Disposable materials enjoy annually steady growth in volume in the field of medical applications as surgical gowns, isolation gowns, and medical drapes which impede cross contamination from reusable protective apparel in a hospital. There are four levels of liquid barrier performance according to the American National Standard/Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (ANSI/AAM...

BACKGROUND Autoclaving, heat, irradiation or chemical detergents are used to disinfect autografts, allografts and biomaterials for tissue reconstruction. These methods are often associated with deterioration of mechanical, physical, and biological properties of the bone grafts and synthetic implants. High hydrostatic pressure has been proposed as a novel method preserving biomechanical and biol...

Antiferroelectric lead zirconate is the key ingredient in modern ferroelectric and piezoelectric functional solid solutions. By itself it offers opportunities in new-type non-volatile memory and energy storage applications. A highly useful and scientifically puzzling feature of this material is the competition between the ferro- and antiferroelectric phases due to their energetic proximity, whi...

The dependence of the critical current density Jc on hydrostatic pressure to 0.6 GPa is determined for a single 25 degrees [001]-tilt grain boundary in a bicrystalline ring of nearly optimally doped melt-textured YBa2Cu3Ox. Jc is found to increase rapidly under pressure at +20%/GPa. A new diagnostic method is introduced (pressure-induced Jc relaxation) which reveals a sizable concentration of v...

Here, u(t,x) ∈ R3 denotes the velocity of the fluid at a point x ∈ and time t ∈ [0,T ]; w(t,x) ∈ R3, b(t,x) ∈ R3 and p(t,x) ∈ R denote, respectively, the micro-rotational velocity, the magnetic field and the hydrostatic pressure; the constants μ,χ,α,β,γ,j , and ν are positive numbers associated to properties of the material; f (t,x), g(t,x) ∈ R3 are given external fields. We assume that on the ...

We have investigated the effect of hydrostatic pressure as a function of temperature on the resistivity of a single crystal of the bilayer manganite (La(0.4)Pr(0.6))(1.2)Sr(1.8)Mn(2)O(7). Whereas a strong insulating behaviour is observed at all temperatures at ambient pressure, a clear transition into a metallic-like behaviour is induced when the sample is subjected to a pressure (P) of ~1.0 GP...

In glass, starting from a dependence of the Angell's fragility on the Poisson ratio [V. N. Novikov and A. P. Sokolov, Nature 431, 961 (2004)], and a dependence of the Poisson ratio on the atomic packing density [G. N. Greaves, A. L. Greer, R. S. Lakes, and T. Rouxel, Nature Mater. 10, 823 (2011)], we propose that the heterogeneities are predominantly density fluctuations in strong glasses (lowe...

Monolayer MoS2 is a promising material for optoelectronics applications owing to its direct bandgap, enhanced Coulomb interaction, strong spin-orbit coupling, unique valley pseudospin degree of freedom, etc. It can also be implemented for novel spintronics and valleytronics devices at atomic scale. The band structure of monolayer MoS2 is well known to have a direct gap at K (K') point, whereas ...

One of the most dramatic causes of damage of structures during earthquakes has been the development of liquefaction in saturated cohesionless deposits. These deposits have tendency to densify when subjected to earthquake loading. However, when saturated, the tendency to densify causes the excess pore water pressure to increase. This, in turn, results in the effective stress of soil to decrease....