Multiphoton Lithography as a Promising Tool for Biomedical Applications

Multiphoton lithography (MPL) is a powerful and useful structuring tool capable of generating 2D and 3D arbitrary micro- and nanometer features of various materials with high spatial resolution down to nm-scale. This technology has received tremendous interest in tissue engineering and medical device manufacturing, due to its ability to print sophisticated structures, which is difficult to achieve through traditional printing methods. Thorough consideration of two-photon photoinitiators (PIs) and photoreactive biomaterials is key to the fabrication of such complex 3D micro- and nanostructures. In the current review, different types of two-photon PIs are discussed for their use in biomedical applications. Next, an overview of biomaterials (both natural and synthetic polymers) along with their crosslinking mechanisms is provided. Finally, biomedical applications exploiting MPL are presented, including photocleaving and photopatterning strategies, biomedical devices, tissue engineering, organoids, organ-on-chip, and photodynamic therapy. This review offers a helicopter view on the use of MPL technology in the biomedical field and defines the necessary considerations toward selection or design of PIs and photoreactive biomaterials to serve a multitude of biomedical applications.     

A model of checkpoint behavior for applications that have I/O

Due to the increase and complexity of computer systems, reducing the overhead of fault tolerance techniques has become important in recent years. One technique in fault tolerance is checkpointing, which saves a snapshot with the information that has been computed up to a specific moment, suspending the execution of the application, consuming I/O resources and network bandwidth. Characterizing the files that are generated when performing the checkpoint of a parallel application is useful to determine the resources consumed and their impact on the I/O system. It is also important to characterize the application that performs checkpoints, and one of these characteristics is whether the application does I/O. In this paper, we present a model of checkpoint behavior for parallel applications that performs I/O; this depends on the application and on other factors such as the number of processes, the mapping of processes and the type of I/O used. These characteristics will also influence scalability, the resources consumed and their impact on the IO system. Our model describes the behavior of the checkpoint size based on the characteristics of the system and the type (or model) of I/O used, such as the number I/O aggregator processes, the buffering size utilized by the two-phase I/O optimization technique and components of collective file I/O operations. The BT benchmark and FLASH I/O are analyzed under different configurations of aggregator processes and buffer size to explain our approach. The model can be useful when selecting what type of checkpoint configuration is more appropriate according to the applications’ characteristics and resources available. Thus, the user will be able to know how much storage space the checkpoint consumes and how much the application consumes, in order to establish policies that help improve the distribution of resources.

     

Perceived production complexity – understanding more than parts of a system

To successfully manage today’s complex production systems it is essential to study operators’ perception of the system. The paper presents perceived production complexity assessed at seven manufacturing companies with the CompleXity Index (CXI) method. While other methods have measured product variants, layout, work content, tools and information items, CXI combines them into three areas. These three complexity areas (Station design, Work variance and Disturbance handling) help to create an understanding of the complex system by visualising how they contribute to complexity, and show the need to support the operators’ ability to handle the varying work.     

Control Charts with Variable Dimension for Linear Combination of Poisson Variables

This article analyzes the simultaneous control of several correlated Poisson variables by using the Variable Dimension Linear Combination of Poisson Variables (VDLCP) control chart, which is a variable dimension version of the LCP chart. This control chart uses as test statistic, the linear combination of correlated Poisson variables in an adaptive way, i.e. it monitors either p₁ or p variables (p₁ < p) depending on the last statistic value. To analyze the performance of this chart, we have developed software that finds the best parameters, optimizing the out‐of‐control average run length (ARL) for a shift that the practitioner wishes to detect as quickly as possible, restricted to a fixed value for in‐control ARL. Markov chains and genetic algorithms were used in developing this software. The results show performance improvement compared to the LCP chart. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Manipulation of matter by electric and magnetic fields: Toward novel synthesis and processing routes of inorganic materials

The use of external electric and magnetic fields for the synthesis and processing of inorganic materials such as metals and ceramics has seen renewed interest in recent years. Electromagnetic energy can be utilized in different ways to improve or accelerate phase formation and stabilization, chemical ordering, densification and coarsening of particle-based materials (pore elimination and grain growth), and mechanical deformation (plasticity and creep). In these new synthesis and processing routes, the resulting microstructures and macroscopic material behavior are determined by the interaction of the applied fields with defects such as single or clustered point defects, dislocation networks, and interfaces. Multiscale experimental investigations and modeling are necessary to unveil the mechanisms underlying this field-assisted manipulation of matter.     

A SLIT THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY

Post-war experimental and conceptual photography in former Yugoslavia has only rarely been the subject of detailed study and interpretation. In considering this period, it is necessary to take into account several factors, including the absence of permanent exhibition spaces for photography, the lack of magazines in which photographic themes were presented and discussed, the impossibility of studying the field of photography and, finally, the inadequate knowledge and application of contemporary criticism and theories of photography. Nevertheless, from the mid-1950s onwards it is possible to note a variety of innovations in the field, in terms of both form and subject-matter. This article considers rare instances of institutional support for progressive photography-related events and unique, intellectual-poetic works. After the break-up of Yugoslavia, there is a dominant tendency to nationalize art created in the former state, thus ignoring the specific Yugoslav cultural field as well as the European context. Based on a methodology which surpasses the national (but still acknowledges it) and searches for meaning within the broader socio-political space to which art is referring, the research aims to change the paradigm of the peripheral position and general ignorance of the circumstances under which this innovative practice emerges.     

Tree pattern mining with tree automata constraints

Most work on pattern mining focuses on simple data structures such as itemsets and sequences of itemsets. However, a lot of recent applications dealing with complex data like chemical compounds, protein structures, XML and Web log databases and social networks, require much more sophisticated data structures such as trees and graphs. In these contexts, interesting patterns involve not only frequent object values (labels) appearing in the graphs (or trees) but also frequent specific topologies found in these structures. Recently, several techniques for tree and graph mining have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we focus on constraint-based tree pattern mining. We propose to use tree automata as a mechanism to specify user constraints over tree patterns. We present the algorithm CoBMiner which allows user constraints specified by a tree automata to be incorporated in the mining process. An extensive set of experiments executed over synthetic and real data (XML documents and Web usage logs) allows us to conclude that incorporating constraints during the mining process is far more effective than filtering the interesting patterns after the mining process.     

Persistent Scatterers Interferometry detects and measures ground subsidence in Lisbon

Results from the application of Persistent Scatterers Interferometry in Lisbon Metropolitan Area revealed two previously unknown subsiding urban areas: one (Laranjeiras) is located in the center of Lisbon; another (Vialonga) is to be found toward the North, in an industrial region crossed by Lisbon's main highway and railway lines. The two subsiding sectors are bordered by sharp velocity gradients, and the subsidence pattern appears partially delimited by mapped geologic faults. Surface geology and urbanization alone are unable to explain the phenomena. In the Vialonga area, the historical record of water pore pressure shows a clear decline of the levels (up to 65 m in 27 years), providing evidence of over-exploitation of groundwater resources. Limited information from wells drilled inside and outside the subsidence area points to a spatial correlation between the subsidence and the water pressure levels, and suggests that faults could be acting as hydraulic barriers in the aquifer system. The surface subsidence detected is probably caused by compaction of a clay-rich Oligocene-aged aquitard, led by over-exploitation of adjacent aquifers. The same Oligocene aquitard layer is present in the Laranjeiras area, immediately bellow a multi-layered sand-clay-limestone Miocene aquifer, but further work is needed to diagnose the possibility of over-exploitation of groundwater here. In this work we were able to independently confirm the PSI results, by comparing autonomous PSI results processed for the same geographical areas, and by comparing PSI with leveling and continuous GPS derived subsidence velocities, whose close match provided further ground validation of the space-borne PSI technique.