Miniaturization encourages the development of new manufacturing processes capable of fabricating features, like micro-channels, in order to use them for different applications, such as in fuel cells, heat exchangers, microfluidic devices and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). Many studies have been conducted on heat and fluid transfer in micro-channels, and they appeared significantly devi...

Blockade of voltage-gated sodium (Na+) channels by local anesthetics represents the main mechanism for inhibition of impulse propagation. Local anesthetic-induced potassium (K+) channel inhibition is also known to influence transmission of sensory impulses and to potentiate inhibition. K+ channels involved in this mechanism may belong to the emerging family of background tandem pore domain K+ c...

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a novel piezoelectric actuator for a gas micro pump with check valve having the advantages of miniature size, light weight and low power consumption. The micro pump is designed to have eight major components, namely a stainless steel upper cover layer, a piezoelectric actuator, a stainless steel diaphragm, a PDMS chamber layer, two stainless ste...

This paper presents a novel channel fabrication technology of bulk-micromachined monolithic embedded polymer channels in silicon substrate. The fabrication process favorably obviates the need for sacrificial materials in surface-micromachined channels and wafer-bonding in conventional bulk-micromachined channels. Single-layer-deposited parylene C (poly-para-xylylene C) is selected as a structur...

Fluid mixing is a crucial and challenging process for microfluidic systems, which are widely used in biochemical processes. Because of their fast performance, active micromixers that use stirrer blades are considered for biological applications. In the present study, by using a robust and convenient Incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (ISPH) method, miscible mix...

To investigate the effects of the two-pore-domain potassium (K2P) channel TASK-3 in a syngeneic murine model for malignant glioma. Malignant or high-grade glioma (WHO grade III and IV) are the most common and most aggressive primary brain tumors in adults. Despite aggressive multimodal therapy, the outcome of patients with malignant glioma remains poor. However, recent phase I and II trials hav...

Micro-channels were fabricated in hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber (HC-PBGF) and suspended-core holey fiber (SC-HF) by femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser irradiation. Gaseous access was demonstrated via these engineered ports to the core of HC-PBGF and the hollow cladding of SC-HF. Femtosecond laser micro-machining caused no additional transmission loss in HC-PBGFs. This allowed a novel gas cell t...