Between ‘Platial’ Imaginations and Spatial Rationalities: Navigating Justice and Law in the Low Countries

During the past two decades, landscape has frequently been conceptualized as a distancing way of seeing space. This conceptualization is normally traced back to the rise of capitalism and various modes of artistic representation, notably in the early modern Netherlands or the northern Low Countries. Yet recent scholarly interventions have asserted that landscape in the Low Countries and elsewhere in Europe was more than a distant scenery or an artistic mode of representation. Landscape also animated practices and ideologies of political representation, platial justice and custom. The platial notion of landscape and related concepts in the northern Low Countries around 1600 is focused upon, bringing out the intimate relationships between land, water and diverging ideals and practices of justice. It is argued that artistic landscape representation provided ways to reflect upon spatio-political developments in the Netherlands. Finally, there is a brief consideration of how these theoretical and historical issues resonate with modern thinking about landscape in physical planning.     

Tracking the Molecular Fingerprint of Head and Neck Cancer for Recurrence Detection in Liquid Biopsies

The 5-year relative survival for patients with head and neck cancer, the seventh most common form of cancer worldwide, was reported as 67% in developed countries in the second decade of the new millennium. Although surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or combined treatment often elicits an initial satisfactory response, relapses are frequently observed within two years. Current surveillance methods, including clinical exams and imaging evaluations, have not unambiguously demonstrated a survival benefit, most probably due to a lack of sensitivity in detecting very early recurrence. Recently, liquid biopsy monitoring of the molecular fingerprint of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma has been proposed and investigated as a strategy for longitudinal patient care. These innovative methods offer rapid, safe, and highly informative genetic analysis that can identify small tumors not yet visible by advanced imaging techniques, thus potentially shortening the time to treatment and improving survival outcomes. In this review, we provide insights into the available evidence that the molecular tumor fingerprint can be used in the surveillance of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Challenges to overcome, prior to clinical implementation, are also discussed.     

Premixed hydrogen-air combustion system for fuel cell systems

The advance of efficient hydrogen-air combustion systems has increasingly become of interest in the framework of the development of fuel cell systems, especially for the automotive sector. Therefore, compact modulating systems are required, with the additional demand of low emissions, to be integrated in a fuel cell system. A modulating combustion system based on combustion within inert porous media and an integrated heat exchanger has been developed and investigated. The system is able to handle premixed combustion of lean H₂/air mixtures at a surface load range of 1075 kW/m²-2150 kW/m², and a global equivalence ratio of ?=0.5. The special hydrogen-air mixing concept eliminates the risk of flame flashback and enables operation with very low NO_x emissions.     

The reliability of inverse modelling for the wide scale characterization of the thermal properties of buildings

The reduction of energy use in buildings is a major component of greenhouse gas mitigation policy and requires knowledge of the fabric and the occupant behaviour. Hence there has been a longstanding desire to use automatic means to identify these. Smart metres and the internet-of-things have the potential to do this. This paper describes a study where the ability of inverse modelling to identify building parameters is evaluated for 6 monitored real and 1000 simulated buildings. It was found that low-order models provide good estimates of heat transfer coefficients and internal temperatures if heating, electricity use and CO₂ concentration are measured during the winter period. This implies that the method could be used with a small number of cheap sensors and enable the accurate assessment of buildings’ thermal properties, and therefore the impact of any suggested retrofit. This has the potential to be transformative for the energy efficiency industry.     

Hierarchical Correlation Clustering in Multiple 2D Scalar Fields

Sets of multiple scalar fields can be used to model many types of variation in data, such as uncertainty in measurements and simulations or time‐dependent behavior of scalar quantities. Many structural properties of such fields can be explained by dependencies between different points in the scalar field. Although these dependencies can be of arbitrary complexity, correlation, i.e., the linear dependency, already provides significant structural information. Existing methods for correlation analysis are usually limited to positive correlation, handle only local dependencies, or use combinatorial approximations to this continuous problem. We present a new approach for computing and visualizing correlated regions in sets of 2‐dimensional scalar fields. This paper describes the following three main contributions: (i) An algorithm for hierarchical correlation clustering resulting in a dendrogram, (ii) a generalization of topological landscapes for dendrogram visualization, and (iii) a new method for incorporating negative correlation values in the clustering and visualization. All steps are designed to preserve the special properties of correlation coefficients. The results are visualized in two linked views, one showing the cluster hierarchy as 2D landscape and the other providing a spatial context in the scalar field's domain. Different coloring and texturing schemes coupled with interactive selection support an exploratory data analysis.     

α粒子微束定点照射--细胞的放射生物学效应及精确性分析

进行微束试验的关键是能够精确地控制照射的粒子数和将粒子准确地射入受照射位点.该研究通过对哥伦比亚大学单粒子微束装置在精确性、准确性以及各项指标的分析发现该装置可精确地控制照射粒子数,精确率为98.4%.同时,它可将α粒子准确地射入受照射位点,束半径为34,达到设计4的标准.在对细胞特定位点如细胞质照射上,粒子击中细胞质至少一个位点的概率为90%,在这一过程中的偶然核击中率,对大多数照射剂量(8个粒子)均小于0.8%.应用该微束装置的放射生物学研究发现单个α粒子仅导致大约20%的致死率,其存活率曲线类似于用常规照射获得的平均粒子存活曲线.诱变试验首次证实单个α粒子在AL细胞的CD59基因位点可诱导出比对照高出3倍数量的诱变子,诱变率随粒子数的增加而增加.这一结果不同于常规照射中,诱变率在高剂量照射后下降的结论.     

Compensation Scheme of Position Angle Errors of Permanent-Magnet Linear Motors

The position angle is very important in the current control of permanent-magnet linear motors (PMLMs), and its error affects the control precision of currents. However, the position angle is often not accurately detected because of faults in motor making, pulse loss of linear encoders, and so on. In order to precisely control the currents of PMLMs, a compensation scheme of position angle errors is proposed based on the mathematical relation between position angle errors and currents. In the scheme, a position angle error compensator is designed to compensate the position angles detected by linear encoders. Furthermore, a filter and a class of iteration learning algorithm are proposed to avoid the errors produced by detected phase currents and phase voltages. Simulation results show that position angle errors of PMLMs are fully compensated. Using the designed position angle error compensator, currents can be controlled in a more precise manner.     

Fast, ultrasensitive virus detection using a Young interferometer sensor

We report the application of an integrated optical Young interferometer sensor for ultrasensitive, real-time, direct detection of viruses. We have validated the sensor by detecting herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), but the principle is generally applicable. Detection of HSV-1 virus particles was performed by applying the virus sample onto a sensor surface coated with a specific antibody against HSV-1. The performance of the sensor was tested by monitoring virus samples at clinically relevant concentrations. We show that the Young interferometer sensor can specifically and sensitively detect HSV-1 at very low concentrations (850 particles/mL). We have further demonstrated that the sensor can specifically detect HSV-1 suspended in serum. Extrapolation of the results indicates that the sensitivity of the sensor approaches the detection of a single virus particle binding, yielding a sensor of unprecedented sensitivity with wide applications for viral diagnostics.