Marco Muzi

In silico validation procedure for cell volume fraction estimation through dielectric spectroscopy

Dielectric spectroscopy has proved to be a good tool for analyzing the passive electrical properties of biological tissues as well as those of inhomogeneous materials. This technique promises to be a valid alternative to the classical ones based on metabolites to monitor the growth and cell volume fraction of cell cultures in a simple and minimally invasive way. In order to obtain an accurate estimation of the cell volume fraction as a function of the permittivity of the suspension, a simple in silico procedure is proposed. The procedure is designed to perform homogenization from the micro-scale to the macro-scale using simple analytical models and simulation setups hypothesizing the properties of diluted suspension (cell volume fraction less than 0.2). Results obtained show the possibility to overcome some trouble involving the analytical treatment of the cellular shape by considering a sphere with the same permittivity in the quantitative analysis of the cell volume fraction. The entire study is based on computer simulations performed in order to verify the correctness of the procedure. Obtained data are used in a cell volume fraction estimation scenario to show the effectiveness of the procedure.

Polarization-maintaining reflection-mode THz time-domain spectroscopy of a polyimide based ultra-thin narrow-band metamaterial absorber

This paper reports the design, the microfabrication and the experimental characterization of an ultra-thin narrow-band metamaterial absorber at terahertz frequencies. The metamaterial device is composed of a highly flexible polyimide spacer included between a top electric ring resonator with a four-fold rotational symmetry and a bottom ground plane that avoids misalignment problems. Its performance has been experimentally demonstrated by a custom polarization-maintaining reflection-mode terahertz time-domain spectroscopy system properly designed in order to reach a collimated configuration of the terahertz beam. The dependence of the spectral characteristics of this metamaterial absorber has been evaluated on the azimuthal angle under oblique incidence. The obtained absorbance levels are comprised between 67% and 74% at 1.092 THz and the polarization insensitivity has been verified in transverse electric polarization. This offers potential prospects in terahertz imaging, in terahertz stealth technology, in substance identification, and in non-planar applications. The proposed compact experimental set-up can be applied to investigate arbitrary polarization-sensitive terahertz devices under oblique incidence, allowing for a wide reproducibility of the measurements.

Self-Gripping Mesh Repair in Primary Inguinal Hernia

Since the introduction of tension-free open inguinal hernia repair, recurrence rates have dropped and chronic postoperative inguinal pain has become a major concern. Perioperative nerve damage is considered among the main causes of inguinodynia; thus atraumatic mesh fixation has become a key element in modern hernia repair.

Numerical analysis of electromagnetic interactions by a cell during the mitosis phases: Numerical Analysis of Electromagnetic Interactions by Cell Mitosis

In this work, a numerical study of the interaction of an electromagnetic field with a biological cell in the different phases of mitosis is presented. In particular, the validity of the single-shell model during mitosis from a geometrical viewpoint has been considered. We consider the Jurkat cell for our analysis and model the content of the cell, composed by the nucleus and different organelles immersed in cytoplasm and delimited by the cell membrane, as a single material with appropriate electromagnetic properties derived by making use of effective medium approximation methods, i.e., we used a quasistatic approach to deal with the cell. To validate the model, a comparison between the original and 2 approximated geometry models is made and the results are in very good accordance. Subsequently, an analysis of the scattered field indicates that the most sensitive component to the mitosis phase is the one parallel to the segment joining the centers of the cells.