Electrowetting on dielectric driven droplet resonance and mixing enhancement in parallel-plate configuration

This study experimentally verifies that the mixing process in a droplet can be enhanced by driving the droplet at resonant frequencies and at alternating driving frequencies using a parallel-plate electrowetting on dielectric device. The mixing time, which is defined as the time required for reaching the well-mixed state, in a resonant droplet is found to be significantly shorter than that in a non-resonant droplet. Besides, it is also found that a higher driving potential leads to a better mixing effect, especially at resonant frequencies. Furthermore, when a droplet is driven by alternating two driving frequencies, especially two resonant frequencies, the mixing efficiency is found to be significantly enhanced for a specific alternating duration of these two frequencies.     

Electrowetting on a lotus leaf

Electrowetting on dielectrics has been widely used to manipulate and control microliter or nanoliter liquids in micro-total-analysis systems and laboratory on a chip. We carried out experiments on electrowetting on a lotus leaf, which is quite different from the equipotential plate used in conventional electrowetting. This has not been reported in the past. The lotus leaf is superhydrophobic and a weak conductor, so the droplet can be easily actuated on it through electrical potential gradient. The capillary motion of the droplet was recorded by a high-speed camera. The droplet moved toward the counterelectrode to fulfill the actuation. The actuation speed could be of the order of 10 mm∕s. The actuation time is of the order of 10 ms.     

Reliable control based on dual control for ARMAX system with abrupt faults

This paper studies the reliable control problem for abrupt faults of autoregressive moving average with exogenous input (ARMAX) system. A set of models are used to cover the potential dynamics of the system and for each model minimum variance control (MVC) is designed. By taking the a-posteriori probabilities of models as weight coefficients, a multi-model reliable control (MMRC) is proposed. If the system is normal, MMRC is MVC. When faults occur, the controller can quickly learn the true model of system and degenerate into the corresponding MVC by adjusting weight coefficients, which ensures the acceptable performance of the system. The effectiveness of MMRC is verified by a numerical simulation. In addition, since MMRC is a fusion of control law of each model, it indicates that soft switching is implemented and the jitter to system due to hard switching can be avoided.     

Robotic automation of droplet microfluidics

Droplet microfluidics enables powerful analytic capabilities but often requires workflows involving macro- and microfluidic processing steps that are cumbersome to perform manually. Here, we demonstrate the automation of droplet microfluidics with commercial fluid-handling robotics. The workflows incorporate common microfluidic devices including droplet generators, mergers, and sorters and utilize the robot''s native capabilities for thermal control, incubation, and plate scanning. The ability to automate microfluidic devices using commercial fluid handling will speed up the integration of these methods into biological workflows.     

Control structure design of networked control systems based on maximum allowable delay bounds

In this work, we present a control structure based on the maximum allowable delay bound of networked control systems that takes the network-induced delay into account. Control structure design deals with the structural decisions of the control system including where to place the controllers and how to harmonize them. We construct a hierarchical control structure that consists of a main controller and a local closed-loop system consisting of a family of control configurations. Based on the maximum allowable delay bound for each local configuration, the local supervisor orchestrates switching between the constituent configurations. The stability condition is derived based on common Lyapunov function technique. An example is presented to demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed approach.     

On fault detection of discrete-time switched systems via designing time-varying residual generators

This paper investigates the problem of fault detection (FD) for discrete-time switched systems. Under a dwell time constraint, a switching rule that depends on the measured output is constructed for the system. Time-varying residual generators are designed such that the switched system is asymptotically stable and also with the detection performance under this switching rule. The advantages of the proposed technique are threefold: 1) It has the advantages of both slow switching and fast switching. 2) It can extend the classic design of time-invariant residual generator. 3) It can guarantee the switched system still has the desired fault detection performance even if all subsystems are without it. This feature reduces the performance requirements for each subsystem. A numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Transmittance tuning by particle chain polarization in electrowetting-driven droplets

A tiny droplet containing nano∕microparticles commonly handled in digital microfluidic lab-on-a-chip is regarded as a micro-optical component with tunable transmittance at programmable positions for the application of micro-opto-fluidic-systems. Cross-scale electric manipulations of droplets on a millimeter scale as well as suspended particles on a micrometer scale are demonstrated by electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) and particle chain polarization, respectively. By applying electric fields at proper frequency ranges, EWOD and polarization can be selectively achieved in designed and fabricated parallel plate devices. At low frequencies, the applied signal generates EWOD to pump suspension droplets. The evenly dispersed particles reflect and∕or absorb the incident light to exhibit a reflective or dark droplet. When sufficiently high frequencies are used on to the nonsegmented parallel electrodes, a uniform electric field is established across the liquid to polarize the dispersed neutral particles. The induced dipole moments attract the particles each other to form particle chains and increase the transmittance of the suspension, demonstrating a transmissive or bright droplet. In addition, the reflectance of the droplet is measured at various frequencies with different amplitudes.     

Electrowetting on dielectric device with crescent electrodes for reliable and low-voltage droplet manipulation

Digital microfluidics based on electrowetting on dielectric is an emerging popular technology that manipulates single droplets at the microliter or even the nanoliter level. It has the unique advantages of rapid response, low reagent consumption, and high integration and is mainly applied in the field of biochemical analysis. However, currently, this technology still has a few problems, such as high control voltage, low droplet velocity, and continuity in flow, limiting its application. In this paper, through theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, it is deduced that a drive electrode with a crescent configuration can reduce the driving voltage. The experimental results not only validate this deduction but also indicate that crescent electrode can improve the droplet motion continuity and the success in split rate.     

A novel direct torque control method for brushless DC motors based on duty ratio control

Conventional direct torque control (DTC) suffers from large torque ripple and nonconstant switching frequency, which are caused by the hysteresis band amplitude and the motor speed. Many methods have been proposed to tackle these problems. However, these methods are usually complicated and parameter dependent. A novel DTC method for brushless DC motors based on duty ratio control is proposed to reduce torque ripple and maintain a constant switching frequency. During each switching period, an active voltage vector and a zero voltage vector are applied. A simple and effective method implemented to calculate the duty ratio relies only on the torque error, reducing the parameter dependence. The proposed method has the advantages of conventional DTC and effectively reduces torque ripple, which improves the performance of conventional DTC. Simulation and experimental results are given to confirm the method’s validity.     

DNA-library assembly programmed by on-demand nano-liter droplets from a custom microfluidic chip

Nanoscale synthetic biology can benefit from programmable nanoliter-scale processing of DNA in microfluidic chips if they are interfaced effectively to biochemical arrays such as microwell plates. Whereas active microvalve chips require complex fabrication and operation, we show here how a passive and readily fabricated microchip can be employed for customizable nanoliter scale pipetting and reaction control involving DNA. This recently developed passive microfluidic device, supporting nanoliter scale combinatorial droplet generation and mixing, is here used to generate a DNA test library with one member per droplet exported to addressed locations on microwell plates. Standard DNA assembly techniques, such as Gibson assembly, compatible with isothermal on-chip operation, are employed and checked using off-chip PCR and assembly PCR. The control of output droplet sequences and mixing performance was verified using dyes and fluorescently labeled DNA solutions, both on-chip and in external capillary channels. Gel electrophoresis of products and DNA sequencing were employed to further verify controlled combination and functional enzymatic assembly. The scalability of the results to larger DNA libraries is also addressed by combinatorial input expansion using sequential injection plugs from a multiwell plate. Hence, the paper establishes a proof of principle of the production of functional combinatorial mixtures at the nanoliter scale for one sequence per well DNA libraries.     

Exploration of microfluidic devices based on multi-filament threads and textiles: A review

In this paper, we review the recent progress in the development of low-cost microfluidic devices based on multifilament threads and textiles for semi-quantitative diagnostic and environmental assays. Hydrophilic multifilament threads are capable of transporting aqueous and non-aqueous fluids via capillary action and possess desirable properties for building fluid transport pathways in microfluidic devices. Thread can be sewn onto various support materials to form fluid transport channels without the need for the patterned hydrophobic barriers essential for paper-based microfluidic devices. Thread can also be used to manufacture fabrics which can be patterned to achieve suitable hydrophilic-hydrophobic contrast, creating hydrophilic channels which allow the control of fluids flow. Furthermore, well established textile patterning methods and combination of hydrophilic and hydrophobic threads can be applied to fabricate low-cost microfluidic devices that meet the low-cost and low-volume requirements. In this paper, we review the current limitations and shortcomings of multifilament thread and textile-based microfluidics, and the research efforts to date on the development of fluid flow control concepts and fabrication methods. We also present a summary of different methods for modelling the fluid capillary flow in microfluidic thread and textile-based systems. Finally, we summarized the published works of thread surface treatment methods and the potential of combining multifilament thread with other materials to construct devices with greater functionality. We believe these will be important research focuses of thread- and textile-based microfluidics in future.     

Effect of slippage on the thermocapillary migration of a small droplet

We conduct a numerical investigation and analytical analysis of the effect of slippage on the thermocapillary migration of a small liquid droplet on a horizontal solid surface. The finite element method is employed to solve the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the energy equation. The effect of the slip behavior on the droplet migration is determined by using the Navier slip condition at the solid-liquid boundary. The results indicate that the dynamic contact angles and the contact angle hysteresis of the droplet are strictly correlated to the slip coefficient. The enhancement of the slip length leads to an increase in the droplet migration velocity due to the enhancement of the net momentum of thermocapillary convection vortices inside the droplet. A larger contact angle leads to an increase in the migration velocity which in turn enlarges the rate of the droplet migration velocity to the slip length. There is good agreement between the analytical and the numerical results when the dynamic contact angle utilizes in the analytical approach obtained from the results of the numerical computation, and the static contact angle is smaller than 50°.     

A novel actuation method of transporting droplets by using electrical charging of droplet in a dielectric fluid

We evaluate the feasibility of manipulating droplets in two dimensions by exploiting Coulombic forces acting on conductive droplets immersed in a dielectric fluid. When a droplet suspended in an immiscible fluid is located near an electrode under a dc voltage, the droplet can be charged by direct contact, by charge transfer along an electrically conducting path, or by both mechanisms. This process is called electrical charging of droplet (ECOD). This charged droplet may then be transported rapidly by exploiting Coulombic forces. We experimentally demonstrate electrical actuation of a charged droplet by applying voltage sequences. A charged droplet is two dimensionally actuated by following the direction of the electrical field signal. The droplet does not contact the surface of the microfluidic chip when it moves. This characteristic is very advantageous because treatments of the substrate surfaces of microfluidic chip become simpler. In order to test the feasibility of using ECOD in a droplet-based microreactor, electrocoalescence of two oppositely charged droplets is also studied. When two droplets approach each other due to Coulombic attraction, a liquid bridge is formed between them. We postulate that if the applied electric field is weaker than a certain critical level, the two droplets coalesce instantaneously when the charges are exchanged and redistributed through this liquid bridge.     

Microfluidic generation of droplet interface bilayer networks incorporating real-time size sorting in linear and non-linear configurations

In this study, a novel droplet based microfluidic method for the generation of different sized droplet interface bilayers is reported. A microfluidic platform was designed, which allows the generation and packing of picoliter lipid coated water droplets. Droplets were generated by hydrodynamic focusing coupled with selective transport along grooves according to their size. A trapping structure at the end of the groove and a fine control of the flow pressures allowed for the droplets to be successfully trapped and aligned on demand. This technology facilitates the fine control of droplet size production as well as the generation of extended networks from a variety of lipids including 1,2-diphytanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine in linear and non-linear configurations, which is vital to the application of Droplet Interface Bilayers to biological network construction on-chip.     

黄土高原植被覆盖变化与气候和人类活动的关系简

利用黄土高原的SPOT VGT归一化植被指数数据和气象数据,采用Sen+Mann-Kendall分析法、相关分析和残差分析法,对黄土高原1999-2010年植被覆盖的时空变化进行了分析,并探讨了气候变化与人类活动对植被覆盖变化的影响。结果显示：在过去的12年中黄土高原生长季植被NDVI呈现显著的上升趋势,其增加速率为0.1497/a,但各区域之间存在明显的空间差异,黄土高原东部地区植被NDVI生长情况要明显好于西部地区;同时黄土高原植被覆盖与降水有很好的相关性,降水变化是影响植被覆盖变化的主要因素。此外,人类活动对黄土高原植被覆盖变化的建设和破坏作用同时并存,退耕还林还草工程促进了黄土高原植被覆盖的增加,而地区的城市化和工业化进程加速,草原区的超载放牧、乱采乱伐和过度开垦以及能源区的开采开发等现象导致植被NDVI的减少,但正影响要大于负影响,当前在黄土高原进行的退耕还林还草工程开始慢慢凸显出它的生态效应。     

太湖流域1960s年代营养物质输移的模拟评估研究

本文通过数理统计、动力模拟等方法，结合社会经济的统计资料，确定了1960s的工业点源排放、土地利用数据等模拟的数据输入，利用分布式机理性的流域模型SWAT，模拟了太湖流域1960s年代的营养物质输移的时空分布，并在敏感性试验的基础上，对营养物质输移的影响因子进行了分析，从而得出了1960s营养物质输移的时空分布基本态势。研究结果表明，在工业点源、生活污水、牲畜养殖、农业化肥和土壤营养本底等五个敏感性因子中，生活污水对入湖营养物质的贡献最大；非点源形式排放的营养物质（总氮和总磷）约占入湖总量的3/4，是流域营养物质排放的主要形式；同时，结果还表明，人类活动造成的营养物质排放是太湖流域营养盐入湖总量的主要来源。     

Novel method of generating water-in-oil(W∕O) droplets in a microchannel with grooved walls

We present a novel method of generating and retrieving droplets stored in microfluidic grooves or cavity structures. First we designed and fabricated polydimethylsiloxane microchannels with grooves on the walls and then produced a two-phase flow of oil and aqueous phases to form aqueous phase droplets in an oil state. We propose the following three mechanisms of droplet generation: the contact line on the groove wall continues moving along the wall and descends to the bottom of the cavity, confining the aqueous phase in the cavity; once the interface between the oil and aqueous phases moves into the cavity, the interface contacts the top of the neighboring groove; and a spherical droplet forms at the corner in the cavity due to surface tension. The viscosity of the oil phase and the surface tension of the interface determine whether a droplet can be generated. Then, we could adjust the velocity of the interface and the aspect ratio of the cavity to achieve the optimal conditions for generating the single droplet. We observed that the largest droplet is stably generated without a daughter droplet at typical values of free-stream velocity (10 μl∕min) and groove pitch 110 μm for all three cases with different oil phases (20, 50, and 84 cP). This technique is expected to serve as a platform for droplet-based reaction systems, particularly with regard to monitoring cell behavior, in vitro expression, and possibly even micropolymerase chain reaction chambers.     

A numerical study on the dynamics of droplet formation in a microfluidic double T-junction

In this study, droplet formations in microfluidic double T-junctions (MFDTD) are investigated based on a two-dimensional numerical model with volume of fluid method. Parametric ranges for generating alternating droplet formation (ADF) are identified. A physical background responsible for the ADF is suggested by analyzing the dynamical stability of flow system. Since the phase discrepancy between dispersed flows is mainly caused by non-symmetrical breaking of merging droplet, merging regime becomes the alternating regime at appropriate conditions. In addition, the effects of channel geometries on droplet formation are studied in terms of relative channel width. The predicted results show that the ADF region is shifted toward lower capillary numbers when channel width ratio is less than unity. The alternating droplet size increases with the increase of channel width ratio. When this ratio reaches unity, alternating droplets can be formed at very high water fraction (wf = 0.8). The droplet formation in MFDTD depends significantly on the viscosity ratio, and the droplet size in ADF decreases with the increase of the viscosity ratio. The understanding of underlying physics of the ADF phenomenon is useful for many applications, including nanoparticle synthesis with different concentrations, hydrogel bead generation, and cell transplantation in biomedical therapy.     

Influences of electric field on living cells in a charged water-in-oil droplet under electrophoretic actuation

We experimentally investigate the effects of high electric field on living cells inside a charged droplet under electrophoretic actuation. When an aqueous droplet suspended in a dielectric liquid contacts with electrified electrode, the droplet acquires charge. This charged droplet undergoes electrophoretic motion under strong electric field (1–3 kV/cm), which can be used as a droplet manipulation method in biomicrofluidic applications. However, because strong electric field and use of dielectric oil can be a harmful environment for living cells, the biological feasibilities have been tested. Trypan blue test and cell growth test have been performed to check the viability and proliferation of cells in a droplet under various electric field strengths and actuation times. We have not observed any noticeable influence of electric field and silicone oil on the viability and proliferation of cells, which indicates that electrophoresis could be safely used as a manipulation method for a droplet containing living biological system.     

Incremental H∞ performance for a class of stochastic switched nonlinear systems

In this paper, we investigate the incremental H_∞ performance problem for a class of stochastic switched nonlinear systems by using a state-dependent switching law and the maximum and minimum dwell time approach. By resorting to the state-dependent switching law, some sufficient conditions are provided to cope with the incremental H_∞ performance problem, which can be applied even if all subsystems are unstable. Then, based on the maximum and minimum dwell time scheme, the incremental H_∞ performance problem to be solvable is derived for two cases: one is all subsystems are incrementally globally asymptotically stable in the mean(IGASiM), another is both IGASiM subsystems and unstable subsystems coexist. When all subsystems are IGASiM, the stochastic switched nonlinear system is IGASiM and possesses a incremental L₂-gain under given conditions. When both IGASiM subsystems and unstable subsystems coexist, if the activation time ratio between IGASiM subsystems and unstable ones is not less than a specified constant, the sufficient conditions for the incremental H_∞ performance of the stochastic switched nonlinear system are given. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the validity of methods proposed.