The capability to easily and inexpensively fabricate microfluidic devices with negligible dependence on specialized laboratory equipment continues to be one of the primary forces driving the widespread use of plastic-based devices. These devices are typically produced as replicas of a rigid mold or master incorporating a negative image of the desired structures. The negative image is typically constructed from either thick photoresists or etched silicon substrates using conventional photolithographic fabrication processes. While these micromachining techniques are effective in constructing masters with micron-sized features, the need to produce masters rapidly in order to design, fabricate, and test microfluidic devices, is a major challenge in microfluidic technology. In this research, we use inexpensive photosensitized copper clad circuit board substrates to produce master molds using conventional printed circuit technology. The techniques provide the benefits of parallel fabrication associated with photolithography without the need for cleanroom facilities, thereby offering a degree of speed and simplicity that allows microfluidic master molds to be constructed in approximately 30 minutes in any laboratory. These techniques are used to produce a variety of microfluidic channel networks using PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and melt-processable plastic materials.

Soft processors simplify hardware design by being able to implement complex control strategies using software. However, they are not fast enough for many intensive data-processing tasks, such as highly data-parallel embedded applications. This thesis suggests adding a vector processing core to the soft processor as a general-purpose accelerator for these types of applications. The approach has the benefits of a purely software-oriented development model, a fixed ISA allowing parallel software and hardware development, a single accelerator that can accelerate multiple functions in an application, and scalable performance with a single source code. With no hardware design experience needed, a software programmer can make area-versus-performance tradeoffs by scaling the number of functional units and register file bandwidth with a single parameter. The soft vector processor can be further customized by a number of secondary parameters to add and remove features for the specific application to optimize resource utilization. This thesis shows that a vector processing architecture maps efficiently into an FPGA and provides a scalable amount of performance for a reasonable amount of area. Configurations of the soft vector processor with different performance levels are estimated to achieve speedups of 2-24x for 5-26x the area of a Nios II/s processor on three benchmark kernels.

The present dissertation describes some of the ground movement problems associated with tunnelling in soft ground. A possible response of pipelines to such ground movements is also studied in the context of a case history of pipes lying parallel to a tunnel centre line. Analyses of tunnel excavation with and without lining installation, and of the pipe behaviour, have been performed by means of the finite element method. Four examples of analysis and their results are presented, with the main characteristics related the each being highlighted. Field observations of ground movements caused by tunnelling in soil have been gathered together and added to those presented by Peck (1969) and Attewell (1977) in order to attempt to define empirical relations that could describe a geometric form of settlement profile and to predict its magnitude. A three-dimensional finite element program has been written in order to carry out the style of analysis that two-dimensional models cannot accommodate. The isoparametric hexahedral rectangular element has been used in view of its facility in programming and discretising the medium of interest. The computer program has been developed to allow for different loading conditions and calculations to be carried out using linear material behaviour only. Features which have been considered in the tunnel-ground-pipes analyses include simulation of incremental construction. Because it was clearly impractical to model the entire system of interest by means of a single finite element mesh, an alternative analytical-numerical hybrid technique is described.

No description available.

No description available.

In recent years there has been much interest in the self-assembly of materials. Much of this research has been focused on the self-assembly of particles in solution (colloids), typically on the order of nanometres or micrometres in size. While it is easy to imagine the self-assembly of either irregularly shaped particles, or particles under an anisotropic potential, a novel class of colloids with engineerable isotropic interactions have achieved this aim. With the use of Self-Consistent Field Theory (SCFT), a mean-field model first developed for polymer melt systems, we develop a model for a system of particles of two species. One species experiences a long-range repulsive and short-range attractive interaction. The other is inert, acting as a solvent in which the former is suspended. Using this method, we calculated the equilibrium morphologies of the system for various parameters including the total volume fraction of one species relative to the other, the strengths and ranges of both the attractive and repulsive components of the interaction, and the relative particle sizes. In this way, we are able to loosely mimic the polymer-coated colloidal systems that are one of the current subjects of self-assembly research. By reducing our model to a simplified, isotropic interaction, we are able to show that the self-assembly of such systems is the result of the nature of the interaction and not any anisotropy within the model. We have also shown that the phase progressions of this system exhibit remarkable agreement with those of diblock copolymer melt systems despite significant differences in the molecules of these two systems.

Soft processors simplify hardware design by being able to implement complex control strategies using software. However, they are not fast enough for many intensive data-processing tasks, such as highly data-parallel embedded applications. This thesis suggests adding a vector processing core to the soft processor as a general-purpose accelerator for these types of applications. The approach has the benefits of a purely software-oriented development model, a fixed ISA allowing parallel software and hardware development, a single accelerator that can accelerate multiple functions in an application, and scalable performance with a single source code. With no hardware design experience needed, a software programmer can make area-versus-performance tradeoffs by scaling the number of functional units and register file bandwidth with a single parameter. The soft vector processor can be further customized by a number of secondary parameters to add and remove features for the specific application to optimize resource utilization. This thesis shows that a vector processing architecture maps efficiently into an FPGA and provides a scalable amount of performance for a reasonable amount of area. Configurations of the soft vector processor with different performance levels are estimated to achieve speedups of 2-24x for 5-26x the area of a Nios II/s processor on three benchmark kernels.

Zugl.: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2007.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 78 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-78).

The effect of monolaurin (0.35 mM) and lauric acid (5.0 mM) alone and in combination has been tested on growth of three cheesebome strains of Listeria monocytogenes and two strains of L. innocna. The Listeria spp. were grown in Tryptose Soya Yeast Glucose Broth (TSGYB) in shake culture at 10 °C and an initial pH of 7.0. The additives were dissolved in butter oil 10 % (w/v). Lauric acid (5.0 mM) increased the doubling time of the five Listeria spp. by 3 - 8 h at 10 °C. Monolaurin by itself was found to slightly increase or decrease the doubling time depending on the microbial strain. Monolaurin had an augmentative effect when combined with lauric acid in the presence of butter oil, where the doubling time increased between 10 to 15 h depending on the strain. Inhibition of Listeria spp. was seen in the model bi-phasic broth system. A model food system was developed to test the antimicrobial properties of lauric acid and monolaurin, where the fat soluble additives were dissolved in cream and milk with 3.6% (w/v) fat. The milk was reconstituted from skim milk and cream 40 % (w/v) fat containing lauric acid or monolaurin. This milk was used to make a soft-ripened cheese of the Brie Camembert type. Two strains of L. innocna were added to the reconstituted milk. During production of the soft-ripened cheese, a draining table was designed to comply with COSHH regulations so that the whey containing L. innocua could be removed and disposed of by heating for 30 min at 121 °C.In cheeses without lauric acid or monolaurin the population of L. innocua increased from 10[3] g[-1] to 10[7] cfu g[-1] on the surface of the cheese. The counts in the centre of the cheese were less at 10[5] cfu g[-1] after ripening for 28 d at 10 °C. Addition of 0.9 mM monolaurin reduced the count to 10[5] cfu g[-1] after 28 d ripening at 10 °C on the surface of the cheese. The effect of increasing the initial draining time at ambient temperature from 24 h to 48 h reduced the population to 0 after 28 d ripening at 10 °C. Unlike experiments in broth culture, addition of lauric acid changed the aroma of the Camembert-type cheese to give a blue cheese aroma. This was due to the conversion of lauric acid to a methyl ketone (2-undecanone) by the starter fungus Penicillium camembertii. Due to lack of stability of lauric acid in this system, lauric acid was omitted from the reconstituted milk in further experiments. During production of cheese, lactose was converted to mainly lactic acid by metabolism of the lactic acid starter. The presence of lactic acid combined with the added monolaurin resulted in a significant reduction in the population of L. innocua particularly when the draining time was increased from 24 h to 48 h. The unusual approach in this study was to dissolve the biocide in the non-aqueous phase, butter oil in the experiments in broth culture and in cream in the model cheese experiments. An untrained taste panel detected monolaurin (0.9 mM) in soft-ripened cheese. Some respondents liked the 'mature' taste whilst others described it as 'farmyard like'. In food systems the use of antimicrobials which result in an increase in the lag phase or a reduction in the overall population of pathogens, has a significant role in promoting the microbiological safety of a product which is eaten without further heat treatment.