Near-field coupling of gold plasmonic antennas for sub-100 nm magneto-thermal microscopy

The development of spintronic technology with increasingly dense, high-speed, and complex devices will be accelerated by accessible microscopy techniques capable of probing magnetic phenomena on picosecond time scales and at deeply sub-micron length scales. A recently developed time-resolved magneto-thermal microscope provides a path towards this goal if it is augmented with a picosecond, nanoscale heat source. We theoretically study adiabatic nanofocusing and near-field heat induction using conical gold plasmonic antennas to generate sub-100 nm thermal gradients for time-resolved magneto-thermal imaging. Finite element calculations of antenna-sample interactions reveal focused electromagnetic loss profiles that are either peaked directly under the antenna or are annular, depending on the sample's conductivity, the antenna's apex radius, and the tip-sample separation. We find that the thermal gradient is confined to 40 nm to 60 nm full width at half maximum for realistic ranges of sample conductivity and apex radius. To mitigate this variation, which is undesirable for microscopy, we investigate the use of a platinum capping layer on top of the sample as a thermal transduction layer to produce heat uniformly across different sample materials. After determining the optimal capping layer thickness, we simulate the evolution of the thermal gradient in the underlying sample layer, and find that the temporal width is below 10 ps. These results lay a theoretical foundation for nanoscale, time-resolved magneto-thermal imaging.Comment: 24 pages including Supporting Information, 6 figures in the main text, 4 supporting figure

Fanleaf degeneration/decline disease of grapevines

NYS IPM Type: Fruits IPM Fact SheetFanleaf degeneration/decline disease is one of the most severe viral disease complexes of grapevine worldwide. It is also one of the oldest known viral diseases of Vitis vinifera with descriptions of symptoms being reported in Europe as early as 1841. This disease is now known to affect grapevines in all temperate regions where Vitis vinifera and hybrid rootstocks are grown. Within the United States, fanleaf degeneration/decline is widespread in California, but has also been observed in Washington State, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and Missouri

FrOoDo: Framework for Out-of-Distribution Detection

FrOoDo is an easy-to-use and flexible framework for Out-of-Distribution detection tasks in digital pathology. It can be used with PyTorch classification and segmentation models, and its modular design allows for easy extension. The goal is to automate the task of OoD Evaluation such that research can focus on the main goal of either designing new models, new methods or evaluating a new dataset. The code can be found at https://github.com/MECLabTUDA/FrOoDo

Changes in digital communication during the COVID-19 global pandemic: implications for digital inequality and future research

Governments and public health institutions across the globe have set social distancing and stay-at-home guidelines to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. With reduced opportunities to spend time together in person come new challenges to remain socially connected. This essay addresses how the pandemic has changed people’s use of digital communication methods, and how inequalities in the use of these methods may arise. We draw on data collected from 1,374 American adults between 4 and 8 April 2020, about two weeks after lockdown measures were introduced in various parts of the United States. We first address whether people changed their digital media use to reach out to friends and family, looking into voice calls, video calls, text messaging, social media, and online games. Then, we show how age, gender, living alone, concerns about Internet access, and Internet skills relate to changes in social contact during the pandemic. We discuss how the use of digital media for social connection during a global public health crisis may be unequally distributed among citizens and may continue to shape inequalities even after the pandemic is over. Such insights are important considering the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s social wellbeing. We also discuss how changes in digital media use might outlast the pandemic, and what this means for future communication and media research

Crise econômica, cooperação e relações internacionais: uma reflexão comparativa das políticas norte-americana, brasileira e da União Européia

O presente trabalho aborda as principais ações dos governos dos Estados Unidos, da Europa e do Brasil para tentar minimizar os efeitos da crise econômica de 2008. Especificamente, os governos da Europa e dos Estados Unidos optaram por auxiliar o setor econômico por meio de pacotes bilionários de incentivos. As principais medidas foram investimentos na infra-estrutura, ajudas e estatização temporária de bancos estrategicamente relevantes, estímulos ao consumo interno, especialmente para o setor automotivo. Para combater a crise global, as reuniões do G20 ganharam um novo destaque. Nessas reuniões, os países em desenvolvimento, como o Brasil, obtiveram uma importância maior, já que a crise afetou principalmente os países desenvolvidos. Nessas reuniões, foram discutidos os próximos passos, medidas conjuntas e reformas no sistema financeiro internacional

A metabolic signature of long life in Caenorhabditis elegans

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many <it>Caenorhabditis elegans </it>mutations increase longevity and much evidence suggests that they do so at least partly via changes in metabolism. However, up until now there has been no systematic investigation of how the metabolic networks of long-lived mutants differ from those of normal worms. Metabolomic technologies, that permit the analysis of many untargeted metabolites in parallel, now make this possible. Here we use one of these, ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, to investigate what makes long-lived worms metabolically distinctive.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We examined three classes of long-lived worms: dauer larvae, adult Insulin/IGF-1 signalling (IIS)-defective mutants, and a translation-defective mutant. Surprisingly, these ostensibly different long-lived worms share a common metabolic signature, dominated by shifts in carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism. In addition the dauer larvae, uniquely, had elevated levels of modified amino acids (hydroxyproline and phosphoserine). We interrogated existing gene expression data in order to integrate functional (metabolite-level) changes with transcriptional changes at a pathway level.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The observed metabolic responses could be explained to a large degree by upregulation of gluconeogenesis and the glyoxylate shunt as well as changes in amino acid catabolism. These responses point to new possible mechanisms of longevity assurance in worms. The metabolic changes observed in dauer larvae can be explained by the existence of high levels of autophagy leading to recycling of cellular components.</p> <p>See associated minireview: <url>http://jbiol.com/content/9/1/7</url></p

Young and Early Career Investigators: Report from a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise Working Group

The scientific challenges facing HIV-1 vaccine development are unprecedented in the history of vaccinology. As a result, investigators, funders, and other stakeholders generally agree that &#x201c;game-changing&#x201d; ideas are required. While innovation can certainly arise from investigators at all career stages, young and early-career investigators, defined as those under 40 years of age or within 10 years of their final degree or clinical training, are especially key contributors of novel and transformative ideas. Young and early-career investigators bring energy, enthusiasm, and fresh perspectives that are unbiased by prevailing dogma and that are essential to scientific progress

Countering Quantum Noise with Supplementary Classical Information

We consider situations in which i) Alice wishes to send quantum information to Bob via a noisy quantum channel, ii) Alice has a classical description of the states she wishes to send and iii) Alice can make use of a finite amount of noiseless classical information. After setting up the problem in general, we focus attention on one specific scenario in which Alice sends a known qubit down a depolarizing channel along with a noiseless cbit. We describe a protocol which we conjecture is optimal and calculate the average fidelity obtained. A surprising amount of structure is revealed even for this simple case which suggests that relationships between quantum and classical information could in general be very intricate.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 2 figures Typo in reference 9 correcte

Nanoscale magnetization and current imaging using scanning-probe magneto-thermal microscopy

Magnetic microscopy that combines nanoscale spatial resolution with picosecond scale temporal resolution uniquely enables direct observation of the spatiotemporal magnetic phenomena that are relevant to future high-speed, high-density magnetic storage and logic technologies. Magnetic microscopes that combine these metrics has been limited to facility-level instruments. To address this gap in lab-accessible spatiotemporal imaging, we develop a time-resolved near-field magnetic microscope based on magneto-thermal interactions. We demonstrate both magnetization and current density imaging modalities, each with spatial resolution that far surpasses the optical diffraction limit. In addition, we study the near-field and time-resolved characteristics of our signal and find that our instrument possesses a spatial resolution on the scale of 100 nm and a temporal resolution below 100 ps. Our results demonstrate an accessible and comparatively low-cost approach to nanoscale spatiotemporal magnetic microscopy in a table-top form to aid the science and technology of dynamic magnetic devices with complex spin textures