1,297 research outputs found
Unsteady separation process and vorticity balance on unsteady airfoils
Low momentum fluid erupts at the unsteady separation region and forms a local shear layer at the viscous-inviscid interface. At the shear layer, the vorticity lumps into a vortex and protrudes into the inviscid region. This process initiates the separation process. The response of airfoils in unsteady free stream was investigated based on this vortex generation and convection concept. This approach enabled us to understand the complicated unsteady aerodynamics from a fundamental point of view
Isolation and characterization of stromal progenitor cells from ascites of patients with epithelial ovarian adenocarcinoma
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>At least one-third of epithelial ovarian cancers are associated with the development of ascites containing heterogeneous cell populations, including tumor cells, inflammatory cells, and stromal elements. The components of ascites and their effects on the tumor cell microenvironment remain poorly understood. This study aimed to isolate and characterize stromal progenitor cells from the ascites of patients with epithelial ovarian adenocarcinoma (EOA).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Seventeen ascitic fluid samples and 7 fresh tissue samples were collected from 16 patients with EOA. The ascites samples were then cultured in vitro in varying conditions. Flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry were used to isolate and characterize 2 cell populations with different morphologies (epithelial type and mesenchymal type) deriving from the ascites samples. The in vitro cell culture model was established using conditional culture medium.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The doubling times of the epithelial type and mesenchymal type cells were 36 h and 48 h, respectively, indicating faster growth of the epithelial type cells compared to the mesenchymal type cells. Cultured in vitro, these ascitic cells displayed the potential for self-renewal and long-term proliferation, and expressed the typical cancer stem/progenitor cell markers CD44<sup>high</sup>, CD24<sup>low</sup>, and AC133<sup>+</sup>. These cells also demonstrated high BMP-2, BMP4, TGF-β, Rex-1, and AC133 early gene expression, and expressed EGFR, integrin α<sub>2</sub>β<sub>1</sub>, CD146, and Flt-4, which are highly associated with tumorigenesis and metastasis. The epithelial type cells demonstrated higher cytokeratin 18 and E-cadherin expression than the mesenchymal type cells. The mesenchymal type cells, in contrast, demonstrated higher AC133, CD73, CD105, CD117, EGFR, integrin α<sub>2</sub>β<sub>1</sub>, and CD146 surface marker expression than the epithelial type cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The established culture system provides an in vitro model for the selection of drugs that target cancer-associated stromal progenitor cells, and for the development of ovarian cancer treatments.</p
A shallow physics-informed neural network for solving partial differential equations on surfaces
In this paper, we introduce a shallow (one-hidden-layer) physics-informed
neural network for solving partial differential equations on static and
evolving surfaces. For the static surface case, with the aid of level set
function, the surface normal and mean curvature used in the surface
differential expressions can be computed easily. So instead of imposing the
normal extension constraints used in literature, we write the surface
differential operators in the form of traditional Cartesian differential
operators and use them in the loss function directly. We perform a series of
performance study for the present methodology by solving Laplace-Beltrami
equation and surface diffusion equation on complex static surfaces. With just a
moderate number of neurons used in the hidden layer, we are able to attain
satisfactory prediction results. Then we extend the present methodology to
solve the advection-diffusion equation on an evolving surface with given
velocity. To track the surface, we additionally introduce a prescribed hidden
layer to enforce the topological structure of the surface and use the network
to learn the homeomorphism between the surface and the prescribed topology. The
proposed network structure is designed to track the surface and solve the
equation simultaneously. Again, the numerical results show comparable accuracy
as the static cases. As an application, we simulate the surfactant transport on
the droplet surface under shear flow and obtain some physically plausible
results
Homogeneous point mutation detection by quantum dot-mediated two-color fluorescence coincidence analysis
This report describes a new genotyping method capable of detecting low-abundant point mutations in a homogeneous, separation-free format. The method is based on integration of oligonucleotide ligation with a semiconductor quantum dot (QD)-mediated two-color fluorescence coincidence detection scheme. Surface-functionalized QDs are used to capture fluorophore-labeled ligation products, forming QD-oligonucleotide nanoassemblies. The presence of such nanoassemblies and thereby the genotype of the sample is determined by detecting the simultaneous emissions of QDs and fluorophores that occurs whenever a single nanoassembly flows through the femtoliter measurement volume of a confocal fluorescence detection system. The ability of this method to detect single events enables analysis of target signals with a multiple-parameter (intensities and count rates of the digitized target signals) approach to enhance assay sensitivity and specificity. We demonstrate that this new method is capable of detecting zeptomoles of targets and achieve an allele discrimination selectivity factor >10(5)
Tailoring excitonic states of van der Waals bilayers through stacking configuration, band alignment and valley-spin
Excitons in monolayer semiconductors have large optical transition dipole for
strong coupling with light field. Interlayer excitons in heterobilayers, with
layer separation of electron and hole components, feature large electric dipole
that enables strong coupling with electric field and exciton-exciton
interaction, at the cost that the optical dipole is substantially quenched (by
several orders of magnitude). In this letter, we demonstrate the ability to
create a new class of excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) hetero-
and homo-bilayers that combines the advantages of monolayer- and
interlayer-excitons, i.e. featuring both large optical dipole and large
electric dipole. These excitons consist of an electron that is well confined in
an individual layer, and a hole that is well extended in both layers, realized
here through the carrier-species specific layer-hybridization controlled
through the interplay of rotational, translational, band offset, and
valley-spin degrees of freedom. We observe different species of such
layer-hybridized valley excitons in different heterobilayer and homobilayer
systems, which can be utilized for realizing strongly interacting
excitonic/polaritonic gases, as well as optical quantum coherent controls of
bidirectional interlayer carrier transfer either with upper conversion or down
conversion in energy
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