An essential role of acetylcholine-glutamate synergy at habenular synapses in nicotine dependence

A great deal of interest has been focused recently on the habenula and its critical role in aversion, negative-reward and drug dependence. Using a conditional mouse model of the ACh-synthesizing enzyme choline acetyltransferase (Chat), we report that local elimination of acetylcholine (ACh) in medial habenula (MHb) neurons alters glutamate corelease and presynaptic facilitation. Electron microscopy and immuno-isolation analyses revealed colocalization of ACh and glutamate vesicular transporters in synaptic vesicles (SVs) in the central IPN. Glutamate reuptake in SVs prepared from the IPN was increased by ACh, indicating vesicular synergy. Mice lacking CHAT in habenular neurons were insensitive to nicotine-conditioned reward and withdrawal. These data demonstrate that ACh controls the quantal size and release frequency of glutamate at habenular synapses, and suggest that the synergistic functions of ACh and glutamate may be generally important for modulation of cholinergic circuit function and behavior

A stable high temperature gold nano-catalyst: synthesis, characterization and application

A stable high temperature gold nano-catalyst: synthesis, characterization and application The ability of supported gold nanoparticles to catalyse many reactions even at very low temperatures has spurred a great deal of research into the eld. Reactions such as CO oxidation and NOx reduction have many industrial applications as well as uses in the motor industry for catalytic converters. The interest is both for scienti c as well as economic reasons as gold supplies far exceed all PGM supplies. Scienti cally gold catalysts are able to catalyze reactions from below 0°C, a feat that no PGM catalyst can achieve. The low temperature activity of gold catalysts will reduce the emission of pollutants during start up. Since the discovery and development of gold catalysts one of the most researched topics has been nding ways to stabilise the gold nanoparticles on the support surface. The importance of gold nanoparticle stability is crucial as the catalysts are only highly active if the gold nanoparticles are less than 5 nm in size. A number of companies have worked to develop gold catalysts that are stable for long durations at temperatures over 450°C with no signi cant progress made over the last two decades other than a catalyst produced by Toyota. In this thesis, literature reviews of current support materials as well as synthesis methods are investigated in order to determine reasons for the instability of current gold catalysts. Further, the Mintek Aurolite catalyst is tested and its deactivation mechanisms probed using in-situ VT-PXRD, Rietveld re nement, TEM, HR-TEM, as well as CO oxidation tests. Testing revealed aws in the support structure of the catalyst which resulted in dramatic deactivation. As titania is such a common support material for many reactions in industry as well as being known to be one of the best supports for gold it was chosen as a support material. However, as is revealed, in its current forms and morphologies it is unable to provide the thermodynamically stable and high surface areas that are required for a stable catalyst After the development of a robust and reproducible synthesis method for the deposition of gold and other PGM's a number of supports were tested. These include silica and zirconia as well as titania derivatives such as Degussa P25 and commercial anatase. Initially these supports o er high usable surface areas but after a relatively small amount of time complete deactivation occurs. Reasons for this deactivation are determined and the information gained is used to develop supports that can combat these deactivation processes. Phase pure nano anatase is synthesised which produced a support with an incredibly large surface area compared to the aforementioned supports. The catalyst was able to withstand temperatures over 450°C for longer durations compared to other catalysts exposed to the same conditions. However, the phase conversion of the anatase to its thermodynamically stable form rutile once again deactivated the catalyst with time. Finally a rutile nanosupport is developed with the desired morphology and thermodynamic stability needed for high temperature applications. The catalyst is able to withstand temperatures over 550°C for more than 200 hours as well as still being active after exposure to 810°C. The industrial Aurolite catalyst showed complete deactivation after just 12 hours at 500°C. The catalyst produced in this thesis has been shown to be one of the most stable and thermally resistant gold catalysts in the world

2016 GREAT Day Program

SUNY Geneseo’s Tenth Annual GREAT Day.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/program-2007/1010/thumbnail.jp

Advance in Energy Harvesters/Nanogenerators and Self-Powered Sensors

This reprint is a collection of the Special Issue "Advance in Energy Harvesters/Nanogenerators and Self-Powered Sensors" published in Nanomaterials, which includes one editorial, six novel research articles and four review articles, showcasing the very recent advances in energy-harvesting and self-powered sensing technologies. With its broad coverage of innovations in transducing/sensing mechanisms, material and structural designs, system integration and applications, as well as the timely reviews of the progress in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing technologies, this reprint could give readers an excellent overview of the challenges, opportunities, advancements and development trends of this rapidly evolving field

There Is an Alloy at the End of the Rainbow: Structure and Optical Properties From Bulk to Nano

Mixing different chemical species and decreasing dimensions to the nanoscale are two powerful approaches for improving materials. In both cases new properties emerge, and structure, composition, and chemical ordering can be tuned to tailor materials for specific purposes. To exploit the potential of these materials, it is crucial that they are fundamentally understood, and to this end, computational methods have emerged as an important complement to experiment. This thesis presents the development and application of methods for modeling alloys, nanoparticles, and nanoalloys on the atomic scale, with the purpose of guiding the search for new materials, in particular those related to plasmonic sensing of hydrogen.A software for creating and sampling alloy cluster expansion has been developed partially in connection to this thesis, and is applied to hydrogenation of Pd and Pd--Au. For Pd--Au, the impact of chemical order on hydrogen uptake is studied, and two kinds of phase diagrams are calculated; one in which the Pd/Au atoms are fixed, and one in which they rearrange in response to hydrogen. These phase diagrams are constructed under the assumption that phase separation occurs with incoherent interfaces. This is not always the case, in particular not during hydrogenation of small Pd nanoparticles. Coherent interfaces lead to strain, and a methodology for studying this significantly more complex case is developed and applied to Pd--H, showing that there are three temperature intervals with qualitatively distinct hydrogenation behaviors.Moreover, a software for creating Wulff constructions for the prediction of equilibrium nanoparticle shapes has been developed as part of this thesis and is used to study the impact of halides on the shapes of Au and Pd nanoparticles. Furthermore, an algorithm for finding equilibrium shapes of nanoparticles on the atomic scale is detailed, and the results indicate that an ensemble of nanoparticles in thermodynamic equilibrium in general should be expected to contain multiple different shapes. Moreover, nanoalloys of Ag--Cu and Pd--Au are studied on the atomic scale with the aim to understand how chemical ordering is impacted on the nanoscale, which reveals an interplay between chemistry and strain that can give rise to a rather complex distribution of the components throughout a nanoalloy. Finally, the dielectric functions of ten metallic alloys are calculated with first-principles methods and benchmarked with experiment, providing a library of reference data to aid modeling of nanoplasmonic systems. The latter results have also been made available in the form of a web application

2015 GREAT Day Program

SUNY Geneseo’s Ninth Annual GREAT Day.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/program-2007/1009/thumbnail.jp

Design and engineering of microreactor and smart-scaled flow processes

This book is a reprint of the special issue that appeared in the online open access journal Processes (ISSN 2227-9717) in 2013 (available at: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/processes/special_issues/smart-scaled_flow_processes)

Microfluidics for Biosensing

There are 12 papers published with 8 research articles, 3 review articles and 1 perspective. The topics cover: Biomedical microfluidics Lab-on-a-chip Miniaturized systems for chemistry and life science (MicroTAS) Biosensor development and characteristics Imaging and other detection technologies Imaging and signal processing Point-of-care testing microdevices Food and water quality testing and control We hope this collection could promote the development of microfluidics and point-of-care testing (POCT) devices for biosensing

2014 GREAT Day Program

SUNY Geneseo’s Eighth Annual GREAT Day.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/program-2007/1008/thumbnail.jp