Genus of the WingMan DDD™ (U.S. Pat. 9,291,550) Ad Hoc Project

The following (2010 - 2011) cocaine possession, plain view use and public intoxication case was the genus of the WingMan DDD™ (U.S. Pat. 9,291,550) project.  The cocaine arrest occurred directly in front of the strip club owned by my family member's very dangerous former immediate neighbors.  However, the investigators were unable to connect the crime to the owners of the strip club.  Additionally, Oconee County had to change its dangerous pet ordinance in order to secure their attacking dog, following multiple documented attacks.  The neighbor's elementary school-aged daughter later pointed an unsecured and loaded 9mm pistol at another neighbor's child directly in front of my family member's home.  A 9mm round can go through multiple walls and remain lethal.  

http://onlineathens.com/stories/060511/cop_839897359.shtml#.WWLcsYjytPY

The earlier crime of public cocaine use & intoxication was never directly connected to the owners of the strip club.  If authorities had been able to do so successfully, the other dangerous and potentially life-threatening crimes might have been prevented.  Standoff distance and handheld Raman spectroscopy instrumentation could one day enable investigators to detect and presumptively identify trace levels of cocaine and other illicit drugs being trafficked into neighborhoods and communities before innocent families are placed and left in harm's way. 

Above all, I hope that the WingMan DDD (U.S. Pat. 9,291,550) will be utilized to protect all innocent families when DTOs and drug dealers move in next door.  

Exponentially Exciting SERS Achievements

The breakthrough of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) was first discovered at the University of Southampton by Martin Fleischmann, Patrick J. Hendra and A. James McQuillan, in 1973, and there are a great number of potentialities for SERS applications (University of Southampton 2013):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugNHEpfyi1A&index=1&list=PLmsRUCGk-iddhGCS0qpZ4Skz0ONXGbtkA

Dr. Jonathon Speed suggests utilizing SERS for roadside drug testing and removing an oral fluid sample to be analyzed within a spectrometer located in the police vehicle (Speed 2010).  Perhaps SERS could offer the possibility of screening for an unprecedented number of drugs & drug metabolites from a single oral fluid sample?  If so, SERS enhanced Raman analysis could be a worthwhile embodiment and/or accessory for the WingMan DDD (U.S. Pat. 9,291,550).  

I believe that Sir C.V. Raman would be thrilled by the advent of SERS, and the new applications are exponentially exciting!  

Sources:

Speed, Jonathon. "PGR Lab Primer: Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy." UniSotonChem.  19 Oct. 2010. Web. 30 Jul. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgGXgaxtao4>

University of Southampton. "Landmark award for chemistry breakthrough." University of Southampton. 5 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 Jul. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugNHEpfyi1A>

USPTO Publishes WingMan DDD Patent

On March 22, 2016, the USPTO published the patent for Nicholas Wing and Dr. Brian Manhire's co-invention, the WingMan DDD™ handheld Raman chemical identifier.  The non-provisional patent for the WingMan DDD™ was filed on April 5th, 2013 and the patent will be in effect through 2033.  Wing & Manhire hope that their patented WingMan DDD™ design contributes to road safety and helps to make the world a better & safer place:   

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=9291550&OS=9291550&RS=9291550

Expanding Raman spectral libraries for food safety applications

Standoff Raman spectrometers and other chemical imaging instruments might have significant utility for food retailers and chain restaurants in both quality control and food safety monitoring applications.  If hypothetically, an unauthorized cleaning product were detected on the grill line during regular business hours, a time-dated alert could be registered by the chemical detector.  This could potentially prevent preparation surface and food contamination without interfering with the productivity of the kitchen staff.  It may therefore be advantageous to consider expanding the Raman chemical signature libraries to include all restaurant cleaning liquids, powders, sanitizers, etc.  

Several questions for discussion:

1.)  Are the current Raman instruments cost prohibitive for this food retail application?  Could that change in the future?

2.)  Would it be feasible to detect the chemical signatures of decaying food items in the food preparation environment?  

3.) Are there specific chemical signatures associated with the suitable environmental conditions for harmful bacterial growth?  

4.) Are there detectable trace chemical bi-products which result from the production and proliferation of harmful bacteria?

5.) Would it be economically feasible to have a locked ticker tape, akin to those utilized in art preservation spheres & museums for environmental monitoring purposes, to register all hazardous chemical detections on food preparation surfaces during the regular hours of operation?  

Expanding Raman spectral libraries to include common household toxins

Among the benefits of Raman spectroscopy is the ability to detect and identify a large number of disparate compounds with a single instrument.  The existing handheld and portable Raman spectrometers have onboard spectral libraries of thousands of chemical signatures, which can be immediately cross-referenced for rapid identification.   It may be beneficial for NIST and/or the major spectrometer manufacturers to expand their spectral libraries to include household toxins, and the most common cleaning products, allergens, pesticides, etc. encountered during a poison control response scenario. 

Further, based upon our feasibility study below, it may be possible to inexpensively optimize the existing handheld Raman instruments for trace detection & identification applications via customized optical accessories and/or microscope objective lenses. 

The Music Metaphor is Not Yet Exhausted in Raman Spectroscopy

Few know that Sir C.V. Raman's first published works were on the vibrational principles of stringed and percussive instruments.  I believe that these investigations into musical and acoustical principles must have inspired and informed Raman's discovery of the Raman Scattering Effect and his subsequent research in early vibrational spectroscopy (Raman 1989).  Perhaps the musical metaphors and analogical themes have not yet been exhausted in Raman spectroscopy, and future discoveries will be made by revisiting the genus of Raman's scientific legacy. 

As Sir C.V. Raman stated in The New Physics: Talks on Aspects of Science, “The quantitative measurement and specification of colour is of scarcely less practical importance than simple photo-metry.  The skill and judgment with which a trained [spectroscopist] discriminates between different shades and depths of colour is nearly as marvelous as the precision with which a trained musician can distinguish the finest differences in the quality or pitch of musical notes.  As in the case of music, so also in the case of colour, our sensations may be analyzed in their constituent elements (Raman 1951).” 

My own interest in acoustics and music theory led me to a greater appreciation of Raman spectroscopy than I might otherwise have had.  I recall that when a Nashville Symphony cellist was recording several of my compositions for solo cello in 2012, that a piano in the room was producing sympathetic or resonant frequencies to his deeply resonant cello.  The tones of the cellist's richly timbered antique instrument filled the room and reverberated omni-directionally, and the resonant frequencies were produced even though he was not facing the piano.  Fortunately, these overtones did not interfere with the recording session, after the lid of the piano was closed.  An analogy might be drawn to Raman spectroscopy in that there may be new ways of inducing and augmenting Raman scattered photons without having to utilize a concentrated laser beam with a limited spot size, but rather via an omnidirectional excitation energy source. 

Several questions:

Would it be possible to utilize a complex multiband optical filter or a Quantum Cascade Laser to excite a sample compound with its own Raman spectral signature (or its sympathetic electromagnetic frequencies)?  In other words, is Sympathetic Frequency Raman Spectroscopy (SFRS) and the triangulation of its location relative to the excitation source worth investigating and could it potentially enhance the trace detection capability of standoff Raman instrumentation in the future?

Sources:

Raman, C.V. comp. Scientific Papers of C.V. Raman: Volume II: Acoustics.  Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989. Print.

Raman, C.V. The New Physics: Talks on Aspects of Science.  New York: Philosophical Library, Inc. 1951. Print.

Tennessee Artist Illustrates First Responder Application

It has been a privilege to work with Tennessee artist, Jean Gauld-Jaeger in the past, and Dr. Manhire and I are thrilled to feature her sketch of our vision for the utilization of Raman spectroscopy to assist first responders in the identification of toxins in vivo.   Our WingMan DDD™ is merely one among a host of potential solutions, which could save countless lives each year by enabling first responders to identify unknown toxins in the field and rapidly administer treatment.  If our solution saves the life of only one child, then we will consider it a victory and well worth the time, energy and resources that we have committed to the WingMan DDD™ thus far.