The application of fixed hydrophobic patterns for confinement of aqueous solutions in proteomic microarrays

A protein microarray hybridisation system has been implemented by employing patterned hydrophobic thin films on hydrophilic substrates as a means of confinement for aqueous samples. This approach has the ability to handle, and keep separate, small sample volumes of just a few microlitres. In addition, the system is more straightforward to use than the existing multi-well gasket solution. The paper describes the fabrication method and the system is demonstrated for a model protein microarray assay. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.

Pore confinement effects and stabilization of carbon nitride oligomers in macroporous silica for photocatalytic hydrogen production

An ordered macroporous host (mac-SiO2) has been used to prevent aggregation of layered photocatalysts based on carbon nitride. Using typical carbon nitride synthesis conditions, cyanamide was condensed at 550 °C in the presence and absence of mac-SiO2. Condensation in the absence of mac-SiO2 results in materials with structural characteristics consistent with the carbon nitride, melon, accompanied by ca. 2 wt% carbonization. For mac-SiO2 supported materials, condensation occurs with greater carbonization (ca. 6 wt%). On addition of 3 wt% Pt cocatalyst photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light is found to be up to 10 times greater for the supported composites. Time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy shows that excited state relaxation is more rapid for the mac-SiO2 supported materials suggesting faster electron-hole recombination and that supported carbon nitride does not exhibit improved charge separation. CO2 temperature programmed desorption indicates that enhanced photoactivity of supported carbon nitride is attributable to an increased surface area compared to bulk carbon nitride and an increase in the concentration of weakly basic catalytic sites, consistent with carbon nitride oligomers.

Quantifying confinement effects in ice impact loads

Ships and offshore structures, that encounter ice floes, tend to experience loads with varying pressure distributions within the contact patch. The effect of the surrounding ice adjacent to that which is involved in the contact zone has an influence on the effective strength. This effect has come to be called confinement. A methodology for quantifying ice sample confinement is developed, and the confinement is defined using two non-dimensional terms; a ratio of geometries and an angle. Together these terms are used to modify force predictions that account for increased fracturing and spalling at lower confinement levels. Data developed through laboratory experimentation is studied using dimensional analysis. The characteristics of dimensional analysis allow for easy comparison between many different load cases; provided the impact scenario is consistent. In all, a methodology is developed for analyzing ice impact testing considering confinement effects on force levels, with the potential for extrapolating these tests to full size collision events.

Playwright Myrna Lamb at Feminist meeting

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Flo Kennedy with Myrna Lamb at demonstration against Channel 13

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Playwright Myrna Lamb

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

A low overhead error confinement method based on application statistical characteristics

Reliability has emerged as a critical design constraint especially in memories. Designers are going to great lengths to guarantee fault free operation of the underlying silicon by adopting redundancy-based techniques, which essentially try to detect and correct every single error. However, such techniques come at a cost of large area, power and performance overheads which making many researchers to doubt their efficiency especially for error resilient systems where 100% accuracy is not always required. In this paper, we present an alternative method focusing on the confinement of the resulting output error induced by any reliability issues. By focusing on memory faults, rather than correcting every single error the proposed method exploits the statistical characteristics of any target application and replaces any erroneous data with the best available estimate of that data. To realize the proposed method a RISC processor is augmented with custom instructions and special-purpose functional units. We apply the method on the proposed enhanced processor by studying the statistical characteristics of the various algorithms involved in a popular multimedia application. Our experimental results show that in contrast to state-of-the-art fault tolerance approaches, we are able to reduce runtime and area overhead by 71.3% and 83.3% respectively.

CLASHES IN CONFINEMENT: MEN’S GENDERED EXPERIENCES WITH CONFLICT IN CANADIAN PRISONS

This dissertation presents the results of in-depth qualitative interviews with twenty-three formerly imprisoned men regarding their lived experience with prison conflict and the pain of incarceration. The results suggest that prison is a gendered ‘total institution’ (Goffman 1961). The pains that men experience in prison are uniquely gendered in that the deprivations imposed by incarceration– deprivation of autonomy, liberty, goods and services, heterosexual sex, and security (Sykes 1958) – in the reverse, define idealized masculinity as it is currently socially constructed: self-reliance, independence, toughness or invulnerability, material and economic success, and heterosexual prowess. From these shared deprivations emerges a gendered code of conduct that perpetuates a hierarchy among incarcerated men by constructing violent masculinity as a subcultural norm. The results suggest that the gender code in prison represents a set of rules that create opportunities for men to police each other’s gender performance and make claims to masculine statuses. Because status is inextricably tied to survival in this context, many men feel pressured to perform violent masculinities in prison despite privately subscribing to a non-violent sense of self-concept. The results suggest that violence is an expressive and instrumental resource for men in prison. A gender theory of prison violence, methodological findings, theoretical implications, ethical considerations and the short and long term aftermath of violent prison conflict are discussed.

Quark model with chiral-symmetry breaking and confinement in the Covariant Spectator Theory

We propose a model for the quark-antiquark interaction in Minkowski space using the Covariant Spectator Theory. We show that with an equal-weighted scalar-pseudoscalar structure for the confining part of our interaction kernel the axial-vector Ward-Takahashi identity is preserved and our model complies with the Adler-zero constraint for π-π-scattering imposed by chiral symmetry.

Ultracold Bose-Fermi mixtures with pairing: quantum phase transition, mechanical stability, and trap confinement

Ultracold dilute gases occupy an important role in modern physics and they are employed to verify fundamental quantum theories in most branches of theoretical physics. The scope of this thesis work is the study of Bose-Fermi (BF) mixtures at zero temperature with a tunable pairing between bosons and fermions. The mixtures are treated with diagrammatic quantum many-body methods based on the so-called T-matrix formalism. Starting from the Fermi-polaron limit, I will explore various values of relative concentrations up to mixtures with a majority of bosons, a case barely considered in previous works. An unexpected quantum phase transition is found to occur in a certain range of BF coupling for mixture with a slight majority of bosons. The mechanical stability of mixtures has been analysed, when the boson-fermion interaction is changed from weak to strong values, in the light of experimental results recently obtained for a double-degenerate Bose-Fermi mixture of 23 Na - 40 K. A possible improvement in the description of the boson-boson repulsion based on Popov's theory is proposed. Finally, the effects of a harmonic trapping potential are described, with a comparison with the experimental data for the condensate fraction recently obtained for a trapped 23 Na - 40 K mixture.

Quantum Dots As Biophotonics Tools.

This chapter provides a short review of quantum dots (QDs) physics, applications, and perspectives. The main advantage of QDs over bulk semiconductors is the fact that the size became a control parameter to tailor the optical properties of new materials. Size changes the confinement energy which alters the optical properties of the material, such as absorption, refractive index, and emission bands. Therefore, by using QDs one can make several kinds of optical devices. One of these devices transforms electrons into photons to apply them as active optical components in illumination and displays. Other devices enable the transformation of photons into electrons to produce QDs solar cells or photodetectors. At the biomedical interface, the application of QDs, which is the most important aspect in this book, is based on fluorescence, which essentially transforms photons into photons of different wavelengths. This chapter introduces important parameters for QDs' biophotonic applications such as photostability, excitation and emission profiles, and quantum efficiency. We also present the perspectives for the use of QDs in fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) and Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), so useful in modern microscopy, and how to take advantage of the usually unwanted blinking effect to perform super-resolution microscopy.