Modelling of the pulsatile blood flow in an arterial tree of retinal vasculature

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.The paper presents a numerical investigation of pulsatile blood flow in arterial vasculatures of a mouse retina using a Womersley model incorporating an appropriate outlet boundary impedance at the end of the terminal vessels of the arterial tree (pre-capillary arterioles). The mouse retinal flatmount was prepared for confocal microscopy and the morphometric information of the vasculature was obtained from the confocal images. The pulsatile analysis focused on one of the arterial trees in the retinal vasculature. We included the in vivo viscosity evaluated from the mathematical models of Fahraues-Lindquist effect and the plasma skimming effect in the microcirculation. Comparative investigations of the pulsatile circulation were carried out for cases of constant viscosity, in vivo viscosity, zero and non-zero outlet boundary impedance. In addition, the dependency of the oscillating input impedance at the inlet of the arterial trees on angular frequencies of the oscillation and vessel elasticises was also studied. The study shows the pulsatile blood flow prediction is largely influenced by the outlet boundary impedance. The oscillating input impedance at the inlet of the arterial tree is also found to be significantly dependent on the angular frequency and the Young modulus of the vessel segment

Adhesive Joint Evaluation Using Lamb Wave Modes with Appropriate Displacement, Stress, and Energy Distribution Profiles

One of the most elusive yet critical problem in adhesive joints characterization is that of ‘kissing bond’ wherein good contact exists among the adherend and the adhesive, however with no acceptable levels of adhesion. To date, the kissing bond is difficult to be detected reliably by any of the methods including conventional ultrasound and thermal waves. Kissing bond which is a manufacturing defect/anomaly will substantially compromise the load bearing capability of the adhesive joint by initiating adhesive failure (in contrast to cohesive failure wherein the failure occurs within the thickness of the adhesive layer instead of a failure at the interface). Attempts to develop methods of detection of kissing bonds have been unsuccessful to date

Polymer Synthesis in Continuous Flow Reactors

A variety of polymerizations has long been performed in continuous flow reactors on an industrial scale; comparatively, on smaller scales, continuous polymerization methods have only gained significant attention in recent years. Yet, within the last decade, the field has moved from the rare occurrence of flow reactors to their abundant use today. A wide variety of polymer reactions have been performed in a continuous fashion on small and intermediate scales. The advantages of applying flow chemistry principles for polymer reactions include increased reproducibility and synthetic precision, significant increases in reaction performances for photochemical reactions, the ability to couple reactors to create complex materials in a single reactor pass, as well as the unique combination of online monitoring and machine learning. In this review we give a comprehensive overview of polymer reactions being carried out in continuous flow reactors to date. The development of the field is discussed, concluding with the most recent examples on automated polymer synthesis, reactor telescoping and nanoparticle synthesis. Finally, the design of flow reactors is discussed to help newcomers contribute to the current and future developments in the field

The dynamics between freight volatility and fleet size growth in dry bulk shipping markets

Author name used in this manuscript: Tsz Leung Yip2011-2012 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

Measurement of Reflectance Function for Layered Structures Using Focused Acoustic Waves

In the ultrasonic NDE of layered materials and structures, such as bonded joint, coating, and in particular the composite material, the surface or Lamb wave velocity or the reflection and transmission coefficient are measured, to determine for examples, the elastic constants, the anisotropy and the integrity of the materials, etc. A commonly used technique to determine locally the surface or Lamb wave velocity V g is based on the measurement of the reflection minima or the transmission maxima at oblique incidence of the test sample. It is supposed that at the critical incident angle θ c where the reflection coefficient appears the minima, the surface or Lamb waves are favorably generated and V g =V o/sinθ c where V 0 is the wave speed in coupling liquid. So, the determination of the reflection function is essential and important. In general, the acoustic reflection or transmission coefficient of a layered medium depends on the wave incident angle θ, the wave frequency ƒ and the orientation angle φ if the material is anisotropic. To obtain the whole information of this reflectance function R(θ,φ,ƒ), one needs to insonify the structure at varying incident and orientation angles and do the frequency spectroscopy using the wide-band transducer

Psychometric precision in phenotype definition is a useful step in molecular genetic investigation of psychiatric disorders.

Affective disorders are highly heritable, but few genetic risk variants have been consistently replicated in molecular genetic association studies. The common method of defining psychiatric phenotypes in molecular genetic research is either a summation of symptom scores or binary threshold score representing the risk of diagnosis. Psychometric latent variable methods can improve the precision of psychiatric phenotypes, especially when the data structure is not straightforward. Using data from the British 1946 birth cohort, we compared summary scores with psychometric modeling based on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) scale for affective symptoms in an association analysis of 27 candidate genes (249 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)). The psychometric method utilized a bi-factor model that partitioned the phenotype variances into five orthogonal latent variable factors, in accordance with the multidimensional data structure of the GHQ-28 involving somatic, social, anxiety and depression domains. Results showed that, compared with the summation approach, the affective symptoms defined by the bi-factor psychometric model had a higher number of associated SNPs of larger effect sizes. These results suggest that psychometrically defined mental health phenotypes can reflect the dimensions of complex phenotypes better than summation scores, and therefore offer a useful approach in genetic association investigations.This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [088869/Z/09/Z to M.R., P.B.J., D.G, and T. J. C,]; Medical Research Council [MC_UU_12019/1 and MC_UU_12019/3 to A.W, D.G., M.R]. Dr. Barnett is an employee of Cambridge Cognition, Ltd. This work forms part of the NIHR CLAHRC EoE that PBJ directs and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by NPG

Cellulose acetate in wound dressings formulations: potentialities and electrospinning capability

Série: IFMBE Proceedings, vol. 76Any open wound is a potential site for microorganisms’ invasion since their presence around us is inevitable. Skin wound healing relies on a series of complex physiochemical processes that remain a big challenge for healthcare professionals, particularly when the wounds are colonized by bacteria. Wound dressings play a major role in wound healing as they manage the wounded site, controlling the moisture balance and protecting the wound from repeated trauma, and by preventing possible infections from developing into more serious complications. Recently, bioactive dressings loaded with drugs and/or antimicrobial agents, allowing for a continuous and sustainable release of these molecules at the wounded site, have appeared in the market. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing health care problem, requiring more effective solutions than antibiotics. As such, nano- and microfibrous mats produced via electrospinning technique and loaded with natural-origin antimicrobial agents have attracted a lot of attention. Various polymers have been applied to engineer nanofibrous electrospun dressings. However, the environment impact of the synthesis and processing methods of synthetic polymers is undesirable. Therefore, the application of cellulose-derived materials (highly abundant polymer of natural-origin) becomes crucial as a green alternative to produce electrospun wound dressings with superior wettability, breathability and high capacity to promote cell proliferation, at relatively low costs. In this paper, different biomolecules loaded onto cellulose acetate (CA)-based polymeric nanofibers were investigated, and their antimicrobial properties were highlighted as alternatives to conventional antibiotics.Authors acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), FEDER funds by means of Competitive Factors Operational Program (POCI) for funding the projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028074 and UID/CTM/00264/2019

An invisibility cloak using silver nanowires

In this paper, we use the parameter retrieval method together with an analytical effective medium approach to design a well-performed invisible cloak, which is based on an empirical revised version of the reduced cloak. The designed cloak can be implemented by silver nanowires with elliptical cross-sections embedded in a polymethyl methacrylate host. This cloak is numerically proved to be robust for both the inner hidden object as well as incoming detecting waves, and is much simpler thus easier to manufacture when compared with the earlier proposed one [Nat. Photon. 1, 224 (2007)].Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Three-loop HTL gluon thermodynamics at intermediate coupling

We calculate the thermodynamic functions of pure-glue QCD to three-loop order using the hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory (HTLpt) reorganization of finite temperature quantum field theory. We show that at three-loop order hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory is compatible with lattice results for the pressure, energy density, and entropy down to temperatures $T\simeq3\;T_c$. Our results suggest that HTLpt provides a systematic framework that can used to calculate static and dynamic quantities for temperatures relevant at LHC.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figs. 2nd version: improved discussion and fixing typos. Published in JHE