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The synthesis of functional graphene nanostructures on Ge(001) provides an attractive route toward integrating graphene-based electronic devices onto complementary metal oxide semiconductor-compatible platforms. In this study, we leverage the phenomenon of the anisotropic growth of graphene nanoribbons from rationally placed graphene nanoseeds and their rotational self-alignment during chemical vapor deposition to synthesize mesoscale graphene nanomeshes over areas spanning several hundred square micrometers. Lithographically patterned nanoseeds are defined on a Ge(001) surface at pitches ranging from 50 to 100 nm, which serve as starting sites for subsequent nanoribbon growth. Rotational self-alignment of the nanoseeds followed by anisotropic growth kinetics causes the resulting nanoribbons to be oriented along each of the equivalent, orthogonal Ge⟨110⟩ directions with equal probability. As the nanoribbons grow, they fuse, creating a continuous nanomesh. In contrast to nanomesh synthesis via top-down approaches, this technique yields nanomeshes with atomically faceted edges and covalently bonded junctions, which are important for maximizing charge transport properties. Additionally, we simulate the electrical characteristics of nanomeshes synthesized from different initial nanoseed-sizes, size-polydispersities, pitches, and device channel lengths to identify a parameter-space for acceptable on/off ratios and on-conductance in semiconductor electronics. The simulations show that decreasing seed diameter and pitch are critical to increasing nanomesh on/off ratio and on-conductance, respectively. With further refinements in lithography, nanomeshes obtained via seeded synthesis and anisotropic growth are likely to have superior electronic properties with tremendous potential in a multitude of applications, such as radio frequency communications, sensing, thin-film electronics, and plasmonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the increase in the rate of suicide by hanging and an apparently simultaneous decrease in the rate of suicide by firearm as hypothetical evidence that Australian males have substituted one method of suicide for another. Individual suicide method choice may be related to independent changes in the social acceptability of each method. (Contains 32 references, 1 table, and 6 figures.) (Author/JBJ)

We examine if the bundling of semiconducting carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can increase the transconductance and on-state current density of field effect transistors (FETs) made from arrays of aligned, polymer-wrapped CNTs. Arrays with packing density ranging from 20 to 50 bundles μm−1 are created via tangential flow interfacial self-assembly, and the transconductance and saturated on-state current density of FETs with either (i) strong ionic gel gates or (ii) weak 15 nm SiO2 back gates are measured vs the degree of bundling. Both transconductance and on-state current significantly increase as median bundle height increases from 2 to 4 nm, but only when the strongly coupled ionic gel gate is used. Such devices tested at −0.6 V drain voltage achieve transconductance as high as 50 μS per bundle and 2 mS μm−1 and on-state current as high as 1.7 mA μm−1. At low drain voltages, the off-current also increases with bundling, but on/off ratios of ∼105 are still possible if the largest (95th percentile) bundles in an array are limited to ∼5 nm in size. Radio frequency devices with strong, wraparound dielectric gates may benefit from increased device performance by using moderately bundled as opposed to individualized CNTs in arrays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluations of programs for sex offenders report mixed results, are costly, and require validation. This study examines recidivism following a sexual offender treatment program in an Australian male offender population over an average at-risk period of 5 years and 1 month in the community. The group format, cognitive-behavioral program was offered to a subgroup of adult male prisoners. Subsequent reoffense types and rates for program completers, dropouts, and controls were compared. No statistically significant recidivism reduction was observed following participation in this sexual offender treatment program, whereas recidivism appears to be related to a history of violent or sexual offenses. The initial promise of sexual offender treatment programs must be further examined by individual and meta-analytic studies. Limited follow-up, missing data, and fidelity of the program may have contributed to the null result. Monitoring treatment programs to ensure inclusion of proven interventions may enhance future program effectiveness. Keywords: pedophilia; sexual offender treatment program (SOTP); recidivism reduction; treatment, Australia

Summary: Supracondylar fractures of the humerus are one of the most common fractures of childhood. With the recognised complications of cubitus varus, injury to any of the three major nerves around the elbow, absent radial pulse after fracture reduction, stiffness and the fortunately rare incidence of Volkmann''s ischaemic contracture, an appropriate understanding of the pathology and management of this frequent fracture is required. Both flexion and extension types occur, with the most common of the two being the extension injury. This article presents a review of the incidence, pathology, features and treatment options available, focusing on the extension-type fracture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Evaluations of programs for sex offenders report mixed results, are costly, and require validation. This study' examines recidivism following a sexual offender treatment program in an Australian male offender population over an average at-risk period of 5 years and 1 month in the community. The group format, cognitive-behavioral program was offered to a subgroup of adult male prisoners. Subsequent reoffense types and rates for program completers, dropouts, and controls were compared. No statistically significant recidivism reduction was observed following participation in this sexual offender treatment program, whereas recidivism appears to be related to a history of violent or sexual offenses. The initial promise of sexual offender treatment programs must be further examined by individual and meta-analytic studies. Limited follow-up, missing data, and fidelity of the program may have contributed to the null result. Monitoring treatment programs to ensure inclusion of proven interventions may enhance future program effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Anterior pubic symphyseal plate fixation is the recommended treatment for disruption of pubic symphysis in an unstable pelvic ring injury. The rigid construct offered by locking symphyseal plate has the theoretical advantage of allowing patients to weight bear early. However, there are concerns of catastrophic failure about the locked plate construct. The purpose of the study was to establish if locking plate fixation for pubic symphysis disruption was effective to allow patients to mobilise weight bearing immediately after surgery.Patient and Methods: Retrospective analysis of a prospectively collected database from a single centre was performed. The study period was from 2008 to 2017. Radiographic evidence of fixation failure, revision surgery, removal of metalwork and follow up duration was noted.Results: We identified 46 patients (F:M 8:38) with a mean age of 46 years (range 14 to 74 years). Based on the mechanism of injury patients were classified into Antero-posterior compression (28), Vertical shear [10], lateral compression [4] and combined mechanism [4]. Either a 4-hole or 6-hole locking plate was used in all patients, depending on fracture extension. Posterior fixation was required in 28 (61%) patients. All patients were allowed to fully or partial weight bear. The mean radiological follow-up period was 31 weeks with 13 (28%) patients having evidence of radiological failure. Revision was performed in 1 (2%) patient, in whom the screws had pulled out of the bone. The most common mode of failure was either the screw backing out from the plate or broken screw. Among the 4 (8%) patients who had their metalwork removed, 1 (2%) had delayed onset of infection, 2 (4%) had symptoms related to backed out screw and 1 (2%) opted electively to have metalwork removed.Conclusions: With our series of patients, we have found that using locking plate for pubic symphyseal diastasis is safe and effective in allowing patients to weight bear early. A low complication rate and need for re-operation is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents Aligned 2D carbon nanotube liquid crystals for wafer-scale electronics. Topics discussed include Semiconducting carbon nanotubes promise faster performance and lower power consumption than Si in field-effect transistors (FETs); and demonstrate that nanotubes collected at a liquid/liquid interface self-organize to form two-dimensional (2D) nematic liquid crystals that globally align with flow.

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotube (s-CNT) arrays are being explored for next-generation semiconductor electronics. Even with the multitude of alignment and spatially localized s-CNT deposition methods designed to control s-CNT deposition, fundamental understanding of the driving forces for s-CNT deposition is still lacking. The individual roles of the dispersant, solvent, target substrate composition, and the s-CNT itself are not completely understood because it is difficult to decouple deposition parameters. Here, we study poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)- alt - co -(6,6'-[2,2'-{bipyridine}])] (PFO-BPy)-wrapped s-CNT deposition from solution onto a chemically modified substrate. We fabricate various self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) to gain a greater understanding of substrate effects on PFO-BPy-wrapped s-CNT deposition. We observe that s-CNT deposition is dependent on both the target substrate and s-CNT dispersion solvent. To complement the experiments, molecular dynamics simulations of PFO-BPy-wrapped s-CNT deposition on two different SAMs are performed to obtain mechanistic insights into the effect of the substrate and solvent on s-CNT deposition. We find that the global free-energy minimum associated with favorable s-CNT adsorption occurs for a configuration in which the minimum of the solvent density around the s-CNT coincides with the minimum of the solvent density above a SAM-grafted surface, indicating that solvent structure near a SAM-grafted surface determines the adsorption free-energy landscape driving s-CNT deposition. Our results will help guide informative substrate design for s-CNT array fabrication in semiconductor devices.

Implants used to correct pathological varus-valgus deformities (VVD) and leg length discrepancies (LLD) may not be optimized for the specific treatment, as suggested by their off-label use. Detailed analysis of this issue has been limited by the poorly understood mechanical behavior of the growing physis and ignorance of the loads acting on the implants. The aim of this study was to predict and compare the loading conditions of a growth modulation implant in VVD and LLD treatments. Idealized finite element (FE) models of the juvenile distal femur treated with the Eight-Plate implant were developed for VVD and LLD. Bone growth was simulated using thermal strains. The axial force in the plate was compared between the two treatments. Case-specific plate forces were predicted by virtually reproducing the screw deformation visible on radiographs of LLD (N = 4) and VVD (N = 4) clinical cases. The simple FE models reproduced the clinical implant deformations well. The resulting forces ranged from 129 to 580 N for the VVD patients. For LLD, this range was from 295 to 1002 N per plate, that is, 590-2004 N for the entire physis. The higher forces in LLD could be explained by restricted screw divergence in the double-sided implant application. For the first time, the loading conditions of a growth modulation implant were investigated and compared between two treatments by FE analyses, and the range of case-specific loads was predicted. These simulation tools may be utilized for guiding appropriate usage and for efficient development of implants. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 36:1398-1405, 2018., (© 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

High grafting density polymer brushes are grown on an inimer coating bearing nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP) inimers and glycidyl methacrylate (GMA). The inimer coating is cross-linked on the substrate to provide an initiator layer with needed stability during long exposure to organic solvents at moderate to high temperatures. Surface-initiated nitroxide-mediated polymerization (SI-NMP) is conducted to grow polystyrene (PS) brushes on the coating with a sacrificial layer designed to cleave the brushes. The cleaved brushes have larger molecular weights than the corresponding free polymers. The grafting density of the brushes is as high as 1.12 chains/nm 2 throughout the brush growth, which is among the densest PS brushes reported so far. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) depth profiling are used to reveal the surface morphology and kinetics of the growth.

No large multicentre studies have yet been published on tension-band-like implants such as the Eight Plate to treat limb-length discrepancies and varus valgus deformities in children. Therefore, we carried out a retrospective international multicentre study including 126 patients to assess outcomes and to reliably quantify the incidence of implant-related and growth-plate related adverse events (AEs). Correction was achieved in 66% of varus valgus deformities and in 59% of limb-length discrepancies and maintained in 85%. Twenty (18%) patients experienced 43 AEs, which were primarily screw-related. The AE rate of the Eight Plate is low; however, many of them could be avoided through tighter monitoring.

Objectives: This study was designed to evaluate our departmental policy of plaster immobilization and selective Kirschner (K) wiring for the management of displaced distal radius fractures in children., Methods: On a retrospective basis, we evaluated a consecutive series of 112 childhood displaced distal radius fractures (108 patients; 77 boys, 31 girls; mean age 10.5+/-2.6 years; range 5 to 16 years) presenting with clinical deformity during a two-year period. There were 97 incompletely displaced (86.6%), and 15 completely displaced (13.4%) fractures. All the fractures were managed with manipulation under general anesthesia and plaster immobilization. Additionally, K-wire fixation was performed following manipulation in seven (46.7%) of the completely displaced fractures. The mean follow-up period was 1.1 years (range 10 weeks to 2 years)., Results: The mean angulation of fractures prior to manipulation was 21.5+/-10.1 degrees, it decreased to 2.4+/-4.8 degrees following manipulation. Remanipulation was required in 11 fractures (9.8%) based on clinical and radiographic findings of redisplacement. Of these, eight fractures (8.3%) were incompletely displaced, and three fractures (20%) were completely displaced. All completely displaced fractures that required remanipulation had been additionally treated with K-wire fixation. Fractures requiring further treatment had a mean angulation of 17.1+/-5.8 degrees prior to remanipulation, and a mean residual angulation of 4.7+/-6.0 degrees at final radiographic assessment. A perfect fracture reduction was achieved in all the patients with a Salter-Harris II injury (n=22), and none of these patients required remanipulation. However, the quality of initial reduction was not associated with the development of redisplacement. There was no significant difference between isolated distal radius fractures (n=58) and combined radius and ulna fractures (n=32) with respect to remanipulation rate and final angulation (p>0.05). Final radiographs showed a significantly greater angulation in fractures which were initially completely displaced in comparison with those that were incompletely displaced (8.2+/-7.1 degrees vs. 4.2+/-5.7 degrees; p=0.024), but this was not of clinical significance. None of the patients had radial shortening and no K-wire related complications were encountered., Conclusion: Our data suggest that there should be other factors involved in the development of redisplacement and the need for remanipulation other than the degree of fracture displacement and the quality of initial reduction. Selective K-wire fixation in displaced fractures does not seem to decrease redisplacement and remanipulation rates.