Parametric modeling of steady-state gradient coil vibration: Resonance dynamics under variations in cylinder geometry

Gradient coil (GC) vibration is the root cause of many problems in MRI adversely affecting scanner performance, image quality, and acoustic noise levels. A critical issue is that GC vibration will be significantly increased close to any GC mechanical resonances. It is well known that altering the dimensions of a GC fundamentally affects the mechanical resonances excited by the GC windings. The precise nature of the effects (i.e., how the resonances are affected) is however not well understood. The purpose of the present paper is to study how the mechanical resonances excited by closed whole-body Z-gradient coils are affected by variations in cylinder geometry. A mathematical Z-gradient coil vibration model recently developed and validated by the authors is used to theoretically study the resonance dynamics under variation(s) in cylinder: (i) length, (ii) mean radius, and (iii) radial thickness. The forced-vibration response to Lorentz-force excitation is in each case analyzed in terms of the frequency response of the GC cylinder's displacement. In cases (i) and (ii), the qualitative dynamics are simple: reducing the cylinder length and/or mean radius causes all mechanical resonances to shift to higher frequencies. In case (iii), the qualitative dynamics are much more complicated with different resonances shifting in different directions and additional dependencies on the cylinder length. The more detailed dynamics are intricate owing to the fact that resonances shift at comparatively different rates and this leads to several novel and theoretically interesting predicted effects. Knowledge of these effects advance our understanding of the basic mechanics of GC vibration and offer practically useful insights into how such vibration may be passively reduced.     

Guaranteed cost positive consensus for multi-agent systems with multiple time-varying delays and MDADT switching

Nonlinear Dynamics - This paper investigates the guaranteed cost positive consensus for linear multi-agent systems (MASs) with multiple time-varying delays and switching topologies. First,...     

Trends in the detection of pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting compounds by Field-Effect Transistors (FETs)

Field-effect transistors (FETs) are one of the most widely-used electronic sensors for continuous monitoring and detection of contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting compounds at low concentrations. FETs have been successfully utilized for the rapid analysis of these environmental pollutants due to their advantageous material properties like the disposability, rapid responses and simplicity. This paper presented an up-to-date overview of applied strategies with different bio-based materials in order to enhance the analytical performances of the designed sensors. Comparison and discussion were made between characteristics of recently engineered FET bio-sensors used for the detection of famous and selected pharmaceutical compounds in the literature. The recent progress in environmental research applications, comments on interesting trends, current challenge for future research in endocrine-disrupting chemicals’ (EDCs) detection using FETs biosensors were highlighted.     

Fabrication and characterization of cellulose nanoparticles from maize stalk pith via ultrasonic-mediated cationic etherification

In this study, parenchyma cellulose, which was extracted from maize stalk pith as an abundant source of agricultural residues, was applied for preparing cellulose nanoparticles (CNPs) via an ultrasound-assisted etherification and a subsequent sonication process. The ultrasonic-assisted treatment greatly improved the modification of the pith cellulose with glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride, leading to a partial increase in the dissolubility of the as-obtained product and thus disintegration of sheet-like cellulose into nanoparticles. While the formation of CNPs by ultrasonication was largely dependent on the cellulose consistency in the cationic-modified system. Under the condition of 25% cellulose consistency, the longer sono-treated duration yielded a more stable and dispersible suspension of CNP due to its higher zeta potential. Degree of substitution and FT-IR analyses indicated that quaternary ammonium salts were grafted onto hydroxyl groups of cellulose chain. SEM and TEM images exhibited the CNP to have spherical morphology with an average dimeter from 15 to 55 nm. XRD investigation revealed that CNPs consisted mainly of a crystalline cellulose Ι structure, and they had a lower crystallinity than the starting cellulose. Moreover, thermogravimetric results illustrated the thermal resistance of the CNPs was lower than the pith cellulose. The optimal CNP with highly cationic charges, good stability and acceptable thermostability might be considered as one of the alternatively renewable reinforcement additives for nanocomposite production.     

Springer basic sets and modular Springer correspondence for classical types

We define the notion of basic set data for finite groups (building on the notion of basic set, but including an order on the irreducible characters as part of the structure), and we prove that the Springer correspondence provides basic set data for Weyl groups. Then we use this to determine explicitly the modular Springer correspondence for classical types (defined over a base field of odd characteristic $p$, and with coefficients in a field of odd characteristic $?\ne p$): the modular case is obtained as a restriction of the ordinary case to a basic set. In order to do so, we compare the order on bipartitions introduced by Dipper and James with the order induced by the Springer correspondence. We provide a quick proof, by sorting characters according to the dimension of the corresponding Springer fibre, an invariant which is directly computable from symbols.     

Electrochemiluminescence Enhanced by the Synergetic Effect of Porphyrin and Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes for Uric Acid Detection

The design and exploration of efficient, stable and environmentally compatible organic emitters for an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensor is a promising topic. Herein, a novel environmentally-friendly luminophore, ZnBCBTP@MWCNTs, were fabricated via self-assembly of porphyrin molecules (ZnBCBTP) onto multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The resulting luminophore ZnBCBTP@MWCNTs displayed not only the highly ECL property and but also the good accelerated electron mobility. Then, a label-free ECL biosensor based ZnBCBTP@MWCNTs was constructed for the ultrasensitive detection of uric acid. Excitingly, this proposed ECL biosensor performed a good linear relationship in the range of 0–300 μM with a low detection limit of 1.4 μM, thus offering another reliable and feasible sensing platform for clinical bioanalysis with good selectivity, stability, and repeatability.     

Uniform local well-posedness and inviscid limit for the Benjamin-Ono-Burgers equation

In this paper, we study the Cauchy problem for the Benjamin-Ono-Burgers equation \({\partial _t}u - \epsilon \partial _x^2u + {\cal H}\partial _x^2u + u{u_x} = 0\), where \({\cal H}\) denotes the Hilbert transform operator. We obtain that it is uniformly locally well-posed for small data in the refined Sobolev space \({\tilde H^\sigma }(\mathbb{R})\,\,(\sigma \geqslant 0)\), which is a subspace of L²(ℝ). It is worth noting that the low-frequency part of \({\tilde H^\sigma }(\mathbb{R})\) is scaling critical, and thus the small data is necessary. The high-frequency part of \({\tilde H^\sigma }(\mathbb{R})\) is equal to the Sobolev space H^σ (ℝ) (σ ⩾ 0) and reduces to L²(ℝ). Furthermore, we also obtain its inviscid limit behavior in \({\tilde H^\sigma }(\mathbb{R})\) (σ ⩾ 0).

     

Facet-dependent antibacterial activity of Au nanocrystals

Engineered nanomaterials have attracted significantly attention as one of the most promising antimicrobial agents for against multidrug resistant infections. The toxicological responses of nanomaterials are closely related to their physicochemical properties, and establishment of a structure-activity relationship for nanomaterials at the nano-bio interface is of great significance for deep understanding antibacterial toxicity mechanisms of nanomaterials and designing safer antibacterial nanomaterials. In this study, the antibacterial behaviors of well-defined crystallographic facets of a series of Au nanocrystals, including {100}-facet cubes, {110}-facet rhombic dodecahedra, {111}-facet octahedra, {221}-facet trisoctahedra and {720}-facet concave cubes, was investigated, using the model bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. We find that Au nanocrystals display substantial facet-dependent antibacterial activities. The low-index facets of cubes, octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra show considerable antibacterial activity, whereas the high-index facets of trisoctahedra and concave cubes remained inert under biological conditions. This result is in stark contrast to the previous paradigm that the high-index facets were considered to have higher bioactivity as compared with low-index facets. The antibacterial mechanism studies have shown that the facet-dependent antibacterial behaviors of Au nanocrystals are mainly caused by differential bacterial membrane damage as well as inhibition of cellular enzymatic activity and energy metabolism. The faceted Au nanocrystals are unique in that they do not induce generation of reactive oxygen species, as validated for most antibiotics and antimicrobial nanostructures. Our findings may provide a deeper understanding of facet-dependent toxicological responses and suggest the complexities of the nanomaterial-cell interactions, shedding some light on the development of high performance Au nanomaterials-based antibacterial therapeutics.