The Use of Graphene and its Derivatives in Chemical and Biological Sensing

Abstract A chemical sensor is defined as a transducer comprised of, or coated with, a layer that responds to changes in its local chemical environment. Chemical sensors convert various forms of energy into a measurable signal. For instance, the chemical energy involved with bonds breaking or forming can change the electronic properties of the transducer, creating an observable signal such as an increase or decrease in electrical resistance. Chemical sensing is important in many facets of research including environmental, bio-medical/pharmaceutical, industrial, automotive, and human safety. For a sensor to be practical it must interact preferentially with the target chemical analyte. A sensor should be precise, accurate, robust, cost efficient to manufacture, low in power consumption, portable otherwise the sensor is undesirable. Another key value of chemical sensors is it must exhibit rapid detection. Prior to portable sensors chemical analysis was performed in a laboratory on large, expensive instruments, which is costly in time, equipment fees, and personnel wages to operate. These sophisticated instruments are accurate and precise, however, it is far more beneficial to have a miniature, on-site detection apparatus. The first environmental, on-site sensor was used by the mining industry to monitor subterranean air quality; the canary. Carbon monoxide and methane (colorless, odorless gases) are large iv problems in the mining industry; smaller life forms are more susceptible to being poisoned by toxic gases. Today sensor constructs are far different from that of a canary, however, they serve the same purpose. Carbon nanomaterials such as graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes and other derivatives prove to be of great importance in sensor research due to their unique electronic properties, and they’re high aspect ratio allowing them to be highly sensitive to small perturbations in local electronic environments

Identifying Shear Buckling Coefficients for Channels with Rectangular Web Stiffeners using the Generalised cFSM

The Direct Strength Method (DSM) of design for cold-formed sections was recently extended in the North American Specification for Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members (NAS S100:2012) to include members in shear. The method has largely been developed on the basis of work done on lipped channel sections. To utilise the method requires the critical shear buckling load of the section, which may be determined from a minimum point on the signature curve for the section in pure shear. However when longitudinal web stiffeners are added to the channel a minimum may not exist, or may occur at half-wavelengths where the critical buckling mode is localised in the individual vertical portions of the web rather than involving the full web as an essentially continuous element, as occurs for a plain lipped channel in local shear buckling. This paper explores the application of the recently-developed generalised constrained finite strip method (cFSM) to determine critical shear buckling loads for lipped channels with rectangular web stiffeners, from which shear buckling coefficients may be back-calculated. The addition of the stiffener leads to new distortional modes, deemed web-distortional modes, that play an important role in the buckling behaviour of web-stiffened channels at half-wavelengths where buckling involves deformations of the web as a continuous element. Using the cFSM, combinations of pure local modes and the web-distortional modes are considered to produce modal solutions. These modal solutions always give a minimum regardless of section and these minima are used to identify critical buckling half-wavelengths. The critical shear buckling loads are then taken as those at the same half-wavelengths on the corresponding traditional FSM signature curves for the sections. The proposed method is appropriate for sections with small stiffeners, as are used in practice

Movements of Translocated and Nontranslocated Canada Geese in Georgia Estimated Using Band Recoveries

Overabundant populations of resident Canada geese (Branta canadensis) are an increasing source of human-wildlife complaints throughout the species’ range. Many resident geese exploit urban areas, and translocation is one method of reducing nuisance problems associated with resident Canada geese. Translocated geese have similar harvest rates but lower survival rates than nontranslocated geese. To examine relationships between distance moved and the age, sex, and status of geese, we evaluated distances from banding sites to recovery sites for resident geese banded in Georgia, USA, during 2001–2015. We assessed potential differences in movements between rural and urban, and nontranslocated and translocated geese, by examining the distribution of band recoveries spatially. Rural and urban geese traveled similar distances; however, distances traveled by translocated geese were significantly farther than nontranslocated geese, and adults traveled significantly farther than juveniles. Our findings suggest that distances moved by resident geese are most often localized, and harvested birds were mostly recovered in-state

Residential proximity to major roadways and prevalent hypertension among postmenopausal women: results from the Women's Health Initiative San Diego Cohort.

BackgroundLiving near major roadways has been linked with increased risk of cardiovascular events and worse prognosis. Residential proximity to major roadways may also be associated with increased risk of hypertension, but few studies have evaluated this hypothesis.Methods and resultsWe examined the cross-sectional association between residential proximity to major roadways and prevalent hypertension among 5401 postmenopausal women enrolled into the San Diego cohort of the Women's Health Initiative. We used modified Poisson regression with robust error variance to estimate the association between prevalence of hypertension and residential distance to nearest major roadway, adjusting for participant demographics, medical history, indicators of individual and neighborhood socioeconomic status, and for local supermarket/grocery and fast food/convenience store density. The adjusted prevalence ratios for hypertension were 1.22 (95% CI: 1.07, 1.39), 1.13 (1.00, 1.27), and 1.05 (0.99, 1.12) for women living ≤100, >100 to 200, and >200 to 1000 versus >1000 m from a major roadway (P for trend=0.006). In a model treating the natural log of distance to major roadway as a continuous variable, a shift in distance from 1000 to 100 m from a major roadway was associated with a 9% (3%, 16%) higher prevalence of hypertension.ConclusionsIn this cohort of postmenopausal women, residential proximity to major roadways was positively associated with the prevalence of hypertension. If causal, these results suggest that living close to major roadways may be an important novel risk factor for hypertension

Enhanced Practical Photosynthetic CO₂ Mitigation

This process is unique in photosynthetic carbon sequestration. An on-site biological sequestration system directly decreases the concentration of carbon-containing compounds in the emissions of fossil generation units. In this process, photosynthetic microbes are attached to a growth surface arranged in a containment chamber that is lit by solar photons. A harvesting system ensures maximum organism growth and rate of CO2 uptake. Soluble carbon and nitrogen concentrations delivered to the cyanobacteria are enhanced, further increasing growth rate and carbon utilization

A Uniformly Derived Catalogue of Exoplanets from Radial Velocities

A new catalogue of extrasolar planets is presented by re-analysing a selection of published radial velocity data sets using EXOFIT (Balan & Lahav 2009). All objects are treated on an equal footing within a Bayesian framework, to give orbital parameters for 94 exoplanetary systems. Model selection (between one- and two-planet solutions) is then performed, using both a visual flagging method and a standard chi-square analysis, with agreement between the two methods for 99% of the systems considered. The catalogue is to be made available online, and this 'proof of concept' study may be maintained and extended in the future to incorporate all systems with publicly available radial velocity data, as well as transit and microlensing data.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 6 table

Flow-Controlling Header

An apparatus and method for holding a membrane, screen or other flexible planar body in tension, while providing a conduit for water or other liquid to flow to the membrane being held. The membrane extends from inside a manifold body that carries the liquid, and the manifold body supports the membrane at one edge while the membrane is pulled in tension. Liquid pressure builds up inside the manifold body, preferably by entering a pressure chamber at the top of the manifold body. At a feeding pressure in the pressure chamber the liquid is distributed to the membrane for microbe growth. The liquid can be elevated to a higher, microbe-harvesting pressure by increasing the pressure in the pressure chamber, thereby deflecting a shim separating the pressure chamber from the membrane. The change in pressure is carried out by manually or automatically opening and closing a conventional water valve

Family preferences for home or hospital care at diagnosis for children with diabetes in the DECIDE study.

This is the final version of the article. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.AIMS: A diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes in childhood can be a difficult life event for children and families. For children who are not severely ill, initial home rather than hospital-based care at diagnosis is an option although there is little research on which is preferable. Practice varies widely, with long hospital stays in some countries and predominantly home-based care in others. This article reports on the comparative acceptability and experience of children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents taking part in the DECIDE study evaluating outcomes of home or hospital-based treatment from diagnosis in the UK. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with 11 (pairs of) parents and seven children were conducted between 15 and 20 months post diagnosis. Interviewees were asked about adaptation to, management and impact of the diabetes diagnosis, and their experience of initial post-diagnosis treatment. RESULTS: There were no differences between trial arms in adaptation to, management of or impact of diabetes. Most interviewees wanted to be randomized to the 'home' arm initially but expressed a retrospective preference for whichever trial arm they had been in, and cited benefits relating to learning about diabetes management. CONCLUSIONS: The setting for early treatment did not appear to have a differential impact on families in the long term. However, the data presented here describe different experiences of early treatment settings from the perspective of children and their families, and factors that influenced how families felt initially about treatment setting. Further research could investigate the short-term benefits of both settings.National Institute for Social Care and Health Research Clinical Research Centr

Apparatus and Method for Growing Biological Organisms for Fuel and Other Purposes

A bioreactor apparatus in which a container has sidewalls, a floor and a ceiling defining a chamber that contains a slurry of water, nutrients and photosynthetic microorganisms. A plurality of optical fibers, each of which has a first end disposed outside the chamber and a second end in the mixture. A light collector spaced from the container has light incident on it and focuses the light onto the first ends of the plurality of optical fibers, thereby permitting the light to be conveyed into the mixture to promote photosynthesis. At least one nozzle is in fluid communication with a source of gas, such as exhaust gas from a fossil-fuel burning power plant containing carbon dioxide. The nozzle is disposed in the mixture beneath the second ends of the optical fibers for injecting the gas into the mixture