Dysphagia affects many people worldwide. Modifying foods to standard consistencies, and manual design and assembly of foods for the daily requirements of people with dysphagia is challenging. People with dysphagia may develop a dislike for pureed foods due to the unattractiveness of the appearance of the foods, the lack of variety in daily meals, and the diluted taste of meals. Three-dimensional (3D) food printing is emerging as a method for making foods for people with special mealtime needs. Very few efforts have been made to apply 3D food printing to improving the lives of people with special mealtime needs such as those with dysphagia. This paper presents the design and 3D printing of visually appetizing pureed foods for people with dysphagia with high consistency and repeatability. A tuna fish involving pureed tuna (protein), pureed pumpkin (fruit), and pureed beetroot (vegetable) is designed and then 3D printed. The steps involved in the design of tuna fish, preparation of purees, and printing of tuna fish are described. The obtained results are presented, and the findings of this research work are discussed.

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This paper presents the development of a smartphone-controlled wireless device for cell optical density sensing in microfluidic chips. The footprint of the device is very compact relative to a classical laboratory spectrophotometer, making it a portable device. The cell optical density sensing device consists of an embedded microcontroller, optical sensing components, and a wireless transceiver performing cell optical density measurements in disposable microfluidic chips fabricated from poly(methylmethacrylate) polymers. The device is controlled by an Android application allowing for true portability and the possibility of remote or field operation of the device. The use of microfluidic chips as the sample carrier for optical density detection instead of a plastic cuvette allows users the flexibility to explore and/or conduct a variety of micro-scale chemical analysis using the device which would be difficult in a cuvette-based system. The function of the device is validated through a series of off-line and online optical density measurements using Saccharomyces cerevisae yeast cultures. The device is low cost, small enough to fit in most laboratory flow hood cabinets, and can be easily integrated into miniature bioreactor systems. Moreover, wireless communication enables the user to operate the device using smartphones or rapidly transfer the measured data to an online repository for analysis or storage.

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<p>This paper presents the development of a smartphone-based wireless operated milliliter scale bioreactor. The bioreactor has a working volume of 18 mL and is made of poly (methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) and poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) polymers using a laser engraving methodology. Temperature and reactor stirring speed are the controlled variables and wireless communication is achieved through a wireless transceiver embedded in a low-cost controller platform. The results attained are very promising as the controller is able to control the desired reactor variables precisely through wireless communications.</p>