Patent ID: 8812239

Claim:
A water or air quality analysis system, comprising: a photodetector for measuring photosynthetic activity of photosynthetic organisms; and an electronics package comprising a processor coupled to the photodetector, the processor comprising executable instructions for analyzing qualitative changes in photosynthetic activity data that can indicate the identity of chemical, biological, or radiological agents; where the executable instructions comprise: obtaining a photosynthetic activity curve from the processor at a first time; and comparing at least two data points from the photosynthetic activity curve to at least two data points from a reference photosynthetic activity curve to identify the presence of a specific chemical, biological, or radiological agent; and where the comparing comprises calculating a degree of difference between a first photosynthetic activity data point and a first reference photosynthetic activity data point, and between a second photosynthetic activity data point and a second reference photosynthetic activity data point; the calculating comprises adding or subtracting a constant differential offset to at least the first and second photosynthetic activity data points to obtain at least first and second offset photosynthetic activity data points; and the comparing further comprises calculating at least a first transformation coefficient that maps the first offset photosynthetic activity data point to the first reference photosynthetic activity data point, and a second transformation coefficient that maps the second offset photosynthetic activity data point to the second reference photosynthetic activity data point.