BACKGROUND Excess moisture and visible mold are associated with increased risk of asthma. Only a few studies have performed detailed home visits to characterize the extent and location of moisture damage and mold growth. METHODS Structured home inspections were performed in a birth cohort study when the children were 5 months old (on average). Children (N = 398) were followed up to the age of...

While polymer microneedles may easily be fabricated by casting a solution in a mold, either centrifugation or vacuumizing is needed to pull the viscous polymer solution into the microholes of the mold. We report a novel process to fabricate polymer microneedles with a one-sided vacuum using a ceramic mold that is breathable but water impermeable. A polymer solution containing polyvinyl alcohol ...

Occurrence of mold was visually monitored for 26days on samples of major anatomical components of corn stover maintained at several storage temperatures (T) and water activities (a(w)). Glass desiccators with saturated salt solutions placed in temperature controlled chambers provided simulated storage conditions with temperatures ranging from 10 degrees C to 40 degrees C and water activities ra...

Imprint pressure uniformity is crucial to the pattern uniformity and yield of nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and, hence, its applications. We studied a novel imprint method, air cushion press (ACP), in which the mold and substrate are pressed against each other by gas pressure rather than solid plates, and compared it with a common method, solid parallel-plate press (SPP). We found that (a) unde...

Research applications in chemoinformatics and toxicoinformatics increasingly use representations of molecules in the form of numerical descriptors that capture the structural characteristics and properties of molecules. These representations are useful for ADME/toxicity prediction, diversity analysis, library design, QSAR/QSPR, virtual screening, and other purposes. Molecular descriptors have r...

This paper presents geometric algorithms for developing a re-configurable tooling system for fabrication of freeform objects. The proposed method involves a mold block, with n faces, in which the mold cavity is formed by moving a set of discrete pins on each face of the block. The part surfaces are approximated in the mold cavity using the pins from the suitable mold block faces. The geometric ...

One of the most fundamental decisions when designing a mold for the plastics thermoforming process is whether to use a plug (male) mold or a cavity (female) mold design. This critical decision is often brushed over in the literature yet has the greatest single impact on part wall thickness and wall thickness variation. Other considerations when deciding on this fundamental design concept includ...

In continuous casting of steel, the interfacial gap between the mold and the solidifying shell controls heat transfer in the process and is responsible for lubrication and the prevention of cracks and other defects. Mold slag forms when mold powder added to the top surface of the steel melts, and is the best current practice to perform these important functions. The properties and behavior of t...

A simple, yet innovative, method is presented for fabricating high-aspect-ratio polymer nanohairs (aspect ratio >20) on a solid substrate by sequential application of molding and drawing of a thin polymer film. The polymer film was prepared by spin coating on a rigid or flexible substrate, and the temperature was raised above the polymer's glass transition while in conformal contact with a poly...

The severe adhesion between silicon and glass has limited its application as mold material in precision glass molding. In this paper, a novel coating approach to create non-stick silicon mold for glass molding was introduced by using carbide-bonded graphene, a two dimensional material with a patterned atomic structure. A graphene coated silicon mold was fabricated using a coating process develo...