The Effect of Nitrided Layer on Antibacterial Properties for Biomedical Stainless Steel

AbstractPlasma nitriding of AISI type 303 austenitic stainless steel using microwave system at various input powers was conducted in present study. The nitrided layers were characterized via scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Vickers microhardness tester. The anti-bacterial property of this nitrided layer was also evaluated. The analytical results revealed the hardness of AISI type 303 stainless steel could be enhanced with nitriding process. The microstructure of the nitrided layer comprised of nitrogen-expanded γ phase. Bacterial test demonstrated the nitrided layer processed the excellent an ti-bacterial properties. The enhanced hardness and anti-bacterial properties make the nitrided AISI type 303 austenitic stainless steel the potential material in the biomedical applications

Finding the reconstructions of semiconductor surfaces via a genetic algorithm

In this article we show that the reconstructions of semiconductor surfaces can be determined using a genetic procedure. Coupled with highly optimized interatomic potentials, the present approach represents an efficient tool for finding and sorting good structural candidates for further electronic structure calculations and comparison with scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) images. We illustrate the method for the case of Si(105), and build a database of structures that includes the previously found low-energy models, as well as a number of novel configurations.Comment: 4 figures, 1 tabl

Transport Measurements on Nano-engineered Two Dimensional Superconducting Wire Networks

Superconducting triangular Nb wire networks with high normal-state resistance are fabricated by using a negative tone hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) resist. Robust magnetoresistance oscillations are observed up to high magnetic fields and maintained at low temperatures, due to the eective reduction of wire dimensions. Well-defined dips appear at integral and rational values (1/2, 1/3, 1/4) of the reduced flux f = Phi/Phi_0, which is the first observation in the triangular wire networks. These results are well consistent with theoretical calculations for the reduced critical temperature as a function of f.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Baryon Antibaryon Nonets

The baryon-antibaryon SU(3) nonets are proposed as a scheme to classify the increased number of experimentally observed enhancements near the baryon antibaryon mass threshold. The scheme is similar to the Fermi-Yang-Sakata model, which was put forth about fifty years ago in explaining the mesons observed at that time. According to the present scheme, many new baryon-antibaryon bound states are predicted, and their possible productions in quarkonium decays and B decays are suggested for experimental search.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Longitudinal gut microbiome dynamics in relation to age and senescence in a wild animal population

In humans, gut microbiome (GM) differences are often correlated with, and sometimes causally implicated in, ageing. However, it is unclear how these findings translate in wild animal populations. Studies that investigate how GM dynamics change within individuals, and with declines in physiological condition, are needed to fully understand links between chronological age, senescence and the GM, but have rarely been done. Here, we use longitudinal data collected from a closed population of Seychelles warblers (Acrocephalus sechellensis) to investigate how bacterial GM alpha diversity, composition and stability are associated with host senescence. We hypothesised that GM diversity and composition will differ, and become more variable, in older adults, particularly in the terminal year prior to death, as the GM becomes increasingly dysregulated due to senescence. However, GM alpha diversity and composition remained largely invariable with respect to adult age and did not differ in an individual's terminal year. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the GM became more heterogenous in senescent age groups (individuals older than 6 years), or in the terminal year. Instead, environmental variables such as season, territory quality and time of day, were the strongest predictors of GM variation in adult Seychelles warblers. These results contrast with studies on humans, captive animal populations and some (but not all) studies on non-human primates, suggesting that GM deterioration may not be a universal hallmark of senescence in wild animal species. Further work is needed to disentangle the factors driving variation in GM-senescence relationships across different host taxa

The molecular systems composed of the charmed mesons in the HSˉ+h.c.H\bar{S}+h.c. doublet

We study the possible heavy molecular states composed of a pair of charm mesons in the H and S doublets. Since the P-wave charm-strange mesons $D_{s0}(2317)$ and $D_{s1}(2460)$ are extremely narrow, the future experimental observation of the possible heavy molecular states composed of $D_s/D_s^\ast$ and $D_{s0}(2317)/D_{s1}(2460)$ may be feasible if they really exist. Especially the possible $J^{PC}=1^{--}$ states may be searched for via the initial state radiation technique.Comment: 42 pages, 4 tables, 31 figures. Improved numerical results and Corrected typos

Duke Surgery Patient Safety: an open-source application for anonymous reporting of adverse and near-miss surgical events

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that 4% of hospitalized patients suffer from an adverse event caused by the medical treatment administered. Some institutions have created systems to encourage medical workers to report these adverse events. However, these systems often prove to be inadequate and/or ineffective for reviewing the data collected and improving the outcomes in patient safety. OBJECTIVE: To describe the Web-application Duke Surgery Patient Safety, designed for the anonymous reporting of adverse and near-miss events as well as scheduled reporting to surgeons and hospital administration. SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE: DSPS was developed primarily using Java language running on a Tomcat server and with MySQL database as its backend. RESULTS: Formal and field usability tests were used to aid in development of DSPS. Extensive experience with DSPS at our institution indicate that DSPS is easy to learn and use, has good speed, provides needed functionality, and is well received by both adverse-event reporters and administrators. DISCUSSION: This is the first description of an open-source application for reporting patient safety, which allows the distribution of the application to other institutions in addition for its ability to adapt to the needs of different departments. DSPS provides a mechanism for anonymous reporting of adverse events and helps to administer Patient Safety initiatives. CONCLUSION: The modifiable framework of DSPS allows adherence to evolving national data standards. The open-source design of DSPS permits surgical departments with existing reporting mechanisms to integrate them with DSPS. The DSPS application is distributed under the GNU General Public License

Study of charmonia in four-meson final states produced in two-photon collisions

We report measurements of charmonia produced in two-photon collisions and decaying to four-meson final states, where the meson is either a charged pion or a charged kaon. The analysis is based on a 395fb^{-1} data sample accumulated with the Belle detector at the KEKB electron-positron collider. We observe signals for the three C-even charmonia eta_c(1S), chi_{c0}(1P) and chi_{c2}(1P) in the pi^+pi^-pi^+pi^-, K^+K^-pi^+pi^- and K^+K^-K^+K^- decay modes. No clear signals for eta_c(2S) production are found in these decay modes. We have also studied resonant structures in charmonium decays to two-body intermediate meson resonances. We report the products of the two-photon decay width and the branching fractions, Gamma_{gamma gamma}B, for each of the charmonium decay modes.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure

Optimal Control of Nonlinear Switched Systems: Computational Methods and Applications

A switched system is a dynamic system that operates by switching between different subsystems or modes. Such systems exhibit both continuous and discrete characteristics—a dual nature that makes designing effective control policies a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the latest computational techniques for generating optimal control laws for switched systems with nonlinear dynamics and continuous inequality constraints. We discuss computational strategiesfor optimizing both the times at which a switched system switches from one mode to another (the so-called switching times) and the sequence in which a switched system operates its various possible modes (the so-called switching sequence). These strategies involve novel combinations of the control parameterization method, the timescaling transformation, and bilevel programming and binary relaxation techniques. We conclude the paper by discussing a number of switched system optimal control models arising in practical applications