Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is characterized by the premature arrest of alveolar development. Antenatal exposure to inflammation inhibits lung morphogenesis, thereby increasing the risk for the development of BPD. Here, we investigated whether vitamin D (VitD) enhances alveolar development in antenatal lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated rats, which is a model for BPD. We used an established ...

Methoxyphenols are an important class of compounds emerging from biomass combustion, and their reactions with ozone can generate secondary organic aerosols in the atmosphere. Here, we use a vertical wetted wall flow tube reactor to evaluate effect ionic strength on heterogeneous reaction gas-phase (O3) liquid film o-vanillin (o-VL) (2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde), as proxy for methoxyphenols....

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Cahn-Hillard approximation for entire minimal hypersurfaces in the hyperbolic space. Combining comparison principles with minimization and blow-up arguments, we prove existence results for entire local minimizers with prescribed behaviour at infinity. Then, we study the limit as the length scale tends to zero through a Γ-convergence analysis, obta...

We study compactness and Γ-convergence for Ginzburg-Landau type functionals. We only assume that the potential is continuous and positive definite close to one circular well, but allow large zero sets inside the well. We show that the relaxation of the assumptions does not change the results to leading order unless the energy is very large.

A homogenization result is given for a material having soft inclusions arranged in a periodic structure, under the requirement that the interpenetration of matter is forbidden. According to the relation between the softness parameter and the size of the microstucture, three different limit models are deduced via Γ-convergence.

This paper is an extended version of the lecture delivered at the Summer School on Differential Equations and Calculus of Variations (Pisa, September 16-28, 1996). That lecture was conceived as an introduction to the theory of Γ-convergence and in particular to the Modica-Mortola theorem; I have tried to reply the style and the structure of the lecture also in the written version. Thus first co...

The eeective energy of a mixture of two elastic materials in a thin lm is characterized using Gamma-limit techniques. For cylindrical shaped inclusions it is shown that 3D-2D asymptotics and optimal design commute from a variational viewpoint. Regularity of local minimizers for the resulting design is addressed.

The generalization to gradient vector elds of the classical double-well, singularly perturbed func-tionals, I" (u;) := Z 1 " W(ru) + "jr 2 uj 2 dx; where W() = 0 if and only if = A or = B, and A ? B is a rank-one matrix, is considered. Under suitable constitutive and growth hypotheses on W it is shown that I" ?-converge to +1 otherwise, where K is the (constant) interfacial energy per unit area.

Neospora caninum is recognised worldwide as a major cause of bovine infectious abortion. There is a real need to develop effective strategies to control infection during pregnancy which may lead to either abortion or congenital transmission. Due to the intracellular nature of the parasite, cell-mediated immune (CMI) responses involving CD4(+ve), CD8(+ve), γ/δ TCR(+ve) T cells and NK cells, as w...