Moving Boundary Transport Phenomena in Selective Area Laser Deposition Process

The overall selective area laser deposition process was modeled using the two-layer, three dimensional solid phase heat transfer with the moving boundary condition considered, gas phase mass transfer, and film growth coupled equations. A modified front-tracking finite difference method was used to solve the moving boundary heat conduction in thick deposits. The results correlate with the experimental observations.Mechanical Engineerin

Business process re-engineering using a customised mapping model: a case study in a SME

Increasing customer expectations in terms of cost, quality and services, together with competition in global markets has placed a premium on effective internal business processes. Companies are investing to streamline internal workflows, reduce costs and improve efficiency by re-engineering their business processes. Various mapping tools, such as Process Mapping and Value Stream Mapping, have been widely used as the vehicle for leveraging these improvements. However, in isolation any individual tool is often insufficient to achieve the desired results. This article uses a case study approach to investigate a real business process re-engineering (BPR) project in a medium sized manufacturing and service company. Process improvement is carried out using a set of mapping tools that have been selected, simplified and combined for practice. It has been shown that human factors are also crucial to the success of a BPR project. The case study illustrates the success of BPR with real practical examples of what works. Benefits include: increasing stock accuracy from 22% to above 95%; a reduction from about 40 reversed orders per month to zero, order fulfilment time reduced by 50%, and profitability improved 3 times at the end of the project. Non-quantifiable benefits include the elimination of a need for corrective actions, employees are more motivated, and the business stream is flowing smoothly allowing other business processes perform efficiently without disturbance

Approach to accurately measuring the speed of optical precursors

Precursors can serve as a bound on the speed of information with dispersive medium. We propose a method to identify the speed of optical precursors using polarization-based interference in a solid-state device, which can bound the accuracy of the precursors' speed to less than $10^{-4}$ with conventional experimental conditions. Our proposal may have important implications for optical communications and fast information processing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Compact Circularly Polarized Patch Antenna Using a Composite Right/Left-Handed Transmission Line Unit-Cell

A compact circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna using a composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL) unit-cell is proposed. The CRLH TL unit-cell includes a complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) for shunt inductance and a gap loaded with a circular-shaped slot for series capacitance. The CSRR can decrease the TM10 mode resonance frequency, thus reducing the electrical size of the proposed antenna. In addition, the asymmetry of the CSRR brings about the TM01 mode, which can be combined with the TM10 mode by changing the slot radius. The combination of these two orthogonal modes with 90° phase shift makes the proposed antenna provide a CP property. The experimental results show that the proposed antenna has a wider axial ratio bandwidth and a smaller electrical size than the reported CP antennas. Moreover, the proposed antenna is designed without impedance transformer, 90° phase shift, dual feed and ground via

Seed germination of three dominant Artemisia species in loess hilly region: alternating temperature, osmotic potential, and light effects

Non-Peer ReviewedIn this study, we evaluated the effects of alternating temperature, osmotic potential and light in the achene germination of three dominant Artemisia species (A. scoparia, A. gmelinii Web. and A. giraldii Pamp.) on arable old land after being abandoned in loess hilly region of Northern Shaanxi, in order to provide information about germination requirements which could be use for conservation studies. Results showed that A. scoparia had wider alternating temperature extremes than two other species and A. giraldii Pamp. and A. gmelinii Web. had lower optimum alternating temperature (25 oC/20 oC) than A. scoparia (30 oC/25 oC). Osmotic potential affected germination of all species significantly, but A. scoparia had better germination results than others in every treatment. In light treatments, although A. giraldii Pamp. and A. gmelinii Web. had lower germination proportion in white light, they had bigger germination proportion in darkness than A. scoparia

The thermal evolution of nuclear matter at zero temperature and definite baryon number density in chiral perturbation theory

The thermal properties of cold dense nuclear matter are investigated with chiral perturbation theory. The evolution curves for the baryon number density, baryon number susceptibility, pressure and the equation of state are obtained. The chiral condensate is calculated and our result shows that when the baryon chemical potential goes beyond $1150 \mathrm{MeV}$, the absolute value of the quark condensate decreases rapidly, which indicates a tendency of chiral restoration.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, revtex

Flow, deposition, and erosion near finite patches of vegetation

Keynote Lecture

Regeneration of green plants from seed-derived callus cultures of Poa

Plants were regenerated from callus derived from entire mature seeds of three Poa pratensis cultivars (Kentucky bluegrass, Fylking and Baron) and one Chinese native species, Poa sphendyLodes L. Kentucky bluegrass showed the highest regenerating capacity of the four cultivars. Addition of low concentration (0.2 mg/l) of (6-benzyladenine) 6-BA to Murashige and Skoog (MS) callus induction medium containing 2 mg/l 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) strongly stimulated seeds inducing shoot-forming callus cultures in Kentucky bluegrass. High percentage of shoots was induced in Shenhand Hilde-brandi (SH) medium containing low concentration (0.1 mg/l) of 2,4-D. Roots were obtained in SH medium with 0.1 mg/l NAA (naphthalene-acetic acid)

Peptide-functionalized gold nanoparticles : versatile biomaterials for diagnostic and therapeutic applications

Colloidal gold solutions have been used for centuries in a wide variety of applications including staining glass and in the colouring of ceramics. More recently, gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have been studied extensively due to their interesting size-dependent electronic and optical properties. GNPs can be functionalized easily with biomolecules that contain thiols, amines, or even phosphine moieties. For example, the reaction of thiol-containing peptides with GNPs has been used extensively to prepare novel hybrid materials for biomedical applications. A range of different types of peptides can be used to access biomaterials that are designed to perform a specific role such as cancer cell targeting. In addition, specific peptide sequences that are responsive to external stimuli (e.g. temperature or pH) can be used to stabilise/destabilise the aggregation of colloidal GNPs. Such systems have exciting potential applications in the field of colorimetric sensing (including bio-sensing) and in targeted drug delivery platforms. In this review, we will give an overview of the current methods used for preparing peptide functionalized GNPs, and we will discuss their key properties outlining the various applications of this class of biomaterial. In particular, the potential applications of peptide functionalized GNPs in areas of sensing and targeted drug delivery will be discussed