To investigate the methods to improve the cell-material interaction of devices or tissue engineering scaffolds made of poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) polymer, apatite and apatite/collagen composite coatings were formed on PLLA films within 24 h through accelerated biomimetic processes. In vitro investigation using Saos-2 osteoblast-like cells through cell culture was conducted to assess the biological performance of these biomimetic coatings. The cell morphology on three types of surfaces, viz., PLLA film, PLLA film with the apatite coating, and PLLA film with the apatite/collagen composite coating, was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Cell viability was estimated using the MTT assay. The differentiated cell function was assessed by measuring the alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. The results obtained indicated that the biomimetic apatite and apatite/collagen composite coatings could significantly enhance the proliferation and differentiation of osteoblast-like cells. The apatite/collagen composite coating appears to be promising for the surface modification of PLLA-based devices with much improved interactions with osteoblastic cells.

The emerging fluid antenna technology enables a high‐density position‐switchable antenna in a small space to obtain enormous performance gains for wireless communications. To understand the theoretical performance of fluid antenna systems, it is important to account for the strong spatial correlation over the different positions (referred to as ‘ports'). Previous works used a classical, generalised correlation model to characterise the channel correlation among the ports but were limited by the lack of degree of freedom of the model to imitate the correlation structures in an actual antenna. In this letter, it is proposed to use a common correlation parameter and to choose it by setting the correlation coefficient of any two ports to be the same as the average correlation coefficient of an actual fluid antenna taking up a linear space. A closed‐form expression for the spatial correlation parameter is first derived assuming that the number of ports is large, and it is illustrated that the correlation parameter depends only on the size of the fluid antenna but not the port density. Simpler expressions are then obtained for small and large sizes of fluid antenna. The resulting model is finally used to study the performance of fluid antenna systems. Simulation results based on the proposed model are provided to confirm the promising performance of fluid antenna in single and multiuser environments.

No abstract

Most of the existing sediment transport models are not synchronously driven by both the wave field and the flow field. This paper describes a 3D sediment transport model with waves and currents directly coupled within the model to continuously account for different-scale activities especially those that have significant contribution to local sediment transport processes such as formation of sediment plumes and turbidity maxima. A practical issue in modeling coastal sediment transport, besides the concern of model accuracy, is the efficiency of the model. In the present model, the wave action equation, instead of the computational demanding elliptic mild-slope equation, is used to calculate the wave parameters. The wave action equations take into account wave refraction and diffraction as well as the tidal hydrodynamic modification. The calculation of the wave and current forcing is coupled during the time marching process so that the effects due to short-term activities can be considered. The model has been verified against laboratory measurements and has also been applied to simulate actual sediment transport situations in the Pearl River Estuary (PRE), China. It has been quantitatively shown that the suspended sediment concentration in the PRE increases significantly when waves are present. Sediment deposition occurs at the upstream region of the PRE while erosion takes place mostly at the down-estuary region due to exposure to wave actions.