Delivering Bio-Mems & Microfluidic Education Around Accessible Technologies

Electronic Systems are now being deployed in al-most all aspects of daily life as opposed to being confined to consumer electronics, computing, communication and control applications as was the case in the 90’s. One of the more significant growth areas is medical instrumentation, health care, bio-chemical analysis and environmental monitoring. Most of these applications will in the future require the integration of fluidics and biology within complex electronic systems. We are now seeing technologies emerging together with access services such as the FP6 “INTEGRAMplus” and “MicroBuilder” programs that offer competitive solutions for companies wishing to de-sign and prototype microfluidic systems. For successful deployment of these systems, a new breed of electronic engineers are needed that understand how to deliver bio-chemistry and living cells to transducers and integrate the required technologies reliably into robust systems. This paper will report on initial training initiatives now active under the INTEGRAMplus program

An Embedded Test & Health Monitoring Strategy for Detecting and Locating Faults in Aerospace Bus Systems.

A new test & measurement strategy for on-line health monitoring of Mil-Std-1553 data bus is proposed. The method monitors the signal quality at multiple points on the data bus and uses the voltage measurements to detect and locate defects. The on-line monitoring method supports defect detection and location on the main backbone of the bus and in transformer coupled branches. The method does not require excessive data processing but some communication between measurement points is required. The advantage of this method is that it supports detection of intermittent defects which can not be located using off-line measurement. It also provides the ability to detect defects on whole data bus harness. The method is complemented with a supporting test involving an externally generated test signal to find certain defects which require multiple measurements. The measurement method is designed to work independently on the data bus using embedded electronics without disrupting the normal operation

A reliable scheme for fabricating sub-5 nm co-planar junctions for single-molecule electrons.

We demonstrate a high yield production scheme to fabricate sub-5 nm co-planar metal–insulator–metal junctions. This involves determining the relationship between the actual gap between the metallic junctions for a given designed gap, and the use of weak developers with ultrasonic agitation to process the exposed resist. This results in an improved process to achieve narrow inter-electrode gaps. The gaps were imaged using an AFM equipped with a carbon nanotube tip to achieve a high degree of accuracy in measurement. The smallest gap unambiguously measured was ~ 2 nm. Gaps with ≤ 5 nm spacing were produced with a very high yield of about 75% for a designed inter-electrode distance of 0 nm. The leakage resistance of the gaps was found to be of the order of 1012 Ω. The entire junction structure was designed to be co-planar to better than 1 nm over 1 μ m2

Growth Kinetics and Protective Efficacy of Attenuated ASFV Strain Congo with Deletion of the EP402 Gene

African swine fever (ASF) is an emerging disease threat to the swine industry worldwide. There is no vaccine against ASF, and progress is hindered by a lack of knowledge concerning the extent of ASFV strain diversity and the viral antigens conferring type-specific protective immunity in pigs. We have previously demonstrated that homologous ASFV serotype-specific proteins CD2v (EP402R) and/or C-type lectin are required for protection against challenge with the virulent ASFV strain Congo (Genotype I, Serogroup 2), and we have identified T-cell epitopes on CD2v which may be associated with serotype-specific protection. Here, using a cell-culture adapted derivative of the ASFV strain Congo (Congo-a) with specific deletion of the EP402R gene (ΔCongoCD2v) in swine vaccination/challenge experiments, we demonstrated that deletion of the EP402R gene results in the failure of ΔCongoCD2v to induce protection against challenge with the virulent strain Congo (Congo-v). While ΔCongoCD2v growth kinetics in COS-1 cells and primary swine macrophage culture were almost identical to parental Congo-a, replication of ΔCongoCD2v in vivo was significantly reduced compared with parental Congo-a. Our data support the idea that the CD2v protein is important for the ability of homologous live-attenuated vaccines to induce protective immunity against the ASFV strain Congo challenge in vivo

Substantiation of the parameters of an innovative working body for shallow tillage

The purpose of study: determine the rational parameters of an innovative working body that carries out a high-quality technological process of shallow soil cultivation. An innovative working body for shallow soil cultivation was developed on the basis of nature-like technologies that are currently relevant in scientific research. The ratio when using the golden ratio arises when comparing curvilinear and rectilinear, i.e. natural and artificial forms. The development of a new working body design is based on the physics of the interaction process with the processed environment, using analogies of shape and optimal proportions existing in nature. The working body design for shallow tillage with curved surfaces of increased streamlining using the configuration of natural sliding lines of the treated medium layer during cultivation has been developed. Depending on the required processing depth (6-16 cm), the innovative working body efficiently performs the cutting process with sliding, and also performs flat-cut loosening. Rational parameters and functioning modes of an innovative working body for shallow tillage have been obtained: length – 305 mm; working width – 450 mm; angle of crumbling, sharpening, posterior occipital cutting, mortar, rise – 15, 12, 10, 75-110, 10 degrees respectively; speed – 9-12 km/h