC is hindered by the low penetration depth of visible light in non-transparent media. One solution is to extend operation into the "nearly (in)visible" near-infrared (NIR, 700-1000 nm) region, thus also enabling VLC in photonic bio-applications, considering the biological tissue NIR semitransparency, while conveniently retaining vestigial red emission to help check the link operativity by simple eye inspection. Here, we report new far-red/NIR organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with a 650-800 nm emission range and external quantum efficiencies among the highest reported in this spectral range (>2.7%, with maximum radiance and luminance of 3.5 mW/cm2 and 260 cd/m2, respectively). With these OLEDs, we then demonstrate a "real-time" VLC setup achieving a data rate of 2.2 Mb/s, which satisfies the requirements for IoT and biosensing applications. These are the highest rates ever reported for an online unequalised VLC link based on solution-processed OLEDs.

The importance of central corneal thickness measurements and decision making in general ophthalmology clinics: a masked observational study.

BACKGROUND: To assess the impact of knowing central corneal thickness (CCT) on glaucoma management in a United Kingdom district general hospital. METHODS: A masked observational non-interventional study included 304 eyes of 152 consecutive glaucoma cases attending general clinic. CCT was measured using a hand-held pachymeter. IOP, as measured by the Goldmann applanation tonometer (GAT), was adjusted for CCT using a normogram. Two identical study sheets were retrospectively constructed from each subject's case notes: one included the CCT and adjusted IOP information, the other excluded. Study sheets were randomly presented to a single masked observer to decide glaucoma management. The difference in management decision was noted. RESULTS: The mean +/- standard deviation CCT was 561.5 +/- 35.7 microm, 538.9 +/- 41.4 microm, 538.3 +/- 40.3 microm for ocular hypertension (OHT), primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) and normal pressure glaucoma (NPG) subjects respectively. IOP adjustment was greater than +/-2 mmHg in 33.9%(103/304) of eyes. CCT and adjusted IOP information led to different treatment option in 37%(55/152). Of the most important changes 20.4%(31/152) cases would have been commenced on additional IOP-lowering medication, 2.0%(3/152) would have been counselled for trabeculectomy surgery and 3.3%(5/152) of the cohort would have been observed rather than treated. CONCLUSION: CCT and adjusted IOP measurement can influence glaucoma management in a clinical context. It helps attribute risk and hence aids patient management decisions.

Central serous chorioretinopathy secondary to trauma.

The first case of central serous chorioretinopathy secondary to blunt trauma is presented. Optical coherence tomography performed on presentation, 3 days after trauma, demonstrated a neurosensory detachment of the macular, thus confirming clinical findings. At 3 months after injury, the retina had spontaneously flattened at the macular and vision had returned to normal.

Secondary ionization of chemical warfare agent simulants: atmospheric pressure ion mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

For the first time, the use of a traditional ionization source for ion mobility spectrometry (radioactive nickel ((63)Ni) beta emission ionization) and three alternative ionization sources (electrospray ionization (ESI), secondary electrospray ionization (SESI), and electrical discharge (corona) ionization (CI)) were employed with an atmospheric pressure ion mobility orthogonal reflector time-of-flight mass spectrometer (IM(tof)MS) to detect chemical warfare agent (CWA) simulants from both aqueous- and gas-phase samples. For liquid-phase samples, ESI was used as the sample introduction and ionization method. For the secondary ionization (SESI, CI, and traditional (63)Ni ionization) of vapor-phase samples, two modes of sample volatilization (heated capillary and thermal desorption chamber) were investigated. Simulant reference materials, which closely mimic the characteristic chemical structures of CWA as defined and described by Schedule 1, 2, or 3 of the Chemical Warfare Convention treaty verification, were used in this study. A mixture of four G/V-type nerve simulants (dimethyl methylphosphonate, pinacolyl methylphosphonate, diethyl phosphoramidate, and 2-(butylamino)ethanethiol) and one S-type vesicant simulant (2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide) were found in each case (sample ionization and introduction methods) to be clearly resolved using the IM(tof)MS method. In many cases, reduced mobility constants (K(o)) were determined for the first time. Ion mobility drift times, flight times, relative signal intensities, and fragmentation product signatures for each of the CWA simulants are reported for each of the methods investigated.