3D printed mould keeps micro-part development on track

US shop Potomac Photonics said it has created a 3D-printed mould for the Sloan-Kettering Institute for a microfluidic application.

According to the company, the acrylic 3D-printed prototypes are moulds, subsequently used for PDMS microfabrication. PDMS microchambers are now broadly used for biology and biomedical applications. However, development of such microfabricated devices (often based on photolithography) can be a bottleneck as it requires costly equipment and long process cycles.

The company explained that acrylic 3D printing allows rapid prototyping of microfluidic assay for moderate price. In particular, the mould (photo) is used to make a PDMS microchamber for cancer cell growth in a controlled environment.

This project was partly funded by Potomac Photonics Educational Manufacturing Initiative, a programme for partnerships with universities and researchers.

HEADLINES

1. DoIT Seeks Campus Feedback Through IT User Survey

2. SU2014 Blackboard Courses Created April 17

3. Everyone Must Change Password by May 23

4. New Director of Instructional Technology Starts May 27

5. Campus Webmail to be Upgraded May 28

6. DoIT & FDC Sponsor June 5 Hybrid Workshop

7. Known Issue: Missing Bb Modules Caused by Editing Them

8. Students More Accepting of Using Clickers for Exams

9. Using Box to Collect and Assess Job Applications

As part of our annual assessment plan, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) encourages the campus community to complete the following annual survey of information technology services: 

http://umbc.edu/go/doitusersurvey

This brief (10 minute max), anonymous survey will help us in our planning for academic year 2013-2014 and provides important feedback to understand what technology services are important to you and how well we are meeting your needs. The survey results are shared with our governance committees and used in our planning for the upcoming year.

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Rebecca Adelman, assistant professor in the Department of Media and Communication Studies, has authored a new book, “Beyond the Checkpoint: Visual Practices in America’s Global War on Terror” (The University of Massachusetts Press, 2014).

Since the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil, American citizenship has been redefined by the visual images associated with the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Rebecca A. Adelman contends that, in viewing images such as security footage of the 9/11 hijackers, film portrayals of the attacks and subsequent wars, memorials commemorating the attacks, and even graphics associated with increased security in airports, American citizens have been recast as militarized spectators, brought together through the production, circulation, and consumption of these visual artifacts. Beyond the Checkpoint reveals that the visual is essential to the prosecution of the GWOT domestically and abroad, and that it functions as a crucial mechanism in the ongoing formation of the U.S. state itself and an essential component of contemporary American citizenship.

Tracing the connections between citizenship and spectatorship, and moving beyond the close reading of visual representations, this book focuses on the institutions and actors that create, monitor, and regulate the visual landscape of the GWOT. Adelman looks around and through common images to follow the complex patterns of practice by which institutions and audiences engage them in various contexts. In the process, she proposes a new methodology for studying visual cultures of conflict, and related phenomena like violence, terror, and suffering that are notoriously difficult to represent.

Attending to previously unanalyzed dimensions of this conflict, this book illustrates the complexity of GWOT visual culture and the variegated experiences of citizenship that result as Americans navigate this terrain.

Bonnie Miller, author of “From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898″ (The University of Massachusetts Press, 2011) writes, “Ambitious in scope and argument, this book stands to make an important contribution to the fields of visual culture, international relations/political science, and American studies.”

Click here for more information.