Dr. Patrick Lenahan, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, traveled in late August to St. Petersburg, Russa to present a talk at the European Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials. Professor Lenahan's student, Corey Cochrane attended and presented his research as well.

Dr. Akhlesh Laktakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, was notified in late August that he was chosed to be one of the recipients of the 2012 OSA Outstanding Reviewer Award. This award is intended to publically recognize Professor Laktakia's indispensable contributions to the success and stature of OSA's journal publishing program.

Alumnus Shaun Clair of Clair Global has acquired two niche firms, helping it meet rising technical demands and tap new markets. The Lititz-based company said Thursday that it has bought the assets of Wireless First and a related firm, GTO Live, for an undisclosed price. Clair Global is the world's largest provider of concert audio systems and technicians, which it rents to touring rock, pop and country groups. In Wireless First, it has added expertise in wireless microphones, ear monitors, intercoms and other critical equipment. Based in Mount Vernon, N.Y., Wireless First was founded by Kevin Sanford in 1996. Clients include production companies, television networks, events, schools and churches. In GTO Live, Clair Global has added a provider of rental "backline" equipment (instruments and amplifiers) for live televised events and elsewhere. Based in Bensalem and founded by Sanford in 2008, clients include the Tony Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and Country Music Awards. Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/287672_Clair-Global-expands-reach-by-buying-2-firms.html#ixzz2AE7ojA3s

Glass vials, each filled with about two tablespoons of brownish-orange liquid and stored in an LSU lab, could drastically cut back on bacterial infections, reduce the need for amputations and save hospital patients millions of dollars per year in surgical costs.

LSU doctors and bio-engineers have collaborated to design what is called a “theranostic” nano-particle — both therapeutic and diagnostic — to fight bacterial infections.

When injected into a patient, the minuscule particle bounces randomly around the body, glancing off different bacterium until it encounters the precise infection it’s “looking for” and then neutralizes it with antibiotics. The particle is undergoing testing and could be several years away from mainstream use.

The benefits of the particle are threefold: it allows doctors to pinpoint the exact location of an infection; it cuts down on the quantity of drugs needed to treat infected patients; and it reduces the amount of drug resistance bacteria often develop.

The World Health Organization considers antibiotic resistance one of the most pressing health care issues in the world with hospitals being some of the likeliest places to be exposed.

The process in creating the particle began about four years ago when doctors from the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans approached faculty at LSU’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering about finding a way to better treat bacterial infections.

Dr. Vinod Dasa, an orthopedic surgeon, said patients undergoing total joint replacements are among the most susceptible to contracting bacterial infections.

In a cover article in The Journal of Applied Physics, a team of Penn State researchers has designed and computationally tested a type of manmade metamaterial capable for the first time of manipulating a variety of acoustic waves with one simple device.

This invention will benefit almost all current sonic and ultrasonic applications, such as ultrasonic nondestructive evaluations and ultrasonic imaging. The device should also provide more accurate and efficient high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapies, a noninvasive heat-based technique targeted at a variety of cancers and neurological disorders.

Optical metamaterials have been widely studied in the past decade for applications such as cloaking and perfect lenses. The basic principles of optical metamaterials apply to acoustic metamaterials. Artificial structures are created in patterns that bend the acoustic wave onto a single point, and then refocus the acoustic wave into a wider or narrower beam, depending on the direction of travel through the proposed acoustic beam aperture modifier. The acoustic beam aperture modifier is built upon gradient-index phononic crystals, in this case an array of steel pins embedded in epoxy in a particular pattern. The obstacles (steel pins) slow down the acoustic wave speed in order to bend the acoustic waves into curved rays.

According the paper's lead author, Sz-Chin Steven Lin, a post-doctoral scholar in engineering science and mechanics, while other types of acoustic metamaterials also could focus and defocus an acoustic beam to achieve beam aperture modification (although prior to this work no such beam modifier has been proposed), their device possesses the advantage of small size and high energy conservation. Currently, researchers and surgeons need to have many transducers of different sizes to produce acoustic waves with different apertures. This is analogous to having to swap out lenses on a camera to change the lens’s aperture. With this invention, by changing the modifier attached to the transducer the desired aperture can be easily attained.

"Design of acoustic beam aperture modifier using gradient-index phononic crystals," by Lin; Bernhard Tittmann, Schell professor and professor of engineering science and mechanics; and Tony Jun Huang, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics; is the first design concept for an acoustic beam aperture modifier to appear in the scientific literature, and no acoustic beam modifier device is available in the market. As a result, the authors expect their device could have wide applications across several important acoustic fields, from medical ultrasound to higher sensitivity surface acoustic wave sensors to higher Q factor resonators. The team is currently making a prototype based on this design.
*Source: Walt Mills, Penn State Live

Holly Heinrichs, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, attended and presented her graduate thesis work at the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference in California mid-August. The title of her presentation is Parameter optimization of laser-doped selective emitters.

Xiaoyun Ding, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has been selected to receive a Baxter Young Investigator Award. This award program was developed to stimulate and reward research that can be directly used for critical care therapies and the development of medical products that save and sustain patients’ lives. Xiaoyung is advised by Professor Tony Huang.

Dr. Barbara Shaw, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, along with her students and research were recently featured in the Naval Engineering Education Center newsletter. To learn more, please visit their website.

Sema Erten, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics under the advising of Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, will travel to California in August to attend and present a paper at the Nanostructured Thin Films Conference. The presentation is entitled “Excitation of multiple surface-plasmon-polariton waves at metal/chiral-sculptured thin-film interfaces.” To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Holly Heinrichs, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics under the advising of Professor S. Ashok, will present her graduate thesis work at the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference August 15 in San Diego, California. The title of her presentation is “Parameter Optimization of Laser-doped Selective Emitters.” To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Stephen Swiontek, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics under the advising of Professor Akhlesh Lakhtakia, will travel to San Diego, California in August to attend the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) conference. While attending the conference, Stephen will deliver a poster presentation which is based on his research. To learn more about this conference, please visit their website.

Dr. Akhleskh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechancis, will travel to California in August to co-chair a conference and participate in an Editorial Board Meeting. This meeting is part of the International Society of Optics and Photonics (SPIE) board of editors meeting and SPIE publications committee meetings. To learn more about this conference, please visit their website.

Sz-Chin Lin, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, was notified that his paper on Acoustic Beam Aperture Modifier was reported on Newswise. To learn more about this publication, please visit their website.

Dr. Albert Segall, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics will travel in early August to Canada to give an invited presentation to the Calgary Chapter of the Society for Tribologists and Engineers (STLE). While on travel, Dr. Segall will meet with the Universities of Calgary and Alberta to discuss collaborations.