Functionally heterogeneous porous scaffold design for tissue engineering

Most of the current tissue scaffolds are mainly designed with homogeneous porosity which does not represent the spatial heterogeneity found in actual tissues. Therefore engineering a realistic tissue scaffolds with properly graded properties to facilitate the mimicry of the complex elegance of native tissues are critical for the successful tissue regeneration. In this work, novel bio-mimetic heterogeneous porous scaffolds have been modeled. First, the geometry of the scaffold is extracted along with its internal regional heterogeneity. Then the model has been discretized with planner slices suitable for layer based fabrication. An optimum filament deposition angle has been determined for each slice based on the contour geometry and the internal heterogeneity. The internal region has been discritized considering the homogeneity factor along the deposition direction. Finally, an area weight based approach has been used to generate the spatial porosity function that determines the filament deposition location for desired biomimetic porosity. The proposed methodology has been implemented and illustrative examples are provided. The effective porosity has been compared between the proposed design and the conventional homogeneous scaffolds. The result shows a significant error reduction towards achieving the biomimetic porosity in the scaffold design and provides better control over the desired porosity level. Moreover, sample designed structures have also been fabricated with a NC motion controlled micro-nozzle biomaterial deposition system

Exact solution of Schrodinger equation for modified Kratzer's molecular potential with the position-dependent mass

Exact solutions of Schrodinger equation are obtained for the modified Kratzer and the corrected Morse potentials with the position-dependent effective mass. The bound state energy eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenfunctions are calculated for any angular momentum for target potentials. Various forms of point canonical transformations are applied. PACS numbers: 03.65.-w; 03.65.Ge; 12.39.Fd Keywords: Morse potential, Kratzer potential, Position-dependent mass, Point canonical transformation, Effective mass Schr\"{o}dinger equation.Comment: 9 page

Modeling of multifunctional porous tissue scaffolds with continuous deposition path plan

A novel modeling technique for porous tissue scaffolds with targeting the functionally gradient variational porosity with continuous material deposition planning has been proposed. To vary the porosity of the designed scaffold functionally, medial axis transformation is used. The medial axis of each layers of the scaffold is calculated and used as an internal feature. The medial axis is then used connected to the outer contour using an optimum matching. The desired pore size and hence the porosity have been achieved by discretizing the sub-regions along its peripheral direction based on the pore size while meeting the tissue scaffold design constraints. This would ensure the truly porous nature of the structure in every direction as well as controllable porosity with interconnected pores. Thus the desired controlled variational porosity along the scaffold architecture has been achieved with the combination of two geometrically oriented consecutive layers. A continuous, interconnected and optimized tool-path has been generated for successive layers for additive-manufacturing or solid free form fabrication process. The proposed methodology has been computationally implemented with illustrative examples. Furthermore, the designed example scaffolds with the desired pore size and porosity has been fabricated with an extrusion based bio-fabrication process

Scattering states of a particle, with position-dependent mass, in a double heterojunction

In this work we obtain the exact analytical scattering solutions of a particle (electron or hole) in a semiconductor double heterojunction - potential well / barrier - where the effective mass of the particle varies with position inside the heterojunctions. It is observed that the spatial dependence of mass within the well / barrier introduces a nonlinear component in the plane wave solutions of the continuum states. Additionally, the transmission coefficient is found to increase with increasing energy, finally approaching unity, whereas the reflection coefficient follows the reverse trend and goes to zero.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Potential algebra approach to position dependent mass Schroedinger equation

It is shown that for a class of position dependent mass Schroedinger equation the shape invariance condition is equivalent to a potential symmetry algebra. Explicit realization of such algebras have been obtained for some shape invariant potentials

Analytical Solutions of Klein-Gordon Equation with Position-Dependent Mass for q-Parameter Poschl-Teller potential

The energy eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenfunctions of the one-dimensional Klein-Gordon equation with q-parameter Poschl-Teller potential are analytically obtained within the position-dependent mass formalism. The parametric generalization of the Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used in the calculations by choosing a mass distribution.Comment: 10 page

Moving forward with combinatorial interaction testing

Combinatorial interaction testing (CIT) is an efficient and effective method of detecting failures that are caused by the interactions of various system input parameters. In this paper, we discuss CIT, point out some of the difficulties of applying it in practice, and highlight some recent advances that have improved CIT’s applicability to modern systems. We also provide a roadmap for future research and directions; one that we hope will lead to new CIT research and to higher quality testing of industrial systems

Estimating Forage Biomass using Unmanned Ground and Aerial Vehicles

The assessment of the amount of biomass in the field is one of the critical factors that helps to manage and optimize numerous operations associated with forage management in the livestock industry. Pasture management decisions about stocking rate, grazing duration, and fertilizer application rate depend on accurate forage availability measurements. The objective of this study was to develop different nondestructive methods of forage biomass estimation using unmanned vehicles based on the relationship between crop height (CH) and the measured above-ground biomass. The unmanned vehicle-based methods were developed and tested on Alfalfa (Medicago Sativa) and Tall Fescue (Schedonorus phoenix (Scop.) Holub) fields. The real-time compressed crop height was measured using the ultrasound proximal sensor and a compression ski installed on the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) and orthomosaic from aerial images was used for plot identification for site-specific analysis. The experiment was carried out before and after harvest to calculate the harvested CH to generate its regression relation with wet and dry biomass yield of forage. The results show that these systems produce promising results with R-square values of 0.8 and 0.5 for biomass estimation in Alfalfa and Tall Fescue respectively. These methods will significantly reduce the on-field destructive forage sampling for biomass estimation and aid in predicting the available biomass along with reducing the human efforts and resources for performing biomass sampling tasks, resulting in reduction of time and cost

Development of an approximate method for quantum optical models and their pseudo-Hermicity

An approximate method is suggested to obtain analytical expressions for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the some quantum optical models. The method is based on the Lie-type transformation of the Hamiltonians. In a particular case it is demonstrated that $E\times \epsilon$ Jahn-Teller Hamiltonian can easily be solved within the framework of the suggested approximation. The method presented here is conceptually simple and can easily be extended to the other quantum optical models. We also show that for a purely imaginary coupling the $E\times \epsilon$ Hamiltonian becomes non-Hermitian but $P\sigma _{0}$-symmetric. Possible generalization of this approach is outlined.Comment: Paper prepared fo the "3rd International Workshop on Pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonians in Quantum Physics" June 2005 Istanbul. To be published in Czechoslovak Journal of Physic

An Iterative and Toolchain-Based Approach to Automate Scanning and Mapping Computer Networks

As today's organizational computer networks are ever evolving and becoming more and more complex, finding potential vulnerabilities and conducting security audits has become a crucial element in securing these networks. The first step in auditing a network is reconnaissance by mapping it to get a comprehensive overview over its structure. The growing complexity, however, makes this task increasingly effortful, even more as mapping (instead of plain scanning), presently, still involves a lot of manual work. Therefore, the concept proposed in this paper automates the scanning and mapping of unknown and non-cooperative computer networks in order to find security weaknesses or verify access controls. It further helps to conduct audits by allowing comparing documented with actual networks and finding unauthorized network devices, as well as evaluating access control methods by conducting delta scans. It uses a novel approach of augmenting data from iteratively chained existing scanning tools with context, using genuine analytics modules to allow assessing a network's topology instead of just generating a list of scanned devices. It further contains a visualization model that provides a clear, lucid topology map and a special graph for comparative analysis. The goal is to provide maximum insight with a minimum of a priori knowledge.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure