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Biomedical subjects

Giovanni Costantini

Publications and source records attributed to Giovanni Costantini.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Electrospray ion beam deposition of clusters and biomolecules.

An ion beam source using electrospray ionization is presented for nondestructive vacuum deposition of mass-selected large organic molecules and inorganic clusters. Electrospray ionization is used to create an ion beam from a solution containing the nanoparticles or molecules to be deposited. To form and guide the ion beam, radio frequency and electrostatic ion optics are utilized. The kinetic energy distribution of the particles is measured to control the beam formation and the landing process. The particle mass-to-charge ratio is analyzed by in situ time-of-flight mass spectrometry. To demonstrate the performance of the setup, deposition experiments with gold nanoclusters and bovine serum albumin proteins on graphite surfaces were performed and analyzed by ex situ atomic force microscopy. The small gold clusters are found to form three-dimensional agglomerations at the surface, preferentially decorating the step edges. In contrast, bovine serum albumin creates two-dimensional fractal nanostructures on the substrate terraces due to strong intermolecular interactions.

Biopolymers↗

Associative memory design for 256 gray-level images using a multilayer neural network.

A design procedure is presented for neural associative memories storing gray-scale images. It is an evolution of a previous work based on the decomposition of the image with 2L gray levels into L binary patterns, stored in L uncoupled neural networks. In this letter, an L-layer neural network is proposed with both intralayer and interlayer connections. The connections between different layers introduce interactions among all the neurons, increasing the recall performance with respect to the uncoupled case. In particular, the proposed network can store images with the commonly used number of 256 gray levels instead of 16, as in the previous approach.

Algorithms↗

Associative memory design using support vector machines.

The relation existing between support vector machines (SVMs) and recurrent associative memories is investigated. The design of associative memories based on the generalized brain-state-in-a-box (GBSB) neural model is formulated as a set of independent classification tasks which can be efficiently solved by standard software packages for SVM learning. Some properties of the networks designed in this way are evidenced, like the fact that surprisingly they follow a generalized Hebb's law. The performance of the SVM approach is compared to existing methods with nonsymmetric connections, by some design examples.

Algorithms↗

Engineering atomic and molecular nanostructures at surfaces.

The fabrication methods of the microelectronics industry have been refined to produce ever smaller devices, but will soon reach their fundamental limits. A promising alternative route to even smaller functional systems with nanometre dimensions is the autonomous ordering and assembly of atoms and molecules on atomically well-defined surfaces. This approach combines ease of fabrication with exquisite control over the shape, composition and mesoscale organization of the surface structures formed. Once the mechanisms controlling the self-ordering phenomena are fully understood, the self-assembly and growth processes can be steered to create a wide range of surface nanostructures from metallic, semiconducting and molecular materials.

Journal Article↗