A Novel Three-Dimensional Hydrogel-Based Microarray Platform

Three dimensional (3D) microarrays utilizing hydrogel matrixes are becoming increasingly attractive as a desired format for bio-analysis. These materials offer significant advantages as a scaffolding for capture agents over more conventional two dimensional (2D) printed formats in both captures per site and the ability to provide an environment more closely resembling that of a free solution. Biocept has developed a flexible three dimensional polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer based platform suitable for a variety of biological assays. This novel approach is simple, biocompatible and provides a high degree of reproducibility and very low variability in the final array.     

Nontexture Inpainting by Curvature-Driven Diffusions

Inpainting is an image interpolation problem, often referring to interpolations over large-scale missing domains. In this paper, guided by the connectivity principle of human visual perception, we introduce a nonlinear PDE inpainting model based upon curvature-driven diffusions for nontexture images. This third-order PDE model improves the second-order total variation inpainting model introduced earlier by Chan and Shen (SIAM J. Appl. Math., in press, 2001). Computational schemes and digital examples are given.     

Promoting Responsibility,Shaping Behaviour: Housing Management,Mixed Communities and the Construction of Citizenship

This paper examines housing policies aimed at establishing mixed income communities. Based on stakeholder interviews and case study analysis in England and Scotland, the paper pays particular attention to the impact of interventions in housing management. The first part considers the policy context for mixed communities and considers the conceptual basis underlying contemporary housing management through discourses of culture and social control. The second part considers how this agenda has resulted in the adoption of intensive management strategies within mixed communities; illustrated in the development of allocation policies, initiatives designed to tackle anti-social behaviour, and proposals to develop sustainable communities. The main argument is that given that the concept of mixed communities is based on the premise of social housing failure, citizenship has been defined largely in response to private sector interests. This approach to management has been a contributory factor in the construction of social housing as a form of second-class citizenship.     

Determination of vertical daylight illuminance under non-overcast sky conditions

In a dense urban region in which high-rise buildings are packed inside limited land areas, the daylight components reflected from ground and surrounding buildings play significant roles in daylighting design. The natural light available in an interior strongly depends on the amount of daylight reaching the window facades. Lately we proposed a calculation procedure, presented in form of simple mathematical expressions and diagrams, to determine the daylight illuminance on a vertical plane under overcast skies. This paper extends the study to non-overcast sky conditions. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by comparison with the daylight illuminance simulated by a lighting software, namely RADIANCE, and with measurements under real skies. It was found that the data estimated by the proposed method were in good agreement both with the values simulated by RADIANCE and with the measured results. The paper offers to architects and building engineers a useful tool for estimating the daylight illuminance and in particular for determining and assessing various daylighting schemes and concepts during design and construction stages.     

Capacitance DNA bio-chips improved by new probe immobilization strategies

Label-free DNA detection plays a crucial role in developing point-of-care biochips. Capacitance detection is a promising technology for label-free detection. However, data published in literature often show evident time drift, large standard deviation, scattered data points, and poor reproducibility. To address these problems, mercapto-hexanol or similar alkanethiols are usually considered as blocking agents. The aim of the present paper is to investigate new blocking agents to further improve DNA probe surfaces. Data from AFM, SPR, florescence microscopy, and capacitance measurements are used to investigate new lipoate and ethylene-glycol molecules. The new surfaces offer further improvements in terms of diminished detection errors. Film structures are investigated at the nano-scale to justify the detection improvements in terms of probe surface quality. This study demonstrates the superiority of lipoate and ethylene-glycol molecules as blocking candidates when immobilizing molecular probes onto spot surfaces in label-free DNA biochip.