Review: the latest advances in biomedical applications of chitosan hydrogel as a powerful natural structure with eye-catching biological properties

Journal of Materials Science - Chitosan is one of the natural cationic polymers with unique properties such as non-toxicity, biodegradability, biocompatibility, environmentally friendly that has...     

Low Temperature Characteristics of the Metal–Superconductor NIS Tunneling Thermometer

We discuss the temperature dependence of a common low temperature local thermometer, a tunnel junction between a superconductor and a normal metal (NIS junction). Towards the lowest temperatures its characteristics tend to saturate, which is usually attributed to selfheating effects. In this technical note, we reanalyze this saturation and show that the temperature independent subgap current of the junction alone explains in some cases the low temperature behavior quantitatively.

     

Pre-peritoneal bisaccular umbilical and subcutaneous abscess after laparoscopic appendectomy

Laparoscopic surgery has gained much interest since its advent the late eighties. A 36-year-old patient underwent laparoscopic appendicectomy via the transumbilical route. She was rehospitalized three times thereafter for subumblical pain. At day +48, an abscess was evacuated at the point of the umbilical trocar insertion. This hour-glass shaped abscess had a preperitoneal and subcutaneous localization, blocked by the epiploic reaction. The infection this patient developed is an unusual clinical finding as pain was localized at a distance. The umbilical site and the preperitoneal subcutaneous nature of the abscess are also unusual. This case emphasizes the gravity of post-operative abscess of the abdominal wall and the necessity for adequate prophylaxy.     

The putative tumor suppressor gene on chromosome 5q for hepatocellular carcinoma is distinct from the MCC and APC genes

We have previously shown that the tumor suppressor gene for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) without cirrhosis may be located on chromosome 5q35-qter. In this study, we analyzed nine cases of primary HCC without cirrhosis using probes from the MCC and APC genes, which are in the region 5q21-22. None of the informative cases had allele loss detected by these probes, whereas the probe lambda MS8 for the region 5q35-qter showed allele loss in six out of six informative cases. The results confirm that the putative tumor suppressor gene for HCC without cirrhosis on chromosome 5q is distinct from the MCC and APC genes.     

Effects of the cryogenic cooling on the fatigue strength of the AISI 304 stainless steel ground components

For environmental considerations, the substitution of the conventionally used oil-based grinding fluids has nowadays become strongly recommended. Although several alternatives have been proposed, cryogenic cooling by liquid nitrogen is the non-polluting coolant that has been given relatively more attention because of its very low temperature. In this investigation, in order to contribute to developing this promising cooling mode, its beneficial effects on the ground surface integrity of the AISI 304 stainless steel and their consequences on the fatigue lifetime are explored. Results of this investigation show that grinding under cryogenic cooling mode generates surfaces with lower roughness, less defects, higher work hardening and less tensile residual stresses than those obtained on surfaces ground under oil-based grinding fluid. These surface enhancements result into substantial improvements in the fatigue behaviour of components ground under this cooling mode. An increasing rate of almost 15% of the endurance limit at 2 × 10⁶ cycles could be realized. SEM analyses of the fatigue fracture surfaces have shown that the fatigue cracks observed on the specimens ground under cryogenic cooling are shorter (i.e., 30-50 μm) than those generated under oil-based cooling mode (i.e., 150-200 μm). The realized improvements in the surface integrity and in the fatigue behaviour are thought to be related to the reduction of the grinding zone temperature observed under cryogenic cooling, as no significant differences between the grinding force components for both cooling modes have been observed.     

Erosion rate correlations of a pipe protruded in an abrupt pipe contraction

Erosion is one of the most serious problems in various gas and liquid flow passages such as flow in pipes, pumps, turbines, compressors and many other devices. Sand presence causes loss of pipe wall thickness that can lead to pipe erosion, frequent failures and loss of expensive production time. The importance of this problem is mainly due to many related engineering applications, viz. heat exchangers. In order to reduce the frequency of such pipe erosions, caps in the form of replaceable pipes are protruded in the sudden contraction regions which are exposed to most of the serious erosion rates. In the present work, numerical investigation of the erosion of a pipe protruded in a sudden contraction is presented. The turbulent, steady, 2-D axi-symmetric flow inside an axi-symmetric abrupt contraction pipe with a pipe protrusion embedded in it was solved by steady-state time averaged conservation equations of mass and momentum along with two equation model for turbulence. Particles are tracked using Lagrangian particle tracking. An erosion model was employed to investigate the erosion phenomena for the given geometry. The influence of the different parameters such as the inlet flow velocity (3–10 m/s), the particle diameter (10–400 μm), the protruded pipe geometry (thickness T=1–5 mm and depth H=2–5 mm) and the pipe contraction ratio (Cr=0.25–0.5) on the erosion of pipe protrusion was investigated. Correlations for the influence of inlet flow velocity, depth and thickness of the protruded pipe on the erosion rate are presented.     

Real-time processing and compression of DNA microarray images.

In this paper, we present a pipeline architecture specifically designed to process and compress DNA microarray images. Many of the pixilated image generation methods produce one row of the image at a time. This property is fully exploited by the proposed pipeline that takes in one row of the produced image at each clock pulse and performs the necessary image processing steps on it. This will remove the present need for sluggish software routines that are considered a major bottleneck in the microarray technology. Moreover, two different structures are proposed for compressing DNA microarray images. The proposed architecture is proved to be highly modular, scalable, and suited for a standard cell VLSI implementation.     

Depollution of atmospheric emissions of wood pyrolysis furnaces

The wood carbonization in Tunisia consists essentially of traditional activity using charcoaling stacks and pits characterized by high atmospheric pollution and poor energy conversion. Indeed, 70% of the initial mass of anhydrous wood are found in the vapor as aerosols, polluting and toxic gases and complex condensable organic compounds that can cause a substantial pollution of air, ground and water. Several processes of treatment and energy valorization of such effluents were proposed, but the incineration remains at present the most promising technique of depollution. The results show that the incineration, at about 1000°C, of wood carbonization smokes allows the destruction of 99% of the mass of pollutants except CO₂ and the reduction of polluting gas emission. The possible valorization of the smoke’s energy in the exit of the incinerator enhances the thermal efficiency of the process.     

Robust control of polytopic systems by convex optimization

Robust control synthesis of linear time-invariant SISO polytopic systems is investigated using the polynomial approach. A convex set of all stabilizing controllers for a polytopic system is given over an infinite-dimensional space. A finite-dimensional approximation of this set is obtained using the orthonormal basis functions and represented by a set of LMIs thanks to the KYP lemma. Then, an LMI based convex optimization problem for robust pole placement with sensitivity function shaping in two- and infinity-norm is proposed. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.