Laboratories, Volume 2, Issue 1 (March 2025) – 4 articles

Since 2012, the Joint Safety Team (JST) has led initiatives aimed at increasing safety awareness and improving safety culture in research laboratory environments at the University of Minnesota. Specifically, its Analysis and Compliance committee has implemented biannual lab safety walkthroughs and safety surveys to monitor safety culture, sentiments, and compliance. Despite several lab safety teams (LSTs) using similar initiatives, the logistics and effectiveness of these initiatives have yet to be reported. Hence, JST has analyzed the decade of overall lab safety walkthrough scores and scores of individual safety items in the context of the evolution of our rubrics and external factors. Similarly, the changes to the safety survey content have been analyzed to demonstrate the dynamic approach of gauging sentiments towards arising safety issues. Generally, the results suggest that these initiatives improved laboratory safety. Furthermore, safety compliance was observed to vary by semester, with fewer safety issues in the spring semester compared to the fall semester, and to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These observations support the effectiveness of these student-led initiatives, despite the initiatives being designed for internal use. Additionally, the initiative logistics are described to inform LSTs of strategies for creating, sustaining, and improving their own initiatives. Full article

From the perspective of the history of science and technology, this paper delves into the global development of high-level biosafety laboratories, the establishment of related legal frameworks, and the evolution of safety standards. The importance of these laboratories within the context of national security is emphasized. This paper begins with an overview of global high-level biosafety laboratories’ origins and technological advancements. Then, it provides a detailed analysis of the legal and institutional frameworks that different countries have developed in the field of biosafety. By comparing the evolution of laboratory standards across nations, the paper illustrates how high-level biosafety laboratories have adapted to and addressed the international challenges posed by health security and biological threats. This study provides a broad review and analysis of the historical development and technological progress of these laboratories, offering insights into the construction and management of high-level biosafety laboratories. It also provides important historical perspectives for the formulation of future biosafety policies and international cooperation, contributing to the development of more effective strategies to address global biosafety challenges. This review demonstrates the critical role of high-level biosafety laboratories in safeguarding national security and global health, highlighting the continuous need for improving regulatory systems, upgrading standards, and fostering technological innovation. Full article

This study applied ARIMA modeling to analyze the energy consumption patterns of laboratory equipment over one month, focusing on enhancing energy management in the laboratory. By explicitly examining AC and DC equipment, this study obtained detailed daily operating cycles and periods of inactivity. Advanced differencing and diagnostic checks were used to verify model accuracy and white noise characteristics through enhanced Dickey–Fuller testing and residual analysis. The results demonstrate the model’s accuracy in predicting energy consumption, providing valuable insights into the use of the model. This study highlights the adaptability and validity of the ARIMA model in laboratory environments, contributing to more competent laboratory energy management practices. Full article

The distribution of water droplets in crude oil is one of the key issues involved in the processes of oil extraction and transportation, and these water droplets might also be habitats for microorganisms in oil reservoirs. However, it is still a challenge to observe and measure the distribution of water droplets in crude oil quickly and directly. In this work, an improved method based on the optical microscopy technique is introduced, which is named the Plate Pressing (PP) method and can observe and determine the distribution of water droplets in crude oil directly. The reliability of this method was verified by comparing the results with those of a computed tomography (CT) scan, indicating that the PP method can measure the distribution of water droplets accurately. Meanwhile, the total number and size distribution of water droplets in three crude oil samples from different oilfields were obtained by the PP method, which consolidated the idea that the PP method is capable of determining the distribution of the water droplets in crude oil directly and is suitable for the statistical analysis of water droplets in multiple samples of crude oil. Full article