Hysteretic characteristics of a double stripline in the critical state

Analytical investigations of the critical state are carried out for a superconducting stripline consisting of two individual coplanar strips with an arbitrary distance between them. Two different cases are considered: a stripline with transport current and strips exposed to a perpendicular magnetic field. In the second case, the obtained solutions correspond to "fieldlike" (for unclosed strips) and "currentlike" (for a long rectangular superconducting loop) states in an isolated strip to which both a transport current and a magnetic field are applied with constant ratio.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. accepted by SS

Continuous flow micro-cell for electrochemical addressing of engineered bio-molecules

Abstract A micro-cell consisting of a planar array of Au working electrodes, covered by a glass reservoir (600 nl capacity), connected with perpendicular capillaries and provided with an Ag/AgCl wire reference electrode (RE) has been manufactured. Addressed on-chip immobilization and sensing of biomolecules was demonstrated by the immobilization of histidine (HIS) tagged alkaline phosphatase (AP) under continuous flow (10 l/min) conditions on the base of electrochemically deposited multilayer (EDM) of cysteamine modified by nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA). The presented method allows the immobilization of different biomolecules on the ready-to-use reservoir covered chip without needs of manual biomolecule deposition. Further on, the detection of analytes can be performed using the electrochemical measurements. Since the methods of biomolecule deposition and sensing are both electrochemical, this allows simplifying the production technology using cheaper detection instruments compared to prevailing present-day optical detection modes

Evaluating the contribution of complex international research-for-development programmes to the sustainable development goals

While evaluation of research-to-policy projects is a fundamental aspect of measuring the impact of new knowledge, limited studies have examined evaluation methods in such projects, as well as how the evaluation can generate learning to facilitate the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study conducted a systematic literature review and found that the most commonly used methods for SDG contribution evaluation were Analytical Hierarchy Process (40.4%), Fuzzy TOPSIS (13.2%) and ELECTRE and SPADE Methodology (3.5% each). Ranking analysis was undertaken to determine priorities among the six “Big Wins” as defined for the UKRI-GCRF Trade Hub Project, as a case, where the ranking was exercised by the project partners across the globe. Results revealed that “nature and social factors” was better considered in international trade agreements as the priority (36.4%) among others. Moreover, among the four “mechanisms” of the project, “knowledge, networks, and connectivity” was ranked as the top priority (56.9%), followed by “capacity building” (28.5%), “metrics, tools and models” (7.2%), and “improving the knowledge base” (4.6%). Mapping and evaluation revealed that the Big Wins of the Trade Hub contributed to ten out of the 17 SDGs. The most fulfilled goals were SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) in descending order. Furthermore, interaction analysis of the core SDGs revealed both synergy and tradeoff between different outputs. The research articles reviewed for this paper showed no gold standard framework for assessing international development projects against the SDGs. Further research should develop a tool to capture holistic and synergistic contributions of the target outcomes of projects to sustainable development.</p

Developing a miniaturized continuous flow electrochemical cell for biosensor applications

ABSTRACT The development of a miniaturized electrochemical cell for biosensor application regards both the structuring of an array of electrodes in a fluidic chamber and their connections to the control &amp; processing unit The sensitivity of the chronoamperometric measurement performed with the cell is increased by: (a) integrating the reference electrode on the same chip with the counter-and working-electrodes, (b) designing a specific pattern of the gold electrodes and (c) serially distributing them along the pipeline reservoir. Borosilicate glass is used as substrate for the electrodes, allowing, due to its transparency, an accurate and easy pad to pad alignment of the up-side-down chip versus a PCB soldered on a standard DIL 40 socket. This alignment is necessary to accomplish the elastomer-based-solderless electric contact, between chip and PCB. The solderless contact significantly improves both reliability and signal processing accuracy. The reservoir and its cover are micromachined out of silicone rubber respectively photosensitive glass in order to easy disassemble the fluidic chamber without any damage. Both thickness and elasticity of the photosensitive glass rend the device less brittle. A plug-in -plug-flow device with improved characteristics has been obtained with a modular structure that allows further extension of the number of electrodes