Patent ID: 8325341

Claim:
A method for determining the presence or absence of an analyte in a fluid by analysis of image data from an assay that generates an image result on an assay medium, comprising the steps of: (a) incubating a sample of said fluid together with said assay at a pre-set temperature or temperature profile (b) obtaining said image result on an assay medium; and (c) imaging the image result with an image acquisition device to generate digital image data corresponding to the image result; and (d) using data processing means, applying to the digital image data a stored relationship between the image result and assay calibration data to generate a quantified result for said assay, wherein incubation step (a) is carried out simultaneously with steps (b)-(c); and wherein steps (a)-(d) are carried out by a detection arrangement for detecting presence of an analyte in a sample, comprising a processor, a memory, a display, a color measuring device, and means for maintaining a constant temperature or a temperature profile of said sample, said memory, said display and said color measuring device being arranged to communicate with said processor, said color measuring device being arranged to generate light signals, to send said light signals to said sample, to receive return light signals from said sample, to convert said return light signals into color signals and to send said color signals to said processor, said processor being operated by instructions stored in said memory and being arranged to calculate a value of a composite parameter Z in accordance with a following equation: Z = ∑ i = 1 n ⁢ w i ⁢ x i where x j is a color signal i and w j is a corresponding weighing factor and i is an index ranging from 1 to n and n is an integer equal to the number of color signals.