Reactions and fluidics in miniaturized natural convection systems

Buoyancy-driven convection offers a novel and greatly simplified mechanism for generating continuous nonpulsatile flow fields and performing thermally activated biochemical reactions. In this paper, we build on our previous work by constructing a multiwell device incorporating an array of 35-microL cylindrical cavities to perform polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of a 191-base pair fragment associated with membrane channel proteins M1 and M2 of the influenza-A virus in as little as 15 min with performance comparable to conventional thermocyclers. We also describe entirely new adaptations of convective flows by conducting a series of coordinated flow visualization and computational studies to explore the design of closed-loop systems to execute tunable thermocycling, pumping, and mixing operations in a format suitable for integration into miniaturized biochemical analysis systems. Using 15-microL convective flow loops, we are able to perform PCR amplification of the same 191-base pair fragment associated with the influenza-A virus, as well as a 295-base pair segment of the human beta-actin gene in a format offering an enhanced degree of control and tunability. These convective flow devices can be further scaled down to nanoliter volumes and are ideally suited as a platform for a new generation of low-power, portable microfluidic DNA analysis systems.     

Magnetic studies of spin wave excitations in Co/Pt multilayers

The magnetization of Co(t_Co)/Pt(t_Pt) (4 t_Co10 , 7 t_Pt20 ) multilayers has been measured as a function of temperature. For Co/Pt multilayers with fixed cobalt layer thickness of 4 , the magnetization decreases faster with temperature as the platinum layers are made thicker. A simple theoretical model based on an anisotropic ferromagnetic system has been used to explain the temperature dependence of the magnetization and the approximate values for the in-plane exchange interaction J₀ and the interlayer coupling strength J₁ for various Co/Pt multilayers have been obtained.     

Robust real-time myocardial border tracking for echocardiography: an information fusion approach

Ultrasound is a main noninvasive modality for the assessment of the heart function. Wall tracking from ultrasound data is, however, inherently difficult due to weak echoes, clutter, poor signal-to-noise ratio, and signal dropouts. To cope with these artifacts, pretrained shape models can be applied to constrain the tracking. However, existing methods for incorporating subspace shape constraints in myocardial border tracking use only partial information from the model distribution, and do not exploit spatially varying uncertainties from feature tracking. In this paper, we propose a complete fusion formulation in the information space for robust shape tracking, optimally resolving uncertainties from the system dynamics, heteroscedastic measurement noise, and subspace shape model. We also exploit information from the ground truth initialization where this is available. The new framework is applied for tracking of myocardial borders in very noisy echocardiography sequences. Numerous myocardium tracking experiments validate the theory and show the potential of very accurate wall motion measurements. The proposed framework outperforms the traditional shape-space-constrained tracking algorithm by a significant margin. Due to the optimal fusion of different sources of uncertainties, robust performance is observed even for the most challenging cases.     

Modeling p-channel SiGe MOSFETs by taking into account the band-structure and the size quantization effects self-consistently

The purpose of this work is to develop new approach to modeling p-channel devices using a 2D Monte Carlo transport kernel that is coupled self-consistently to a 2D Poisson equation solver and to a six-band k.p band-structure module. The need for full band solvers for hole transport is especially true in case of surface channel strained Si and buried channel strained SiGe p-MOSFETs investigated here. We have paid special attention on properly implementing and investigating the role of interface-roughness on the operation of these device structures.     

Time-Width Versus Frequency Band Mapping of Energy Distributions

Most of the signal processing operations involve some kind of a transformation or approximation of the signal. The transform coefficients or the approximation parameters reveal many hidden characteristics of a signal that can be appropriately processed to extract useful information. In recent years, adaptive time-frequency (TF) transformations have significantly contributed to this area. The TF transformation can be classified into two main categories based on 1) signal decomposition approaches and 2) bilinear TF distributions (also known as Cohen's class). TF distributions are nonparametric in nature and mainly used for visualization purposes. On the other hand, decomposition approaches are parametric in nature and highly suitable for objective feature extraction. This paper focuses on a particular TF decomposition approach (adaptive TF transformation) based on matching pursuit-type algorithm. Using this decomposition approach, a novel time-width versus frequency band (TWFB) energy mapping is proposed that possesses both parameterization benefits and meaningful visual patterns with favorable properties for pattern recognition. This organized mapping of the TF decomposition parameters allows the application of pruning algorithms such as local discriminant bases (LDB) to identify application specific TF subspaces. The identification of these subspaces enables efficient processing of information and reduces the computational effort considerably. The visual patterns of the TWFB mappings exhibit high potential of becoming a powerful pattern analysis tool. The paper covers in detail the formulation of the TWFB mapping and some of its properties. Experiments performed with speech and synthetic signals produced desirable results demonstrating the benefits of TWFB for pattern recognition related applications     

Using Verified Data-Flow Analysis-based Optimizations in Attribute Grammars

Building verified compilers is difficult, especially when complex analyses such as type checking or data-flow analysis must be performed. Both the type checking and program optimization communities have developed methods for proving the correctness of these processes and developed tools for using, respectively, verified type systems and verified optimizations. However, it is difficult to use both of these analyses in a single declarative framework since these processes work on different program representations: type checking on abstract syntax trees and data-flow analysis-based optimization on control flow or program dependency graphs.We present an attribute grammar specification language that has been extended with constructs for specifying attribute-labelled control flow graphs and both CTL and LTL-FV formulas that specify data-flow analyses. These formulas are model-checked on these graphs to perform the specified analyses. Thus, verified type rules and verified data-flow analyses (verified either by hand or with automated proof tools) can both be transcribed into a single declarative framework based on attribute grammars to build a high-confidence language implementations. Also, the attribute grammar specification language is extensible so that it is relatively straight-forward to add new constructs for different temporal logics so that alternative logics and model checkers can be used to specify data-flow analyses in this framework.     

Plasticizing effect of coconut oil on morphological,mechanical, thermal,rheological, barrier,and optical properties of poly(lactic acid): A promising candidate for food packaging

This study explores the plasticizing effect of coconut oil (CO) on PLA for evaluating its suitability for flexible packaging. Changes in morphological, mechanical, thermal, rheological, barrier and optical properties of melt compounded Poly(lactic acid)–Coconut oil (PLA–CO) blend were investigated by varying the mixing ratio. Water vapor permeability of blends decreased by 58% at 7 wt % plasticizer content. The tensile strength showed a decreasing trend with increasing plasticizer percentage while the % elongation showed an increasing trend. At 7 wt % plasticizer content tensile strength decreased from 60 to 41 MPa and % elongation increased from 12% to 54%. Molecular weight (M_n) and onset of degradation (T_onset), upon 1 wt % plasticizer addition showed a reduction of 6% and 0.6%, respectively, which were well within permissible limits required for polymer processing. The melt flow properties of the blends were slightly improved (～16%) upon 5 wt % addition of CO. Transparency of the PLA films was improved by addition of plasticizer. FTIR spectra of PLA‐CO sample confirmed the interaction between PLA and coconut oil via hydrogen bonding. At higher loading, coconut oil shows very limited compatibility with PLA. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 45390.     

Dynamics in network interaction games

We study the convergence times of dynamics in games involving graphical relationships of players. Our model of interaction games generalizes a variety of recently studied games in game theory and distributed computing. In a local interaction games each agent is a node embedded in a graph and plays the same 2-player game with each neighbor. He can choose his strategy only once and must apply his choice in each 2-player game he is involved in. This represents a fundamental model of decision making with local interaction and distributed control. Furthermore, we introduce a generalization called 2-type interaction games, in which one 2-player game is played on edges and possibly another game is played on non-edges. For the popular case with symmetric 2 ×?2 games, we show that several dynamics converge to a pure Nash equilibrium in polynomial time. This includes arbitrary sequential better-response dynamics, as well as concurrent dynamics resulting from a distributed protocol that does not rely on global knowledge. We supplement these results with an experimental comparison of sequential and concurrent dynamics.     

Quantum tasks using six qubit cluster states

The usefulness of the recent experimentally realized six photon cluster state by C. Y. Lu et al. (Nature 3:91, 2007) is investigated for quantum communication protocols like quantum teleportation and quantum information splitting (QIS) and dense coding. We show that the present state can be used for the teleportation of an arbitrary two qubit state deterministically. Later, we devise two distinct protocols for the QIS of an arbitrary two qubit state among two parties. We construct sixteen orthogonal measurement basis on the cluster state, which will lock an arbitrary two qubit state among two parties. The capability of the state for dense coding is investigated and it is shown that one can send five classical bits by sending only three qubits using this state as a shared entangled resource. We finally show that this state can also be utilised in the remote state preparation of an arbitrary two qubit state.