No Arabic abstract
We propose a novel cantilever device integrated with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-encapsulated crack sensor that directly measures the cardiac contractility. The crack sensor was chemically bonded to a PDMS thin layer to form a sandwiched structure which allows to be operated very stably in culture media. The reliability of the proposed crack sensor has improved dramatically compared to no encapsulation layer. After evaluating the durability of the crack sensor bonded with the PDMS layer, cardiomyocytes were cultured on the nano-patterned cantilever for real-time measurement of cardiac contractile forces. The highly sensitive crack sensor continuously measured the cardiac contractility without changing its gauge factor for up to 26 days (>5 million heartbeats). In addition, changes in contractile force induced by drugs were monitored using the crack sensor-integrated cantilever. Finally, experimental results were compared with those obtained via conventional electrophysiological methods to verify the feasibility of building a contraction-based drug-toxicity testing system.
Previously, we have shown the advantages of an approach based on microstructural modulation of the functional phase and topology of periodically arranged elements to program wave scattering in ferromagnetic microwire composites. However, the possibility of making full use of composite intrinsic structure was not exploited. In this work, we implement the concept of material plainification by an in-built vertical interface on randomly dispersed short-cut microwire composites allowing the adjustment of electromagnetic properties to a large extent. Such interface was modified through arranging wires of different structures in two separated regions and by enlarging or reducing these regions through wire concentration variations leading to polarization differences across the interface and hence microwave tunability. When the wire concentration was equal in both regions, two well-defined transmission windows with varied amplitude and bandwidth were generated. Wire concentration fluctuations resulted in strong scattering changes ranging from broad passbands to stopbands with pronounced transmission dips, demonstrating the intimate relationship between wire content and space charge variations at the interface. Overall, this study provides a novel method to rationally exploit interfacial effects in microwire composites. Moreover, the advantages of enabling significantly tunable scattering spectra by merely 0.053 vol. % filler loading and relatively simple structure make the proposed composite plainification strategy instrumental to designing microwave filters with broadband frequency selectivity.
Room Temperature Vulcanized (RTV) silicone compounds are commonly used to bond optical components. For our application, we needed to identify an adhesive with good ultraviolet transmission characteristics, to couple photomultipliers to quartz windows in a Heavy Gas Cerenkov detector that is being constructed for Experimental Hall C of Jefferson Lab to provide pi/K separation up to 11 GeV/c. To this end, we present the light transmission results for Momentive RTV615 silicone rubber compound for wavelengths between 195-400 nm, obtained with an adapted reflectivity apparatus at Jefferson Lab. All samples cured at room temperature have transmissions ~93% for wavelengths between 360-400 nm and fall sharply below 230 nm. Wavelength dependent absorption coefficients were extracted with four samples of different thicknesses cured at normal temperature (25oC for 7 days). The absorption coefficient drops approximately two orders in magnitude from 220-400 nm, exhibiting distinct regions of flattening near 250 nm and 330 nm. We also investigated the effect of a high temperature curing method (100oC for 1 hour) and found 5-10% better transmission than with the normal method. The effect was more significant with larger sample thickness (3.35 mm) over the wavelength range of 220-280 nm.
Accurate force sensing is important for endoluminal intervention in terms of both safety and lesion targeting. This paper develops an FBG-based force sensor for robotic bronchoscopy by configuring three FBG sensors at the lateral side of a conical substrate. It allows a large and eccentric inner lumen for the interventional instrument, enabling a flexible imaging probe inside to perform optical biopsy. The force sensor is embodied with a laser-profiled continuum robot and thermo drift is fully compensated by three temperature sensors integrated on the circumference surface of the sensor substrate. Different decoupling approaches are investigated, and nonlinear decoupling is adopted based on the cross-validation SVM and a Gaussian kernel function, achieving an accuracy of 10.58 mN, 14.57 mN and 26.32 mN along X, Y and Z axis, respectively. The tissue test is also investigated to further demonstrate the feasibility of the developed triaxial force sensor
Although photoelectrochemical water splitting is likely to be an important and powerful tool to provide environmentally friendly hydrogen, most developments in this field have been conducted on a laboratory scale so far. In order for the technology to make a sizeable impact on the energy transition, scaled up devices made of inexpensive and earth abundant materials must be developed. In this work, we demonstrate a scalable (64 cm2 aperture area) artificial photoelectrochemical device composed of triple-junction thin-film silicon solar cells in conjunction with an electrodeposited bifunctional nickel iron molybdenum water splitting catalyst. Our device shows a solar to hydrogen efficiency of up to 4.67% (5.33% active area) without bias assistance and wire connection. Furthermore, gas separation was enabled by incorporating a membrane in a 3D printed device frame.
We discuss steady state crack growth in the spirit of a free boundary problem. It turns out that mode I and mode III situations are very different from each other: In particular, mode III exhibits a pronounced transition towards unstable crack growth at higher driving forces, and the behavior close to the Griffith point is determined entirely through crack surface dissipation, whereas in mode I the fracture energy is renormalized due to a remaining finite viscous dissipation. Intermediate mixed-mode scenarios allow steady state crack growth with higher velocities, leading to the conjecture that mode I cracks can be unstable with respect to a rotation of the crack front line.