BACKGROUND Neurotransmitters, neuropeptides and hormones are released from secretory vesicles of nerve terminals and neuroendocrine cells by calcium-activated exocytosis. A key step in this process is the formation of a fusion pore between the vesicle membrane and the plasma membrane. Exocytotic fusion leads to an increase in plasma membrane area that can be measured as a proportional increase ...

In this paper we introduce an image reconstruction technique for imaging permittivity distributions using electrical capacitance tomography, based on global optimization by very fast simulated annealing. Electrical capacitance measurement data are obtained between electrodes placed around the outer wall of an electrically insulating pipe. Such data are used to infer material distributions insid...

Measurement of evolutionary adaptations of a visual system to its visual and operational ecology requires comparison of visual function in different species with similar morphologies and visual ecologies, occupying the same habitats but displaying differences in visually-guided behavior. The goal here was to document the biophysical properties of photoreceptors in the lesser water boatman Corix...

Dielectric measurement techniques are used widely for estimation of water content in environmental media. However, factors such as temperature and salinity affecting the readings require further quantitative investigation and explanation. Theoretical sensitivities of capacitance sensors to liquid salinity and temperature of porous media were derived and computed using a revised electrical circu...

A near-field focusing capacitance sensor consists of an array of long, coplanar electrodes offset by a small interface gap from an identical orthogonal array of electrodes. The sensor may be used to characterize permittivity inhomogeneities in thin dielectric layers. The sensor capacitance measurements represent a tessellated matrix of integral-averaged values describing void content in a serie...

This paper presents a novel micro dynamically tuned gyroscope (MDTG) with adjustable static capacitance. First, the principle of MDTG is theoretically analyzed. Next, some simulations under the optimized structure parameters are given as a reference for the mask design of the rotor wafer and electrode plates. As two key components, the process flows of the rotor wafer and electrode plates are d...

A LECCS-I/O model of a multi-bit drive IC was devised for reducing electromagnetic interference. An equivalent power circuit model of the IC (74LVC04) was derived from measured power impedances by measuring four test boards. Each board consisted of a single layer, a powerimpedance measurement port, and two output ports from the six IC drivers. The power impedance was measured for various combin...

A theoretical study of single electron capacitance spectroscopy in quantum dots is presented. Exact diagonalizations and the unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation have been used to shed light over some of the unresolved aspects. The addition spectra of up to 15 electrons is obtained and compared with the experiment. We show evidence for understanding the decrease of the single electron tunnel...

In this work, a method is presented for controlling on-chip droplet dispensing by electro-wetting actuation in conjunction with capacitance feedback. The method exploits the built-in capacitance of an electro-wetting device to meter the droplet volume and control the dispensing process. A self-contained system is built to provide continuous-flow loading, capacitance measurement, and electro-wet...