Transition metal oxides offer a wide spectrum of properties which provide the foundation for a broad range of potential applications. Many of these properties originate from intrinsic coupling between lattice deformation and nanoscale electronic and magnetic ordering. Lattice strain thus has a profound influence on the electrical, optical, and magnetic properties of these materials. Recent adva...

In this review a strategy for the design of bioinspired, smart, multiscale interfacial (BSMI) materials is presented and put into context with recent progress in the field of BSMI materials spanning natural to artificial to reversibly stimuli-sensitive interfaces. BSMI materials that respond to single/dual/multiple external stimuli, e.g., light, pH, electrical fields, and so on, can switch reve...

Contemporary chemical and material engineering often takes inspiration from nature, targeting for example strong yet light materials and materials composed of highly ordered domains at multiple different lengthscales for fundamental science and applications in e.g. sensing, catalysis, coating technology, and delivery. The preparation of such hierarchically structured functional materials throug...

BACKGROUND An important objective in external quality assessment (EQA) is to evaluate systematic deviations between methods. However, this is not possible when noncommutable control materials are used. The aim of this study was to develop an EQA model that incorporates a method bias evaluation using native patient samples into EQA schemes in which noncommutable materials are used. METHODS The...

Reports act as an important feedback tool in External Quality Assessment (EQA). Their main role is to score laboratories for their performance in an EQA round. The most common scores that apply to quantitative data are Q- and Z-scores. To calculate these scores, EQA providers need to have an assigned value and standard deviation for the sample. Both assigned values and standard deviations can b...

External quality assurance (EQA) or proficiency testing for point-of-care (POC) testing is in principle similar to EQA for larger hospital laboratories, but the participants are different. The participants are usually health care personnel with little or no knowledge of laboratory medicine. The implication of this is that the EQA provider has to a) convince the participants that participation i...

The diffractive imaging process used for retrieval of an aberration-free exit-wave function of a complex-valued object is optimized with a newly developed automated chaining diffraction (ACD) algorithm. Our algorithm enables automatic recovery of the amplitude and phase of the complex-valued objects with diffraction-limited resolution, starting from selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) pat...

The analysis of the main characteristics of the pharmaceutical industry worldwide and market aspects of that industry in Brazil leads us to consider a high share of external dependency and oligopolization. This situation is not peculiar to our country, but is rather a global trend. Recent Government initiatives in Brazil, aiming at reducing that dependency, associated with the critical aspects ...

Nanoparticle exposure assessment presents a unique challenge in the field of occupational and environmental health. With the commercialization of nanotechnology, exposure usually starts from the workplace and then spreads to environment and consumer exposure. This report discusses the current trends of nanoparticle exposure assessment, including the definition of nanotechnology relevant terms, ...

Nothing lasts forever. Any humanmade material, used in anything from toys to bridges, will eventually fail, if not maintained and repaired. Traditionally, this problem has been addressed through extensive inspection and expensive replacement of damaged parts. Biological systems, however, have evolved to include alternative ways to repair internal and external damage via healing mechanisms. Mate...