Probing biomolecular interaction forces using an anharmonic acoustic technique for selective detection of bacterial spores.

Receptor-based detection of pathogens often suffers from non-specific interactions, and as most detection techniques cannot distinguish between affinities of interactions, false positive responses remain a plaguing reality. Here, we report an anharmonic acoustic based method of detection that addresses the inherent weakness of current ligand dependant assays. Spores of Bacillus subtilis (Bacillus anthracis simulant) were immobilized on a thickness-shear mode AT-cut quartz crystal functionalized with anti-spore antibody and the sensor was driven by a pure sinusoidal oscillation at increasing amplitude. Biomolecular interaction forces between the coupled spores and the accelerating surface caused a nonlinear modulation of the acoustic response of the crystal. In particular, the deviation in the third harmonic of the transduced electrical response versus oscillation amplitude of the sensor (signal) was found to be significant. Signals from the specifically-bound spores were clearly distinguishable in shape from those of the physisorbed streptavidin-coated polystyrene microbeads. The analytical model presented here enables estimation of the biomolecular interaction forces from the measured response. Thus, probing biomolecular interaction forces using the described technique can quantitatively detect pathogens and distinguish specific from non-specific interactions, with potential applicability to rapid point-of-care detection. This also serves as a potential tool for rapid force-spectroscopy, affinity-based biomolecular screening and mapping of molecular interaction networks.

Assessing the responsiveness of existing production operations

Production responsiveness refers to the ability of a production system to achieve its operational goals in the presence of supplier, internal and customer disturbances, where disturbances are those sources of change which occur independently of the system's intentions. A set of audit tools for assessing the responsiveness of production operations is being prepared as part of an EPSRC funded investigation. These tools are based on the idea that the ability to respond is linked to: the nature of the disturbances or changes requiring a response; their impact on production goals; and the inherent response capabilities of the operation. These response capabilities include information gathering and processing (to detect disturbances and production conditions), decision processes (which initiate system responses to disturbances) and various types of process flexibilities and buffers (which provide the physical means of dealing with disturbances). The paper discusses concepts and issues associated with production responsiveness, describes the audit tools that have been developed and illustrates their use in the context of a steel manufacturing plant.

ON-LINE STEREO PROCESSING FOR THE SEM.

A convenient system for the rapid extraction of three dimensional information from pairs of SEM images has been constructed, eliminating the need for time-consuming photography. Results are produced in a digestable form. Distortions inherent in the SEM record display and in the photographic system are not relevant to the system described; only those arising within the column and stage need be considered.

Dynamic properties of superconducting magnetic bearings

The potential use of YBa2j as an active component in a magnetic bearing is being investigated. Although the load bearing capacity is high and increases with the square of the magnetic field trapped, the stiffness is low. Both the stiffness and the lévitation height are a function of the loading history of the bearing. At Cambridge we have been investigating the effects of dynamic loading such as single large excursions from steady state loads and cyclically applied loads such as vibrations. Since a superconducting bearing has little inherent damping cyclic loads applied at or near its natural frequency can have catastrophic effects. The information being gathered at Cambridge will be used to enable these effects to be mitigated in the bearing design process. © 1997 IEEE.

MOS and bipolar gated thyristor: A thyristor with IGBT switching characteristics

The IGBT has become the device of choice in many high-voltage-power electronic applications, by virtue of combining the ease of MOS gate control with an acceptable forward voltage drop. However, designers have retained an interest in MOS gated thyristor structures which have a turn-off capability. These offer low on-state losses as a result of their latching behaviour. Recently, there have been various proposals for dual-gate devices that have a thyristor on-state with IGBT-like switching. Many of these dual gated structures rely on advanced MOS technology, with inherent manufacturing difficulties. The MOS and bipolar gated thyristor offers all the advantages of dual gated performance, while employing standard IGBT processing techniques. The paper describes the MBGT in detail, and presents experimental and simulation results for devices based on realistic commercial processes. It is shown that the MBGT represents a viable power semiconductor device technology, suitable for a diverse range of applications. © IEE, 1998.

Switching speed enhancement of the LDMOSFETs using partial-SOI technology

To overcome reduced breakdown voltage and self-heating effects inherent in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) power integrated circuits while still maintaining good isolation between low power CMOS circuits and the high power cells, partial SOI (PSOI) technology has been proposed. PSOI devices make use of both buried oxide and substrate depletion to support the breakdown voltage. 2D analyses and modeling of parasitic capacitances in PSOI structures show that PSOI-lightly doped MOSFETs can increase the switching speed by as much as four times compared to conventional SOI structures, making them very attractive for high switching applications.

Chiral gratings - A new class of polarization sensitive metamaterials

The first experimental demonstration of unique polarizatioon characteristics are reported. It is believed that the strong polarization effects reported result from the chirality imposed by the patterns of gammadions enhanced by plasmon effects due to the nanostructuring of the metal film in which they are cut. It is clear that such structures has the potential to yield many new and intriguing applications in optoelectronics and other areas.

Loss comparison between an SPWM and harmonic elimination excited small, (<1kW) induction motor drive using Pspice simulation and calorimetry

Adopting square wave excitation to drive induction motors (IMs) can substantially reduce inverter switching losses. However, the low-order time harmonics inherent in the output voltage generates parasitic torques that degrade motor performance and reduce efficiency. In this paper, a novel harmonic elimination modulation technique with full voltage control is studied as an interesting and alternative means of operating small (<1kW) IM drives efficiently. A fully verified harmonic elimination scheme, which removes the 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th and 17 th time harmonics, was implemented and applied to an IGBT driven IM. The power losses incurred in the inverter and the IM as a result of the switching scheme have been determined. © 2008 Crown copyright.

Bayesian signal processing

The application of Bayes' Theorem to signal processing provides a consistent framework for proceeding from prior knowledge to a posterior inference conditioned on both the prior knowledge and the observed signal data. The first part of the lecture will illustrate how the Bayesian methodology can be applied to a variety of signal processing problems. The second part of the lecture will introduce the concept of Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) methods which is an effective approach to overcoming many of the analytical and computational problems inherent in statistical inference. Such techniques are at the centre of the rapidly developing area of Bayesian signal processing which, with the continual increase in available computational power, is likely to provide the underlying framework for most signal processing applications.

Velocity distributions for low pressure turbines

A parametric set of velocity distributions has been investigated using a flat plate experiment. Three different diffusion factors and peak velocity locations were tested. These were designed to mimic the suction surfaces of Low Pressure (LP) turbine blades. Unsteady wakes, inherent in real turbomachinery flows, were generated using a moving bar mechanism. A turbulence grid generated a freestream turbulence level that is believed to be typical of LP turbines. Measurements were taken across a Reynolds number range of 50,000-220,000 at three reduced frequencies (0.314, 0.628, 0.942). Boundary layer traverses were performed at the nominal trailing edge using a Laser Doppler Anemometry system and hot-films were used to examine the boundary layer behaviour along the surface. For every velocity distribution tested, the boundary layer separated in the diffusing flow downstream of the peak velocity. The loss production is dominated by the mixing in the reattachment process, mixing in the turbulent boundary layer downstream of reattachment and the effects of the unsteady interaction between the wakes and the boundary layer. A sensitive balance governs the optimal location of peak velocity on the surface. Moving the velocity peak forwards on the blade was found to be increasingly beneficial when bubblegenerated losses are high, i.e. at low Reynolds number, at low reduced frequency and at high levels of diffusion. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.

Characterisation and simulation of asphalt road surfaces

Accurate simulation of rolling-tyre vibrations, and the associated noise, requires knowledge of road-surface topology. Full scans of the surface types in common use are, however, not widely available, and are likely to remain so. Ways of producing simulated surfaces from incomplete starting information are thus needed. In this paper, a simulation methodology based solely on line measurements is developed, and validated against a full two-dimensional height map of a real asphalt surface. First the tribological characteristics-asperity height, curvature and nearest-neighbour distributions-of the real surface are analysed. It is then shown that a standard simulation technique, which matches the (isotropic) spectrum and the probability distribution of the height measurements, is unable to reproduce these characteristics satisfactorily. A modification, whereby the inherent granularity of the surface is enforced at the initialisation stage, is introduced, and found to produce simulations whose tribological characteristics are in excellent agreement with the measurements. This method will thus make high-fidelity tyre-vibration calculations feasible for researchers with access to line-scan data only. In addition, the approach to surface tribological characterisation set out here provides a template for efficient cataloguing of road textures, as long as the resulting information can subsequently be used to produce sample realisations. A third simulation algorithm, which successfully addresses this requirement, is therefore also presented. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Probing biomolecular interaction forces using an anharmonic acoustic technique for selective detection of bacterial spores

Receptor-based detection of pathogens often suffers from non-specific interactions, and as most detection techniques cannot distinguish between affinities of interactions, false positive responses remain a plaguing reality. Here, we report an anharmonic acoustic based method of detection that addresses the inherent weakness of current ligand dependant assays. Spores of Bacillus subtilis (Bacillus anthracis simulant) were immobilized on a thickness-shear mode AT-cut quartz crystal functionalized with anti-spore antibody and the sensor was driven by a pure sinusoidal oscillation at increasing amplitude. Biomolecular interaction forces between the coupled spores and the accelerating surface caused a nonlinear modulation of the acoustic response of the crystal. In particular, the deviation in the third harmonic of the transduced electrical response versus oscillation amplitude of the sensor (signal) was found to be significant. Signals from the specifically-bound spores were clearly distinguishable in shape from those of the physisorbed streptavidin-coated polystyrene microbeads. The analytical model presented here enables estimation of the biomolecular interaction forces from the measured response. Thus, probing biomolecular interaction forces using the described technique can quantitatively detect pathogens and distinguish specific from non-specific interactions, with potential applicability to rapid point-of-care detection. This also serves as a potential tool for rapid force-spectroscopy, affinity-based biomolecular screening and mapping of molecular interaction networks. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Computational mechanisms of sensorimotor control.

In order to generate skilled and efficient actions, the motor system must find solutions to several problems inherent in sensorimotor control, including nonlinearity, nonstationarity, delays, redundancy, uncertainty, and noise. We review these problems and five computational mechanisms that the brain may use to limit their deleterious effects: optimal feedback control, impedance control, predictive control, Bayesian decision theory, and sensorimotor learning. Together, these computational mechanisms allow skilled and fluent sensorimotor behavior.

Improved jet noise modeling using a new time-scale.

To calculate the noise emanating from a turbulent flow using an acoustic analogy knowledge concerning the unsteady characteristics of the turbulence is required. Specifically, the form of the turbulent correlation tensor together with various time and length-scales are needed. However, if a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stores calculation is used as the starting point then one can only obtain steady characteristics of the flow and it is necessary to model the unsteady behavior in some way. While there has been considerable attention given to the correct way to model the form of the correlation tensor less attention has been given to the underlying physics that dictate the proper choice of time-scale. In this paper the authors recognize that there are several time dependent processes occurring within a turbulent flow and propose a new way of obtaining the time-scale. Isothermal single-stream flow jets with Mach numbers 0.75 and 0.90 have been chosen for the present study. The Mani-Gliebe-Balsa-Khavaran method has been used for prediction of noise at different angles, and there is good agreement between the noise predictions and observations. Furthermore, the new time-scale has an inherent frequency dependency that arises naturally from the underlying physics, thus avoiding supplementary mathematical enhancements needed in previous modeling.

Monte Carlo optimization strategies for air-traffic control

The safety of the flights, and in particular conflict resolution for separation assurance, is one of the main tasks of Air Traffic Control. Conflict resolution requires decision making in the face of the considerable levels of uncertainty inherent in the motion of aircraft. We present a Monte Carlo framework for conflict resolution which allows one to take into account such levels of uncertainty through the use of a stochastic simulator. A simulation example inspired by current air traffic control practice illustrates the proposed conflict resolution strategy. Copyright © 2005 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.