Structural, optical and nanomechanical properties of (1 1 1) oriented nanocrystalline ZnTe thin films

Structural, optical and nanomechanical properties of nanocrystalline Zinc Telluride (ZnTe) films of thickness upto 10 microns deposited at room temperature on borosilicate glass substrates are reported. X-ray diffraction patterns reveal that the films were preferentially oriented along the (1 1 1) direction. The maximum refractive index of the films was 2.74 at a wavelength of 2000 nm. The optical band gap showed strong thickness dependence. The average film hardness and Young’s modulus obtained from loaddisplacement curves and analyzed by Oliver-Pharr method were 4 and 70 GPa respectively. Hardness of (1 1 1) oriented ZnTe thin films exhibited almost 5 times higher value than bulk. The studies show clearly that the hardness increases with decreasing indentation size, for indents between 30 and 300 nm in depth indicating the existence of indentation size effect. The coefficient of friction for these films as obtained from the nanoscratch test was ∼0.4.Financial support in the form of fellowships to MSRNK and SK from the ACRHEM project of DRDO is acknowledged

A nanocrystal technology: to enhance solubility of poorly water soluble drugs

Most of the recently developed new chemical entities are poorly water soluble and they create major problems during formulation and development of new dosage form and due to poor solubility and poor bioavailability. The drugs belong to BCS class II and class IV has problem of solubility, to overcome the solubility problem nanotechnology is most useful technique. In this review article the main focus on Nanocrystals and various techniques used for preparation of Nanocrystals. Drug nanocrystals consists pure poorly water soluble drugs without any matrix material which means that it is carrier free drug delivery. Nanocrystals technologies have been introduced as advantageous, universal formulation approaches for the BCS class II and IV drugs. Nanocrystals, with greater surface to volume ratio, can effectively increase both the dissolution rate and saturation solubility of active ingredients The Nanocrystals is suitable drug delivery system for all commonly used routes of administration such as oral, IV, SC, and IM and topical application. Nanocrystals can also be incorporated into the tablets, capsules, fast-melts and lyophilized for sterile product applications. There are no of techniques which are used for production including precipitation, milling, high pressure homogenization and combination methods such as Nano-Edge, SmartCrystal and Precipitation-lyophilization-homogenization (PLH) technology

Direct-written polymer field-effect transistors operating at 20 MHz

Printed polymer electronics has held for long the promise of revolutionizing technology by delivering distributed, flexible, lightweight and cost-effective applications for wearables, healthcare, diagnostic, automation and portable devices. While impressive progresses have been registered in terms of organic semiconductors mobility, field-effect transistors (FETs), the basic building block of any circuit, are still showing limited speed of operation, thus limiting their real applicability. So far, attempts with organic FETs to achieve the tens of MHz regime, a threshold for many applications comprising the driving of high resolution displays, have relied on the adoption of sophisticated lithographic techniques and/or complex architectures, undermining the whole concept. In this work we demonstrate polymer FETs which can operate up to 20 MHz and are fabricated by means only of scalable printing techniques and direct-writing methods with a completely mask-less procedure. This is achieved by combining a fs-laser process for the sintering of high resolution metal electrodes, thus easily achieving micron-scale channels with reduced parasitism down to 0.19 pF mm(-1), and a large area coating technique of a high mobility polymer semiconductor, according to a simple and scalable process flow

Study of prevalence and determinants of polycystic ovarian syndrome among adolescent girls in rural area: a prospective study

Background: Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is the most frequent endocrinological disorder affecting 5-10% of women in the reproductive age. This prevalence ranging from 2.2% to 26% in adult women from 18-45 year. In a recent study the prevalence of a confirmed diagnosis of PCOS in adolescents aged 10 to 19 years was 5-15%, which increased to 10-22%. When undiagnosed cases with documented symptoms qualifying for PCOS according to NIH (National institute of Health) criteria were included. PCOS is a complex endocrine disorder which is most common in women of reproductive age. PCOS may first present in adolescence, but the incidence of PCOS in adolescence is not known, as diagnostic criteria for PCOS in the adolescent age-group is still not defined, PCOS symptoms tend to overlap with normal pubertal changes making the diagnosis even more challenging. The objective is to study prevalence and symptomatology of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in adolescent girls.Methods: Prospective Cross sectional study between April 2018 and March 2019. 150 adolescent girls aged 10 to 19 years attending OPD with oligomenorrhea, irregular menstrual cycle, obesity and/or hirsutism were advised for biochemical, hormonal, and ultrasonographic evaluation for diagnosis of PCOS on the basis of Rotterdam's criteria at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Deemed University, Karad, Maharashtra, India.Results: Prevalence of PCOS in the study was 17.33% in the study group.Conclusions: PCOS is increasingly encountered during adolescence, although the overall prevalence is low and evaluation of PCOS in adolescents is challenging. At this age, lifestyle modification is imperative to prevent long-term metabolic and reproductive complications

Ab initio calculations of structural and electronic properties of CdTe clusters

We present results of a study of small stoichiometric $Cd_{n}Te_{n}$ ($1{\leq}n{\leq}6$) clusters and few medium sized non-stoichiometric $Cd_{m}Te_{n}$ [($m,n= 13, 16, 19$); ($m{\neq}n$)] clusters using the Density Functional formalism and projector augmented wave method within the generalized gradient approximation. Structural properties {\it viz.} geometry, bond length, symmetry and electronic properties like HOMO-LUMO gap, binding energy, ionization potential and nature of bonding {\it etc.} have been analyzed. Medium sized non-stoichiometric clusters were considered as fragments of the bulk with T{$_{d}$} symmetry. It was observed that upon relaxation, the symmetry changes for the Cd rich clusters whereas the Te rich clusters retain their symmetry. The Cd rich clusters develop a HOMO-LUMO gap due to relaxation whereas there is no change in the HOMO-LUMO gap of the Te rich clusters. Thus, the symmetry of a cluster seems to be an important factor in determining the HOMO-LUMO gap.Comment: 8 pages 16 figure

Negligible particle-specific toxicity mechanism of silver nanoparticles: The role of Ag+ion release in the cytosol

Toxicity of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) is supported by many observations in literature, but no mechanism details have been proved yet. Here we confirm and quantify the toxic potential of fully characterized AgNPs in HeLa and A549 cells. Notably, through a specific fluorescent probe, we demonstrate the intracellular release of Ag+ ions in living cells after nanoparticle internalization, showing that in-situ particle degradation is promoted by the acidic lysosomal environment. The activation of metallothioneins in response to AgNPs and the possibility to reverse the main toxic pathway by Ag+ chelating agents demonstrate a cause/effect relationship between ions and cell death. We propose that endocytosed AgNPs are degraded in the lysosomes and the release of Ag+ ions in the cytosol induces cell damages, while ions released in the cell culture medium play a negligible effect. These findings will be useful to develop safer-by-design nanoparticles and proper regulatory guidelines of AgNPs

Histologic Alterations from Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in High‐Grade Extremity Soft Tissue Sarcoma: Clinicopathological Correlation

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139918/1/onco0451.pd

Derivation of continuum stochastic equations for discrete growth models

We present a formalism to derive the stochastic differential equations (SDEs) for several solid-on-solid growth models. Our formalism begins with a mapping of the microscopic dynamics of growth models onto the particle systems with reactions and diffusion. We then write the master equations for these corresponding particle systems and find the SDEs for the particle densities. Finally, by connecting the particle densities with the growth heights, we derive the SDEs for the height variables. Applying this formalism to discrete growth models, we find the Edwards-Wilkinson equation for the symmetric body-centered solid-on-solid (BCSOS) model, the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation for the asymmetric BCSOS model and the generalized restricted solid-on-solid (RSOS) model, and the Villain--Lai--Das Sarma equation for the conserved RSOS model. In addition to the consistent forms of equations for growth models, we also obtain the coefficients associated with the SDEs.Comment: 5 pages, no figur