Transmembrane pressure across the glomerular filter barrier may underlie renal failure. However, studies of renal failure have been difficult owing to a lack of in vitro models to capture the transmembrane pressure in a controlled approach. Here we report a microfluidic platform of podocyte culture to investigate transmembrane pressure induced glomerular leakage. Podocytes, the glomerular epithelial cells essential for filtration function, were cultivated on a porous membrane supplied with transmembrane pressure ΔP. An anodic aluminum oxide membrane with collagen coating was used as the porous membrane, and the filtration function was evaluated using dextrans of different sizes. The results show that dextran in 20 kDa and 70 kDa can penetrate the podocyte membrane, whereas dextran in 500 kDa was blocked until ΔP ≥ 60 mmHg, which resembles the filtration function when ΔP was in the range of a healthy kidney (ΔP < 60 mmHg) as well as the hypertension-induced glomerular leakage (ΔP ≥ 60 mmHg). Additionally, analysis showed that synaptopodin and actin were also downregulated when ΔP > 30 mmHg, indicating that the dysfunction of renal filtration is correlated with the reduction of synaptopodin expression and disorganized actin cytoskeleton. Taking together, our microfluidic platform enables the investigation of transmembrane pressure in glomerular filter membrane, with potential implications for drug development in the future.

Boiling heat transfer has a high heat removal capability in convective cooling. However, the heat removal capability of downward-facing boiling is significantly worse than that of upward-facing cases because of the confined buoyancy effect. This study was inspired by the conception of external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) condition relevant to the in-vessel retention (IVR) design of Westinghouse AP1000 plant. In the present study, a small-scale test facility had been established to investigate the local phenomena of boiling heat transfer under a downward-facing horizontal heated surface with impinging coolant flow. In this study, the surface temperature, heat flux information and several specific scenes of bubbles are taken down throughout the boiling processes for detailed investigation. It is observed that bubbles are confined under the downward-facing heated surface, which causes a worse heat transfer rate and a lower critical heat flux (CHF) limit than upward-facing boiling. Nevertheless, the impinging coolant flow is found to disturb the thermal boundary layer formed by the heated surface, so the CHF increases with an increase of coolant flow rate. In addition, during nucleate boiling, it is discovered that the growth, combination and dissipation of bubbles induce turbulent wakes and therefore enhance the heat transfer capability.

Traditionally, diagnosis methods use static models for delay defects, while there exists a class of faults including cross-coupling capacitance and resistive shorts exhibiting different effects on path delays with different input patterns. Blindly treating such faults will lead to skewed results for locating defects. In this paper, we discuss the method to handle these faults without explicitly modeling each type of faults. In the process, we differentiate failed delay paths into two categories: static and pattern-dependent. We further explore these information to list possible candidates (including coupling defects) causing timing failures for further analysis. The experimental results show that average rankings of suspects are 2.1 and 4.6 for failing segments and coupling pairs, respectively.

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