Tunable Dipolar Capillary Deformations for Magnetic Janus Particles at Fluid-Fluid Interfaces

Janus particles have attracted significant interest as building blocks for complex materials in recent years. Furthermore, capillary interactions have been identified as a promising tool for directed self-assembly of particles at fluid-fluid interfaces. In this paper, we develop theoretical models describing the behaviour of magnetic Janus particles adsorbed at fluid-fluid interfaces interacting with an external magnetic field. Using numerical simulations, we test the models predictions and show that the magnetic Janus particles deform the interface in a dipolar manner. We suggest how to utilise the resulting dipolar capillary interactions to assemble particles at a fluid-fluid interface, and further demonstrate that the strength of these interactions can be tuned by altering the external field strength, opening up the possibility to create novel, reconfigurable materials.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Analysis of face and segment level descriptors for robust 3D co-segmentation

Analysis of face and segment level descriptors for robust 3D co-segmentation

La creación de campeones de la industria electrónica en Asia oriental

Sustained and high growth in East Asia was achieved by developing sophisticated export sectors, especially in electronics, spearheaded by national “champions.” Using the experience of four major East Asian semiconductor firms, we argue that four ingredients of state-firm cooperation were instrumental in their success—ambition, autonomy, accountability, and adaptability (4A). This state-firm interaction involved ambitious goals and policies of the state combined with firms’ operational autonomy, strict accountability for the support received, and adaptability to the changing environment. In addition, international and domestic competition, collaboration with multinationals and research consortiums, and own innovation pushed firms toward the technological frontierEn Asia oriental se logró un crecimiento sostenido y elevado mediante el desarrollo de sofisticados sectores de exportación, especialmente en electrónica, encabezados por “campeones” nacionales. Utilizando la experiencia de cuatro importantes empresas de semiconductores de Asia oriental, argumentamos que cuatro ingredientes de la cooperación entre empresas y Estado fueron fundamentales para su éxito: ambición, autonomía, rendición de cuentas y adaptabilidad. Esta interacción entre el Estado y la empresa implicó ambiciosos objetivos y políticas por parte del estado, combinados con la autonomía operativa de las empresas, una estricta rendición de cuentas por el apoyo recibido y la adaptabilidad al entorno cambiante. Además, la competencia nacional e internacional, la colaboración con multinacionales y consorcios de investigación y la innovación propia empujaron a las empresas hacia la frontera tecnológic

Compact Furniture Dolly

One problem faced by people during moving is how to move large pieces of furniture, i.e. sofa, mattress, table, refrigerator, etc., conveniently without damaging them. A typical small dolly is incapable of carrying such large pieces, and a bulky dolly is inappropriate for an indoor use because it can damage the furniture and the floor. Besides, in either case, the user should lift up and put the load on the dolly. People who want to change positions of their furniture regularly to get a fresh look for the house, it is cumbersome to call a moving company every time. Our team aims to design a dolly system that can load large pieces of furniture onto adjustable frames with multiple wheels so that the user can tow or push furniture without hassle. The lift function of the dolly can jack up the furniture by pushing up the bottom of the furniture. The lift system does not require much power so that most people can easily load furniture onto the system. The frames are extendable for various types of furniture. When not in use, the system can be disassembled and stowed easily

Dynamic diversity of the tryptophan pathway in chlamydiae: reductive evolution and a novel operon for tryptophan recapture

BACKGROUND: Complete genomic sequences of closely related organisms, such as the chlamydiae, afford the opportunity to assess significant strain differences against a background of many shared characteristics. The chlamydiae are ubiquitous intracellular parasites that are important pathogens of humans and other organisms. Tryptophan limitation caused by production of interferon-γ by the host and subsequent induction of indoleamine dioxygenase is a key aspect of the host-parasite interaction. It appears that the chlamydiae have learned to recognize tryptophan depletion as a signal for developmental remodeling. The consequent non-cultivable state of persistence can be increasingly equated to chronic disease conditions. RESULTS: The genes encoding enzymes of tryptophan biosynthesis were the focal point of this study. Chlamydophila psittaci was found to possess a compact operon containing PRPP synthase, kynureninase, and genes encoding all but the first step of tryptophan biosynthesis. All but one of the genes exhibited translational coupling. Other chlamydiae (Chlamydia trachomatis, C. muridarum and Chlamydophila pneumoniae) lack genes encoding PRPP synthase, kynureninase, and either lack tryptophan-pathway genes altogether or exhibit various stages of reductive loss. The origin of the genes comprising the trp operon does not seem to have been from lateral gene transfer. CONCLUSIONS: The factors that accommodate the transition of different chlamydial species to the persistent (chronic) state of pathogenesis include marked differences in strategies deployed to obtain tryptophan from host resources. C. psittaci appears to have a novel mechanism for intercepting an early intermediate of tryptophan catabolism and recycling it back to tryptophan. In effect, a host-parasite metabolic mosaic has evolved for tryptophan recycling

Spatially Resolved Gene Expression Prediction from H&E Histology Images via Bi-modal Contrastive Learning

Histology imaging is an important tool in medical diagnosis and research, enabling the examination of tissue structure and composition at the microscopic level. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms of tissue architecture is critical in uncovering disease mechanisms and developing effective treatments. Gene expression profiling provides insight into the molecular processes underlying tissue architecture, but the process can be time-consuming and expensive. In this study, we present BLEEP (Bi-modaL Embedding for Expression Prediction), a bi-modal embedding framework capable of generating spatially resolved gene expression profiles of whole-slide Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained histology images. BLEEP uses a contrastive learning framework to construct a low-dimensional joint embedding space from a reference dataset using paired image and expression profiles at micrometer resolution. With this framework, the gene expression of any query image patch can be imputed using the expression profiles from the reference dataset. We demonstrate BLEEP's effectiveness in gene expression prediction by benchmarking its performance on a human liver tissue dataset captured via the 10x Visium platform, where it achieves significant improvements over existing methods. Our results demonstrate the potential of BLEEP to provide insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying tissue architecture, with important implications in diagnosis and research of various diseases. The proposed framework can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with gene expression profiling, opening up new avenues for high-throughput analysis of histology images for both research and clinical applications