Selective electroplating of etched circuits

Selective electroplating of etched circuit

Women Belonging in the Social Worlds of Graduate Mathematics

The participation of women in post-graduate mathematics still lags substantially behind that of men. Drawing upon sociocultural theories of learning, I argue that success in graduate school necessitates learning mathematical content, participating in mathematical practices, and developing a sense of belonging in mathematics. Using an institutional ethnography approach, I interviewed 12 women graduate students from three mathematics departments in the U.S. to document their experiences within the social relations of graduate mathematics. They described both intrinsic and extrinsic obstacles to belonging, including a tension between their desire to belong and their needs to distance themselves from what they perceived to be the mathematical culture. These women’s stories are interpreted in terms of the ways they are multiply “marked” as deviant (Damarin, 2000)—as women, as mathematically talented, and as women in mathematics; for women of color or mothers, these markings are even more complex

A stiffness controllable multimodal whisker sensor follicle for texture comparison

Mammals like rats, who live in dark burrows, heav-ily depend on tactile perception obtained through the vibrissalsystem to move through gaps and to discriminate textures. Theorganization of a mammalian whisker follicle contains multiplesensory receptors and glands strategically organized to capturetactile sensory stimuli of different frequencies. In this paper, weused a controllable stiffness soft robotic follicle to test the hy-pothesis that the multimodal sensory receptors together with thecontrollable stiffness tissues in the whisker follicle form a physicalstructure to maximize tactile information. In our design, the ringsinus and ringwulst of a biological follicle are represented by alinear actuator connected to a stiffness controllable mechanismin-between two different frequency-dependent data capturingmodules. In this paper, we show for the first time the effectof the interplay between the stiffness and the speed of whiskingon maximizing a difference metric for texture classification

TfAP-2 is required for night sleep in Drosophila.

BACKGROUND: The AP-2 transcription factor APTF-1 is crucially required for developmentally controlled sleep behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans larvae. Its human ortholog, TFAP-2beta, causes Char disease and has also been linked to sleep disorders. These data suggest that AP-2 transcription factors may be highly conserved regulators of various types of sleep behavior. Here, we tested the idea that AP-2 controls adult sleep in Drosophila. RESULTS: Drosophila has one AP-2 ortholog called TfAP-2, which is essential for viability. To investigate its potential role in sleep behavior and neural development, we specifically downregulated TfAP-2 in the nervous system. We found that neuronal TfAP-2 knockdown almost completely abolished night sleep but did not affect day sleep. TfAP-2 insufficiency affected nervous system development. Conditional TfAP-2 knockdown in the adult also produced a modest sleep phenotype, suggesting that TfAP-2 acts both in larval as well as in differentiated neurons. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, our results show that AP-2 transcription factors are highly conserved regulators of development and sleep

Hemocytes are essential for Drosophila melanogaster post-embryonic development, independent of control of the microbiota

Proven roles for hemocytes (blood cells) have expanded beyond the control of infections in Drosophila. Despite this, the crucial role of hemocytes in post-embryonic development has long thought to be limited to control of microorganisms during metamorphosis. This has previously been shown by rescue of adult development in hemocyte-ablation models under germ-free conditions. Here, we show that hemocytes have an essential role in post-embryonic development beyond their ability to control the microbiota. Using a newly generated strong hemocyte-specific driver line for the GAL4/UAS system, we show that specific ablation of hemocytes is early pupal lethal, even under axenic conditions. Genetic rescue experiments prove that this is a hemocyte-specific phenomenon. RNA-seq data suggests that dysregulation of the midgut is a prominent consequence of hemocyte ablation in larval stages, resulting in reduced gut lengths. Dissection suggests that multiple processes may be affected during metamorphosis. We believe this previously unreported role for hemocytes during metamorphosis is a major finding for the field

Quantitative scattering theory of near-field response for 1D polaritonic structures

Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy is a powerful imaging technique for studying materials beyond the diffraction limit. However, interpreting near-field measurements poses challenges in mapping the response of polaritonic structures to meaningful physical properties. To address this, we propose a theory based on the transfer matrix method to simulate the near-field response of 1D polaritonic structures. Our approach provides a computationally efficient and accurate analytical theory, relating the near-field response to well-defined physical properties. This work enhances the understanding of near-field images and complex polaritonic phenomena. Finally, this scattering theory can extend to other systems like atoms or nanoparticles near a waveguide