Pressure-driven laminar flow in tangential microchannels: an elastomeric microfluidic switch

This paper describes laminar fluid flow through a three-dimensional elastomeric microstructure formed by two microfluidic channels, fabricated in layers that contact one another face-to-face (typically at a 90 degree angle), with the fluid flows in tangential contact. There are two ways to control fluid flow through these tangentially connected microchannels. First, the flow profiles through the crossings are sensitive to the aspect ratio of the channels; the flow can be controlled by applying external pressure and changing this aspect ratio. Second, the flow direction of an individual laminar stream in multiphase laminar flow depends on the lateral position of the stream within the channel; this position can be controlled by injecting additional streams of fluid into the channel. We describe two microfluidic switches based on these two ways for controlling fluid flow through tangential microchannels and present theoretical arguments that explain the observed dependence of the flow profiles on the aspect ratio of the channels.     

Delamination fracture of prestressing steel: An engineering approach

This paper provides a composites engineering approach to explain the stress corrosion behaviour of high-strength prestressing steel wires. To this end, two eutectoid steels in the form of hot rolled bar and cold drawn wire were subjected to slow strain rate tests in aqueous environments in corrosive conditions corresponding to localized anodic dissolution and hydrogen assisted cracking. While a tensile crack in the hot rolled bar always propagates in mode I, in the cold drawn wire an initially mode I crack deviates significantly from its normal mode I growth plane and approaches the wire axis or cold drawing direction, thus producing a mixed mode propagation. In hydrogen assisted cracking the deviation happens just after the fatigue pre-crack, whereas in localized anodic dissolution the material is able to undergo mode I cracking before the deflection takes place. Therefore, a different behaviour is observed in both steels and even in the same steel under distinct environmental conditions. An explanation of such behaviour can be found in the pearlitic microstructure of the steels. This microstructural arrangement is randomly-oriented in the case of the hot rolled bar and markedly oriented under the wire axis direction in the case of the cold drawn wire. Thus both materials behave as composites at the microstructural level and their plated structure (oriented or not) would explain the different time-dependent behaviour in a corrosive environment.     

Effects of analyte velocity modulation on the electroosmotic flow in capillary electrophoresis.

Modulation of the electroosmotic flow in capillary zone electrophoresis by modulation of the driving voltage gives rise to a flow profile that changes between laminar and flat profiles. The changing flow profile induces a radial movement of sample species to and from the capillary surface. The induced sample concentration gradient can be monitored by carefully probing the capillary surface. The resulting signal is a derivative of the normal-shaped peak. Derivative-shaped peaks can be observed with cations, but not with anions. Anions are unable to approach the double-layer region and therefore are unaffected by the modulation process.     

Emergence of collective changes in travel direction of starling flocks from individual birds' fluctuations

One of the most impressive features of moving animal groups is their ability to perform sudden coherent changes in travel direction. While this collective decision can be a response to an external alarm cue, directional switching can also emerge from the intrinsic fluctuations in individual behaviour. However, the cause and the mechanism by which such collective changes of direction occur are not fully understood yet. Here, we present an experimental study of spontaneous collective turns in natural flocks of starlings. We employ a recently developed tracking algorithm to reconstruct three-dimensional trajectories of each individual bird in the flock for the whole duration of a turning event. Our approach enables us to analyse changes in the individual behaviour of every group member and reveal the emergent dynamics of turning. We show that spontaneous turns start from individuals located at the elongated tips of the flocks, and then propagate through the group. We find that birds on the tips deviate from the mean direction of motion much more frequently than other individuals, indicating that persistent localized fluctuations are the crucial ingredient for triggering a collective directional change. Finally, we quantitatively verify that birds follow equal-radius paths during turning, the effects of which are a change of the flock''s orientation and a redistribution of individual locations in the group.     

Roll forming of SMC and TMC, considering the resin-fibre interface

The principal purpose of this study is to develop a design procedure for a new roll forming process. With SMC, the advantages are reduced forming force and power consumption caused by a spherical stress tensor during compression moulding. Basic information on the deformation behaviour is obtained from a T-shaped profile using carrier type roll forming.

As the SMC is a laminate with heterogeneous properties, consideration must be given to the macroscopic and microscopic interfaces caused by resin-rich surfaces and different stiffnesses of fibre and resin. The effect of feed rate on the flow pattern is also an important problem for the fabrication of different shape products. The fabrication behaviour is investigated with relation to the interfaces in the sequent process to target areas for future development.     

Fish responses to flow velocity and turbulence in relation to size,sex and parasite load

Riverine fish are subjected to heterogeneous flow velocities and turbulence and may use this to their advantage by selecting regions that balance energy expenditure for station holding while maximizing energy gain through feeding opportunities. This study investigated microhabitat selection by guppies Poecilia reticulata in terms of flow characteristics generated by hemisphere boulders in an open channel flume. Velocity and turbulence influenced the variation in swimming behaviour with respect to size, sex and parasite intensity. With increasing body length, fish swam further and more frequently between boulder regions. Larger guppies spent more time in the areas of high-velocity and low-turbulence regions beside the boulders, whereas smaller guppies frequented the low-velocity and high-turbulence regions directly behind the boulders. Male guppies selected the regions of low velocity, indicating possible reduced swimming ability owing to hydrodynamic drag imposed by their fins. With increasing Gyrodactylus turnbulli burden, fish spent more time in regions with moderate velocity and lowest turbulent kinetic energy which were the most spatially and temporally homogeneous in terms of velocity and turbulence. These findings highlight the importance of heterogeneous flow conditions in river channel design owing to the behavioural variability within a species in response to velocity and turbulence.     

Modulating the charge-transfer enhancement in GERS using an electrical field under vacuum and an n/p-doping atmosphere

The modulation of charger-transfer (CT) enhancement in graphene-enhanced Raman scattering (GERS) by an electric field under different atmospheres is reported. The GERS spectra of cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) molecules were collected by in situ Raman measurements under ambient air, vacuum, NH(3) atmosphere, and O(2) atmosphere, in which the Fermi level of graphene was modulated by an electrical field effect (EFE). The Raman scattering intensities of adsorbed molecules can be tuned to be stronger or weaker as the graphene Fermi level down-shifts or up-shifts under electrical field modulation. However, the Raman intensity modulation in GERS is seriously influenced by the hysteresis effect in graphene EFE, which makes the modulation ability small and shows strong gate voltage sweep rate dependence in ambient air. Fortunately, the hysteresis effect in graphene EFE can be decreased by performing the measurement under vacuum conditions, and thus the Raman modulation ability in GERS can be increased. Furthermore, compared with the vacuum condition, the Raman modulation ability shows an increase under an NH(3) atmosphere, while it shows a decrease under an O(2) atmosphere, which is due to the different Fermi level modulation region in different atmospheres. More interestingly, this Raman intensity modulation in GERS shows a hysteresis-like behavior that is the same as the graphene Fermi level modulation under the EFE in a different atmosphere. All these observations suggest that the Raman enhancement in GERS occurs through a charge-transfer (CT) enhancement mechanism and the CT process can be modulated by the graphene EFE. This technique will benefit the study of the basic properties of both graphene and chemical enhancement mechanism in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).     

Bidirectional Flow Forming of Polypropylene Pipes

The single directional flow forming process has been modified in the present study such that bidirectional flow forming of polypropylene pipes can be carried out. The process enables the polymer chains across the pipe thickness to be aligned in two different directions. Instead of having free turning rollers, flow forming was conducted using a roller driven by motor such that at the point of contact, the roller and the mandrel are turning in opposite directions, To assist the material to shear, the external surface of the pipe ahead of the roller was heated to the forming temperature of the material by hot air from a heating gun while the internal material remained unheated. Tensile tests of the bidirectionally flow formed pipes showed that although the elongation at break was somewhat lower than that from single directional flow forming, the ultimate tensile strength in the direction perpendicular to the helix was significantly increased. This resulted in pipes that were overall more balanced in mechanical properties than those from single directional flow forming.     

Laminar flow around corners triggers the formation of biofilm streamers

Bacterial biofilms have an enormous impact on medicine, industry and ecology. These microbial communities are generally considered to adhere to surfaces or interfaces. Nevertheless, suspended filamentous biofilms, or streamers, are frequently observed in natural ecosystems where they play crucial roles by enhancing transport of nutrients and retention of suspended particles. Recent studies in streamside flumes and laboratory flow cells have hypothesized a link with a turbulent flow environment. However, the coupling between the hydrodynamics and complex biofilm structures remains poorly understood. Here, we report the formation of biofilm streamers suspended in the middle plane of curved microchannels under conditions of laminar flow. Experiments with different mutant strains allow us to identify a link between the accumulation of extracellular matrix and the development of these structures. Numerical simulations of the flow in curved channels highlight the presence of a secondary vortical motion in the proximity of the corners, which suggests an underlying hydrodynamic mechanism responsible for the formation of the streamers. Our findings should be relevant to the design of all liquid-carrying systems where biofilms are potentially present and provide new insights on the origins of microbial streamers in natural and industrial environments.     

Fishing out collective memory of migratory schools

Animals form groups for many reasons, but there are costs and benefits associated with group formation. One of the benefits is collective memory. In groups on the move, social interactions play a crucial role in the cohesion and the ability to make consensus decisions. When migrating from spawning to feeding areas, fish schools need to retain a collective memory of the destination site over thousands of kilometres, and changes in group formation or individual preference can produce sudden changes in migration pathways. We propose a modelling framework, based on stochastic adaptive networks, that can reproduce this collective behaviour. We assume that three factors control group formation and school migration behaviour: the intensity of social interaction, the relative number of informed individuals and the strength of preference that informed individuals have for a particular migration area. We treat these factors independently and relate the individuals’ preferences to the experience and memory for certain migration sites. We demonstrate that removal of knowledgeable individuals or alteration of individual preference can produce rapid changes in group formation and collective behaviour. For example, intensive fishing targeting the migratory species and also their preferred prey can reduce both terms to a point at which migration to the destination sites is suddenly stopped. The conceptual approaches represented by our modelling framework may therefore be able to explain large-scale changes in fish migration and spatial distribution.     

Directional reversals enable Myxococcus xanthus cells to produce collective one-dimensional streams during fruiting-body formation

The formation of a collectively moving group benefits individuals within a population in a variety of ways. The surface-dwelling bacterium Myxococcus xanthus forms dynamic collective groups both to feed on prey and to aggregate during times of starvation. The latter behaviour, termed fruiting-body formation, involves a complex, coordinated series of density changes that ultimately lead to three-dimensional aggregates comprising hundreds of thousands of cells and spores. How a loose, two-dimensional sheet of motile cells produces a fixed aggregate has remained a mystery as current models of aggregation are either inconsistent with experimental data or ultimately predict unstable structures that do not remain fixed in space. Here, we use high-resolution microscopy and computer vision software to spatio-temporally track the motion of thousands of individuals during the initial stages of fruiting-body formation. We find that cells undergo a phase transition from exploratory flocking, in which unstable cell groups move rapidly and coherently over long distances, to a reversal-mediated localization into one-dimensional growing streams that are inherently stable in space. These observations identify a new phase of active collective behaviour and answer a long-standing open question in Myxococcus development by describing how motile cell groups can remain statistically fixed in a spatial location.     

Structural behaviour of three-pile caps subjected to axial compressive loading

This work presents a comparative analysis about the behaviour of pile caps supported by 3 piles subjected to axial loading. Piles with 20 cm and 30 cm diameters were analysed. The main reinforcement was maintained in all the specimens, however, the arrangement of the secondary reinforcement varied. The main reinforcement consisted of steel bars connecting the piles. The secondary reinforcement was made up of: (a) bars going through the piles and through the projection of the column, (b) bars forming a network, and (c) vertical and horizontal stirrups. The main objective was the observation of the pile cap behaviour regarding the cracks and the modes of rupture. The real scale specimens were subjected to experimental tests until failure by rupture. Instruments were placed with the aim to obtain the displacement of the bases, the strains in the main and secondary reinforcement bars, in the compression struts, in the lower and upper nodal zones and in the sides of the caps. None of the caps reached failure by rupture with a load less than 1.12 times the theoretical load. The specimens ruptured due to the cracking of the compression strut and/or the yielding of the reinforcement bars in one direction.     

Experimental investigation of a cooled thick fin in dry and humid air flows

The results of a study are reported in which a cooled, thick vertical fin was tested in a closed loop tunnel with and without condensation from the air flowing over it. In particular, the temperature distributions for the dry and wet fin cases, together with the condensate film thickness in the wet fin case, were investigated. From a flow visualization investigation, it was found that the boundary layer separates at the leading edge, resulting in a higher air heat transfer coefficient. The wet fin test results also indicated that the mode of condensation was dependent on fin surface characteristics and that the wet fin performance was governed by the air flow parameter. Within the laminar air flow range, the condensate film flowed downward under the action of gravity. However, at higher air velocities, both gravity and shear forces affected the condensate flow, a variation in the condensate film in the direction of air flow being noticed.     

Reduction of springback using simultaneous stretch-bending processes

Springback due to the elastic material behaviour can lead to shape errors that cause geometrical and dimensional inaccuracies in sheet metal forming processes, especially in bending operations. In order to reduce springback, the technique of integrating stretching with bending in sheet metal forming processes has been investigated. The object of this paper is to explain how to reduce the effect of the elastic component in the material behaviour using simultaneous stretching and bending so that a method is established for applying plastic forming during the main process, without changing the tool design. This study focuses on three main points: the stretching method, the stretching direction and the stretching length. In regard to swing- and v-bending processes, the springback factor is used as the standard evaluation to investigate these effects using Finite Element simulation. The springback factors are compared for four processes: Bending process without stretching (WS), pre-stretching and bending process (PB), pre-stretching plus simultaneous stretching and bending (PSB) and simultaneous stretching and bending (SB). The simulation results are then verified through experimentation. Based on the validated results, simultaneous stretching can then be subsequently applied to the existing stretch-forming process, which consists of pre-stretching and bending. Using this process, springback was successfully reduced which confirms the efficiency of SB process.     

Melt-state shear flow and elasticity of a thermoplastic fluorosulphonated—PTFE copolymer

Some rheological properties of a perfluorosulphonated PTFE copolymer have been measured in order to characterise the melt-state viscous and elastic behaviour of a thermoplastic precursor of Nafion®, an ion-selective membrane used in the electrochemical industry. Steady-state shear viscosity measurements show conventional pseudoplastic flow behaviour over a wide temperature range, under high shear conditions. These data have been modelled to a high level of accuracy using polynomial simulations to obtain Carreau model coefficients and flow activation energies. Using an orifice die in a capillary rheometer, calculated extensional viscosity data are shown to decrease with stress and are more temperature-sensitive than shear viscosity. Although die swell increases with shear rate in a conventional manner, unusual and complex die swell data (at a fixed shear stress) have been obtained in response to an increase in process temperature. This behaviour is attributed to the breakdown of a small-scale network of domains and ordered crystalline material in the amorphous matrix of the precursor, as exemplified by a very broad melting endotherm. Different modes of deformation have been proposed to explain the rheological data observed across the process temperature range. The observed changes to the flow mechanism and elastic character of the melt carry practical implications for the extrusion processes and developed microstructure of film products manufactured from this precursor copolymer.     

The effect of individual variation on the structure and function of interaction networks in harvester ants

Social insects exhibit coordinated behaviour without central control. Local interactions among individuals determine their behaviour and regulate the activity of the colony. Harvester ants are recruited for outside work, using networks of brief antennal contacts, in the nest chamber closest to the nest exit: the entrance chamber. Here, we combine empirical observations, image analysis and computer simulations to investigate the structure and function of the interaction network in the entrance chamber. Ant interactions were distributed heterogeneously in the chamber, with an interaction hot-spot at the entrance leading further into the nest. The distribution of the total interactions per ant followed a right-skewed distribution, indicating the presence of highly connected individuals. Numbers of ant encounters observed positively correlated with the duration of observation. Individuals varied in interaction frequency, even after accounting for the duration of observation. An ant''s interaction frequency was explained by its path shape and location within the entrance chamber. Computer simulations demonstrate that variation among individuals in connectivity accelerates information flow to an extent equivalent to an increase in the total number of interactions. Individual variation in connectivity, arising from variation among ants in location and spatial behaviour, creates interaction centres, which may expedite information flow.     

Cranial sutures work collectively to distribute strain throughout the reptile skull

The skull is composed of many bones that come together at sutures. These sutures are important sites of growth, and as growth ceases some become fused while others remain patent. Their mechanical behaviour and how they interact with changing form and loadings to ensure balanced craniofacial development is still poorly understood. Early suture fusion often leads to disfiguring syndromes, thus is it imperative that we understand the function of sutures more clearly. By applying advanced engineering modelling techniques, we reveal for the first time that patent sutures generate a more widely distributed, high level of strain throughout the reptile skull. Without patent sutures, large regions of the skull are only subjected to infrequent low-level strains that could weaken the bone and result in abnormal development. Sutures are therefore not only sites of bone growth, but could also be essential for the modulation of strains necessary for normal growth and development in reptiles.     

The canine distemper epidemic in Serengeti: are lions victims of a new highly virulent canine distemper virus strain,or is pathogen circulation stochasticity to blame?

In the year 1994, the Serengeti lion population was decimated by a canine distemper disease outbreak. Retrospective investigations showed that this host population had already been in contact with the pathogen in 1981 without any detected sign of disease. As an alternative to the virus mutation hypothesis to explain this difference in virulences observed in 1981 and 1994, we propose a novel mechanism of disease emergence based on variation in population immunity. We use a stochastic model to show that stochastic fluctuations in pathogen circulation, owing to a low probability of virus transmission from its reservoir to the target host and thereby resulting in variations in the global immunity level of the target host population, can explain the observations made in Serengeti. This mechanism may also be involved in other infectious disease emergences or re-emergences.     

In-roads to the spread of antibiotic resistance: regional patterns of microbial transmission in northern coastal Ecuador

The evolution of antibiotic resistance (AR) increases treatment cost and probability of failure, threatening human health worldwide. The relative importance of individual antibiotic use, environmental transmission and rates of introduction of resistant bacteria in explaining community AR patterns is poorly understood. Evaluating their relative importance requires studying a region where they vary. The construction of a new road in a previously roadless area of northern coastal Ecuador provides a valuable natural experiment to study how changes in the social and natural environment affect the epidemiology of resistant Escherichia coli. We conducted seven bi-annual 15 day surveys of AR between 2003 and 2008 in 21 villages. Resistance to both ampicillin and sulphamethoxazole was the most frequently observed profile, based on antibiogram tests of seven antibiotics from 2210 samples. The prevalence of enteric bacteria with this resistance pair in the less remote communities was 80 per cent higher than in more remote communities (OR = 1.8 [1.3, 2.3]). This pattern could not be explained with data on individual antibiotic use. We used a transmission model to help explain this observed discrepancy. The model analysis suggests that both transmission and the rate of introduction of resistant bacteria into communities may contribute to the observed regional scale AR patterns, and that village-level antibiotic use rate determines which of these two factors predominate. While usually conceived as a main effect on individual risk, antibiotic use rate is revealed in this analysis as an effect modifier with regard to community-level risk of resistance.