Haemonchus contortus glycoproteins contain N-linked oligosaccharides with novel highly fucosylated core structures

Structural studies on the N-linked oligosaccharides of Haemonchus contortus, an economically important nematode that parasitizes domestic ruminants, have revealed core fucosylation of a type not previously observed in any eukaryotic glycoprotein. Mass spectrometric analyses were performed on detergent extracts of homogenized adult H. contortus and on purified H11, a glycoprotein isolated from intestinal brush borders which has been previously shown to be an effective vaccine antigen. The major N-linked glycans identified in the present study have up to three fucose residues attached to their chitobiose cores. The fucoses are found at the 3- and/or 6-positions of the proximal GlcNAc and at the 3-position of the distal GlcNAc. The latter substitution is unique in N-glycans. Most anti-H11 monoclonal antibodies are known to recognize carbohydrate epitopes, and it is possible that the newly discovered multifucosylated core structures are highly immunogenic in this glycoprotein.     

Hard coatings on light-metal components under mechanical surface loading

In this work the behaviour of hard coated light-metal components was investigated when they are mechanically loaded. Three lightmetal alloys, Ti-6Al-4V, AlSi7Mg and AlMgSi0.5 and 100Cr6 steel (as a reference material) were coated by two different physical vapour deposition processes: radio frequency magnetron sputtering and electron beam evaporation. The coating materials utilised were CrN and TiN. Standard test methods with different loading conditions were used to evaluate the substrate/coating-combinations: the hardness test (applying a static normal load), the scratch test (applying a combination of a static normal and a static tangential force) and the impact test (applying a dynamic normal load). It was observed that the load support of coated materials depends on the loading conditions. The coated aluminium alloys showed poor load support under all loading test conditions but produced a higher surface hardness than uncoated steel. Coated Ti-6Al-4V showed very good load support properties, similar to coated steel. All coated light-metal substrates demonstrated significant improvement in load support behaviour with an increase in coating thickness. The results of the scratch test, which is commonly used to asses adhesion properties of thin coatings, showed an immediate indenter-breakthrough on the aluminium alloy substrates, but causing no coating delamination. Due to this behaviour, the scratch test is not suitable to evaluate adhesion properties on coated soft light-metals. Yet the impact test allowed assessment of coating delamination on the aluminium alloys, proving its usefulness for adhesion measurement even on soft substrates. The study indicates that substitution of steel with coated lightmetal alloys is a viable proposition for certain applications.     

Rectangular Pisarenko method applied to source localization

Most high-resolution (HR) direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation schemes require the extraction of a low-dimensional subspace: a task that takes O(N³) flops for an order S matrix. Different techniques have been recently proposed to reduce this computational load. For those working on blocks of data, the number of flops required is generally O(N²P), where P, which is the dimension of the subspace (the number of sources), is often quite small as compared with N, which is the number of sensors. The method we propose is a HR technique that requires O(NP²)+O(P³) flops, i.e., that is linear in the number of sensors. The price to be paid for this drastic computational saving is a reduction in performance. Although the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) on the variance of the direction estimates is of the order T^-1 N^-3 (with T the number of snapshots), this variance is of order T^-1 N^-2 for the proposed procedure. The idea behind the method is to apply a Pisarenko method to a rectangular matrix extracted from the Toeplerized estimated covariance matrix, and it is this Toeplerization that allows preservation of the O(T^-1 N^-2) level of performance     

Highly efficient transmission gratings in fused silica for chirped-pulse amplification systems

We report on highly efficient transmission gratings in fused silica with a grating period of 800 nm generated by electron-beam lithography. At a wavelength of 1060 nm, 95% diffraction efficiency is achieved under Littrow conditions. The damage threshold, extremely enhanced compared with conventional gold-coated diffraction gratings, makes these gratings the key elements in high average power (>100 W) femtosecond fiber chirped-pulse amplification systems.     

Design and Fabrication of Faceted Mirror Arrays for Light Field Capture

The high resolution of digital cameras has made single‐shot, single‐sensor acquisition of light fields feasible, though considerable design effort is still necessary in order to construct the necessary collection of optical elements for particular acquisition scenarios. This paper explores a pipeline for designing, fabricating and utilizing faceted mirror arrays which simplifies this task. The foundation of the pipeline is an interactive tool that automatically optimizes for mirror designs while exposing to the user a set of intuitive parameters for light field quality and manufacturing constraints. We investigate two manufacturing processes for automatic fabrication of the resulting designs: one is based on CNC milling, polishing, and plating of one solid work piece, while the other involves assembly of CNC‐cut mirror facets. We demonstrate results for refocusing in a macro photography scenario. In addition, we observe that traditional photographic parameters take novel roles in the faceted mirror array setup and discuss their influence.     

High-efficiency binary phase-transmission-grating using e-beam lithography

Abstract

Rigorous coupled-wave analysis indicates that diffraction efficiencies greater than 99% are feasible for dielectric phase-gratings with a rectangular profile. The use of rectangular rather than blazed profiles implies simplified fabrication techniques, since deep-etch submicrometre structuring techniques can be utilized. We identify several parameter combinations with high diffraction efficiencies using rigorous coupled wave analysis, demonstrate experimentally diffraction efficiencies of 94% in a Bragg mount configuration at a wavelength of 543 nm and discuss the influence of substrate thickness on the transmitted light intensities. A direct writing electron-beam lithography fabrication process gives wide flexibility in design realization.