A measurement device includes mechanical support elements (101-104) for supporting a sample well, other mechanical support elements (105-109) for supporting a measurement head (112) suitable for optical measurements, and a control system (111) configured to control the measurement head to carry out at least two optical measurements from at least two different measurement locations inside the sample well, where each measurement location is a center point of a capture range from which radiation is captured in the respective optical measurement. The final measurement result is formed from the results of the at least two optical measurements in accordance with a pre-determined rule. The use of the at least two optical measurements from different measurement locations reduces measurement variation in situations where the sample well (153) contains a piece (158) of sample carrier.

Analyte arrays such as solutes in a slab-shaped gel following electrophoresis, and particularly arrays that are in excess of 3 cm square and up to 25 cm square and higher, are imaged at distances of 5 cm or less by either forming sub-images of the entire array and stitching together the sub-images by computer-based stitching technology, or by using an array of thin-film photoresponsive elements that is coextensive with the analyte array to form a single image of the array.

A weld scanner for a real-life bridge and scanning method thereof is disclosed. The weld scanner includes a running portion and a scanning portion mounted on a scanner chassis. A front end and a tail end of the scanner chassis are both provided with a laser range finder. A magnet is arranged at a bottom portion of the scanner chassis. The scanning portion includes a probe slider, a bendable metal pipe and a probe connected in sequence. A gear is arranged on the probe slider, and the gear is meshed with a rack inside a scanner chassis chute. The weld scanner scans while the running portion moves forward along a weld, and scans a suspected defect position more carefully when a magnetic field change is detected.

In a method and apparatus, a property of an optically diffuse medium including a first optical absorber having a first concentration and a second optical absorber having a second concentration is determined. A surface area of the medium is imaged at multiple wavelengths around an isosbestic wavelength of the first absorber and the second absorber. A reflectance spectrum of the medium at the surface area at the multiple wavelengths is determined. A derivative of the determined reflectance spectrum around the isosbestic wavelength is determined. From the derivative, a concentration ratio of the first concentration and the second concentration is estimated.

An in situ inspection system and method to inspect a honeycomb body (122) skin in a skinning system. The inspection system includes a line illuminator (148) to generate a line illumination on the skin (136) perpendicular to an axial direction (112) of the honeycomb body travel, and a detector (152) to detect the line illumination scattered from the skin (136) and generate a signal based on the detected line illumination. A controller (184) is configured to receive the signal generated by the detector (152), compare the received signal to a previously stored defect free signal in real-time, and control at least one skinning process parameter based on the comparison. The method includes in situ inspecting the skin (136) and controlling at least one skinning process parameter based on the inspection. In the method, the in situ inspection includes illuminating a line of the skin (136) perpendicular to the axial direction (112) and detecting the illuminated line scattered from the skin (136).

Analyzers and analyzer systems that include an analyzer for determining multiple label species, methods of using the analyzer and analyzer systems to analyze samples, are disclosed herein. The analyzer includes one or more sources of electromagnetic radiation to provide electromagnetic radiation at wavelengths within the excitation bands of one or more fluorophore species to an interrogation space that is translated through the sample to detect the presence or absence of molecules of different target analytes. The analyzer may also include one or more detectors configured to detect electromagnetic radiation emitted from the one or more fluorophore species. The analyzer for determining multiple target molecule species provided herein is useful for diagnostics because the concentration of multiple species of target molecules may be determined in a single sample and with a single system.

An apparatus for imaging a includes an light source for illuminating the sample simultaneously in a line focus or an array of foci; and a sensor for detecting photons emitted or scattered from the sample simultaneously in an array of fields of view. An array of sub-observation volumes in the sample, from which photons are emitted or scattered during imaging, is defined by the volumes in space where the line focus or array of foci from the light source overlap with the corresponding array of field of views of the sensor. A cylindrical sample holder holds the sample at a surface and is rotatably arranged such that at least a portion of the sample can be transported through at least one of the sub-observation volumes by rotating the sample holder. The apparatus can be used in a high-throughput method of imaging.

The present invention relates to digital pathology, and relates in particular to a digital pathology scanner illumination unit. In order to provide digital pathology scanning with improved illumination, a digital pathology scanner illumination unit (10) is provided that comprises a light source (12), a light mixing chamber (14), and a light diffuser (16). The light source comprises a plurality of light elements (18) that are arranged longitudinally along a linear extension direction. The mixing chamber comprises a transparent volume (22) providing a mixing distance (DM) between the plurality of the light elements and the light diffuser such that light with a uniform intensity is provided at a downstream edge (26) of the mixing chamber; and the mixing chamber is arranged, in terms of light propagation, between the plurality of the light elements and the light diffuser. Further, the light diffuser comprises a diffusing material such that the light is transformed into light that has uniformity at different angles, in particular low angles.

Surface sensing methods for imaging a scanned surface of a sample via sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy are disclosed herein. The methods include exposing a sampled location of the scanned surface to a visible light beam and exposing the sampled location to a tunable infrared beam such that the tunable infrared beam is at least partially coincident with the visible light beam. The methods also include varying a frequency of the tunable infrared beam an inducing optical resonance within an imaged structure that extends at least partially within the sampled location. The methods further include receiving at least a portion of an emitted light beam from the sampled location and scanning the visible light beam and the runnable infrared beam across the scanned portion of the scanned surface. The methods also include generating an image of the scanned portion of the scanned surface based upon the receiving and the scanning.

Disclosed herein is a multi-channel line microscope for imaging a sample by moving a microscope stage across two or more reflected excitation lines positioned relative to each other so that each excitation line excites a spatially distinct horizontal line in the image plane of the sample. Also disclosed herein are methods to image a sample by moving a microscope stage across two or more reflected excitation lines positioned relative to each other so that each excitation line excites a spatially distinct horizontal line in the image plane of the sample. Also disclosed herein is an apparatus and methods of use of the apparatus for a broad range of applications.