Tribological characterisation of magnetron sputtered Ti(C, O, N) thin films

Ti(C, O, N) thin films were prepared by magnetron sputtering and analysed in terms of their tribological properties. Surface and tribological parameters were analysed and discussed as a function of the films composition and structural features, as well as their thickness. The evolution of friction coefficient values was in concordance with the wear behaviour of the films. According to the atomic composition of the films, an increasing of the carbon percentage and a compound chemical formula closed to the stoichiometric TiC lead to a very good wear behaviour. This aspect is also directly correlated with the friction behaviour.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) SFRH/BPD/27114/2006 e PTDC/CTM/69362/200

Photoluminescence Detected Doublet Structure in the Integer and Fractional Quantum Hall Regime

We present here the results of polarized magneto-photoluminescence measurements on a high mobility single-heterojunction. The presence of a doublet structure over a large magnetic field range (2>nu>1/6) is interpreted as possible evidence for the existence of a magneto-roton minima of the charged density waves. This is understood as an indication of strong electronic correlation even in the case of the IQHE limit.Comment: submitted to Solid State Communication

Performant DLC Films with Enhanced Wear Resistance

Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) coatings represent an interesting research subject for various groups of researchers having interests in surfaces tribology and corrosion. This paper discusses issues relating to the friction and mechanical behaviour, for 4 types of DLC coating systems deposited on heat treatable steel hardened and high-tempered (a multilayer of WC/C (a-C:H:W); CrC+a-C:H, a single layer of a-C:H, plasma nitriding + Si doped DLC (PN+Si-a-C:H). These films were synthesized using a single or a combined process consisting in either r. f. reactive magnetron sputtering or/followed by Plasma Assisted Chemical Vapour Deposition (PACVD). The tribological properties (friction coefficient) were obtained and discussed in correlation with the mechanical properties (the adherence, the nanoindentation hardness) and thickness When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3491

Dynamics and regulation at the tip : a high resolution view on microtubele assembly

Microtubules are highly dynamic protein polymers that and are essential for intracellular organization and fundamental processes like transport and cell division. In cells, a wide family of microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) tightly regulates microtubule dynamics. The work presented in this thesis gives a high-resolution perspective on the microtubule assembly process and on the regulation mechanisms employed by representative MAPs. We studied dynamic microtubules outside cells, in a reconstituted minimal system. To follow microtubule growth with near molecular resolution, we developed a high-resolution technique that integrates optical tweezers, micro-fabricated rigid barriers and high-resolution video tracking of microbeads. Using this technique we found, for example, that microtubule assembly does not always occur by addition of single protein subunits, but multiple subunits could be incorporated at once at the growing end. XMAP215, a protein known to dramatically enhance microtubule growth, altered these molecular details. Another intriguing protein studied here is Mal3, a protein that is able to track growing microtubule ends. We found that Mal3 interacts differentially at the growing tip and on the rest of the microtubule, influencing all the parameters describing microtubule dynamics. In conclusion, our results give new insights into the microtubule assembly process in the absence and in the presence of regulators.UBL - phd migration 201

Beads for Cell Immobilization: Comparison of Alternative Additive Manufacturing Techniques

The attachment or entrapment of microbial cells and enzymes are promising solutions for various industrial applications. When the traps are beads, they are dispersed in a fluidized bed in a vessel where a pump guarantees fresh liquid inflow and waste outflow without washing out the cells. Scientific papers report numerous types of cell entrapment, but most of their applications remain at the laboratory level. In the present research, rigid polymer beads were manufactured by two different additive manufacturing (AM) techniques in order to verify the economy, reusability, and stability of the traps, with a view toward a straightforward industrial application. The proposed solutions allowed for overcoming some of the drawbacks of traditional manufacturing solutions, such as the limited mechanical stability of gel traps, and they guaranteed the possibility of producing parts of constant quality with purposely designed exchange surfaces, which are unfeasible when using conventional processes. AM proved to be a viable manufacturing solution for beads with complex shapes of two different size ranges. A deep insight into the production and characteristics of beads manufactured by AM is provided. The paper provides biotechnologists with a manufacturing perspective, and the results can be directly applied to transit from the laboratory to the industrial scale

Charged exctions in the fractional quantum Hall regime

We study the photoluminescence spectrum of a low density ($\nu <1$) two-dimensional electron gas at high magnetic fields and low temperatures. We find that the spectrum in the fractional quantum Hall regime can be understood in terms of singlet and triplet charged-excitons. We show that these spectral lines are sensitive probes for the electrons compressibility. We identify the dark triplet charged-exciton and show that it is visible at the spectrum at $T<2$ K. We find that its binding energy scales like $e^{2}/l$, where $l$ is the magnetic length, and it crosses the singlet slightly above 15 T.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

S2SNet: a tool for transforming characters and numeric sequences into star network topological indices in chemoinformatics, bioinformatics, biomedical, and social-legal sciences

[Abstract] The study of complex systems such as proteins/DNA/RNA or dynamics of tax law systems can be carried out with the complex network theory. This allows the numerical quantification of the significant information contained by the sequences of amino acids, nucleotides or types of tax laws. In this paper we describe S2SNet, a new Python tool with a graphical user interface that can transform any sequence of characters or numbers into series of invariant star network topological indices. The application is based on Python reusable processing procedures that perform different functions such as reading sequence data, transforming numerical series into character sequences, changing letter codification of strings and drawing the star networks of each sequence using Graphviz package as graphical back-end. S2SNet was previously used to obtain classification models for natural/random proteins, breast/colon/prostate cancer-related proteins, DNA sequences of mycobacterial promoters and for early detection of diseases and drug-induced toxicities using the blood serum proteome mass spectrum. In order to show the extended practical potential of S2SNet, this work presents several examples of application for proteins, DNA/RNA, blood proteome mass spectra and time evolution of the financial law recurrence. The obtained topological indices can be used to characterize systems by creating classification models, clustering or pattern search with statistical, Neural Network or Machine Learning methods. The free availability of S2SNet, the flexibility of analyzing diverse systems and the Python portability make it an ideal tool in fields such as Bioinformatics, Proteomics, Genomics, and Biomedicine or Social, Economic and Political Sciences

Upper bounds on the first eigenvalue for a diffusion operator via Bakry-\'{E}mery Ricci curvature II

Let $L=\Delta-\nabla\varphi\cdot\nabla$ be a symmetric diffusion operator with an invariant measure $d\mu=e^{-\varphi}dx$ on a complete Riemannian manifold. In this paper we prove Li-Yau gradient estimates for weighted elliptic equations on the complete manifold with $|\nabla \varphi|\leq\theta$ and $\infty$-dimensional Bakry-\'{E}mery Ricci curvature bounded below by some negative constant. Based on this, we give an upper bound on the first eigenvalue of the diffusion operator $L$ on this kind manifold, and thereby generalize a Cheng's result on the Laplacian case (Math. Z., 143 (1975) 289-297).Comment: Final version. The original proof of Theorem 2.1 using Li-Yau gradient estimate method has been moved to the appendix. The new proof is simple and direc