Developments on Wetting Effects in Microfluidic Slug Flow

Wetting effects form a dimension of fluid dynamics that becomes predominant, precisely controllable and possibly useful at the micro-scale. Microfluidic multiphase flow patterns, including size, shape and velocity of fluidic particles, and mass and heat transfer rates are affected by wetting properties of microchannel walls and surface tensions forces between fluid phases. The novelty of this field, coupled to difficulties in experimental design and measurements, means that literature results are scarce and scientific understanding is incomplete. Numerical methods developed recently have enabled a shortcut in obtaining results that can be perceived realistic, and that offer insight otherwise not possible. In this work the effect of the contact angle on gas-liquid two-phase flow slug formation in a microchannel T-junction was studied by numerical simulation. The contact angle, varied from 0 to 140 degrees, influenced the interaction of the gas and liquid phases with the channel wall, affecting the shape, size and velocity of the slugs. The visualisation of the cross-sectional area of gas slugs allowed for insight into the existence of liquid flow along rectangular microchannel corners, which was affected by the contact angle and determined the occurrence of velocity slip. The velocity profile within the gas slugs was also found to change as a function of contact angle, with hydrophilic channels inducing greater internal circulation, compared to greater channel wall contact in the case of hydrophobic channels. These effects play a role in heat and mass transfer from channels walls and highlight the value of numeral simulation in microfluidic design

Numerical Modeling and Experimental Investigation of Gas-Liquid Slug Formation in a Microchannel T-Junction

Gas-liquid two-phase flow in a microfluidic T-junction with nearly square microchannels of 113 μm hydraulic diameter was investigated experimentally and numerically. Air and water superficial velocities were 0.018–0.791 m/s and 0.042–0.757 m/s, respectively. Three-dimensional modeling was performed with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT and the volume-of-fluid (VOF) model. Slug flow (snapping/breaking/jetting) and stratified flow were observed experimentally. Numerically predicted void fraction followed a linear relationship with the homogeneous void fraction, while experimental values depended on the superficial velocity ratio UG/UL. Higher experimental velocity slip caused by gas inlet pressure build-up and oscillation caused deviation from numerical predictions. Velocity slip was found to depend on the cross-sectional area coverage of the gas slug, the formation of a liquid film and the presence of liquid at the channel corners. Numerical modeling was found to require improvement to treat the contact angle and contact line slip, and could benefit from the use of a dynamic boundary condition to simulate the compressible gas phase inlet reservoir

Gas-Liquid Slug Formation at a Rectangular Microchannel T-Junction: A CFD Benchmark Case

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is an important tool for development of microfluidic systems based on gas-liquid two-phase flow. The formation of Taylor slugs at microchannel T-junctions has been studied both experimentally and numerically, however discrepancies still exist because of difficulties in correctly representing experimental conditions and uncertainties in the physics controlling slug flow, such as contact line and velocity slip. In this paper detailed methods and results are described for the study of Santos and Kawaji [1] on the comparison of experimental results and numerical modeling. The system studied consisted of a rectangular microchannel T-junction nominally 100μm in hydraulic diameter, used to generate Taylor slugs from air-water perpendicular flow. The effect of flow rates on parameters such as slug length, velocity slip, void fraction and two-phase frictional pressure drop were studied. Numerical simulation was performed using FLUENT volume-of-fluid (VOF) model. It is proposed in this paper that this microfluidic problem be taken up by researchers in the field as a benchmark case to test other numeric codes in comparison to FLUENT on the prediction of micro-scale multiphase flow, and also to model in more detail the experimental system described to obtain greater accuracy in prediction of microfluidic slug formation

Hydrodynamic Equation for the Breakdown of the Quantum Hall Effect in a Uniform Current

The hydrodynamic equation for the spatial and temporal evolution of the electron temperature T_e in the breakdown of the quantum Hall effect at even-integer filling factors in a uniform current density j is derived from the Boltzmann-type equation, which takes into account electron-electron and electron-phonon scatterings. The derived equation has a drift term, which is proportional to j and to the first spatial derivative of T_e. Applied to the spatial evolution of T_e in a sample with an abrupt change of the width along the current direction, the equation gives a distinct dependence on the current direction as well as a critical relaxation, in agreement with the recent experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 1 Postscript figure, corrected equations, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 70 (2001) No.

Update of the FANTOM web resource: from mammalian transcriptional landscape to its dynamic regulation

The international Functional Annotation Of the Mammalian Genomes 4 (FANTOM4) research collaboration set out to better understand the transcriptional network that regulates macrophage differentiation and to uncover novel components of the transcriptome employing a series of high-throughput experiments. The primary and unique technique is cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE), sequencing mRNA 5′-ends with a second-generation sequencer to quantify promoter activities even in the absence of gene annotation. Additional genome-wide experiments complement the setup including short RNA sequencing, microarray gene expression profiling on large-scale perturbation experiments and ChIP–chip for epigenetic marks and transcription factors. All the experiments are performed in a differentiation time course of the THP-1 human leukemic cell line. Furthermore, we performed a large-scale mammalian two-hybrid (M2H) assay between transcription factors and monitored their expression profile across human and mouse tissues with qRT-PCR to address combinatorial effects of regulation by transcription factors. These interdependent data have been analyzed individually and in combination with each other and are published in related but distinct papers. We provide all data together with systematic annotation in an integrated view as resource for the scientific community (http://fantom.gsc.riken.jp/4/). Additionally, we assembled a rich set of derived analysis results including published predicted and validated regulatory interactions. Here we introduce the resource and its update after the initial release

Integer Quantum Hall Effect with Realistic Boundary Condition : Exact Quantization and Breakdown

A theory of integer quantum Hall effect(QHE) in realistic systems based on von Neumann lattice is presented. We show that the momentum representation is quite useful and that the quantum Hall regime(QHR), which is defined by the propagator in the momentum representation, is realized. In QHR, the Hall conductance is given by a topological invariant of the momentum space and is quantized exactly. The edge states do not modify the value and topological property of $\sigma_{xy}$ in QHR. We next compute distribution of current based on effective action and find a finite amount of current in the bulk and the edge, generally. Due to the Hall electric field in the bulk, breakdown of the QHE occurs. The critical electric field of the breakdown is proportional to $B^{3/2}$ and the proportional constant has no dependence on Landau levels in our theory, in agreement with the recent experiments.Comment: 48 pages, figures not included, some additions and revision

Can early host responses to mycobacterial infection predict eventual disease outcomes?

Diagnostic tests used for Johne’s disease in sheep either have poor sensitivity and specificity or only detect disease in later stages of infection. Predicting which of the infected sheep are likely to become infectious later in life is currently not feasible and continues to be a major hindrance in disease control. We conducted this longitudinal study to investigate if a suite of diagnostic tests conducted in Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) exposed lambs at 4 months post infection can accurately predict their clinical status at 12 months post infection. We tracked cellular and humoral responses and quantity of MAP shedding for up to 12 months post challenge in 20 controls and 37 exposed sheep. Infection was defined at necropsy by tissue culture and disease spectrum by lesion type. Data were analysed using univariable and multivariable logistic regression models and a subset of variables from the earliest period post inoculation (4 months) was selected for predicting disease outcomes later on (12 months). Sensitivity and specificity of tests and their combinations in series and parallel were determined. Early elevation in faecal MAP DNA quantity and a lower interferon gamma (IFNγ) response were significantly associated with sheep becoming infectious as well as progressing to severe disease. Conversely, early low faecal MAP DNA and higher interleukin-10 responses were significantly associated with an exposed animal developing protective immunity. Combination of early elevated faecal MAP DNA or lower IFNγ response had the highest sensitivity (75%) and specificity (81%) for identifying sheep that would become infectious. Collectively, these results highlight the potential for combined test interpretation to aid in the early prediction of sheep susceptibility to MAP infection. KEYWORDS: Paratuberculosis; diagnostic tests; Mycobacterium; faecal DNA; Johne’s disease; interferon gamma.This work was supported by Meat and Livestock Australia and by Cattle Council of Australia, Sheepmeat Council of Australia and WoolProducers Australia through Animal Health Australia