Nanoscaled Al-AlN composites consolidated by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) of partially in situ nitrided Al powder

Nanoscaled aluminium nitride (AlN) reinforced aluminium matrix composites were fabricated using a novel approach where powder mixtures of Al+Mg+Sn were partially in situ nitrided in flowing nitrogen followed by consolidation through equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). The resulting composites contain up to 23.8. vol% of AlN with relative density >98%. The microstructure shows two distinctively different alternate lamellar regions. One is the Al matrix free of AlN and the other is composed of nanoscaled AlN embedded in the Al matrix. The Al-AlN composites fabricated this way exhibited attractive properties, including thermal stability up to 450 °C, high compressive strength, high Young's modulus and low coefficient of thermal expansion. The presence of nanoscaled AlN reduced the thermal conductivity of the composites compared to the high thermal conductivity of Al-AlN composites prepared by metal infiltration techniques

Pan-cancer transcriptome analysis reveals long noncoding RNAs with conserved function

<div><p>A growing number of gene-centric studies have highlighted the emerging significance of lncRNAs in cancer. However, these studies primarily focus on a single cancer type. Therefore, we conducted a pan-cancer analysis of lncRNAs comparing tumor and matched normal expression levels using RNA-Seq data from ∼ 3,000 patients in 8 solid tumor types. While the majority of differentially expressed lncRNAs display tissue-specific expression we discovered 229 lncRNAs with outlier or differential expression across multiple cancers, which we refer to as 'onco-lncRNAs'. Due to their consistent altered expression, we hypothesize that these onco-lncRNAs may have conserved oncogenic and tumor suppressive functions across cancers. To address this, we associated the onco-lncRNAs in biological processes based on their co-expressed protein coding genes. To validate our predictions, we experimentally confirmed cell growth dependence of 2 novel oncogenic lncRNAs, <i>onco-lncRNA-3</i> and <i>onco-lncRNA-12</i>, and a previously identified lncRNA <i>CCAT1</i>. Overall, we discovered lncRNAs that may have broad oncogenic and tumor suppressor roles that could significantly advance our understanding of cancer lncRNA biology.</p></div