Quark Potential in a Quark-Meson Plasma

We investigate quark potential by considering meson exchanges in the two flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model at finite temperature and density. There are two kinds of oscillations in the chiral restoration phase, one is the Friedel oscillation due to the sharp quark Fermi surface at high density, and the other is the Yukawa oscillation driven by the complex meson poles at high temperature. The quark-meson plasma is strongly coupled in the temperature region $1\le T/T_c \lesssim 3$ with $T_c$ being the critical temperature of chiral phase transition. The maximum coupling in this region is located at the critical point.Comment: 8 pages and 8 figure

Influence of test speed on the bonding strength of glass frit bonded wafers

Wafer bonding is a key technology in the manufacturing of micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS). It describes various techniques of joining two wafers with or without thin intermediate layers on industrial scale. Thereby, glass frit bonding is used in a wide range of applications, especially for the encapsulation of surface mechanical sensors like gyroscopes and acceleration sensors. The strength of the bonded interface directly affects the reliability of glass frit bonded MEMS devices. Therefore, it has to be detemined experimentally. The fracture toughness and the shear strength are suitable values to characterize the bonding strength. They enable the comparison of different bonding technologies and process parameters during bonding as well as an estimation of lifetime for the whole microsystem. Because of the requirements of quality control during the manufacturing of micro systems, a large number of MEMS devices and test structures have to be characterized. To optimize the yield and provide adequate and reliable material properties, the influence of the testing speed on the micro chevron measurement and the shear test has to be analyzed

Mechanical characterization of glass frit bonded wafers

Wafer bonding is a key technology in the manufacturing of microelectronic and micromechanical systems on industrial scale. Especially glass frit bonding is often used for t he encapsulation of MEMS devices on wafer level. To ensure the reliability of these bonds and to prevent critical failure of the systems, characteristic mechanical properties of the bonded interface are required. The fracture toughness and the shear strength are suitable values to characterize the bonding strength and can be determined by micro chevron and shear testing. They depend on the bonding parameters as well as the test speed. Due to the correlation between measured bonding strength and test speed a maximum test speed has to be identified to obtain reliable failure criteria regarding the fracture toughness and the shear strength

Disruption of Prostaglandin E2 Signaling in Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Limits Mammary Carcinoma Growth but Promotes Metastasis

The activation and differentiation of cancer-associated fibro-blasts (CAF) are involved in tumor progression. Here, we show that the tumor-promoting lipid mediator prostaglandin E2 (PGE(2)) plays a paradoxical role in CAF activation and tumor progression. Restricting PGE(2) signaling via knockout of microsomal prostaglandin E synthase-1 (mPGES-1) in PyMT mice or of the prostanoid E receptor 3 (EP3) in CAFs stunted mammary carcinoma growth associated with strong CAF proliferation. CAF proliferation upon EP3 inhibition required p38 MAPK signaling. Mechanistically, TGF beta-activated kinase-like protein (TAK1L), which was identified as a negative regulator of p38 MAPK activation, was decreased following ablation of mPGES-1 or EP3. In contrast with its effects on primary tumor growth, disruption of PGE2 signaling in CAFs induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in cancer organoids and promoted metastasis in mice. Moreover, TAK1L expression in CAFs was associated with decreased CAF activation, reduced metastasis, and prolonged survival in human breast cancer. These data characterize a new pathway of regulating inflammatory CAF activation, which affects breast cancer progression. Significance: The inflammatory lipid prostaglandin E2 suppresses cancer-associated fibroblast expansion and activation to limit primary mammary tumor growth while promoting metastasis. [GRAPHICS

On the mean and variance of the tetrachoric correlation coefficient

fourfold correlation, 2×2 frequency table, bivariate normal,