We have designed LiTu (Laɪ’Tu - Light Tube) as a customisable and low-cost (ca 30 Euros) human-computer interface. It is composed of an acrylic tube, a ball-bearing mirror, six LEDs and a webcam. Touching the tube causes frustrated internal reflection of light due to a change in the critical angle at the acrylic-skin boundary. Scattered light within the tube is reflected off the mirror into the camera at the opposite end for image processing. Illuminated contact regions in the video frames are segmented and processed to generate 2D information such as: pitch and volume, or x and y coordinates of a graphic. We demonstrate the functionality of LiTu both as a musical instrument and as an interactive computer graphics controller. For example, various musical notes can be generated by touching specific regions around the surface of the tube. Volume can be controlled by sliding a finger down the tube and pitch by sliding the finger radially. We demonstrate the adaptable nature of LiTu’s touch interface and discuss our plans to explore future physical modifications of the device.

In the present work we analyse a functionaldifferential equation, sometimes known as the discrete FitzHugh-Nagumo equation, arising in nerve conduction theory.

The Image Projection onto Patients (IPoP) system is work in progress intended to assist medical practitioners perform procedures such as biopsies, or provide a novel anatomical education tool, by projecting anatomy and other relevant information from the operating room directly onto a patient’s skin. This approach is not currently used widely in hospitals but has the benefit of providing effective procedure guidance without the practitioner having to look away from the patient. Developmental work towards the alpha-phase of IPoP is presented including tracking methods for tools such as biopsy needles, patient tracking, image registration and problems encountered with the multi-mirror effect.

An extrapolation algorithm is considered for solving linear fractional differential equations in this paper, which is based on the direct discretization of the fractional differential operator. Numerical results show that the approximate solutions of this numerical method has the expected asymptotic expansions.

The accurate daily set up of patients for radiotherapy treatment remains a challenge for which the development of new strategies and solutions continues to be an area of active research. We have developed an augmented reality tool to view the real world scene, i.e. the patient on a treatment couch, combined with computer graphics content, such as planning image data and any defined outlines of organ structures. We have built this on widely available hand held consumer tablet devices and describe here the implementation and initial experience. We suggest that, in contrast to other augmented reality tools explored for radiotherapy[1], due to the wide availability and low cost of the hardware platform the application has further potential as a tool for patients to visualize their treatment and demonstrate to patients e.g. the importance of compliance with instructions around bladder filling and rectal suppositories.

We present estimates of the uptake coefficient of N2O5 using ambient measurements of the trace gases N2O5 and ClNO2 and particle composition and surface area at the Kleiner Feldberg observatory, near Frankfurt, SW Germany, during the PARADE campaign (summer 2011). Three methods used to extract gamma(N2O5) from the datasets were found to be in reasonable agreement, generating values between 0.001 and 0.4. Gamma (N2O5) displayed a significant dependence on relative humidity (RH), the largest values obtained, as expected, at high RH. No significant dependence of gamma(N2O5) on particle organic content or sulphate-to-organic ratio was observed. The variability in gamma(N2O5) is however large, indicating that humidity is not the sole factor determining the uptake coefficient. There is also an indication that the yield of ClNO2 with respect to N2O5 uptake is larger with lower concentrations of PM1 total organics. Our results will be compared to existing uptake coefficients from laboratory studies and those derived from field observations.

Secondary inorganic and organic aerosol particles are ubiquitous constituents in the atmosphere. They are largely produced through the photo-oxidation of gaseous precursor molecules, such as SO2, NOx and VOCs, from both anthropogenic and natural sources. Once grown to atmospherically relevant sizes, they can act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and thus affect earth’s climate (IPCC, 2013). However, their chemical composition can vary considerably over their atmospheric lifetime (up to one week) as a result of which, their physico-chemical properties may change significantly due to chemical transformation processes (Jimenez et al., 2009). One of these properties is hygroscopicity, which largely depends on the chemical composition. Linking both, measured chemical composition and hygroscopicity helps to advance our current understanding of the hygroscopicity parametrisation. In this work we investigated how photochemical aging of the organic aerosol fraction and chemical reactions between inorganic and organic compounds can affect the hygroscopicity parameter κ (Petters and Kreidenweis, 2007). The measurements were conducted at the semi-rural Taunus Observatory/ Germany during summer 2012. An extensive suite of particle phase characterizing instrumentation was applied for the detailed composition analysis of submicron aerosol: We used online atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry (APCI-MS) (Vogel et al., 2013), aerosol mass spectrometry (AMS), and filter sampling for laboratory based analysis using ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization ultrahigh resolution (OrbitrapTM) mass spectrometry (UHPLC/ESI-UHRMS). The AMS allows quantification of total organics, sulfate and nitrate, whereas the APCI-MS can identify single organic species (organic acids, organosulfates, nitrooxy-organosulfates), both at a high measurement frequencies (< 1 minute). The UHPLC/ESI-UHRMS analysis of filter samples provides vital information helping to understand the complex online spectra of the APCI-MS by the unambiguous determination of the elemental composition of different organic compounds. Furthermore, we used a MARGA (Monitor for Aerosols and Gases in Ambient Air) to measure the concentration of purely inorganic sulfate in PM10. Finally a CCN counter coupled to a differential mobility analyser (DMA) and to a condensation particle counter (CPC) was used to measure size-resolved CCN efficiency spectra and to derive the hygroscopicity parameter κ. We determined the κ-value of the ambient aerosol from size resolved chemical composition measurements by the AMS and compared it to the measured values of the CCN efficiency spectra. The relative evolution of the aerosol aging was determined by measuring the ratio of two biogenic acids: the aging product 1,2,3-methyl-butane-tricarboxylic acid (MBTCA) and the first generation oxidation product pinic acid by the online APCI-MS. The occurrence of organosulfates and nitrooxy-organosulfates was observed by the ultrahigh resolution MS analysis and the online APCI-MS. Comparison of the total sulfate concentration measured by the AMS with the sulfate measurements by the MARGA allowed for the determination of the fraction of sulfate which is bonded to organic molecules. We observed that photochemical aging and the formation of (hydrophobic) nitrooxy-organosulfates is responsible for the observed bias between the predicted and measured κ-value.

Terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) was used to study the transmission responses of pH-dependent apomyoglobin (ApoMb) dissolved solutions in 0.2-2.2 THz frequency domain, the THz-TDS technique was also benchmarked against circular dichroism (CD) by studying pH-related folding states changes of ApoMb protein. Results revealed that differences of pH-dependent ApoMb/water dynamics can be detected directly by the THz refractive index spectrum, and these differences are further proved to be caused mainly the effect of protonation of water and possibly water response leaded by protein conformation change.

This study examines the sintering of naturally occurring rock salt in dependence of pressure and temperature as is desired for storage and other applications in saline environments where rock salt is thermodynamically stable and shows a mechanical behavior compatible to the surrounding host material. Rock salt consists mainly of sodium chloride with small impurities of less soluble compounds such as anhydrite, CaSO4 . A special interest in the sintering process of naturally occurring rock salt is the segregation of anhydrite to the grain boundaries between individual sodium chloride crystals. Our study has shown that sintering naturally occurring rock salt at different pressures will influence the segregation of anhydrite. Experiments support a greater segregation of anhydrite resulting from an increased pressure treatment. As the solubility of anhydrite is less than sodium chloride, the sintered samples of naturally occurring rock salt show greater stability towards dissolution than pure sodium chloride.

Bacteria have evolved to become proficient at adapting to both extracellular and environmental conditions, which has made it possible for them to attach and subsequently form biofilms on varying surfaces. This has resulted in major health concerns and economic burden in both hospital and industrial environments. Surfaces which prevent this bacterial fouling through their physical structure represent a key area of research for the development of antibacterial surfaces for many different environments. Laser surface treatment provides a potential candidate for the production of anti-biofouling surfaces for wide ranging surface applications within healthcare and industrial disciplines. In the present study, a KrF 248 nm Excimer laser was utilized to surface pattern Polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The surface topography and roughness were determined with the use of a Micromeasure 2, 3D profiler. Escherichia coli (E. coli) growth was analysed at high shear flow using a CDC Biofilm reactor for 48 hours, scanning electron microscopy was used to determine morphology and total viable counts were made. Through this work it has been shown that the surface modification significantly influenced the distribution and morphology of the attached E. coli cells. What is more, it has been evidenced that the laser-modified PET has been shown to prevent E. coli cells from attaching themselves within the laser-induced micro-surface-features.