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September Morn

By September 15 back in New England, it's time to turn the heat on. Here in MidAtlantica we (the denizens of Edge City) have had some pre-autumnal coolness, though the temperatures have recently risen back into summery scale. The reason I mention these banal weather details is that they have a distinct effect on the lady-of-a-Certain-Age affliction I described in the last post here. If it gets cool, say under the temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the hot flashes get less intense and may even relent altogether.

Some of this may be due to the acupuncture and herbal remedies my acupuncturist has treated me with. Perhaps it works in combination with ambient temperature. I started the treatment in May, when it was already somewhat warm here. So much for being in "balance with Nature." If Nature cools down, so do I…maybe.

I have not had a winter without hot flashes since they began. What usually happens is that the affliction, surprised by a change in the weather, takes some time to adjust to it and then, having figured out how to torment me in cold weather, begins again. If something can break that cycle, I'm all for it.

Some older women, upon hearing that I love the summer and hot weather and never want winter, have sarcastically commented that when I got to a "Certain Age" I would welcome the colder weather and hate the warm summer temperatures. I hate to agree with these comments, so let me re-state my situation. I still love summer and hot weather, but at the moment it doesn't love me. It is possible that I might find a way to avert the periodic hourly boiling, and if so, I will gladly go back to my love of July's hot, humid, thundery days.

I really don't want to talk about this any more, so I will leave you with a famous image by the early twentieth century French artist Paul Emile Chabas. His "September Morn" scandalized prudes in New York when it was shown in a gallery window there in 1913. But it then became hugely popular and was reproduced in all manner of prints and collectibles. The unclad young lady who feels the first chill of fall as she stands in the lake has a long way to go before she is of a Certain Age.

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Image Metrology A/S - AZoNano.com

Image Metrology A/S
AZoNano.com, Australia - Dec 9, 2008
... formats including Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM), interference microscopes, Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM), confocal microscopes and profilers. ...
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A Nonvolatile Memory With Resistively Switching Methyl-Silsesquioxane

Crossbar structures with integrated methyl-silsesquioxane (MSQ) were fabricated by UV nanoimprint lithography. The sandwiched MSQ film was used for the planarization of the bottom electrodes' interface as well as for the realization of functional resistively switching crosspoint junctions. With our process, future nonvolatile crossbar memories with stacking and, thus, high integration density potential can be realized. Using MSQ as functional material additionally indicates an attractive opportunity because it is highly CMOS compatible. By programming word registers with different bit patterns, we demonstrate the potential of this crossbar architecture for future memory and logic applications.

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Molecular Plasmonics: Chromophore–Plasmon Coupling and Single-Particle Nanosensors

This review describes investigations into the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of silver nanoparticles from both experimental and theoretical perspectives. It is divided into two parts: 1) LSPR of silver nanoparticle arrays and its interaction with resonant adsorbates and 2) single-nanoparticle LSPR spectroscopy and sensing of two specific nanoparticle geometries: triangular nanoprisms and nanocubes. Part I addresses the problem of strong coupling between the plasmon resonance of the nanoparticle and the molecular electronic resonances of the adsorbates. In particular, it was shown that the shift in the LSPR wavelength induced by resonant adsorbates binding to nanoparticles is highly dependent upon the relative spectral position of the LSPR to the molecular resonance. This finding was applied to study the electronic structures of resonant adsorbates on metallic nanostructures. Furthermore, an optical nanosensor was designed to study low molecular weight substrate molecule interaction with cytochrome P450 proteins. Part II shows that the LSPR spectra of single nanoparticles are highly sensitive to all details of their geometry. These geometric details play an important role in determining the utility of a nanoparticle as a sensor. It was demonstrated that nanoprisms have a 1 nm per ${hbox{CH}_{2}}$ unit greater sensitivity to the binding of molecular adsorbates than truncated tetrahedral arrays despite being five times thinner, suggesting they will be excellent candidates for sensing large biomolecules. It was further shown, for the case of the nanocubes, that the energy of LSPR modes are not simply sensitive to their environments, but that the environment can actually affect the number of modes observed in a nanoparticle's LSPR spectrum. A figure of merit (FOM) has been defined for single-nanoparticle sensors, and the nanocubes’ high-energy peaks were shown to have the highest-value FOM me- - asured to date.

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New Hybrid Nanostructures Detect Nanoscale Magnetism

A key challenge of nanotechnology research is investigating how different materials behave at lengths of merely one-billionth of a meter. When shrunk to such tiny sizes, many everyday materials exhibit interesting and potentially beneficial new properties. (2008-12-09)

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Energy-drift correction of electron energy-loss spectra from prolonged data accumulation of low SNR signals

The demand for analysis of trace elements in atomically localized areas by electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in transmission electron microscopy is increasing. Unfortunately, the prolonged data acquisitions required to achieve an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) tend to deteriorate the energy resolution because of spectral drifts due to instrumental instability. We developed a macroscript for a Gatan Digital Micrograph^TM to control an ENFINA 1000 EEL spectrometer that corrects for energy drifts during data accumulation. The script successfully achieved a core-loss spectrum for a sample having ~1 at% elemental concentration, and provided a sufficient SNR for chemical state analysis.

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