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Aluminum alloy has become an important lightweight material in the automotive industry due to its excellent performance. The development of hot stamping technology has effectively promoted the application of high-strength aluminum alloys in auto parts. However, aluminum alloy hot stamping requires a long time for solid solution and aging heat treatment, which hinders its mass production application in the existing mature hot stamping production line. Therefore, this paper studies the effect of a high-efficiency solid solution and hot stamping process on the microstructure and mechanical property strengthening mechanism of high-strength aluminum alloy. The contact heating and hot stamping experiment device was designed. It was found that the temperature rise rate of the sheet during the contact heating process could reach 44.51 °C/s. The experiment results show that contact heating treatment with a solution temperature of 480 °C and a solution time of 20s can achieve the high-efficient solution treatment of the sheet metal. The high-temperature deformation behavior of 7075-T6 at different temperatures (300-450 °C) and different strain rates (0.01∼1/s) under the condition of high-efficiency solid solution rapid heating was studied.

High-rotation-speed friction stir welding (HRS-FSW) can effectively reduce welding load and has a great application prospect in the field of in-situ fabrication and repair. FSW of 6061-T4 aluminum alloy plate was performed using 1000−6000 rpm rotation speeds in this study, and a detailed investigation on the characteristic and mechanism of the nugget zone (NZ) performance was conducted from aspects of experiment and simulation. The results indicate that the HRS-FSW causes the area with higher temperature and strain to transfer from the shoulder-affected zone to the pin-affected zone and the material flow to be enhanced on the retreating side of weld, leading to the improvements in the size and symmetry of the NZ. Increase of rotation speed to higher values favors the grain growth and phase dissolution and simultaneously tends to weaken the effect of plastic strain on further increase in dislocation density. The grain size is found to dominate the NZ hardness evolution with rotation speed. The evolution of NZ hardness roughly presents a Hall-Petch relationship with the grain size.

•There are currently few published articles in the English literature on the use of antimicrobials in township and community primary medical institutions in China. This article truly reflects our inspection.•This paper analyzes the characteristics and distribution of common unreasonable use of antimicrobials by investigating the antimicrobial use in outpatient prescriptions of primary medical institutions.•In view of the unreasonable use of antimicrobials, we put forward the improvement strategies and suggestions. These have certain guiding significance for primary medical institutions to regulate the rational antimicrobial use.

Additive manufacturing (AM) of multi-principal element alloys (MPEAs) has recently attracted considerable attention. However, few studies focus on the thermal behavior, cracking behavior, and microstructure tunability of AM-processed MPEAs, which can significantly affect the final performance of AM MPEA parts. In this study, a ternary equiatomic MPEA CrCoNi, with a single-phase face-centered-cubic (FCC) structure, was fabricated by the AM process via directed energy deposition (DED) at different laser scan speeds (10, 30, and 50 mm/s), and special focus was given to the thermal behavior, cracking behavior and microstructure formation. The increase in the laser scan speed from 10 to 50 mm/s causes a sharp increase in temperature gradients and cooling rates by five-fold and seventeen-fold, reaching up to 1148 K/mm and 57,778 K/s, respectively, as in-situ measured by a high-speed and high-resolution thermal pyrometer. Furthermore, the increased laser scan speed induces the severe cracking, which propagates along high angle grain boundaries and is classified as solidification cracking based on the observed protruding dendrites from the cracked plane. Although the Scheil-Gulliver solidification predicts a very narrow critical temperature range of 16 K which is indicative of a low solidification cracking susceptibility, the high temperature gradient and the resulting high thermal stress, as evidenced from the high density of dislocations and stacking faults, are believed to trigger the severe solidification cracking of the CrCoNi MPEA deposited at a high laser scan speed of 50 mm/s. With increasing the laser scan speed, the grain structure changes from elongated grains, which are roughly oriented along the build direction, to a more heterogenous grain structure with elongated grains converging towards the centerline and equiaxed grains arranged between the columns of elongated grains. Furthermore, with increasing the laser scan speed, the cellular structures are refined down to ∼ 2 µm due to the increased cooling rates. These findings not only contribute to better understanding the thermal behavior, cracking behavior, and microstructure formation of the AM-processed MPEAs, but also pave a road for further enhancing the mechanical properties of AM parts via tuning the thermal behavior and microstructures.

The objective of this paper is to realise the elastoplastic modelling of the creep behaviour of cataclastic rock under multi-stage deviatoric stress. The multi-stage triaxial creep tests show that the cataclastic rock exhibits pronounced irreversible time-dependent deformations which enlarge with the increase in deviatoric stress. The plastic shearing mechanism of the rock can be identified based on the observation that the rock shows typical plastic strain and large strain rate during the creep tests. Towards this, a unified creep model is developed to describe both the instantaneous and the time-dependent elastoplastic behaviour of the cataclastic rock. The elastoplastic model for describing the instantaneous behaviour is developed based on classic plasticity using a revised Drucker–Prager criterion and a non-associated flow rule, and the time-dependent deformation is described in terms of evolution of microstructure in the context of irreversible thermodynamics. The time-dependent deformation is considered as a macroscopic consequence of progressive degradation of material structure in microscopic scale. Finally, the proposed model is applied to predict the material responses in short-term triaxial compression tests and multi-stage creep tests. Comparisons between experimental and simulated results show that the proposed model is able to describe the main features of the creep behaviours observed in this material.

A novelty CL fiber which can expand L-band communication is proposed to meet the urgent demand of optical fiber transmission bandwidth for large capacity communication system. The influence of L-band attenuation on the OSNR (optical signal-to-noise ratio) of the system is analyzed and calculated; through the simulation of DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) system, the requirements for FAWD (fiber attenuation warping degree) of CL fiber in 100Gbit/s rate DWDM system are obtained; and the influence of waveguide structure design on FAWD is tested. The results show that, the OSNR of L-band for will be 3 dB–3.5 dB worse than traditional C-band on 80 km span system; the FAWD@1625 nm (△α1625) and the FAWDD (fiber attenuation warping degree difference) of CL fiber are recommended to be controlled below 0.015 dB/km and 0.005 dB/km respectively to meet the link requirements in relevant standards. Additionally, it is feasible to improve the attenuation flatness of L-band by optimizing the waveguide structure design which is presented in the paper, that will provide a reference for the large-scale acquisition of novelty CL fibers in the future.

Tolerance induction by means of costimulation blockade has been successfully applied in solid organ transplantation; however, its efficacy in vascularized composite allotransplantation, containing a vascularized bone marrow component and thus a constant source of donor‐derived stem cells, remains poorly explored. In this study, osteomyocutaneous allografts (alloOMCs) from Balb/c (H2d) mice were transplanted into C57BL/6 (H2b) recipients. Immunosuppression consisted of 1 mg anti‐CD154 on day 0, 0.5 mg CTLA4Ig on day 2 and rapamycin (RPM; 3 mg/kg per day from days 0–7, then every other day for 3 weeks). Long‐term allograft survival, donor‐specific tolerance and donor–recipient cell trafficking were evaluated. Treatment with costimulation blockade plus RPM resulted in long‐term graft survival (>120 days) of alloOMC in 12 of 15 recipients compared with untreated controls (median survival time [MST] ≈10.2 ± 0.8 days), RPM alone (MST ≈33 ± 5.5 days) and costimulation blockade alone (MST ≈45.8 ± 7.1 days). Donor‐specific hyporesponsiveness in recipients with viable grafts was demonstrated in vitro. Evidence of donor‐specific tolerance was further assessed in vivoby secondary donor‐specific skin graft survival and third‐party graft rejection. A significant increase of Foxp3+regulatory T cells was evident in tolerant animals. Donor cells populated peripheral blood, thymus, and both donor and recipient bone marrow. Consequently, combined anti‐CD154/CTLA4Ig costimulation blockade‐based therapy induces donor‐specific tolerance in a stringent murine alloOMC transplant model.

AbstractThe corrosion of structural materials is a great challenge for the applications of a molten salt reactor using molten fluorides. In this paper, electrochemical behavior of pure Fe, Ni and Cr has been investigated in molten (Li,Na,K)F at 973 K by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The experimental results indicated that three metals are all in active state at the corrosion potential, with an increase in the corrosion potential by the following order: Cr, Fe, Ni. The free corrosion current density of Ni is more than one order of magnitude lower than that of Fe and Cr. A Warburg impedance was observed in the impedance plots for the corrosion of Cr, but not for Ni and Fe. Ni is the most stable metal, then Fe and Cr, and the corrosion of Cr is controlled by the diffusion of oxidants in the melt.

In this work, a high-pressure annealing (HPA) technique at 6 atm over a wide range of temperatures (200 °C–450 °C) was used for post-metallization annealing on a high-k/metal gate MOS capacitor. To verify the ability of HPA to improve interface trap density and leakage issues another MOS capacitor with the same structure was annealed by microwave annealing (MWA) for comparison. The electrical performance of the capacitors under different annealing conditions were analyzed and the difference in characteristics such as flat-band voltage shift, oxide trapped charge, interface state density and leakage current were compared. HPA demonstrates a low trap density when compared with other annealing techniques, indicating potential removal of charge traps and a reduction in leakage current density. The results show that HPA is more effective at minimizing the oxide trapped charged at low temperature than MWA at 3000 W and the reduction in leakage current density after HPA at low temperatures corresponds to the reduction in charge traps. HPA at low temperature demonstrates great potential as a post-metallization annealing process for high-k/metal gate structures due to its ability to overcome undesired effects such as diffusion of Al into the dielectric layer.

This study, by means of GC-MS and HPLC, investigated the characteristics of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from fiber hot-pressing in a medium density fiberboard (MDF) production line with a production capacity of 80,000 m3/a. The quantity of total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), aldehydes and ketones were calculated. The results showed that the concentration of TVOC reached 1.8940 mg/m3. The main components include terpenes, acrolein and acetone, benzenes series and saturated hydrocarbons. The concentration of the mixture of aldehydes and ketones was 5.1136 mg/m3.

Precision metal sieve-sheets are one of the key components of several high-tech products. Fabrication of the precision sieve-sheets possessing high open area percentage, large thickness and good quality simultaneously has always been a tickler in micro-machining area. In this paper, aiming to manufacture micro-sieves with open areas of about 90% and good quality, micro-electroforming was taken as a major process means, and the technical points and technical difficulties of some key process steps in the preparation of micro-precision sieves were explored emphatically. Meanwhile, operational conditions were optimized and major technological parameters were selected optimally. Using the optimal conditions as well as the optimum parameters, two specifications of hexagon micromesh sieve-sheets whose side length, open-area percent and sheet-thickness was 210μm, 88%, (120±3)μm and 520μm, 92%, (100±2)μm, respectively, were successfully obtained. The electroformed sieves are characterized by flat and smooth surfaces of aperture walls, sharp edge definition, rigid and homogeneous structures and well-distributed mesh.

High silicon steel with Si content of 6.5wt.% is perspective to be applied in magnetic devices at high frequencies. It is very hard to produce Fe-6.5wt%Si alloy thin sheet by conventional hot-cold rolling method because of its embrittlement at room temperature resulted from the formation of intermetallic phases like B2 and D03. In this paper, embrittlement mechanism, rolling processes, and magnetic properties for the cold rolled Fe-6.5wt.% Si alloy sheets are discussed. Our study indicates that thermal mechanical treatments can improve the ductility of the Fe-6.5wt.%Si alloy. The Fe-6.5wt.%Si alloy sheets of 0.05 mm thickness can be successfully obtained after hot-cold rolling and heat treatments. Lamination pieces can be punched directly from the sheets. Tensile strength as high as 1048MPa and elongation over 3% were measured at room temperature.

The effects of ruthenium and chromium contents have been investigated on phase transformation temperatures and the morphology of γ’ precipitates as well as microstructural stability in high refractory Ni-base superalloys. The solidus and liquidus temperatures were determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), suggesting that the addition of Cr resulted in a decrease in solidus/liquidus temperatures while the Ru addition (3.5 at.%) had the neutral effect. The morphology of γ’ precipitates in the heat-treated microstructure was changed under the influence of the Cr and Ru additions, suggesting that Ru and Cr contents affected the γ−γ’ lattice misfit through changes in the associated partitioning to the constituent phases. The microstructural instability has been investigated at 1000 oC. High levels of Cr addition (8 at.%) strongly promoted the formation of TCP phases, while Ru improved the microstructural stability to some extent.

InAs quantum wires (QWRs) have been fabricated on the InP(001), which has been evidenced by TEM and polarized photoluminescence measurements (PPL). The monlayer-splitting peaks (MSPs) in the PL spectrum of InAs QWRs can be clearly observed at low temperature measurements. Supposing a peak-shift of MSP identical to that of bulk material, we obtain the thermal activation energies of up to 5 MSPs. The smaller thermal activation energies for the MSPs of higher energy lead to the fast red-shift of PL peak as a whole.

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Abstract: We present results from a global simulation of the interaction of the solar wind with Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere for the Bastille Day geomagnetic storm and compare the results with data. We find that during this event the magnetosphere becomes extremely compressed and eroded, causing 3 geosynchronous GOES satellites to enter the magnetosheath for an extended time period. At its extreme, the magnetopause moves at local noon as close as 4.9 R E to Earth which is interpreted as the consequence of the combined action of enhanced dynamic pressure and strong dayside reconnection due to the strong southward interplanetary magnetic field component B z, which at one time reaches a value of −60 nT. The lobes bulge sunward and shield the dayside reconnection region, thereby limiting the reconnection rate and thus the cross polar cap potential. Modeled ground magnetic perturbations are compared with data from 37 sub-auroral, auroral, and polar cap magnetometer stations. While the model can not yet predict the perturbations and fluctuations at individual ground stations, its predictions of the fluctuation spectrum in the 0–3 mHz range for the sub-auroral and high-latitude regions are remarkably good. However, at auroral latitudes (63° to 70° magnetic latitude) the predicted fluctuations are slightly too high.

This work reports the solvothermal synthesis of UiO-66-based MOFs with three different ligands and its application to the breakdown of aqueous acetaminophen under simulated sunlight. This pharmaceutical is a representative contaminant of emerging concern that enters water bodies mainly through wastewater treatment plant discharges. The synthesis approach of the MOFs was fitted using a zirconium alkoxide as metal cluster precursor and 2-aminoterephthalic and 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalic acids as ligands to prepare UiO-66-NH2and UiO-66-(OH)2MOFs, respectively. These new MOFs have enhanced visible light harvesting and narrower band gap than the UiO-66. Among all, UiO-66-NH2yielded the highest removal of acetaminophen under simulated solar irradiation in batch test. The activity and stability of UiO-66-NH2were demonstrated for the first time in a continuous flow test, where stable performance was observed upon 30 h on stream. The degradation pathway of acetaminophen was elucidated based on coupling, ring-opening, and oxidation reactions. DFT calculation confirmed that the indirect semiconductor behavior of UiO-66-NH2upon light excitation occurred through ligand-ligand charge transfer. Overall, promising UiO-66-based MOFs photocatalysts were obtained for effective degradation of acetaminophen with the assistance of solar light.

The effects of the oxygen stoichiometry on the superconducting transition temperature Tcin La2−xBaxCuO4−yare investigated. The oxygen content was controlled (formula 0 ≤ y≤ 0.03) by annealing in 0.123% oxygen at temperatures up to 1040°C. As shown previously the dip in Tctends to disappear with oxygen reduction. Neutron-diffraction studies confirm that samples remain in the low-temperature tetragonal phase. We find that the minimum in Tcmoves to higher xas oxygen is removed. We interpret this to be evidence that the minimum in Tcis associated with a critical hole density hc~ x− 2y. We suggest that the gradual disappearance of the dip with reduction is related to the introduction of disorder into the structure.

High current density (∼1 A cm−2) scanning focused Ga and Au ion beams of a few tens of keV are employed to modify Si(100) surfaces under high and ultra-high vacuum conditions. The morphology of the substrate is measured in air using atomic force microscopy. The ion-irradiated areas are found to protrude to different heights in nanometer scales depending on the dose, energy and current density of the ion beam as well as the vacuum conditions. Small height differences are observed in the areas irradiated by Ga and Au ions of comparable energies. The results indicate that protrusions are caused by a combination of beam-induced amorphization of the crystal and beam-induced deposition of the residual gas. By carefully adjusting the beam current and the scanning scheme, the effect of residual gas deposition can be practically eliminated even under high vacuum conditions.

The ribonucleoprotein enzyme RNase P catalyzes the 5′ processing of pre-transfer RNA, and has also recently been implicated in pre-ribosomal RNA processing. In the present investigation, in situ hybridization revealed that RNase P RNA is present throughout the nucleus of mammalian cells. However, rhodamine-labeled human RNase P RNA microinjected into the nucleus of rat kidney (NRK) epithelial cells or human (HeLa) cells initially localized in nucleoli, and subsequently became more evenly distributed throughout the nucleus, similar to the steadystate distribution of endogenous RNase P RNA. Parallel microinjection and immunocytochemical experiments revealed that initially nucleus-microinjected RNase P RNA localized specifically in the dense fibrillar component of the nucleolus, the site of pre-rRNA processing. A mutant RNase P RNA lacking the To antigen binding domain (nucleotides 25–75) did not localize in nucleoli after nuclear microinjection. In contrast, a truncated RNase P RNA containing the To binding domain but lacking nucleotides 89–341 became rapidly localized in nucleoli following nuclear microinjection. However, unlike the full-length RNase P RNA, this 3′ truncated RNA remained stably associated with the nucleoli and did not translocate to the nucleoplasm. These results suggest a nucleolar phase in the maturation, ribonucleoprotein assembly or function of RNase P RNA, mediated at least in part by the nucleolar To antigen. These and other recent findings raise the intriguing possibility of a bifunctional role of RNase P in the nucleus: catalyzing pre-ribosomal RNA processing in the nucleolus and pre-transfer RNA processing in the nucleoplasm.

AbstractA high power CW (Continuous Wave) test electron linac was designed to develop a higher power linac to transmute radioactive wastes. The test linac is energized by two 1.2 MW CW L-band klystrons to produce an electron beam with the energy of 10 MeV and current of 100 mA. The average beam power is 200kW–1MW for the duty factor 20–100.%.In designing such a high power linac, authors selected a traveling-wave accelerator with TWRR (Traveling Wave Resonant Ring). This is to enhance the threshold current of BBU (Beam Break-Up) and to get high accelerator efficiency that results from the low value of attenuation constant τ and high field multiplication factor Mwhich are permitted only with TWRR.A kind of efficient cooling structure is adopted to an accelerator structure in order to disperse the generated heat by RF (Radio Frequency). The variational method is used to calculate the sizes and parameters of the disk-loaded accelerator structure employed. There is a discrepancy of the order of a few hundredth of one percent between the calculated sizes and the experimental ones. The Mdetermined in the design agreed well with those measured in low and high power tests.

In the Damascene process, the need for separating plug and interconnect process steps is completely eliminated. This patterning scheme offers tremendous advantages, it will begin to emerge in the deep sub-micron generation and utilizes Al CMP as a critical part of the Al Damascene process. During Al CMP, the Al film surface reacts with slurry chemicals, resulting in passivation or dissolution reactions. Thus surface microstructure of Al films and slurry chemistry will determine the performance of metal CMP. Material characteristics of Al films have a great impact on its CMP behavior. Addition of Cu to Al generally increases the susceptibility to corrosion, thus leading to an increase in CMP removal rate. The grain size of Al film also affects its CMP performance. Films sputter-deposited at lower substrate temperature obtain higher removal rate due to increased grain boundary area and thus higher propensity to corrosion. In this study, Al-CMP characteristics are evaluated on Al alloy thin films of different compositions including: pure Al, Al–1.0% Si–0.5% Cu, Al–1% Cu, Al–0.5% Cu and Al–1% Si. Characteristics of the films such as alloy contents and grain size, and their effects on the CMP removal rates are investigated. The mechanism of Al CMP can be explained by the continuous formation and removal of a passivating layer formed on the Al surface during CMP. In this experiment, an Al2O3-based slurry is formulated with hydrogen peroxide added as the main oxidizer. CMP removal rates of various Al thin films with alterations in slurry pH and oxidizer concentrations were monitored to assess the role of chemical erosion and mechanical abrasion.

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) has become widely accepted for the formation of device interconnect structures. Shallow trench isolation technology (STI) utilizes CMP and has been applied to deep-sub-micron processes. Poly Si, CVD Si or SiO2can be grown or deposited in the trench and planarized by a CMP process. However, the typical wafer surface is contaminated with slurry particles and metallic impurities after the CMP process. The silica particles may damage the VLSI patterns and the metallic impurities can induce many crystal defects in Si wafers during the following furnace processing. Therefore, the post CMP clean is a very important step for the STI process. However, the wafer for poly-Si surface is hydrophobic, SiO2surface is hydrophilic and Si film is very easy to charge up. Thus, the defect can be difficult to remove by a conventional cleaning technique. In this study, we propose the use of a modified multi-chemicals spray cleaning process for post STI CMP cleaning. We used a modified and heated ammonia/peroxide mix (APM) clean with an ammonia pre-soak and an HF step to etch a thin layer for the removal of trapped metallic ions which can be followed by a hydrochloric/peroxide mix (HPM) clean process to assist in the removal of metallic ions.

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An optical fiber-based sensor for Ca2+has been developed using hydrophobically associated calcein. In this measurement protocol, the optical fiber surface is derivatized with a C-18 moiety thereby allowing specific reagents to be reproducibly associated with the surface through a hydrophobic process. The C-18 surface is shown to provide significant immunity from chemical degradation at the extremes of the pH scale, at elevated temperatures, and in the presence of specific organic solvents. This capability was exploited in the development of an optical fiber sensor for Ca2+using C-12-derivatized calcein as the sensing reagent. The reagent can be reproducibly associated with the optical fiber surface and used to quantitate Ca2+at pH 12. The derivatized calcein exhibited enhanced fluorescent properties at pH 12 in the absence of Ca2+which limited the quantitative capabilities of the sensor. As now configured, the optical fiber-based sensor has a demonstrated limit-of-detection for Ca2+of 20 ppb (0.5 μM) (SNR = 2) in a probe volume of 20 μl, or less.

The winter temperature in East Asia from 1958 to 2001 has shown an obvious warming trend superposed with a large amplitude of decadal oscillations. To separate the relative contributions of external forcing and internal variability to the decadal change in winter temperature, we propose a method which combines reanalysis data, global atmosphere‐ocean coupled model outputs, and regional climate model. The results show that the weakening of the East Asian winter monsoon accounts for warming trend in the south Mongolia, the southeastern coast of Asia, and the adjacent seas to a large extent. In contrast, radiative forcing causes the warming trend in middle and high latitudes. The increasing concentration of aerosols could have resulted in local cooling in some areas. The winter temperature shows a decadal oscillation of 0.6 °C at a time scale of 8–20 a, which is mainly due to the oscillation of the Siberian‐Mongolia High and volcanic activities. The amplitude of temperature oscillations caused by volcanic activities was one third of that induced by the Siberian‐Mongolia High. The winter warming in East Asia during 1958–2001 was due to greenhouse gas emissions and the weakening of the East Asia winter monsoonRadiative‐forced warming had a uniform pattern, while the warming caused by weakening monsoon was located in the eastern coast of EurasiaVolcanic aerosols caused an interdecadal oscillation of 0.2 °C, which was one third of the strength caused by internal variability

SUMMARYCu-MoSi2composite coatings were obtained by an electrodeposition technique from a conventional acid copper sulfate bath. The effects of plating variables, such as particle concentration in the bath, cathode current density, stir rate and stir type on particle content in the composite coatings (Vp) were investigated systematically and were compared with those for Cu-Al2O3,. It was found that the relationships between Vp and stir rate, particle concentration in the bath and current density were related to the nature of incorporated particles (the density and electrical resistivity). Moreover, stir type showed a great effect on Vp of Cu-MoSi2. The codeposition rate and internal stress of Cu-MoSi2composite coatings were greatly influenced by plating variables. The physicomechanical properties, electrical resistivity, hardness and wear resistance of Cu-MoSi2and Cu-Al2O3, were determined. It was established that microhardness and wear resistance increased with the increase of Vp for both Cu-MoSi2and Cu-Al2O3,. The hardness and electrical resistivity of Cu-MoSi2were lower compared with Cu-Al2O3. However, it was more abrasive than Cu-Al2O3.

The electrochemical properties of MlNi3.5Co0.8Mn0.4Al0.3alloys with various Pr contents in Ml were studied in this work. It was found that the Pr content in Ml obviously affected the electrochemical properties of Ml(NiCoMnAl)5alloys. The electrochemical properties were greatly improved if the electrode alloy contained about 20 at.% Pr in Ml. The electrode made from this alloy has a higher capacity, better discharge rate characteristics and longer cycle life than that from alloy with less than 10 at.% Pr in Ml, as in common misch metal. The AA size cells in which electrode alloy contains about 17 at% Pr in Ml are also studied. It was found that these cells have a very long cycle life (1400 cycles) with reasonable capacity (1250 mA h) and rate capability (1100 mA h) when discharged at 5 C). In particular, they have a very superior low temperature capability. For example, their capacity was higher than 1050 mA h when discharged at 1 C and −18 °C.

For the first time, semiconductor lasers grown entirely by selective area epitaxy are reported. The lasers were formed by in situ processing techniques and metal organic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE). A 50 A˚ thick layer of Si deposited on the InP substrate was used as a mask for both the selective growth and etching. Laser stripes, 6 μm wide, were delineated by a focused Ga-ion beam and transferred into the substrate by Cl2 etching. These steps were performed in the vacuum chambers attached to the MBE machine. Separate confinement heterostructure GaInAsP/InP lasers were grown selectively in the stripes. The resulting devices emit at 1.3 μm and show threshold currents of 40 mA.

Bulk melt textured YBCO materials in the shape of disks have been developed. It is found that the top seeded method is efficacious to fabricate single domain material, which is required to achieve the best magnetic properties. Both trapped-field mapping and X-ray Ω-scan techniques have been used to evaluate the single domain nature of the YBCO disks. A levitation force of 2N/g has been achieved for this kind of bulk.

Antibody-functionalized, Au-gated AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) were used to detect c-erbB-2, a breast cancer marker. The antibody was anchored to the gate area through immobilized thioglycolic acid. The AlGaN/GaN HEMT drain-source current showed a rapid response of less than 5 seconds when target c-erbB-2 antigen in a buffer at clinically relevant concentrations was added to the antibody-immobilized surface. We could detect a range of concentrations from to 16.7 μg/ml to 0.25 μg/ml. These results clearly demonstrate the promise of portable electronic biological sensors based on AlGaN/GaN HEMTs for breast cancer screening.

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with Ag/AgCl gate are found to exhibit significant changes in channel conductance upon exposing the gate region to various concentrations of chorine ion solutions. Ag/AgCl gate electrode, prepared by potentiostatic anodization, changes the electrical potential when encounters chorine ions. This gate potential changes lead to a change of surface charge in the gate region on the HEMT, induced a higher positive charge on the AlGaN surface, and finally increases the pizeo-induced charge density in the HEMT channel. These anions create an image positive charge on the Ag gate metal for the required neutrality, thus increase the drain current of the HEMT. The HEMT source-drain current showed a clear dependence on the chorine concentration. The limit of detection (LOD) achieved was 1×10-8 M using a 20µm × 50µm gate sensing area.

RQ-PCR provides an appropriate method to monitor CML. However methods are not standardized leading to differences in reported BCR-ABL values. An International Scale (IS) was proposed to generate comparable values when tested in any laboratory, Blood,2006,108,28. The scale is fixed to a major molecular response (MMR), a value with established prognostic significance. We distributed BCR-ABL reference standards to 12 laboratories (labs) to establish lab specific conversion factors (CF) for the IS. The IS MMR value is 0.1%. The Adelaide reference laboratory (ref lab) has an established MMR value (0.08%) and the CF is 1.25 (0.1/0.08). Multiplying by 1.25 converts the ref lab values to the IS. The ref lab prepared standards with 3 BCR-ABL levels (L1, L2, L3) by diluting K562 cells in cells of normal volunteers. Trizol stabilized cells were sent frozen to labs in Europe (2), USA (3), Asia (5) and Australia (2) that use various methods and controls (ABL 7, BCR 3, GUS 1, ABL and GUS 1). Each lab determined mean BCR-ABL/control% values for each level, which were correlated with those of the ref lab. CF were calculated from regression equations using the formulae: Log y=(slope×(log 0.1))+intercept, CF=0.1/antilog y, where y=lab equivalent MMR value and 0.1=IS MMR. 11 of 12 labs showed a linear relationship across the standards and were included in the analysis. Prior to IS conversion there was a wide range between the lowest and highest values; L1 22-fold (r0.01–0.31); L2 48-fold (r0.06–3.0); L3 10-fold (r10–101). After IS conversion using lab specific CF the agreement was substantially improved; L1 1.8-fold (r0.07–0.13), L2 2.4-fold (r0.33–0.77), L3 3.9-fold (r19–76). CF have been validated for 5 labs by patient sample exchange. The ref lab tested up to 20 samples per lab and values compared before and after conversion. Conversion failed to align data in 1 lab and the reason is not yet established. In the other 4 labs there was a significant difference in the median values before conversion (p=0.01) but not after (p=0.49). 75% were within 2-fold and 98% within 5-fold after conversion, a significant improvement compared to pre conversion (45% p=0.005, 72% p=0.0001). The preliminary data suggest the approach is a reasonable process to achieve standardization, which is anchored to a critical BCR-ABL value. It allows for differences generated by various RQ-PCR methods and controls. The on-going validity of conversion is reliant on maintaining performance of analysis within a lab. We anticipate the project will lead to preparation of certified reference standards available to all labs and that standardized molecular monitoring will facilitate more consistent adherence to treatment guidelines.