A low-cost low-maintenance ultraviolet lithography light source based on light-emitting diodes.

A source of collimated ultraviolet (UV) light is a central piece of equipment needed for lithographic fabrication of microfluidic devices. Conventional UV light sources based on high-pressure mercury lamps require considerable maintenance and provide broad-band illumination with intensity that often changes with time. Here we present a source of narrow-band UV light based on an array of nine 365 nm light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Each LED has two dedicated converging lenses, reducing the divergence of light emanating from it to 5.4°. Partial overlap of the areas illuminated by individual LEDs provides UV illumination with a mean intensity of ~1.7 mW cm(-2) and coefficient of variation <3% over a 90 × 90 mm target area. The light source was used to lithographically fabricate micro-reliefs with thicknesses from ~25 to 311 µm with SU8 photoresists. A cumulative irradiation of 370 mJ cm(-2) (4 min exposure) produced reliefs of good quality for all SU8 thicknesses. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) replicas of the SU8 reliefs had microchannels with nearly rectangular cross-sections that were highly consistent over the entire target area, and partitions between the channels had depth to width ratios up to 5. The UV light source has also been successfully used for photolithography with positive photoresists, AZ40XT and SPR-220. The proposed light source is built with a total cost of <$1000, consumes a minimal amount of power, is expected to last for ~50,000 exposures, is maintenance-free, and is particularly appealing for small research-and-development microfluidic fabrication.

What is vinculin needed for in platelets?

UNLABELLED: Summary. BACKGROUND: Vinculin links integrins to the cell cytoskeleton by virtue of its binding to proteins such as talin and F-actin. It has been implicated in the transmission of mechanical forces from the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton of migrating cells. Vinculin's function in platelets is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether vinculin is required for the functions of platelets and their major integrin, α(IIb) ß(3) . METHODS: The murine vinculin gene (Vcl) was deleted in the megakaryocyte/platelet lineage by breeding Vcl fl/fl mice with Pf4-Cre mice. Platelet and integrin functions were studied in vivo and ex vivo. RESULTS: Vinculin was undetectable in platelets from Vcl fl/fl Cre(+) mice, as determined by immunoblotting and fluorescence microscopy. Vinculin-deficient megakaryocytes exhibited increased membrane tethers in response to mechanical pulling on α(IIb) ß(3) with laser tweezers, suggesting that vinculin helps to maintain membrane cytoskeleton integrity. Surprisingly, vinculin-deficient platelets displayed normal agonist-induced fibrinogen binding to α(IIb) ß(3) , aggregation, spreading, actin polymerization/organization, clot retraction and the ability to form a procoagulant surface. Furthermore, vinculin-deficient platelets adhered to immobilized fibrinogen or collagen normally, under both static and flow conditions. Tail bleeding times were prolonged in 59% of vinculin-deficient mice. However, these mice exhibited no spontaneous bleeding and they formed occlusive platelet thrombi comparable to those in wild-type littermates in response to carotid artery injury with FeCl(3) . CONCLUSION: Despite promoting membrane cytoskeleton integrity when mechanical force is applied to α(IIb) ß(3) , vinculin is not required for the traditional functions of α(IIb) ß(3) or the platelet actin cytoskeleton.

Efficient mixing at low Reynolds numbers using polymer additives.

Mixing in fluids is a rapidly developing area in fluid mechanics, being an important industrial and environmental problem. The mixing of liquids at low Reynolds numbers is usually quite weak in simple flows, and it requires special devices to be efficient. Recently, the problem of mixing was solved analytically for a simple case of random flow, known as the Batchelor regime. Here we demonstrate experimentally that very viscous liquids containing a small amount of high-molecular-weight polymers can be mixed quite efficiently at very low Reynolds numbers, for a simple flow in a curved channel. A polymer concentration of only 0.001% suffices. The presence of the polymers leads to an elastic instability and to irregular flow, with velocity spectra corresponding to the Batchelor regime. Our detailed observations of the mixing in this regime enable us to confirm several important theoretical predictions: the probability distributions of the concentration exhibit exponential tails, moments of the distribution decay exponentially along the flow, and the spatial correlation function of concentration decays logarithmically.

Stretching of polymers in a random three-dimensional flow.

Behavior of a dilute polymer solution in a random three-dimensional flow with an average shear is studied experimentally. Polymer contribution to the shear stress is found to be more than 2 orders of magnitude higher than in a laminar shear flow. The results indicate that the polymer molecules are strongly stretched by the random motion of the fluid.

Elastic turbulence in a polymer solution flow

Turbulence is a ubiquitous phenomenon that is not fully understood. It is known that the flow of a simple, newtonian fluid is likely to be turbulent when the Reynolds number is large (typically when the velocity is high, the viscosity is low and the size of the tank is large). In contrast, viscoelastic fluids such as solutions of flexible long-chain polymers have nonlinear mechanical properties and therefore may be expected to behave differently. Here we observe experimentally that the flow of a sufficiently elastic polymer solution can become irregular even at low velocity, high viscosity and in a small tank. The fluid motion is excited in a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, and we observe an increase in the flow resistance by a factor of about twenty. Although the Reynolds number may be arbitrarily low, the observed flow has all the main features of developed turbulence. A comparable state of turbulent flow for a newtonian fluid in a pipe would have a Reynolds number as high as 10(5) (refs 1, 2). The low Reynolds number or 'elastic' turbulence that we observe is accompanied by significant stretching of the polymer molecules, resulting in an increase in the elastic stresses of up to two orders of magnitude.

[The effect of metal dentures in the oral cavity on the electric conductivity of the saliva]. / Vliianie metallicheskikh zubnykh protezov v polosti rta na elektroprovodnost' sliuny.

Salivary electric conductivity depends on ion concentration and mobility, on electrochemical and chemical processes related to the presence of dentures made of various alloys in the oral cavity. Therefore, salivary electric conductivity is a significant quantitative characteristic of the processes in the buccal mucosa.

[Electrode potentials of alloys used in prosthodontics and their corrosion characteristics]. / Elektrodnye potentsialy splavov, primeniaemykh v zuboprotezirovanii, i ikh korrozionnaia kharakteristika.

Oral corrosion of one-compound and multi-compound steel dentures and related paresthesia were characterized. Most frequent were the corrosion sites at any dentures' brazing points.