Formulated, processed, and dried Aloe polysaccharides thin film sandwiched between ITO as bottom electrode and Au as top electrode has been adopted as an artificial synapse to emulate behavior of neuromorphic computing. The synaptic plasticity or weight has been modulated with this simple metal-insulator-metal structure by applying voltage sweep and voltage pulse, with excitatory postsynaptic current being monitored. Synaptic potentiation and depression has been demonstrated by applying 6 consecutive sweeps of voltage in positive and negative polarity, respectively. By varying number (10 – 50) of voltage pulses, variable synaptic weight has been measured with paired pulse facilitation and post-tetanic potentiation indexes of 2.61x10-6and 1.45x10-4, respectively. The short-term plasticity and long-term potentiation can be clearly revealed when applying 40 pulses and beyond, with extracted time constants of approximately 28 s at 40 pulses and 90 s at 50 pulses.

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) production has been very rare in serotype K1 Klebsiella pneumoniae ST23 strains, which are well-known invasive community strains. Among 92 ESBL-producing strains identified in 218 isolates from nine Asian countries, serotype K1 K. pneumoniae strains were screened. Two ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae isolates from Singapore and Indonesia were determined to be serotype K1 and ST23. Their plasmids, which contain CTX-M-15 genes, are transferable rendering the effective transfer of ESBL resistance plasmids to other organisms.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.

In this study, Ag/OD-MO/Ag surface-type diode was fabricated by drop-casting orange dye and methyl orange blend thin film from 1.0 wt.% aqueous solution, under the effect of an electric field, on a glass substrate with preliminary deposited silver electrodes. Geometrical length and width of the semiconducting channel between metallic electrodes were equal to 40 μm and 21 mm, respectively. The dark I-V characteristics exhibited strong rectification behaviour though both electrodes were from the same metal. The average value of rectification ratio (RR) was 27 and it was found that RR varies with applied voltage in the range of 1–40. The dark I-V characteristics were simulated by modified Shockley equation and space-charge limited currents (SCLC) approach. Different diode parameters were calculated from current-voltage characteristics. The diode showed non-ideal I-V behaviour with a quality factor greater than unity. Energy band diagram is proposed for the Ag/OD-MO/Ag surface-type diode.

Optical and structural properties of InGaN/GaN quantum wells having growth interruption were investigated using high-resolution x-ray diffraction, photoluminescence and transmission microscopy. InxGa1−xN/GaN (x>0.25) six pair quantum wells used in this study were grown on c- plane sapphire by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The growth interruption was carried out by closing the group-III metal organic sources before and after growth of InGaN quantum well layers. With increasing the interruption time, the quantum dot-like region and well thickness decreases due to indium re-evaporation or thermal etching effect. As a result, PL peak position is blue-shifted and intensity is reduced. The size and number of V-defect did not vary with interruption time. The interruption time is not directly related with formation of the defect. The V-defect in quantum wells originates at threading dislocations and inversion domain boundaries due to higher misfit strain.

Thin films of polythiophene, a kind of polyheterocyclic compound with hydrogen function groups, were deposited by KrF excimer laser ablation of a compressed solid target in a vacuum chamber. The laser pulse fluence was approximately selected at 2 J/cm2 with a pulse duration of 25 ns. The structural, topographic, and electronic properties of the deposited thin films were analyzed by atomic force microscope, x-ray diffraction, and Raman and infrared spectroscopy measurements. Deposited thin films were observed to have good crystal properties and to be composed of crystalline cubes with a uniform size of 0.1 μm. The electronic structure of the deposited thin films should be different from the target materials, resulting from the laser irradiation effects. The influence of the deposition temperature on the structural and electronic properties of the deposited thin films was studied.

During a 1-year period from October 1995 to September 1996, 273 isolations of Streptococcus pneumoniae were made from various types of clinical specimens. The majority of the isolates (39·2%) were from sputum whilst 27·5% were from blood, CSF and other body fluids. The organism was isolated from patients of all age groups, 31·1% from children aged 10 years and below, 64·7% of which come from children aged 2 years or below. The majority of the isolates belong to serotypes 1, 6B, 19B, 19F and 23F. Serotypes 1 and 19B were the most common serotypes associated with invasive infection. About 71·9% of the invasive infections were due to serotypes included in the available 23 valent polysaccharide vaccine. The rates of resistance to penicillin and erythromycin were 7·0 and 1·1% respectively. Our findings show that the serotypes of S. pneumoniae causing most invasive infections in Malaysia are similar to those in other parts of the world and the available vaccine may have a useful role in this population.

We observed a dramatic peak in the 1/f noise at the metal-insulator transition (MIT) in low-Tc, manganites. This many-orders-of-magnitude noise enhancement is observed for both polycrystalline and single-crystal samples of La5/8−y. Pry, Ca3/8MnO3 (y = 0.35 – 0.4) and Pr1−xCaxMnO3 (x = 0.35 – 0.5). This observation strongly suggests that the microscopic phase separation in the low-Tc, manganites causes formation of a percolation network, and that the observed MIT is a percolation threshold. It is shown that the scale of phase separation in polycrystalline samples is much smaller than that in single crystals.

We use resonance Raman scattering (RRS) and electroreflection (ER) measurements to profile the the composition and strain variations in laterally composition-modulated (CM) GaP/InP short-period superlattices (SPS's). The ER spectra of a GaP2.2/InP2.0 SPS give the fundamental band-gap energy at 1.69±0.05eV, which is about 210 meV lower than the band gap energy of a GaInP random alloy with the same overall composition. The RRS measurements reveal strong dependences of the phonon spectrum on the polarization and the excitation energy. In RRS spectra measured with the polarization of both excitation and scattered photons along the composition modulation direction, the GaP-like longitudinal optical (LO) phonon redshifts by 4.0±0.5 cm−1 near the resonance with the fundamental energy gap. On the other hand, when the polarizations are orthogonal to the composition modulation, the LO phonons redshift as much as 16 cm−1 at low excitation energies. A comparison of the experimental data with a model calculation gives the average In composition in the In-rich region as 0.70±0.02, and the average Ga composition in the Ga-rich region as 0.68±0.02. Our result also indicates that there are small volumes (less than 1% volume fraction) with very high In mole fraction.

In order to quantitatively determine the residual stresses at the interfaces of laminate composite materials, a model involving exponential stress gradient in the substrate and no stress gradient in the film was derived. The measurements of residual strains at the Si/quartz interfaces using the Raman microprobe were compared to expected strains by the model. The model shows that a small volume of substrate near the interface about 2 times the film thickness was affected by the thermal mismatch of the two regions. Approximately 5–10 times higher residual strains were expected at the substrate-side interfaces compared to the measured results. This is explained by the experiments averaging along the probe thickness of about 10μm resolution. The recrystallization process of Si film by thermal annealing was also investigated using Raman spectroscopy.