The maximum rate of global ecophagy by biovorous selfreplicating nanorobots is fundamentally restricted by the replicative strategy employed; by the maximum dispersal velocity of mobile replicators; by operational energy and chemical element requirements; by the homeostatic resistance of biological ecologies to ecophagy; by ecophagic thermal pollution limits (ETPL); and most importantly by our ...

Several cultures emphasize that one should live in harmony with the environment, avoiding those human activities that substantially interfere with natural processes, including air pollution. Undoubtedly, the atmosphere is a principal environmental component, representing a crucial part of the entire climate system (Ayers, 2005). It behaves as a colloidal medium because it contains not only gase...

Emerging applications in Defense and Security require sensors with state-of-the-art sensitivity and capabilities. Among these sensors, the imaging spectrometer is an instrument yielding a large amount of rich information about the measured scene. This powerful spectrometric tool is becoming more common in civil applications such as search and rescue, geological surveys, pollution monitoring, fo...

Mobile sensing enables data collection from large numbers of participants in ways that previously were not possible. In particular, by affixing a sensory device to a mobile device, such as smartphone or vehicle, mobile sensing provides the opportunity to not only collect dynamic information from environments but also detect the environmental hazards. In this paper, we propose a mobile sensing w...

Background: Azo dyes are the most widely used synthetic colorants in the textile, food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and other industries, accounting for nearly 70% of all dyestuffs consumed. Recently, much research attention has been paid to efficient monitoring of these hazardous chemicals and their related metabolites because of their potentially harmful effect on environmental issues. In contr...

The ability to reliably detect hazardous airborne biological materials is an inherently difficult and important problem for Defence (i.e., force protection), national security (i.e., detection of anthropogenic and natural hazards, evaluation of risks for first responders) and for ecological monitoring (i.e., air pollution). There are a multitude of approaches to the problem of biological detect...

Millimeter wave technology advances have made possible active and passive millimeter wave imaging for a variety of applications including advanced plasma diagnostics, radio astronomy, atmospheric radiometry, concealed weapon detection, all-weather aircraft landing, contraband goods detection, harbor navigation/surveillance in fog, highway traffic monitoring in fog, helicopter and automotive col...

Sensitive and selective, but fast and simple assays of cyanide ion in waste and natural waters, as well as in biological samples are required in case of accidental pollution with such species. Cyanide reaction with ninhydrin has been recommended for instant detection of small traces of cyanide (detection limit 1.5 ng ml-1). However, the oxidizers and heavy metal ions, such as Hg, Cu, Ag may int...