3,948 research outputs found
Manufacturing of PolyHIPE-based Porous Microparticles for Bone Tissue Engineering
Particle-based systems have great potential as scaffolds for tissue engineering, since they are injectable, avoiding the need for open surgery. When a bone cancer is removed, the void that’s formed requires filling with a biomaterial to encourage bone regrowth. Two main methods of filling these voids include using autograft material or bone ceramics. Injectable cell-scaffolds allow keyhole surgery which would be impossible with current methods of treatment. Here we are investigating a method for production of spherical microporous particles of 100-800 µm. The microporous material is constructed from a HIPE (High Internal Phase Emulsion) via photocuring. The stir-emulsion method produces a wide range of particle sizes and the T-junction fluidic device produces a very narrow range of particle sizes. With both methods it is possible to change the mean particle size and the particle size distribution. The porosity of the particles can be altered independently by the use of temperature during the initial polyHIPE formation. Mesenchymal hES-MPs cells were cultured on particles which had been coated with acrylic acid via plasma deposition. The cells enable the agglomeration of particles into 3D structures with cell growth both into and between particles
The OmegaWhite Survey for Short-Period Variable Stars IV: Discovery of the warm DQ white dwarf OW J175358.85-310728.9
We present the discovery and follow-up observations of the second known
variable warm DQ white dwarf OW J175358.85-310728.9 (OW J1753-3107). OW
J1753-3107 is the brightest of any of the currently known warm or hot DQ and
was discovered in the OmegaWhite Survey as exhibiting optical variations on a
period of 35.5452 (2) mins, with no evidence for other periods in its light
curves. This period has remained constant over the last two years and a
single-period sinusoidal model provides a good fit for all follow-up light
curves. The spectrum consists of a very blue continuum with strong absorption
lines of neutral and ionised carbon, a broad He I 4471 A line, and possibly
weaker hydrogen lines. The C I lines are Zeeman split, and indicate the
presence of a strong magnetic field. Using spectral Paschen-Back model
descriptions, we determine that OW J1753-3107 exhibits the following physical
parameters: T_eff = 15430 K, log(g) = 9.0, log(N(C)/N(He)) = -1.2, and the mean
magnetic field strength is B_z =2.1 MG. This relatively low temperature and
carbon abundance (compared to the expected properties of hot DQs) is similar to
that seen in the other warm DQ SDSS J1036+6522. Although OW J1753-3107 appears
to be a twin of SDSS J1036+6522, it exhibits a modulation on a period slightly
longer than the dominant period in SDSS J1036+6522 and has a higher carbon
abundance. The source of variations is uncertain, but they are believed to
originate from the rotation of the magnetic white dwarf.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables. Accepted for publication by MNRA
Competing anisotropies in exchange biased nano-structured thin films
The magnetic anisotropies of a patterned, exchange biased Fe50 Mn50 /Ni80 Fe20 system are studied using ferromagnetic resonance, supplemented by Brillouin light scattering experiments and Kerr magnetometry. The exchange biased bilayer is partially etched into an antidot geometry so that the system approximates a Ni80 Fe20 layer in contact with antidot structured Fe50 Mn50 . Brillouin light scattering measurements of the spin wave frequency dependence on the wave vector reveal a magnonic band gap as expected for a periodic modulation of the
magnetic properties. Analysis of the ferromagnetic resonance spectra reveals eightfold and fourfold contributions to the magnetic anisotropy. Additionally, the antidot patterning decreases the magnitude of the exchange bias and modifies strongly its angular dependence. Softening of all resonance modes is most pronounced for the applied magnetic field aligned within 10â—¦ of the antidot axis, in the direction of the bias. Given the degree to which one can tailor the ground state, the resulting asymmetry at low frequencies could make this an interesting candidate for applications such as selective/directional microwave filtering and multistate magnetic logic
Re-Inventing Public Education:The New Role of Knowledge in Education Policy-Making
This article focuses on the changing role of knowledge in education policy making within the knowledge society. Through an examination of key policy texts, the Scottish case of Integrated Children Services provision is used to exemplify this new trend. We discuss the ways in which knowledge is being used in order to re-configure education as part of a range of public services designed to meet individuals' needs. This, we argue, has led to a 'scientization' of education governance where it is only knowledge, closely intertwined with action (expressed as 'measures') that can reveal problems and shape solutions. The article concludes by highlighting the key role of knowledge policy and governance in orienting education policy making through a re-invention of the public role of education
Divergence in Dialogue
Copyright: 2014 Healey et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; http://www.esrc.ac.uk/) through the DynDial project (Dynamics of Conversational Dialogue, RES-062-23-0962) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/) through the RISER
project (Robust Incremental Semantic Resources for Dialogue, EP/J010383/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
Superfluidity in a Model of Massless Fermions Coupled to Scalar Bosons
We study superfluidity in a model of massless fermions coupled to a massive
scalar field through a Yukawa interaction. Gap equations for a condensate with
total spin J=0 are solved in the mean-field approximation. For the Yukawa
interaction, the gaps for right- and left-handed fermions are equal in
magnitude and opposite in sign, so that condensation occurs in the J^P = 0^+
channel. At finite scalar mass, there are two different gaps for fermions of a
given chirality, corresponding to condensation of particle pairs or of
antiparticle pairs. These gaps become degenerate in the limit of infinite
scalar mass.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, RevTeX, epsf and psfig style files required.
Revised version, discussion of the excitation spectrum extended, Fig. 2 adde
Notions of Infinity in Quantum Physics
In this article we will review some notions of infiniteness that appear in
Hilbert space operators and operator algebras. These include proper
infiniteness, Murray von Neumann's classification into type I and type III
factors and the class of F{/o} lner C*-algebras that capture some aspects of
amenability. We will also mention how these notions reappear in the description
of certain mathematical aspects of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory and
the theory of superselection sectors. We also show that the algebra of the
canonical anti-commutation relations (CAR-algebra) is in the class of F{/o}
lner C*-algebras.Comment: 11 page
Iterated Conformal Dynamics and Laplacian Growth
The method of iterated conformal maps for the study of Diffusion Limited
Aggregates (DLA) is generalized to the study of Laplacian Growth Patterns and
related processes. We emphasize the fundamental difference between these
processes: DLA is grown serially with constant size particles, while Laplacian
patterns are grown by advancing each boundary point in parallel, proportionally
to the gradient of the Laplacian field. We introduce a 2-parameter family of
growth patterns that interpolates between DLA and a discrete version of
Laplacian growth. The ultraviolet putative finite-time singularities are
regularized here by a minimal tip size, equivalently for all the models in this
family. With this we stress that the difference between DLA and Laplacian
growth is NOT in the manner of ultraviolet regularization, but rather in their
deeply different growth rules. The fractal dimensions of the asymptotic
patterns depend continuously on the two parameters of the family, giving rise
to a "phase diagram" in which DLA and discretized Laplacian growth are at the
extreme ends. In particular we show that the fractal dimension of Laplacian
growth patterns is much higher than the fractal dimension of DLA, with the
possibility of dimension 2 for the former not excluded.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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