Diffraction microstrain in nanocrystalline solids under load - heterogeneous medium approach

This is an account of the computation of X-ray microstrain in a polycrystal with anisotropic elasticity under uniaxial external load. The results have been published in the article "Microstrain in nanocrystalline solids under load by virtual diffraction", at Europhysics Letters 89, 66002 (2010). The present information was submitted to Europhysics Letters as part of the manuscript package, and was available to the reviewers who recommended the paper for publication.Comment: Supporting online material for J. Markmann, D. Bachurin, L.-H. Shao, P. Gumbsch, J. Weissm\"uller, Microstrain in nanocrystalline solids under load by virtual diffraction, Europhys. Lett. 89, 66002 (2010

Interview of Margaret Mary Markmann, Ph.D.

Dr. Markmann was born in 1948 at the Anderson Hospital in Center City, Philadelphia. She was the fourth of eleven children born into a household of her mother, her father and her grandparents. She grew up in Philadelphia and has lived in the area for her entire life only leaving once after she completed nursing school. During her childhood her extended family lived nearby, her grandmother lived down the street and her Aunt and Uncle lived in the opposite direction. Her father was the direct descendent of Irish immigrants who settled in South West Philadelphia and lived in Southwest Philadelphia for the entirety of their lives. The family also had a summer home in Avalon, New Jersey. Dr. Markmann attended school in one of the largest Catholic Parishes in the United States. There were normally ninety students in the classroom. The school was very large and had 3,300 students attending when she was going to the school. Education was very important for Dr. Markmann and her siblings growing up. Both her father and mother made a point to try and send all eleven of them to college or some form of higher education. After she finished high school she took what she believed was the more practical option as compared to her original desire to become a doctor. Dr. Markmann went to nursing school at St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. She graduated in August 1969 and became a registered nurse. Dr. Markmann worked in the field nursing for a large portion if her professional life. Her first experience was as an emergency room nurse, a position that she held for one year before becoming a Clinical instructor at St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing. She went back to school to get her Bachelor of Arts degree which she received in 1998 from La Salle University with a major in History and a minor in English. She received her Master of Arts from Temple University in 2001. Her original intention was to use that degree to teach high school students. However after she had contacted the Arch Diocese she did not hear back from them for four years. During that time she was contacted to teach a few history courses at La Salle University. That was the start of her professional life at La Salle University. She has been teaching at La Salle University as an adjunct professor since 2002. The majority of the courses that Dr. Markmann teaches at La Salle are Global history courses, most notably HIS 151 and HIS 251. She has also worked in the Dean of Arts and Sciences office as a student advisor for five years, non-consecutively. Many of her children have attended La Salle University and her husband is currently on the Board of Trustees at La Salle. She has been a member of the Parents association at La Salle and both she and her husband have set up the Markmann scholarship for students who attended Catholic School

Narrow-band injection seeding of a terahertz frequency quantum cascade laser: Selection and suppression of longitudinal modes

A periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal with multiple poling periods is used to generate tunable narrow-bandwidth THz pulses for injection seeding a quantum cascade laser (QCL). We demonstrate that longitudinal modes of the quantum cascade laser close to the gain maximum can be selected or suppressed according to the seed spectrum. The QCL emission spectra obtained by electro-optic sampling from the quantum cascade laser, in the most favorable case, shows high selectivity and amplification of the longitudinal modes that overlap the frequency of the narrow-band seed. Proper selection of the narrow-band THz seed from the PPLN crystal discretely tunes the longitudinal mode emission of the quantum cascade laser. Moreover, the THz wave build-up within the laser cavity is studied as a function of the round-trip time. When the seed frequency is outside the maximum of the gain spectrum the laser emission shifts to the preferential longitudinal mode

Investigation of time-resolved gain dynamics in an injection seeded terahertz quantum cascade laser

The evolution of the gain of terahertz quantum cascade laser during injection seeding is probed as a function of time. Oscillations of the gain are commensurate with the variations of the field envelope

Observation of Time-resolved Gain Dynamics in a Terahertz Quantum Cascade Laser

The dynamic response of a terahertz quantum cascade laser is probed as a function of time. The gain of the THz QCL is saturated by injection seeding the laser with an initial THz seed pulse. The time-resolved gain of the injection seeded laser is then probed with a second THz pulse

Selection of longitudinal modes in a terahertz quantum cascade laser via narrow-band injection seeding

A terahertz quantum cascade laser is injection seeded with narrow-band seed pulses generated from a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. The spectral emission of the quantum cascade laser is controlled by the seed spectra

Metal-Metal Terahertz Quantum Cascade Laser with Hybrid Mode Section

A hybrid mode section is integrated into the end of the metal-metal (MM) waveguide of a terahertz (THz) frequency quantum cascade laser (QCL) by removing sub-wavelength portions of the top metal layer. This allows a hybrid mode to penetrate into the air, which reduces the effective index of the mode and improves the out-coupling performance at the facet. The transmission of the processed metal-metal hybrid section (MMHS) waveguide is further increased by ensuring its length fulfills the criterion for constructive interference. These simple modifications to a 2.5 THz MM QCL waveguide result in a significant increase in the output emission power. In addition, simulations show that further improvements in out-coupling efficiency can be achieved for lower frequencies with effective refractive indices close to the geometric mean of the indices of the MM waveguide and air

Convalescent Plasma Therapy in Four Critically Ill Pediatric Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Case Series

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 is a pandemic with no specific therapeutic agents or vaccination. Small published case series on critically ill adults suggest improvements in clinical status with minimal adverse events when patients receive coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma, but data on critically ill pediatric patients are lacking. We report a series of four critically ill pediatric patients with acute respiratory failure who received coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma as a treatment strategy for severe disease. Case Summary:  Patients ranged in age from 5 to 16 years old. All patients received coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma within the first 26 hours of hospitalization. Additional disease modifying agents were also used. All patients made a full recovery and were discharged home off of oxygen support. No adverse events occurred from the coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma transfusions. Conclusion: Coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma is a feasible therapy for critically ill pediatric patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Well-designed clinical trials are necessary to determine overall safety and efficacy of coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma and additional treatment modalities in pediatric patients

Quantitative Proteome Analysis of Mouse Liver Lysosomes Provides Evidence for Mannose 6-phosphate-independent Targeting Mechanisms of Acid Hydrolases in Mucolipidosis II

Medical Biochemistr

LegumeIP: an integrative database for comparative genomics and transcriptomics of model legumes

Legumes play a vital role in maintaining the nitrogen cycle of the biosphere. They conduct symbiotic nitrogen fixation through endosymbiotic relationships with bacteria in root nodules. However, this and other characteristics of legumes, including mycorrhization, compound leaf development and profuse secondary metabolism, are absent in the typical model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We present LegumeIP (http://plantgrn.noble.org/LegumeIP/), an integrative database for comparative genomics and transcriptomics of model legumes, for studying gene function and genome evolution in legumes. LegumeIP compiles gene and gene family information, syntenic and phylogenetic context and tissue-specific transcriptomic profiles. The database holds the genomic sequences of three model legumes, Medicago truncatula, Glycine max and Lotus japonicus plus two reference plant species, A. thaliana and Populus trichocarpa, with annotations based on UniProt, InterProScan, Gene Ontology and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes databases. LegumeIP also contains large-scale microarray and RNA-Seq-based gene expression data. Our new database is capable of systematic synteny analysis across M. truncatula, G. max, L. japonicas and A. thaliana, as well as construction and phylogenetic analysis of gene families across the five hosted species. Finally, LegumeIP provides comprehensive search and visualization tools that enable flexible queries based on gene annotation, gene family, synteny and relative gene expression