Methods, apparatus and systems for characterizing changes in at least one physical property of soft tissue. A series of acoustic pulses is generated and directed into the soft tissue such that at least one of the pulses is of sufficiently high intensity to induce physical displacement of the tissue. Waves reflected off the tissue, or a flexible member that moves with the tissue, are received and measured to estimate at least one characteristic of the physical displacement induced thereby. Repetition of the generating, receiving and estimating steps provides characterization of the at least one physical property over time. Methods, apparatus and systems for characterizing at least one physical property of blood, by generating a series of acoustic pulses and directing the series of pulses into the blood such that at least one of the pulses is of sufficiently high intensity to induce physical displacement of the blood. Acoustic pulses and/or optical waves reflected from the blood, or a flexible member in contact with the blood that moves with the blood, are received and measured to estimate at least one characteristic of the physical displacement induced thereby.

A device for estimating a mechanical property of a sample is disclosed herein. The device may include a chamber configured to hold the sample; a transmitter configured to transmit a plurality of waveforms, including at least one forcing waveform; and a transducer assembly operatively connected to the transmitter and configured to transform the transmit waveforms into ultrasound waveforms. The transducer assembly can also transmit and receive ultrasound waveforms into and out of the chamber, as well as transform at least two received ultrasound waveforms into received electrical waveforms. The device also includes a data processor that can receive the received electrical waveforms; estimate a difference in the received electrical waveforms that results at least partially from movement of the sample; and estimate a mechanical property of the sample by comparing at least one feature of the estimated difference to at least one predicted feature, wherein the at least one predicted feature is based on a model of an effect of the chamber wall. Finally, the device can also include a controller configured to control the timing of the ultrasound transmitter and data processor.

Methods and apparatus are provided for non-invasive blood analysis. A blood analysis device (10, 30) comprises a housing (24) for receiving a human or animal body part or a container of blood. The housing (24, 32) comprises at least one wave emitter (18) for emitting an emitted wave to target blood, and at least one wave sensor (26) for sensing a response wave after the emitted wave has interacted with the target blood. The at least one wave sensor is configured to output at least one sense signal allowing a frequency spectrum of the emitted wave to be constructed.

The present invention relates to a sample information acquisition apparatus including a determination unit that determines a state of contact between a probe and a sample and whether the sample is on an optical path on the basis of an ultrasonic echo signal of ultrasonic waves received by the probe for the ultrasonic waves transmitted from the probe, prior to generation of a photoacoustic image; and a control unit that causes a light irradiating unit to irradiate the sample with light on the basis of a result of the determination. The determination unit determines the state of contact on the basis of information about multiple ultrasonic echo signals received by multiple transducers that are set apart from each other, among the multiple ultrasonic echo signals received by the multiple transducers in response to the ultrasonic waves transmitted from the multiple transducers in the probe.

Described herein are cell culture interfaces that can be configured to relay an energy between a cell and an electronic interface and methods of using the cell culture interfaces that can be configured to relay an energy between a cell and an electronic interface.

A fluidic device includes a base structure including at least one bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator structure having a fluidic passage containing at least one functionalized active region overlaid with functionalization material suitable to bind an analyte. One or more of a wall structure, a cover structure, or a portion of the base structure defining the fluidic passage includes additional functionalization material to form at least one absorber configured to bind at least one analyte. The dynamic measurement range of a BAW resonator structure is increased when the at least one absorber is placed upstream of the at least one functionalized active region.

Described embodiments include a culture incubator, method, and sensor circuit. A culture incubator includes an accessible incubation compartment configured to contain a culture item at a specified incubation temperature; a phase change material having a phase transition temperature over the specified incubation temperature; and a heat transfer element in thermal communication with the phase change material and configured to transfer heat to the phase change material. A sensor circuit is configured to acquire data indicative of a phase composition state of the phase change material. A manager circuit is configured to determine a difference between the phase composition state and a target phase composition state for the phase change material. A controller circuit is configured to transfer heat to the phase change material in an amount estimated to change the phase composition state of the phase change material to the target phase composition state.

A photoacoustic microscope includes: a light source which generates pulse light; a focusing optical system which focuses the pulse light emitted from the light source and irradiate a sample with the focused pulse light; a photoacoustic signal detection unit which detects an acoustic signal generated from the sample through irradiation of the pulse light; an image signal formation unit which forms an image signal of the sample based on the acoustic signal; an information unit having information representing a relation between intensity of the pulse light entering the sample and intensity of the acoustic signal generated from the sample; and a pulse light intensity changing unit which changes intensity of the pulse light from the light source based on the information.

This disclosure relates generally to a method and system for determining viscosity information of fluids. The present disclosure utilizes an intensity modulated continuous wave (CW) laser diode-based PA sensing method to obtain a continuous wave photoacoustic (CWPA) spectra. Through this CWPA spectra, a full width half maximum (FWHM) and a spectral area is determined to obtain the information about the viscosity of fluids. Although, the CWPA based sensing technique is used for distinguishing different types of abnormalities in tissues, so far it is not used for measuring viscosity which is an important thermo-physical property. The viscosity information of the fluids from the normalized Gaussian fitted CWPA spectra is based on a viscosity feature computed from a FWHM, and a spectral area. The viscosity feature improves the good of fit parameter (R.sup.2) significantly to 0.98 as compared to the traditional only FWHM based viscosity determination for which R.sup.2 is 0.91.

Measuring local speed of sound for ultrasound by inducing ultrasound waves in a subject by focusing an ultrasound beam, using an ultrasound Tx transducer to propagate waves from a focal point to the surface, measuring a time of arrival of the waves using at least three single Rx transducer surface elements, signal traces recorded on individual Rx transducers are evenly sampled in time, an average speed of sound equals an arithmetic mean of local sound-speed values sampled along a wave path, each Rx transducer outputs a separate arrival time of the waves, computing a local speed of sound (c.sub.i) of waves from an average speed of sound (c.sub.avg) using a computer that receives arrival times, where $c_{\mathrm{avg}}=\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{.Math.}}{c}_i,$
where c.sub.i=d.sub.i/T.sub.s, d.sub.i is the length a tissue traveled during one sampling period T.sub.s, and using c.sub.i to differentiate human disease, or with ultrasound measurements to differentiate degrees of human disease.