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AbstractNanoWorld AG’sAvanex CorpSirenza Microdevices Inc.Intense PhotonicsJDS UniphaseXanoptixZettaCoreRafael Escolá FoundationAir ProductsThe Crystal ConsortiumVishay Intertechnology In

Challenges Remain for Effective Growth of Nanotechnology Enabled Products

According to conclusions from the recent report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) the $12B NNI investment in nanotechnology since 2001 has provided a “catalytic and substantial impact.” Yet, with this positive assessment, significant challenges remain in order to stimulate sustainable economic impact and growth through commercialization of nanotechnologies. These challenges include workforce training and education while further balancing key issues of societal impact and worker safety through regulatory oversight. Several issues have recently been cited by industry groups, government organizations, and the PCAST report regarding regulation, workforce training, and effective commercialization of nanoscience breakthroughs that suggest a critical balance must be struck during the second decade of the NNI in order to optimally reap the benefits of federal investments. Also: Understanding the Resistivity-Transparency Tradeoffs for Carbon Nanotube Electrodes on Flexible Substrates; NanoBusiness Alliance Interview with Ajay Malshe; and NIST Wins R&D100 Award for Through-focus Scanning Optical Microscopy

Compositions and comparisons of antimicrobial potencies of some essential oils and antibiotics against selected bacteria

The antimicrobial activities of 10 essential oils extracted from various plant species were investigated and compared with the activities of 10 commercial antibiotics against 10 strains of bacteria using agardiffusion method. Although, all the essential oils were active at concentration ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 mg/ml, their activities were more lower than the commercial antibiotics. However, being natural productsthe oils have been reported to be much safer than the antibiotics. Another advantage of the essential oils used in this study was their broad spectrum activities against gram positive and gram negative bacteria. The oils were analyzed by GC and GC-MS techniques in order to determine their activecompounds

Breaking-up is hard to do: A unique methodology for unbundling a “Big Deal”

Slides from presentation at the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (C-EBLIP) Fall Symposium, October 15, 2014Academic libraries acquire access to many journal titles through “Big Deal” bundles. As serials prices continue to rise at unsustainable rates it will become increasingly necessary to consider breaking-up these packages and just subscribing to the most important titles individually. Recently, it appeared that the University Library, University of Saskatchewan would likely no longer be able to afford the American Chemical Society (ACS) bundle of 40+ titles, and tough decisions would need to be made. Usage data on each title were readily available – but is that enough evidence? Working under the common assumption that the primary users of this package are the Chemistry Department researchers, a citation analysis was conducted on what ACS journals these users recently published in and cited in their articles. In an effort to engage chemistry researchers and offer them a voice in the process, a survey of their opinions on each ACS title was also conducted. It was hoped that combining data from these three discrete sources: usage statistics, citation analyses, and user feedback, would enable us to arrive at the most conscientious, evidence-based decisions possible. This study took the novel approach of applying a citation analysis technique to usage data and survey responses. Although unconventional, this unique methodology proved useful in this situation. This presentation will describe the steps taken and discuss the benefits and challenges of this method so that librarians may consider whether this approach could be adapted to their own collections analysis needs

Geomagnetic Virtual Observatories: Global monitoring of geomagnetic secular variation with Swarm data

The ESA Swarm DISC Geomagnetic Virtual Observatories (GVO) project aims to apply the virtual observatory concept to Swarm magnetic field measurements. The Virtual Observatory concept is a data processing method which mimics the behavior of magnetic monthly-mean time-series measured at ground observatories but at fixed locations on a uniform global grid at satellite altitude instead. Here we present several new GVO data products consisting of the average time-series of vector magnetic field values, regularly distributed in space and time which are suitable for monitoring the geomagnetic field. The GVO products consist of an equal-area grid with separation spacing of 300 km and cadence of either 1 month or 4 months. Various levels of processing are applied to remove the effects of altitude change and satellite local-time differences to produce a consistent time series. It is known that monthly time-series can have strong local-time artifacts which are removed with four-monthly averages, though with a loss of temporal resolution. The GVO products are designed to make Swarm magnetic data more accessible to researchers studying the physics of the core dynamo process, and related phenomenon such are secular variation, geomagnetic jerks and rapid core dynamics. In addition, the GVO data products also provide valuable information for investigating magnetospheric and ionospheric magnetic signals on timescales of months and longer

A convenient synthesis of new 6-substituted purinylcarbanucleosides on cyclopenta[b]thiophene

The 12th International Electronic Conference on Synthetic Organic Chemistry session Bioorganic Chemistry and Natural ProductsThe first members of a new family of heterocarbobicyclic nucleoside analogues have been synthesized from the cis/trans mixture of (4-amino-5,6-dihydro-4H-cyclopenta[b]thiophen-6-yl)methanols cis/trans-7. The separation of cis and trans intermediates during preparation of the 6-chloropurine derivatives allowed separate preparation of the purine heterocarbanucleosides cis-10 and trans-11, from which cis-(12-14) and trans-(16-18) were obtained by replacement of the 6-chloro substituent with amino, hydroxy and cyclopropylamino groups. Additionally, the 6-phenyl-purinyl analogues cis-15 and trans-19 were prepared from cis-10 and trans-11 using Suzuki-Miyaura methodologyThe authors thank the Xunta de Galicia for financial support under project PGIDIT02BTF20305P