Focusing and imaging with increased numerical apertures through multimode fibers with micro-fabricated optics

The use of individual multimode optical fibers in endoscopy applications has the potential to provide highly miniaturized and noninvasive probes for microscopy and optical micromanipulation. A few different strategies have been proposed recently, but they all suffer from intrinsically low resolution related to the low numerical aperture of multimode fibers. Here, we show that two-photon polymerization allows for direct fabrication of micro-optics components on the fiber end, resulting in an increase of the numerical aperture to a value that is close to 1. Coupling light into the fiber through a spatial light modulator, we were able to optically scan a submicrometer spot (300 nm FWHM) over an extended region, facing the opposite fiber end. Fluorescence imaging with improved resolution is also demonstrated.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Kosher Seductions: Jewish Women as Employees and Consumers in German Department Stores

Department stores have long been associated with the trope of seducing female consumers, at least since the publication of Emile Zola’s novel Au bonheur des dames in 1883. This fictionalized portrayal of the Parisian department store Bon Marche, which has exerted considerable influence among early chroniclers of department store culture, identifies store owners as men who build ‘temples’ for prospective customers, and who use inebriating tactics to encourage them to enter and spend money. The consumer is gendered female in this and in many other literary works on the department store of the time; she is depicted as reluctant, yet sometimes eager to be tempted by male-driven consumer worlds

Surgery on breast cancer in pregnancy

Pregnancy-associated breast cancer (PABC) is defined as breast cancer develops either during or within 1 year after pregnancy, it is a rare disease arising in 1:3,000 to 1:10,000 pregnant women. Prognosis of this tumor is influenced by local or systemic treatment, which might be conditioned by gestational age and limited by the concern on potential adverse impact on fetus. The aim of this literature review is to analyze the main topics regarding surgical treatment of patients diagnosed with breast cancer in pregnancy: anesthesia and maternal-fetal monitoring, type of breast surgery, immediate breast reconstruction after radical surgery and management of the axilla. Some important topics remain controversial since the relative rarity of PABC precludes the feasibility of large studies leading to a lack of literature data. Multi-institutional collaboration is warranted to collect women with PABC, in order to best define surgical treatment in view of associated maternal and fetal risks

La questione dei decreti-legge tra dimensione fattuale e teorica: la sentenza della Corte di cassazione di Roma del 20 febbraio 1900 riguardo al R.d. 22 giugno 1899 n. 227,

Il saggio prendendo spunto dalla vicenda della emanazione e revoca del decreto emanato nel giugno 1899 al fine di introdurre severe misure di pubblica sicurezza, intende ricostruire i tratti del nascente dibattito su caratteri e fondamenti della potest\ue0 normativa del Governo e sul controllo di costituzionalit\ue0 delle leggi in sede giudiziale. Dopo aver fornito una ricostruzione sintetica della vicenda legislativa, il saggio analizza l\u2019orientamento scelto dalla Corte di cassazione di Roma con la sentenza del 20 febbraio 1900; si tratta per diversi aspetti di una svolta rispetto all'orientamento precedentemente assunto in materia di sindacato di costituzionalit\ue0. L\u2019indagine prosegue poi seguendo gli sviluppi successivi nel dibattito dottrinale sul tema, nel crepuscolo dello Stato liberale

Photoinduced Temperature Gradients in Sub-wavelength Plasmonic Structures: The Thermoplasmonics of Nanocones

Plasmonic structures are renowned for their capability to efficiently convert light into heat at the nanoscale. However, despite the possibility to generate deep sub-wavelength electromagnetic hot spots, the formation of extremely localized thermal hot spots is an open challenge of research, simply because of the diffusive spread of heat along the whole metallic nanostructure. Here we tackle this challenge by exploiting single gold nanocones. We theoretically show how these structures can indeed realize extremely high temperature gradients within the metal, leading to deep sub-wavelength thermal hot spots, owing to their capability of concentrating light at the apex under resonant conditions even under continuous wave illumination. A three-dimensional Finite Element Method model is employed to study the electromagnetic field in the structure and subsequent thermoplasmonic behaviour, in terms of the three-dimensional temperature distribution. We show how the latter is affected by nanocone size, shape, and composition of the surrounding environment. Finally, we anticipate the use of photoinduced temperature gradients in nanocones for applications in optofluidics and thermoelectrics or for thermally induced nanofabrication

L'istigazione e aiuto al suicidio tra utilitarismo e paternalismo: una visione costituzionalmente orientata dell'art. 580 c.p.

il contributo intende indagare la compatibilit\ue0 della fattispecie astratta di cui all'art. 580 c.p. con i principi di criminalizzazione oggi operanti. Tale disposizione, infatti, presenta una struttura ed una ratio che tradiscono la visione corporativa del legislatore del \u201930, che carica l\u2019atto suicida di disvalore basandosi su una visione della vita del singolo indicizzata ad un interesse statale preminente. Con l\u2019affermarsi della Costituzione e del principio personalista, la visione del legislatore codicistico deve considerarsi del tutto abbandonata, ci\uf2 nonostante l\u2019incriminazione in commento continua a trovare vigenza nel nostro ordinamento, ponendo agli interpreti, cos\uec come \ue8 di recente accaduto nel caso di Dj Fabo, non poche problematiche interpretative. Nel paper, quindi, partendo da tali premesse, si tenta di individuare una possibile formulazione dell'articolo in commento, che sia compatibile con l\u2019assetto di valori oggi riconosciuto, e che assicuri alle libere scelte del singolo lo spazio di autonomia necessario in un ordinamento liberale

The effectiveness of the international strategy in the analysis of the political language: Berlusconi´s speech at the chamber of deputies on the 13TH May 2008

In this context we will oversee to understand if and in which measure, the intentional attitude delineated today by the school of Anglo-Saxon thought and, in particular, by Dennett’s philosophy, can constitute an opportune and effective instrument for the analysis of the public language. With the expression “intentional system” we refer to the addressee of the communicative enterprise: a collectivity of people joined by the sharing a physical space and a temporal time; such a system can be explained, rationalized and, possibly, anticipated (as for its actions and to its behaviors) through the attribution to it of shared convictions and desires, which constitute the common sense of that organism. The so delineated philosophy of intentionality becomes, in this within, hermeneutics of the speech held by the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the Chamber of Deputies on May, 13 2008, that is in occasion of the beginning of its IV legislature. The exposure of the former prime Minister insisted, in order to guarantee to his own government the necessary consent, on the baggage of convictions and desires shared by the Italians, in an historical moment of confusion and political-institutional instability. That speech evidenced proper values of the cultural and ideological matrix of Italy: the house, the family, the entrepreneurial increase of North, the elimination of the organized crime in the South, the tax reduction on the job of the entrepreneurs, individual safety, the removal of the material causes of the abortion. Such concepts were introduced in order to attract the interest of a conservative public opinion and to diverge the attention from the substance of that government’s action, that realized itself in a plan of drastic reduction of the job in Public Administration and of increase of the tax charge, in the picture of a progressive and general economic recess

Electrodeposition from Deep Eutectic Solvents

Deep eutectic solvents constitute a class of compounds sharing many similarities with properly named ionic liquids. The accepted definition of ionic liquid is a fluid (liquid for T<100 °C) consisting of ions, while DES are eutectic mixtures of Lewis or Brønsted acids and bases. Their most attractive properties are the wide potential windows and the chemical properties largely different from aqueous solutions. In the last few decades, the possibility to electrodeposit decorative and functional coatings employing deep eutectic solvents as electrolytes has been widely investigated. A large number of the deposition procedures described in literature, however, cannot find application in the industrial practice due to competition with existing processes, cost or difficult scalability. From one side, there is the real potential to replace existing plating protocols and to find niche applications for high added-value productions; to the other one, this paves the path towards the electrodeposition of metals and alloys thermodynamically impossible to be obtained via usual aqueous solution processes. The main aim of this chapter is therefore the critical discussion of the applicability of deep eutectic solvents to the electrodeposition of metals and alloys, with a particular attention to the industrial and applicative point of view

Terahertz dipole nanoantenna arrays: resonance characteristics

Resonant dipole nanoantennas promise to considerably improve the capabilities of terahertz spectroscopy, offering the possibility of increasing its sensitivity through local field enhancement, while in principle allowing unprecedented spatial resolutions, well below the diffraction limit. Here, we investigate the resonance properties of ordered arrays of terahertz dipole nanoantennas, both experimentally and through numerical simulations. We demonstrate the tunability of this type of structures, in a range (∼1–2 THz) that is particularly interesting and accessible by means of standard zinc telluride sources. We additionally study the near-field resonance properties of the arrays, finding that the resonance shift observed between near-field and far-field spectra is predominantly ascribable to ohmic damping