Plenty Of Room Research Articles

The Way to Nanoarchitectonics and the Way of Nanoarchitectonics.

The critical differences between microtechnology and nanotechnology are discussed, and the necessity of a new paradigm, nanoarchitectonics, is proposed for the future development of nanotechnology. An important task in material fabrication is to harmonize various factors and effects, and to combine them into functional nanomaterials and nanosystems. It is the way of architectonics rather than that of an individual technology. Therefore, a novel terminology, nanoarchitectonics (nano + architecto +nics) has been proposed as a new paradigm of materials science and technology on the nanoscale. The statement by Feynman that "there's plenty of room at the bottom" is really true. With nanoarchitectonics in our hands, we can re-open the door to Feynman's huge room.

Small-world property evaluated by exchanging network topology

The present study quantified the degree of the small-world (SW) property defined by Watts, and evaluated its achievement level to characterize complex networks. However, because this process has a combinatorial optimization problem, we applied the chaos neural network (CNN) and the simulated annealing (SA), and confirmed their performance in terms of optimized values and numerical costs. Next, we visualized the original network and its optimized networks whose SW property was maximized or minimized by exchanging the original network topology. As a result, although CNN and SA require huge computational time, we confirmed that they can evaluate the SW property and even real SW networks still have plenty of room to enlarge their own SW property.

On the Extreme Oxidation States of Iridium.

It has recently been suggested that the oxidation states of Ir run from the putative -III in the synthesized solid Na3 [Ir(CO)3 ] to the well-documented +IX in the species IrO4 (+) . Furthermore, [Ir(CO)3 ](3-) was identified as an 18-electron species. A closer DFT study now finds support for this picture: The orbitals spanned by the 6s,6p,5d orbitals of the iridium are all occupied. Although some have considerable ligand character, the deviations from 18 e leave the orbital symmetries unchanged. The isoelectronic systems from Os(-IV) to Au(-I) behave similarly, suggesting further possible species. To paraphrase Richard P. Feynmann "there is plenty of room at the bottom".

Taking snapshots of atomic motion using electrons

55 years after Richard Feynman’s famous Caltech lecture ‘There is plenty of room at the bottom’ [1], heralding the age of nano science and technology, many of the possibilities he envisaged have come true: Using electron microscopy it is nowadays possible to resolve and even identify individual atoms; STM and AFM not only provide us with similar spatial resolution on surfaces, but also allow dragging individual atoms around in a controlled way; X-ray diffraction has revealed the complicated structures of thousands of proteins, giving invaluable insight into the machinery of life.

ChemInform Abstract: Exploring the Properties and Applications of Nanoceria: Is There Still Plenty of Room at the Bottom?

AbstractReview: 115 refs.

Fulfilling Feynman’s dream: “Make the electron microscope 100 times better”—Are we there yet?

Abstract

Consequences of investment contract duration on the valuation of firms in maturity stage

Investment contract duration is a key parameter for venture capital funds operation. Variables influencing the decision around this parameter are usually treated in general principles in the classical financial literature leaving plenty of room for context sensitive research. As such, we studied variables influencing investment contract duration by investigating the performance of mature Portuguese firms that have been (partially) held by venture capital funds. Using a sample of 38 firms, sold out by venture capital funds between 1995 and 2004 we evaluated the performance of these firms using performance and sustainability indicators. We found evidence that sales growth, exports, book value, headcount and a good coverage of ISO standards implementation influenced the investment contract duration.

Transition metal dichalcogenides and beyond: synthesis, properties, and applications of single- and few-layer nanosheets.

CONSPECTUS: In the wake of the discovery of the remarkable electronic and physical properties of graphene, a vibrant research area on two-dimensional (2D) layered materials has emerged during the past decade. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) represent an alternative group of 2D layered materials that differ from the semimetallic character of graphene. They exhibit diverse properties that depend on their composition and can be semiconductors (e.g., MoS2, WS2), semimetals (e.g., WTe2, TiSe2), true metals (e.g., NbS2, VSe2), and superconductors (e.g., NbSe2, TaS2). The properties of TMDs can also be tailored according to the crystalline structure and the number and stacking sequence of layers in their crystals and thin films. For example, 2H-MoS2 is semiconducting, whereas 1T-MoS2 is metallic. Bulk 2H-MoS2 possesses an indirect band gap, but when 2H-MoS2 is exfoliated into monolayers, it exhibits direct electronic and optical band gaps, which leads to enhanced photoluminescence. Therefore, it is important to learn to control the growth of 2D TMD structures in order to exploit their properties in energy conversion and storage, catalysis, sensing, memory devices, and other applications. In this Account, we first introduce the history and structural basics of TMDs. We then briefly introduce the Raman fingerprints of TMDs of different layer numbers. Then, we summarize our progress on the controlled synthesis of 2D layered materials using wet chemical approaches, chemical exfoliation, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). It is now possible to control the number of layers when synthesizing these materials, and novel van der Waals heterostructures (e.g., MoS2/graphene, WSe2/graphene, hBN/graphene) have recently been successfully assembled. Finally, the unique optical, electrical, photovoltaic, and catalytic properties of few-layered TMDs are summarized and discussed. In particular, their enhanced photoluminescence (PL), photosensing, photovoltaic conversion, and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysis are discussed in detail. Finally, challenges along each direction are described. For instance, how to grow perfect single crystalline monolayer TMDs without the presence of grain boundaries and dislocations is still an open question. Moreover, the morphology and crystal structure control of few-layered TMDs still requires further research. For wet chemical approaches and chemical exfoliation methods, it is still a significant challenge to control the lateral growth of TMDs without expansion in the c-axis direction. In fact, there is plenty of room in the 2D world beyond graphene. We envisage that with increasing progress in the controlled synthesis of these systems the unusual properties of mono- and few-layered TMDs and TMD heterostructures will be unveiled.

Nanotechnology Commercialization: Prospects in India

Introduction Nanotechnology manipulates and creates matter to formulate nanometer scale materials and objects. It is an interdisciplinary field that involves a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines, and has societal implications. The past few decades have produced nanotechnology innovations and applications for agriculture, healthcare and medicine, biotechnology, energy and environment, materials science, electronics, information technology, telecommunication and manufacturing. Governments and private investors, including venture capitalists, have made considerable investments in emerging nanotechnologies. Both large organizations and new startup companies are exploring options to commercialize nanotechnology-based products. This review examines the commercialization of nanotechnology by considering the strategies of large corporations and start-up firms, and the major challenges facing the adoption and diffusion of nanotechnology. Its primary focus is the development of nanotechnology research and industry in India, which, as a test case, helps identify the challenges and strategies for nanotechnology commercialization in emerging economies. Much of nanotechnology R&D in India remains conceptual. Fundamental research is not robustly linked to viable commercial production and large-scale manufacturing, but this could be improved by enhancing IP protection, regulations and ethical guidelines. Enhancing nanotechnology R&D, and commerce, will require a policy focus on infrastructure, education, standards and workforce preparation. ISSN: 2348-9812 Nanotechnology uses the principles of science and engineering to design and manufacture products from atoms, molecules and nanoparticles. According to the US National Nanotechnology Institute (NNI), nanotechnology is defined as “Research and technology development at the atomic, molecular and macromolecular levels, in the length scale of approximately 1-100 nanometer range, to provide a fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and to create and use structures, devices and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small and/or intermediate size. Nanotechnology research and development includes manipulation under control of the nanoscale structures and their integration into larger material components, systems and architectures.”[1]. In June 2014 the FDA released guidelines that expanded the existing definition to include materials in the usual nanoscale range (approximately 1 nm to 100 nm), as well as any larger products up to 1000 nm that are engineered to have properties that are caused by their dimensions. By “engineered”, they referred to products that have certain dimensions or exhibit certain properties by virtue of deliberate and purposeful manipulation. According to FDA, “Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that can be used in a broad array of FDA-regulated products, including medical products (e.g. to increase bioavailability of a drug), foods (e.g., to improve food packaging) and cosmetics (e.g. to affect the look and feel of cosmetics). Materials in the nanoscale range (i.e., with at least one dimension in the size range of approximately 1 nanometer (nm) to 100 (nm) can exhibit different chemical or physical properties, or biological effects compared to larger-scale counterparts. For example, dimension-dependent properties or phenomena may be used for functional effects such as increased bioavailability, decreased dosage, or increased potency of a drug product, decreased toxicity of a drug product, better detection of pathogens, more protective food packaging materials, or improved delivery of a functional ingredient or a nutrient in food. These effects may derive from altered chemical, biological, or magnetic properties, altered electrical or optical activity, increased structural integrity, or other unique characteristics of materials in the nanoscale range not normally observed or expected in larger-scale materials with the same chemical composition. Materials or end products may also exhibit similar properties or phenomena attributable to a dimension(s) outside the nanoscale range of approximately 1 nm to 100 nm.” Since Richard Feynman’s well known statement made in 1959, “There is a plenty of room at the bottom,” nanotechnology has transformed how products are fabricated. Like other disruptive technologies, it is catalyzing economic growth [2-4]. Early nanotechnology milestones included the first molecular device in 1974 [5] and the scanning tunnelling microscope in 1981[6], the understanding of the carbon nanotube [7], and the DNA nanomechanical device [8]. Received Date: November 14, 2014 Accepted Date: December 03, 2014 Published Date: December 10, 2014

Plenty of Room at the Bottom for Nano Education

Plenty of Room at the Bottom for Nano Education

Novel insights into host-fungal pathogen interactions derived from live-cell imaging.

The theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman outlined in his 1959 lecture, “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”, the enormous possibility of producing and visualising things at smaller scales. The advent of advanced scanning and transmission electron microscopy and high-resolution microscopy has begun to open the door to visualise host-pathogen interactions at smaller scales, and spinning disc confocal and two-photon microscopy has improved our ability to study these events in real time in three dimensions. The aim of this review is to illustrate some of the advances in understanding host-fungal interactions that have been made in recent years in particular those relating to the interactions of live fungal pathogens with phagocytes. Dynamic imaging of host-pathogen interactions has recently revealed novel detail and unsuspected mechanistic insights, facilitating the dissection of the phagocytic process into its component parts. Here, we will highlight advances in our knowledge of host-fungal pathogen interactions, including the specific effects of fungal cell viability, cell wall composition and morphogenesis on the phagocytic process and try to define the relative contributions of neutrophils and macrophages to the clearance of fungal pathogens in vitro and the infected host.

Falls Prevention Strategies among acute Neurosurgical and Aged Care inpatients in a Tertiary Hospital in Sydney: a Best Practice Implementation Report

BACKGROUND Patient falls are a significant problem and one of the most common adverse events experienced in hospitals; with the impact of falls on patients and the added costs to the healthcare system of great significance. Falls are considered an indicator of the quality of nursing care which requires uncompromising attention and has been recognized by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care as a National Standard. OBJECTIVES This project aimed to conduct an audit of in-hospital falls prevention practices, to implement evidence-based best practice recommendations and to increase staff compliance with falls prevention best-practice within an acute neurosurgical and an aged care unit in a large tertiary hospital. METHODS The project used the Joanna Briggs Institute’s Practical Application of Clinical Evidence System and Getting Research into Practice audit tool for promoting change in healthcare practice. A baseline audit was conducted measuring eight best practice recommendations, followed by the implementation of targeted strategies and follow up audits. RESULTS The baseline audit revealed large gaps between current practice and best practice and overall performance was poor in both sample groups. Barriers for implementation of best practice falls prevention strategies were identified by the project team and numerous strategies, including an education package and falls risk assessment and management plan, were implemented. There were improved outcomes across both sample groups in the follow up audits. CONCLUSIONS The findings showed how audit may be used to promote best practice in healthcare and that focused education and provision of relevant resources can have an immediate impact on clinical practice. Some of the measured criteria did not improve to a great degree, leaving plenty of room for improvement, however by the end of the project, attitudes to falls prevention on the two wards had been ‘transformed’ from passive acceptance of falls to active engagement in falls prevention. Future audits are planned to ensure sustainability.

E&P Emphasis Is Now on the P

Unconventional E&P The focus in unconventional exploration and production is shifting to maximizing production. “The next big play is getting more out of what you have,” said Jay Ottoson, president and chief operating officer for SM Energy, at the recent Unconventional Resources Technology Conference in Denver. The math is simple. Adding one percentage point to recoveries from the top unconventional formations for oil and gas in the United States will add billions of billions of barrels of oil production and tens of trillions of cubic feet of gas, he said. There is plenty of room for improvement. The examples offered by Ottoson would increase the ultimate recovery rate in the biggest US oil plays from 5% to 6%. Comments by others during the conference, a joint project of SPE, AAPG, and SEG, indicated that range is not uncommon as companies look for ways to do better. Even at those levels, the growing flow of oil and gas from these extensive formations has pushed the US up toward the top of the list of the world’s producers. Scott Key, chief executive officer of IHS, said that in a few years, the United States will again emerge as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. The production increase has been enough to boost the growth rate of the US economy, turning it into the low-cost producer in refining and chemical making and soon an exporter of liquefied natural gas, Key said. Rick Bott Jr., president and chief operating officer of Continental Re - sources, described the company’s approach as “we have a simple sort of strategy, we drill a lot of horizontal wells.” Anadarko is drilling about one well a day in the Wattenburg field in Colorado, said Brad Holly, vice president for the Rockies at Anadarko Petroleum. While the pace is steady, methods are constantly changing. Improvement is in the details. To begin with, the particulars include more precise drilling of clusters of wells that are spaced and fractured based on a growing understanding of how best to efficiently drain a formation. Continental, which was a pioneer in the Bakken in North Dakota, and SM reported pilot projects on what Bott called “down spacing,” that is, seeking gains by drilling wells on a single pad site to varying depths. “The technology is changing monthly,” he said. Coming are projects to enhance the output of older wells, such as installing downhole pumps and refracturing older wells. “We have not really started working on production enhancements,” Bott said. Anadarko is drilling horizontal wells to revive a formation where new wells must be carefully drilled around many old ones. “We are operating among 17,000 vertical wells. We need to minimize interference with existing wells that are as little as 15 ft away,” Holly said. Products displayed at the conference helped define the challenges of this sort of development. They promised information that could be used to make better development decisions, deliver it fast enough to keep up with rapid field work, and at a price that is in line with price-conscious mass production operations. Unconventional exploration and production is a bit like farming, said Don Westacott, chief adviser for global unconventional reservoirs at Halliburton, who grew up on a farm in western Canada. Both can be profitable enterprises, but they require expensive inputs, the cooperation of nature, skill, and persistence. And both farmers and oil companies can be so productive that they glut the market, driving down prices. Schlumberger offered a reminder of the challenges of this business during a display at its booth. At the bottom of the screen during a video on its TelePacer drilling platform, which is designed to help drillers drill wells according to plan, was a constant reminder that 40% of wells are subeconomic and 35% of all fracture stages do not contribute.

How to get into that "room at the bottom".

“There’s plenty of room at the bottom,” as Richard Feynman famously formulated it in 1959 (1). He considered the problem of manipulating and controlling things “at the bottom” of the length scale, from Angstroms to micrometers. The fame came retroactively with the rise of nanotechnology (2). By then, the advantage of studying small objects in small laboratories was clear: in a microscopic laboratory space, one can do things that are impossible in larger laboratories, such as inspecting a long DNA molecule visually (Fig. 1). In a larger volume of fluid, Brownian motion makes such a long, flexible molecule tangle up in a bundle, unless one pulls at its ends, which requires handles of a kind. It is done, but unpractical for inspection of many molecules, as they all would need handles. It seems simpler to flow the DNA molecule into a nanochannel so narrow that the molecule is fully stretched. Unfortunately, this is not simple, because there’s plenty of friction in that room at the bottom and an entropic barrier at its doorstep. This is a bottleneck for a promising complement to state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technologies. They could use the coarse-grained map of genomes in Fig. 1 to guide the assembly of sequenced DNA fragments (ref. 3, section 6.1). This bottleneck is the reason why the denaturation maps shown in Fig. 1 were produced in a nanoslit requiring human dexterity and not in a nanochannel. The effectively 2D slit is a compromise between the 3D volume, in which DNA bundles up, and the effectively 1D nanochannel that automatically stretches the DNA molecule. The slit gives us what we want, but not in the way we want it: it proves the concept optimally, but the required dexterity is not readily automated and scaled by parallelization. In PNAS, Berard et al. (4) avoid this bottleneck altogether with their convex lens-induced nanoscale templating (CLINT), which is a clever extension of a single-molecule imaging technique called convex lens-induced confinement (CLIC) (5). Instead of threading DNA molecules into nanochannels, Berard et al. form the nanochannels around their intended contents. This is no small trick, considering the intended contents are stretched DNA molecules. The molecules must be first stretched out and only then enclosed in the nanochannels. A chicken-and-egg problem?

Recruiting Internally Displaced Persons into Civil Militias: The Case of Northern Uganda

This article explores the state-sanctioned recruitment of internally displaced persons (IDPs) into civil militias in northern Uganda between 1996 and 2006. Drawing upon international and Ugandan domestic law, as well as empirical research in Uganda, it provides an illustrative case study of the circumstances in which IDPs were mobilised into an array of civil militias. By applying a framework elaborated by the UN Commission on Human Rights, it discusses, and subsequently determines, the lawfulness of this mobilisation. When doing so, the article highlights how, in Uganda, civil militias were dealt with completely outside of domestic law, despite repeated calls from Ugandan MPs to establish their lawfulness. It finds that government authorities long denied any liability for the conduct of the militias, and argues that the uncertain position of the civil militias created plenty of room for unmonitored conduct and substantial human rights abuse.

Redox-Gated Molecular Memory Devices Based on Dynamic Doping of Polythiophene

A solid state electrochemical cell resembling a field effect transistor will be described which can act as a nonvolatile memory element. “Write” and “Erase” pulses cause oxidation of a polythiophene to its conducting form, while the conductance is monitored by a “read” circuit. Raman and UV-Vis spectroelectrochemistry were used during device operation to investigate redox reactions which underlie memory operation. Important electrochemical concepts which control device operation include activated electron transfer, ion motion, and extended conjugation. In particular, internal ion transport creates ohmic potential losses which slow W/E operation, but can be significantly improved with higher mobility solid electrolytes. Applications seeking to augment existing silicon electronics with molecular components will be described.Recent references:(1) Yan, H.; Bergren, A. J.; McCreery, R.; Della Rocca, M. L.; Martin, P.; Lafarge, P.; Lacroix, J. C.; Activationless charge transport across 4.5 to 22 nm in molecular electronic junctions; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2013, 110, 5326.(2) McCreery, R.; Yan, H.; Bergren, A. J.; A Critical Perspective on Molecular Electronic Junctions: There is Plenty of Room in the Middle; Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2013, 15, 1065.(3) Sayed, S. Y.; Fereiro, J. A.; Yan, H.; McCreery, R. L.; Bergren, A. J.; Charge transport in molecular electronic junctions: Compression of the molecular tunnel barrier in the strong coupling regime; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012, 109, 11498.(4) Kumar, R.; Pillai, R. G.; Pekas, N.; Wu, Y.; McCreery, R. L.; Spatially Resolved Raman Spectroelectrochemistry of Solid-State Polythiophene/Viologen Memory Devices; Journal of the American Chemical Society 2012, 134, 14869.

Molecules in Circuits: A New Type of Microelectronics?

Molecules may be considered electronic systems, with electrons rapidly moving through orbitals within molecules and also long distances in biological metabolism and photosynthesis. The prospect of incorporating molecules into microelectronic circuits based on silicon and metallic conductors has great potential for enhancing consumer electronics, providing solar energy conversion, and permitting new functions not possible with silicon. In order to combine the electronic properties of molecules with conventional microelectronics, we need to understand how to “connect” to molecules as well as how electrons are transported through molecules. Once the “rules” of charge transport through molecules are understood, it should be possible to “rationally design” new molecular electronic devices for valuable functions not currently possible with silicon. While Molecular Electronics holds great promise, it also presents significant challenges in handling and fabrication of devices with dimensions of only a few nanometers. We use surface chemistry, spectroscopy, and conjugated organic molecules to make “molecular junctions” consisting of a single layer of molecules a few nanometers thick between conducting carbon and copper electrodes, then we study the behavior of molecules as circuit elements. The primary goal is to design and build functional molecular electronic components to greatly enhance the already powerful world of silicon microelectronics.Recent references:(1) Yan, H.; Bergren, A. J.; McCreery, R.; Della Rocca, M. L.; Martin, P.; Lafarge, P.; Lacroix, J. C.; Activationless charge transport across 4.5 to 22 nm in molecular electronic junctions; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2013, 110, 5326.(2) McCreery, R.; Yan, H.; Bergren, A. J.; A Critical Perspective on Molecular Electronic Junctions: There is Plenty of Room in the Middle; Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2013, 15, 1065.(3) Sayed, S. Y.; Fereiro, J. A.; Yan, H.; McCreery, R. L.; Bergren, A. J.; Charge transport in molecular electronic junctions: Compression of the molecular tunnel barrier in the strong coupling regime; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012, 109, 11498.(4) Kumar, R.; Pillai, R. G.; Pekas, N.; Wu, Y.; McCreery, R. L.; Spatially Resolved Raman Spectroelectrochemistry of Solid-State Polythiophene/Viologen Memory Devices; Journal of the American Chemical Society 2012, 134, 14869.

Consumer Culture Theory

Consumer culture theory helps us take note of the cultural forces and dynamics in which technology consumption is entangled. It enables people to articulate the cultural processes (ideological, mythic, ritualistic, etc.) through which cultural meanings become granted to or denied to technological innovations, thus shaping the value of technologies as cultural resources sustaining consumer identities. In its urge to shed light on these aspects, CCT tends to reinforce the gaps and asymmetries between the “socio-cultural” and the “techno-material”, leaving plenty of room for further study. The authors outline the strengths and limitations of CCT to offer several tentative suggestions as to how ANT and CCT might draw on each other to enrich our understanding of technology consumption.

From “There′s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” to Seeing What is Actually There

Reference EPFL-ARTICLE-198616doi:10.1002/cphc.201400097View record in Web of Science Record created on 2014-05-02, modified on 2016-08-09

Elastic strain engineering for unprecedented materials properties

Abstract