Microcontact printing of DNA molecules

The controlled placement of DNA molecules onto solid surfaces is the first step in the fabrication of DNA arrays. The sequential deposition of tiny drops containing the probe DNA fragments using arrays of spotting needles or ink jet nozzles has become a standard. However, a caveat of liquid spotting is the drying of the deposited drop because this creates the typical inhomogeneities, i.e., rims around the spot. Another drawback is that each DNA array is an original and has to be fabricated individually. Microcontact printing is a versatile technique to place proteins onto different target surfaces in uniformly patterned monolayers with high lateral resolution. Here, we show for the first time that DNA can also be printed with equally high resolution in the submicrometer range using an elastomeric stamp with chemically tailored surface. Two regimes for the transfer of the molecules were observed. Finally, microcontact printing of an array of DNA probes onto a solid support and its use in a subsequent hybridization assay was demonstrated.     

Liquid-Phase Sintering: Are Liquids Squeezed Out from Between Compressed Particles?

Application of a theory developed for plates that sandwich a liquid layer to spherical particles which undergo liquid phase sintering shows that although the thickness of the liquid layer decreases with time, a finite thickness will always remain between the particles within any experimental time frame as long as the liquid perfectly wets the solid.     

Stengthening of polyphase Si3N4 materials through oxidation

Specimens of various polyphase Si₃N₄ materials fabricated in the Si-Mg-O-N system, and a commercial Si₃N₄ material were subjected to oxidation treatments prior to flexural strength determinations at 1400° C. It was demonstrated that a pre-oxidation treatment could significantly improve the high-temperature strength. The compositional change induced by oxidation which can decrease the volume fraction of the viscous phase present in these materials at high temperatures is believed to be responsible for the observed strengthening.     

Crack extension and arrest in contact stress fields

Sudden crack extension and arrest is observed when indenters are pressed into the surface of brittle materials. The energetics of this system are examined. Crack extension is defined by a condition of decreased free energy (after A. A. Griffith) and crack arrest is defined by a condition of increased free energy with a further increase in crack size. The analysis shows that the critical stress required for crack extension depends on the dimension of the stress field and other factors, viz., crack size and material properties, usually associated with Griffith's fracture equation. The dependence on the dimension of the stress field explains Auerbach's empirical law which shows that the apparent strength of a brittle material increases with the decreasing size of the contact stress field. Experimental observations for hot-pressed Si₃N₄ and SiC are presented to examine this size effect and its predicted relation to material properties.     

What can modern statistics offer imaging neuroscience?

This paper presents a mixed-effects model, region-of-interest analysis of a longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of drug effects on human memory function. A key region of interest is the human hippocampus, affected by brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. A brief section on human hippocampal cell microscopy complements the discussion of the macroscopic fMRI study. Statistical issues confronted in these two applications are then placed in a broader context for further discussion of the future roles of biostatisticians and our methods in the fertile intersection of applied mathematical abstraction and imaging neuroscience. Neuroscientific and fMRI background is provided for readers new to either area.     

Multisensory recognition of actively explored objects.

Shape recognition can be achieved through vision or touch, raising the issue of how this information is shared across modalities. Here we provide a short review of previous findings on cross-modal object recognition and we provide new empirical data on multisensory recognition of actively explored objects. It was previously shown that, similar to vision, haptic recognition of objects fixed in space is orientation specific and that cross-modal object recognition performance was relatively efficient when these views of the objects were matched across the sensory modalities (Newell, Ernst, Tjan, & Bülthoff, 2001). For actively explored (i.e., spatially unconstrained) objects, we now found a cost in cross-modal relative to within-modal recognition performance. At first, this may seem to be in contrast to findings by Newell et al. (2001). However, a detailed video analysis of the visual and haptic exploration behaviour during learning and recognition revealed that one view of the objects was predominantly explored relative to all others. Thus, active visual and haptic exploration is not balanced across object views. The cost in recognition performance across modalities for actively explored objects could be attributed to the fact that the predominantly learned object view was not appropriately matched between learning and recognition test in the cross-modal conditions. Thus, it seems that participants naturally adopt an exploration strategy during visual and haptic object learning that involves constraining the orientation of the objects. Although this strategy ensures good within-modal performance, it is not optimal for achieving the best recognition performance across modalities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constitutive modeling of the aging viscoelastic properties of portland cement paste

Analytical approaches for modeling aging viscoelastic behavior of concrete include the time–shift approach (analogous to time-temperature superposition), the solidification theory, and the dissolution–precipitation approach. The aging viscoelastic properties of concrete are generally attributed solely to the cement paste phase since the aggregates are typically linear elastic. In this study, the aging viscoelastic behavior of four different cement pastes has been measured and modeled according to both the time–shift approach and the solidification theory. The inability of each individual model to fully characterize the aging viscoelastic response of the materials provides insight into the mechanisms for aging of the viscoelastic properties of cement paste and concrete. A model that considers aging due to solidification in combination with inherent aging of the cement paste gel (modeled using the time–shift approach) more accurately predicted the aging viscoelastic behavior of portland cement paste than either the solidification or time–shift approaches independently. The results provide evidence that solidification and other intrinsic gel aging mechanisms are concurrently active in the aging process of cementitious materials.     

Material forces for inelastic models at large strains: application to fracture mechanics

Elastomeric materials show a wide range of different elastic and inelastic properties. Additionally, this class of materials is subjected to large deformations. Considering all these effects, fracture mechanical investigations are very challenging tasks and cannot be performed with standard approaches. Effects of inhomogeneities and discontinuities such as cracks can be investigated with the so-called material force approach in an efficient and elegant way. For comprehensive investigations of inelastic materials, the complete balance of the material motion problem has to be formulated. In this case, the material volume forces depend on the internal history variables which are required for the inelastic constitutive model. This paper derives a general formulation for rate-dependent and rate-independent inelastic materials based on a multiplicative split of the deformation gradient to cover viscoelastic and elastoplastic materials at finite deformations.