The tactile sensations mediated by the whisker-trigeminal system allow rodents to efficiently detect and discriminate objects. These capabilities rely strongly on the temporal and spatial structure of whisker deflections. Subthreshold but also spiking receptive fields in the barrel cortex encompass a large number of vibrissae, and it seems likely that the functional properties of these multiwhi...

In this paper, the response of hybrid composite laminate plate reinforced by the smart wires (shape memory or the SMA wires) subjected to low velocity impact is studied. The smart wires are embedded within the layers of the composite laminate. The effect of the smart wires on contact force history, and deflection of these structures is investigated. The first-order shear deformation theory as w...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a dysfunction of heart rhythm and represents an increased predisposition to ischemic stroke in AF patients. It has been shown that the AF-induced hemodynamic conditions may contribute to the increased embolic propensity through the carotid arteries. We simulated a stroke-prevention device with a unique strut structure to deflect the trajectory of a blood clot to the ...

The rainbow is due to extrema of the angular deflection function of light impinging on water drops. Generically, extrema of suitably defined deflection functions lead to rainbows. These include angular and rotational rainbows in surface scattering and more. Here we introduce the concept of an "energy-loss deflection function" for scattering of particles from a periodic surface whose extrema lea...

Layer (L)2 is a major output of primary sensory cortex that exhibits very sparse spiking, but the structure of sensory representation in L2 is not well understood. We combined two-photon calcium imaging with deflection of many whiskers to map whisker receptive fields, characterize sparse coding, and quantitatively define the point representation in L2 of mouse somatosensory cortex. Neurons with...

We discuss the influence of large scale cosmic magnetic fields on the propagation of hadronic cosmic rays above 10 eV based on large scale structure simulations. Our simulations suggest that rather substantial deflection up to several tens of degrees at 10 eV are possible for nucleon primaries. Further, spectra and composition of cosmic rays from individual sources can depend on magnetic fields...

We optimize the elastic constants of the supporting structure in flexible fish fins—the fin ray—to obtain the least deflection under loading. We first solve the problem numerically for rays with shear layers of uniform thickness. The optimal distributions of bending and shear moduli are nonzero on disjoint regions. The numerical solution suggests the form of the analytical solution, which we ob...