Hard carbon field emitters for flat panel displays

Goal was to determine the field emission of laser-ablated hard carbon coatings. The coatings, deposited on Mo tip arrays, were found (with ion field emission microscope) to have excellent Fowler-Nordheim behavior: plots of the logarithm of emission current divided by voltage squared vs inverse of voltage are linear. This indicates the tips are operating as field emitters. Field emission current of as-coated tip arrays was lower than uncoated tips; this disagrees with observations in literature. Hydrogen plasma cleaning was studied. Cleaned, laser-ablated carbon coatings of field emission tips have two benefits: the emission current increases at fixed voltage, and stability of the emission increases. These results would be advantageous for field emission flat panel displays

The Application of Photoconductive Detectors to the Measurement of X-Ray Production in Laser Produced Plasmas

Photoconductive detectors (PCDs) offer an attractive alternative for the measurement of pulsed x-rays from laser produced plasmas. These devices are fast (FWHM approx.100 ps), sensitive and simple to use. We have used InP, GaAs, and Type IIa diamond as PCDs to measure x-rays emission from 100 eV to 100 keV. Specifically, we have used these detectors to measure total radiation yields, corona temperatures, and hot electron generated x-rays from laser produced plasmas. 5 refs., 4 figs

Preliminary investigation of an additive approach to the fabrication of precision aspheres

We report progress in the aspherization of precision optical substrates via deposition of graded period Mo/Si multilayer coatings using a masking technique. These preliminary results show good agreement between the measured and desired thickness profiles over 85% of the sample, however, thickness deviations of up to 7 % are observed in the central area. The errors are attributed to misalignments of the mask relative to the substrate during deposition

Magnetic force microscopy of single-domain cobalt dots patterned using interference lithography

We have fabricated arrays of Co dots of diameters 100 and 70 nm using interference lithography. Density of these arrays is 7.2x10{sup 9}/in{sup 2}. Magnetic force microscopy indicate that the Co dots are single domain with moments that can be controlled to point either in-plane or out-of-plane. Interference lithography is a process that is easily scaled to large areas and is potentially capable of high throughput. Large, uniform arrays of single-domain structures are potentially useful for high-density, low-noise data storage

Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: The SPI-Birds data hub

The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change). To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database (www.spibirds.org)\u2014a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2,000 cumulative years, and counting. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language). The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration

Doing synthetic biology with photosynthetic microorganisms

The use of photosynthetic microbes as synthetic biology hosts for the sustainable production of commodity chemicals and even fuels has received increasing attention over the last decade. The number of studies published, tools implemented, and resources made available for microalgae have increased beyond expectations during the last few years. However, the tools available for genetic engineering in these organisms still lag those available for the more commonly used heterotrophic host organisms. In this mini-review, we provide an overview of the photosynthetic microbes most commonly used in synthetic biology studies, namely cyanobacteria, chlorophytes, eustigmatophytes and diatoms. We provide basic information on the techniques and tools available for each model group of organisms, we outline the state-of-the-art, and we list the synthetic biology tools that have been successfully used. We specifically focus on the latest CRISPR developments, as we believe that precision editing and advanced genetic engineering tools will be pivotal to the advancement of the field. Finally, we discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of each group of organisms and examine the challenges that need to be overcome to achieve their synthetic biology potential.Peer reviewe

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362

Diamond radiation detectors II. CVD diamond development for radiation detectors

Interest in radiation detectors has supplied some of the impetus for improving the electronic properties of CVD diamond. In the present discussion, we will restrict our attention to polycrystalhne CVD material. We will focus on the evolution of these materials over the past decade and the correlation of detector performance with other properties of the material

Large GMR values of sputtered Co/Cu multilayer structures with Co-Cu buffer layers

We demonstrate large giant magnetoresistance (GMR) values of Co/Cu multilayers (MLs) sputtered on combined Co18{angstrom}/Cu48{angstrom} buffer layer. GMR values at room temperature reach 62% at the first antiferromagnetically (AF) coupling peak and 33% at the 2nd AF coupled peak, which are very close to those found in Co/Cu MLs sputtered on a Fe buffer layer. The large GMR effect is attributed to the superior superlattice structure of these samples, as evidenced by the x-ray reflectivity data as well as the TEM micrographs. In particular, the role of thin Co initial layer deposited beneath the Cu buffer layer on improved ML structure has been clarified from cross-sectional micrographs of high-resolution TEM

X-ray conversion physics

We have performed a series of experiments to study the physics of the conversion of 0.35-..mu..m laser light to soft x-rays in high-Z materials. The efficiency of soft x-ray and M-band radiation production as a function of laser intensity (5 /times/ 10/sup 13/ to 3 /times/ 10/sup 15/ W/cm/sup 2/) was measured. At fixed intensity 5 /times/ 10/sup 14/ W/cm/sup 2/, the time-resolved and time-integrated thermal x-ray (E < 1.5 keV) conversion efficiency increased with the laser pulse length for up to 4-ns-long pulses on gold targets. The effects of material opacity were examined by making targets of mixtures of gold and beryllium to vary the density of the strongly radiating gold in the target. These experiments demonstrate the effects of material opacity on both thermal and M-band x-ray production. These experiments were performed with large laser spots and greater than 1 kj of 0.35-..mu..m laser light using the Nova laser. These experiments have expanded our understanding of our ability to computer model the interaction of high intensity laser light with high-Z plasmas. 5 refs., 4 fig