Characterization of Mesoporous Materials Via Fluorescent Spectroscopic Methods

There are three components that need to be understood to create new porous membranes for industrial applications. 1.) To understand appropriate synthesis conditions to create a successful membrane system. 2.) To understand how the microstructures generated in synthesis affect the transport properties of that system. 3) To be able to characterize the heterogeneity of the fabricated membrane’s transport and physical structure. Presented within this manuscript are new characterization methods to increase the understanding in membrane technology. It will be demonstrated that the novel application of standard fluorescent methods and the development of new fluorescent methods techniques allows for the measurement of molecular interactions and transport properties on length scales capable of providing valuable information in the field of membrane science, as well as expanding new applications in fluorescent techniques

Emergent behavior in active colloids

Active colloids are microscopic particles, which self-propel through viscous fluids by converting energy extracted from their environment into directed motion. We first explain how articial microswimmers move forward by generating near-surface flow fields via self-phoresis or the self-induced Marangoni effect. We then discuss generic features of the dynamics of single active colloids in bulk and in confinement, as well as in the presence of gravity, field gradients, and fluid flow. In the third part, we review the emergent collective behavior of active colloidal suspensions focussing on their structural and dynamic properties. After summarizing experimental observations, we give an overview on the progress in modeling collectively moving active colloids. While active Brownian particles are heavily used to study collective dynamics on large scales, more advanced methods are necessary to explore the importance of hydrodynamic and phoretic particle interactions. Finally, the relevant physical approaches to quantify the emergent collective behavior are presented.Comment: 31 pages, 14 figure

Towards an Interactive Humanoid Companion with Visual Tracking Modalities

The idea of robots acting as human companions is not a particularly new or original one. Since the notion of “robot ” was created, the idea of robots replacing humans in dangerous, dirty and dull activities has been inseparably tied with the fantasy of human-like robots being friends and existing side by side with humans. In 1989, Engelberger (Engelberger

Monte Carlo methods for light propagation in biological tissues

Light propagation in turbid media is driven by the equation of radiative transfer. We give a formal probabilistic representation of its solution in the framework of biological tissues and we implement algorithms based on Monte Carlo methods in order to estimate the quantity of light that is received by a homogeneous tissue when emitted by an optic fiber. A variance reduction method is studied and implemented, as well as a Markov chain Monte Carlo method based on the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. The resulting estimating methods are then compared to the so-called Wang–Prahl (or Wang) method. Finally, the formal representation allows to derive a non-linear optimization algorithm close to Levenberg–Marquardt that is used for the estimation of the scattering and absorption coefficients of the tissue from measurement