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Residents and workers exposure to high carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in buildings may cause headache, dyspnea, fatigue, or drowsiness. However, the effect of plants on in-building CO2 reduction and adverse effect relief is largely unknown. We recruited 36 healthy participants from an office room with plants and 32 healthy participants from another office room without plant in the same office building in Taipei. The participants in the office room with plants during 2020 would move to the office room without plant in 2021. The twelve repeated measurements per year of CO2, fine particles (PM2.5), total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs), blood pressure (BP), serum CO2 (TCO2), and four rating questions of headache, dyspnea, fatigue, and drowsiness were obtained for each participant. The statistical results showed that levels of drowsiness and systolic BP were significantly lower among participants in the office room with plants compared to those in the office room without plants by t -test and paired t -test. The associations between increased indoor CO2 and increased serum CO2 were observed in the office room with plants (1.32%) and without plant (4.52%) by mixed-effects models. Also, the associations between indoor CO2 and drowsiness were observed in office rooms (with plants: 14.57%; without plant: 3.82%). The conclusion of the present study is that plants in office environment can reduce CO2 levels and may lower CO2-related health effects.

BACKGROUND Streptococcal toxic-shock syndrome after hemorrhoidectomy is rare but may be catastrophic. Group A streptococci have produced various surface proteins and exotoxins due to genetic changes to fight the human body’s immune response. Though life threatening infection after hemorrhoidectomy rarely occurs, all surgeons should be aware of the potential complications of severe sepsis after hemorrhoidectomy and keep in mind their clinical presenting features in order to diagnose early and administer appropriate and effective therapeutic drugs early. CASE SUMMARY Here, we present a case of a 56-year-old man with a painful thrombotic external hemorrhoid who presented to our outpatient department for management. There was no history of systemic diseases or recent disease infection. Hemorrhoidectomy was suggested and performed. After surgery, the patient developed hypotension, tachycardia, fever with chills and renal function impairment on day 2 post-operation. The clinical condition progressed to severe septic shock and metabolic acidosis. The patient responded poorly to treatment and expired after 1 d even with use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The results of the blood and wound cultures showed group A streptococcus pyogenes. CONCLUSION Although extremely uncommon, all surgeons should be aware of these potential life-threatening septic complications and alert to the presenting features for patients receiving hemorrhoidectomy.

Projection X-ray microscopy (PXM) and transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM) have been established at beamline 31 at the Taiwan Photon Source (TPS). The TPS 31A beamline is sourced by a wiggler with multiple beam modes: white beam, high-flux mono-beam, and high-resolution mono-beam modes. The PXM is based on a collimated beam, and the TXM is full-field microscopy based on a zoneplate. The PXM system and TXM share the same detector platform, which is equipped with different kinds of detector systems for PXM and TXM. The PXM was designed for high-speed 3D tomography with an automatic tray system for loading and unloading samples, including a robotic arm and pre-alignment system. Both the PXM and TXM systems were designed for use in situ, which requires longer working distance for the sample’s environmental cell.

An attenuator is generally used to decrease the power of an X-ray beam and prevent damage to detector sensors and other optical components. Therefore, attenuators are designed using foil or gas to absorb light source power. In this project, a large aperture and a water-cooling attenuator system are construed for the TPS 31A Projection X-ray Microscope and Transmission X-ray Microscope beamline. The source size of the wiggler is 300 µm × 7 µm on TPS 31A. The X-ray beam size at the sample position is 50 mm × 20 mm, located 49.5 m from the source. The light emission power is 1000 W in white-beam operation mode. The attenuator is needed to absorb energy for the light source and it has 12 foil carriers. The absorption foil size is 56 mm × 46 mm for the beam size across different beamline operation modes, and the cooling capacity is greater than 1000 W. This study applies a magnetic coupling-type attenuator system with foil carrier cooling carried out by the side chamber walls without the feedthrough having water enter the chamber to solve the thermal dissipation issue.

This study develops and successfully demonstrates visualization methods for the characterization of europium (Eu)-doped BaAl

Background: To determine whether intestinal Angiostrongylus cantonensis antigens can induce protective immunity in rats, gut antigens prepared from female adults (FAGP) and somatic antigens prepared from both male (MA) and female (FA) adult worms were used to immunize rats. Methods: Rats were immunized twice with MA, FA, or FAGP antigens and then challenged with 50 third-stage A. cantonensis larvae, and different readouts were used to monitor protective immunity. Additionally, protein profiles of MA, FA, and FAGP extracts were analyzed and characterized by immunodetection methods. Results: A 15% reduction in fifth-stage larvae from brains and a 14% reduction in adult worms from pulmonary arteries were observed in rats immunized with FAGP compared to controls. However, there was a >50% reduction in rats immunized with MA or FA. The lengths of larvae and adults recovered from FAGP-immunized rats were shorter than those recovered from other groups. The number of first-stage larvae recovered from fecal material in FAGP-immunized rats was significantly reduced. Additionally, FAGP induced the highest splenocyte proliferation. Serum IgG titers were not directly correlated with protective immunity. An 84 kDa gut membrane protein was strongly recognized by anti-FAGP antibodies. Conclusion: We demonstrated that immune responses induced by FAGP reduced the growth, development, and reproduction of A. cantonensis in subsequent infections. While the possibility of using FAGP combining with MA or FA antigens as a multi-function vaccine in immune protection against A. cantonensis needs to be further elucidated, we hope that it provides a novel strategy for this parasite vaccine development. Keywords: Angiostrongylus cantonensis, Intestinal proteins, Protective immunity, Anti-fertility

Metal flow tends to be complex and difficult to predict in the combined forward-backward extrusion (CFBE) process. Piercing and surface-crack defects are phenomenal in forming fasteners featuring a forward extruded pin and a backward extruded cup. In this work, a series of the CFBE tests with various combinations of the forward extrusion ratio (FER) and the backward extrusion ratio (BER) were conducted. A forming limit diagram, detailed with the piercing and surface-crack defects on the forward extruded pin or the backward extruded cup, was developed to provide a conception in choosing appropriate extrusion ratios in forming fasteners with such pin-and-cup features. With the aid of the forming load-stroke curves and the finite element analysis of fracture damage, the fracturing mechanism for the CFBE process was provided.

The small radius x-ray mirror in the interferometer stitching measurement is needed high angle resolution rotation stage to get reliable angle information. The rotation stage rotary range requirement is not wide, because of the X-ray mirror radius generally large than 200M, and the mirror length small than 1.2M. The angle resolution is needed high resolution, therefore, in interferometer stitching measurement, the interferogram is easily affected by the rotation angle difference. Thus, this study is to design a small angle traveling range (rotation angle maximum ± 1.5 degrees), high angle resolution (10 nrad.), and high loading capacity (loading maximum 75 Kg) rotation stage, the rotation mechanism is applied pivot bearing to get high-resolution rotation angle. The rotation stage design is finished, this article discusses system assembly and test.

To achieve diffraction-limited focal spot size is a goal for next-generation synchrotrons. Mirrors are increasingly important for X-ray focusing optics following recent advances in mirror fabricati...

In this study, the carrier recombination mechanism of Cr-doped CsPbCl3 is investigated by temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved PL (TR-PL). Because of non-uniform doping with Cr, exciton localization is observed. This behavior can be demonstrated not only by temperature-dependent PL, where emission intensity rapidly increases at a temperature of less than 100 K, but also by temperature-dependent TR-PL, where temperature dependency of the radiative lifetime exhibits a linear dependence at temperatures ranging from 20 K to 100 K. Furthermore, PL decay lifetimes of Cr-doped CsPbCl3 at 20 K as a function of monitored emission energies are investigated. Results reveal that the excitons of Cr-doped CsPbCl3 exhibit a large localization depth ( E l o c ). The methods employed herein are anticipated to open new avenues with immense characterization ability for examining the emission properties of inorganic lead trihalide perovskites.

The goal of an in situ Long Trace Profiler (LTP) is to adjust the mirror to 0.1 μrad Root Mean Square (RMS) under thermal load. Here we introduce the measurement configuration for in situ LTP. To avoid lens aberration, the moving optical head keeps the optical paths constant, and the reference beam is used to the correct of the unavoidable air bearing errors. The window glass in this test has a rather high optical quality, with a flatness of 1/150 (RMS) over 120 × 20 mm. The optical quality of the window was specified to be ± 1 μrad slope distortion in an aperture length of 100 mm. The window glass deformation for the air pressure was calculated by the Finite Element Method (FEM) software (ANSYS). The window glass deformation results can be fitting by the Zernike polynomial, and then bring it into the sequential optical ray tracing software (ZEMAX), and evaluating the window glass effect on the LTP measurement results. By this approach, we found that this has a constant error. Thus, the window glass air pressure error can be effectively removed from the measurement result to reveal the real mirror profile. Using the in situ LTP measuring result and the data iteration process, the bendable mirror can control the optical surface locate profile and thereby minimize the thermal distort effect. The slope error will be reduced to 0.1 μrad at the thermal load.

The project of transmission x-ray microscope (TXM) with tender x-ray is undergoing as an extension project of the soft x-ray tomography (SXT) endstation at Taiwan Photon Source (TPS). This TXM is aimed for energy from 1.5 keV to 2.4 keV and with phase contrast with the x-ray energy of 2.4 keV. As the extension of current SXT project, the beamline will be equipped with a variable line spacing (VLS) grating with the multi-layer coating which will be optimized for 2.4 keV. This TXM will be zoneplate based with a phase ring and capillary condenser. In order to match the field of view and numerical aperture (NA) of zoneplate with the emittance of the source in vertical direction, some compromise should be made. To match the low emittance of vertical direction, the NA of zoneplate should be lower and vertical of the secondary source should be larger. This will lower spatial resolution and energy resolution. The targeting resolution of this TXM for phase contrast will be 50nm and FOV is 20 μm. For the detector, which is currently design with a scintillator with a CCD detector. For the future, the direct detector for small pixel and high signal to noise ratio can be obtained. The other components of TXM, such as stages, cryo system, which can be shared with current SXT system which works under the energy of the water window region. This endstation for tender X-ray will be commission in 2020. The detailed design and current progress will be discussed in this presentation.

The project “High loading precision rotation stage design for synchrotron radiation mirror measurement” aims to provide an ultra-high-precision heavy-duty rotation stage and X-ray mirror interference optical measurements. Since the shape of an X-ray lens is very different from that of the general visible optical lens, the measurement system is very different from the general visible light optical measurement system. This paper describes a high-load precision rotating platform for obtaining stitching interferometer measurements for a synchrotron radiation mirror. The synchrotron radiation mirror is usually rectangular, and the length is greater than the interferometer measurement size. Therefore, for the mirror measurement, the stitching method is usually used to obtain synchrotron radiation mirror measurements. The interference measurements are obtained at different positions. In order to obtain the measurements, the center line of the interferometer must be perpendicular to the tangent of the mirror surface, so that appropriate interference fringes can be obtained. As the mirror radius becomes smaller, the interferometer rotation angle sensitivity increases. Development of the stitching interferometer high-load precision rotating platform design target requires an angle rotation resolution

Time-resolved X-ray excited optical luminescence (TR-XEOL) was developed successfully for the 23A X-ray nanoprobe beamline located at the Taiwan Photon Source (TPS). The advantages of the TR-XEOL facility include (i) a nano-focused X-ray beam (

Introduction: This study determined risk factors, obstetric comorbidities, and fetal conditions among HIV-positive mothers to improve their maternal care. Methodology: This retrospective case-control study included HIV-positive pregnant women 18 years of age or older and age-, parity-, and delivery method-matched HIV-negative controls between 2011 and 2018. Those who had stillbirth were excluded. Baseline demographics, labor process, CD4 count, plasma HIV viral load, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimen were recorded. Fetal conditions were recorded as well. Results: Forty HIV-positive women (45 parities; 22 via NSD, 23 via C/S) were included, with 45 HIV-negative parities as controls. Twenty-nine (72.5%) HIV-positive women had illicit drug use. In the HIV-positive group, 17% received ART prior to first perinatal visit, and 75.6% reached viral suppression pre-delivery. Zidovudine and ritonavir-boosted lopinavir were the majorly prescribed ART. Mild perineal lacerations via NSD were observed in HIV-positive women. Fetal body weight was lower in HIV- and ART-exposed fetuses (2665 vs 3010 g, p < 0.001). Preterm delivery PTB (28.9% vs 8.9%, p= 0.015) and small-for gestational age SGA (28.9% vs 8.8%, p = 0.003) rates were higher in the HIV-positive group. There was no vertical transmission of HIV. Conclusions: HIV-positive women tend to deliver fetuses with low body weight and have higher SGA and PTB rates. Given that most women received zidovudine and protease inhibitors, benefits of newer agents for HIV-positive pregnancies should be studied.

A synchrotron source offers the advantage of continuous and tunable x rays. Therefore, not only an X-ray nanoprobe can provide the desired spatial resolution to measure the elemental distribution of CaAlSiN3:Eu2+ via X-ray fluorescence mapping but X-ray absorption spectroscopy can also be used to unambiguously analyze the valence states of europium ions (Eu2+ or Eu3+) in different local areas. X-ray excited optical luminescence spectra exhibit only one red emission peak (∼650 nm) corresponding to the 4f65d1 to 4f7 transition of Eu2+, which reveals the fact that Eu2+ ions substitute perfectly for Ca2+ ions at the same site. Through detailed analysis, we demonstrated that the main contribution to the luminescence intensity of CASIN:Eu2+ comes from the Eu2+ activator in the product. We anticipate that X-ray nanoprobes will open new avenues with great characterization ability for studying the emission properties of CASIN:Eu2+.

Introduction: Although a prospective antimicrobial audit and feedback is an effective strategy in an antibiotic stewardship program, previous researchers have not adequately demonstrated a successful impact on patient outcomes. In this study, the causes of fatalities associated with a prospective antimicrobial audit and feedback were analyzed. Methodology: Between June and September 2014, applications for 16 target parenteral formulas (including ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, cefepime, piperacillin/tazobactam, vancomycin, teicoplanin, ertapenem, imipenem/cilastatin, meropenem, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, ciprofloxacin, tigecycline, linezolid, daptomycin, and amikacin), which were not approved by infectious diseases (ID) specialists, were followed up until patients were either discharged or passed away. Results: Of the 292 cases studied, 193 (66%) were male, with a mean age (standard deviation) of 65.5 (19.3) years. There were five reasons for rejection, including dosage adjustments (37%), no evidence of bacterial infection (28.8%), modifications according to antimicrobial susceptibility (18.8%), target pathogens not being covered (7.2%), and redundant therapy (4.1%). Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that an age greater than 75 years (odds ratio [OR]: 2.58; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.32–5.50; p = 0.005) was associated with significant mortality, while urinary tract (OR: 0.26; 95% CI: 0.09–0.70; p = 0.013) and soft tissue/bone infections (OR: 0.18; 95% CI: 0.05–0.61; p = 0.006) were associated with survival. Adjustments according to ID physicians’ recommendations were not statistically significant (OR: 0.53; 95% CI: 0.27–1.06; p = 0.074). Conclusions: Antimicrobial adjustments according to ID physicians’ recommendations showed only marginally preventative effects against fatalities.

X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) using an x-ray nanobeam operating in the hybrid bunch mode provides not only a sufficiently high peak power density but also high-quality temporal domain measurements for studying the luminescence dynamics of photonic materials and devices. We used these features to investigate the peculiar emission behavior of the as-grown and rapid thermal annealing (RTA)-treated a-plane MgZnO epi-films, from which an anomalous emission was observed at ∼325 nm, along with a rapid increase in near-band edge (NBE) emission with increasing x-ray irradiation time. This peculiar emission behavior was also observed in the cathodoluminescence spectra obtained under electron beam excitation. Increases in the NBE emission intensity of the RTA-treated a-plane MgZnO epi-film were observed in terms of both photoluminescence and small anomalous emissions of XEOL. This can be explained by the effective transfer of Mg atoms from interstitial sites to suitable sites as a result of RTA treatment. Based on comparison with an a-plane ZnO epi-film without Mg, we conclude that the anomalous emission peak is caused by Mg-related energy states created by the high-dose x-ray or electron beam irradiation. Furthermore, the rapid increase in NBE emission and the reduction in the long decay lifetime can be attributed to charge transfer from the Mg clusters, which are thus responsible for the anomalous emissions.

The multifunctional hard X-ray nanoprobe at Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) exhibits the excellent ability to simultaneously characterize the X-ray absorption, X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) as well as the dynamics of XEOL of materials. Combining the scanning electron microscope (SEM) into the TPS 23A end-station, we can easily and quickly measure the optical properties to map out the morphology of a ZnO microrod. A special phenomenon has been observed that the oscillations in the XEOL associated with the confinement of the optical photons in the single ZnO microrod shows dramatical increase while the X-ray excitation energy is set across the Zn K-edge. Besides having the nano-scale spatial resolution, the synchrotron source also gives a good temporal domain measurement to investigate the luminescence dynamic process. The decay lifetimes of different emission wavelengths and can be simultaneously obtained from the streak image. Besides, SEM can provide the cathodoluminescence (CL) to be a complementary method to analyze the emission properties of materials, we anticipate that the X-ray nanoprobe will open new avenues with great characterization ability for developing nano/microsized optoelectronic devices.

Polarization-dependent hard X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) was used to study not only the optical properties but also the crystallographic orientations of a non-polar a-plane ZnO wafer. In addition to a positive-edge jump and extra oscillations in the near-band-edge (NBE) XEOL yield, we observed a blue shift of the NBE emission peak that follows the polarization-dependent X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) as the X-ray energy is tuned across the Zn K-edge. This NBE blue shift is caused by the larger X-ray absorption, generating higher free carriers to reduce the exciton-LO phonon coupling, which causes a decrease in the exciton activation energy. The extra oscillations in XANES and XEOL as the polarization is set parallel to the c-axis is attributed to simultaneous excitations of the Zn 4p - O 2pπ -bond along the c-axis and the bilayer σ-bond, whereas only the σ-bond is excited when the polarization is perpendicular to the c-axis. The polarization-dependent XEOL spectra can be used to determine the crystallographic orientations.

This on-the-fly scanning control system is for the x-ray nanoprobe endstation at Taiwan Photon Source(TPS) and built base-on the high speed Hardware (H/W), high throughput data stream and multi-channel control interfaces. The main idea is to tag each data with information of time and position, which generates by circuit and laser interferometer. The data is then processed by a computer to be analyzed and visualized. By using high speed FPGA with embedded processer to process the input and output data which includes the DAC, ADC, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and laser interferometer control interfaces. Three DAC control the X,Y and Z axes of the flexure stage, four ADCs and sensor interfaces gather the data and packet it into data packet. GbE send data back to computer to do image processing then reconstruct the scanning image. The numerous data not only for rebuild the image but also good for information analysis. Including the vibration, time slide analysis. Our demo system is built by an e-beam source, flexure stage and laser interferometer. The current maximum scanning speed is up to 5 lines/sec which is limited by the mechanical, the sample rate can be as high as 20M samples/sec which limited by laser interferometer, and the maximum data rate is close to 100M bytes/sec which is limited by the GbE. Interferometer information combine with position data in data packet, makes easy for data analysis and also for image stitching. The system is going to commission on beamline at March, 2017. The commission result for this system will be presented.

The diffraction-limited Montel mirrors, equipped at the X-ray Nanoprobe (XNP) at Taiwan Photon Source (TPS), provide a 40 nm focal spot and working distance 55 mm under the total beamline length of 69 m. The underneath holder supporting for the Montel mirrors is a 12 axes flexure based manipulators in which 10 out of the 12 axes are motorized. To monitor the position and stability of individual holder motion, a monitoring system consisted of three optical encoders and three- axes laser interferometers for angle movement is implemented. The gap width between the two mirrors and their orthogonality can be adjusted by a tilting sensor and a high magnification optical microscope. The focusing properties, phase and amplitude, after the Montel mirrors will be investigated by means of coherent Ptychography, as well as by zone plate imaging. An SEM in close cooperation with laser interferometers is equipped to precisely position the samples and conduct the on-the-fly scan. A high speed FPGA based circuit is developed to address signal from XRF, XAS, XEOL and XRD. Data is in tag with position and time information and been processed by computers to allow 5nm precision stage scanning free from mechanical feedback. The XNP at TPS is under commissioning since February 2017. The commissioning result, particularly the performance of the Montel mirrors will be reported in this presentation.

Piercing or surface-crack defect occurs in combination-extruding the support pin. There has been so far insufficient knowledge in avoiding such forming defects in forming the similar products. In this paper, a combination-extrusion experiment, with various combinations of forward and backward extrusion ratios, was conducted to observe the occurrence of the defects. The result shows that the defects occur at low level of both forward extrusion ratio and backward extrusion ratio used in the combination-extrusion process. The low forming level causes the onset of insufficient plastic metal-flow, which is similar to that of inhomogeneous deformation in the unidirectional extrusion or drawing process. A forming limit diagram was constructed and can be used in the defect prediction for the future development of similar products.

In this paper, we propose a new approach to accelerate the pocketing tool-path generation by using graphic hardware (graphic processing units, GPU). The intersections among tool-path elements can be eliminated with higher efficiency from GPU-based Voronoi diagrams. According to our experimental results, the GPU-based computation speed was seven to eight times faster than that of CPU-based computation. In addition, the difference of tool-path geometry between the CPU-based and GPU-based methods was insignificant. Therefore, the GPU-method can be efficiently used to accelerate the computation while the precision is assured for the tool-path generation in pocketing machining.

The hard X-ray nanoprobe facility at Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) provides versatile X-ray analysis techniques, with tens of nanometer resolution, including XRF, XAS, XEOL, projection microscope, CDI, etc. Resulting from the large numerical aperture obtained by utilizing Montel KB mirrors, the beamline with a moderate length 75 meters can conduct similar performance with those beamlines longer than 100 meters. The two silica-made Montel mirrors are 45 degree cut and placed in a V-shape to eliminate the gap loss and the deformation caused by gravity. The slope error of the KB mirror pair is less than 0.04 µrad accomplished by elastic emission machining (EEM) method. For the beamline, a horizontal DCM and two-stage focusing in horizontal direction is applied. For the endstation, a combination of SEM for quickly positioning the sample, a fly scanning system with laser interferometers, a precise temperature control system, and a load lock transfer system will be implemented. In this presentation, the design and...

High-pressure-gas cylinders are used in broad applications. Cracks on the open end would occur during the riveting stage. Such forming defects are caused by excessive hardening, although the open end has been annealed with induction heating prior to the sinking operation. Therefore, a proper design for the sinking dies is essential to the forming production of the HPG cylinders. In this paper, two die-design concepts were examined which included the conventional design for six-stage sinking with fixed die radius, and the economic design for five-stage sinking with incremental die radii. Finite element software DEFORM 2D was used to investigate the two sinking schemes. The effect of the sinking schemes on the sinking load, strain distribution, and lip thickness were analysed. The results show that the economic five-stage sinking with a large increment of die radii can provide less strain hardening as compared to other sinking schemes. Although the forming load level is acceptable and the change of lip thickness is insignificant, the production cost of the five-stage scheme is still high. A more economic measure by sinking with one-stage rotary swaging can provide an alternative scheme with advantages of simple die design and saving the lead for annealing.