Publications by authors named "W BUTTNER"

An integrated array of micron-dimension capacitors, originally developed for biometric applications (fingerprint identification), was engineered for detection of biological agents such as proteins and bacteria. This device consists of an array of 93,184 (256 x 364) individual capacitor-based sensing elements located underneath a thin (0.8 microm) layer of glass.

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Article Synopsis
  • Monitoring air contaminants aboard the shuttle and International Space Station is crucial for astronaut safety and equipment reliability, focusing on organic pollutants, hypergolic propellant contaminants, and pre-combustion vapors from electrical fires.
  • NASA's Kennedy Space Center is evaluating different electronic noses (E-noses) for their sensitivity to these contaminants, finding that only two models appropriately detect hypergolic fuels, while several commercial models can identify common organic vapors.
  • Initial testing has shown that E-noses can identify vapors with 70-90% accuracy, which can improve to 90-100% with further software enhancements, laying the groundwork for future developments in their performance.
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Antibody levels specific for capsular polysaccharides of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and for tetanus toxoid were measured in serum samples of 386 age-stratified subjects. The study group consists of healthy adult blood donors and hospitalized children undergoing elective surgery, excluding individuals with a history of infection. In children, anti-tetanus toxoid antibody levels displayed two peaks of 1.

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Many different systems for the assessment of pain in newborns and infants have been tested for validity, rarely for reliability but never for sensitivity or specificity. We aimed to determine whether the assessment of an analgesic demand in the lower age group during the postoperative period is possible by observational methods only. In an repetitive and sequential prospective process for identifying observationable behaviour and measurable physiological parameters as indicators of a postoperative analgesic demand, 584 newborns, infants and young children were studied (7 prospective studies, 4238 observations).

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