Continuous flow chemistry has the potential to greatly improve efficiency in the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); however, the optimization of these processes can be complicated by a large number of variables affecting reaction success. In this work, a screening design of experiments was used to compare computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with experimental results. CFD simulations and experimental results both identified the reactor residence time and reactor temperature as the most significant factors affecting product yield for this reaction within the studied design space. A point-to-point comparison of the results showed absolute differences in product yield as low as 2.4% yield at low residence times and up to 19.1% yield at high residence times with strong correlation between predicted and experimental percent yields. CFD was found to underestimate the product yields at low residence times and overestimate at higher residence times. The correlation in predicted product yield and the agreement in identifying significant factors in reaction performance reveals the utility of CFD as a valuable tool in the design of continuous flow tube reactors with significantly reduced experimentation. † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: (1) Experimental determination of kinetic parameters, (2) molar ratio calculations, (3) CFD transport equations, (4) fluid and material properties, (5) mesh independence study, (6) numerical diffusion analysis, (7) complete CFD yield results, (8) DoE Pareto plots. See

Abstract. We report an accurate optical differentiation technique between healthy and malaria-infected erythrocytes by quasi-simultaneous measurements of transmittance, reflectance, and scattering properties of unstained blood smears using a multispectral and multimode light-emitting diode microscope. We propose a technique for automated imaging, identification, and counting of malaria-infected erythrocytes for real-time and cost-effective parasitaemia diagnosis as an effective alternative to the manual screening of stained blood smears, now considered to be the gold standard in malaria diagnosis. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm against manual estimations of an expert and show a spectrally resolved increased scattering from malaria-infected blood cells. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

Acquisition of entomological data with high-frequency lidar is an emerging research field in rapid development. The technique offers very high numbers of observations per time unit, suitable for statistical models. In this work, we use a near-infrared Scheimpflug lidar with a sampling frequency of 3.5 kHz to assess the activity of free flying organisms. In-situ measurements were done during the rainy season in Ivory Coast, and hierarchical cluster analysis was used to quantify the amount of unique modulation signatures. Here we propose a method to estimate the number of observed species within a certain air volume for a given time span. This paves the way for rapid in-situ biodiversity assessment in accordance with recent priorities for protection of pollinator diversity during global changes.

A comparison between the commonly used absorption spectrophotometry and a more recent approach known as structured laser illumination planar imaging (SLIPI) is presented for the characterization of scattering and absorbing liquids. Water solutions of milk and coffee are, respectively, investigated for 10 different levels of turbidity. For the milk solutions, scattering is the dominant process, while the coffee solutions have a high level of absorption. Measurements of the extinction coefficient are performed at both λ=450  nm and λ=638  nm and the ratio of their values has been extracted. We show that the turbidity limit of valid transmission measurements is reached at an optical depth of OD∼2.4, corresponding here to an extinction coefficient of μ_e=0.60  mm^-1 when using a modern absorption spectrometer having a spatial Fourier filter prior to detection. Above this value, errors are induced due to the contribution of scattered and multiply scattered photons reaching the detector. On the contrary, the SLIPI measurements were found to be very reliable, even for an extinction coefficient three times as high, where μ_e=1.80  mm^-1. This improvement is due to the capability of the technique in efficiently suppressing the contribution from multiple light scattering.