Patterning and process parameter effects in 3D suspension near-field electrospinning of nanoarrays

The extracellular matrix (ECM) contains nanofibrous proteins and proteoglycans. Nanofabrication methods have received growing interest in recent years as a means of recapitulating these elements within the ECM. Near-field electrospinning (NFES) is a versatile fibre deposition method, capable of layer-by-layer nano-fabrication. The maximum layer height is generally limited in layer-by-layer NFES as a consequence of electrostatic effects of the polymer at the surface, due to residual charge and polymer dielectric properties. This restricts the total volume achievable by layer-by-layer techniques. Surpassing this restriction presents a complex challenge, leading to research innovations aimed at increasing patterning precision, and achieving a translation from 2D to 3D additive nanofabrication. Here we investigated a means of achieving this translation through the use of 3D electrode substrates. This was addressed by in-house developed technology in which selective laser melt manufactured standing pillar electrodes were combined with a direct suspension near-field electrospinning (SNFES) technique, which implements an automated platform to manoeuvre the pillar electrodes around the emitter in order to suspend fibres in the free space between the electrode support structures. In this study SNFES was used in multiple operation modes, investigating the effects of varying process parameters, as well as pattern variations on the suspended nanoarrays. Image analysis of the nanoarrays allowed for the assessment of fibre directionality, isotropy, and diameter; identifying optimal settings to generate fibres for tissue engineering applications

What can the Philosophy of Mathematics Learn from the History of Mathematics?

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer DOI: 10.1007/s10670-008-9107-0Peer reviewe

Quantified control in healthcare work : Suggestions for future research

This paper outlines promising avenues for empirical research on quantified control in healthcare work. A review of key insights from accounting, organization studies, and the emergent sociology of quantification indicates that numbers are productive as well as deceptive and seductive, that they enable control but can be evaded, and that they typically have unintended effects. It remains to be further explored how multiple forms of measurement and quantified control play out in everyday healthcare work. Other questions worth probing concern the limits and capabilities of numbers as a shared language, the differential and disciplinary effects of numbers on social groups, the use of numbers for impression management, and how people manage to resist or mobilize numbers for different purposes. Calling for additional qualitative, close-up studies, the paper proposes a research focus on everyday practices and the interactions of diverse control measures. It sets out several fruitful methodological pathways, both the well-established approaches of ethnography and Actor-Network Theory and the more novel approaches of investigating numbers as communicative acts or as dramaturgical performances

From standards to concerted programs of collective action: The standardization process of cell therapy in France. Pragmatist contribution to the sociology of innovation

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