Resolution refutation is a powerful reasoning technique employed in many automated theorem provers. Various enhancements to resolution have enabled it to be used as a general question answering mechanism. Question answering systems employing resolution as the basic reasoning technique have been used to provide both "intensional" and "extensional" answers to questions by considering a theorem to...

Droplets of de-ionized water and four aqueous surfactant solutions were generated in oil using a microfluidic flow-focusing device. The morphological developments of the drops in extensional flow and confinement-induced shear flow at various extension rates were studied using a hyperbolic contraction. This novel approach to droplet deformation within a microfluidic device allowed the probing of...

Field, structural, and metamorphic petrology investigations of Mabja gneiss dome, southern Tibet, suggest that contractional, extensional, and diapiric processes contributed to the structural evolution and formation of the domal geometry. The dome is cored by migmatites overlain by sillimanite-zone metasedimentary rocks and orthogneiss; metamorphic grade diminishes upsection and is defined by a...

We review the design and construction of several new microrheometers designed to facilitate the study of non-Newtonian fluids using very small sample volumes (1-10 μl) and on length scales of micrometer dimensions. These devices enable both the steady shear and transient extensional rheological properties of complex fluids to be measured. The shear-rate-dependent viscosity and gap-dependent yie...

Mammalian cells have been widely used in bioreactors to produce biological products such as pharmaceutical materials. The productivity of such bioreactors is vastly affected by flow-induced cell damage in complicated flow environments, such as agitation-driven turbulence and oxygen bubble bursting at the interface between the culturing medium and air. However, there is no systematic approach to...

We utilize a recently developed microfluidic device, the Optimized Shape Cross-slot Extensional Rheometer (OSCER), to study the elongational flow behavior and rheological properties of hyaluronic acid (HA) solutions representative of the synovial fluid (SF) found in the knee joint. The OSCER geometry is a stagnation point device that imposes a planar extensional flow with a homogenous extension...

Relative to other extrinsic factors, the effects of hydrodynamic flow fields on protein stability and conformation remain poorly understood. Flow-induced protein remodeling and/or aggregation is observed both in Nature and during the large-scale industrial manufacture of proteins. Despite its ubiquity, the relationships between the type and magnitude of hydrodynamic flow, a protein's structure ...

Geologic mapping in southern Death Valley, California, demonstrates Mesozoic contractional structures overprinted by two phases of Neogene extension and contemporaneous strike-slip deformation. The folding is most evident the middle unit Noonday Formation, these folds are cut a complex array faults. oldest identified faults primarily displace Neoproterozoic units as young Johnnie Formation. How...

Numerical optimization of a “six-arm cross-slot” device yields several three-dimensional shapes fluidic channels that impose close approximations to an ideal uniaxial (biaxial) stagnation point extensional flow under the constraints having four inlets and two outlets (two outlets) for Newtonian creeping flow. One numerically designed geometries is considered suitable fabrication at microscale, ...

Acoustic techniques are used to monitor the temperature of silicon wafers in rapid thermal processing environments from room temperature to 1000" C with f 5 " C accuracy. Acoustic transducers are mounted at the bases of the quartz pins that support the silicon wafer during processing. An electrical pulse applied across the transducer generates an extensional mode acoustic wave which is guided b...