Thesis--M. Sc. (Eng.), University of Hong Kong. / Mimeographed.

Pressure ischemia is a medical condition characterised by the necrosis of the skin and underlying tissues in body areas exposed to prolonged pressure. This condition leads to the development of bedsores and affects 9% of hospitalised patients, costing the NHS between £1.4 and £2.1 billion per year. The severity of pressure ischemia has been linked to the concentration of sweat lactate, a product of sweat gland metabolism under anaerobic conditions, such as hypoxia. Normal levels of lactate in human sweat are 20±7 mM, but under ischemic conditions these can rise up to approximately 70 mM. This project presents the development of a novel flexible electrochemical enzyme-based biosensor for the continuous and non-invasive monitoring of sweat lactate with the potential for becoming a body-worn device for the early detection of pressure ischemia onset. The core of the recognition system is a flexible laminate, comprising two highly porous polycarbonate membranes, which provide support for the lactate oxidase enzyme, immobilised via covalent cross-linking. Oxidation of lactate produces H2O2, which is subsequently determined electrochemically. The transducer comprises a two-electrode system on a single flexible polycarbonate membrane, sputter-coated with gold (CE/RE) and platinum (WE) to render it conductive. The developed design has been improved through investigation into different factors regarding the immobilisation method of the enzyme in the laminate and the lowering of interferences from oxidising compounds present in sweat. The sensing system exhibits lactate selectivity at physiologically relevant concentrations in sweat for pressure ischemia (0–70 mM), with good reproducibility (7.2–12.2% RSD) for a hand-manufactured device. The reliability of the sensor’s performance and the capability to detect lactate fluctuations on human sweat samples has been demonstrated. The sensing system showed excellent operational and mechanical stability. The application of Nafion® on the WE lowered interferences from ascorbic acid and uric acid by 96.7 and 81.7% respectively. These results show promise towards the further development of a body-­‐worn monitoring device for determining lactate levels in undiluted human sweat samples in a reproducible, fast and accurate manner.

A systematic study of how mudstone permeability impacts reservoir pore pressure is important to understand the regional fluid field within sedimentary basins and the control of sediment properties on subsurface pressure. I develop a 2D static model to predict reservoir overpressure from information estimated from the bounding mudstones and structural relief. This model shows that close to a dipping reservoir, the mudstone permeability is high in the up-dip location and low in the down-dip location. This characteristic mudstone permeability variation causes the depth where reservoir pressure equals mudstone pressure (equal pressure depth) to be shallower than the mid-point of the reservoir structure. Based on the 2D static model, I constructed a nomogram to determine the equal pressure depth by considering both farfield mudstone vertical effective stress and reservoir structural relief. I find the equal pressure depth becomes shallower with decreasing vertical effective stress, increasing reservoir structural relief, and increasing mudstone compressibility. Pressure predicted by the static model agrees with pressure predicted by a more complete model that simulates the evolution of the basin and is supported by field observations in the Bullwinkle Basin (Green Canyon 65, Gulf of Mexico). This study can be applied to reduce drilling risk, analyze trap integrity, and facilitate safe and efficient exploration. / text

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

Hydrostatic pressure sensing is used by aquatic animals to estimate depth and to synchronize behaviour with the tides. Pressure sensors examined to date depend on the compression of a fluid, making them susceptible to temperature change. Despite this, the effects of temperature on pressure sensing have not so far been researched. This thesis examined the effects of temperature on the afferent firing rate of thread hair pressure receptors in the crab Carcinus maenas. It tested the hypothesis that for sensors responding positively to rising pressure, an increase in temperature should counteract any contraction in volume, thereby leading to a weaker neural response; vice versa, a stronger response was predicted for a temperature decrease. A novel system was developed which allowed the simultaneous application of sinusoidal pressure change from 150 to 350 mbar and cycles of temperature, typically spanning between 16 and 22 °C, while extracellular recordings were made en passant from afferent nerves innervating statocyst thread hairs. Motor programmes were designed to stimulate thread hairs sensitive to clockwise and anticlockwise rotation through continuous or interrupted bouts of oscillation within the horizontal plane. During constant pressure, raising temperature led to increases in spike frequency and amplitude, with Q10s between 3 and 5 for spike frequency but less than 2 for amplitude. Cooling caused the elimination or decrease of pressure responses while increasing them on heating, thereby contradicting the aforementioned hypothesis of temperature mimicking pressure change. Changes in the timing of pressure responses were also observed. In preparations which were non-responsive to pressure change, temperature change led to bursts in firing at the peaks or troughs of pressure cycles in 28 of 42 preparations, with evidence for recruitment of formerly silent units. The results could not be fully explained under the existing model for pressure sensing by thread hairs, highlighting the necessity for further anatomical studies.

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

No description available.

No description available.

It is well known that very few models of interacting systems particularly those in dimension higher than two, can be solved exactly. The mean-field treatment is the first step in approximate calculations for such models. Although mean-field approximation leads to sufficiently accurate results of the thermodynamic properties of these systems away from critical points, most often it fails miserably close to the critical points. In this thesis, we propose to study direct methods (not based on any mean-field type approximations) for proving the exponential decay of the two point-correlation functions and the analyticity of the pressure (free energy per unit volume) for models of Kac type. The methods are based on the Helffer-Sjöstrand formula for the covariance in terms of Witten's Laplacians.

No description available.