Biodegradable Polylactic Acid (PLA) Microstructures for Scaffold Applications

In this research, we present a simple and cost effective soft lithographic process to fabricate PLA scaffolds for tissue engineering. In which, the negative photoresist JSR THB-120N was spun on a glass subtract followed by conventional UV lithographic processes to fabricate the master to cast the PDMS elastomeric mold. A thin poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) layer was used as a mode release such that the PLA scaffold can be easily peeled off. The PLA precursor solution was then cast onto the PDMS mold to form the PLA microstructures. After evaporating the solvent, the PLA microstructures can be easily peeled off from the PDMS mold. Experimental results show that the desired microvessels scaffold can be successfully transferred to the biodegradable polymer PLA.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Operation of LANDSAT automatic tracking system

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Topological optimisation of rod-stirring devices

There are many industrial situations where rods are used to stir a fluid, or where rods repeatedly stretch a material such as bread dough or taffy. The goal in these applications is to stretch either material lines (in a fluid) or the material itself (for dough or taffy) as rapidly as possible. The growth rate of material lines is conveniently given by the topological entropy of the rod motion. We discuss the problem of optimising such rod devices from a topological viewpoint. We express rod motions in terms of generators of the braid group, and assign a cost based on the minimum number of generators needed to write the braid. We show that for one cost function -- the topological entropy per generator -- the optimal growth rate is the logarithm of the golden ratio. For a more realistic cost function,involving the topological entropy per operation where rods are allowed to move together, the optimal growth rate is the logarithm of the silver ratio, $1+\sqrt{2}$. We show how to construct devices that realise this optimal growth, which we call silver mixers.Comment: 22 pages, 53 figures. PDFLaTeX with RevTex4 macros