Cell biomechanics and its applications in human disease diagnosis

Certain diseases are known to cause changes in the physical and biomechanical properties of cells.These include cancer,malaria,and sickle cell anemia among others.Typically,such physical property changes can result in several fold increases or decreases in cell stiffness,which are significant and can result in severe pathology and eventual catastrophic breakdown of the bodily functions.While there are developed biochemical and biological assays to detect the onset or presence of diseases,there is always a need to develop more rapid,precise,and sensitive methods to detect and diagnose diseases.Biomechanical property changes can play a significant role in this regard.As such,research into disease biomechanics can not only give us an in-depth knowledge of the mechanisms underlying disease progression,but can also serve as a powerful tool for detection and diagnosis.This article provides some insights into opportunities for how significant changes in cellular mechanical properties during onset or progression of a disease can be utilized as useful means for detection and diagnosis.We will also showcase several technologies that have already been developed to perform such detection and diagnosis.     

Arbitrary amplitude dust-acoustic solitary waves in a dusty plasma with flat-topped ion distribution

The properties of arbitrary amplitude dust-acoustic (DA) solitary waves (SWs) in a dusty plasma containing warm adiabatic dust fluid, isothermal electrons and ions following flat-topped velocity distribution is studied by the pseudo-potential approach. The effects of dust temperature and flat-trapped ions are found to significantly modify the basic features of DA-SWs as well modify the parametric regime for the existence of rarefactive solitary waves. The pseudo-potential for small amplitude limit is also analytically analyzed, and the numerical results are found to agree with analytical results.     

Dust ion-acoustic shock waves due to dust charge fluctuation in a superthermal dusty plasma

The nonlinear propagation of dust ion-acoustic (DIA) shock waves is studied in a charge varying dusty plasma with electrons having kappa velocity distribution. We use hot ions with equilibrium streaming speed and a fast superthermal electron charging current derived from orbit limited motion (OLM) theory. It is found that the presence of superthermal electrons does not only significantly modify the basic properties of shock waves, but also causes the existence of shock profile with only positive potential in such plasma with parameter ranges corresponding to Saturn?s rings. It is also shown that the strength and steepness of the shock waves decrease with increase of the size of dust grains and ion temperature.     

Specifications of dust-ion-acoustic shock waves affected by dust charge variation in four-component dissipative quantum plasma

ABSTRACT

Nonlinear propagation of dust-ion-acoustic shock waves in an unmagnetized, collisionless four-component quantum plasma containing electrons, positrons, ions and negatively charged dust grains affected by dust charge variations and viscosity of ions is studied using quantum hydrodynamic model. Considering dust charge variation give rise to calculating of charging currents of the plasma particles. These currents have been calculated with orbit limited motion theory and using Fermi-distribution functions or Boltzmann–Maxwell distribution depending on quantum or classical particles, respectively. The basic characteristics of quantum dust-ion-acoustic shock waves are investigated by deriving Korteweg–de Vries–Burgers equation under the reductive perturbation method. Depending on the relative values of the dispersive and dissipative coefficients, oscillatory and monotonic shock waves can propagate in the plasma model. The effect of chemical potential and density of dust particles on the shock wave’s height and thickness is investigated. In addition, the critical value of H (H_c) is calculated and it is shown that for R?>?0 compressive shock waves and for R?<?0 rarefactive ones can exist. The present study is applicable to researchers on quantum nonlinear structures in dense astrophysical objects and ultra-small micro- and nano-electronic devices.     

Nano‐WO3‐SO3H as a New Photocatalyst Insight Through Covalently Grafted Brønsted Acid: Highly Efficient Selective Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohols to Aldehydes

Modification of nano‐WO₃ with ?SO₃H groups as a covalently grafted solid acid reduced its band‐gap energy from 2.8 to 2.4 eV and made it an ideal nominee for photocatalytic reaction under visible light irradiation. This nano‐photocatalyst has been successfully used for the selective oxidation of different benzyl alcohols to corresponding aldehydes under blue LED irradiation. The reaction became approximately two times faster with excellent yields. It has shown that the nitrobenzene as an available industrial oxidant is applicable for photocatalytic oxidation of benzyl alcohol; remarkably high yield and selectivity have been observed.     

Study of the magnetostrictive strains in Pr6Fe11Ga3 alloy

Magnetoelastic properties of the Pr₆Fe₁₁Ga₃ alloy are studied by magnetostriction and thermal expansion measurements. The effects of short- and long-range magnetic ordering processes about Curie temperature clearly appear in the temperature dependence of the spontaneous magnetostriction as two increasing steps with decreasing temperatures. Thermal variations of the total magnetocrystalline anisotropy introduce pronounce changes in the isofield curves of the forced magnetostriction as a negative minimum below 200 K, a compensation phenomena about 250 K, and a positive maximum between 250 K and T_c=320 K. The observed behavior of magnetostriction is discussed in terms of the competitive anisotropies of Pr and Fe sublattices and coupling magnetostrictive constants.     

Influence of H and N insertion on the magnetostriction and thermal expansion of YFe10V2Zx (Z=N,H) compositions

Experimental results on the thermal expansion and magnetostriction of YFe₁₀V₂ composites are reported and the influence of H and N interstitial atoms is studied. The anisotropic magnetostriction is about 30% larger in the composite than in the starting alloy. Also, the anisotropic magnetostriction remains positive after insertion of H (N) ion while the sign of volume magnetostriction changes by hydrogenation. The anisotropic magnetoelastic interactions are enhanced by insertion of H and especially N interstitial atoms. The results are discussed considering the effect of H and N, and of temperature on magnetic anisotropy and microstructure.     

Lattice Boltzmann simulation of 3-dimensional natural convection heat transfer of CuO/water nanofluids

The present study investigated fluid flow and natural convection heat transfer in an enclosure embedded with isothermal cylinder. The purpose was to simulate the three-dimensional natural convection by thermal lattice Boltzmann method based on the D3Q19 model. The effects of suspended nanoparticles on the fluid flow and heat transfer analysis have been investigated for different parameters such as particle volume fraction, particle diameters, and geometry aspect ratio. It is seen that flow behaviors and the average rate of heat transfer in terms of the Nusselt number (Nu) are effectively changed with different controlling parameters such as particle volume fraction (5 % ≤ φ ≤ 10 %), particle diameter (d _p = 10 nm to 30 nm) and aspect ratio (0.5 ≤ AR ≤ 2) with fixed Rayleigh number, Ra = 10⁵. The present results give a good approximation for choosing an effective parameter to design a thermal system.     

New graph products of specified domains for configuration processing

In this paper new graph products are defined with specified domains. In these products the logical operations of the graph products are only applicable in specified domains, and therefore these products can produce configurations which do not need to be regular. Compound models can be generated and cut-outs and other irregularities can be incorporated using these products. (© 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)