The expression and function of the serotonin transporter (SERT) is important in the regulation of mood and emotion. Determination of SERT alterations in physiological and pathological states is essential for understanding the role of SERT in mood regulation, and in the etiology and therapy of psychiatric disorders. Two SERT ligands, AFM ([(3)H]2-[2-(dimethylaminomethylphenylthio)]-5-fluoromethy...

Age of gilts at first mating (AFM) is a factor associated with reproductive performance of female pigs. The objectives of the present study were to compare AFM and reproductive performance across parity between three herd groups based on a productivity measurement and to determine lifetime performance by AFM and the herd groups. The female data included 38,212 mated gilts entered between 2001 a...

FM-AFM is an extremely powerful and versatile imaging technique capable of atomic resolution imaging in vacuum, air or liquid. However, obtaining such results in practice currently requires tedious and time consuming manual tuning of many feedback parameters by trial and error. We present a recently developed algorithm for automated tuning of FM-AFM feedback parameters. The algorithm optimizes ...

We report on the precise positioning of a carbon nanotube on an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip. By using a nanomanipulator inside a scanning electron microscope, an individual nanotube was retrieved from a metal foil by the AFM tip. The electron beam allows us to control the nanotube length and to sharpen its end. The performance of these tips for AFM imaging is demonstrated by improved late...

An atomic force microscope (AFM) based system has been built for the manipulation of materials at the nanometer scale. The AFM is combined with an inverse optical microscope and an UV-laser microbeam system for photoablation. The actuators of the AFM are controlled using a digital signal processor. Real-time routines and a graphical user interface have been programmed for high resolution imagin...

The atomic force microscope (AFM) is limited in imaging speed by the bandwidth and dynamic behavior of the actuators and mechanical parts. For high-speed imaging all AFM components have to be optimized in performance. Here, we present improvements of the force sensor, the scanner, the controller, and the data acquisition system. By combining all these improvements, the next generation AFMs will...

FM-AFM is an extremely powerful and versatile imaging technique capable of atomic resolution imaging in vacuum, air or liquid. However, obtaining such results in practice currently requires tedious and time consuming manual tuning of many feedback parameters by trial and error. We present a recently developed algorithm for automated tuning of FM-AFM feedback parameters. The algorithm optimizes ...

We developed an in-plane Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) probe that is specifically tailored to the needs of biological applications. It features a variable stiffness, which makes the stiffness of the probe adjustable to the surface hardness of the sample [1]. The inherent capability of the in-plane AFM probe for building a massively parallel array is also an important feature that greatly affect...

Pulmonary surfactant stabilizes the lung by reducing surface tension at the air-water interface of the alveoli. Surfactant is present in the lung in a number of morphological forms, including tubular myelin (TM). TM is composed of unusual 40 x 40 nm square elongated proteolipid tubes. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was performed on polymer-embedded Lowicryl and London Resin-White (LR-White) unst...

Taking the pseudobinary C15-Laves phase compound Ce(Fe 0.96 Al 0.04) 2 as a paradigm for studying a ferromagnetic(FM) to antiferromagnetic(AFM) phase transition, we present interesting thermomagnetic history effects in magnetotransport measurements across this FM-AFM transition. We argue that these distinctive hysteretic features can be used to identify the exact nature first order or second or...