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Objective: This paper aims to evaluate existing measurements and propose new ones for foreign policy similarity in international politics, emphasizing the importance of measurement in social science. The indicators designed must align with theoretical concepts and data characteristics to ensure consistency and validity. Methods: The paper meticulously examines the assumptions and calculation methods of existing indicators, such as the S‐score and tau‐b, to rigorously evaluate their alignment with theoretical concepts and data characteristics. It then proposes alternative measurements that can address these criteria. Results: The new indicators introduced in this paper address the limitations of the existing measurements. While producing values similar to existing measurements, they maintain conceptual consistency and operational interpretability. Additionally, the paper presents a tau‐like indicator weighted by national capability, an aspect not feasible with the previous tau‐b, leading to new meaningful conclusions. Conclusions: This paper emphasizes the importance of understanding measurements when creating or using them. A deep comprehension of similarity measures and the research topic facilitates more precise measurements, thereby enhancing research outcomes in international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motion capture method using sparse inertial sensors is an approach for solving the occlusion and economic problems in vision-based methods, which is suitable for virtual reality applications and works in complex environments. However, VR applications need to track the location of the user in real-world space, which is hard to obtain using only inertial sensors. In this paper, we present Fusion Poser, which combines the deep learning-based pose estimation and location tracking method with six inertial measurement units and a head tracking sensor that provides head-mounted displays. To estimate human poses, we propose a bidirectional recurrent neural network with a convolutional long short-term memory layer that achieves higher accuracy and stability by preserving spatio-temporal properties. To locate a user with real-world coordinates, our method integrates the results of an estimated joint pose with the pose of the tracker. To train the model, we gathered public motion capture datasets of synthesized IMU measurement data, as well as creating a real-world dataset. In the evaluation, our method showed higher accuracy and a more robust estimation performance, especially when the user adopted lower poses, such as a squat or a bow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Synchronous and pulsatile neural activation of kisspeptin neurons in the arcuate nucleus (ARN) are important components of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone pulse generator, the final common pathway for central regulation of mammalian reproduction. However, whether ARN kisspeptin neurons can intrinsically generate self-sustained synchronous oscillations from the early neonatal period and how they are regulated remain unclear. Objective: This study aimed to examine the endogenous rhythmicity of ARN kisspeptin neurons and its neural regulation using a neonatal organotypic slice culture model. Methods: We monitored calcium (Ca2+) dynamics in real-time from individual ARN kisspeptin neurons in neonatal organotypic explant cultures of Kiss1-IRES-Cre mice transduced with genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators. Pharmacological approaches were employed to determine the regulations of kisspeptin neuron-specific Ca2+ oscillations. A chemogenetic approach was utilized to assess the contribution of ARN kisspeptin neurons to the population dynamics. Results: ARN kisspeptin neurons in neonatal organotypic cultures exhibited a robust synchronized Ca2+ oscillation with a period of approximately 3 min. Kisspeptin neuron-specific Ca2+ oscillations were dependent on voltage-gated sodium channels and regulated by endoplasmic reticulum-dependent Ca2+ homeostasis. Chemogenetic inhibition of kisspeptin neurons abolished synchronous Ca2+ oscillations, but the autocrine actions of the neuropeptides were marginally effective. Finally, neonatal ARN kisspeptin neurons were regulated by N-methyl-D-aspartate and gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor-mediated neurotransmission. Conclusion: These data demonstrate that ARN kisspeptin neurons in organotypic cultures can generate synchronized and self-sustained Ca2+ oscillations. These oscillations controlled by multiple regulators within the ARN are a novel ultradian rhythm generator that is active during the early neonatal period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The return of fear following extinction therapy is an important issue associated with the treatment of many fear-related disorders. Fear renewal is a suitable model, with which context-dependent modulation of the fear response can be examined. In this model, any context outside of an extinction context (e.g., novel or familiar contexts) could evoke relapse of the fear response. However, brain regions associated with context-dependent modulation are not fully understood. The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is considered a center for integrating multisensory information and making decisions. To study its role in the contextual modulation of fear relapse, we reversibly inactivated the PPC in mice before they were exposed to various contexts after extinction training. When muscimol was infused into the PPC, fear renewal was impaired in a novel context, but not in a familiar context. Fear relapses were blocked during optogenetic inhibition of the PPC, only when animals were placed in a novel context. We propose that the neural activity of the PPC is necessary for the relapse of a precise response to an extinguished conditioned stimulus in a novel context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a liquid‐metal‐fluidically polarization reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna. The edge‐truncated patch is designed to generate circular polarization (CP), and two microfluidic channels are designed for the polarization reconfigurability. Therefore, the polarization of the proposed antenna is switched to linear polarization (LP) from the CP when the liquid metal is injected on the microfluidic channels. The microfluidic channels are fabricated on the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) material, and eutectic gallium‐indium (EGaIn) is used as the liquid metal. The performance of the proposed antenna is numerically and experimentally demonstrated. The measured 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 1.579‐1.619 GHz and 1.563‐1.587 GHz for the CP and LP modes, respectively. At the CP mode, the measured axial ratio (AR) and RHCP gain at 1.595 GHz are 2.267 dB and 6.59 dBic, respectively. At the LP mode, the measured AR and peak gain at 1.585 GHz are 12.335 dB and 5.18 dBi, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter proposes a frequency-reconfigurable dipole antenna using an origami flasher. The dipole antenna is designed on flat paper in the unfolded state, and the paper can then be folded into a cube inspired by the origami flasher. Dipole length is extended in the folded state due to the patch pole, which acts as a dummy in the unfolded state. The proposed origami antenna can switch resonance frequency from 1.23 to 0.77 GHz by folding the paper. Measured return losses are 11.6 and 13.9 dB, peak gains are −0.48 and −3.41 dBi, and efficiencies are 90% and 20% at each resonance frequency in the unfolded and folded states, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When motion capture data is applied to virtual characters, the applied motion often exhibits geometric and physical errors, which necessitates a cumbersome refinement process. We present a novel framework to efficiently obtain a corrected motion as well as its supporting contact information from multi-contact motion capture data. To this end, first, we present a projective dynamics-based method for optimizing character motions. By carefully defining objective functions and constraints using differential representation of motions, we develop a highly efficient motion optimizer that can create geometrically and dynamically adjusted motions given reference motion data and contact information. Second, we develop a contact optimizer that finds a set of contacts that allows the motion optimizer to generate a motion that best follows the reference motion under dynamic and geometric constraints. This is achieved by iteratively improving the hypothesis on the best set of contacts by getting feedback from the motion optimizer. We demonstrate that our method significantly improves the naturalness of a wide range of motion capture data, from walking to rolling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the ultimate goals of studies on visualization literacy is to improve users' visualization literacy through education and training. Even though users' cognitive characteristics may significantly affect learning and responding processes in general, studies have addressed the relationships between users' cognitive characteristics and visualization literacy. As a first step toward discovering the relationships, we conducted an empirical study to investigate the correlation between cognitive characteristics and visualization literacy. Our first study focuses on testing the correlation between visualization and three cognitive characteristics: numeracy, need for cognition, and visualizer-verbalizer style. In this study, we measured 178 participants' visualization literacy and the level of the three cognitive characteristics using the Visualization Literacy Assessment Test (VLAT), the Decision Research Numeracy Test (DRNT), the Need for Cognition Scale (NCS), and the Verbalizer-Visualizer Questionnaire (VVQ) through a crowdsourcing experiment. Our test results confirmed that a correlation exists between visualization literacy and both numeracy and need for cognition. Based on our test results, we discuss the implications for education to enhance visualization literacy and future studies to investigate on related user characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In avatar-mediated telepresence, remote users find it difficult to engage and maintain contact, such as a handshake, with each other without a haptic device. We address the problem of adjusting an avatar's pose to promote multifinger contact interaction between remote users. To this end, we first construct a contact point database for nine types of contact interactions between hands through contact experiments with human subjects. We then develop an optimization-based framework to compute the avatar's pose that realizes the desired contact learned from the experiment while maintaining the naturalness of the hand pose. We show that our method improves the quality of hand interaction for the predefined set of social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Information Visualization community has begun to pay attention to visualization literacy; however, researchers still lack instruments for measuring the visualization literacy of users. In order to address this gap, we systematically developed a visualization literacy assessment test (VLAT), especially for non-expert users in data visualization, by following the established procedure of test development in Psychological and Educational Measurement: (1) Test Blueprint Construction, (2) Test Item Generation, (3) Content Validity Evaluation, (4) Test Tryout and Item Analysis, (5) Test Item Selection, and (6) Reliability Evaluation. The VLAT consists of 12 data visualizations and 53 multiple-choice test items that cover eight data visualization tasks. The test items in the VLAT were evaluated with respect to their essentialness by five domain experts in Information Visualization and Visual Analytics (average content validity ratio = 0.66). The VLAT was also tried out on a sample of 191 test takers and showed high reliability (reliability coefficient omega = 0.76). In addition, we demonstrated the relationship between users' visualization literacy and aptitude for learning an unfamiliar visualization and showed that they had a fairly high positive relationship (correlation coefficient = 0.64). Finally, we discuss evidence for the validity of the VLAT and potential research areas that are related to the instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through online health communities (OHCs), patients and caregivers exchange their illness experiences and strategies for overcoming the illness, and provide emotional support. To facilitate healthy and lively conversations in these communities, their members should be continuously monitored and nurtured by OHC administrators. The main challenge of OHC administrators' tasks lies in understanding the diverse dimensions of conversation threads that lead to productive discussions in their communities. In this paper, we present a design study in which three domain expert groups participated, an OHC researcher and two OHC administrators of online health communities, which was conducted to find with a visual analytic solution. Through our design study, we characterized the domain goals of OHC administrators and derived tasks to achieve these goals. As a result of this study, we propose a system called VisOHC, which visualizes individual OHC conversation threads as collapsed boxes-a visual metaphor of conversation threads. In addition, we augmented the posters' reply authorship network with marks and/or beams to show conversation dynamics within threads. We also developed unique measures tailored to the characteristics of OHCs, which can be encoded for thread visualizations at the users' requests. Our observation of the two administrators while using VisOHC showed that it supports their tasks and reveals interesting insights into online health communities. Finally, we share our methodological lessons on probing visual designs together with domain experts by allowing them to freely encode measurements into visual variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we would like to investigate how people make sense of unfamiliar information visualizations. In order to achieve the research goal, we conducted a qualitative study by observing 13 participants when they endeavored to make sense of three unfamiliar visualizations (i.e., a parallel-coordinates plot, a chord diagram, and a treemap) that they encountered for the first time. We collected data including audio/video record of think-aloud sessions and semi-structured interview; and analyzed the data using the grounded theory method. The primary result of this study is a grounded model of NOvice's information Vlsualization Sensemaking (NOVIS model), which consists of the five major cognitive activities: encountering visualization, constructing a frame, exploring visualization, questioning the frame, and floundering on visualization. We introduce the NOVIS model by explaining the five activities with representative quotes from our participants. We also explore the dynamics in the model. Lastly, we compare with other existing models and share further research directions that arose from our observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various subtypes of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) have been implicated in fear extinction, but mGluR2/3 subtype has not been tested. Here, we found that microinjection of an mGluR2/3 antagonist, LY341495, into the lateral amygdala (LA), but not into the adjacent central amygdala (CeA), impaired extinction retention without affecting within-session extinction. In contrast, we failed to detect any significant changes in motility and anxiety during a period when extinction training or retention was performed after LY341495 injection, suggesting that the effect of LY341495 is specific to conditioned responses. Subsequently, on the basis of a previous finding that a long-term potentiation of presynaptic efficacy at cortical input synapses onto the lateral amygdala (C-LA synapses) supports conditioned fear, we tested the hypothesis that activation of mGluR2/3 leads to fear extinction via a long-term weakening of presynaptic functions at C-LA synapses. Fear extinction produced a decrease in C-LA synaptic efficacy, whereas LY341495 infusion into the LA blocked this extinction-induced C-LA efficacy decrease without altering synaptic efficacy at other LA synapses. Furthermore, extinction enhanced paired pulse ratio (PPR) of EPSCs, which inversely correlates with presynaptic release probability, whereas LY341495 infusion into the LA attenuated the extinction-induced increase in PPR, suggesting the presence of mGluR2/3-dependent presynaptic changes after extinction. Consistently, extinction occluded a presynaptic form of depression at C-LA synapses, whereas the LY341495 infusion into the LA rescued this occlusion. Together, our findings suggest that mGluR2/3 is required for extinction retention and that the mGluR2/3 action is mediated by the long-term weakening of release probability at C-LA synapses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, we discuss the mechanism of Schottky barrier height (SBH) modulation of the TaN/Ge contact by varying the nitrogen concentration in the TaN. The Fermi level, which is strongly pinned near the valence band edge of Ge, moves to the conduction band edge of Ge with higher nitrogen concentration in the reactive sputtered TaN. This SBH modulation is attributed to the presence of an electric dipole induced by Ge–N bonds at the interface of the TaN/Ge contact. This SBH modulation due to the semiconductor-nitrogen bonds at the interface is not specific to TaN/Ge, but rather is a general feature in various transition-metal nitride systems on various semiconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Healthcare information systems (e.g., Bar Code Medication Administration [BCMA] system) have been adopted to deliver efficient healthcare services recently. However, though it is seemingly simple to use (scanning barcodes before medication), users of the BCMA system (e.g., nurses and pharmacists) often shownoncompliance behaviors. Therefore, the goal of this study is to comprehensively understand why such noncompliance behaviors occur with BCMA system. Through comprehensive literature review, 128 instances of causes were identified, which were categorized into five categories: Poor Visual and Audio Interface, Poor Physical Ergonomic Design, Poor Information Integrity, Abnormal Situation for System Use, and User Reluctance and Negligence. The results show that successful use of a BCMA system requires supportive systems and environments, so it is more like an issue of the system rather than that of an individual user or a device. It is believed that the proposed categories could be applicable in investigating noncompliance behaviors in other healthcare information systems as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fear renewal, the context-specific relapse of fear following fear extinction, is a leading animal model of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and fear-related disorders. Although fear extinction can diminish fear responses, this effect is restricted to the context where the extinction is carried out, and the extinguished fear strongly relapses when assessed in the original acquisition context (ABA renewal) or in a context distinct from the conditioning and extinction contexts (ABC renewal). We have previously identified Ser831 phosphorylation of GluA1 subunit in the lateral amygdala (LA) as a key molecular mechanism for ABC renewal. However, molecular mechanisms underlying ABA renewal remain to be elucidated. Here, we found that both the excitatory synaptic efficacy and GluA2-lacking AMPAR activity at thalamic input synapses onto the LA (T-LA synapses) were enhanced upon ABA renewal. GluA2-lacking AMPAR activity was also increased during low-threshold potentiation, a potential cellular substrate of renewal, at T-LA synapses. The microinjection of 1-naphtylacetyl-spermine (NASPM), a selective blocker of GluA2-lacking AMPARs, into the LA attenuated ABA renewal, suggesting a critical role of GluA2-lacking AMPARs in ABA renewal. We also found that Ser831 phosphorylation of GluA1 in the LA was increased upon ABA renewal. We developed a short peptide mimicking the Ser831-containing C-tail region of GluA1, which can be phosphorylated upon renewal (GluA1S); thus, the phosphorylated GluA1S may compete with Ser831-phosphorylated GluA1. This GluA1S peptide blocked the low-threshold potentiation when dialyzed into a recorded neuron. The microinjection of a cell-permeable form of GluA1S peptide into the LA attenuated ABA renewal. In support of the GluA1S experiments, a GluA1D peptide (in which the serine at 831 is replaced with a phosphomimetic amino acid, aspartate) attenuated ABA renewal when microinjected into the LA. These findings suggest that enhancements in both the GluA2-lacking AMPAR activity and GluA1 phosphorylation at Ser831 are required for ABA renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fear renewal, a widely pursued model of post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias, refers to the context-specific relapse of conditioned fear after extinction. However, its molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. We found that renewal-inducing stimuli, generally believed to be insufficient to induce synaptic plasticity, enhanced excitatory synaptic strength, activity of synaptic GluA2-lacking AMPA receptors and Ser831 phosphorylation of synaptic surface GluA1 in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LAn) of fear-extinguished rats. Consistently, the induction threshold for LAn synaptic potentiation was considerably lowered after extinction, and renewal occluded this low-threshold potentiation. The low-threshold potentiation (a potential cellular substrate for renewal), but not long-term potentiation, was attenuated by dialysis into LAn neurons of a GluA1-derived peptide that competes with Ser831-phosphorylated GluA1. Microinjections of the same peptide into the LAn attenuated fear renewal, but not fear learning. Our findings suggest that GluA1 phosphorylation constitutes a promising target for clinical treatment of aberrant fear-related disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by progressive memory loss accompanied by synaptic and neuronal degeneration. Although research has shown that substantial neurodegeneration occurs even during the early stages of AD, the detailed mechanisms of AD pathogenesis are largely unknown because of difficulties in diagnosis and limitations of the analytical methods. The 5XFAD mouse model harbors five early-onset familial AD (FAD) mutations and displays substantial amyloid plaques and neurodegeneration. Here, we use quantitative mass spectrometry to identify proteome-wide changes in the 5XFAD mouse hippocampus during the early stages of AD pathology. A subset of the results was validated with immunoblotting. We found that the 5XFAD mice display higher expression of ApoE, ApoJ (clusterin), and nicastrin, three important proteins in AD that are known to participate in amyloid-β processing and clearance, as well as the neurological damage/glial marker protein GFAP and other proteins. A large subset of the proteins that were up- or downregulated in 5XFAD brains have been implicated in neurological disorders and cardiovascular disease, suggesting an association between cardiovascular disease and AD. Common upstream regulator analysis of upregulated proteins suggested that the XBP1, NRF2, and p53 transcriptional pathways were activated, as was IGF-1R signaling. Protein interactome analysis revealed an interconnected network of regulated proteins, with two major sub-networks centered on AβPP processing membrane complexes and mitochondrial proteins. Together with a recent study on the transcriptome of 5XFAD mice, our study allows a comprehensive understanding of the molecular events occurring in 5XFAD mice during the early stages of AD pathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environment in early life elicits profound effects on fetal brain development that can extend into adulthood. However, the longlasting impact of maternal stress on emotional learning remains largely unknown. Here,wefocus on amygdala-related learning processes in maternally stressed mice. In these mice, fear memory consolidation and certain related signaling cascades were significantly impaired, though innate fear, fear memory acquisition, and synaptic NMDA receptor expression in the amygdala were unaltered. In accordance with these findings, maintenance of long-term potentiation (LTP) at amygdala synapses, but not its induction, was significantly impaired in the maternally stressed animals. Interestingly, amygdala glucocorticoid receptor expression was reduced in the maternally stressed mice, and administration of glucocorticoids (GCs) immediately after fear conditioning and LTP induction restored memory consolidation and LTP maintenance, respectively, suggesting that a weakening of GC signaling was responsible for the observed impairment. Furthermore, microinfusion of a membrane-impermeable form of GC (BSA-conjugated GC) into the amygdala mimicked the restorative effects of GC, indicating that a nongenomic activity of GC mediates the restorative effect. Together, these findings suggest that prenatal stress induces long-term dysregulation of nongenomic GC action in the amygdala of adult offspring, resulting in the impairment of fear memory consolidation. Since modulation of amygdala activity is known to alter the consolidation of emotionally influenced memories allocated in other brain regions, the nongenomic action of GC on the amygdala shown herein may also participate in the amygdaladependent modulation of memory consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amygdala is known to be a critical storage site of conditioned fear memory. Among the two major pathways to the lateral amygdala (LA), the cortical pathway is known to display a presynaptic long-term potentiation which is occluded with fear conditioning. Here we show that fear extinction results in a net depression of conditioning-induced potentiation at cortical input synapses onto the LA (C-LA synapses). Fear conditioning induced a significant potentiation of excitatory postsynaptic currents at C-LA synapses compared with naïve and unpaired controls, whereas extinction apparently reversed this potentiation. Paired-pulse low-frequency stimulation (pp-LFS) induced synaptic depression in the C-LA pathway of fear-conditioned rats, but not in naïve or unpaired controls, indicating that the pp-LFS-induced depression is specific to associative learning-induced changes (pp-LFS-induced depotentiation ex vivo). Importantly, extinction occluded pp-LFS-induced depotentiation ex vivo, suggesting that extinction shares some mechanisms with the depotentiation. pp-LFS-induced depotentiation ex vivo required NMDA receptor (NMDAR) activity, consistent with a previous finding that blockade of amygdala NMDARs impaired fear extinction. In addition, pp-LFS-induced depotentiation ex vivo required activity of group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), known to be present at presynaptic terminals, but not AMPAR internalization, consistent with a presynaptic mechanism for pp-LFS-induced depotentiation ex vivo. This result is in contrast with another form of ex vivo depotentiation in the thalamic pathway that requires both group I mGluR activity and AMPAR internalization. We thus suggest that extinction of conditioned fear involves a distinct form of depotentiation at C-LA synapses, which depends upon both NMDARs and group II mGluRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design and performance of a new type of Kerr microscope based on heterodyne cross-polarized technique is presented. Weak depolarization of the probe beam due to longitudinal magneto-optical Kerr effect is detected by means of heterodyne mixing of the two cross-polarized and frequency shifted waves generated by Zeeman-type He–Ne laser. In comparison with the traditional homodyne method the proposed technique has better sensitivity and spatial resolution. Experimental results of imaging service magnetic tracks on real samples of magnetic disks are presented, showing better contrast and spatial resolution with respect to the images obtained from commercial devices available in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new cross-polarized heterodyne optical technique is developed for two-dimensional (2D) simultaneous mapping of both birefringence and thickness variations in large flat glass panels commonly used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). Weak depolarization of a linearly polarized probe beam due to glass birefringence is detected by means of heterodyne mixing of the two cross-polarized and frequency shifted waves generated by Zeeman-type laser. Amplitude variations of the transmitted laser beam due to interference of the partial waves reflected from the both sides of a sample provide information about glass thickness. Measurements are being performed at the intermediate frequency of 2.3 MHz, providing several orders of magnitude higher speed of data acquisition with respect to traditional polarimeters. That high speed of measurements makes it possible to perform quality assessment of LCD glass panels not only in few randomly chosen points as it was in common practice before but to obtain entire 2D maps of both birefringence and thickness variations with millimeter scale spatial resolution. The medium-scale prototype of the LCD glass inspection system is developed and tested. Design and performance of the prototype are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the design and control of an ultraprecision XYϑZ stage with nanometer accuracy. The stage has a plane mechanism and symmetric hexagonal structure which consists of a monolithic flexure hinge mechanism with three piezoelectric actuators and six flexures preserving the plane motion. The symmetric design reduces the effect of temperature gradient on the structure. Because the relationship between design variables and system parameters are quite complicated and there are some trade-offs among them, it is very difficult to set design variables manually and optimal design procedure is used. The objective of design is maximizing the 1st resonant frequency to improve the dynamic characteristics. The reason is that the stage must move with heavy load of about 20 kg. The higher resonant frequency also makes the stage stiffer and stronger against the dynamic force and moment. This paper describes the procedures of selecting parameters for the optimal design and a mathematical formulation for the optimization problem. The stage was designed to attain ±10 um in the X- and Y-direction and ±90arcsec in the yaw direction at the same time and have the 1st resonant frequencies of 455.5 Hz in X- and Y-direction and 275.3 Hz for yaw direction without load. The stage was fabricated according to the optimal design results and experimental results indicate that the design procedure is effective. A conventional PI control results are presented for ultraprecision motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electromagnetic responses are generally controlled electrically or optically. However, although electrical and optical control allows fast response, they suffer from switching or tuning range limitations. This paper controls electromagnetic response by mechanical transformation. We introduce a novel kirigami-inspired structure for mechanical transformation with less strength, integrating a shape memory alloy actuator into the kirigami-inspired for mechanical transformation and hence electromagnetic control. The proposed approach was implemented for a reconfigurable antenna designed based on structural and electromagnetic analyses. The mechanical transformation was analyzed with thermal stimulus to predict the antenna geometry and electromagnetic analysis with different geometries predicted antenna performance. We numerically and experimentally verified that resonance response was thermally controlled using the kirigami-inspired antenna integrated with a shape memory alloy actuator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method for metal nanopowder imprinting is proposed as a patterning process for conductive tracks, which is inexpensive and scalable down to submicrometers. To examine the feasibility of the proposed method, conductive tracks with widths of submicrometers to a few tens of micrometers were formed using a thermal nanoimprinting system, and the effects of processing conditions on the degree of replication and the degree of sintering and the electric conductivity of imprinted conductive tracks were analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential heterodyne interferometer is applied for measuring spatial thickness variations across glass panels of liquid-crystal displays. This system uses the Zeeman laser as a source of two-frequency shifted orthogonally linearly polarized probe waves, passing through the glass in two spatially separated points. These waves are then recombined in a single beam to produce the intermediate frequency signal with the phase proportional to the thickness gradient of a glass sample. The phase of the intermediate signal is measured against the laser reference by means of a lock-in amplifier, and finally real-time integration provides the thickness variation. Since spatial separation of the probe beams is only 1.35 mm good approximation for the thickness gradient is achieved. Detailed design of the interferometer and experimental results on real samples are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The myristoylated zeta inhibitory peptide (ZIP), which was originally developed as a protein kinase C/Mζ (PKCζ/PKMζ) inhibitor, is known to produce the loss of different forms of memories. However, ZIP induces memory loss even in the absence of PKMζ, and its mechanism of action, therefore, remains elusive. Here, through a kinome-wide screen, we found that glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3β) was robustly activated by ZIP in vitro. ZIP induced depotentiation (a cellular substrate of memory erasure) of conditioning-induced potentiation at LA synapses, and the ZIP-induced depotentiation was prevented by a GSK-3β inhibitor, 6-bromoindirubin-3-acetoxime (BIO-acetoxime). Consistently, GSK-3β inhibition by BIO-acetoxime infusion or GSK-3β knockdown by GSK-3β shRNA in the LA attenuated ZIP-induced disruption of learned fear. Furthermore, conditioned fear was decreased by expression of a non-inhibitable form of GSK-3β in the LA. Our findings suggest that GSK-3β activation is a critical step for ZIP-induced disruption of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pattern roll mold for imprinting 15-in. liquid crystal display black matrix was fabricated. A Ni sheet mold was replicated by electroforming process. For high accurate sheet mold wrapping process, a sheet mold wrapping machine was developed. Using the roll mold, black matrix patterns were manufactured by a roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography system with high pattern uniformity. The electroformed Ni sheet mold has 0.01% dimensional error rate due to the thermal and internal stress. The radius variation of the roll increases by 2 µm after wrapping the sheet mold. And alignment error in wrapping was 8.2×10-5 radian out of vertical line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]