All-Solid-State Interdigitated Micro-Supercapacitors Based on Porous Gold Electrodes.

Recent developments in embedded electronics require the development of micro sources of energy. In this paper, the fabrication of an on-chip interdigitated all-solid-state supercapacitor, using porous gold electrodes and a PVA/KOH quasisolid electrolyte, is demonstrated. The fabrication of the interdigitated porous gold electrode is performed using an original bottom-up approach. A templating method is used for porosity, using a wet chemistry process followed by microfabrication techniques. This paper reports the first example of an all-gold electrode micro-supercapacitor. The supercapacitor exhibits a specific capacitance equal to 0.28 mF·cm-2 and a specific energy of 0.14 mJ·cm-2. The capacitance value remains stable up to more than 8000 cycles.

Correction: The effect of information content on acceptance of cultured meat in a tasting context.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231176.].

European Markets for Cultured Meat: A Comparison of Germany and France.

The negative impacts of meat consumption for animals, the environment, and human health are more pressing than ever. Although some evidence points to an ongoing reduction in meat consumption in Europe, consumers are overall unwilling to cut their meat consumption in a substantial way. The present study investigates dietary identities and perceptions of cultured meat in nationally representative samples from Germany (n = 1000) and France (n = 1000). Participants were recruited through an Ipsos panel to answer an online survey, which included questions about their current and intended consumption of conventional meat, as well as questions about their opinions of cultured meat. We find that, whilst rates of vegetarianism were relatively low in France, unrestricted meat-eaters were a minority in Germany, and concern for animal welfare was the most common reason given for meat reduction. Substantial markets for cultured meat exist in both countries, although German consumers are significantly more open to the concept than the French. Strikingly, cultured meat acceptance is significantly higher amongst agricultural and meat workers, indicating that those who are closest to existing meat production methods are most likely to prefer alternatives. We found some evidence that pro-cultured meat messages, which focus on antibiotic resistance and food safety, are significantly more persuasive than those that focus on animals or the environment. Furthermore, consumers project that they would be significantly more likely to consume cultured meat that does not contain genetically modified ingredients. Overall, we find substantially large markets for cultured meat in Germany and France, and identify some potential ways to further increase acceptance in these markets. We conclude by highlighting the most promising markets for cultured meat, and highlighting a lack of antibiotics as a potentially persuasive message about cultured meat.

The effect of information content on acceptance of cultured meat in a tasting context.

Cultured meat, in particular beef, is an emerging food technology potentially challenged by issues of consumer acceptance. To understand drivers of consumer acceptance as well as sensory perception of cultured meat, we investigated the effect of information content on participants' acceptance of cultured meat in a tasting context. Hundred ninety-three citizens from the Netherlands participated, divided across three age and sex-matched groups which each received information on either societal benefits, personal benefits or information on the quality and taste of cultured meat. They filled out a questionnaire and tasted two pieces of hamburger, labeled 'conventional' or 'cultured', although both pieces were in fact conventional. Sensory analysis of both hamburgers was performed. We observed that provision of information and the tasting experience increased acceptance of cultured meat and that information on personal benefits of cultured meat increased acceptance more than information on quality and taste but not than societal benefits of cultured meat. Previous awareness of cultured meat was the best predictor of its acceptance. In contrast to previous studies, sex and social economic status were not associated with different acceptance rates. Surprisingly, 58% of the respondents were willing to pay a premium for cultured meat of, on average, 37% above the price of regular meat. All participants tasted the 'cultured' hamburger and evaluated its taste to be better than the conventional one in spite of the absence of an objective difference. This is the first acceptance study of cultured meat where participants were offered to eat and evaluate meat that was labeled 'cultured'. We conclude that having positive information importantly improves acceptance and willingness to taste and that the specific content of the information is of subordinate importance. Awareness of cultured meat is the best predictor of acceptance.

Transformational fluctuation electrodynamics: application to thermal radiation illusion.

Thermal radiation is a universal property for all objects with temperatures above 0K. Every object with a specific shape and emissivity has its own thermal radiation signature; such signature allows the object to be detected and recognized which can be an undesirable situation. In this paper, we apply transformation optics theory to a thermal radiation problem to develop an electromagnetic illusion by controlling the thermal radiation signature of a given object. Starting from the fluctuation dissipation theorem where thermally fluctuating sources are related to the radiative losses, we demonstrate that it is possible for objects residing in two spaces, virtual and physical, to have the same thermal radiation signature if the complex permittivities and permeabilities satisfy the standard space transformations. We emphasize the invariance of the fluctuation electrodynamics physics under transformation, and show how this result allows the mimicking in thermal radiation. We illustrate the concept using the illusion paradigm in the two-dimensional space and a numerical calculation validates all predictions. Finally, we discuss limitations and extensions of the proposed technique.

Circulating tumour cells from patients with colorectal cancer have cancer stem cell hallmarks in ex vivo culture.

OBJECTIVE: Although counting of circulating tumour cells (CTC) has attracted a broad interest as potential markers of tumour progression and treatment response, the lack of functional characterisation of these cells had become a bottleneck in taking these observations to the clinic. Our objective was to culture these cells in order to understand them and exploit their therapeutic potential to the full. DESIGN: Here, hypothesising that some CTC potentially have cancer stem cell (CSC) phenotype, we generated several CTC lines from the blood of patients with advanced metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) based on their self-renewal abilities. Multiple standard tests were then employed to characterise these cells. RESULTS: Our CTC lines self-renew, express CSC markers and have multilineage differentiation ability, both in vitro and in vivo. Patient-derived CTC lines are tumorigenic in subcutaneous xenografts and are also able to colonise the liver after intrasplenic injection. RNA sequencing analyses strikingly demonstrate that drug metabolising pathways represent the most upregulated feature among CTC lines in comparison with primary CRC cells grown under similar conditions. This result is corroborated by the high resistance of the CTC lines to conventional cytotoxic compounds. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results directly demonstrate the existence of patient-derived colorectal CTCs that bear all the functional attributes of CSCs. The CTC culture model described here is simple and takes <1 month from blood collection to drug testing, therefore, routine clinical application could facilitate access to personalised medicine. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrial.gov NCT01577511.

Ultralow-phase-noise oscillators based on BAW resonators.

This paper presents two 2.1-GHz low-phase noise oscillators based on BAW resonators. Both a single-ended common base structure and a differential Colpitts structure have been implemented in a 0.25-µm BiCMOS process. The detailed design methods including the realization, optimization, and test are reported. The differential Colpitts structure exhibits a phase noise 6.5 dB lower than the single-ended structure because of its good performance of power noise immunity. Comparison between the two structures is also carried out. The differential Colpitts structure shows a phase noise level of -87 dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset frequency and a phase noise floor of -162 dBc/Hz, with an output power close to -6.5 dBm and a core consumption of 21.6 mW. Furthermore, with the proposed optimization methods, both proposed devices have achieved promising phase noise performance compared with state-of-the-art oscillators described in the literature. Finally, we briefly present the application of the proposed BAW oscillator to a micro-atomic clock.

Potential of the polymer optical fibers deployed in a 10Gbps small office/home office network.

We have performed a detailed study of four Perfluorinated Graded Index Polymer Optical Fiber (50/490, 62.5/490 and 120/490) issued from several manufacturers and designed to be used in short length (100m) small office/home office network operating at 850nm. We have used commercially available 850nm low cost XFP transceivers and have compared the power dispersion penalties measurements with the ones realized using a photoreceiver including the Electronic Dispersion Compensation technology to increase the range of the transmission without impairments. It will be demonstrated the potential of the polymer fibers coupled to the electronic dispersion compensation technology to successfully transmit a 10GBase-SR signal with a Bit Error Rate of 10(-12) over 100m.