Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/259588587?client_source=feed&format=rss
andy williams andy williams Lady Gaga New Girl Avalanna Gigi Chao Jimmy Hoffa
বুধবার, ৩১ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
সোমবার, ২৯ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
Obama cancels campaign events to monitor storm
{ttle}
{cptn}","template_name":"ss_thmb_play_ttle","i18n":{"end_of_gallery_header":"End of Gallery","end_of_gallery_next":"View Again"},"metadata":{"pagination":"{firstVisible} - {lastVisible} of {numItems}","ult":{"spaceid":"2145892301","sec":""}}},{"id": "hcm-carousel-1882100543", "dataManager": C.dmgr, "mediator": C.mdtr, "group_name":"hcm-carousel-1882100543", "track_item_selected":1,"tracking":{ "spaceid" : "2145892301", "events" : { "click" : { "any" : { "yui-carousel-prev" : { "node" : "a", "data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"prev","itc":"1" }, "bubbles" : true, "test": function(params){ var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel(); var pages = carousel._pages; // if same page, don't beacon if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false; // keep track of current position within this closure carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur; return true; } }, "yui-carousel-next" : { "node" : "a", "data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"next","itc":"1" }, "bubbles" : true, "test": function(params){ var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel(); var pages = carousel._pages; // no more pages, don't beacon again // if same page, don't beacon if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false; // keep track of current position within this closure carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur; return true; } } } } } } })); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {(function() { try{ if (Math.floor(Math.random()*10) == 1) { var loc = window.location, decoded = decodeURI(loc.pathname), encoded = encodeURI(decoded), uri = loc.protocol + "//" + loc.host + encoded + ((loc.search.length > 0) ? loc.search + '&' : '?') + "_cacheable=1", xmlhttp; if (window.XMLHttpRequest) xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); else xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); xmlhttp.open("GET",uri,true); xmlhttp.send(); } }catch(e){} })(); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings = '"projectId": "10001256862979", "documentName": "", "documentGroup": "", "ywaColo" : "vscale3", "spaceId" : "2145892301" ,"customFields" : { "12" : "classic", "13" : "story" }'; Y.Media.YWA.init(Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {if(document.onclick===YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.newClick){document.onclick=YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.oldClick;} }); }); });
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-cancels-campaign-events-monitor-storm-030208568--election.html
april fools pranks livan hernandez soledad o brien mega ball lottery winner lottery numbers mega millions lottery
শুক্রবার, ২৬ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
Tracking environmental causes of good and bad health
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 25-Oct-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Carol Thorbes
cthorbes@sfu.ca
778-782-3035
Simon Fraser University
A Simon Fraser University scientist working at one of Canada's first epigenomics mapping centres says new federal funding will accelerate researchers' ability to unravel how we develop some of the most common life threatening cancers.
Through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), a granting agency that funds research, the federal government in partnership with Genome BC and Gnome Qubec is injecting $12 million into epigenetic research.
Distributed over five years, the funding will ramp up the operation of two newly established epigenomic mapping centres the first in Canada.
One centre is in Vancouver. It involves molecular biologists and biochemists Steven Jones, Martin Hirst, Marco Marra and Richard Moore at SFU, and researchers at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre (MSGSC) and the University of British Columbia. The other centre in Montreal involves researchers at McGill University and the Gnome Qubec Innovation Centre.
The centres' scientists are piecing together how constantly evolving chemical modifications in our DNA and proteins, known collectively as our epigenome, cause our genome to stay healthy or develop diseases. Initially, the researchers are investigating changes to tissues and cells that lead to Leukemia and cancers of the colon and ovaries. They are among the most common human malignancies.
"In contrast to our genome, which remains mostly the same throughout an individual's life," explains Hirst, "the epigenome changes during development and aging in response to external stimuli and emerging diseases."
The stimuli could be a variety of environmental factors, including exposure to chemical contaminants, dietary intake and social background such as poverty or a stimulating, nurturing setting.
"Epigenome changes over our life time can profoundly affect which genes are turned on and consequently how our cells behave," adds Hirst.
The SFU adjunct professor of molecular biology and biochemistry is also the head of epigenomics at the MSGSC. "Understanding which epigenome states exist in different cell types and how these states interact is critically important to discovering how human health and disease evolve."
As part of a broader international effort to generate 1,000 reference epigenomes, the mapping centres are generating 100 of them from primary human tissues and cells.
The new federal funding enables them to use high-through-put sequencing, such as the Illumina Hiseq platform, to do the DNA and protein analysis.
###
Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.
Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities.
Contact:
Martin Hirst, 604.707.5900 ext. 5471, mhirst@bcgsc.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Photo on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfupamr/sets/72157631851416377/
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 25-Oct-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Carol Thorbes
cthorbes@sfu.ca
778-782-3035
Simon Fraser University
A Simon Fraser University scientist working at one of Canada's first epigenomics mapping centres says new federal funding will accelerate researchers' ability to unravel how we develop some of the most common life threatening cancers.
Through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), a granting agency that funds research, the federal government in partnership with Genome BC and Gnome Qubec is injecting $12 million into epigenetic research.
Distributed over five years, the funding will ramp up the operation of two newly established epigenomic mapping centres the first in Canada.
One centre is in Vancouver. It involves molecular biologists and biochemists Steven Jones, Martin Hirst, Marco Marra and Richard Moore at SFU, and researchers at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre (MSGSC) and the University of British Columbia. The other centre in Montreal involves researchers at McGill University and the Gnome Qubec Innovation Centre.
The centres' scientists are piecing together how constantly evolving chemical modifications in our DNA and proteins, known collectively as our epigenome, cause our genome to stay healthy or develop diseases. Initially, the researchers are investigating changes to tissues and cells that lead to Leukemia and cancers of the colon and ovaries. They are among the most common human malignancies.
"In contrast to our genome, which remains mostly the same throughout an individual's life," explains Hirst, "the epigenome changes during development and aging in response to external stimuli and emerging diseases."
The stimuli could be a variety of environmental factors, including exposure to chemical contaminants, dietary intake and social background such as poverty or a stimulating, nurturing setting.
"Epigenome changes over our life time can profoundly affect which genes are turned on and consequently how our cells behave," adds Hirst.
The SFU adjunct professor of molecular biology and biochemistry is also the head of epigenomics at the MSGSC. "Understanding which epigenome states exist in different cell types and how these states interact is critically important to discovering how human health and disease evolve."
As part of a broader international effort to generate 1,000 reference epigenomes, the mapping centres are generating 100 of them from primary human tissues and cells.
The new federal funding enables them to use high-through-put sequencing, such as the Illumina Hiseq platform, to do the DNA and protein analysis.
###
Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.
Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities.
Contact:
Martin Hirst, 604.707.5900 ext. 5471, mhirst@bcgsc.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Photo on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfupamr/sets/72157631851416377/
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/sfu-tec102512.php
the hartford illinois primary 2012 michael bay zsa zsa gabor illinois primary trayvon martin 911 call kiribati
Galaxy Note II Review: Bigger Got a Lot Better
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/gPVDRXJi2wM/galaxy-note-ii-review-bigger-got-a-lot-better
2012 golden globe nominations texans lana del rey snl enemy of the state golden globe nominees joe philbin miss america pageant 2012
Spiritual Self Improvement and New Age Parapsychology Books ...
Many people believe that new age books are different from spiritual books, even though there are so many books available that are described as new age spiritual books. If we look at the terms new age and spiritual, we find similarities, where spiritual refers to soul or spirit and new age has been described as ?of or relating to spiritual and consciousness raising movements?. New age books encompass health, medicine, philosophy, religion and the occult. And yet, the term new age was only coined in recent decades, mainly from the 1970?s. So that begs the question ? is there such a thing as a New Age?
Many self improvement so-called new age books (and spiritual books) that have been written over these past few decades are emphatic that we are indeed in a new age spiritual era that is NEW in every aspect to what has come before. However, researching older spiritual books and philosophy books shows that humankind has passed through eras of high enlightenment before ? inspirational times of metaphysical and spiritual awareness that equals or surpasses our current times. So is this perhaps not a new age as such, but simply a remembering of metaphysical, esoteric, inspirational parapsychology and spiritual powers that all of us possess but have temporarily forgotten. If this be the case, then perhaps a more apt term would be Mind Body Spirit.
Which brings us to another so-called new age term ? parapsychology. New age parapsychology is the study of paranormal phenomena and the term parapsychology comes from the Greek para ?beside, beyond? and psychology, derived from the Greek psyche ?soul, mind?. So, here we are back to the spiritual again or, as mentioned above, Mind Body Spirit. And yet, some people still insist that spiritual books, new age books and new age parapsychology are totally separate themes. Perhaps that?s why more and more people are coining the phrase Mind Body Spirit in an attempt to mold these various terms into a more unified category.
If we look more closely at the core messages in the various spiritual books, new age books, metaphysical, esoteric, parapsychology, philosophy and even self improvement books, we often find similarities that are sometimes veiled in different terms that could all be better described as Mind Body Spirit. Yes, even philosophy books, which are essentially the belief or system of beliefs accepted as an authoritative account by a group or philosophy school, have similarities to each other and also to the more recent spiritual new age parapsychology and metaphysical esoteric books. The various philosophy books available today, which are scriptures handed down over many centuries that are the core beliefs of the world?s many religions, also have strong similarities in the original message, although the interpretation of these books over the ages has led to contrasting viewpoints.
Considering the strife that such opposing views of philosophy books over the ages has caused, perhaps this new age of parapsychology, with its metaphysical, esoteric and spiritual messages and books will help break down these old belief systems that have divided humanity for so long, particularly when unified under the more acceptable catch-phrase of Mind Body Spirit. The proliferation of self improvement books alone has brought a spiritual awareness to thousands, if not millions, who seek to grow through better knowing themselves. Old philosophy books are being rewritten in more spiritual new age terminology and marketed under various terms, not only new age and spiritual, but also metaphysical books, esoteric books, new age parapsychology, inspirational books, self improvement and even philosophy books. An increasing number of these books are being grouped, on websites and also in physical bookstores, under the Mind Body Spirit label.
The overriding influence of these books is inspirational, encouraging readers to delve deeper into themselves to discover their true spiritual nature and it is encouraging to see so many spiritual new age parapsychology (Mind Body Spirit) books coming out in increasing numbers each year. Two such books are listed on http://www.1-inspirational-quote-book.com/ although many readers place them into various categories. They are a mixture of metaphysical, spiritual, esoteric and self improvement books, even though they are based in a sci-fi theme. Above all, they are inspirational, told from the viewpoint of an extra-terrestrial race of Beings who are concerned about the direction we are taking. Regardless of the various viewpoints, they will easily fall into the more generalized Mind Body Spirit category and, overall, the feedback from readers has been fantastic, many of them describing the books as ?inspirational and thought provoking?. As one reader wrote ?The story slowly engulfed me, drew me in until I was on my own journey. It opened my mind, enticing me to read more. I ask, is this just a novel or a key to our future???
dystonia tourettes gonzaga rosie o donnell soda bread recipe vanderbilt evan mathis
Engineering Job Kenya Business Productivity Lead | Career Point ...
Business Productivity Lead
Our client, a leading ICT company in East Africa currently seeks to fill the above vacancy.
Position Description and Objectives
??? The role is required to have had strong experience in Business Productivity solutions design and delivery. The role is expected to carry out number of pre-sales activities as part of the duties in helping structure the engagement. The role will play a vital role from the beginning of the lifecycle, in understanding the risks in the migration and planning of the deployment.
??? The lead must apply analysis skills and experience to provide detailed reliable solutions and estimates for service implementations. To be credible, he or she must have current and deep experience with Microsoft Exchange Server, Lync Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server, Active Directory, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server and Forefront Identity Manager, Forefront Security for Exchange, SharePoint and Lync, Office365, Azure platform, as well as a Strong understanding of competitive technologies and any other products relevant to perform the role effectively.
Major Areas of Responsibility
??? Design and implement business productivity solutions
??? Deliver task assigned to the by project manager on time and efficiently
??? Provide technical HIGH level support for company?s customers in form of e-mail, phone call, on-site etc.
??? Assist team members to Install/configure Microsoft software products in line with your job description product line
??? Assist team members to Diagnose/Troubleshoot Microsoft Products in line with your job description
??? Provide information/consultation for the customer about solution and? products in line with your job description product line
??? Account Management to clients in line of your job description and product line
??? Prepare all the necessary documentation required in a project handled.
??? Evaluate new products and Solutions in line with JD
??? Provide on-job-training for new workers in your line.
??? Demonstrated excellence at presenting complex technical topics to both executive and technical personnel
??? Ensure all certifications required by self and by team members are kept up to date.
Our client, a leading ICT company in East Africa currently seeks to fill the above vacancy.
Position Description and Objectives
??? The role is required to have had strong experience in Business Productivity solutions design and delivery. The role is expected to carry out number of pre-sales activities as part of the duties in helping structure the engagement. The role will play a vital role from the beginning of the lifecycle, in understanding the risks in the migration and planning of the deployment.
??? The lead must apply analysis skills and experience to provide detailed reliable solutions and estimates for service implementations. To be credible, he or she must have current and deep experience with Microsoft Exchange Server, Lync Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server, Active Directory, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server and Forefront Identity Manager, Forefront Security for Exchange, SharePoint and Lync, Office365, Azure platform, as well as a Strong understanding of competitive technologies and any other products relevant to perform the role effectively.
Major Areas of Responsibility
??? Design and implement business productivity solutions
??? Deliver task assigned to the by project manager on time and efficiently
??? Provide technical HIGH level support for company?s customers in form of e-mail, phone call, on-site etc.
??? Assist team members to Install/configure Microsoft software products in line with your job description product line
??? Assist team members to Diagnose/Troubleshoot Microsoft Products in line with your job description
??? Provide information/consultation for the customer about solution and? products in line with your job description product line
??? Account Management to clients in line of your job description and product line
??? Prepare all the necessary documentation required in a project handled.
??? Evaluate new products and Solutions in line with JD
??? Provide on-job-training for new workers in your line.
??? Demonstrated excellence at presenting complex technical topics to both executive and technical personnel
??? Ensure all certifications required by self and by team members are kept up to date.
Knowledge, Skills & Experience (Essential):
??? Minimum of 4 years of solid technical experience in delivering solutions (not just planning or establishing enterprise architecture) for the following solutions:- Collaboration and Portal Solutions; Unified Communication Solutions; Messaging Solutions and General IT Infrastructure experience.
??? Candidates must have been in a lead technical role for helping to architect and implement solutions with >250 seats or similar complexity.
??? Degree in Computer Science or Engineering or equivalent work experience. Higher relevant education preferred.
??? Have one or more of the following certifications; MCTS- , MCAD.NET, MCSD.NET.
If you meet all the above requirements, kindly send us your cv (INCLUDE YOUR CURRENT & EXPECTED SALARY IN THE CV) to:
Frank Management Consult Limited
Nyaku House,1st Floor, Argwings Kodhek Road, Hurlingham
Emails; robinson@frank-mgt.com,frankmconsult@yahoo.com
Dont Miss Our Daily Job Updates Click Here To Subscribe to Career Point Kenya by Email
Source: http://www.careerpointkenya.com/2012/10/engineering-job-kenya-business.html
kansas vs kentucky joe posnanski michael kidd gilchrist national championship calipari national archives brock lesnar
রবিবার, ১৪ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
56th BFI London Film Festival: 'Frankenweenie' | Movies & TV | Arts ...
Created: October 13, 2012 Last Updated: October 13, 2012
Frankenweenie, a simple tale that unfolds beautifully. (Disney)
Like the bolt of lightning that re-animates Victor Frankenweenie?s patchwork mutt Sparky, this stop-motion masterpiece seems to resuscitate Tim Buton?s rotting corpse of a career trajectory. After the soulless exercises that were?Dark Shadows?and?Alice in Wonderland,?Frankenweenie?is imbued with so much care and attention to character that you fall in love with a Burton universe for the first time since the nameless locales of?Edward Scissorhands.?
\>");Taking the reigns after producer duties on some of this animated sub-genre?s most successful stories ??The Nightmare Before Christmas?(1993) and?James and the Giant Peach?(1996) ? this is instantly recognisable as a classic Burton creation.?
The film is shot in Universal monster-movie era monochrome, one of many nods to the kind of films that shaped Burton?s gothic skewed world, a vision that, let?s be honest, had grown a tad tedious over the past decade,?Frankenweenie?is a simple tale that unfolds beautifully, with a big patchwork heart beneath it?s gruey stitches and odd-shaped inhabitants.?
Victor is your quintessential loner, his best friend is his dog, Sparky, who also happens to be the star of many of the home-made monster movies that entertain his family. At school he excels, with his assorted classmates clamouring to partner up for the latest science project, an accolade bestowed upon the hunchbacked Edgar, by virtue of him uncovering Victor?s dark secret.?
You see, Sparky becomes the tragic victim of a ball-chasing incident, and inspired by a lecture from his teacher, our pasty-faced protagonist is able to harness the power of lightening to bring him back from the dead. As a result sparks a chain reaction of copycat resurrections, and inner turmoil, which put the whole town in danger.?
Frankenweenie?is riddled with moments of understated brilliance; the home movie which plays out during the opening sequence, essentially a reflection of what Burton has done with this film by creating the kind of story that he no doubt watched as a kid, establishes a sense of wonder and adoration for telling a tale, which the rest of the film matches. B-movie monsters, dogs tenderly rolling balls between a hole in the fence, and an evocative score from the usually intrusive Danny Elfman, all morphed together into a cohesive, wondrous, macabre fairytale.?
The assortments of kids are basket-case cute. Edgar in particular is adorable -- despite being a fist-shaking ?little rotter? to our hero, his lisping bad-guy is a memorable creation. Add to that the water spouting Sparky, so much of the films success stems from his relationship with Victor and the strong themes of life and death which permeate?Frankenweenie, and both are brilliantly brought to life by the script and animators.?
If there are any criticisms, then it?s the predictability of the yarn, with similar tales being told in the recent?Paranorman?and even the Burton produced?Corpse Bride, and the moral lessons coming across as something of a ?best of? compilation for the kids to take away and digest. But when minor quibbles are wrapped in such melancholy enchantment, they are hardly noticeable.
twitter.com/MainstreamMatt
The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages.?Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
rondo suspended bay bridge downton abbey season 3 presidents day band of brothers presidents george washington
Applied physics as art
Public release date: 14-Oct-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Caroline Perry
cperry@seas.harvard.edu
617-496-1351
Harvard University
Researchers spray-paint ultrathin coatings that change color with only a few atoms' difference in thickness
Cambridge, Mass. October 14, 2012 In Harvard's Pierce Hall, the surface of a small germanium-coated gold sheet shines vividly in crimson. A centimeter to the right, where the same metallic coating is literally only about 20 atoms thicker, the surface is a dark blue, almost black. The colors form the logo of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), where researchers have demonstrated a new way to customize the color of metal surfaces by exploiting a completely overlooked optical phenomenon.
For centuries it was thought that thin-film interference effects, such as those that cause oily pavements to reflect a rainbow of swirling colors, could not occur in opaque materials. Harvard physicists have now discovered that even very "lossy" thin films, if atomically thin, can be tailored to reflect a particular range of dramatic and vivid colors.
Published in the journal Nature Materials (online) on October 14, the finding opens up new possibilities for sophisticated optical devices, as well as consumer products such as jewelry and new techniques in the visual arts.
The discovery is the latest to emerge from the laboratory of Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at SEAS, whose research group most recently produced ultrathin flat lenses and needle light beams that skim the surface of metals. The common thread in Capasso's recent work is the manipulation of light at the interface of materials that are engineered at the nano- scale, a field referred to as nanophotonics. Graduate student and lead author Mikhail A. Kats carried that theme into the realm of color.
"In my group, we frequently reexamine old phenomena, where you think everything's already known," Capasso says. "If you have perceptive eyes, as many of my students do, you can discover exciting things that have been overlooked. In this particular case there was almost a bias among engineers that if you're using interference, the waves have to bounce many times, so the material had better be transparent. What Mikhail's doneand it's admittedly simple to calculateis to show that if you use a light-absorbing film like germanium, much thinner than the wavelength of light, then you can still see large interference effects."
The result is a structure made of only two elements, gold and germanium (or many other possible pairings), that shines in whatever color one chooses.
"We are all familiar with the phenomenon that you see when there's a thin film of gasoline on the road on a wet day, and you see all these different colors," explains Capasso.
Those colors appear because the crests and troughs in the light waves interfere with each other as they pass through the oil into the water below and reflect back up into the air. Some colors (wavelengths) get a boost in brightness (amplitude), while other colors are lost.
That's essentially the same effect that Capasso and Kats are exploiting, with coauthors Romain Blanchard and Patrice Genevet. The absorbing germanium coating traps certain colors of light while flipping the phase of others so that the crests and troughs of the waves line up closely and reflect one pure, vivid color.
"Instead of trying to minimize optical losses, we use them as an integral part of the design of thin-film coatings," notes Kats. "In our design, reflection and absorption cooperate to give the maximum effect."
Most astonishingly, though, a difference of only a few atoms' thickness across the coating is sufficient to produce the dramatic color shifts. The germanium film is applied through standard manufacturing techniqueslithography and physical vapor deposition, which the researchers compare to stenciling and spray-paintingso with only a minimal amount of material (a thickness between 5 and 20 nanometers), elaborate colored designs can easily be patterned onto any surface, large or small.
"Just by changing the thickness of that film by about 15 atoms, you can change the color," says Capasso. "It's remarkable."
The researchers have already performed the same treatment on silver, making it appear gold, as well as a range of pastel colors.
Harvard's Office of Technology Development has filed a patent application and is working with the Capasso lab to pursue the commercialization of this new technology, either through a start-up company or through licensing to existing companies. Application areas being explored include consumer products and optical devices, such as filters, displays, photovoltaics, detectors, and modulators.
###
This work was supported in part by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Some of the work was performed at the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, a member of the NSF-supported National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 14-Oct-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Caroline Perry
cperry@seas.harvard.edu
617-496-1351
Harvard University
Researchers spray-paint ultrathin coatings that change color with only a few atoms' difference in thickness
Cambridge, Mass. October 14, 2012 In Harvard's Pierce Hall, the surface of a small germanium-coated gold sheet shines vividly in crimson. A centimeter to the right, where the same metallic coating is literally only about 20 atoms thicker, the surface is a dark blue, almost black. The colors form the logo of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), where researchers have demonstrated a new way to customize the color of metal surfaces by exploiting a completely overlooked optical phenomenon.
For centuries it was thought that thin-film interference effects, such as those that cause oily pavements to reflect a rainbow of swirling colors, could not occur in opaque materials. Harvard physicists have now discovered that even very "lossy" thin films, if atomically thin, can be tailored to reflect a particular range of dramatic and vivid colors.
Published in the journal Nature Materials (online) on October 14, the finding opens up new possibilities for sophisticated optical devices, as well as consumer products such as jewelry and new techniques in the visual arts.
The discovery is the latest to emerge from the laboratory of Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at SEAS, whose research group most recently produced ultrathin flat lenses and needle light beams that skim the surface of metals. The common thread in Capasso's recent work is the manipulation of light at the interface of materials that are engineered at the nano- scale, a field referred to as nanophotonics. Graduate student and lead author Mikhail A. Kats carried that theme into the realm of color.
"In my group, we frequently reexamine old phenomena, where you think everything's already known," Capasso says. "If you have perceptive eyes, as many of my students do, you can discover exciting things that have been overlooked. In this particular case there was almost a bias among engineers that if you're using interference, the waves have to bounce many times, so the material had better be transparent. What Mikhail's doneand it's admittedly simple to calculateis to show that if you use a light-absorbing film like germanium, much thinner than the wavelength of light, then you can still see large interference effects."
The result is a structure made of only two elements, gold and germanium (or many other possible pairings), that shines in whatever color one chooses.
"We are all familiar with the phenomenon that you see when there's a thin film of gasoline on the road on a wet day, and you see all these different colors," explains Capasso.
Those colors appear because the crests and troughs in the light waves interfere with each other as they pass through the oil into the water below and reflect back up into the air. Some colors (wavelengths) get a boost in brightness (amplitude), while other colors are lost.
That's essentially the same effect that Capasso and Kats are exploiting, with coauthors Romain Blanchard and Patrice Genevet. The absorbing germanium coating traps certain colors of light while flipping the phase of others so that the crests and troughs of the waves line up closely and reflect one pure, vivid color.
"Instead of trying to minimize optical losses, we use them as an integral part of the design of thin-film coatings," notes Kats. "In our design, reflection and absorption cooperate to give the maximum effect."
Most astonishingly, though, a difference of only a few atoms' thickness across the coating is sufficient to produce the dramatic color shifts. The germanium film is applied through standard manufacturing techniqueslithography and physical vapor deposition, which the researchers compare to stenciling and spray-paintingso with only a minimal amount of material (a thickness between 5 and 20 nanometers), elaborate colored designs can easily be patterned onto any surface, large or small.
"Just by changing the thickness of that film by about 15 atoms, you can change the color," says Capasso. "It's remarkable."
The researchers have already performed the same treatment on silver, making it appear gold, as well as a range of pastel colors.
Harvard's Office of Technology Development has filed a patent application and is working with the Capasso lab to pursue the commercialization of this new technology, either through a start-up company or through licensing to existing companies. Application areas being explored include consumer products and optical devices, such as filters, displays, photovoltaics, detectors, and modulators.
###
This work was supported in part by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Some of the work was performed at the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, a member of the NSF-supported National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/hu-apa101212.php
dandelion wine cough matt groening brandon phillips summerfest summerfest fidel castro
Analysis: Collusion lawsuit in U.S. against buyout firms is no easy case
(Reuters) - Shareholder lawyers may have embarrassed just about every top executive in the U.S. private equity industry with allegations of a wide conspiracy to rig deal prices during last decade's buyout boom, but proving their case will be a different matter.
Legal experts say much of the alleged collusion outlined in the antitrust lawsuit may have been nothing more than firms working together in perfectly acceptable ways to spread the risk of taking on a big investment. The practice, they say, allowed the investment firms to pursue the largest deals and offer premiums to shareholders.
A lack of action by the U.S. Department of Justice in a parallel antitrust investigation could also suggest there are few grounds to go after the industry. That probe dates to 2006, according to the lawsuit and regulatory filings from some private equity firms.
"If these allegations are true, and if the DOJ has been investigating since 2006, one wonders then why didn't the DOJ do anything?" said Maurice Stucke, a former Justice Department antitrust prosecutor who is now a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
The Boston federal judge overseeing the case released a mostly unredacted version of the complaint this week. The defendants had objected, arguing that competitive information about deals should remain blacked out from public view.
One exchange appears particularly revealing. According to the lawsuit, Blackstone Group LP President Tony James wrote in an email to KKR & Co co-founder George Roberts: "We would much rather work with you guys than against you. Together we can be unstoppable but in opposition we can cost each other a lot of money."
Roberts, the lawsuit said, replied later that day: "Agreed."
The emails were allegedly sent after KKR decided to step down in the $17.6 billion bidding for semiconductor company Freescale in 2006. A group led by Blackstone eventually won.
Blackstone, KKR and Roberts declined to comment. James did not return a call for comment.
Many lawsuits contain snippets of emails or other conversations involving defendants, and legal experts note that such excerpts may not tell the whole story.
In one instance, the plaintiffs accuse KKR of having "bragged" to its investors in 2005 that "Gone are the days when buy-out firms fought each other with the ferocity of cornered cats to win a deal."
But those words were not KKR's. The firm cited this sentence, which originally appeared in a March 31, 2005, article in The Economist magazine, in a presentation to investors discussing the trend of so-called club deals in which buyout firms pursue acquisitions together, according to KKR spokeswoman Kristi Huller. She said the quote was a bullet point in the presentation and was clearly cited as being from the magazine.
Chris Burke, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said it was not misleading to include the KKR presentation in the lawsuit without more explanation.
"Was it lifted out of context? No," said Burke, of law firm Scott + Scott. "Was it out of an Economist article? Sure."
PRICE-RIGGING ALLEGATIONS
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs contend that KKR, Blackstone, Bain Capital Partners LLC, the Carlyle Group and others conspired to suppress prices of takeover targets, hurting shareholders in many companies purchased in the deal boom between 2003 and 2007.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate and a Bain founder, left that firm in 1999, before the transactions in question. He is not named in the complaint.
In one email cited prominently in the opening pages of the complaint, Silver Lake Partners co-founder Glenn Hutchins seemingly anticipated that his fund would participate in rivals' future deals after bringing a half dozen others into the 2005 buyout of SunGard Data Systems.
"We invited you into Sun(G)ard and have a reasonable expectation of your reciprocating," Hutchins wrote to Blackstone's James, according to the complaint.
Silver Lake and Hutchins declined to comment.
Legal experts say email exchanges among top executives at rival firms do not necessarily mean collusion. While firms competed on smaller deals, they were increasingly working together to spread the risk of larger buyouts and needed to talk to one another, experts said.
The evidence in the emails "is pretty thin gruel," said Hays Gorey, a partner with the GeyerGorey law firm and a former Justice Department antitrust prosecutor.
"Without proof that each conspirator 'got something,' it's simply not believable that they were joint actors," said Gorey, who is not involved in the lawsuit.
The case, filed in 2007, seeks class-action status. Suits by several pension funds and individual shareholders were combined, and after being allowed to move forward, the plaintiffs updated the complaint with the fruits of their investigations into 11 private equity firms.
Burke, the plaintiffs' attorney, said substantial evidence of collusion has been uncovered and noted that the judge allowed him to expand his investigation to 27 deals, up from nine initially.
In every deal, he said, no rival ever offered a counter bid once a target company's board accepted a written offer from a buyout firm.
"It's a complete absence of competition. That's thin gruel?"
A trial could be at least a year away. Assuming the case survives summary judgment, a move by defendants to get a case thrown out before trial, Burke said the next hurdle likely would be a fight to formally recognize the case as a class action.
The buyout firms potentially could be on the hook to compensate the selling shareholders for what they should have received in a competitive auction.
In some antitrust cases, plaintiffs can receive three times the damages they suffered. The plaintiffs claim that the 2006 buyout of hospital chain HCA alone was depressed by $1 billion due to the alleged collusion.
It may be harder to make similar claims on other deals, such as the $45 billion takeover of power company TXU. In that deal, a consortium of KKR, TPG Capital, Goldman Sachs Group Inc's private equity arm and others teamed up, agreeing to pay a premium of more than 20 percent for the company.
"Many of these deals could not have been done by one firm individually, you need to pool the firms together," said University of Chicago Professor of Finance Steven Kaplan.
KKR has taken significant writedowns on the TXU acquisition, the largest buyout in history. Even if the plaintiffs prove collusion on the deal, they may not be able to prove damages, said Robert Miller, a law professor at the University of Iowa.
(Reporting By Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Mike Erman in New York; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Martha Graybow and Eric Beech)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-collusion-lawsuit-us-against-buyout-firms-no-160745391--sector.html
south by southwest i want to know what love is courtney mercury retrograde bath salts heart shaped box lucid
শনিবার, ১৩ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
Real Estate Week: Appraisals Blamed; Shadow Inventory Shrinking ...
Here?s a look at news this week of interest to homebuyers, home sellers, and the home-curious:
APPRAISALS BLAMED FOR CONTRACT GLITCHES
Undervalued appraisals may be holding back home sales.
In a September National Association of Realtors survey, 11 percent of Realtors reported canceled contracts due to an appraised home value below the negotiated price. Another 9 percent reported delayed contracts, and 15 percent said they renegotiated a contract to a lower sale price because of an appraisal.
However, a much larger majority, 65 percent, experienced no contract problems stemming from home appraisals.
One reason for the low values, according to the NAR, is that some appraisers fail to consider the difference between distressed and non-distressed homes when making comparisons. On average, a foreclosure sells for a 20 percent discount, and a short sale for a 15 percent discount. The NAR also complained that some appraisers operate under strict parameters set by lenders more focused on risk aversion than objective appraisals.
SHADOW INVENTORY SHRINKING
The nation?s shadow inventory of homes fell to 2.3 million in July, down 10.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the research firm CoreLogic.
Shadow inventory refers to the number of distressed homes likely to hit the market soon, but which don?t appear in multiple listing services or traditional pending-supply databases. Of July?s 2.3 million homes, 1 million are seriously delinquent, 900,000 are in some stage of foreclosure, and 345,000 are already bank-owned.
FORECLOSURES FALL TO 5-YEAR LOW
The wave of foreclosures hitting the nation?s housing market has been much less severe than anticipated, with September foreclosure filings reaching their lowest level in five years.
Foreclosure filings ? including default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions ? were reported on 180,427 properties in September, down 7?percent?from August and?more than 16 percent from a year earlier, according to a report Thursday by RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties. That?s the lowest number of filings since September 2007.
HOME EQUITY ON THE RISE
Rising home values are helping more home owners find equity in their homes, according to the September Housing Scorecard from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury.
Home equity has reached its highest level since the third quarter of 2008, the report found. That increase helped lift 1.3 million families from being underwater, or owing more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth. The number of underwater homeowners dropped 11 percent since the end of last year, to 10.8 million.
CHECK FOR SCHOOLS, WALKABILITY ? CELL PHONE COVERAGE
Homebuyers use a variety of metrics when evaulating neighborhoods, such as schools, shopping, and walkability. How about?cell phone coverage?
Check out the OpenSignal website, which maps signal strength of various carriers?in 20 metro acreas across the country, including the Bay Area. It does this through crowdsourcing,?using data from millions of smartphone users who have downloaded the company?s mapping app.
The?information is incredibly precise, showing cell phone strength for cities and neighborhoods?down to an individual street address. You can filter?the map by carrier or by 2G, 3G, and 4G coverage.
(Photo illustration courtesy of UrbanGrammar, via Flickr.)
Source: http://blog.pacunion.com/real-estate-week-appraisals-shadow-inventory-foreclosures/
jason russell norfolk state st patrick s day parade duke invisible children garbage pail kids st bonaventure
Sometimes To Receive Attention You Must Place Your Other Half ...
Word Count: 718 Date:
I wonder how many relationships you are aware of have died because one or the other person, or perhaps even both, didn't feel as though they were understood? How often can we see someone within a relationship cheat, and when you ask them just how it happened, the answer was something near to; "I feel a connection, like he (she) understands me."
Very often.
When we first slip into a romance, we try very hard to learn everything we are able to concerning the other individual. We would like to find out what they love to eat, where they love to go, what videos they like to see, everything about their hobbies, where they've been, and where they are hoping to go. When we're in a new relationship, we become the biggest, best "job interviewer" there is. We try and find out everything.
Someplace in the future, we believe we've got all of it figured out. Brand new things happen that call for our concentration, and now we lose focus. "Daily life" pulls us in various directions, job, kids, profession, and hobbies all bring about our very own personal growth. Sadly, that growth is frequently in different directions. Those people we used to be is not who we are now, and yes it appears to worsen each day. That person we got a chance to discover when the connection was new, they've changed. Typically the changes are very soft and subtle, and the dilemma is not that they've changed, but that we've neglected to notice.
Our first inkling that there is something wrong is usually one of those times when one partner comes back home, to find the other upset, as a result of something that happened, or didn't happen on that day. If this takes place on a day when the returning partner has also had a awful day, you begin trading explanations why your day was worse. With nobody listening, and everybody talking, very little gets done, nobody feels better. Should this happen too often, then both people will start to believe their companion doesn't understand them.
The problem is that we are hoping to get the other person to appreciate us. It's not your fault, it's human nature. It's how we are hard-wired.
Even appearing wired to do things this way, you may still deal with this; you just need to discover how to get started. The answer to dealing with this, and to keep things working well in the future, is to do the complete opposite of what you really feel like doing. What you need to do would be to first figure out the other person. Take note of what they're saying, and show them that you're listening. You need to do this by rephrasing what they've said, so that they know you heard them (Try to remember: you are doing this to help repair the thing that might be more important to you than everything else, your relationship, keep the jokes and the sarcasm out of it). When you have succeeded in doing so, they're going to either agree or correct you, so that you do comprehend. After you listen, and take time to know very well what they really want or need, you'll know where to start to help. Here's where the fun stuff starts. When you do that, when they know you have heard and understood them, they're going to make an effort to try and do the same for you. Rather than a pulling apart, we have a drawing together.
Every time you do that it gets less difficult. Over time, both you and your partner will stop anticipating a "tug of war" whenever they need to talk to you. With all of that stress and anxiety that comes from expecting a conflict gone, the talking gets simple.
The alternative, too frequently, is one or the other partner being unfaithful, along with the relationship just falling apart. Then, if you should still desire to be with that person, you find yourself being forced to learn how to survive an affair, or you need to try to discover ways to make up, and restore the relationship. This is certainly much simpler.
The title of this article, ?Jewish Baby Names and Their Meanings ? A Passion for Magnificence? was inspired by King Solomon He led Israel to brilliance and had a passion for magnificence
Q: My daughter is getting married in October 2008. Her and her fiance have everything they need for their home. Is it okay to ask for money instead of a gift? If it is okay, how do we word this? st
Estate sales and auctions are an excellent place to pick up gently used or even antique furniture at prices considerably less than retail. While it might take patience, it is possible to find reasonable prices on excellent pieces that will last for generations -- saving you money in the long run.
With about 50% of the world population able to access the internet, there is now a much better chance to find someone free online This is especially true if the person you are trying to locate lives in a country where internet usage is high
Lean what signs to look out for that could mean a baby is on the way.
roy orbison the third man 2012 nfl draft order mohamed sanu chris polk chicago bulls st louis blues
Is the Earth 6,000 Years Old, 9,000 Years Old, or 13,000 Years Old?
A print of Albrecht Durer's "Adam and Eve (The Fall of Man)"Photo by Rafa Rivas/AFP/Getty Images.
Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., called evolution ?lies from the pit of hell? in a speech last month and argued that the Earth is 9,000 years old. Scientists have determined the Earth?s age is 4.5 billion years, based on evidence from meteorites and molecular decay rates. How do biblical literalists come up with their estimates?
Using Greek history. The Bible provides plenty of internal chronological information. Adam lived 930 years, and his son Seth 912 years. The Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years ?to the very day.? Saul reigned as king of Israel for 42 years. Summing up the dates is tedious, but it?s doable. The real challenge is that the Bible is a ?floating chronology:? It doesn?t date the beginning or ending of its story. Irishman James Ussher, the 17th-century archbishop of Armagh, famously solved this puzzle by comparing events in the Bible with histories from other civilizations. Most critically, Ussher found a reference to the death of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the Second Book of Kings. Ussher then used Ptolemy?s history of Babylonian kings, combined with Greek historical events of known dates, to pinpoint the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 562 B.C. Adding together the generations of Old Testament begetting and the reigns of kings, Usher surmised that 3,442 years passed between the creation and Nebuchadnezzar?s death. Ussher thereby arrived at his now famous estimate for the Earth?s creation: 4,004 B.C. He eventually went one step further, marking the Earth?s birthday as 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, 4004 B.C.
Many biblical chronologists have come up with roughly similar estimates. Second-century St. Theophilus of Antioch guessed 5529 B.C. In his 1583 work De emendatione temporum, Frenchman Joseph Juste Scaliger put the creation in 3949 B.C. There are, however, occasional outliers. American doomsday evangelist Harold Camping believes that time began in 11013 B.C.
Most of these variations result from differences in Old Testament interpretation. For example, one of Ussher?s greatest dilemmas was choosing which text to follow. The Greek Septuagint version suggested that 2,242 years elapsed between the dawn of time and the biblical flood. Ussher rejected that estimate because, if it were accurate, Armageddon should already have occurred. (Seventeenth-century theologians thought the earth would end after 6,000 years.) The Samaritan Pentateuch suggested 1,307 years between the creation and the flood, but Ussher eventually went with the traditional Hebrew text?s 1,656-year-estimate. Harold Camping?s methodology in arriving at a vastly different date is perplexing. He added together the lifespans of Old Testament fathers and sons, assuming that their lives didn?t overlap.
It?s not clear how Rep. Broun settled on 9,000 years, but Ussher?s creation date of 4004 B.C. is by far the most cited. It was, and possibly remains, the most meticulous Bible-based calculation ever attempted. Ussher?s estimate for the death of Nebuchadnezzar is still the authoritative date. Perhaps more importantly, Ussher?s research yielded an auspicious number. Theologians and astronomers of his day estimated that Christ was born in the year 4 B.C., based on the mention of a lunar eclipse in the work of first-century historian Josephus. Ussher?s creation calculations thus suggested that precisely 4,000 years passed between the creation and the birth of the Christian messiah. The 1960 film Inherit the Wind also cemented Ussher?s place in the American imagination. In the movie, Matthew Harrison Brady insists on the witness stand that Ussher?s estimate is ?literal fact.? When the crowd turns on him, Brady is reduced to hysterics, turning to his wife and memorably declaring, ?They?re laughing at me, mother. I can?t stand it when they laugh at me!?
Got a question about today?s news? Ask the Explainer.
Video Explainer: A man died after eating scores of bugs at a contest. What are the safest North American bugs to eat?and the tastiest?
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=a388b343756d6846d4d5d3a614e4fba3
jordans prometheus movie posterior adam lambert arrested barkley beltran space ball
Case-Shiller index Shows Home Values Rising Nationwide, Too ...
Meet Heather Woodward, Realtor
Heather is a full-time Realtor and a consistent top producer in the local Crested Butte, Almont and Gunnison markets.
Heather takes great pride in giving unparalleled customer service and is dedicated to her clients and their individual needs. Her number one priority is to provide service above and beyond her clients? expectations. She will dedicate her time, attention, energy and knowledge during and after each transaction. Read More
sugar cookie recipe sugar cookie recipe how the grinch stole christmas macaroni and cheese festivus festivus zeno
শুক্রবার, ১২ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
Mailing a letter to cost a penny more next year
WASHINGTON (AP) ? It'll cost another penny to mail a letter next year.
The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that it will raise postage rates on Jan. 27, including a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail to 46 cents.
It also will introduce a new global forever stamp, allowing customers to mail letters anywhere in the world for one set price of $1.10.
Under the law, the post office cannot raise prices more than the rate of inflation, or 2.6 percent. The mail agency, which expects to lose a record $15 billion this year, has asked Congress to give it new authority to raise stamp prices by 5 cents, but the House has yet to act.
The Postal Service also will increase rates on priority mail shipping, by 4 percent.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mailing-letter-cost-penny-more-next-213006865--finance.html
julian beever appeasement ian stewart ian stewart odom vt vt
Family Home and Life: Reading to Babies?
The other day I had my hands full with two cranky one year old's and a over?energetic four yr old. While I was putting the babies down to nap, perhaps earlier than?necessary (ahem, the day started with them arriving at six a.m. thank you very much). The four year old decided to read stories to her stuffed toys while I was busy with the babies. When I came back and sank?gratefully?in my chair for a much needed break, she handed me a stack of books she had read.?I thought she was going to ask me to read to?her; but instead she said, "Now it's your turn; you read to my babies." I politely declined.?
Would you have read to the stuffed toy babies anyway?
I have had a lot of content theft lately. If you are reading this post anywhere else but at Family Home and Life then it was used without permission! Copyright? Family Home and Life 2012 All Rights Reserved
Source: http://www.familyhomeandlife.com/2012/10/reading-to-babies.html
overeem laron landry mary j blige burger king islands joe flacco 2013 nissan altima masters par 3 contest
Who's investing in Biofuels? A Digest special report and database ...
In today?s Digest, we have prepared a look at 168 strategic investors in the sector ? the institutional owners of the latest wave of sector IPOs. That is, Codexis, Amyris, Gevo, Solazyme, Renewable Energy Group and Ceres. Which institutionals own what?? You can look by industrial biotech company, or look at the global list, which details all 168.
The repot is based on the 6/30/12 13-F filings by institutional investors with the SEC.
Who?s big, who?s getting in, who?s getting out?
Which 10 institutional firms own more than 57% of the equities? Would you be surprised to learn that perennial IPO leader Goldman Sachs ranks on 67th in terms of institutional shareholdings? Where is Soros, Blackrock, Vanguard, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street, CalPers, T Rowe Price ? and every one else?
Free download
It?s a free download today, in excel format (suitable for ranking or analyzing), here via BiofuelsDigest.com.
?
?
Related Articles
Category: Top Stories
aubrey huff the killers julianne hough brandy calvin johnson calvin johnson michael pineda
বৃহস্পতিবার, ১১ অক্টোবর, ২০১২
Light might prompt graphene devices on demand
ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2012) ? Rice University researchers are doping graphene with light in a way that could lead to the more efficient design and manufacture of electronics, as well as novel security and cryptography devices.
Manufacturers chemically dope silicon to adjust its semiconducting properties. But the breakthrough reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano details a novel concept: plasmon-induced doping of graphene, the ultrastrong, highly conductive, single-atom-thick form of carbon.
That could facilitate the instant creation of circuitry -- optically induced electronics -- on graphene patterned with plasmonic antennas that can manipulate light and inject electrons into the material to affect its conductivity.
The research incorporates both theoretical and experimental work to show the potential for making simple, graphene-based diodes and transistors on demand. The work was done by Rice scientists Naomi Halas, Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics and astronomy and director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics; and Peter Nordlander, professor of physics and astronomy and of electrical and computer engineering; physicist Frank Koppens of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, Spain; lead author Zheyu Fang, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice; and their colleagues.
"One of the major justifications for graphene research has always been about the electronics," Nordlander said. "People who know silicon understand that electronics are only possible because it can be p- and n-doped (positive and negative), and we're learning how this can be done on graphene.
"The doping of graphene is a key parameter in the development of graphene electronics," he said. "You can't buy graphene-based electronic devices now, but there's no question that manufacturers are putting a lot of effort into it because of its potential high speed."
Researchers have investigated many strategies for doping graphene, including attaching organic or metallic molecules to its hexagonal lattice. Making it selectively -- and reversibly -- amenable to doping would be like having a graphene blackboard upon which circuitry can be written and erased at will, depending on the colors, angles or polarization of the light hitting it.
The ability to attach plasmonic nanoantennas to graphene affords just such a possibility. Halas and Nordlander have considerable expertise in the manipulation of the quasiparticles known as plasmons, which can be prompted to oscillate on the surface of a metal. In earlier work, they succeeded in depositing plasmonic nanoparticles that act as photodetectors on graphene.
These metal particles don't so much reflect light as redirect its energy; the plasmons that flow in waves across the surface when excited emit light or can create "hot electrons" at particular, controllable wavelengths. Adjacent plasmonic particles can interact with each other in ways that are also tunable.
That effect can easily be seen in graphs of the material's Fano resonance, where the plasmonic antennas called nonamers, each a little more than 300 nanometers across, clearly scatter light from a laser source except at the specific wavelength to which the antennas are tuned. For the Rice experiment, those nonamers -- eight nanoscale gold discs arrayed around one larger disc -- were deposited onto a sheet of graphene through electron-beam lithography. The nonamers were tuned to scatter light between 500 and 1,250 nanometers, but with destructive interference at about 825 nanometers.
At the point of destructive interference, most of the incident light energy is converted into hot electrons that transfer directly to the graphene sheet and change portions of the sheet from a conductor to an n-doped semiconductor.
Arrays of antennas can be affected in various ways and allow phantom circuits to materialize under the influence of light. "Quantum dot and plasmonic nanoparticle antennas can be tuned to respond to pretty much any color in the visible spectrum," Nordlander said. "We can even tune them to different polarization states, or the shape of a wavefront.
"That's the magic of plasmonics," he said. "We can tune the plasmon resonance any way we want. In this case, we decided to do it at 825 nanometers because that is in the middle of the spectral range of our available light sources. We wanted to know that we could send light at different colors and see no effect, and at that particular color see a big effect."
Nordlander said he foresees a day when, instead of using a key, people might wave a flashlight in a particular pattern to open a door by inducing the circuitry of a lock on demand. "Opening a lock becomes a direct event because we are sending the right lights toward the substrate and creating the integrated circuits. It will only answer to my call," he said.
Rice co-authors of the paper are graduate students Yumin Wang and Andrea Schlather, research scientist Zheng Liu, and Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry.
The research was supported by the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Defense National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows program and Fundacio Cellex Barcelona.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Zheyu Fang, Yumin Wang, Zheng Liu, Andrea Schlather, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Frank H. L. Koppens, Peter Nordlander, Naomi J. Halas. Plasmon-Induced Doping of Graphene. ACS Nano, 2012; : 120927153826001 DOI: 10.1021/nn304028b
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/fz1rwRyOWe0/121010141450.htm
dallas news dallas fort worth dfw 1930 census nike new nfl uniforms nfl uniforms andrew bailey
এতে সদস্যতা:
পোস্টগুলি (Atom)