This book offers up novel research which uses analytical approaches to explore nonlinear features exhibited by various dynamic processes. Relevant to disciplines across engineering and physics, the asymptotic method combined with the multiple scale method is shown to be an efficient and intuitive way to approach mechanics. Beginning with new material on the development of cutting-edge asymptotic methods and multiple scale methods, the book introduces this method in time domain and provides examples of vibrations of systems. Clearly written throughout, it uses innovative graphics to exemplify complex concepts such as nonlinear stationary and nonstationary processes, various resonances and jump pull-in phenomena. It also demonstrates the simplification of problems through using mathematical modelling, by employing the use of limiting phase trajectories to quantify nonlinear phenomena. Particularly relevant to structural mechanics, in rods, cables, beams, plates and shells, as well as mechanical objects commonly found in everyday devices such as mobile phones and cameras, the book shows how each system is modelled, and how it behaves under various conditions. It will be of interest to engineers and professionals in mechanical engineering and structural engineering, alongside those interested in vibrations and dynamics. It will also be useful to those studying engineering maths and physics.

Focusing on synthetic nanodevices and the synthesis of nanomaterials, this book examines polymeric microspheres and nanostructures, carbon nanotubes, silicon, silicon dioxide, and iron oxide. There is also a chapter on the characterization of critical nanostructures for biological applications.

This thesis presents a method for reliably and robustly producing samples of amyloid- (A ) by capturing them at various stages of aggregation, as well as the results of subsequent imaging with various atomic force microscopy (AFM) methods, all of which add value to the data gathered by collecting information on the peptide's nanomechanical, elastic, thermal or spectroscopical properties. Amyloid- (A ) undergoes a hierarchy of aggregation following a structural transition, making it an ideal subject of study using scanning probe microscopy (SPM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and other physical techniques. By imaging samples of A with Ultrasonic Force Microscopy, a detailed substructure to the morphology is revealed, which correlates well with the most advanced cryo-EM work. Early stage work in the area of thermal and spectroscopical AFM is also presented, and indicates the promise these techniques may hold for imaging sensitive and complex biological materials. This thesis demonstrates that physical techniques can be highly complementary when studying the aggregation of amyloid peptides, and allow the detection of subtle differences in their aggregation processes.

Graphene has emerged as a potential candidate to replace traditional CMOS for a number of electronic applications; this book presents the latest advances in graphene nanoelectronics and the potential benefits of using graphene in a wide variety of electronic applications. The book also provides details on various methods to grow graphene, including epitaxial, CVD, and chemical methods. This book serves as a spring-board for anyone trying to start working on graphene. The book is also suitable to experts who wish to update themselves with the latest findings in the field.

This tenth volume of papers emanating from the annual International High Technology Small Firms Conference represents a full decade of research and policy relevant papers on innovation and growth problems of New Technology-based Firms (NTBf).
Because this series has become the major vehicle for publication among the best international researchers working on the formation and subsequent growth problems of NTBfs, it represents an authoritative voice on NTBf development problems.
Topics covered in this volume include strategy, spin offs - their contribution to NTBf growth and the problems they encounter during the traumatic "spin off" process, the current hot topic of clusters and their role in enhancing NTBf formation and growth, networking and global issues since many NTBfs are truly "born global."

Ambient intelligence is the vision of a technology that will become invisibly embedded in our natural surroundings, present whenever we need it, enabled by simple and effortless interactions, attuned to all our senses, adaptive to users and context-sensitive, and autonomous. High-quality information access and personalized content must be available to everybody, anywhere, and at any time. This book addresses ambient intelligence used to support human contacts and accompany an individual's path through the complicated modern world. From the technical standpoint, distributed electronic intelligence is addressed as hardware vanishing into the background. Devices used for ambient intelligence are small, low-power, low weight, and (very importantly) low-cost; they collaborate or interact with each other; and they are redundant and error-tolerant. This means that the failure of one device will not cause failure of the whole system. Since wired connections often do not exist, radio methods will play an important role for data transfer. This book addresses various aspects of ambient intelligence, from applications that are imminent since they use essentially existing technologies, to ambitious ideas whose realization is still far away, due to major unsolved technical challenges.

Regular Nanofabrics in Emerging Technologies gives a deep insight into both fabrication and design aspects of emerging semiconductor technologies, that represent potential candidates for the post-CMOS era. Its approach is unique, across different fields, and it offers a synergetic view for a public of different communities ranging from technologists, to circuit designers, and computer scientists. The book presents two technologies as potential candidates for future semiconductor devices and systems and it shows how fabrication issues can be addressed at the design level and vice versa. The reader either for academic or research purposes will find novel material that is explained carefully for both experts and non-initiated readers. Regular Nanofabrics in Emerging Technologies is a survey of post-CMOS technologies. It explains processing, circuit and system level design for people with various backgrounds.

Multi-scale Quantum Models for Biocatalysis explores various molecular modelling techniques and their applications in providing an understanding of the detailed mechanisms at play during biocatalysis in enzyme and ribozyme systems. These areas are reviewed by an international team of experts in theoretical, computational chemistry, and biophysics.

This book presents detailed reviews concerning the development of various techniques, including ab initio molecular dynamics, density functional theory, combined QM/MM methods, solvation models, force field methods, and free-energy estimation techniques, as well as successful applications of multi-scale methods in the biocatalysis systems including several protein enzymes and ribozymes.

This book is an excellent source of information for research professionals involved in computational chemistry and physics, material science, nanotechnology, rational drug design and molecular biology and for students exposed to these research areas."

Features • Presents an accessible introduction to the topic in addition to more advanced material for specialists in the field. • Covers a broad spectrum of topics this new field. • Contains exciting case studies and examples, such as quantum dots, bionanomaterials, and future perspectives.

Recent interest in nanotechnology is challenging the community to analyse, develop and design nanometer to micrometer-sized devices for applications in new generations of computer, electronics, photonics and drug delivery systems. To successfully design and fabricate novel nanomaterials and nanosystems, we must necessarily bridge the gap in our understanding of mechanical properties and processes at length scales ranging from 100 nanometers (where atomistic simulations are currently possible) to a micron (where continuum mechanics is experimentally validated). For this purpose the difficulties and complexity originate in the substantial differences in philosophy and viewpoints between conventional continuum mechanics and quantum theories. The challenge lies in how to establish the relationship between a continuum mechanical system and its atomistic counterpart in order to define continuum variables that are calculable within an atomic system.

Initially a subfield of solid state physics, the study of mesoscopic systems has evolved over the years into a vast field of research in its own right. Keeping track its rapid progress, this book provides a broad survey of the latest developments in the field. The focus is on statistics and dynamics of mesoscopic systems with special emphasis on topics like quantum chaos, localization, noise and fluctuations, mesoscopic optics and quantum transport in nanostructures. Written with nonspecialists in mind, this book will also be useful to graduate students wishing to familiarize themselves with this field of research.

This book includes a collection of state-of-the-art reviews written by leading researchers in the areas of micromechanics, micro-scale testing, MEMS, micro-flows, nanocrystalline materials and multi-scale modelling. The structure and properties of MEMS materials, multi-scale modelling of materials (e.g., multi-grid, probabilistic, stochastic, Voronoi cells, homogenisation, micropolar) and micro-flows are discussed in great details. The book is an exceptional resource on multi-scale methods, modelling of materials, MEMS and micro-fluidics with particular emphasis on electrostatic and electrokinetic effects. Extensive bibliography concerning all these topics is included. Highlights on nanoscale effects in materials, MEMS, and the latest multi-scale methods are presented.
Numerous illustrations of micro-scale testing, materials microstructure, MEMS-related applications, electrostatic and electrokinetic phenomena are discussed.
This book provides a comprehensive review of the latest developments in micromechanics of nanostructured materials and micro-flows, as well as advanced multi-scale methods for the analysis of materials and complex flow in nanotechnology.
Material of the book is accessible to a wide range of researchers and students.

The well documented increase in the use of high performance composites as structural materials in aerospace components is continuously raising the demands in terms of dynamic performance, structural integrity, reliable life monitoring systems and adaptive actuating abilities. Current technologies address the above issues separately; material property tailoring and custom design practices aim to the enhancement of dynamic and damage tolerance characteristics, whereas life monitoring and actuation is performed with embedded sensors that may be detrimental to the structural integrity of the component. This publication explores the unique properties of carbon nanotubes (CNT) as an additive in the matrix of Fibre Reinforced Plastics (FRP), for producing structural composites with improved mechanical performance as well as sensing/actuating capabilities. The successful combination of the CNT properties and existing sensing actuating technologies leads to the realization of a multifunctional FRP structure. The current volume presents the state of the art research in this field. The contributions cover all the aspects of the novel composite systems, i.e. modeling from nano to macro scale, enhancement of structural efficiency, dispersion and manufacturing, integral health monitoring abilities, Raman monitoring, as well as the capabilities that ordered carbon nanotube arrays offer in terms of sensing and/or actuating in aerospace composites.

In recent years, with the advent of ?ne line lithographical methods, molecular beam epitaxy, organometallic vapour phase epitaxy and other experimental techniques, low dimensional structures having quantum con?nement in one, two and three dimensions (such as inversion layers, ultrathin ?lms, nipi's, quantum well superlattices, quantum wires, quantum wire superlattices, and quantum dots together with quantum con?ned structures aided by various other ?elds) have attracted much attention, not only for their potential in uncovering new phenomena in nanoscience, but also for their interesting applications in the realm of quantum e?ect devices. In ultrathin ?lms, due to the reduction of symmetry in the wave-vector space, the motion of the carriers in the direction normal to the ?lm becomes quantized leading to the quantum size e?ect. Such systems ?nd extensive applications in quantum well lasers, ?eld e?ect transistors, high speed digital networks and also in other low dimensional systems. In quantum wires, the carriers are quantized in two transverse directions and only one-dimensional motion of the carriers is allowed. The transport properties of charge carriers in quantum wires, which may be studied by utilizing the similarities with optical and microwave waveguides, are currently being investigated. Knowledge regarding these quantized structures may be gained from original research contributions in scienti?c journals, proceedings of international conferences and various - view articles.

This book treats the phenomena and techniques of advanced optics confined in nanometer-scale regions, especially near-field optics and surface as well as local plasmons. Written by internationally distinguished scientists the coverage extends from the basics to the most advanced technologies, system characteristics and methods of manipulation.

From materials science to integrated circuit development, much of modern technology is moving from the microscale toward the nanoscale. This book focuses on the fundamental physics underlying innovative techniques for analyzing surfaces and near-surfaces. New analytical techniques have emerged to meet these technological requirements, all based on a few processes that govern the interactions of particles and radiation with matter. This book addresses the fundamentals and application of these processes, from thin films to field effect transistors.

This book presents methodological and application research in detecting cellular and molecular biophysical properties based on atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanorobotics. Series methods for in situ label-free visualizing and quantifying the multiple physical properties of single cells and single molecules were developed, including immobilization strategies for observing fine structures of living cells, measurements of single-cell mechanics, force recognition of molecular interactions, and mapping protein organizations on cell surface. The biomedical applications of these methods in clinical lymphoma treatments were explored in detail, including primary sample preparation, cancer cell recognition, AFM detection and data analysis. Future directions about the biomedical applications of AFM are also given.

Interest in structures with nanometer-length features has significantly increased as experimental techniques for their fabrication have become possible. The study of phenomena in this area is termed nanoscience, and is a research focus of chemists, pure and applied physics, electrical engineers, and others. The reason for such a focus is the wide range of novel effects that exist at this scale, both of fundamental and practical interest, which often arise from the interaction between metallic nanostructures and light, and range from large electromagnetic field enhancements to extraordinary optical transmission of light through arrays of subwavelength holes. This dissertation is aimed at addressing some of the most fundamental and outstanding question in nanoscience from a theoretical computational perspective, specifically: (i) At the single nanoparticle level, how well do experimental and classical electrodynamics agree? (ii) What is the detailed relationship between optical response and nanoparticle morphology, composition, and environmental? (iii) Does an optimal nanostructure exist for generation large electromagnetic field enhancements, and is there a fundamental limit to this? (iv) Can nanostructures be used to control light, such as confining it, or causing fundamentally different scattering phenomena to interact, such as electromagnetic surface modes and diffraction effects? (v) Is it possible to calculate quantum effects using classical electrodynamics, and if so, how do they affect optical properties?

This book presents theoretical studies of electronic structure, optical and spectroscopic properties of a number of compounds such as porphyrins, fullerenes and heteroatomic single-wall nanotubes. The book presents new, faster calculation methods for application in quantum-chemical theory of electronic structures. It addresses issues of practical importance such as the development of materials for photosensitizers, organic LEDs and solar cells.

Up to 40 volumes are planned for this concise monograph series, which focuses on the implementation of various engineering principles in the conception, design, development, analysis and operation of biomedical, biotechnological and nanotechnology systems and applications. In this monograph, the authors discuss the current progress in the medical application of impedimetric biosensors, along with the key challenges in the field. First, a general overview of biosensor development, structure and function is presented, followed by a detailed discussion of impedimetric biosensors and the principles of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Next, the current state-of-the art in terms of the science and technology underpinning impedance-based biosensors is reviewed in detail. The layer-by-layer construction of impedimetric sensors is described, including the design of electrodes, their nano-modification, transducer surface functionalisation and the attachment of different bioreceptors. The current challenges of translating lab-based biosensor platforms into commercially-available devices that function with real patient samples at the POC are presented; this includes a consideration of systems integration, microfluidics and biosensor regeneration. The final section of this monograph describes case studies of successful impedance-based biosensors for the detection of a range of analytes from small molecules up to whole microorganisms. Finally, the authors put forward future perspectives for the clinical applications of impedimetric biosensors.

This book presents the perspectives of nanotechnology educators from around the world. Experts present the pressing challenges of teaching nanoscience and engineering to students in all levels of education, postsecondary and informal environments. The book was inspired by the 2014 NSF workshop for Nanoscience and Engineering Education. Since nanotechnology is a relatively new field, authors present recommendations for designing nanotechnology education programs. The chapters describe methods to teach specific topics, such as probe microscopy, size and scale, and nanomaterial safety, in classrooms around the world. Other chapters describe the ways that organizations like NNIN and the NISE Network have influenced informal nanotechnology education. Information technology plays a growing role in all types of education and several chapters are devoted to describing ways how educators can use online curricula for teaching nanotechnology to students from preschool to graduate school.

"Simulation and Verification of Electronic and Biological Systems" provides a showcase for the Circuit and Multi-Domain Simulation Workshop held in San Jose, California, USA, on November 5, 2009. The nine chapters are contributed by experts in the field and provide a broad discussion of recent developments on simulation, modeling and verification of integrated circuits and biological systems.

Specific topics include large scale parallel circuit simulation, industrial practice of fast SPICE simulation, structure-preserving model order reduction of interconnects, advanced simulation techniques for oscillator networks, dynamic stability of static memories and biological systems as well as verification of analog integrated circuits.

Simulation and verification are fundamental enablers for understanding, analyzing and designing an extremely broad range of engineering and biological circuits and systems. The design of nanometer integrated electronic systems and emerging biomedical applications have stimulated the development of novel simulation and verification techniques and methodologies. "Simulation and Verification of Electronic and Biological Systems" provides a broad discussion of recent advances on simulation, modeling and verification of integrated circuits and biological systems and offers a basis for stimulating new innovations.

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The burgeoning field of nanotechnology has led to many recent technological innovations and discoveries. Understanding the impact of these technologies on business, science, and industry is an important first step in developing applications for a variety of settings and contexts. Handbook of Research on Nanoscience, Nanotechnology, and Advanced Materials presents a detailed analysis of current experimental and theoretical approaches surrounding nanomaterials science. With applications in fields such as biomedicine, renewable energy, and synthetic materials, the research in this book will provide experimentalists, professionals, students, and academics with an in-depth understanding of nanoscience and its impact on modern technology.

Mechanochemistry as a branch of solid state chemistry enquires into processes which proceed in solids due to the application of mechanical energy. This provides a thorough, up to date overview of mechanochemistry of solids and minerals. Applications of mechanochemistry in nanoscience with special impact on nanogeoscience are described. Selected advanced identification methods, most frequently applied in nanoscience, are described as well as the advantage of mechanochemical approach in minerals engineering. Examples of industrial applications are given. Mechanochemical technology is being applied in many industrial fields: powder metallurgy (synthesis of nanometals, alloys and nanocompounds), building industry (activation of cements), chemical industry (solid waste treatment, catalyst synthesis, coal ashes utilization), minerals engineering (ore enrichment, enhancement of processes of extractive metallurgy), agriculture industry (solubility increase of fertilizers), and pharmaceutical industry (improvement of solubility and bioavailability of drugs).

This reference serves as an introduction to newcomers to mechanochemistry, and encourages more experienced researchers to broaden their knowledge and discover novel applications in the field.