CA : A Cancer Journal for Clinicians

Rod Borup is a Team Leader in the fuel cell program at Los Alamos National Lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He received his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Iowa in 1988 and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1993. He has worked on fuel cell technology since 1994, working in the areas of hydrogen production and PEM fuel cell stack components. He has been awarded 12 U.S. patents, authored over 40 papers related to fuel cell technology, and presented over 50 oral papers at national meetings. His current main research area is related to water transport in PEM fuel cells and PEM fuel cell durability. Recently, he was awarded the 2005 DOE Hydrogen Program R&D Award for the most significant R&D contribution of the year for his team's work in fuel cell durability and was the Principal Investigator for the 2004 Fuel Cell Seminar (San Antonio, TX, USA) Best Poster Award. Jeremy Meyers is an Assistant Professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where his research focuses on the development of electrochemical energy systems and materials. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas, Jeremy workedmore » as manager of the advanced transportation technology group at UTC Power, where he was responsible for developing new system designs and components for automotive PEM fuel cell power plants. While at UTC Power, Jeremy led several customer development projects and a DOE-sponsored investigation into novel catalysts and membranes for PEM fuel cells. Jeremy has coauthored several papers on key mechanisms of fuel cell degradation and is a co-inventor of several patents. In 2006, Jeremy and several colleagues received the George Mead Medal, UTC's highest award for engineering achievement, and he served as the co-chair of the Gordon Research Conference on fuel cells. Jeremy received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. Bryan Pivovar received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1994. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 2000 under the direction of Profs. Ed Cussler and Bill Smyrl, studying transport properties in fuel cell electrolytes. He continued working in the area of polymer electrolyte fuel cells at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a post-doc (2000-2001), as a technical staff member (2001-2005), and in his current position as a team leader (2005-present). In this time, Bryan's research has expanded to include further aspects of fuel cell operation, including electrodes, subfreezing effects, alternative polymers, hydroxide conductors, fuel cell interfaces, impurities, water transport, and high-temperature membranes. Bryan has served at various levels in national and international conferences and workshops, including organizing a DOE sponsored workshop on freezing effects in fuel cells and an ARO sponsored workshop on alkaline membrane fuel cells, and he was co-chair of the 2007 Gordon Research Conference on Fuel Cells. Minoru Inaba is a Professor at the Department of Molecular Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Doshisha University, Japan. He received his B.Sc. from the Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, in 1984 and his M.Sc. in 1986 and his Dr. Eng. in 1995 from the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University. He has worked on electrochemical energy conversion systems including fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries at Kyoto University (1992-2002) and at Doshisha University (2002-present). His primary research interest is the durability of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), in particular, membrane degradation, and he has been involved in NEDO R&D research projects on PEFC durability since 2001. He has authored over 140 technical papers and 30 review articles. Kenichiro Ota is a Professor of the Chemical Energy Laboratory at the Graduate School of Engineering, Yokohama National University, Japan. He received his B.S.E. in Applied Chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1968 and his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1973. He has worked on hydrogen energy and fuel cells since 1974, working on materials science for fuel cells and water electrolysis. He has published more than 150 original papers, 70 review papers, and 50 scientific books. He is now the president of the Hydrogen Energy Systems Society of Japan, the chairman of the Fuel Cell Research Group of the Electrochemical Society of Japan, and the chairman of the National Committee for the Standardization of the Stationary Fuel Cells. ABSTRACT TRUNCATED« less

Scientific aspects of polymer electrolyte fuel cell durability and degradation.

Lanthanide-based luminescent hybrid materials.

The term photonic crystals appears because of the analogy between electron waves in crystals and the light waves in artificial periodic dielectric structures. During the recent years the investigation of one-, two-and three-dimensional periodic structures has attracted a widespread attention of the world optics community because of great potentiality of such structures in advanced applied optical fields. The interest in periodic structures has been stimulated by the fast development of semiconductor technology that now allows the fabrication of artificial structures, whose period is comparable with the wavelength of light in the visible and infrared ranges.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6354/16969/00781867.pdf

Photonic crystals

This paper presents a review of silicon micromachined accelerometers and gyroscopes. Following a brief introduction to their operating principles and specifications, various device structures, fabrication, technologies, device designs, packaging, and interface electronics issues, along with the present status in the commercialization of micromachined inertial sensors, are discussed. Inertial sensors have seen a steady improvement in their performance, and today, microaccelerometers can resolve accelerations in the micro-g range, while the performance of gyroscopes has improved by a factor of 10/spl times/ every two years during the past eight years. This impressive drive to higher performance, lower cost, greater functionality, higher levels of integration, and higher volume will continue as new fabrication, circuit, and packaging techniques are developed to meet the ever increasing demand for inertial sensors.

/pdf/micromachined-inertial-sensors-esf6197vdc.pdf

Micromachined inertial sensors

We present a high-throughput continuous cell separation chip using hydrodynamic dielectrophoresis (DEP) process. The continuous cell separation chip uses three planar electrodes in a separation channel, where the positive DEP cells are moved away from the central streamline while the negative DEP cells remain in the central streamline. In the experimental study, we use the mixture of viable (live) and nonviable (dead) yeast cells in order to obtain the continuous cell separation conditions. For the conditions of the electric fields frequency of 5 MHz and the medium conductivity of 5 μS/cm, the fabricated chip performs a continuous separation of the yeast cell mixture at the varying flow-rate in the range of 0.1–1 μl/min; thereby, resulting in the purity ranges of 95.9–97.3 and 64.5–74.3%, respectively, for the viable and nonviable yeast cells. The present chip demonstrates the constant cell separation performance for varying mixture flow-rates.

A continuous cell separation chip using hydrodynamic dielectrophoresis (DEP) process

Viscous energy loss in oscillating fluid-film dampers that provide frictional shear for laterally-driven planar microstructures is investigated. It is found that Stokes-type fluid motion models viscous damping more accurately than Couette-type flow field. This paper characterizes the damping property of a fluid layer in terms of viscous energy dissipation, then derives analytic damping formulae for practical Q estimation. Theoretical Q-factors are compared to the experimental values, measured from surface-micromachined polysilicon resonators. Data reported by previous investigators are also analyzed and compared. The experimental results indicate that the Stokes-type damping model presents a more general damping treatment with better Q estimation, although discrepancies of 10 to 20% still remain between the estimated and measured Q. >

Viscous damping model for laterally oscillating microstructures

The use of renewable energy source can reduce greenhouse gas emission and fossil fuel pollution. Compared with fossil fuel energy, renewable energy is not stable and cannot supply firm electrical output (i.e., it is nondispatchable). Fluctuating power from renewables may result in grid power oscillation. To reduce grid swing, energy storage is necessary to smooth output from renewable energy. Energy storage with high energy density and fast response time or high power capacity is desired for compensation of fluctuating output. Generally, superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) has higher power capacity than battery energy storage, while battery provides higher energy density. Thus, this research proposes a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) composed of an SMES and battery. Novel and practical synergistic control is presented for firming power fluctuation by exploiting the strong power and energy capabilities of the SMES and the battery while within the efficient operating range of (i.e., state of charges of) HESS. Comprehensive case studies demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed HESS topology and control algorithm using PSCAD/EMTDC.

Synergistic Control of SMES and Battery Energy Storage for Enabling Dispatchability of Renewable Energy Sources

MPEG–PCL diblock copolymers consisting of methoxy polyethylene glycol (MPEG, 750 g/mol) and poly(ϵ-caprolactone) (PCL) were synthesized by ring-opening polymerization. Aqueous solutions of the synthesized diblock copolymers were prepared by dissolving the MPEG–PCL diblock copolymers at concentrations in the range of 0–20 wt %. When the PCL molecular weight was 3000 or greater, the polymer was only partially soluble in water. As the temperature was increased from room temperature, the diblock copolymer solutions showed two phase transitions: a sol-to-gel transition and a gel-to-sol transition. The sol-to-gel phase transition temperature decreased substantially with increasing PCL length. The sol–gel–sol transition with the increase in temperature was confirmed by monitoring the viscosity as a function of temperature. The temperature ranges of the phase transitions measured by the tilting method were in full agreement with those determined from the viscosity measurements. The maximum viscosity of the copolymer solution increased with increasing hydrophobicity of the diblock copolymer and with increasing copolymer concentration. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses revealed that the diblock copolymers exhibited crystalline domains that favored the formation of an aggregated gel because of the tight aggregation and strong packing interactions between PCL blocks. Scanning electron micrographs of the diblock copolymer solutions in the sol state showed interconnected polyhedral pore structures, whereas those of the gel state revealed a fibrillar-like morphology. Atomic force microscope (AFM) studies of the sol and gel surfaces showed that the sol surface was covered with fine globular particles, whereas the gel surface was covered with particles in micron-scale irregular islets. These findings are consistent with uniform mixing of the diblock copolymer and water in the sol state, and aggregation of PCL blocks in the gel state. In conclusion, we confirm that the MPEG–PCL diblock copolymer solution exhibited a sol–gel–sol transition as a function of temperature. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 5413–5423, 2006

Preparation and characterization of MPEG-PCL diblock copolymers with thermo-responsive sol-gel-sol phase transition

A human stress monitoring patch integrates three sensors of skin temperature, skin conductance, and pulsewave in the size of stamp (25 mm × 15 mm × 72 μm) in order to enhance wearing comfort with small skin contact area and high flexibility. The skin contact area is minimized through the invention of an integrated multi-layer structure and the associated microfabrication process; thus being reduced to 1/125 of that of the conventional single-layer multiple sensors. The patch flexibility is increased mainly by the development of flexible pulsewave sensor, made of a flexible piezoelectric membrane supported by a perforated polyimide membrane. In the human physiological range, the fabricated stress patch measures skin temperature with the sensitivity of 0.31 Ω/°C, skin conductance with the sensitivity of 0.28 μV/0.02 μS, and pulse wave with the response time of 70 msec. The skin-attachable stress patch, capable to detect multimodal bio-signals, shows potential for application to wearable emotion monitoring.

/pdf/a-flexible-and-wearable-human-stress-monitoring-patch-1loldhb05o.pdf

Young-Ho Cho

Papers

A continuous cell separation chip using hydrodynamic dielectrophoresis (DEP) process

Viscous damping model for laterally oscillating microstructures

Synergistic Control of SMES and Battery Energy Storage for Enabling Dispatchability of Renewable Energy Sources

Preparation and characterization of MPEG-PCL diblock copolymers with thermo-responsive sol-gel-sol phase transition

A Flexible and Wearable Human Stress Monitoring Patch.