This paper introduces a method for fabricating microscale DNA hydrogels using irradiation with patterned light. Optical fabrication allows for the flexible and tunable formation of DNA hydrogels without changing the environmental conditions. Our scheme is based on local heat generation via the photothermal effect, which is induced by light irradiation on a quenching species. We demonstrate expe...

Thixotropy implies non-equilibrium initial conditions after remolding. At the macroscale, thixotropy manifests as the regain in mechanical properties. At the microscale, thixotropy involves phenomena such as contact creep and interparticle force redistribution, homogenization of pore pressure (in saturated and partially saturated soils), altered ionic distribution and mobility, and the effects ...

This paper reports on the development of a multi-layer microscale impedance measurement system with integrated working, counter, and reference electrodes that can be used to probe transport at the nanoscale. System fabrication and testing are carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of such a system for characterizing transport through nanocapillary array membranes (NCAMs). Results indicate t...

Electrical forces for manipulating cells at the microscale include electrophoresis and dielectrophoresis. Electrophoretic forces arise from the interaction of a cell's charge and an electric field, whereas dielectrophoresis arises from a cell's polarizability. Both forces can be used to create microsystems that separate cell mixtures into its component cell types or act as electrical "handles" ...

This paper reports research in progress. Two types of domain decomposition have been used in distributed computing with networked workstations for the numerical modeling of full-scale utility boilers. The numerical model is a three-dimensional combustion code which couples turbulent computational fluid dynamics with the chemical reaction process and the radiative heat transfer. Two approaches, ...

Phytoplankton-produced dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) provides underwater and atmospheric foraging cues for several species of marine invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals. However, its role in the chemical ecology of marine planktonic microbes is largely unknown, and there is evidence for contradictory functions. By using microfluidics and image analysis of swimming behavior, we observed ...

The Mindlin–Engelbrecht–Pastrone model is applied to simulating 1D wave propagation in microstructured solids. The model takes into account the nonlinearity in microand macroscale. Numerical solutions are found for the full system of equations (FSE) and the hierarchical equation (HE). The latter is derived from the FSE by making use of the slaving principle. Analysis of results demonstrates goo...

Phytoplankton cells have evolved sophisticated strategies for actively responding to environmental signals, most notably to mechanical stresses of hydrodynamic origin. A largely unanswered question, however, is the significance of these cellular responses for the largely heterogeneous spatial distribution of cells found in the oceans. Motivated by the physiological regulation of buoyancy preval...

Continuous culture experiments provide steady state conditions where cellular activity can be measured reproducibly. Experiments are generally prohibitive due to the cost and volume of growth media for long term experiments. Microfluidic devices are well suited to reduce volume requirements for experiments, but controlling volume in elastic devices is challenging. We propose a plastic-PDMS devi...

We make comments on the presentation of Sinton’s paper (Microfluidics and Nanofluidics 1: 2, 2004) about the microscale flow visualization since the effects of the roughness along the microfabricated wall upon the current macroflow visualization methods could be significant and cannot be neglected in microdomain and even nanodomain. Sinton just presented a rather interesting and comprehensive r...