Team:Grenoble-Alpes/Software

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Application

The Braman lake seems to be suspended at the mountains’ summits.
Credits: Estelle Vincent

Why using a smartphone as a detection device ?

It was decided to use a smartphone as a detection device for multiple reasons. Firstly, it was realized that because today’s smartphones capabilities are increasing, they are being used for more and more applications every day, including in the medical field. As a matter of fact, smartphones’ cameras can outperform some standalone cameras in certain domains, and for our purpose, they proved to be as effective as photodiodes for the detection of fluorescence, which translates in no loss of precision by using such device. Secondly, they are accessible wherever we are, which is ideal for the purpose of the kit as it is meant to also be used in remote places. Ultimately, a smartphone also comes with the advantage of being able to process the data it is acquiring in real time, and can then transfer this processed data to a remote database over cellular network.

The application interface

On this page is reproduced the application interface. The home page of this application is represented below with its three different buttons: "Maps", "Data" and "Analysis".

"Maps" fetch the data stored in the database and display them at every update. The data we are getting is a world map showing the cases of cholera.

"Data" fetch the data stored in the database and display them at every update. The data we are getting are the following. A histogram will show the evolution of cholera cases as time passes and it will also show the number of tests made during a given week. There will be a histogram per month (4 weeks roughly) per country.

Finally, "Analysis" is where a new analysis starts and as it was not possible to reproduce this "Analysis" interface, the different steps of how the analysis is programmed are explained.

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MAPS

Here are represented all the cholera cases of our database. At this stage, our database is fulfilled with virtual cases as our kit is not worldwide used. Both positive and negative results are displayed: red crosses represent an analysis which led to a negative result and green ticks represent the cases of cholera.

DATA

Here are represented all the histograms. As our database is only fulfilled with virtual analysis' results, to observe an histogram, you should select France on February.

-- Select a country

January February March April May June

July August September October November December

ANALYSIS

This part allows to follow each step and to run the full analysis by controlling the Arduino card. Each step is described by the following pseudo-code, but it is important to note that this is not exactly how a real analysis would be performed, there are missing steps that are not coded yet.

- Check that the temperature is at 37°C inside the kit. The user will be ask to wait until the light on the kit becomes green.

- User will be asked to “Insert the tank inside the kit” (which contains the lyophilised plasmids).

- A message “Press the button when it’s done” will appear, user will have to press it to carry on with the analysis.

- A message “Insert the sample in the DNA extraction kit” will come up.

- After inserting the sample, user will be asked to press the “Done” button once again.

- The user will have have to wait for 2 hours will the analysis is being performed. He will be informed by a timer. There will be the following message too “Waiting for the bacteria to grow”.

- A message saying “Fluorescence excitation” will appear, which will trigger the LED that will excite the sample.

- Wait for 10 seconds. After that, a manual picture will need to be taken, and a new message will appear: “Fluorescence results”.

- Display the picture.

- Image processing is then realised by the smartphone which will detect whether there is fluorescence or not.

- Print the message “Analysis in progress” during the whole analysis process.

- Set the picture to black and white.

- Go through every pixel on the image, and sum the value of all the pixels.

- If this sum surpasses a set threshold, user will see the message “You are suffering from cholera”, and if not, the message will be “You are not suffering from cholera”.

- Associate the latitude and longitude to the present analysis as well as the date.

- Send these data to a database.

- The user will then see the message “End of the analysis”.

- User will then be able to choose if he/she wants to add its results to the database by the message “Adding results to the database”. The user will also be presented with two other buttons, one “Home” button and one “Data” button that will let him/her consult the database.