Equivalent pulse parameters for electroporation

Electroporation-based applications require the use of specific pulse parameters for a successful outcome. When recommended values of pulse parameters cannot be set, similar outcomes can be obtained by using equivalent pulse parameters. We determined the relations between the amplitude and duration/number of pulses resulting in the same fraction of electroporated cells. Pulse duration was varied from 150 ns to 100 ms, and the number of pulses from 1 to 128. Fura 2-AM was used to determine electroporation of cells to Ca(2+). With longer pulses or higher number of pulses, lower amplitudes are needed for the same fraction of electroporated cells. The expression derived from the model of electroporation could describe the measured data on the whole interval of pulse durations. In a narrower range (0.1-100 ms), less complex, logarithmic or power functions could be used instead. The relation between amplitude and number of pulses could best be described with a power function or an exponential function. We show that relatively simple two-parameter power or logarithmic functions are useful when equivalent pulse parameters for electroporation are sought. Such mathematical relations between pulse parameters can be important in planning of electroporation-based treatments, such as electrochemotherapy and nonthermal irreversible electroporation.     

Laser Cladding of Cold-Work Tool Steel by Pulse Shaping

Repair welding of cold-work tool steels in cold is very risky and almost impossible by conventional processes. The application of pulse shaping in laser cladding with wire to avoid the solidification problems in relevant steel is demonstrated. The results show that sound remelting and/or cladding can be achieved by the right selection of laser parameters and pulse shape, i.e. long pulse duration, moderate pulse peak powers and ramped-down pulse shape. Despite the defects and softening in the cladding due to the formation of retained austenite, the cladding shows better wear resistance at lower loads compared to the heat-treated base material.     

Algorithms and tools for the preprocessing of LC-MS metabolomics data

Metabolomics encompasses the study of small molecules in a biological sample. Liquid Chromatography coupled with Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) profiling is an important approach for the identification and quantification of metabolites from complex biological samples. The amount and complexity of data produced in an LC-MS profiling experiment demand automatic tools for the preprocessing, analysis, and extraction of useful biological information. Data preprocessing—a topic that covers noise filtering, peak detection, deisotoping, alignment, identification, and normalization—is thus an active area of metabolomics research. Recent years have witnessed development of many software for data preprocessing, and still there is a need for further improvement of the data preprocessing pipeline. This review presents an overview of selected software tools for preprocessing LC-MS based metabolomics data and tries to provide future directions.     

Development of a substitutive light source for indoor daylight calculations

The central focus of the paper is to present the results of the last 2 years of the research work on development of a substitutive light source for daylight calculation of the illuminance indoors. In the paper, calculation of spatial distribution of daylight according to the new CIE standard is discussed. Another focal topic is the calculation of photometric data of a light source which substitutes vertical window or vertical window opening in computer calculations. Through the development of photometric data for a light source, so that it can be imported into calculation software, this software becomes more powerful and useful.     

A comprehensive investigation into sclera biometrics: a novel dataset and performance study

Neural Computing and Applications - The area of ocular biometrics is among the most popular branches of biometric recognition technology. This area has long been dominated by iris recognition...     

Spatially-Adaptive Filter Units for Compact and Efficient Deep Neural Networks

International Journal of Computer Vision - Convolutional neural networks excel in a number of computer vision tasks. One of their most crucial architectural elements is the effective receptive...     

Simplified introduction of power intent into a register-transfer level model

Design Automation for Embedded Systems - In highly-integrated electronic circuits designs, power reduction must be properly addressed. The standardized ways of power-intent specification are...