Search

Introduction Community General Practitioners (CGPs) are crucial to primary healthcare worldwide. Their job satisfaction significantly impacts the quality and accessibility of healthcare. However, a comprehensive global perspective on this issue remains absent, necessitating this systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods This systematic review and meta-analysis sourced literature from PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI, and Wanfang, up to June 14, 2023. Of the 2,742 identified studies, 100 articles were selected for meta-analysis to assess satisfaction levels, and 97 studies were chosen for comparative analysis of influential factors. We employed both meta-analytic and comparative analytic methodologies, focusing on varying geographical, economic, and temporal contexts. Results The pooled rate and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) for job satisfaction among CGPs was 70.82% (95%CI: 66.62-75.02%) globally. Studies utilizing 5-point score scale obtained a random effect size of 3.52 (95%CI: 3.43–3.61). Diverse factors influenced satisfaction, with remuneration and working conditions being predominant. A noticeable decline in job satisfaction has been observed since the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak, with satisfaction rates dropping from an average of 72.39% before 2009 to 63.09% in those published after 2020. Conclusions The downward trend in CGPs’ job satisfaction is concerning and warrants urgent attention from policymakers, especially in regions with an acute shortage of CGPs. The findings from this comprehensive review and meta-analysis provide essential insights for informed healthcare policy-making. It highlights the urgency of implementing strategies to enhance CGP satisfaction, thereby improving the effectiveness of primary healthcare systems globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Wuhan is the city where coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported and developed into a pandemic. However, the impact of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic on medical staff burnout remains limited. We aimed to identify the prevalence and major determinants of burnout among medical staff 1 year after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China. Materials and Methods: A total of 1,602 medical staff from three hospitals in Wuhan, China, were included from November 1-28, 2021. Chi-square tests were conducted to compare the prevalence of burnout across groups based on sociodemographic and professional characteristics. A multivariate analysis was performed using a forward stepwise logistic regression model. Results: Approximately 37.39% of the medical staff experienced burnout 1 year after COVID-19 pandemic. Emotional exhaustion (EE) was the most common symptom of burnout, with 1,422 (88.76%) participants reporting a severe EE. Burnout was associated with insufficient social support and "neutral" or "dissatisfied" patientphysician relationships. Respondents who participated in the care of COVID-19 patients had a higher risk of burnout symptoms than those who did not participate. In particular, mental resilience was negatively associated with burnout among the medical staff. Conclusion: Nearly two-fifths of the participants had symptoms of burnout, with reduced personal accomplishment being the predominant symptom 1 year after COVID-19. Healthcare organizations should regularly measure and monitor burnout among the medical staff. In addition, creating positive work environments and improving the mental resilience of medical staff may be effective ways to reduce burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in single-cell sequencing provide a unique opportunity to gain novel insights into the diversity, lineage, and functions of cell types constituting a tissue/organ. Here, we performed a single-nucleus study of the adult Drosophila renal system, consisting of Malpighian tubules and nephrocytes, which shares similarities with the mammalian kidney. We identified 11 distinct clusters representing renal stem cells, stellate cells, regionally specific principal cells, garland nephrocyte cells, and pericardial nephrocytes. Characterization of the transcription factors specific to each cluster identified fruitless (fru) as playing a role in stem cell regeneration and Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 (Hnf4) in regulating glycogen and triglyceride metabolism. In addition, we identified a number of genes, including Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factor at 64C (RhoGEF64c), Frequenin 2 (Frq2), Prip, and CG1093 that are involved in regulating the unusual star shape of stellate cells. Importantly, the single-nucleus dataset allows visualization of the expression at the organ level of genes involved in ion transport and junctional permeability, providing a systems-level view of the organization and physiological roles of the tubules. Finally, a cross-species analysis allowed us to match the fly kidney cell types to mouse kidney cell types and planarian protonephridia, knowledge that will help the generation of kidney disease models. Altogether, our study provides a comprehensive resource for studying the fly kidney. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of anxiety among university teachers 1 year after the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and provide empirical evidence of psychological intervention. Methods: A multicenter study was conducted to examine the prevalence of anxiety among 10,302 teachers in 21 Chinese universities from February 12 to April 23, 2021. The generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Scale (GAD-7) was used to assess symptoms of anxiety. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to analyze the relationship between potential influence and anxiety symptoms. Results: The overall prevalence of anxiety was 40.0% 1 year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was found to be higher in women than in men (41.32% vs. 38.22%; p < 0.0001). The multivariate logistic regression showed that being the female (OR = 1.207; 95%CI: 1.103-1.318), age ≥60 years (OR = 2.004; 95%CI: 1.128-3.560), being married (OR = 1.319; 95%CI: 1.150-1.513), and poor family economic status (OR = 1.580; 95%CI: 1.321-1.891) were significantly associated with anxiety. Participants with moderate, slight, or no impact of COVID-19 on life (OR for moderate, 0.557; 95%CI, 0.508-0.611; OR for slight/no, 0.377; 95%CI, 0.323-0.439) showed a reduced risk of anxiety compared to those who reported a significant effect. Conclusions: Symptoms of anxiety were found in about two-fifths of Chinese university teachers 1 year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that the government should improve the dynamic tracking of mental health and adopt long-term intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the adult Drosophila midgut have led to many insights in our understanding of cell-type diversity, stem cell regeneration, tissue homeostasis, and cell fate decision. Advances in single-cell RNA sequencing provide opportunities to identify new cell types and molecular features. We used single-cell RNA sequencing to characterize the transcriptome of midgut epithelial cells and identified 22 distinct clusters representing intestinal stem cells, enteroblasts, enteroendocrine cells (EEs), and enterocytes. This unbiased approach recovered most of the known intestinal stem cells/enteroblast and EE markers, highlighting the high quality of the dataset, and led to insights on intestinal stem cell biology, cell type-specific organelle features, the roles of new transcription factors in progenitors and regional variation along the gut, 5 additional EE gut hormones, EE hormonal expression diversity, and paracrine function of EEs. To facilitate mining of this rich dataset, we provide a web-based resource for visualization of gene expression in single cells. Altogether, our study provides a comprehensive resource for addressing functions of genes in the midgut epithelium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrohydrodynamic direct-writing (EDW) is a developing technology for high-resolution printing. How to decrease the line width and improve the deposition accuracy of direct-written patterns has been the key to the promotion for the further application of EDW. In this paper, an airflow-assisted spinneret for electrohydrodynamic direct-writing was designed. An assisted laminar airflow was introduced to the EDW process, which provided an additional stretching and constraining force on the jet to reduce the surrounding interferences and enhance jet stability. The flow field and the electric field around the spinneret were simulated to direct the structure design of the airflow-assisted spinneret. Then, a series of experiments were conducted, and the results verified the spinneret design and demonstrated a stable ejection of jet in the EDW process. With assisted airflow, the uniformity of printed patterns and the deposition position accuracy of a charged jet can be improved. Complex patterns with positioning errors of less than 5% have been printed and characterized, which provide an effective way to promote the integration of micro/nanosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast and precise direct-printing of micro three-dimensional (3D) structures is the important development trend for micro/nano fabrication technique. A novel method with probe arrays was built up to realize the controllable deposition of 3D electrospun nanofibrous structures. Firstly, several 3D nanofibrous structures were built on a single probe and 2-, 3-probes, which indicated that the probe height and probe interval played a key role on the 3D structure morphology. Then, different stereo nanofibrous structures based on multiprobe arrays were achieved accurately and the effects of processing parameters, including the probe height, probe interval, applied voltage and flow rate on the deposition behaviors of electrospun nanofiber over the probe arrays were investigated. The deposition area of 3D electrospun nanofibrous structures decreased with the increase of probe interval, applied voltage, and flow rate. Several 3D nanofibrous structures of special shapes including convex, triangle wave, inverted cone and complex curved surface were demonstrated by controlling the configuration of probe arrays and electrospinning parameters. This work provides an effective and simple way for the construction of 3D electrospun nanofibrous structures, which has great potentials in various medical and industrial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytical mechanics methods play an important role in determining the energy function and Hamilton realization of a system. In this paper, the Hamilton function of the system is obtained directly from the system differential equation by means of analytical mechanics. In addition, the system Hamiltonization process requires that the system must be even order, and the commonly used generator model is a single-axis third-order model. For this reason, the odd-order power system model is extended to an even-order system. The Hamilton function of the system is deduced with coordinate transformation and the generalized force. Then the standard form of Hamilton realization for the multimachine power system is given. Based on the basic principle of nonconservative analytical mechanics and the state feedback control law of the power system, the stability control law of the multimachine power system is designed, which makes the system become asymptotically stable in the neighborhood of the equilibrium point. The control of the IEEE 14 is simulated with MATLAB utilizing the proposed controller. The control effect of the controller under the three-phase short-circuit fault is subsequently studied in the simulation, wherein the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hi-C method is widely used to study the functional roles of the three-dimensional (3D) architecture of genomes. Here, we integrate Hi-C, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and RNA-seq to study the 3D genome architecture of multiple myeloma (MM) and how it associates with genomic variation and gene expression. Our results show that Hi-C interaction matrices are biased by copy number variations (CNVs) and can be used to detect CNVs. Also, combining Hi-C and WGS data can improve the detection of translocations. We find that CNV breakpoints significantly overlap with topologically associating domain (TAD) boundaries. Compared to normal B cells, the numbers of TADs increases by 25% in MM, the average size of TADs is smaller, and about 20% of genomic regions switch their chromatin A/B compartment types. In summary, we report a 3D genome interaction map of aneuploid MM cells and reveal the relationship among CNVs, translocations, 3D genome reorganization, and gene expression regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laminar sheath gas is introduced to increase the stability of Electrohydrodynamic Direct-Writing (EDW). The external stretching force from sheath gas promotes the ejection threshold, the diameter of jet and printed fibers as well. The critical voltage decreases with the increase of sheath gas pressure. The stretching force from sheath gas decreases the diameter of printed fiber as well as that of charged jet. As sheath gas pressure increases from 0 to 25 kPa, the average diameter of micro/nano structure reduces from 4.46 μm to 845.25 nm. The laminar field flow of sheath gas shelters the charged jet free from the surrounding interferences, and helps charged jet to move in a straight line. With the help of sheath gas, the stability of charged jet can be improved to direct-write precise complex micro-pattern. The position precision of direct-written pattern is less than 5 μm. As a novel method, EDW with laminar sheath gas would promote the deposition precision of printed micro/nano structure and its application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uniform deposition of nanofibers in the massive electrospinning process is critical in the industrial applications of nanofibers. Tip-Induced Electrospinning (TIE) is a cost-effective large-scale nanofiber-manufacturing method, but it has poor deposition uniformity. An auxiliary conductive electrode connected to the emitting electrode was introduced to improve the deposition uniformity of the nanofibers. The effects of the auxiliary electrode shape, the tilted angles and the position of the boat-like electrode on the electric field distribution, the diameter of the nanofibers, the jet control and the deposition uniformity were explored by using finite element analysis of the electric field and experiments. Experiments showed that the boat-like electrode at 20 mm above the reservoir bottom with a 5˝ tilted angle helped to decrease the relative deposition error of nanofibers in the greatest extent to about 5.66%, indicating such an auxiliary electrode is a good candidate method to greatly improve the deposition uniformity of nanofibers in massive electrospinning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the electrospray technology is used to easily deposit the glass frit into patterns at a micro-scale level. First, far-field electrospray process was carried out with a mixture of glass frit in the presence of ethanol. A uniform, smooth, and dense glass frit film was obtained, verifying that the electrospray technology was feasible. Then, the distance between the nozzle and the substrate was reduced to 2 mm to carry out near-field electrospray. The experimental process was improved by setting the range of the feed rate of the substrate to match both the concentration and the flow rate of the solution. Spray diameter could be less at the voltage of 2 kV, in which the glass frit film was expected to reach the minimum line width. A uniform glass frit film with a line width within the range of 400-500 µm was prepared when the speed of the substrate was 25 mm/s. It indicates that electrospray is an efficient technique for the patterned deposition of glass frit in wafer-level hermetic encapsulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel structure of the resonant pressure sensor is presented in this paper, which tactfully employs intercoupling between dual pressure-sensing diaphragms and a laterally driven resonant strain gauge. After the resonant pressure sensor principle is introduced, the coupling mechanism of the diaphragms and resonator is analyzed and the frequency equation of the resonator based on the triangle geometry theory is developed for this new coupling structure. The finite element (FE) simulation results match the theoretical analysis over the full scale of the device. This pressure sensor was first fabricated by dry/wet etching and thermal silicon bonding, followed by vacuum-packaging using anodic bonding technology. The test maximum error of the fabricated sensor is 0.0310%F.S. (full scale) in the range of 30 to 190 kPa, its pressure sensitivity is negative and exceeding 8 Hz/kPa, and its Q-factor reaches 20,000 after wafer vacuum-packaging. A novel resonant pressure sensor with high accuracy is presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The distinction between metastatic breast carcinomas (BCs) and primary lung carcinomas (PLCs) can be difficult. This study tested the utility of trefoil factor 1 (TFF1) for this purpose and compared it with mammaglobin and GATA protein binding 3 (GATA-3). Methods: Tissue microarrays containing 365 BCs and 338 PLCs were stained with TFF1, mammaglobin, and GATA-3, and an H-score was calculated. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were calculated, and logistical regression analysis was performed. Results: Accuracy of correctly classifying the tumor type was 81.9%, 71.3%, and 64.0% for GATA-3, mammaglobin, and TFF1, respectively. Odds ratios for selecting BCs were 25.69, 93.15, and 4.17, respectively, with P values less than .001. With a single exception, the best immunopanel included GATA-3 and mammaglobin in all comparisons. Conclusions: TFF1 demonstrated breast specificity but was inferior to mammaglobin and GATA-3. Therefore, its routine clinical use may not be justified. TFF1 showed little benefit when added to an immunopanel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents our research towards developing novel and fundamental methodologies for data representation using spike-timing-dependent encoding. Time encoding efficiently maps a signal's amplitude information into a spike time sequence that represents the input data and offers perfect recovery for band-limited stimuli. In this article, we pattern the neural activities across multiple timescales and encode the sensory information using time-dependent temporal scales. The spike encodingmethodologies for autonomous classification of time-series signatures are explored using near-chaotic reservoir computing. The proposed spiking neuron is compact, low power, and robust. A hardware implementation of these results is expected to produce an agile hardware implementation of time encoding as a signal conditioner for dynamical neural processor designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In plastic surgery, skin damage induced by ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) is a multifactorial process that often occurs. Methane gas has been reported to be a new therapeutic gas for attenuating I/R injury. In this study, we assessed the effects of methane-rich saline (MRS) in regulating apoptosis on skin flap I/R injury. Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats, 6-8 weeks old, were divided randomly into three groups: one sham surgery group (SH) and two surgery groups. After undergoing 6 h of I/R management of an abdominal skin flap, surgery groups were treated with physiological saline (I/R-P) or methane-rich saline (I/R-M). On the 3rd postoperative day, a laser Doppler flowmeter was used to measure flap blood supply, and hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was used to observe morphological changes. TdT-mediated dUTP-X nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining was also used to observe early apoptosis and is presented as the percentage of TUNEL-positive cells. Moreover, pASK-1, pJNK, Bcl-2 and Bax were detected by immunohistochemical technology. Caspase-3 activity was also measured to evaluate the effects of MRS. Results: Compared to the I/R-P group, the flaps in the I/R-M group presented a larger survival area and better blood perfusion with less inflammatory infiltration and cell apoptosis, a higher expression of Bcl-2, a lower expression of pASK-1, pJNK and Bax, and a lower caspase-3 activity. Conclusion: According to the results, MRS attenuated I/R injury by regulating apoptosis and has the potential to be applied as a new therapy for improving skin flap survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To demonstrate and confirm the existence of cyclin D1-positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with IGH-CCND1 rearrangement and discuss the rationale of differentiating this entity from blastoid and pleomorphic variants of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). Methods: Two cyclin D1-positive lymphomas with morphologic features of DLBCL and IGH-CCND1 translocations were characterized with respect to clinical features, as well as morphologic, immunophenotypic, cytogenetic, and molecular findings. Results: The large tumor cells were CD20+, CD5-, CD10-, BCL6+, MUM1+, and cyclin D1+ in both cases. SOX11 was negative. Epstein-Barr virus-encoded RNA in situ hybridization demonstrated diffuse positivity in case 1. BCL6 and IGH-CCND1 rearrangements were identified by fluorescence in situ hybridization in both cases. Specifically, the diagnosis of a relapsed DLBCL with acquisition of IGH-CCND1 was rendered for case 1, molecularly confirmed by the detection of identical monoclonal IGH rearrangements between the initial diagnostic DLBCL and relapse lymphoma. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates convincingly that IGH-CCND1 rearrangement leading to cyclin D1 overexpression can occur in DLBCL and pose a potential diagnostic pitfall, requiring thorough knowledge of the clinicopathologic findings to allow accurate discrimination from a blastoid or pleomorphic MCL. The coexistence of IGH-CCND1 and IGH-BCL6 rearrangements suggest that BCL6 and cyclin D1 may cooperate in the pathogenesis of DLBCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play essential roles in gene expression regulation through their interactions with RNA transcripts, including coding, canonical non-coding and long non-coding RNAs. Large amounts of crosslinking immunoprecipitation (CLIP)-seq data (including HITS-CLIP, PAR-CLIP, and iCLIP) have been recently produced to reveal transcriptome-wide binding sites of RBPs at the single-nucleotide level. Description: Here, we constructed a database, CLIPdb, to describe RBP-RNA interactions based on 395 publicly available CLIP-seq data sets for 111 RBPs from four organisms: human, mouse, worm and yeast. We consistently annotated the CLIP-seq data sets and RBPs, and developed a user-friendly interface for rapid navigation of the CLIP-seq data. We applied a unified computational method to identify transcriptome-wide binding sites, making the binding sites directly comparable and the data available for integration across different CLIP-seq studies. The high-resolution binding sites of the RBPs can be visualized on the whole-genome scale using a browser. In addition, users can browse and download the identified binding sites of all profiled RBPs by querying genes of interest, including both protein coding genes and non-coding RNAs. Conclusion: Manually curated metadata and uniformly identified binding sites of publicly available CLIP-seq data sets will be a foundation for further integrative and comparative analyses. With maintained up-to-date data sets and improved functionality, CLIPdb (http://clipdb.ncrnalab.org) will be a valuable resource for improving the understanding of post-transcriptional regulatory networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security risk assessment difficulties brought about by uncertainties can be solved by probabilistic power flow. A security risk assessment scheme of the power system using fast probabilistic power flow is proposed in this paper. The scheme applied probabilistic power flow on fast decoupled power flow model, considering multi-scenario of wind power and static characteristics of power systems, gaining the probabilistic distribution information of each desired variable by improved Von Mises method based on cumulants. Besides voltages and branch flows, the scheme can also obtain the distribution of frequency to assess the power system completely, which is not concerned in conventional probabilistic power flow calculation. The proposed algorithm was realized by programming based on Matpower 4.0. The examples executed on IEEE RTS-24 system demonstrate the rapidity, validity, and prospect for online application of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Triple-negative breast cancer comprises a clinically aggressive group of invasive carcinomas. We examined a published gene expression screen of a panel of breast cancer cell lines to identify a potential triple-negative breast cancer-specific gene signature, and attempted to verify our findings by performing immunohistochemical analysis on tissue microarrays containing a large cohort of invasive breast carcinomas. Methods The microarray dataset for a panel of human breast cancer cell lines was interrogated for triplenegative breast cancer-specific genes. Membranous immunohistochemical expression of the protein product of the AXL gene was assessed semiquantitatively in 569 invasive breast carcinomas grouped according to molecular subgroup by immunohistochemistry. Results AXL was significantly upregulated in triplenegative/ basal B cell lines compared with luminal or basal A cell lines. No significant difference was observed in the level of immunohistochemical expression of Axl protein between triple-negative breast cancers and other molecular subgroups (p=0.257). Axl expression was significantly associated with lymphovascular invasion (LVI) in all subgroups combined (p=0.033), and within the luminal A (p=0.002) and triple-negative breast cancer subgroups (p=0.026). Conclusions Despite preferential upregulation of AXL in triple-negative/basal B cell lines, analysis of Axl protein expression in a large series of patients' breast tumours revealed no association between Axl expression and triple-negative breast cancer or other subtype. The association of Axl expression with LVI supports previous work that implicates Axl as a promoter of invasiveness in breast cancer cell lines. Further studies are necessary to explore whether Axl expression of individual breast cancer tumours can be clinically useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cadherin 17 (CDH17) is a cell adhesion molecule expressed in intestinal epithelium and transcriptionally regulated by CDX2. We compared the usefulness of CDH17 as an immunohistochemical intestinal marker to that of CDX2 in gastrointestinal and extragastrointestinal carcinomas and nonneoplastic tissues. Nonneoplastic intestinal and pancreatic duct epithelia were CDH17-positive. Most esophageal (79%), gastric (86%), and colonic (99%) adenocarcinomas were CDH17-positive/CDX2-positive, whereas 1% of colonic, 18% of esophageal, and 10% of gastric adenocarcinomas were CDH17-negative/ CDX2-negative. Rare colonic, esophageal, and gastric adenocarcinomas were CDH17-positive/CDX2-negative (1%, 3%, and 4%, respectively), and none were CDH17-negative/CDX2-positive. Diffuse CDH17 was also observed in all metastatic colon carcinomas, 20% of which were only focally CDX2-positive. Of intestinal low-grade neuroendocrine tumors, 74% coexpressed CDX2 and CDH17. CDH17 was also positive in 12% of pancreatic and 24% of bronchial neuroendocrine tumors, all of which were CDX2-negative. Pancreatic adenocarcinomas and cholangiocarcinomas were more frequently CDH17-positive than CDX2-positive (50% vs 27%, 53% vs 27%). One (2%) hepatocellular carcinoma was CDH17-positive/CDX2-negative. Nine percent of non-small cell lung cancers and 7% of endometrial carcinomas were CDH17-positive, whereas 3% of lung, 5% of endometrial, 3% of ovarian, and 2% of breast carcinomas were CDX2-positive. Thus, CDH17 is slightly more sensitive than CDX2 when detecting gastrointestinal adenocarcinomas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possibility of making coatings with super friction-reducing and wear protection properties by using both sol-gel and self-assembling techniques. The thin film of TiO was firstly prepared on glass substrates via a sol-gel method, followed by sintering at 480°C. The self-assembled monolayer of Fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) were then prepared on TiO thin film to obtain TiO-FAS dual-layer film. The contact angle measurement and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to determine the wetting behavior and chemical structure of films, respectively. The friction behavior of films sliding against a steel ball was examined on a macro friction and wear tester. It is shown that FAS is strongly adsorbed on sol-gel derived TiO thin film, making it strongly hydrophobic. Good friction-reducing and wear protection behavior is observed for the glass substrate after duplex surface-modification with sol-gel TiO and top layer of FAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gate sizing and threshold voltage (Vt) assignment are popular techniques for circuit timing and power optimization. Existing methods, by and large, are either sensitivity-driven heuristics or based on discretizing continuous optimization solutions. Sensitivity-driven heuristics are easily trapped in local optima and the discretization may be subject to remarkable errors. In this paper, we propose a systematic combinatorial approach for simultaneous gate sizing and Vt assignment. The core idea of this approach is joint relaxation and restriction, which employs consistency relaxation and coupled bi-directional solution search. The process of joint relaxation and restriction is conducted iteratively to systematically improve solutions. Our algorithm is compared with a state-of-the-art previous work on benchmark circuits. The results from our algorithm can lead to about 22% less power dissipation subject to the same timing constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the microprocessor industry is headed in the direction of multicore designs in order to continue the chip performance growth. We investigate buffer insertion, which is a critical timing optimization technique, in the context of an industrial multicore processor design methodology. Different from the conventional formulation, buffer insertion in this case requires a single solution to accommodate different scenarios, since each core has its own parameters. If conventional buffer insertion is performed for each scenario separately, there may be a different solution corresponding to each of these scenarios. A straightforward approach is to judiciously select a solution from one scenario and apply it to all the scenarios. However, a good solution for one scenario may be a poor one for another. We propose several algorithmic techniques for solving these multiscenario buffer insertion problems. Compared with a straightforward extension of the conventional buffer insertion, our algorithm can improve slack by 20-280 ps for max-slack solutions. For min-cost solutions, our algorithm causes no timing violation, while the extended conventional buffering results in 35% timing violations. Moreover, the computation speed of our algorithm is faster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization classification of lung tumors recognizes 4 histologic subtypes of pulmonary neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs), which include typical carcinoids (TCs), atypical carcinoids (ACs), small cell carcinomas (SCCs), and large cell NECs (LCNECs). These tumors can be misclassified owing to morphologic parallels, indicating the necessity for adjunctive tests for correct classification. We evaluated immunohistochemical expression of PAX-5 in histologic and fine-needle aspiration (FNA) specimens of pulmonary NECs. Staining was stratified by intensity (0 to 3+) and percentage of cells stained as focal (<10%) or diffuse (=10%). PAX-5 expression was present in 29/37 (78%) of high-grade NECs (22/26 SCCs, 1/2 LCNECs, and 6/9 combined tumors) and none of 51 TCs and ACs; FNA specimens showed concordant staining. This study confirmed that PAX-5 is a useful marker in FNA and surgical specimens for the discrimination of low- to intermediate-grade NECs from high-grade NECs with 100% specificity and 79% sensitivity in surgical specimens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]