Novel Approach to Water Sample Clauses

Novel Approach to Water. Quality Testing‌ The several studies cited in Section 2.2.4 explored the use of microscopy along with image recognition as a viable tool to carry out water quality testing (Xxxxxxx et al., 2015; Xxxxxxxxx et al., 2017; Xxxxxxxxx et al., 2009). However, some of these studies used a microscopy device that was far too elaborate or expensive for rural fieldwork and all of them required that image analyses be run on hardware that is separate from the microscopy–meaning that these did not actually constitute strictly as point-of-use testing. Furthermore, explorations of WaSH interventions that do indeed rely only on the use of handheld devices (Free et al., 2013; Xxxxxx et al., 2019) did not explore potential applications to water quality testing through the use of low-cost microscopy. Although this quality improvement did not necessarily produce a working prototype of its water testing capability, it introduced this novel intersection between handheld devices, low-cost microscopy, and IR code that is directly integrated into the device’s software. There have been no previous studies that explore the possibility of carrying out affordable water quality testing exclusively at the point-of-use through these methods. The potential applications of such a technology are seemingly endless within the fields of microbiology and WaSH. Even though this project focuses on the detection of E. coli, the use of the DIBaS database (Xxxxxxxxx et al., 2017) opens up an entire world of possibilities and enteric pathogens that could be identified through the use of the Foldscope. For the technology to reach such an aspirational level, however, the working prototype must be completed, and rigorous evaluation is needed to determine if it is an efficacious and feasible, point-of-use water quality testing method.