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Abstract Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are constructed on top of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) substrates that permit incident light to enter the cells and facilitate charge transport from back contact to the external circuit. The most common TCO substrate used in DSSCs, as well as other optoelectronic devices, is an F-doped tin oxide (FTO). Another tin oxide-based TCO is Indium tin oxide (ITO), which is also used in optoelectronic devices. However, zinc oxide-based TCOs –aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) – were not used that much, especially in DSSCs. In the present work, we examined the suitability of four transparent conducting oxides – FTO, ITO, AZO, and GZO – for the application in DSSCs as substrate. We employed all four TCOs to fabricate platinized counter electrode (CE) for DSSCs in three different methods: thermal reduction of Pt precursor at 380 °C, chemical reduction of Pt precursor at 70 °C, and RF-sputtering Pt at room temperature. The cation-doped zinc oxide-based TCOs are not thermally and chemically stable. However, FTO, being anionic-doped tin oxide-based TCO, is the most thermally and chemically stable among the four TCOs studied in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The breeding blanket serves as a critical element for achieving a self-sustaining tritium cycle and generating sufficient energy in fusion reactors. This study focuses on candidate materials of the helium-cooled solid breeder blanket designed for a demonstration fusion reactor breeding blanket in Korea. We conducted compatibility tests between advanced reduced-activation alloy (ARAA) and Li2TiO3 pebbles at 550 °C for 28 days in He-0.1 vol% H2 purge gas conditions. Surface oxidation on ARAA was observed regardless of pebble presence. Double oxide films comprised of Fe-rich and Cr-rich layers formed on the surface of ARAA with pebbles. Lithium deposition was verified in both contact and non-contact areas of ARAA. Despite surface oxidation, the impact on tensile strength and elongation was found to be negligible.

Abstract Background No tick‐borne pathogens (TBPs) causing haemolytic anaemia in cattle have been reported, except Theileria orientalis and complete blood count (CBC) profile is the only haematological parameter to determine the severity of regenerative haemolytic anaemia. Objectives To identify the causative agents of TBP‐induced haemolytic anaemia and determine haematological parameters that indicate haemolytic anaemia in grazing cattle. Methods Eighty‐two Korean indigenous cattle (Hanwoo) were divided into two groups: grazing (n = 67) and indoor (n = 15) groups. CBC and serum biochemistry were performed. PCR was conducted using whole blood‐extracted DNA to investigate the prevalence of TBPs. Results TBP‐induced haemolytic anaemia was observed in the grazing group. In grazing cattle, co‐infection (43.3%, 29/67) was most frequently detected, followed by T. orientalis (37.6%, 25/67) and Anaplasma phagocytophilum infections (1.5%, 1/67). In indoor cattle, only co‐infection (20%, 3/15) was identified. Grazing cattle exhibited regenerative haemolytic anaemia with marked monocytosis, mild neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia. According to grazing frequency, the 1st‐time grazing group had more severe anaemia than the 2nd‐time grazing group. Elevations in indirect bilirubin and L‐lactate due to haemolytic anaemia were identified, and correlations with the respective markers were determined in co‐infected grazing cattle. Conclusions Quantitative evaluation of haematocrit, mean corpuscular volume, and reticulocytes (markers of regenerative haemolytic anaemia in cattle) was performed for the first time. Our results show that, in addition to T. orientalis, A. phagocytophilum is strongly associated with anaemia. The correlation between haemolytic anaemia severity and haematological parameters (indirect bilirubin, reticulocytes, and L‐lactate) was confirmed.

Abstract Background Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is an important cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide. The pre-S1 and -S2 mutant large HBV surface antigen (LHBS), in which the pre-S1 and -S2 regions of the LHBS gene are partially deleted, are highly associated with HBV-related HCC. Methods The pre-S region of the LHBS gene in two hundred and one HBV-positive serum samples was PCR-amplified and sequenced. A pre-S oligonucleotide gene chip was developed to efficiently detect pre-S deletions in chronic HBV carriers. Twenty serum samples from chronic HBV carriers were analyzed using the chip. Results The pre-S deletion rates were relatively low (7%) in the sera of patients with acute HBV infection. They gradually increased in periods of persistent HBV infection: pre-S mutation rates were 37% in chronic HBV carriers, and as high as 60% in HCC patients. The Pre-S Gene Chip offers a highly sensitive and specific method for pre-S deletion detection and is less expensive and more efficient (turnaround time 3 days) than DNA sequencing analysis. Conclusion The pre-S1/2 mutants may emerge during the long-term persistence of the HBV genome in carriers and facilitate HCC development. Combined detection of pre-S mutations, other markers of HBV replication, and viral titers, offers a reliable predictive method for HCC risks in chronic HBV carriers.

Here, we report on the dependence of the current density-voltage ( j-V ) curves of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) on the condition of potential sweep – sweep direction and delay time. The phenomenon, termed as hysteresis, is ambiguously attributed to the capacitive nature of the mesoporous TiO 2 photoelectrode or diffusional pseudo capacitance of the electrolyte solution in DSSCs. To explain the hysteresis, here, we have developed a simple model translating fundamental processes: generation, transport and accumulation of charges in a working DSSC. The numerical solution of the corresponding time-dependent j-V equation allowed us to calculate the j-V curves for different sweep directions and delay time. The model calculation suggests that the hysteresis originates at open circuit region due to double layer capacitance at the counter electrode and maximum power due to the chemical capacitance of the TiO 2 film. Moreover, the double layer capacitance, at the exposed substrate/electrolyte interface, affects the j-V curves at short circuit region if the delay time is extremely short. All these capacitive elements are strongly related to the electrolyte; however, the mechanism needs to be explored further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Boron based thin-film neutron monitor was developed for the in situ neutron beam monitoring of the KAERI-NDP system. • Neutron transmission ratios of 1 μm thick B and BN thin-film neutron monitors were 92.46% and 93.93% for cold neutron beam, respectively. • The optimal RF power and deposition temperature for the B and BN film were (80 W, 550 °C) and (110 W, 350 °C), respectively. • The DPA rates of the B and BN film neutron monitors were estimated to be 1.54–5.15 × 10−14 and 1.52–1.93 × 10−15 DPA/s for cold and fast neutron, respectively. • Based on its performance, the developed neutron monitor can be used for the in situ measurement of neutron beam. A B-based thin-film neutron monitor is developed for the in situ neutron beam monitoring of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute neutron depth profiling system. Thin-film samples are prepared via radio-frequency (RF) sputtering. The RF power, Ar partial pressure, and deposition temperature are varied to optimize the growth and thickness uniformity of the samples. The neutron transmission ratio and collision heating of the designed samples are estimated via Monte Carlo simulation. The neutron transmission ratios of B and BN films prepared in this study are 92.46% and 93.93%, respectively, and the effect of temperature increase is negligible. The displacement per atom (DPA) rates of the B and BN thin films are lower than those of other known B neutron flux monitors, based on the results of DPA calculation for estimating the defect of the sample via neutron irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The proposed two-layer Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is able to learn the high-level features. • The feature maps extracted by the proposed CNN-based model are sparse and selective. • Adopted an averaging model approach for is training several different models on subsets of dataset. • The proposed model generates a pool of features for training and selecting effective classifiers. • An improvement in the discriminative power of face recognition system with a small sample of datasets. This paper proposes a two-layer Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to learn the high-level features which utilizes to the face identification via sparse representation. Feature extraction plays a vital role in real-world pattern recognition and classification tasks. The details description of the given input face image, significantly improve the performance of the facial recognition system. Sparse Representation Classifier (SRC) is a popular face classifier that sparsely represents the face image by a subset of training data, which is known as insensitive to the choice of feature space. The proposed method shows the performance improvement of SRC via a precisely selected feature exactor. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms other methods on given datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we report on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) electrode prepared by doctor-blading a viscous rGO paste on FTO substrate followed by sintering at 500 °C in argon and its application as a counter electrode (CE) of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The paste was prepared by mixing rGO and ethyl cellulose in terpineol. The rGO was prepared from commercially available graphite flakes, which were first oxidized to graphene oxide (GO) by modified Hummers’ process and then the GO was reduced to rGO with hydrazine. Electrochemical analyses – cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy – suggest that the performance of the rGO electrode towards I − /I 3 − is comparable to that of Pt electrode. Even though the catalytic performance of the rGO film towards the reduction of triiodide was not as good as thermally decomposed Pt electrodes, the overall series resistance of the rGO-based cell was similar to that of the Pt-based cell. When applied to DSSCs as a CE, the rGO electrode performs like a Pt electrode showing the prospect of replacing Pt with a metal-free all-carbon material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of Sweet Bee Venom Pharmacopuncture and Scolopendrid Pharmacopuncture on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Methods : From February to September 2010, the number of patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome who volunteered for this clinical study was 16 and 7 out of 16 patients complained both hands. Total 23 cases of hands were randomly divided by 2 groups. We injected Sweet Bee Venom Pharmacopuncture on PC7(Daereung) twice a week for 4weeks for experimental group(n=11), and Scolopendrid Pharmacopuncture with the same methods for control group(n=12). One case was dropped out due to itchiness of allergic response in the experimental group. Improvement of the symptoms was evaluated by Visual Analogue Scale, Pain Rating Scale, Tinel’s sign, Phalen’s sign and Nerve Conduction Velocity. Nerve Conduction Velocity was checked at baseline and the end of the trial and others were checked at baseline, after 2 and 4 weeks. Results : Both groups showed significant improvement in Visual Analogue Scale, Pain Rating Scale, but no significant difference between two groups. Only the control group showed significant reduction of the‘ poitive response’in the Tinel’s sign and Phalen’s sign. However, no groups improved in Nerve Conduction Velocity. Conclusions : These results showed that Sweet Bee Venom Pharmacopuncture and Scolopendrid Pharmacopuncture could decrease the symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Further studies will be required to examine more cases for the long period and use more various concentration and amount pharmacopuncture for the effect on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

In this work, a simple and a straight-forward approach to derive the parameters of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) in terms of single diode model is discussed. The parameters are extracted exclusively from single current density–voltage ( j – V ) curve with some common assumptions. The technique does not require smoothing of the j – V curve by means of polynomial fitting as well as iterative calculation of the diode model equation. The data obtained from this method are compared with that obtained from least square fitting and the combined analyses of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and j – V data for two different DSSCs. The method is suitable for routine analysis of DSSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesenchymal cells alter and retain their phenotype during skeletal development through activation or suppression of signaling pathways. For example, we have shown that Wnt3a only stimulates osteoblast differentiation in cells with intrinsic osteogenic potential (e.g. MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblasts) and not in fat cell precursors or fibroblasts (3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes or NIH3T3 fibroblasts, respectively). Wnt3a promotes osteogenesis in part by stimulating autocrine production of the osteoinductive ligand Bmp2. Here, we show that the promoter regions of the genes for Bmp2 and the osteoblast marker Alp are epigenetically locked to prevent their expression in nonosteogenic cells. Both genes have conserved CpG islands that exhibit increased CpG methylation, as well as decreased acetylation and increased methylation of histone H3 lysine 9 (H3-K9) specifically in nonosteogenic cells. Treatment of pre-adipocytes or fibroblasts with the CpG-demethylating agent 5'-aza-2'-deoxycytidine or the histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin-A renders Bmp2 and Alp responsive to Wnt3a. Hence, drug-induced epigenetic activation of Bmp2 gene expression contributes to Wnt3a-mediated direct trans-differentiation of pre-adipocytes or fibroblasts into osteoblasts. We propose that direct conversion of nonosteogenic cells into osteoblastic cell types without inducing pluripotency may improve prospects for novel epigenetic therapies to treat skeletal afflictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Detect the pedestrians efficiently and accurately in the crowded environment. • Haar-like feature for different body parts to build the response feature maps. • The deep features as an input to support vector machine to detect pedestrian. • Spatial filtering, multi-ratios combination and part based to full body mehod. • Computational low and high detection accuracy with respect to the state-of-the-art. In recent years, pedestrian detection based on computer vision has been widely used in intelligent transportation, security monitoring, assistance driving and other related applications. However, one of the remaining open challenges is that pedestrians are partially obscured and their posture changes. To address this problem, deformable part model (DPM) uses a mixture of part filters to capture variation in view point and appearance and achieves success for challenging datasets. Nevertheless, the expensive computation cost of DPM limits its ability in the real-time application. This study propose a fast fused part-based model (FFPM) for pedestrian detection to detect the pedestrians efficiently and accurately in the crowded environment. The first step of the proposed method trains six Adaboost classifiers with Haar-like feature for different body parts (e.g., head, shoulders, and knees) to build the response feature maps. These six response feature maps are combined with full-body model to produce spatial deep features. The second step of the proposed method uses the deep features as an input to support vector machine (SVM) to detect pedestrian. A variety of strategies is introduced in the proposed model, including part-based to full-body method, spatial filtering, and multi-ratios combination. Experiment results show that the proposed FFPM method improves the computation speed of DPM and maintains the performance in detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Halitosis is an unpleasant odor discharged through the oral cavity with a prevalence as high as 30%-50% of the general population. Conventional diagnostic methods have been focused on mouth air analysis measuring the amount of sulfur compounds which does not directly reflect the cause of halitosis. Also, the possible role of halitosis as an indicator of general health status has been steadily suggested and inflammation has been constantly associated with aversive body odor. Therefore, this study aimed to search for inter-relationships between hematologic indicators, clinical characteristics, and halitosis measurement that can predict the presence of pathologic halitosis and its intensity. Furthermore, the tentative relationship between halitosis and the presence of systemic inflammation was investigated. A total of 125 patients were divided into 103 patients in the genuine halitosis group (value ⩾80 ppb) and 22 patients in the pseudo halitosis group (value <80 ppb) based on portable sulfide monitor measurements. Clinical examination and hematological indices including inflammatory prognostic factors and halitosis measurements including organoleptic testing, portable sulfide monitor, and gas chromatography were evaluated. The genuine halitosis group showed a significantly higher white blood cell (WBC) count ( p < 0.01) compared to the pseudo halitosis group. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR, β = 0.341, p < 0.05) values and duration of halitosis ( β = 0.353, p < 0.05) showed a significant association with halitosis intensity and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) values ( β = 3.859, p < 0.05) were significantly related to genuine halitosis diagnosis. A new WBC cut-off value of 5575 μ l -1 showed near to fair discriminative power in predicting genuine halitosis (area under the curve 0.661, p < 0.05). The results of this study showing an increased WBC count in genuine halitosis and its strong association with hematologic indices of subclinical inflammation including ESR and NLR suggest inflammatory hematologic markers as potential diagnostic tools in the diagnosis of genuine halitosis., (Creative Commons Attribution license.)

Objective: To evaluate the effect of different surgical techniques on primary stability, particularly in poor-quality bone with or without a crestal cortical bone., Materials and Methods: Three implant site preparation techniques-undersized drilling (UD), undersized drilling and coronal widening with a cortical drill (UD + CD), undersized drilling and coronal tapping with a cortical tap (UD + CT)-were compared in 2 different low-density polyurethane bone models either with or without the crestal cortical bone. Insertion torque values (ITVs) for each technique was recorded., Results: Statistically significant difference was observed for all 3 surgical techniques. In the presence of a crestal cortical bone, the peak ITV for UD was the highest, UD + CT the second, and UD + CD the lowest. All peak ITVs remained significantly lower in the absence of a crestal cortical bone., Conclusion: Our findings suggested that UD + CTmay be the most effective implant surgical technique to achieve an ideal primary stability in low-density bone with a thin crestal cortical bone layer. Also, this technique may prevent compression necrosis of the dense cortical bone.

The degree of misfit between a prosthesis and its supporting implants is a major concern in screw-retained prostheses because it can lead to screw loosening or mechanical failure of implant components. On the other hand, the difficulty of removing subgingival excess cement and the irretrievability of the superstructure are major drawbacks to cement-retained prostheses. A newly designed screw- and cement-retained prosthesis (SCRP) may solve these problems with its passivity, retrievability, and ease in the complete removal of excess cement, giving it the advantages of both screw-retained and cement-retained prostheses. This prosthetic system is mainly composed of a cement-retained framework with screw holes on the occlusal surface and specially designed cementable abutments for multiunit prostheses. The principle and structure of the SCRP system is described in this article.

Objectives: To determine if therapeutic gap identification, notification of community pharmacists, and intervention results in increased gap closure, reduced gap closure time, and fewer adherence gaps reopening., Study Design: Prospective, controlled, clusterrandomized study., Methods: State of Illinois employees and beneficiaries of State health plans filling prescriptions at independently owned community pharmacies were included. For selected chronic conditions and medications, gaps in medication adherence and omitted essential therapies were identified from prescription claims and sent as alerts for resolution with the patient and/or physician. Adherence and omission gap closure at 90 days were analyzed with Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival curve approach and Cox proportional hazards models including covariates., Results: A total of 1433 intervention and 1181 control adherence gaps were identified, while 677 intervention and 534 control omission gaps were generated. Pharmacists intervened on 639 (44.6%) adherence and 506 (74.7%) omission gaps. Gaps were closed more often in intervention than control at 30 days (55.5% in intervention vs 50.6% in control), 45 days (61.1% vs 58.4%, respectively), 60 days (66.1% vs 65.2%, respectively), and 90 days (73.0% vs 72.9%, respectively; adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.242; P = .022; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.115-1.385). Adherence gaps reopened less frequently in the intervention group (HR = 0.863; P = .012; 95% CI 0.769-0.968). A total of 89 (13.1%) intervention and 29 (5.4%) control omission gaps closed within 90 days (adjusted HR = 1.770; P = .005; 95% CI 1.182-2.653)., Conclusions: Independent community pharmacists reduced gaps in care and had fewer reopened adherence gaps, suggesting improvement in adherence. A continuation study will examine the impact of the program on long-term adherence.

Rat calvarial osteoblasts were grown in porous chitosan sponges fabricated by freeze drying. The prepared chitosan sponges had a porous structure with a 100-200 microm pore diameter, which allowed cell proliferation. Cell density, alkaline phosphatase activity and calcium deposition were monitored for up to 56 d culture. Cell numbers were 4 x 10(6) (day 1), 11 x 10(6) (day 28) and 12 x 10(6) (day 56) per g sponge. Calcium depositions were 9 (day 1), 40 (day 28) and 48 (day 56) microg per sponge. Histological results corroborated that bone formation within the sponges had occurred. These results show that chitosan sponges can be used as effective scaffolding materials for tissue engineered bone formation in vitro.