Genome-wide association study in frontal fibrosing alopecia identifies four susceptibility loci including HLA-B*07:02

Frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) is a recently described inflammatory and scarring type of hair loss affecting almost exclusively women. Despite a dramatic recent increase in incidence the aetiopathogenesis of FFA remains unknown. We undertake genome-wide association studies in females from a UK cohort, comprising 844 cases and 3,760 controls, a Spanish cohort of 172 cases and 385 controls, and perform statistical meta-analysis. We observe genome-wide significant association with FFA at four genomic loci: 2p22.2, 6p21.1, 8q24.22 and 15q2.1. Within the 6p21.1 locus, fine-mapping indicates that the association is driven by the HLA-B*07:02 allele. At 2p22.1, we implicate a putative causal missense variant in CYP1B1, encoding the homonymous xenobiotic- and hormone-processing enzyme. Transcriptomic analysis of affected scalp tissue highlights overrepresentation of transcripts encoding components of innate and adaptive immune response pathways. These findings provide insight into disease pathogenesis and characterise FFA as a genetically predisposed immuno-inflammatory disorder driven by HLA-B*07:02

Optimization of a structured selective coating

The spectral selectivity and optical properties of a structured (multilayer) coating comprising an anodized porous Al2O3 film sequentially impregnated with zinc and nickel on an aluminium substrate were theoretically investigated employing the effective media concept and using the Maxwell Garnett and Bruggeman approaches to determine the dielectric constant of the constituent inhomogeneous layers. The best performance of this structured selective coating for solar energy applications is indicated for a porous Al2O3 film 0.135μm thick and zinc- and nickel- impregnated layers with thicknesses of 0.020 μcm and 0.005μm respectively

Solar drying of custard powder

A large scale forced convection solar drying system has been designed and fabricated, comprising an array of forty solar collectors and three drying cabinets with a blower. Such a system yields 300 kg of dry product of custard powder in a normal sunshine day. It is shown that such a system is feasible and has an ability to save large amounts of fuel. It keeps the product clean and it is dried in a shorter period than in open sun drying. It is found that forced convection solar drying systems are suitable in food and chemical industries where large scale drying is required

CW CO<SUB>2</SUB> laser annealing of boron-doped polycrystalline silicon

CW CO<SUB>2</SUB> laser annealing of boron-doped polycrystalline silicon at various substrate temperature, from room temperature to 600 &#176; C, is reported. The overall improvement in charge carrier conduction of polycrystalline silicon is shown to occur at a substrate temperature of 200 &#176; C, where the maximum improvement is observed in the charge carrier mobility. These changes in the electrical properties of polycrystalline silicon are correlated with the structural modifications occurring due to laser annealing, as observed by scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. The simultaneous changes in the electrical and structural properties of polycrystalline silicon are thus carefully studied and reported

Structural properties of SnO<SUB>2</SUB>: F films deposited by spray pyrolysis technique

Thin films of SnO2 and SnO2&#166;F were deposited by a spray pyrolysis technique. The effect of substrate temperature on the structural and electrical transport properties of these films was investigated. The standard deviation of these films from ASTM data explains the growth mechanism with other process parameters at optimum values

Structural properties of SnO<SUB>2</SUB>: F films deposited by spray pyrolysis

Transparent and conducting thin films of SnO<SUB>2</SUB> and SnO<SUB>2</SUB>: F were deposited on alkali-free Corning 7059 substrates by spray pyrolysis. The effect of various process parameters such as doping level of fluorine (in solution), substrate temperature during deposition, thickness of the film and carrier gas (air) flow rate, on the film properties was investigated by x-ray diffraction during their optimization. The optimization of the thickness was done to get the maximum value of the ratio of average visible transmission to the specific resistivity. The films deposited with the optimized process parameters have a sheet resistance of 4 &#969; an average visible transmission of 86% (0.4-0.9 &#956;m) and a thickness of 0.165 &#956;m. The electrical conductivity of the SnO<SUB>2</SUB>: F films was 10<SUP>5</SUP>&#969;<SUP>-1</SUP> cm<SUP>-1</SUP>. The films were polycrystalline and the oxide phase observed was SnO<SUB>2</SUB> in cassiterite structure. In most of the cases the films preferentially oriented along [200]. This preferred orientation of the films was probably due to the oriented overgrowth of the films within a certain range of each process parameter. This has been explained on the basis of the standard deviation from the powder diffraction condition. It was concluded that low temperature growth was a result of adsorption-desorption phenomena whereas high temperature growth was a result of homogeneous nucleation. Since doping generally favours defect induced film growth, heavily doped films were randomly oriented. Rearrangement of grains in the films was apparent for thicker films

Field-assisted chemiplating of Cu<SUB>x</SUB>S films for CdS/Cu<SUB>x</SUB>S heterostructure

This article does not have an abstract

Correlation between the structural and electrical transport properties of SnO<SUB>2</SUB> films

Transparent and conducting thin films of tin oxide have been deposited by spray pyrolysis on corning 7059 substrates. The films were investigated by x-ray diffraction and seebeck measurements to study the structural and electrical transport properties. The films were polycrystalline and the oxide phase observed was SnO2 in cassiterite structure. The films were preferentially oriented along [200]. Trap densities along [310] and [101] have been calculated for the first time. Assigning the traps mainly to the grain boundaries, the grain-boundary barrier height was calculated and compared with that obtained from the seebeck measurements. A good agreement between these values was observed. The agreement was the best for films deposited under optimum deposition conditions

Growth mechanism of topotaxially grown Cu<SUB>x</SUB>S films on sprayed CdS films

A study of a series of chemiplated CuxS films deposited on varying CdS film structures and under different deposition parameters by electro-chemical analysis was carried out. A morphological model was developed. This study provided a complementary method for distinguishing grain surface and grain boundary growth. Values of grain surface and grain boundary thickness were also evaluated from XPS and XAES depth profiles. A good agreement between the values determined by both approaches illustrated the validity of the model