Mesoporous SnO 2 was prepared by a high temperature microwave assisted process using a low cost polymeric surfactant, poly(ethylene glycol). The obtained material has been characterized by several sophisticated techniques such as XRD, nitrogen adsorption, HRTEM, UV-Vis DRS, HRSEM and photoluminescence. The characterization results reveal that the obtained material exhibits a high surface area with a spherical morphology, crystalline walls and narrow mesopores. In addition, microwave process requires only a short time for the formation of mesoporous SnO 2. SnO 2 with no porous structure was obtained when hydrothermal technique was used. We also found that the band gap of the mesoporous SnO 2 is much smaller than that of the nonporous bulk SnO 2 and showed excellent photoluminescent properties. Copyright © 2010 American Scientific Publishers.

Acrylic acid derivatives are important raw materials for the manufacture of a wide variety of industrial and consumer products. In the theme of sustainability, more economical methods that utilize cheaper and less toxic feedstock are urgently needed. Clean pathways can be realized through the direct functionalization of CO2, which plays a dual role of reducing the CO2 emission rate and producing chemicals with added value. Because ethylene is one of the most abundant industrial feedstocks, manufacturing acrylic acid and acrylates directly from CO2 and ethylene becomes both scientifically fascinating and industrially relevant. As a dream reaction in catalysis and CO2 utilization, this challenging transformation has drawn close attention for nearly 40 years. With continuous efforts from both academia and industry, scientists are getting close to realizing an effective catalytic system. This review covers critical discoveries and discusses possible future directions in this area.

To be clear, this is a number of 3% in Ireland and 1.2% in the UK which really does come down in cash to the bottom line. The message, and I hope this is clear is that both the assets are good quality, good cash return but the Irish cash return is significantly higher.

“We firmly believe in the transformation plan benefits and maintain our ambition. The environment is making our task more difficult than expected and we will always take the right decisions for the company in the long-term.”

By Virginia Llopis-Hernández, Marco Cantini, Cristina González-García, Zhe A. Cheng, Jingli Yang, Penelope M Tsimbouri, Andrés J. García, Matthew J. Dalby, Manuel Salmerón-Sánchez

For the in vivo study, around 6- to 8-week-old female C57BL/6 mice were purchased from Charles River Laboratories for the animal experiment. To form primary localized tumors, B16F0s (5 × 105 cells in 100 μl of Hanks’ balanced salt solution) cultured on spiral-patterned or nonpatterned PA gels were trypsinized and subcutaneously injected with or without Matrigel (50% v/v) into the right lateral flank (n, specified in each figure). Experiments were stopped after 7 days in culture.

Polyimide implant tubes presenting holes were coated by solvent casting from solutions of the corresponding synthesized polymers, PEA or PMA, creating a polymer layer on the tube. Implant tubes were dried under vacuum at 60°C to remove solvent traces and were rinsed with Milli-Q water several times before ultraviolet sterilization. FN (Sigma) was adsorbed overnight on the polymer layer from a protein solution (20 μg/ml) in PBS at 37°C. Then, 1% BSA/PBS solution was adsorbed for 30 min at RT to block nonspecific binding sites before the adsorption of the BMP-2 GF (R&D Systems) from a solution (5 μg/ml) in PBS for 1 hour. The adsorption of the proteins was performed by creating a vacuum to force the incoming of the solution into the implant tubes. After each protein adsorption, the samples were rinsed in PBS to remove the nonadsorbed protein and, finally, were kept in PBS until implantation. GFOGER-functionalized PEG-maleimide (PEG-MAL) hydrogels, which have been shown to promote osteogenic differentiation and bone healing of radial segmental defects (39), were used as a positive control. Hydrogels were synthesized by reacting the four-arm, MAL–end functionalized (>95%) PEG macromer (PEG-MAL; 20 kD; Laysan Bio) with the adhesive peptide GYGGGPG(GPP)5GFOGER(GPP)5GPC (GFOGER) (Activotec) and BMP-2 (R&D Systems), followed by mixing with VPM cross-linker (AAPTEC) at a volume ratio of 2:1:1:1. The final concentration of the BMP-2 GF in the hydrogels was 75 μg/ml. The concentration of VPM used was calculated to provide the same number of cysteine residues than the number of free (unreacted) MAL groups remaining in the adhesive peptide-functionalized PEG-MAL solution.

Kaiser Health News: Medicare Advantage Plans Shift Their Financial Risk To Doctors Dr. Christopher Rao jumped out of his office chair. He’d just learned an elderly patient at high risk of falling was resisting his advice to go to an inpatient rehabilitation facility following a hip fracture. He strode into the exam room where Priscilla Finamore was crying about having to leave her home and husband, Freddy. (Galewitz, 10/8)

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Meggitt PLC (LON:MGGT), a leading international company specialising in high performance components and sub-systems for the aerospace, defence and energy markets, announced it has signed a long term agreement with Turkish Technic, a leading service provider in aircraft maintenance, repair and modification. The agreement is valued at around $15 million for the lifetime of the contract.

Yeah. We are really thrilled with our performance in our Optical Communications business. I mean, we’ve both been growing sales significantly, and we’ve been growing our profitability even greater than that. And that’s what the real focus is on any given business unit at Corning. I mean, that’s how we measure the business unit success, and we’re having great success in Optical Communications. We have had some margin expansion in that business, and I would expect to continue to have some margin expansion in that business. And I think that’s the way to model. We don’t spend a lot of time comparing business to business, because each of them have different economics and different levels of investment, but I mean, we feel great about the Optical Communications performance.

Against an uncertain market backdrop, the division is building an encouraging pipeline for 2019, the delivery of which, as always will be dependent upon market conditions. However, reflecting the opportunities we are beginning to see, and to ensure we take full advantage of structural changes being seen in the market, we are actively looking to recruit further high quality people into the division to grow the business over the coming years.