Structure and Surface Analysis of SHI Irradiated Thin Films of Cadmium Telluride

Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin films grown by thermal evaporation on quartz substrates were irradiated with swift (100 MeV) Ni + 4 ions at various fluences in the range 1011 – 1013 cm – 2. The modification in structure and surface morphology has been analyzed as a function of fluence using XRD and AFM techniques. The XRD showed a reduction in peak intensity and grain size with increasing fluence. The AFM micrographs of irradiated thin films show small spherical nanostructures. In addition to direct imaging, AFM profile data enable to derive the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the surface roughness. In the present work PSD spectra computed from AFM data were used for studying the surface morphology of films. The PSD curves were fitted with an appropriate analytic function and characteristic parameters were deduced and discussed in order to compare film morphology with varying fluence levels. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2960

Associations between potentially modifiable risk factors and Alzheimer disease: a Mendelian randomization study

BackgroundPotentially modifiable risk factors including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and smoking are associated with Alzheimer disease (AD) and represent promising targets for intervention. However, the causality of these associations is unclear. We sought to assess the causal nature of these associations using Mendelian randomization (MR).Methods and FindingsWe used SNPs associated with each risk factor as instrumental variables in MR analyses. We considered type 2 diabetes (T2D, NSNPs = 49), fasting glucose (NSNPs = 36), insulin resistance (NSNPs = 10), body mass index (BMI, NSNPs = 32), total cholesterol (NSNPs = 73), HDL-cholesterol (NSNPs = 71), LDL-cholesterol (NSNPs = 57), triglycerides (NSNPs = 39), systolic blood pressure (SBP, NSNPs = 24), smoking initiation (NSNPs = 1), smoking quantity (NSNPs = 3), university completion (NSNPs = 2), and years of education (NSNPs = 1). We calculated MR estimates of associations between each exposure and AD risk using an inverse-variance weighted approach, with summary statistics of SNP–AD associations from the International Genomics of Alzheimer’s Project, comprising a total of 17,008 individuals with AD and 37,154 cognitively normal elderly controls. We found that genetically predicted higher SBP was associated with lower AD risk (odds ratio [OR] per standard deviation [15.4 mm Hg] of SBP [95% CI]: 0.75 [0.62–0.91]; p = 3.4 × 10−3). Genetically predicted higher SBP was also associated with a higher probability of taking antihypertensive medication (p = 6.7 × 10−8). Genetically predicted smoking quantity was associated with lower AD risk (OR per ten cigarettes per day [95% CI]: 0.67 [0.51–0.89]; p = 6.5 × 10−3), although we were unable to stratify by smoking history; genetically predicted smoking initiation was not associated with AD risk (OR = 0.70 [0.37, 1.33]; p = 0.28). We saw no evidence of causal associations between glycemic traits, T2D, BMI, or educational attainment and risk of AD (all p &gt; 0.1). Potential limitations of this study include the small proportion of intermediate trait variance explained by genetic variants and other implicit limitations of MR analyses.ConclusionsInherited lifetime exposure to higher SBP is associated with lower AD risk. These findings suggest that higher blood pressure—or some environmental exposure associated with higher blood pressure, such as use of antihypertensive medications—may reduce AD risk.</div