Metal microdrive and head cap system for silicon probe recovery in freely moving rodent

High-yield electrophysiological extracellular recording in freely moving rodents provides a unique window into the temporal dynamics of neural circuits. Recording from unrestrained animals is critical to investigate brain activity during natural behaviors. The use and implantation of high-channel-count silicon probes represent the largest cost and experimental complexity associated with such recordings making a recoverable and reusable system desirable. To address this, we have designed and tested a novel 3D printed head-gear system for freely moving mice and rats. The system consists of a recoverable microdrive printed in stainless steel and a plastic head cap system, allowing researchers to reuse the silicon probes with ease, decreasing the effective cost, and the experimental effort and complexity. The cap designs are modular and provide structural protection and electrical shielding to the implanted hardware and electronics. We provide detailed procedural instructions allowing researchers to adapt and flexibly modify the head-gear system.

Metal microdrive and head cap system for silicon probe recovery in freely moving rodent

High-yield electrophysiological extracellular recording in freely moving rodents provides a unique window into the temporal dynamics of neural circuits. Recording from unrestrained animals is critical to investigate brain activity during natural behaviors. The use and implantation of high-channel-count silicon probes represent the largest cost and experimental complexity associated with such recordings making a recoverable and reusable system desirable. To address this, we have designed and tested a novel 3D printed head-gear system for freely moving mice and rats. The system consists of a recoverable microdrive printed in stainless steel and a plastic head cap system, allowing researchers to reuse the silicon probes with ease, decreasing the effective cost, and the experimental effort and complexity. The cap designs are modular and provide structural protection and electrical shielding to the implanted hardware and electronics. We provide detailed procedural instructions allowing researchers to adapt and flexibly modify the head-gear system.

A Professional Development Program Proposal for English Language Teachers

As there is a need to enable English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to use technology in their classes, this study aims to propose an online in-service teacher training program aiming to prepare EFL teachers in Turkey to use Google Classroom and Piktochart. The planned training module is provided on a virtual online platform known as Second Life (SL). Included in the technology training, there would be an introductory session in which the instructor could ‘walk' the participants through the particulars of operating their virtual selves, as in their ‘avatars'. The course itself could commence with a short tour of the virtual sim being used for the training sessions. Immediately following the introduction, attending avatars and the instructor would congregate in the theatre area sim of the VSTE Island conference venue in-world at SL. The instructor, addressing the participants from the virtual stage, would present according to the agenda of showcasing the possible uses of the online software packages followed by step-by-step procedural instructions for the attendees to follow.

Designing Products with a Focus on Self-Explanatory Assembly, a Case Study

Designing products with a focus on self-explanatory assembly can reduce the use of procedural instructions and the associated problems. This paper describes how different groups of students, in two different design-engineering courses designed or redesigned products in an attempt to make the assembly of the product self-explanatory. The design outcomes are discussed in relation to the design context and linked to existing theory on design for meaning.

Standardising Defence Lines: William Perrin Norris, Eugenics and Australian Border Control

This article investigates the policy and practice of Australia's so-called ‘eugenic phase’ of border control embedded within the 1912 Immigration Act. It highlights the efforts of the first London-based Commonwealth Medical Officer - Dr William Perrin Norris - who designed a medical bureaucratic system intended to keep ‘defectives’ out of Australia. Norris' vision is revealed to be befitting of his character, experience, and a passion for uniformity which went beyond his legal jurisdiction. In examining the associated political debates, procedural instructions and the practicalities of the legislation, this article advances a more nuanced historical understanding of this period of Australian border control, and traces the evolution of the idiot and insane prohibited immigrant clause in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Classifier constructions as procedural referring expressions in American Sign Language

The present paper comments on signs of American Sign Language in the perspective of relevance theory. The main claim is that classifiers encode procedural instructions to help the addressee pick out the intended referent for the procedural referring expressions made with classifier constructions. The author explains how three classes of classifiers differently manipulate concepts to instruct the addressee to create ad hoc concepts though the use of inference, narrowing, and broadening. It is also claimed that classifier constructions do not encode a conceptual meaning, but a procedural instruction. The discussion includes illustrations of how the speaker’s using classifier constructions instead of lexical signs may increase the number of cognitive effects on the part of the addressee.