Viscoelastic analysis of single-component and composite PEG and alginate hydrogels

Hydrogels, three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer networks, are appealing candidate materials for studying the cellular microenvironment as their substantial water content helps to better mimic soft tissue. However, hydrogels can lack mechanical stiffness, strength, and toughness. Composite hydrogel systems have been shown to improve upon mechanical properties compared to their singlecomponent counterparts. Poly (ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) and alginate are polymers that have been used to form hydrogels for biological applications. Singlecomponent and composite PEGDMA and alginate systems were fabricated with a range of total polymer concentrations. Bulk gels were mechanically characterized using spherical indentation testing and a viscoelastic analysis framework. An increase in shear modulus with increasing polymer concentration was demonstrated for all systems. Alginate hydrogels were shown to have a smaller viscoelastic ratio than the PEGDMA gels, indicating more extensive relaxation over time. Composite alginate and PEGDMA hydrogels exhibited a combination of the mechanical properties of the constituents, as well as a qualitative increase in toughness. Additionally, multiple hydrogel systems were produced that had similar shear moduli, but different viscoelastic behaviors. Accurate measurement of the mechanical properties of hydrogels is necessary in order to determine what parameters are key in modeling the cellular microenvironment. © 2014 The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

A novel method of extraction of blend component structure from SANS measurements of homopolymer bimodal blends

A new method is presented for the extraction of single-chain form factors and interchain interference functions from a range of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiments on bimodal homopolymer blends. The method requires a minimum of three blends, made up of hydrogenated and deuterated components with matched degree of polymerization at two different chain lengths, but with carefully varying deuteration levels. The method is validated through an experimental study on polystyrene homopolymer bimodal blends with M A≈1/2MB. By fitting Debye functions to the structure factors, it is shown that there is good agreement between the molar mass of the components obtained from SANS and from chromatography. The extraction method also enables, for the first time, interchain scattering functions to be produced for scattering between chains of different lengths. © 2014 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

alr0117, a two-component histidine kinase gene, is involved in heterocyst development in Anabaena sp PCC 7120

Anabaena sp. PCC; 7120 was mutagenized by transposon Tn5-1087b, generating a mutant whose heterocysts lack the envelope polysaccharide layer. The transposon was located between nucleotides 342 and 343 of alr0117, a 918 bp gene encoding a histidine kinase for a two-component regulatory system. Complementation of the mutant with a DNA fragment containing alr0117 and targeted inactivation of the gene confirmed that alr0117 is involved in heterocyst development. RT-PCR showed that alr0117 was constitutively expressed in the presence or absence of a combined-nitrogen source. hepA and patB, the two genes turned on during wild-type heterocyst development, were no longer activated in an alr0117-null mutant. The two-component signal transduction system involving alr0117 may control the formation of the envelope polysaccharide layer and certain late events essential to the function of heterocysts.

Second-harmonic generation of Bogoliubov excitations in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

A second-harmonic generation (SHG) is predicted for the Bogoliubov excitations in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate. It is shown that, because the linear dispersion curve of the excitations displays two branches, the phase-matching condition for the SHG can be fulfilled if the wave vectors and frequencies of fundamental and second-harmonic waves are selected suitably from different branches. The nonlinearly coupled envelope equations for the SHG are derived by using a method of multiple scales. The explicit solutions of these envelope equations are provided and the conversion efficiency of the SHG is also discussed.

The quantum tunnelling between two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well configuration

We examine in terms of exact solutions of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation, the quantum tunnelling process in Bose-Einstein condensates of two interacting species trapped in a double well configuration. Based on the two series of time-dependent SU(2) gauge transformations, we diagonalize the Hamilton operator and obtain analytic time-evolution formulas of the population imbalance and the berry phase. the particle population imbalance (a(L)(+)aL - a(R)(+)a(R)) of species A between the two wells is studied analytically.

The quantum tunneling between two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well configuration

In terms of exact solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation. we examine the quantum tunneling process in Bose condensates of two interacting species trapped in a double well configuration. We use the two series of time-dependent SU(2) gauge transformation to diagonalize the Hamilton operator obtain analytic time-evolution formulas of the population imbalance and the berry phase. The particle population imbalance (a(L)(+)a(L) - a(R)(+)a(R)) of species A between the two wells is studied analytically.

Broadband terahertz time-domain spectroscopy of drugs-of-abuse and the use of principal component analysis

EPSRC, the European Community IST FP6 Integrated, etc

Two-component model for the interstellar scattering in direction to the Vela pulsar

This paper discusses a rigorous treatment of the refractive scintillation of pulsar PSR B0833-45 caused by a two-component interstellar scattering medium. It is assumed that the interstellar scattering medium is composed of a thin screen ISM and an extended interstellar medium. We consider that the scattering of the thin screen concentrates in a thin layer presented by a delta function distribution and that the scattering density of the extended irregular medium satisfies the Gaussian distribution. We investigate and develop equations for the flux density structure function corresponding to this two-component ISM geometry in the scattering density distribution and compare our result with that of the Vela pulsar observations. We conclude that the refractive scintillation caused by this two-component ISM scattering gives a more satisfactory explanation for the observed flux density variation of the Vela pulsar than does the single extended medium model. The level of refractive scintillation is strongly sensitive to the distribution of scattering material along the line of sight. The logarithmic slope of the structure function is sensitive to thin screen location and is relatively insensitive to the scattering strength of the thin screen medium. Therefore, the proposed model can be applied to interpret the structure function of flux density observed in pulsar PSR B0833-45. The result suggests that the medium consists of a discontinuous distribution of plasma turbulence embedded in the Vela supernova remnant. Thus our work provides some insight into the distribution of the scattering along the line of sight to the Vela pulsar.

多分量对偶超导理论和口袋模型；Multi-component Dual Superconductor Theory and Bag Model

基于联络新参数化方案研究了多分量对偶超导模型。给出了多分量Ginzburg-Landau模型中的自对偶解,并研究了磁通量子数趋于无穷大时的墙涡旋解,以及与口袋模型之间的联系。