Three-dimensional printing-based electro-millifluidic devices for fabricating multi-compartment particles

In this work, we demonstrate the use of stereolithographic 3D printing to fabricate millifluidic devices, which are used to engineer particles with multiple compartments. As the 3D design is directly transferred to the actual prototype, this method accommodates 3D millimeter-scaled features that are difficult to achieve by either lithographic-based microfabrication or traditional macrofabrication techniques. We exploit this approach to produce millifluidic networks to deliver multiple fluidic components. By taking advantage of the laminar flow, the fluidic components can form liquid jets with distinct patterns, and each pattern has clear boundaries between the liquid phases. Afterwards, droplets with controlled size are fabricated by spraying the liquid jet in an electric field, and subsequently converted to particles after a solidification step. As a demonstration, we fabricate calcium alginate particles with structures of (1) slice-by-slice multiple lamellae, (2) concentric core-shells, and (3) petals surrounding the particle centers. Furthermore, distinct hybrid particles combining two or more of the above structures are also obtained. These compartmentalized particles impart spatially dependent functionalities and properties. To show their applicability, various ingredients, including fruit juices, drugs, and magnetic nanoparticles are encapsulated in the different compartments as proof-of-concepts for applications, including food, drug delivery, and bioassays. Our 3D printed electro-millifluidic approach represents a convenient and robust method to extend the range of structures of functional particles.     

Identification of beneficial mass-included inerter-based vibration suppression configurations

Vibration suppression capabilities of linear passive vibration absorbers, such as traditional tuned mass damper (TMD), and recently proposed inerter-based vibration absorbers, have been studied for multiple mechanical systems. In particular, significant performance advantages have been obtained with a specific device making use of both inerter and mass elements, namely the tuned mass damper inerter (TMDI). However, there are still countless mass-included inerter-based configurations that have not been studied, which can potentially provide more preferred dynamic properties. In this paper, an immittance-function-layout (IFL) is introduced, which can cover a large range of topological connection possibilities with both mass and inerter elements. With the recently proposed structural immittance format, a systematic approach is established to identify the most beneficial IFL type mass-included inerter-based configurations with pre-determined number of each element type. Vibration suppression performance with single-IFL type device and two parallel-connected IFLs (i.e. dual-IFL) type devices are investigated in this paper. Three optimal configurations are identified for mitigating the maximum inter-storey drift of an example 3-storey building model subjected to base excitation. With this 3-storey building model, results show that, for the optimum single-IFL configuration, the performance improvement is 7.3% compared with the optimum TMDI, and with identified beneficial dual-IFL configurations, up to 34.9% performance advantages are obtained. Furthermore, consistent performance gains are shown under real-life earthquake inputs and with a 10-storey building model using identified absorber configurations.     

A Web 2.0 Catalog and Document Delivery: Hold this for me at Western Michigan University

This article details the implementation of an electronic request service that allows users to register item requests directly from the OPAC without re-typing the bibliographic information and at no cost. This project supports the overall efforts of the university by furthering the Western Michigan University strategic plan to implement a user-friendly document delivery service. This article describes this innovative and easy way to access a reservation list to retrieve library items by implementing customized web-based management using MySQL and Voyager Oracle? backend. The advantage of a web-based management system is its ease of use and highly customizable features. Some statistics on the number of requests from 2008–2011 are also included.     

裸蒴属营养器官的解剖及其分类位置的研究

本文通过对三白草科 saururaceae 裸蒴属 Gymnotheca Decne．  营养器官的解剖和观察，发现该属和三白草属Saururus L.、蕺草属 Houttuynia Thunb. 有明显的区别，而同胡椒科Piperaceae 的齐头绒属 Zippelia Bi．则有许多相似的特征。因此我们认为该属和齐头绒属同为三白草科和胡椒科的中间过渡类型。     

When state centralism meets neo-liberalism: managing university governance change in Singapore and Malaysia

With strong intention to enhance the global competitiveness of their university systems, both the Singapore and Malaysia governments have introduced reforms along the lines of ideas and practices embedded in neo-liberalism. In the last decade or so, we have witnessed reforms being introduced to the higher education sectors in these Asian states, particularly when corporatization and incorporation strategies are adopted to transform national/public universities. With particular reference to how academics evaluate the impact of the reforms on their academic life, this article reports and analyses findings generated from campus visits and field interviews conducted in Singapore and Malaysia from 2007 to 2009. Although the senior management of corporatized/incorporated universities in these Asian states has been given more discretion to decide how to operate their universities, most of the front line academics that we interviewed have not experienced major differences in university governance after the reforms took place. Instead of feeling ‘emancipated’ and ‘empowered’, many academics feel more pressures and control from the university administration and government ministries. Despite the fact that both the Singapore and Malaysia governments have tried to embrace the ideas and practices of ‘neo-liberalism’ to transform university governance, academics still see the state’s reluctance in withdrawing from steering/controlling higher education development. Such observations clearly reflect the ‘clash’ of two major governance philosophies, namely, ‘state centralism’ and ‘neo-liberalism’. In short, this article critically examines how far the proposed university governance reforms by adopting the corporatization/incorporation strategies have actually transformed university management and academic life style in Singapore and Malaysia.     

Metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) photoelectrodes: distance improves performance

Hydrogen(H2)is a clean energy carrier with enormous potential to support deep decarbonization towards net-zero and a circular carbon economy.However,H2 producti...     

Model conversion and digital redesign of singular systems

Design procedures are proposed for model conversion and digital redesign of a singular system, which is controllable at finite and impulsive modes. In order to attain a standard regular problem, we use some techniques to decompose the singular system into a reduced-order regular subsystem and a nondynamic subsystem. As a result, some well-known design methodologies for a regular system can be applied to the reduced-order regular subsystem. Finally, we transform the results obtained back to those of the original coordinate system.     

Predicting associated statutes for legal problems

Applying text mining techniques to legal issues has been an emerging research topic in recent years. Although a few previous studies focused on assisting professionals in the retrieval of related legal documents, to our knowledge, no previous studies could provide relevant statutes to the general public using problem statements. In this work, we design a text mining based method, the three-phase prediction (TPP) algorithm, which allows the general public to use everyday vocabulary to describe their problems and find pertinent statutes for their cases. The experimental results indicate that our approach can help the general public, who are not familiar with professional legal terms, to acquire relevant statutes more accurately and effectively.     

Aesthetics and credibility in web site design

Web sites often provide the first impression of an organization. For many organizations, web sites are crucial to ensure sales or to procure services within. When a person opens a web site, the first impression is probably made in a few seconds, and the user will either stay or move on to the next site on the basis of many factors. One of the factors that may influence users to stay or go is the page aesthetics. Another reason may involve a user’s judgment about the site’s credibility. This study explores the possible link between page aesthetics and a user’s judgment of the site’s credibility. Our findings indicate that when the same content is presented using different levels of aesthetic treatment, the content with a higher aesthetic treatment was judged as having higher credibility. We call this the amelioration effect of visual design and aesthetics on content credibility. Our study suggests that this effect is operational within the first few seconds in which a user views a web page. Given the same content, a higher aesthetic treatment will increase perceived credibility.     

Implicit theories of ability of Grade 6 science students: Relation to epistemological beliefs and academic motivation and achievement in science

We investigated: (a) the associations of implicit theories and epistemological beliefs and their effects on the academic motivation and achievement of students in Grade 6 science and (b) the mean differences of implicit theories, epistemological beliefs, and academic motivation and achievement as a function of gender and race/ethnicity (N = 508). Path analysis revealed that an incremental view of ability had direct and indirect effects on adaptive motivational factors, whereas fixed entity views had direct and indirect effects on maladaptive factors. Epistemological beliefs mediated the influence of implicit theories of ability on achievement goal orientations, self-efficacy, and science achievement. Results are discussed in relation to Dweck and Leggett’s (1988) social-cognitive theory with a focus on middle school science.