Our data implicate MPO in atherosclerotic plaque instability and suggest that non-invasive imaging and pharmacological inhibition of plaque MPO activity hold promise for clinical translation in the management of high-risk coronary artery disease.

Electroosmotic pumping has been extensively used in lab-on-a-chip devices and micropumps for microelectronic cooling. High flow rate per unit area with a low applied voltage is a key performance requirement to achieve compact design and efficient operation. In this paper, we report work on using SiO2-coated porous anodic alumina membranes for high flow rate electroosmotic pumping under low applied voltages. High quality porous alumina membranes of controllable pore diameters in the range of 30–100 nm and pore lengths of 60–100 µm were fabricated by electrochemical anodization. The pores are straight, uniform and hexagonally close-packed with a high porosity of up to 50% of the total area. The inner surface of the pore was coated conformally with a thin layer (∼5 nm) of SiO2 to achieve a high zeta potential. The electroosmotic pumping performance of the fabricated anodic alumina membranes, coated and uncoated, was investigated using standard relevant aqueous electrolyte buffer solutions. The high zeta potential of the SiO2 coating increases the pumping flow rate even though the coating reduces the porosity of the membrane. Results show that nanostructured SiO2-coated porous anodic alumina membranes can provide a normalized flow rate of 0.125 ml min−1 V−1 cm−2 under a low effective applied voltage of 3 V. This compares favourably with other microporous materials such as glass frits.

Converting low-energy photons via thermal radiation can be a potential approach for utilizing infrared (IR) photons to improve photovoltaic efficiency. Lanthanide-containing materials have achieved great progress in IR-to-visible photon upconversion (UC). Herein, we first report bright photon, tunable wavelength UC through localized thermal radiation at the molecular scale with low excitation power density (<10 W/cm) realized on lanthanide complexes of perfluorinated organic ligands. This is enabled by engineering the pathways of nonradiative de-excitation and energy transfer in a composite of ytterbium and terbium perfluoroimidodiphosphinates. The IR-excited thermal UC and wavelength control is realized through the terbium activators sensitized by the ytterbium sensitizers having high luminescence efficiency. The metallic molecular composite thus can be a potential energy material in the use of the IR solar spectrum for thermal photovoltaic applications.

In-situ I-V and C-V characterization studies were carried out to determine the device quality of atomic layer deposited HfO2 (2.7 nm)/SiO2 (0.6 nm)/Si-based metal oxide semiconductor devices during 120 MeV Ag ion irradiation. The influence of various tunneling mechanisms has been investigated by analyzing the I-V characteristics as a function of ion fluence. The nature of the defects created is tentatively identified by the determination of the significant tunneling processes. While the ion induced annealing of defects is observed at lower fluences, ion induced intermixing and radiation damage is found to be significant at higher fluences. The C-V characteristics also reveal significant changes at the interface and oxide trap densities: an increase in the oxide layer thickness occurs through the formation of an HfSiO interlayer. The interlayer is due to the swift heavy ion induced intermixing, which has been confirmed by X-TEM and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements.

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Crystalline Fe3O4 nanoparticles were prepared via chemical precipitation in reverse micellar cavities in a microemulsion, followed by in situ thermal annealing of the microemulsion at 150 °C. A valuable feature of the annealing is that the physical properties of the nanoparticles are preserved in the crystallization process, and the resulting crystalline Fe3O4 nanoparticles remain in stable suspensions. The method thus allows the control of average sizes in the final crystalline nanoparticles by varying the initial microemulsion parameters. Results from the characterization of the nanoparticle samples are presented and discussed.