A Conceptual Framework and Key Research Questions in Educational Needs of Blood and Marrow Transplantation Patients, Caregivers, and Families.

Patient, caregiver, and family education and support was 1 of 6 key areas of interest identified by the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match 2-year project to prioritize patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) goals for the blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) community. PCOR focuses on research to help patients and their caregivers make informed decisions about health care. Therefore, each area of interest was assigned to a working group with broad representation, including patients, caregivers, and clinicians. Each working group was charged with identifying gaps in knowledge and making priority recommendations for critical research to fill those gaps. The report from this working group presents a conceptual framework to address gaps in knowledge regarding patient and caregiver education in BMT and recommendations for priority research questions on this topic.

Implementation of new TPD analysis techniques in the evaluation of second order desorption kinetics of cyanogen from Cu(001).

The interactions of cyanide species with a copper (001) surface were studied with temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Adsorbed cyanide species (CN(a)) undergo recombinative desorption evolving molecular cyanogen (C(2)N(2)). As the adsorbed CN species charge upon adsorption, mutually repulsive dipolar interactions lead to a marked desorption energy reduction with increasing CN(a) coverages. Two new TPD analysis approaches were developed, which used only accurately discernible observables and which do not assume constant desorption energies, E(d), and pre-exponential values, ν. These two approaches demonstrated a linear variation of E(d) with instantaneous coverage. The first approach involved an analysis of the variations of desorption peak asymmetry with initial CN coverages. The second quantitative approach utilized only temperatures and intensities of TPD peaks, together with deduced surface coverages at the peak maxima, also as a function of initial surface coverages. Parameters derived from the latter approach were utilized as initial inputs for a comprehensive curve fit analysis technique. Excellent fits for all experimental desorption curves were produced in simulations. The curve fit analysis confirms that the activation energy of desorption of 170-180 kJ/mol at low coverage decreases by up to 14-15 kJ/mol at CN saturation.

Observation of uncorrelated microscopic motion in a strongly interacting adsorbate system.

Modeling of intermolecular forces is a central theme in the physical sciences. The prototypical heterogeneous catalysis system, CO/Pt(111), is an extensively studied example where strong pairwise repulsive forces between the CO molecules have been used to explain the observed structure and dynamics. No direct measurements of these forces were available; yet, they offered a natural way of explaining various macroscopic observations assuming a separable adsorbate-substrate interaction and pairwise adsorbate-adsorbate interactions. In the present study, we measure intermolecular forces by following CO motion on a microscopic scale. The uncorrelated dynamics we observe throughout the coverage range of the measurements excludes the existence of the strong pairwise forces previously suggested. The increase in the rate of uncorrelated motion is explained by a nonlocal modification of the adsorbate-substrate interaction, reflecting a many-body system that cannot be described by the standard separable interaction approach.

Growth mechanism of textured MgO thin films via SSCVD.

Magnesium oxide thin films have been deposited with use of single source chemical vapor deposition (SSCVD). The resultant films were examined by using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray texture analysis, and pole figure analysis. Due to the nature of the chemical reactions occurring at the surface during SSCVD growth, which result in a high growth rate/low flux environment, films of (111) orientation have been achieved without an amorphous underlayer, an unusual result for films of this orientation. Moreover the films have a strong degree of biaxial texturing in the x-y plane as found with X-ray texture analysis. These findings have important implications for buffer layers in perovskite thin film devices. The mechanism producing these structures has been revealed by using TEM and is discussed here.