Zulfiqur Ali

• Managing Director at Teesside University

Assistive powered wheelchairs will bring patients and elderly the ability of remain mobile without the direct intervention from caregivers. Vital signs from users can be collected and analyzed remotely to allow better disease prevention and proactive management of health and chronic conditions. This research proposes an autonomous wheelchair protot...

Assistive powered wheelchairs will bring patients and elderly the ability of remain mobile without the direct intervention from caregivers. Vital signs from users can be collected and analyzed remotely to allow better disease prevention and proactive management of health and chronic conditions. This research proposes an autonomous wheelchair protot...

Liquid biopsy technologies have seen a significant improvement in the last decade, offering the possibility of reliable analysis and diagnosis from several biological fluids. The use of these technologies can overcome the limits of standard clinical methods, related to invasiveness and poor patient compliance. Along with this there are now mature e...

The human body is an extremely challenging environment for wearable antennas due to the complex antenna-body coupling effects. In this article, a compact flexible dual-band planar meander line monopole antenna (MMA) with a truncated ground plane made of multiple layers of standard off-the-shelf materials is evaluated to validate its performance whe...

Microfluidic devices offer the potential to automate a wide variety of chemical and biological operations that are applicable for diagnostic and therapeutic operations with higher efficiency as well as higher repeatability and reproducibility. Polymer based microfluidic devices offer particular advantages including those of cost and biocompatibilit...

In this contribution, we present findings on biosorption of Cu (II) ions using novel alkali-treated nopal fibres. The biosorption data at equilibrium were fitted to several isotherm models and the biosorbent was characterized by XRD and SEM–EDX. The biosorption mechanism was investigated using a holistic approach of pH shifts, apparent colour varia...

Absorption is a widely used technique for a range of different applications. It has lower sensitivity than many other techniques such as fluorescence which has 100 to 1000 times higher sensitivity than absorption. Optical cavity approaches have been developed where the light passes back and forth, within the sample, between two high reflectivity mi...

Cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) produced from waste lignocellulosic biomass have emerged as a sustainable source material for high value-added applications. In the current study, previously unreported entangled cellulose nanofibril and nanosheet (CNF/CNS) were obtained using Agave Tequilana Weber var. Azul leaves by means of a microfluidization proces...

Optimisation of bioprocesses relies on approaches that are either labour intensive or require expensive robotic systems. There is a need for fluidic processing at low volume that can be integrated with existing bioprocess analytics to provide analytical information for the development and optimisation of bioprocesses. We demonstrate a 1 mL polymer...

Probiotics are used as microbial food supplements for health and well-being. They are thought to have immunomodulatory effects although their exact physiological mechanism of action is not clear. This study investigated the influence of probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG conditioned media (LGG-CM) on macrophage phagocytosis of non-pathogenic Esch...

Wireless sensor technology has revolutionised healthcare practices to deal with the increasing number of chronically ill patients. Real-time and continuous monitoring of health parameters can help in early diagnosis and timely treatment. Sensor nodes having limited resources in health monitoring systems are equipped with number of sensors which gen...

Sepsis is defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. In 2017, almost 50 million cases of sepsis were recorded worldwide and 11 million sepsis-related deaths were reported. Therefore, sepsis is the focus of intense research to better understand the complexities of sepsis response, particularl...

Here, we demonstrate a low-cost polymer microfluidic microbioreactor with a working volume of 1 mL, integrated with optical sensors for pH, oxygen and cell density, and maintained at constant set temperature for the optimisation of recombinant protein production from Pichia pastoris . Oxygen is transferred from a headspace enclosure, formed using i...

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is commonly used for the analysis of nucleic acids in a variety of applications including clinical. There is, however, a need for a low cost portable PCR device that allows rapid identification of pathogenic bacteria. We report a shunting PCR microfluidic device comprising: polycarbonate microfluidic PCR chip; shunti...

We review some emerging trends in transduction, connectivity and data analytics for Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) of infectious and non-communicable diseases. The patient need for POCT is described along with developments in portable diagnostics, specifically in respect of Lab-on-chip and microfluidic systems. We describe some novel electrochemical...

Deep Vein Thrombosis and pulmonary embolism (DVT/PE) is one of the most common causes of unexpected death for hospital in-patients. D-dimer is used as a biomarker within blood for the diagnosis of DVT/PE. We report a low-cost microfluidic device with a conveniently biofunctionalised interdigitated electrode (IDE) array and a portable impedimetric r...

Purpose To identify and analyse existing resource efficiency and resource effectiveness measures and indicators (REMIs); identify gaps and develop a new indicator of ‘operational resource effectiveness’ (OREft) suitable for manufacturing units. Design/methodology/approach Research methodology consist of 3 stages: gap Identification, development...

The pressure drop has a significant importance in multiphase flow systems. In this paper, the effect of the volumetric quality and mixture velocity on pressure drop of gas-liquid flow in horizontal pipes of different diameters are investigated experimentally and numerically. The experimental facility was designed and built to measure the pressure d...

Air/Oil filtration through filters is commonly utilised in the vacuum industry where oil lubricated pumps are used across a number of different applications such as food and packaging, industrial, pharmaceutical, R&D, forming and drying. The air/oil filters are crucial in the reduction of exhaust emissions, which, when suspended as fine particulate...

We report on the first detailed use of broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (BBCEAS) as a detection system for immunoassay. A vertical R ≥ 0.99 optical cavity was integrated with a motorised XY stage, which functioned as a receptacle for 96 well microtiter plates. The custom built cavity enhanced microplate reader was used to make meas...

Phagocytes such as macrophages are capable of detecting and killing pathogenic bacteria by producing reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. Formation of free radicals in macrophages may be regulated by probiotics or by factors released by probiotics but yet to be identified. Thus, studies were carried out to determine whether cell-free conditioned m...

Earth's natural resources are finite. To be environmentally sustainable, it may not only be necessary to use them 'efficiently' but also 'effectively'. While we consider 'repair', 'recondition', 'refurbish' and 'remanufacture' to be 'reuse' options, not all researchers agree. Also, there is lack of clarity between the different options that are lik...

: Measuring is the first step towards improving. In the context of environmental sustainability, measuring resource efficiency (RE) and/or resource effectiveness (RE) could be the key to reducing consumption of scarce natural resources, waste generation and resultant environmental degradation. This research aims to identify existing RE 'measures' a...

Earth's natural resources are finite. To be environmentally sustainable, it may not only be necessary to use them 'efficiently' but also 'effectively'. While Gharfalkar et al. (2015) consider 'repair', 'recondition', 'refurbish' and 'remanufacture' to be 'reuse' options, not all researchers agree. Also, there is lack of clarity between the differen...

Loss of recoverable resources in linear resource flow systems is likely to contribute to the depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation. The 'waste hierarchy' in the European Commission's latest Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC (WFD2008) makes recommendations on how to address this issue. The WFD2008 is analysed in this work f...

A prototype membrane aerated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microbioreactor integrated with a photodiode detector was developed for monitoring intracellular green fluorescent protein ultraviolet (GFPUV) expression in Escherichia coli. The developed system is compact, simple and inexpensive and ideal for economical on chip detection of fluorophores in...

A reusable low cost microfluidic cell culture array device (MCCAD) integrated with a six output concentration gradient generator (cGG) and 4×6 arrays of microchamber elements, addressed by a series of row and columnar pneumatically actuated normally closed (NC) microvalves was fabricated for cell-based screening of chemotherapeutic compounds. The p...

Electro polymerized poly(acriflavine) modified gold (Au) electrode has been prepared and used for the electrochemical detection of dopamine (DA) and catechol (CA) without the interference of ascorbic acid (AA). The experimental results demonstrates that, PAF/Au electrode exhibited favorable electron transfer kinetics and electro catalytic activity...

A prototype Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based microbioreactor integrated with a photodiode detector for monitoring intracellular green fluorescent protein ultraviolet (GFPUV) expression is described. The developed system is compact, simple and inexpensive thus making it ideal for an economical on chip detection of intracellular GFP and other biolog...

The quality of teas is currently graded using trained tea tasters, whose evaluation can sometimes be subjective. In this study the simple fluorescence-based technique of total luminescence spectroscopy (TLS) in conjunction with data classification using principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to discriminate between teas from 11 different Sr...

There have been considerable advances in the development of microfluidic devices that can carry out the automated and sophisticated processing necessary for DNA analysis and forensic biology. Polymer substrates with high replication techniques are often used in the manufacture of microfluidic devices that are single use, low cost and disposable. Hi...

Due to the functional dependency of micro-systems technologies on stringent dimensions, masses and tolerances, strict quality requirement is paramount for mass producing micro-parts for use in micro-devices. The consistency of components produced could vary as a result of significant effects of process parameters or process noise, thereby necessita...

The use of microfluidic bioreactor platforms for cell culturing holds considerable promise for a range of fields which include drug discovery, tissue engineering, bioprocessing optimisation and cell based screening studies. Microfluidic bioreactor systems have length scales that are well matched to the physical dimensions of most cells and microorg...

Absorption spectroscopy can be considered to be one of the most useful and also most widely used analytical techniques. Over the past 20 years, new experimental techniques have been developed to increase the path length of measurement for absorption spectroscopy based on the use of an optical cavity. The vast majority of cavity-based absorption stu...

We describe a rapid and sensitive method for detection and quantification of d-dimer which is a biomarker present at elevated concentrations in patients with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) disorders. The method uses an immunosensor based on a single-chain antibody (ScAb) immobilized on a transducer surface and with a densely packed receptor layer. Dete...

This paper reports the development and characterisation of an assembly technology for a polymer lab-on-chip. The system consists of a 150 μm deep hot embossed microfluidic channel in polycarbonate and Au electrodes fabricated separately by photolithography on polyethylenenaphthalate. The system is designed for impedimetric immunoassay detection in...

Rashid, M. et. al. (2010) 'Recent developments in polymer microfluidic devices with capillary electrophoresis and electrochemical detection', Micro and Nanosystems, 2(2), pp.108-136. Abstract: We review recent work on the development of polymer microfluidic devices using capillary electrophoresis (CE) for fluid driving and separation and electroche...

This work has explored the development of impedimetric immunosensors based on a conducting co-polypyrrole film to which a histidine tag antibody has been bound using a complex NTA chelator coordinated with copper as metal. The electrical properties of the copolymer film have been characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The ex...

A low-cost microBR (microbioreactor) made from PTFE [poly(tetrafluoroethylene)] was used to cultivate a model organism, Pseudomonas aeruginosa DS10-129. The progress of bioprocessing was monitored by comparing the growth of the organism in a microBR, a conventional bench scale bioreactor and a shake flask. Under the microBR conditions, the organism...

Sensitive liquid-phase measurements have been made in a 20 cm cell using broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (BBCEAS). The cavity was formed by two high reflectivity mirrors which were in direct contact with the liquid-phase analytes. Careful choice of solvent was required to minimise the effect of background solvent absorptions. Meas...

The first demonstration of a cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS) based technique, applied to HPLC detection is reported. Broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (BBCEAS) has been used for detection in a HPLC system (HPLC-BBCEAS). Measurements were made on the dyes rhodamine 6G and rhodamine B between 450 and 600 nm. The sensiti...

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have numerous applications, for example, engine wear inhibitors, surface profiling signal enhancement, nanostructure production, sensor production, and catalysis. The adsorbed SAM structure has a major impact on the properties of the outer monolayer surface which dictates the performance and viability of the SAM for...

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have numerous applications, for example, engine wear inhibitors, surface profiling signal enhancement, nanostructure production, sensor production, and catalysis. The adsorbed SAM structure has a major impact on the properties of the outer monolayer surface which dictates the performance and viability of the SAM for...

A simple microbioreactor for high-throughput bioprocessing made from low cost polymer polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) tubes with a working volume of 1.5 ml is described. We have developed a microfluidic system that handles a small population of cells of a model microorganism, Pseudomonas aeruginosa DS10-129. Under the conditions of the microbioreact...

Avidin-biotin has been controllable immobilized on the surface of gold electrodes using mercaptopropionic acid as self-assembled monolayer. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was employed to investigate the changes that appear at the electrode surface in the presence of a redox mediator, K3[Fe(CN)6]. An electrical model more complex than...

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and the associated condition of Pulmonary Embolism (PE) are the most common cause of unexpected death in developed nations. DVT is an internal clot formed in one of the body's deep veins, typically in the leg. If a part of the clot breaks free and moves into the lung, it can lead to pulmonary embolism (PE) which is often...

Hasn't been released by Sensors and actuators yet so best not put the abstract here.

A novel implementation of broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (BBCEAS) has been used to perform sensitive visible wavelength measurements on liquid-phase solutions in a 2 mm cuvette placed at normal incidence to the cavity mirrors. The overall experimental methodology was simple, low cost, and similar to conventional ultraviolet-visib...

The perspective on the development of nano and microsystems for chemical and biological measurements is presented. The use of nano and microfabrication approaches allows to create miniaturized analytical devices that are inherently smaller, have lower power consumption, give lower cost of analysis, are more reproducible and can be produced in high...

We have developed Microsystems with capillary electrophoresis and an electrochemical detector (CE-ECD). The microfabricated CE-ECD systems can be used as a disposable device and the characteristics have been optimized for application in electrochemical detection. The system has been realized on a Polystyrene (PS) polymer chip with gold electrodes....

There is an unmet medical need for a more reliable and earlier assessment of patients suspected of having a deep vein thrombosis. We describe a novel approach which is developing a highly reliable, accurate, portable and handheld prototype medical diagnostic device to improve radically the speed, accuracy and reliability with which DVT and related...

Electronic noses (e-noses) employ an array of chemical gas sensors and have been widely used for the analysis of volatile organic compounds. Pattern recognition provides a higher degree of selectivity and reversibility to the systems leading to an extensive range of applications. These range from the food and medical industry to environmental monit...

This paper reports on the application of total luminescence spectroscopy to discriminate between seven different types of tea: four bottled liquid Japanese teas (oolong, green, houji and black teas) and three leaf teas (Kenya, Assam and Ceylon teas). Total luminescence spectra were recorded by measuring the emission spectra in the range 300–700 nm...

Carbon nanofibers, with diameters between 80 and 290 nm and specific area of 242 mg, have been prepared by the catalytic chemical vapor deposition method. After preparation, the powder was mixed with silicon oil in order to create a paste electrode. The electrochemical behavior of this type of electrode was investigated by cyclic voltammetry, using...

The Lab-on-a-chip systems regarding the terrorist activity for the detection of warfare agents and explosives are discussed. These systems have the potential to provide reliable forensic information in a faster, simpler and cheaper manner. These systems integrate all of the stages in analysis, such as sample preparation, chemical reactions, separat...

Chemical sensors have been widely used for the analysis of volatile organic compounds. Employing chemical sensors in an array format with pattern recognition provides a higher degree of selectivity and reversibility leading to an extensive range of applications. When such systems are used for odour analysis they are termed electronic noses. Applica...

A fluid dynamic analysis was performed to optimise the positioning of sensor elements in a coated quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) based volatile detection system. The computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code used solves the Navier-Stokes equations statically and dynamically in 2D, discretised by finite elements. In the original sensor chamber, the...

An electronic nose based on an array of six bulk acoustic wave polymer-coated piezoelectric quartz (PZQ) sensors with soft computing-based pattern recognition was used for the classi-fication of edible oils. The electronic nose was presented with 346 samples of fresh edible oil headspace volatiles, generated at 45°C. Extra virgin olive (EVO), nonvi...

This paper describes a non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring system based on impedance spectroscopy. Changes in the glucose concentrations can be monitored by varying the frequency in the radio band over a range, optimised to measure the impact of glucose on the impedance pattern. A number of clinical-experimental studies (hyperglycaemic excur...

Total luminescence spectroscopy combined with pattern recognition has been used to discriminate between four different types of edible oils, extra virgin olive (EVO), non-virgin olive (NVO), sunflower (SF) and rapeseed (RS) oils. Simplified fuzzy adaptive resonance theory mapping (SFAM), traditional back propagation (BP) and radial basis function (...

An electronic nose utilising an array of six-bulk acoustic wave polymer coated Piezoelectric Quartz (PZQ) sensors has been developed. The nose was presented with 346 samples of fresh edible oil headspace volatiles, generated at 45C. Extra virgin olive (EVO), Non-virgin olive oil (OI) and Sunflower oil (SFO), were used over a period of 30 days. The...

Examples of available instruments based on oscillating systems are discussed including quartz crystals, vibrating strings, ribbons and other bodies.

We will review the application of acoustic wave mass sensors in chemical and biological sensing with focus on quartz crystal microbalance and surface acoustic wave devices. In chemical sensing, it is unlikely that a single sensor will display a selective and reversible response to a given analyte in a mixture. Alternative strategies such as use of...

The influence of mass and force on the frequency of vibrating bodies today is widely applied. In Part I of the survey the historical roots are reviewed and the physical principles of the several arrangements modes of operation explained.

Headspace analysis by means of sensor arrays has been successfully applied to a wide range of qualitative applications. In this study, a six element array of coated Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) sensors was used for the headspace analysis of milk volatiles. The sensors were exposed to uncontaminated samples of milk and samples contaminated with...

The effect of different relative humidity (RH) on the response of a six-polymer coated Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) sensor based electronic nose (EN) was investigated, RH 30 and 50% respectively. Increases in the sensor responses were observed for an increase in RH. A stainless steel pre-concentration tube (PCT) containing Porapak-S and a nich...

This chapter presents so me basic fuzzy theory and then demonstrates how this may be used for the classification of data. A variety of fuzzy pattern recognition systems, fuzzy c-means, fuzzy ARTMAP, SFAM and radial basis function neural networks are described and compared using standard circle-insquare and iris datasets. A fuzzy classifier for anal...

Volatile aroma compounds are generally regarded to be important parameters for determining the flavour quality and spoilage index in marine-based products. Although sensory assessment is desirable (provided it is carried out scientifically and correctly) it has limitations, including the study of flavour at the molecular level. Therefore an increas...

To investigate the use of quartz crystal resonant sensor (QCRS) technology to determine the adhesion of Staphylococcus epidermidis to fibronectin-coated surfaces. QCRS sensors (14 MHz) with 4 mm gold electrodes were coated with fibronectin and exposed for 15 min to suspensions of Staph. epidermidis ranging in concentration from 1 x 10(2) to 1 x 10(...

An ELISA for the potent estrogenic steroids, ethinyl estradiol (ETED), 17-β-estradiol (ED) and estrone (ES) has been developed and used to determine the recovery of ED and ETED following spiking from seven filters commonly used in samplers for ascertaining personal exposure of workers to airborne biochemicals. Best results were obtained with cellul...

A process based on a simulation of an industrial float line has been used for deposition of TiO2 on glass slides. The process is operated at atmospheric pressure rather than under vacuum condition. A variety of organic pre-cursors can be used for TiO2 formation and films of varying thickness can be produced. Illumination of the TiO2 coated slides w...

The pattern of responses from a four sensor array have been used for the classification of methanol, propanol, butanol, hexane, heptane and toluene using artificial intelligence (AI) based pattern recognition methods. A feedforward forward network with backpropagation was trained using sensor array data with approximately 300 training vectors and 1...

The change in solution properties due to the agglutination of an antigen with its specific antibody has previously been used as a marker of infection. This method has been modified to allow the binding activity between species to be followed using the frequency response of a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The Bayston agglutination plate assay f...

The application of acoustic wave microsensors for mass sensing will be reviewed with focus on the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. The use of QCM and SAW devices in chemical sensing as well as in the determination of solid and liquid properties will be described. In chemical sensing, it is unlikely that a...

Quartz crystal microbalances have high mass sensitivities. Their application in gas sensing has been limited because they are required to have both high selectivity and reversibility. Yet by the inherent nature of their operation these properties are mutually exclusive. One approach to this problem is to use an array of quartz crystal microbalances...

The photoreaction of thionine with NAD(P)H leads to the formation of non-fluorescent semi and lecuothionine. This has been previously used for the development of enzymatic assays. We show that the fluorescence of thionine is quenched in the presence of Nocardia corallin. We ascribe this decrease in fluorescence to the presence of NAD(P)H present on...

Glucose oxidase and ferro/ferricyanide can be co-immobilised in poly(N-methylpyrrole) films. The two species compete for incorporation into the films so that on increasing the concentration of enzyme in the growth solution less ferro/ferricyanide is incorporated into the film, and vice versa. The ferro/ferricyanide entrapped within the film acts as...

The quenching of the fluorescence of thionine by hydrogen suiphide is reported. The extremely efficient quenching process is attributed to reversible reduction of the thionine dye both in the ground and the excited state leading to the formation of a non-fluorescent semi/leuko thionine. Other toxic gases, namely SO2, HC1 and NH3, were found to have...

A number of fluorophores were investigated for their suitability to be employed as indicators in SO2 measurement. Several indicators, including PAll's, 5(and 6) carboxy-4'-5'-dimethyl fluorescein, new fuschin, hydrazine hydrochloride and chioropyridine hydrochloride, showed decrease in the fluorescence intensity with increase in SO2 concentration....

Fluorescence quenching of benzopurpurin (BP) by HC1 in methanol is investigated. The observed extremely efficient quenching is attributed to the formation of a non-fluorescent exciplex between BP and HC1. Other pollutant gases, such as H2S and NH3, were found not to effect the fluorescence of BP. Possibilities of using this finding to develop a fib...

Fluorescence quenching of 9-amino acridine hydrochloride (9-AAH) by ammonia was found to be extremely efficient. Quenching data were analyzed using the Stem-Volmer relation. The method offers a limit of detection of 0.1 ppm over a useful range of 0-10 ppm. Fluorescence of the indicator 9-AAH showed a little or no mtereference from acidic gases, suc...

The feasibility of using a cylindrical denuder tube for sampling gaseous ammonia, followed by detection with a piezoelectric quartz crystal, was investigated. Gaseous ammonia was sampled with a tungsten oxide-coated cylindrical denuder tube and then thermally desorbed onto a piezoelectric quartz crystal coated with pyridoxine hydrochloride–Antarox...

A review is presented, with 59 references, of the development and applications, in particular for sampling of environmental materials, of the cited denuder tubes.