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Coastal urban areas like New York City (NYC) are more vulnerable to urban pluvial flooding particularly because the rapid runoff from extreme rainfall events can be further compounded by the co-occurrence of high sea-level conditions either from tide or storm surge leading to compound flooding events. Present-day urban pluvial flooding is a significant challenge for NYC and this challenge is expected to become more severe with the greater frequency and intensity of storms and sea-level rise (SLR) in the future. In this study, we advance NYC’s assessment of present and future exposure to urban pluvial flooding through simulating various storm scenarios using a citywide hydrologic and hydraulic model. This is the first citywide analysis using NYC’s drainage models focusing on rainfall-induced flooding. We showed that the city’s stormwater system is highly vulnerable to high-intensity short-duration “cloudburst” events, with the extent and volume of flooding being the largest during these events. We further showed that rainfall events coupled with higher sea-level conditions, either from SLR or storm surge, could significantly increase the volume and extent of flooding in the city. We also assessed flood exposure in terms of the number of buildings and length of roads exposed to flooding as well as the number of the affected population. This study informs NYC’s residents of their current and future flood risk and enables the development of tailored solutions to manage increasing flood risk in the city.

 

Abstract Evaporation of droplets composed of insoluble materials provides a low‐cost and facile route for assembling materials and structures in a wide spectrum of functionalities down to the nanoscale and also serves as a basis for innovating ink‐solution‐based future manufacturing technologies. This review summarizes the fundamental mechanics theories of material assembly by droplet drying both on solid and liquid substrates and in a fully suspended air environment. The evolution of assembly patterns, material deformation, and liquid flow during droplet drying and its response to external stimuli ranging from solution surfactant and pH value, surface geometric pattern and wettability, drying temperature, pressure environment, to electrical field have been highlighted to elucidate the coupling mechanisms between solid materials and liquid solutions and the manipulation strategies for material assembly through an either active or passive means. The recent progresses in ink‐based printing technologies with selected examples are also presented to illustrate the immediate applications of droplet drying, with a focus on printing electronic sensors and biomedical devices. The remaining challenges and emerging opportunities are discussed. 

SU-8 is an epoxy-based, negative-tone photoresist that has been extensively utilized to fabricate myriads of devices including biomedical devices in the recent years. This paper first reviews the biocompatibility of SU-8 for in vitro and in vivo applications. Surface modification techniques as well as various biomedical applications based on SU-8 are also discussed. Although SU-8 might not be completely biocompatible, existing surface modification techniques, such as O2 plasma treatment or grafting of biocompatible polymers, might be sufficient to minimize biofouling caused by SU-8. As a result, a great deal of effort has been directed to the development of SU-8-based functional devices for biomedical applications. This review includes biomedical applications such as platforms for cell culture and cell encapsulation, immunosensing, neural probes, and implantable pressure sensors. Proper treatments of SU-8 and slight modification of surfaces have enabled the SU-8 as one of the unique choices of materials in the fabrication of biomedical devices. Due to the versatility of SU-8 and comparative advantages in terms of improved Young’s modulus and yield strength, we believe that SU-8-based biomedical devices would gain wider proliferation among the biomedical community in the future. 

Abstract Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene has recently become a thriving material platform realizing correlated electron phenomena taking place within its topological flat bands. Several numerical and analytical methods have been applied to understand the correlated phases therein, revealing some similarity with the quantum Hall physics. In this work, we provide a Mott-Hubbard perspective for the TBG system. Employing the large-scale density matrix renormalization group on the lattice model containing the projected Coulomb interactions only, we identify a first-order quantum phase transition between the insulating stripe phase and the quantum anomalous Hall state with the Chern number of ±1. Our results not only shed light on the mechanism of the quantum anomalous Hall state discovered at three-quarters filling, but also provide an example of the topological Mott insulator, i.e., the quantum anomalous Hall state in the strong coupling limit. 

Gated storm surge barriers are being studied by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for coastal storm risk management for the New York City metropolitan area. Surge barrier gates are only closed when storm tides exceeding a specific “trigger” water level might occur in a storm. Gate closure frequency and duration both strongly influence the physical and environmental effects on enclosed estuaries. In this paper, we use historical observations to represent future storm tide hazard, and we superimpose local relative sea-level rise (SLR) to study the potential future changes to closure frequency and duration. We account for the effects of forecast uncertainty on closures, using a relationship between past storm surge and forecast uncertainty from an operational ensemble forecast system. A concern during a storm surge is that closed gates will trap river streamflow and could cause a new problem with trapped river water flooding. Similarly, we evaluate this possibility using historical data to represent river flood hazard, complemented by hydrodynamic model simulations to capture how waters rise when a hypothetical barrier is closed. The results show that SLR causes an exponential increase of the gate closure frequency, a lengthening of the closure duration, and a rising probability of trapped river water flooding. The USACE has proposed to prevent these SLR-driven increases by periodically raising the trigger water level (e.g., to match a prescribed storm return period). However, this alternative management approach for dealing with SLR requires waterfront seawalls to be raised at a high, and ongoing, additional future expense. For seawalls, costs and benefits will likely need to be weighed on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, and in some cases retreat or other non-structural options may be preferable. 

Modulations of fluid flow inside the bone intramedullary cavity has been found to stimulate bone cellular activities and augment bone growth. However, study on the efficacy of the fluid modulation has been limited to external syringe pumps connected to the bone intramedullary cavity through the skin tubing. We report an implantable magnetic microfluidic pump which is suitable for in vivo studies in rodents. A compact microfluidic pump (22 mm diameter, 5 mm in thickness) with NdFeB magnets was fabricated in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) using a set of stainless-steel molds. An external actuator with a larger magnet was used to wirelessly actuate the magnetic microfluidic pump. The characterization of the static pressure of the microfluidic pump as a function of size of magnets was assessed. The dynamic pressure of the pump was also characterized to estimate the output of the pump. The magnetic microfluidic pump was implanted into the back of a Fischer-344 rat and connected to the intramedullary cavity of the femur using a tube. On-demand wireless magnetic operation using an actuator outside of the body was found to induce pressure modulation of up to 38 mmHg inside the femoral intramedullary cavity of the rat.