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This paper proposes a driver integrated circuit (IC) for a GaN-based synchronous buck converter to minimized the dead-time loss of GaN devices and improve converter efficiency. The proposed adaptive control achieves minimized dead-time for any loading condition. A driver IC is fabricated in a 0.18 lm BCD process to verify the concept. The measurement result achieves only 0.7 ns and 0.8 ns dead-time at the minimum and maximum load condition, respectively. The efficiency improves 2.1% at 2 A full load compared to the fixed dead-time control counterpart.

Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek), an important legume crop in Asia, is primarily cultivated in the central-southern region of western Taiwan. In 2020, mungbean exhibiting typical phytoplasma-induced disease symptoms such as witches’ broom, phyllody, virescence, and proliferation was observed in Yunlin County, Taiwan. Moreover, the seed harvested from diseased plants displayed premature germination. Transmission electron microscopy examination of leaf veins prepared from symptomatic mungbean demonstrated that the occlusion of sieve tubes resulted from the accumulation of phytoplasma-like bodies in sieve elements along with filament-like structures in sieve pores. The association of phytoplasma in symptomatic mungbean was confirmed by PCR analyses of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and immunodominant membrane protein genes. Further analyses of the 16S rRNA-based phylogenetic tree and the iPhyClassifier-based virtual restriction fragment length polymorphism study demonstrated that the phytoplasma-associated mungbean phyllody disease identified in this study belongs to the 16SrII-V subgroup. BLAST analysis and the phylogenetic analysis indicated that the SAP11-like protein identified in mungbean phyllody disease is identical to peanut witches’ broom phytoplasma SAP11, which explains the witches’ broom phenotype observed in symptomatic mungbean. The results described in this report confirm that the 16SrII-V phytoplasma, a widely distributed phytoplasma associated with peanut witches’ broom disease in Taiwan, has also infected mungbean. This is not only the first instance of mungbean phyllody disease found in Taiwan but also the first instance of mungbean phyllody disease caused by 16SrII-V subgroup phytoplasma.

Sparse code multiple access (SCMA) has become a highly competitive technology for future cellular systems. For the receiver of the SCMA system, besides the traditional maximum likelihood and message passing algorithm solutions, a deep neural network (DNN) method that causes whirlwinds in image recognition can reduce the computational complexity of the decoder. We expect low complexity while maintaining a satisfactory bit error rate (BER) performance. As shown in our simulations, our proposed solution has better BER performance and lower computational complexity than other previously studied DNN solutions.

Visual perceptual dysfunctions were common in children with developmental delays, and have severe adverse impacts on children’s daily activities. Recent studies have shown that technologies such as virtual reality and imaging can provide a motivating and engaging tool for remediating visual perceptual dysfunctions. This study was aimed to present the work we were conducting in experimenting with augmented reality (AR) for visual perceptual rehabilitation in children with developmental delay. Sixty participants (mean age = 7.96 ± 1.4) were equally divided into an experimental group trained with proposed KBTS (KBTS group) and a control group trained using traditional visual perceptual training (TVPT group). Each group completed an 8-week training program (two 30-minute sessions per week). Visual perceptual assessments (Test of Visual Perceptual Skill- 3rd Edition, Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration- 6th Edition) and functional outcome measures (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale- Chinese Version, School Function Assessment- Chinese Version) were administered to investigate the effectiveness of the intervention. The KBTS group significantly outperformed the TVPT group in assessments of visual-motor integration, visual perceptual skills, and school functions. The effectiveness of the KBTS was supported by robust effect sizes for the pre- and post-intervention comparisons of visual perceptual and visual motor integrative functions between the KBTS group and the TVPT group. This study suggests that KBTS effectively improves visual-motor integration and overall visual perceptual functions in children with developmental delays. This study has discussed the ideas for incorporating several principles of game scenarios for visual perceptual rehabilitation, and the proposed KBTS still have raised a number of issues requiring further work. Enabling users to perform visual motor integrative tasks in an augmented reality world offers the potential for developing advanced visual perceptual skills which may be more easily transferable to activities of daily living than other techniques. Augmented reality has the potential to achieve entertaining and satisfying outcomes for visual perceptual rehabilitation, and making use of the potential applications of AR technologies should be considered more beneficial for the home-based rehabilitation during the current pandemic situations. Other clinical applications are discussed as well.

In this paper, we focus on near-optimal designs for variable-length error-correcting (VLEC) codes, while considering the performance in terms of both the average codeword length (ACL) and the symbol-error rate (SER). The criteria for narrowing the search space and enhancing the SER performance are investigated. An efficient code construction algorithm is then devised based on a random search process. Taking advantage of the significantly reduced search complexity, we are able to construct near-optimal VLEC codes for large source alphabets. Numerical results obtained for various free distance values and alphabet sizes show that constructed VLEC codes have both reduced ACL values and enhanced SER performances. Performance improvement is more notable for large source alphabets.

Myasthenia gravis (MG), an acquired autoimmune-related neuromuscular disorder that causes muscle weakness, presents with varying severity, including myasthenic crisis (MC). Although MC can cause significant morbidity and mortality, specialized neuro-intensive care can produce a good long-term prognosis. Considering the outcomes of MG during hospitalization, it is critical to conduct risk assessments to predict the need for intensive care. Evidence and valid tools for the screening of critical patients with MG are lacking. We used three machine learning-based decision tree algorithms, including a classification and regression tree, C4.5, and C5.0, for predicting intensive care unit (ICU) admission of patients with MG. We included 228 MG patients admitted between 2015 and 2018. Among them, 88.2% were anti-acetylcholine receptors antibody positive and 4.7% were anti-muscle-specific kinase antibody positive. Twenty clinical variables were used as predictive variables. The C5.0 decision tree outperformed the other two decision tree and logistic regression models. The decision rules constructed by the best C5.0 model showed that the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America clinical classification at admission, thymoma history, azathioprine treatment history, disease duration, sex, and onset age were significant risk factors for the development of decision rules for ICU admission prediction. The developed machine learning-based decision tree can be a supportive tool for alerting clinicians regarding patients with MG who require intensive care, thereby improving the quality of care.

Commercially available novel cultivars of poinsettia, obtained through interspecific hybridization, were subject to colchicine-based mutagenesis to recover their fertility, enabling subsequent breeding. Mutagenic treatment was conducted at different concentrations of colchicine with either lanolin or cotton serving as the matrix. The results indicated that 1 day was the optimal duration of colchicine treatment and that suitable colchicine concentration varied by cultivar. Moreover, one-time treatment gave higher rates of both polyploidy and morphological mutant production than two-times treatment. Specifically, the poinsettia cultivars Dulce Rosa (5 mg·g−1 colchicine with lanolin; 10 mg·mL−1 colchicine with cotton) and Princettia-Hot Pink (15 mg·g−1 colchicine with lanolin; 10 mg·mL−1 colchicine with cotton) yielded relatively high polyploidy production efficiency and morphological mutation rate. Consequently, a total of three polyploidy mutants of ‘Dulce Rosa’ and 19 polyploidy mutants of ‘Princettia-Hot Pink’ were obtained. Both cultivars had mutants with recovered fertility, with pollen germination rate of up to 27.5%. Moreover, unexpected non-polyploidy mutants with various morphological trait variations were also obtained.

Background Haworthia are desert succulents belonging to the Asphodelaceae family. Haworthia species are cultivated commercially as ornamentals and some rare species are quite valuable at retail market but growth slowly and difficult to propagation. However, an efficient micropropagation protocol was remained insufficient. Results The organogenic cultures obtained from inflorescence explants were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with various combinations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BA) and α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) under a light intensity of 10 μmol m−2 s−1 or 45 μmol m−2 s−1. The highest callus proliferation index (93.15%) with 1.0 mg L−1 BA + 0.1 mg L−1 NAA under a light intensity of 10 μmol m−2 s−1. The best shoot proliferation rates were on media with either 1 mg L−1 BA + 0–0.4 mg L−1 NAA (65.57–81.01%) under a light intensity of 45 μmol m−2 s−1. The highest root length (15.57 mm) and the highest rooting frequency (17 roots per shoot) were obtained when adventitious shoots were inoculated on MS medium with 0.4 mg L−1 NAA + 0.4 mg L−1 IBA. The survival rate of the transplanted plantlets was about 100%. The efficient micropropagation protocol proliferated Haworthia regenerate plants from inflorescence within 11 weeks. Conclusions The present study determined the best combination of light intensity and plant growth regulators (PGRs) for improved organogenesis of Haworthia during propagation by tissue culture. This optimized protocol showed light intensity is an important factor for efficient callus or shoot regeneration. These results indicate that it will be useful to optimize the light conditions for future commercial cultivation, germplasm conservation, genetic engineering and molecular biology research of this ornamental plant.

A novel family of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-incorporated Se–Fe–Cu compounds, bis-1,3-dimethylimidazol-2-ylidene (bis-Me2-imy)-containing compound [(μ4-Se)Fe3(CO)9{Cu(Me2-imy)}2] (2), bis-N-methyl- or bis-N-isopropyl-substituted benzimidazol-2-ylidene (bis-Me2-bimy or bis-iPr2-bimy)-incorporated compounds [(μ4-Se)Fe3(CO)9{Cu(Me2-bimy)}2] (3) or [(μ4-Se)Fe3(CO)9{Cu(iPr2-bimy)}2] (4), and a bis-1,3-dimethyl-4,5-dichloroimidazol-2-ylidene (bis-Me2-Cl2-imy)-containing compound [(μ3-Se)Fe3(CO)9{Cu(Me2-Cl2-imy)}2] (5), were synthesized in moderate yields in facile one-pot reactions of the ternary pre-designed compound [(μ3-Se)Fe3(CO)9{Cu(MeCN)}2] (1) with the corresponding imidazolium salts and KOtBu in THF in an ice-water bath. Single-crystal X-ray analyses revealed that the Me2-imy compound 2 or the Me2-bimy compound 3 each exhibited a trigonal bipyramidal SeFe3(CO)9Cu geometry with an Fe2Cu plane further capped by a Cu(Me2-imy) or Cu(Me2-bimy) fragment, respectively, with one long Cu–Cu covalent bond. In addition, compound 4 also comprised a trigonal bipyramidal SeFe3(CO)9Cu core structure, but the second Cu(iPr2-bimy) group bridged the equatorial Fe–Fe edge with two unbonded Cu atoms, due to the presence of a sterically bulky iPr2-bimy fragment. On the other hand, the strong electron-withdrawing chloro-containing NHC compound 5 showed a comparatively open tetrahedral SeFe3(CO)9 metal core, where two Fe–Fe edges each were further bridged by a Cu(Me2-Cl2-imy) fragment. Due to the nonclassical C–H⋯O(carbonyl) hydrogen bonds between the CO groups of the SeFe3(CO)9Cu2 core and CH moieties of the neighboring NHC ligands, both compounds 2 and 3 comprised a one-dimensional network, while compounds 4 and 5 each were made up of a two-dimensional framework in the solid state, which efficiently enhanced the stability of these Se–Fe–Cu NHC compounds. Importantly, all of these synthesized Se–Fe–Cu NHC compounds 2–5 had pronounced catalytic activities for the homocoupling of arylboronic acids with high catalytic yields. Finally, these Se-containing Fe–Cu NHC compounds further represented excellent models for studying chalcogen effects in comparison to their Te analogs, as demonstrated by their catalytic performances and electrochemical behaviors, and by DFT calculations.

This paper presents a non-orthogonal multiplexing scheme using the concept of rateless coding for a downlink broadcast scheme with two users. The proposed approach does not require the inclusion of successive interference cancellation (SIC) techniques for signal detection when compared to the power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (PD-NOMA) schemes. In various user pair scenarios, it is shown that the proposed scheme not only enhances the user transmission rate but also reduces the overhead required for reliable transmissions when compared to PD-NOMA-based schemes. To further enhance the error performance when considering both unconstrained and constrained inputs, a code design algorithm is proposed based on the transmission rate analysis. It is shown that the designed rateless multiplexing schemes achieve error performances that accurately approach the predicted performance limits.

Nutritional status is a predictor of mortality and morbidity in dialysis patients. This study aimed to assess dietary behaviors in dialysis patients compared to the recommendations of the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative. Ninety five dialysis patients recruited from a hospital completed a 24-hour dietary recall questionnaire. Body weight, energy requirements, protein requirements, albumin, normalized protein catabolic rate, and 25(OH) vitamin D levels were measured. Of the 95 patients, 11 (11.6%) were below the desirable body mass index range, 59 (62.1%) were within the desired range, and 25 (26.3%) were above the desired range. However, only 32.7% of patients met the target energy intake, 29.5% reached the protein intake target, and 20.0% had adequate vitamin D concentrations. Vegetarian patients had lower energy, protein, fat, vitamin D intake, lower body mass index, serum blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, phosphate, normalized protein catabolic rate, and vitamin D status than the omnivorous patients (P

In this paper, based on the technique of LDPC (low-density parity-check)-like sparse graphs for the Polar codes, we propose a Polar decoding method which provides the schedule diversity. The investigated decoding schedules outperforms Arikan’s belief propagation (BP) algorithm performed on the original encoding factor graph. Secondly, based on both the layered BP (LBP) and the modified node-wise residual BP (NW-RBP) schedules, we are able produce several sequential decoding schedules that are executed in serial. It is shown through simulations that when compared to the successive cancellation list (SCL) decoding, the proposed scheme achieves a lower complexity level, while a gap of 0.2 dB still exists in BER performance in the high-SNR region. However, the enhanced BP-based decoding method provides a flexible decoding latency, and is able to generate soft-in/soft-out information, which makes it suitable for the schemes which perform iterative decoding and detection processes.