THE STRUCTURE OF Ni/MgO INTERFACES

Polycrystalline Ni has been solid state welded onto the (001) surface of MgO in vacuum, and the phase-boundary viewed face-on as well as edge-on in the transmission electron microscope. The extent of interdiffusion has been determined by energy dispersive X-ray micronanalysis, and conventional TEM has been used to study the possible formation of new phases, the possible presence of misfit dislocations and the orientation realtionship between the Ni and the MgO. The theoretical misfit dislocation structures were also calculated using the O-lattice theory

THE MICROSTRUCTURE OF METAL-OXIDE BOUNDARIES

Al and Au have been coated (electron-beam deposition) onto (001) MgO, and polycrystalline Ni has been solid state bonded onto (001) MgO for the study of the physics and chemistry of metal-oxide boundaries. These boundaries were characterized by conventional -, analytical- and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HREM). The observed microstructures are discussed with reference to the O-lattice theory, DSC-theory, Image Force Theorem, thermodynamics and kinetics of such boundaries

Patients-in-waiting or chronically healthy individuals? : People with elevated cholesterol talk about risk

Risk adopts an ambiguous position between health and illness/disease and is culturally salient in various health-related everyday practices. Previous research on risk experience has mostly focused on the illness/disease side of this risk ambiguity. Persons at risk have typically been defined as patients (of some kind) and their condition as a form of proto-illness. To allow for the cultural proliferation of health risk and to account for the health side of risk ambiguity, I chose to focus on elevated cholesterol, a condition both intensely medicalised and connected to the everyday practice of eating, among participants (n = 14) recruited from a consumer panel and approached not as patients, but as individuals concerned about their cholesterol. Utilising the biographical disruption framework developed by Bury, I show how the risk experience of my participants differed from the chronic illness experience. Instead of patients-in-waiting suffering from a proto-illness, they presented themselves as 'chronically healthy individuals' (Varul 2010), actively trying to avoid becoming patients through a responsible regimen of personal health care. The results call for a more nuanced approach to the risk experience, which accounts for both sides of the risk ambiguity.Peer reviewe