Structural, Thermal, Optical, Electrical, and Adhesive Characteristics of FePdB Thin Films

To study the structural, thermal, electrical, optical, and adhesive properties of magnetic FePdB thin films, 25–200-Å-thick Fe40Pd40B20 and Fe60Pd20B20 films were deposited on a glass substrate by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering at room temperature (RT). X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns indicated that the 25–75-Å-thick Fe40Pd40B20 and Fe60Pd20B20 films were amorphous, whereas the 100–200-Å-thick Fe40Pd40B20 and Fe60Pd20B20 films were crystalline, with a face-centered cubic (FCC) FePd (111) textured structure. The activation energy of the Fe40Pd40B20 and Fe60Pd20B20 thin films decreased as thickness was increased. The 25-Å-thick Fe40Pd40B20 film exhibited the highest resistivity, whereas the 200-Å-thick Fe60Pd20B20 film exhibited the lowest resistivity. Increasing the thickness and crystallization reduced transmission. The Fe40Pd40B20 thin films exhibited higher surface energy and stronger adhesion than did Fe60Pd20B20 thin films

Magnetic and Electric Properties of Amorphous Co

C40Fe40B20 was deposited on a glass substrate to a thickness (tf) of between 100 Å and 500 Å. X-ray diffraction patterns (XRD) indicate that C40Fe40B20 films are in an amorphous state. The plane-view microstructures and grain size distributions of CoFeB thin films are observed under a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM). The thicker CoFeB films have larger grain size distribution than thinner CoFeB films. The saturation magnetization (Ms) exhibits a size effect, meaning that Ms increases as tf increases. The magnetic remanence magnetization (Mr) of CoFeB thin films are sensitive to thinner CoFeB films, and the refined grain size of thinner CoFeB films can induce ferromagnetic stronger spin exchange-coupling behavior than thicker CoFeB films, resulting in higher remanence. The highest magnetic squareness ratio (Mr/Ms) of the CoFeB films occurs at thickness of 100 Å, suggesting the 100 Å of the as-deposited CoFeB film is suitable for magnetic memory application. These results also demonstrate that coercivity (Hc) is increased by an increase in the width of the distribution of grain sizes. The electrical resistivity (ρ) of such a film is typically higher than normally exceeding 100 μΩ cm, revealing that the amorphous phase dominates. These results are consistent with the XRD results

Development of a microarray for simultaneous detection and differentiation of different tospoviruses that are serologically related to Tomato spotted wilt virus

Nucleotide (above diagonal) and amino acid (below diagonal) identities (%) of the N genes among the members of TSWV serogroup. (DOCX 68 kb

Gallic Acid Induces a Reactive Oxygen Species-Provoked c-Jun NH 2

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic lung disorder characterized by fibroblasts proliferation and extracellular matrix accumulation. Induction of fibroblast apoptosis therefore plays a crucial role in the resolution of this disease. Gallic acid (3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid), a common botanic phenolic compound, has been reported to induce apoptosis in tumor cell lines and renal fibroblasts. The present study was undertaken to examine the role of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in lung fibroblasts apoptosis induced by gallic acid. We found that treatment with gallic acid resulted in activation of c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK), extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and protein kinase B (PKB, Akt), but not p38MAPK, in mouse lung fibroblasts. Inhibition of JNK using pharmacologic inhibitor (SP600125) and genetic knockdown (JNK specific siRNA) significantly inhibited p53 accumulation, reduced PUMA and Fas expression, and abolished apoptosis induced by gallic acid. Moreover, treatment with antioxidants (vitamin C, N-acetyl cysteine, and catalase) effectively diminished gallic acid-induced hydrogen peroxide production, JNK and p53 activation, and cell death. These observations imply that gallic acid-mediated hydrogen peroxide formation acts as an initiator of JNK signaling pathways, leading to p53 activation and apoptosis in mouse lung fibroblasts

Insights into the binding specificity and catalytic mechanism ofN-acetylhexosamine 1-phosphate kinases through multiple reaction complexes

Utilization of N-acetylhexosamine in bifidobacteria requires the specific lacto-N-biose/galacto-N-biose pathway, a pathway differing from the Leloir pathway while establishing symbiosis between humans and bifidobacteria. The gene lnpB in the pathway encodes a novel hexosamine kinase NahK, which catalyzes the formation of N-acetylhexosamine 1-phosphate (GlcNAc-1P/GalNAc-1P). In this report, seven three-dimensional structures of NahK in complex with GlcNAc, GalNAc, GlcNAc-1P, GlcNAc/AMPPNP and GlcNAc-1P/ADP from both Bifidobacterium longum (JCM1217) and B. infantis (ATCC15697) were solved at resolutions of 1.5-2.2 Å. NahK is a monomer in solution, and its polypeptide folds in a crescent-like architecture subdivided into two domains by a deep cleft. The NahK structures presented here represent the first multiple reaction complexes of the enzyme. This structural information reveals the molecular basis for the recognition of the given substrates and products, GlcNAc/GalNAc, GlcNAc-1P/GalNAc-1P, ATP/ADP and Mg(2+), and provides insights into the catalytic mechanism, enabling NahK and mutants thereof to form a choice of biocatalysts for enzymatic and chemoenzymatic synthesis of carbohydrates

A Mathematical Tool for Inference in Logistic Regression with Small-Sized Data Sets: A Practical Application on ISW-Ridge Relationships

The general approach to modeling binary data for the purpose of estimating the propagation of an internal solitary wave (ISW) is based on the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) method. In cases where the number of observations in the data is small, any inferences made based on the asymptotic distribution of changes in the deviance may be unreliable for binary data (the model's lack of fit is described in terms of a quantity known as the deviance). The deviance for the binary data is given by D. Collett (2003). may be unreliable for binary data. Logistic regression shows that the P-values for the likelihood ratio test and the score test are both <0.05. However, the null hypothesis is not rejected in the Wald test. The seeming discrepancies in P-values obtained between the Wald test and the other two tests are a sign that the large-sample approximation is not stable. We find that the parameters and the odds ratio estimates obtained via conditional exact logistic regression are different from those obtained via unconditional asymptotic logistic regression. Using exact results is a good idea when the sample size is small and the approximate P-values are <0.10. Thus in this study exact analysis is more appropriate

An Improved Vector Quantizer Design Method: the Codebook Reorganization Algorithm

Abstract Generalized Lloyd Algorithm(GLA) is important in vector quantizer design. It runs fast, but it is sensitive to initial conditions and it may find a local optimum. We propose an improved approach based on GLA, named vector quantized codebook reorganization algorithm (VQCRA). VQCRA finds better codebooks in less time, and is insensitive to initial conditions as compared with GLA.. The experiments are performed on the 10 images extracted from USC-SIPI Image Database. The performance improvement ranges from 7.3% (the size of the codebook is 32) to 46.4% (the size of the codebook is 512)