Characterization of Antennas on Dielectric and Magnetic Substrates Effective Medium Approximation

This paper presents a study of the effective medium approximation of a monopole antenna printed on either a dielectric or a magnetic substrate. Simple analytical formulas to determine the effective permeability of such an antenna have been proposed and validated. For this type of antenna as μr increases, the effective permeability will reach the value of 2 (maximum) whereas, with the dielectric substrate, the effective permittivity continues to rise when increasing εr. This shows that, for very high permeability values, we will always have a size reduction below 30%

Vacuum Casting to Manufacture a Plastic Biochip for Highly Parallel Cell Transfection

International audienceA novel polymer microarray fabrication technique is presented and applied to the realization of a biochip for highly parallelized cell transfection. The proposed microfabrication technique is derived from a macroscale rapid prototyping technique called vacuum casting. It was optimized to reduce production cost, in order to produce small series (100-10 000 chip series) of chips to meet demand in today's market of cellulomics. Microfabrication technologies and rapid prototyping technologies are combined to shape the master part, which can thus involve microsized features. The corresponding female structure is moulded in a flexible silicone material. The duplicated polymer chips are obtained by casting a thermosetting plastic under vacuum. The dimensional replication accuracy between the master part and the duplicated parts is uniform over the duplicated parts and better than 1%. Advantages of the proposed technique over existing plastic microfabrication techniques are discussed in the paper. Using this microfabrication technique, we produced a plastic biochip for highly parallelized transfection of arrays of living cells. The feasibility of parallel lipofection was demonstrated: two different plasmids encoding, respectively, eGFP and DsRED2 were inserted into HEK293T cells. The transfection was monitored through fluorescence observation after 72 h showing successful expression of both genes

Ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations of unmagnetized dense plasma jet injection into a hot strongly magnetized plasma

We present results from three-dimensional ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations of unmagnetized dense plasma jet injection into a uniform hot strongly magnetized plasma, with the aim of providing insight into core fueling of a tokamak with parameters relevant for ITER and NSTX (National Spherical Torus Experiment). Unmagnetized dense plasma jet injection is similar to compact toroid injection but with much higher plasma density and total mass, and consequently lower required injection velocity. Mass deposition of the jet into the background appears to be facilitated via magnetic reconnection along the jet's trailing edge. The penetration depth of the plasma jet into the background plasma is mostly dependent on the jet's initial kinetic energy, and a key requirement for spatially localized mass deposition is for the jet's slowing-down time to be less than the time for the perturbed background magnetic flux to relax due to magnetic reconnection. This work suggests that more accurate treatment of reconnection is needed to fully model this problem. Parameters for unmagnetized dense plasma jet injection are identified for localized core deposition as well as edge localized mode (ELM) pacing applications in ITER and NSTX-relevant regimes.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures and 2 tables; accepted by Nuclear Fusion (May 11, 2011

Statistical Theory of Parity Nonconservation in Compound Nuclei

We present the first application of statistical spectroscopy to study the root-mean-square value of the parity nonconserving (PNC) interaction matrix element M determined experimentally by scattering longitudinally polarized neutrons from compound nuclei. Our effective PNC interaction consists of a standard two-body meson-exchange piece and a doorway term to account for spin-flip excitations. Strength functions are calculated using realistic single-particle energies and a residual strong interaction adjusted to fit the experimental density of states for the targets, ^{238} U for A\sim 230 and ^{104,105,106,108} Pd for A\sim 100. Using the standard Desplanques, Donoghue, and Holstein estimates of the weak PNC meson-nucleon coupling constants, we find that M is about a factor of 3 smaller than the experimental value for ^{238} U and about a factor of 1.7 smaller for Pd. The significance of this result for refining the empirical determination of the weak coupling constants is discussed.Comment: Latex file, no Fig

Bactericidal efficiency of UV-active TiO2 thin films on adhesion and viability of food-borne bacteria

Biofilms, containing pathogenic bacteria, represent a recurrent economic and safety problem in food industries, due to their high resistance to cleaning and sanitizing procedures. The development of photoactive surfaces with bactericidal property could facilitate the elimination of such microbial biofilms. One solution may be to deposit a photocatalyst top-layer (TiO2) on conventional materials used in food plants. Our aim is to study the photocatalytic activity of such layers on the adhesion and viability of different bacteria present on food plants, especially in pork meat factory: Listeria monocytogenes, Yersinia enterocolitica and Pseudomonas fragi. Glass substrates were coated with TiO2 thin films by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering under various deposition conditions (deposition temperature T, oxygen partial pressure PO2). The characterization of the TiO2 thin layers was performed using spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis. And photocatalytic activity under UVA illumination (365 nm) has been checked for all samples. Bactericidal activity has been demonstrated on the bacteria tested by enumeration of the adherent cells and in situ fluorescent labeling after three hours of contact with the thin film and a subsequent UVA illumination. Adherent bacteria with damaged bacterial cell wall were observed using a scanning electron microscopy; this can be associated with presence of oxidative stress due to the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 thin layer. The selected TiO2 coating presents a photocatalytic activity leading to an oxidative stress. This activity provides bactericidal properties against different strains from the meat industry. This thin layer could be optimized by modifying anionic composition (band-gap reduction) during coating in order to be active under solar light so it could be used to fight against biofilms

Nanoindentation on micromechanical properties and microstructure of geopolymer with nano-SiO<inf>2</inf> and nano-TiO<inf>2</inf>

Fly ash-based geopolymers incorporated with 2% nano-SiO2 (NS)/nano-TiO2 (NT) particles were subjected to microstructural and statistical nanoindentation analysis. With the addition of both types of nanoparticles, the compressive strength of geopolymer and the micromechanical properties of N-A-S-H gel were increased. NS exhibited higher reinforcement effect than NT on macro-strength. However, NT more significantly enhanced gel micromechanical properties. NT and especially the NS were found to have a positive effect on the early reaction rate of geopolymer. After 28 days, the gel proportion obtained by Backscattered electron (BSE) images analysis was close values of 49.16%, 55.69% and 54.02% for reference sample and NS, NT reinforced geopolymer, which were more than two times of that from the statistical nanoindentation. The effects of NS and NT on microstructure, gel proportion and gel micromechanical properties were discussed to reveal the macro-strength reinforcement mechanism. The results obtained from different techniques were also compared and discussed

The empirical analysis of non-problematic video gaming and cognitive skills: a systematic review

Videogames have become one of the most popular leisure activities worldwide, including multiple game genres with different characteristics and levels of involvement required. Although a small minority of excessive players suffer detrimental consequences including impairment of several cognitive skills (e.g., inhibition, decision-making), it has also been demonstrated that playing videogames can improve different cognitive skills. Therefore, the current paper systematically reviewed the empirical studies experimentally investigating the positive impact of videogames on cognitive skills. Following a number of inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 32 papers were identified as empirically investigating three specific skills: taskswitching (eight studies), attentional control (22 studies), and sub-second time perception (two studies). Results demonstrated that compared to control groups, non-problematic use of videogames can lead to improved task-switching, more effective top-down attentional control and processing speed and increased sub-second time perception. Two studies highlighted the impact of gaming on cognitive skills differs depends upon game genre. The studies reviewed suggest that videogame play can have a positive impact on cognitive processes for players

Effect of crystalline admixtures on shrinkage and alkali-silica reaction of biochar-cementitious composites

This study investigated effects of crystalline admixture (CA) on shrinkage and alkali-silica reaction behaviours of biochar-cementitious composites. Addition of 1–1.5 wt% superabsorbent polymer (SAP) completely mitigated autogenous shrinkage while slightly increasing the 120-day total shrinkage of the SP-cement composite by 5.7%, resulting in the highest apparent porosity. 1–1.5 wt% CA addition did not affect autogenous shrinkage while slightly reducing the 120-day total shrinkage by 10.1%. The combination of CA and waste wood biochar (WWB) reduced autogenous shrinkage by 24.23% and 120-day total shrinkage by 23.6%, resulting in the lowest apparent porosity. The formation of hydration products in the WWB pores and on WWB surface densified the cementitious matrix, leading to a reduction in water evaporation. Furthermore, for specimens exposed to 1 M NaOH solution at 80 °C, CA addition significantly reduced the 120-day expansion by 50.6%, while the combination of CA and WWB addition reduced the 120-day expansion by 42.9%