Review of zincblende ZnO: Stability of metastable ZnO phases

Common II-VI compound semiconducting materials are stable thermodynamically with zincblende phase, while the II-O materials such as zinc oxide (ZnO) and beryllium oxide (BeO) are stable with wurtzite phase, and cadmium oxide (CdO) and magnesium oxide (MgO) are stable in rocksalt phase. This phase disharmony in the same material family laid a challenge for the basic physics and in practical applications in optoelectronic devices, where ternary and quaternary compounds are employed. Thermodynamically the zincblende ZnO is a metastable phase which is free from the giant internal electric fields in the [001] directions and has an easy cleavage facet in the ⟨110⟩ directions for laser cavity fabrication that combined with evidence for the higher optical gain. The zincblende materials also have lower ionicity that leads to the lower carrier scattering and higher doping efficiencies. Even with these outstanding features in the zincblende materials, the growth of zincblende ZnO and its fundamental properties are still limited. In this paper, recent progress in growth and fundamental properties of zincblende ZnOmaterial has been reviewed.This research is supported in part by the Australian Research Council, Australia, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research RIKEN, and the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan

The influence of atmosphere on the performance of pure-phase WZ and ZB InAs nanowire transistors

We compare the characteristics of phase-pure MOCVD grown ZB and WZ InAs nanowire transistors in several atmospheres: air, dry pure N$_2$ and O$_2$, and N$_2$ bubbled through liquid H$_2$O and alcohols to identify whether phase-related structural/surface differences affect their response. Both WZ and ZB give poor gate characteristics in dry state. Adsorption of polar species reduces off-current by 2-3 orders of magnitude, increases on-off ratio and significantly reduces sub-threshold slope. The key difference is the greater sensitivity of WZ to low adsorbate level. We attribute this to facet structure and its influence on the separation between conduction electrons and surface adsorption sites. We highlight the important role adsorbed species play in nanowire device characterisation. WZ is commonly thought superior to ZB in InAs nanowire transistors. We show this is an artefact of the moderate humidity found in ambient laboratory conditions: WZ and ZB perform equally poorly in the dry gas limit yet equally well in the wet gas limit. We also highlight the vital role density-lowering disorder has in improving gate characteristics, be it stacking faults in mixed-phase WZ or surface adsorbates in pure-phase nanowires.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nanotechnolog

Agricultural marketing and agribusiness supply chain issues in developing economies: the case of fresh produce in Papua New Guinea

Large quantities of fresh produce can be grown in the Highlands provinces of Papua New Guinea, and this produce is then marketed to a range of markets, including the coastal cities of Port Moresby and Lae. However, it is often argued that the marketing system performs poorly, and various reasons for this are cited. In this paper, the results of a study on the marketing of smallholder produce originating in the Highlands provinces and destined for a range of markets, including the coastal cities, are presented. A defensible supply chain framework is used to evaluate a range of marketing issues and to evaluate the performance of the marketing system. The results of the study are refreshingly positive. It was found that the marketing system was remarkably vibrant, given the current level of market development in Papua New Guinea. It is characterised by entrepreneurial behaviour by the private sector, where businesses along the chain compete and innovate in order to expand their operations and meet the needs of the customers in their varied market segments. However, they are constrained in their endeavours by poor infrastructure, which raises their costs of doing business. It was concluded that the use of a Supply Chain Framework can yield a very robust and insightful understanding of the performance of the agricultural marketing system in developing economies

Electron and trap dynamics in As-ion-implanted and annealed GaAs

The ultrafast dynamics of As-ion-implanted and annealed GaAs is investigated using transmission pump–probe measurements.Carrier recombination time was found to increase from 4 to 40 ps with increasing annealing temperature. At lower annealing temperatures, the transmitted optical signal is dominated by induced absorption and at higher annealing temperatures this effect is replaced by induced transparency.This work was supported in part by the EC INCOCOPERNICUS project ‘‘DUO—devices for ultrafast optoelectronics’’ and the Lithuanian Science and Study Foundation

Appearance frequency modulated gene set enrichment testing

Abstract Background Gene set enrichment testing has helped bridge the gap from an individual gene to a systems biology interpretation of microarray data. Although gene sets are defined a priori based on biological knowledge, current methods for gene set enrichment testing treat all genes equal. It is well-known that some genes, such as those responsible for housekeeping functions, appear in many pathways, whereas other genes are more specialized and play a unique role in a single pathway. Drawing inspiration from the field of information retrieval, we have developed and present here an approach to incorporate gene appearance frequency (in KEGG pathways) into two current methods, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and logistic regression-based LRpath framework, to generate more reproducible and biologically meaningful results. Results Two breast cancer microarray datasets were analyzed to identify gene sets differentially expressed between histological grade 1 and 3 breast cancer. The correlation of Normalized Enrichment Scores (NES) between gene sets, generated by the original GSEA and GSEA with the appearance frequency of genes incorporated (GSEA-AF), was compared. GSEA-AF resulted in higher correlation between experiments and more overlapping top gene sets. Several cancer related gene sets achieved higher NES in GSEA-AF as well. The same datasets were also analyzed by LRpath and LRpath with the appearance frequency of genes incorporated (LRpath-AF). Two well-studied lung cancer datasets were also analyzed in the same manner to demonstrate the validity of the method, and similar results were obtained. Conclusions We introduce an alternative way to integrate KEGG PATHWAY information into gene set enrichment testing. The performance of GSEA and LRpath can be enhanced with the integration of appearance frequency of genes. We conclude that, generally, gene set analysis methods with the integration of information from KEGG PATHWAY performs better both statistically and biologically.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112430/1/12859_2010_Article_4457.pd

Correlation between stick-slip frictional sliding and charge transfer

A decade ago, Budakian and Putterman (Phys. Rev. Lett., {\bf 85}, 1000 (2000)) ascribed friction to the formation of bonds arising from contact charging when a gold tip of a surface force apparatus was dragged on polymethylmethacrylate surface. We propose a stick-slip model that captures the observed correlation between stick-slip events and charge transfer, and the lack of dependence of the scale factor connecting the force jumps and charge transfer on normal load. Here, stick-slip dynamics arises as a competition between the visco-elastic and plastic deformation time scales and that due to the pull speed with contact charging playing a minor role. Our model provides an alternate basis for explaining most experimental results without ascribing friction to contact charging.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, To be appeared in Physical Review

What do School Children know about Eye Injuries and their Prevention?

Ocular trauma is one of the most common causes of acquired blindness among children. The present study was conducted to assess the level of awareness among school children about eye injuries and their prevention to increase their knowledge and awareness about the same as there are no published studies on this important aspect of childhood eye injuries. 477 school children between VIIth and XIth of four schools under RHTC Mandur field practice area were administered questionnaires to assess their knowledge about eye injuries.Results: 92% of the students could correctly identify the sense organs in the human body.Most of the school children could identify at least three functions of the eye. 71.90% identified three parts of the eye correctly. 90% knew about the anatomical location of the eye. 93 % of the students were aware about the common places of eye injury as opposed to 33 (7%) who were unaware.45%) could correctly identify the various causes of eye injury and more than half, i.e 267 (56%) could describe the various mechanisms of eye injury.Most of the school children i.e. 439 (92%) knew about the importance of promptly consulting a doctor in case of an eye injury

XML Reconstruction View Selection in XML Databases: Complexity Analysis and Approximation Scheme

Query evaluation in an XML database requires reconstructing XML subtrees rooted at nodes found by an XML query. Since XML subtree reconstruction can be expensive, one approach to improve query response time is to use reconstruction views - materialized XML subtrees of an XML document, whose nodes are frequently accessed by XML queries. For this approach to be efficient, the principal requirement is a framework for view selection. In this work, we are the first to formalize and study the problem of XML reconstruction view selection. The input is a tree $T$, in which every node $i$ has a size $c_i$ and profit $p_i$, and the size limitation $C$. The target is to find a subset of subtrees rooted at nodes $i_1,\cdots, i_k$ respectively such that $c_{i_1}+\cdots +c_{i_k}\le C$, and $p_{i_1}+\cdots +p_{i_k}$ is maximal. Furthermore, there is no overlap between any two subtrees selected in the solution. We prove that this problem is NP-hard and present a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) as a solution