Optical trap assisted nanopatterning is a laser direct-write technique that uses an optically trapped microsphere as a near-field objective. The type of feature that one can create with this technique depends on several factors, one of which is the shape of the microbead. In this paper, we examine how the geometry of the bead affects the focus of the light through a combination of experiments a...

During development, newly born neurons migrate away from their initial birth sites to their final positions in the mature brain. The neurotrophin BDNF has been shown to regulate the migration of granule cells in the cerebellum. The cellular mechanisms that mediate this chemotactic response have not been resolved. In this issue of Neuron, Zhou et al. show that vesicle trafficking is critical for...

Microparticles are small fragments (0.1-1.0 μm) of cellular membrane which are shed by cells under conditions of stress. As levels of circulating microparticles are elevated in disease, there has been significant interest in their assessment and quantification under pathological conditions. Here we describe a protocol for the isolation of microparticles from plasma samples and their characteriz...

Generalized van der Corput sequences are onedimensional, infinite sequences in the unit interval. They are generated from permutations in integer base b and are the building blocks of the multi-dimensional Halton sequences. Motivated by recent progress of Atanassov on the uniform distribution behavior of Halton sequences, we study, among others, permutations of the form P (i) = ai (mod b) for c...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to develop the Italian version of the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI) and to examine its psychometric properties within a sample of nursing staff. METHOD The study was cross-sectional and not randomized. The data were gathered using an anonymous, self-report questionnaire. The sample consisted of 391 staff nurses employed in three hospitals in the Northern ...

After emergence, adult flies and other insects select a suitable perch and expand their wings. Wing expansion is governed by the hormone bursicon and can be delayed under adverse environmental conditions. How environmental factors delay bursicon release and alter perch selection and expansion behaviors has not been investigated in detail. Here we provide evidence that in Drosophila the motor pr...

A tidal bore is a surge of waters propagating upstream as the tidal flow turns to rising and the flood tide rushes into a funnel shaped river mouth with shallow waters. The present study focused on the unsteady turbulence induced by a breaking tidal bore through some physical modelling. The laboratory data were compared systematically with some field measurements conducted in the breaking bore ...

In an attempt to achieve post-inhalation self-regulated insulin release, we constructed a microparticle agglomerate of nano-sized liposomal particles, with the agglomeration facilitated by cross-linkages capable of cleavage by glucose. The particles exhibited a small aerodynamic diameter within the human respirable range, but a large geometric diameter that prevents macrophage uptake and cleara...

The deposition stability and homogeneity of microparticles improved with mask, lengthened nozzle and flow rate adjustment. The microparticles can be used to encapsulate monomers, before the monomers in the microparticles can be deposited onto a substrate for nanoscale self-assembly. For the uniformity of the synthesized nanofilm, the homogeneity of the deposited microparticles becomes an import...