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Background: Covid-19 vaccination has started in the majority of the countries at the global level. Cancer patients are at high risk for infection, serious illness, and death from COVID-19 and need vaccination guidance and support. Guidance availability in the English language only is a major limit for recommendations’ delivery and their application in the world’s population and generates information inequalities across the different populations. Methods: Most of the available COVID-19 vaccination guidance for cancer patients was screened and scrutinized by the European Cancer Patients Coalition (ECPC) and an international oncology panel of 52 physicians from 33 countries. Results: A summary guidance was developed and provided in 28 languages in order to reach more than 70 percent of the global population. Conclusion: Language barrier and e-guidance availability in the native language are the most important barriers when communicating with patients. E-guidance availability in various native languages should be considered a major priority by international medical and health organizations that are communicating with patients at the global level.

The realization of electroluminescence (EL) of negatively charged nitrogen vacancy (NV−) centers is important toward all-electrical control of diamond quantum devices. In this study, we demonstrated electrical excitation and detection of EL of single NV− centers by using lateral diamond p+–i(n−)–n+ diodes. It had been grown by homoepitaxy using the plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique. We introduced a lightly phosphorus doped i(n−) layer to stabilize the negative state of NV centers. It was estimated that the efficiency of the electrical excitation rate of the NV center was more than 30 times enhanced by introducing lateral diamond p+–i(n−)–n+ diodes structure compared with the previous vertical diode. Furthermore, the EL of a single NV− center embedded in the i(n−) layer region was characterized. The results show that the charge state of the single NV centers can be manipulated by the voltage applied to the p+–i(n−)–n+ diode, where the emission of EL is increasingly dominated by NV− in the range of 30 to 50 V.

Introduction Patients with heart failure are reported to have activated platelets leading to thrombotic events. Consequently, immature giant platelets are produced, and platelet distribution width (PDW) and mean platelet volume (MPV) increase. These platelet indices are easily, reasonably, and safely available by routine blood test and recently have been proposed as potential markers of cardiac events. However, little is known about the usefulness of platelet indices in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). Purpose To test whether the hypothesis that PDW and MPV correlate to the severity of heart failure and have prognostic value in both future heart failure-related admission and thrombosis formation in patients with CHD. Methods We performed a retrospective, single-centre study that included 400 patients with CHD (median age, 34 years [range: 12–76]; 49% males; 35% single ventricular morphology), who were admitted in our institute between April 2014 and June 2017. We reviewed patients' medical records to assess their clinical information including medical history, blood sample data, and echocardiologic parameters. At first, we assessed the correlation between platelet indices and patients' clinical parameters. Next, we compared platelet indices before and after treatment for heart failure. Finally, using logistic regression and Kaplan-Meier analyses, we assessed prognostic factors of future heart failure-related admission and thrombosis formation. Results In multivariate analysis, a significant correlation was found between PDW and logBNP (brain natriuretic peptide) (p Conclusion Platelet volume indices correlate to severity of heart failure and have prognostic value for both cardiac and thrombotic events in patients with congenital heart disease. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: None

Posttraumatic stress disorder, a commonly researched mental health outcome associated with trauma, does not develop in the majority of survivors. More common trajectories of adaptation include resilience, and posttraumatic growth (PTG). The objectives of the current study were to: (1) describe posttrauma adaptation profiles in a sample of Israeli male military veterans (N = 448); and (2) to explore the protective factors that promote constructive PTG within two profiles of posttrauma adaptation.The study used secondary data to estimate latent profile mixture models and a series of logistic regression analyses.Demographic controls, combat related variables, endorsement of coping strategies, and reports of improvement in social support were not significant predictors of constructive growth in the resilient class. However, those in the struggling growth subset of the sample who reported improvement in perceived social support increased the odds of reaching constructive growth.These findings highlight the importance of tailored clinical interventions that account for more complex profiles of posttrauma adaptation; and further, provide evidence that adaptation takes place over time. Finally, these findings call for future research to continue to explore the quality of PTG and the contexts in which protective factors promote positive adaptation.

The graphite surfaces were irradiated by Ar+ ions with and without a simultaneous Co supply at room temperature. The sputtered surface without Co supply was characterized by densely distributed conical protrusions with aligned carbon nanofibers (CNFs) on the tops, whereas Ar+-bombarded surfaces with a simultaneous Co supply were covered with asparagus-like (micrometer order in base diameter) or nanofibrous (10–50 nm in diameter) structures depending on the supply rate of Co atoms. No CNF-tipped cones were observed to form. For the nanofibers containing carbon and cobalt, the hysteresis behavior observed in the magnetization property by applying magnetic fields in directions perpendicular and parallel (in-plain) to the substrate was almost identical, whereas a continuous 1 µm thick-Co film showed the strong in-plane anisotropy. Other materials could be readily incorporated into CNFs by choosing the suitable metal sources. Thus, the ion-irradiation method is expected to open up a new approach to fabricate ferromagnetic 1-D nanomaterials at room temperature.

We have reported on ultra-high-voltage vacuum switches using diamond pin diode-type electron emitters with negative electron affinity. Based on the previous 10-kV demonstration, we present our recent progress on high-current operations at 4 A/cm2 in these vacuum switches. We confirmed a normally-off mode at a high voltage of 7 kV; in addition, we evaluated the capability of this device based on our model.

We have been proposed ultra-high voltage vacuum switches using diamond pin diode-type electron emitters with a negative electron affinity. Based on the previous 10 kV demonstration, our recent progress on high current operations above 1 A/cm2 in the vacuum switch is presented. High voltage of 7kV normally-off operation was confirmed, and then we evaluated the capability of this device based on our model.

The pulsed ESR technique was employed in the present study to obtain the spin-spin relaxation times of the E 1 ′ center (an unpaired electron at an oxygen vacancy) in natural quartz with and without irradiation. The relaxation times of the heat treated E 1 ′ center in natural unirradiated quartz of a granite and of uranium ore were 3.5– 7.1 μ s . Electron and gamma ray irradiated quartz showed the relaxation times of 7.1– 15.7 μ s while He ion implanted quartz showed 1.0– 2.0 μ s , much less than the other samples. The intensity of the E 1 ′ center increased in stepwise heating up to 300 ∘ C before decreasing above that temperature except for He implanted sample which showed monotonic decrease on heating. The present experimental results showed that the characteristics of the E 1 ′ center created by high linear energy transfer (LET) radiation is different from that by low LET radiation, suggesting that, in nature, the oxygen vacancies are created by low LET radiation, i.e. external beta and gamma rays, rather than by alpha particles and alpha recoil nuclei.

We have successfully synthesized homoepitaxial diamond films with atomically flat surface by the microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using an extremely low CH 4 /H 2 ratio of CH 4 /H 2 gas less than 0.15% CH 4 /H 2 ratio and Ib(0 0 1) substrates with low misorientation angle (θ off ) less than 1.5. It was found that surface morphologies of the films strongly depend on a growth condition of CH 4 /H 2 ratio and θ off of the substrate and was suggested that the hydrogen etching and the θ off played an important role for the epitaxial diamond film growth with an atomically flat surface. On the other hand, from the cathodoluminescence spectra and Schottky junction properties of these diamond films with atomically flat surface, it has been clarified that these films have actually a high potentiality for electronic devices.

Junction properties of Al/high-conductivity layer (HCL) near the surface of hydrogenated homoepitaxial diamond films were re-examined to evaluate the published models for the origin of HCL. As compared with the junction properties of metal/oxidized B-doped diamond films, it is confirmed that carrier transport in the Al/HCL junction can be well explained by the conventional Schottky barrier theory for metal/p-type semiconductors. This means that the carrier depletion region of HCL (i.e. the downward band bending for p-type HCL) actually exists in the vicinity of the Al/HCL junction at thermal equilibrium (zero bias) as well as at reverse bias conditions. To keep the downward band bending of HCL, ionized acceptors must exist in this region. We discuss a downward band-bending model based on the hydrogen-related shallow acceptors to explain electrochemical behaviors (adsorbate effect) of HCL as well as the present Schottky junction properties.

We studied the misorientation angle dependence of the surface morphology in homoepitaxial diamond film grown by the microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using an extremely low CH4 concentration gas system (less than 0.15% CH4/H2 ratio). We found that, for a misorientation angle (θoff) of less than 1°, the surfaces of diamond films are atomically flat surface. Their mean roughness (Ra) determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM) is less than 0.04 nm. Ra subsequently increases as θoff increases above θoff>1.5°. This tendency is opposite to that of the conventional homoepitaxial growth using a high CH4/H2 ratio. We also found that the θoff dependence of Ra of surfaces formed by hydrogen (H2) plasma etching has the same tendency as that of the CVD growth at the low CH4/H2 ratio mentioned above. Specifically, Ra is less than 0.17 nm for θoff

This paper summarizes our recent achievement on a 10kV vacuum switch with negative electron affinity (NEA) of diamond PIN electron emitters (PIN-emitters), a model for such vacuum switch with PIN-emitters, and a recent progress on reduction of operation voltage of the PIN-emitters with use of hopping conduction of the heavily-doped substrate. These prove a principle of vacuum power switches over 100 kV with an efficiency beyond 99.9%.

We investigated the structure of unepitaxial crystallites (UC; non-epitaxial crystallites) in homoepitaxial diamond films on Ib (001) diamond substrate grown by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD), employing field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The UC was classified into two types depending on the orientation relationship to the homoepitaxial film; one rotates by 70.5° around the common 〈110〉 axis, corresponding to Σ3 coincidence site lattice (CSL) relation. The other type does not have any particular angular relationship. It was found that the growth of the former type is closely related to a lattice dislocation on the substrate surface as well as the homoepitaxial film. On the other hand, there was hardly any lattice dislocation observed at the bottom of the latter type. A nanometer-sized crystalline diamond particle was observed at the nucleation site of the latter one.

Surface morphologies of device-grade homoepitaxial diamond films grown by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with CH 4 /H 2 ratios and misorientation angles of diamond (001) substrates are discussed. We produced a map of surface morphologies as a function of both the misorientation angles of the diamond substrates and CH 4 /H 2 ratios. This map revealed that homoepitaxy under CH 4 /H 2 ratios greater than 0.05% was in good agreement with results reported in the literature. This could be explained in terms of migration length and CH 4 /H 2 ratios. On the other hand, when the CH 4 /H 2 ratios were lower than 0.15%, we found that the misorientation angle does not affect the surface morphology of the homoepitaxial diamond films so much, and we obtained atomically flat surfaces over the whole substrate area. The numerical result may be consistent with the fact that the migration length of precursors increases by orders of magnitude in the presence of a large amount of atomic hydrogen.

We have synthesized device grade B-doped homoepitaxial diamond films with low compensation using a microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system. This study was based on an approach in which the synthesis of device grade films was performed in a clean CVD system. Among the films studied here, Hall effect measurements showed that the highest values of Hall mobility were 1840 cm 2 /V s at 290 K. The donor (compensation) concentration N D and compensation ratio N D / N Acceptor of the film mentioned above were 4±1×10 14 cm −3 and about 0.4%, respectively. Furthermore, as a result of applying the two-step growth method to B-doped films, we obtained B-doped films without unepitaxial crystallites and pyramidal hillocks. We made high-quality Schottky junctions between the metal (Al, Cr, Ni, Au, or Pt) and the present B-doped diamond films. The current–voltage characteristics of these junctions indicated high-rectification properties with ideality factor n ∼1.1 and very low leakage currents at reverse bias. In particular, the junction fabricated with Pt was operational with n ∼1.3 at high temperature of around 731 K.

This paper presents experimental results of 10 kV switching by means of a vacuum switch with negative electron affinity of diamond PIN electron emitters at RT. A model for such vacuum switch with an electron emitter proves a principle of vacuum switches over 100 kV with an efficiency beyond 99.9%.

We have developed a 200 keV gas cluster implantation system with a E × B mass filter (wien filter) which selects the cluster size in the range 1–4000 atoms, and studies the effects of bombarding an Si(100) surface with Ar cluster ions. Damaged layers irradiated with Ar cluster ion beams 3000 atoms in size at 150 keV were distributed between 100 A and 200 A. Detailed studies of the cluster size effect were achieved using Si(100) substrates which were covered with SiO 2 . By changing the thickness of the SiO 2 covering, we could obtain more detailed information on the depth of the irradiation damage. The damaged layers irradiated with 100 keV cluster ion beams of size 500 and 3000 atoms were about 130 A and 160 A respectively. However, the depth of the damaged layer was much greater than the value expected from the cluster velocity at the energy of the constituent atoms of the cluster. These results indicate that gas cluster ion irradiation has the capability of producing shallow implantation.

Gas cluster ion beam techniques have been developed for atomic and molecular level surface modification processing. Shallow implantation, high yield sputtering, surface smoothing, and low damage surface cleaning have been demonstrated experimentally. This article reports recent results concerning surface treatments that are distinctly different from those produced by conventional monomer ion irradiation. Possible applications of gas cluster ion beam processing to new areas of surface modifications are suggested.

Diamond semiconductor is an attractive material for next-generation power devices due to its wide band-gap, high breakdown field, and high thermal conductivity. By selective n+-type diamond growth, diamond junction field effect transistors (JFETs) were fabricated and operated from 223 to 573 K. JFETs show very low leakage currents in the 10−15 A range and a steep subthreshold slope (SS) of 81 mV/decade at room temperature. We confirm that the devices possess steep SS and low leakage current in the 10−14-10−15 A r a n ge s up to 423 K.

Unepitaxial crystallites (UC, non-epitaxial crystallites) were spontaneously grown in a homoepitaxial diamond film deposited by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method at a high growth rate. Degradation of electrical and optical properties of the deposited films was attributed to the growth of the UC. In order to investigate the structure of the UC, electron microscopic analysis was performed on the UC. Focused ion beam thinning (FIB), a field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and a high-resolution transition electron microscopy (HRTEM) were employed for the investigation. Dislocations were observed in the growth region in the 〈001〉 direction. Nanometer-sized grains were observed in the growth region in the 〈111〉 direction. Most of the grains rotated by 70.53° around the 〈110〉 axis, corresponding to ∑3 coincidence site lattice (CSL) relation. The (111) ∑3 grain boundary was dominant in number and was extremely long in length. Incoherent ∑3 boundaries connected to the {111} ∑3 boundary were much shorter.

Management of patients with recurrent intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) following surgical resection is difficult, and surgical resection is rarely indicated. We retrospectively reviewed patients with recurrent intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.Between April 1998 and March 2007, 57 consecutive patients with ICC underwent surgical resection. Mode of recurrence and treatment of recurrent tumors, especially surgical resection for these tumors, in patients with cancer recurrence were evaluated.37 (65%) patients experienced tumor recurrence. Out of these patients, 24 underwent some type of cancer-directed therapy, including 9 patients (24%) for whom surgical resection was attempted: the latter included 4 hepatic resections, 2 pulmonary resections, 2 tumor resections, and 1 gastric resection. For 6 patients with recurrent tumor in the liver or the lung, microscopic complete resection was achieved, while incomplete resection was resulted in the remaining 3 patients. No postoperative mortality was encountered. Among patients with complete resection, 3 are alive without disease 32, 39 and 77 months after the second operation, one has lived with disease for 13 months, and 2 died of disease after 22 and 26 months. No significant difference in overall survival was observed between patients undergoing primary and second surgical resections, calculated from the primary and the second operations, respectively.Repeated surgical resection for recurrent ICC can be performed with acceptable morbidity, and affords selected patients a chance for long-term survival.

This paper describes a novel control strategy of a current-source PWM rectifier, which is based on relay control of instantaneous active and reactive power, and presents its experimentally examined operation characteristics, followed by a theoretical derivation of the control algorithm. The most important feature of this strategy is a direct selection of switching modes of the PWM rectifier to restrict errors between the feedback values and the command values of the active and reactive power. Therefore, a theoretical analysis on relationship between the instantaneous power and the switching modes of the PWM rectifier is deeply investigated, which is essential to compose a switching mode table in the controller. Feasibility of the proposed strategy is experimentally verified, using a prototype setup. As a result, 92.7-% maximum efficiency and 99.9-% maximum total power factor are confirmed through the experimental tests.

Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction may occur in patients after the atrial switch operation for d-transposition of the great arteries (d-TGA) and can be an important complication. Noninvasive assessment of RV function using echocardiography is necessary for following up these patients. We evaluated RV function using the Doppler Tei index (RV Tei index). The RV Tei index measures the ratio of total time intervals in isovolumetric contraction and relaxation to the ejection time. The subjects consisted of 33 patients who had undergone the atrial switch operation for d-TGA (the atrial switch group) (mean age, 21 +/- 4 years), 10 patients with pulmonary artery stenosis after the arterial switch operation for d-TGA (the arterial switch group) (mean age, 17 +/- 1 years), and 10 patients with a normally structured heart as a control group (mean age, 26 +/- 7 years). The RV Tei index (0.65 +/- 0.16) was significantly higher in the atrial switch group than in the arterial switch group (0.29 +/- 0.07) and the control group (0.29 +/- 0.01) (p < 0.05). The fractional area change of the RV obtained from the four-chamber view in the atrial switch group showed a significant negative correlation with the RV Tei index (r = -0.58, p < 0.01). The RV Tei index increased with increasing severity of the NYHA functional class. In the moderate/severe tricuspid regurgitation group, it was significantly higher than in patients with none/trivial tricuspid regurgitation. We conclude that the RV Tei index is useful for evaluating RV junction long after the atrial switch operation for d-TGA.

An equalizer employs reverse scaling and dual-loop adaptation to achieve a binary data rate of 10 Gbit/s. Realized in 0.13 /spl mu/m CMOS technology, the circuit adapts to traces up to 30 inches on FR4 boards while consuming 25 mW from a 1.2 V supply.

We establish a strict correlation between the total photoelectron yield spectra and the surface conductivity of hydrogenated diamond. The decomposition of the yield spectra into electron and exciton derived contributions requires an upward surface band bending to accompany surface conductivity, while an essentially flat band or downward band bending is observed after removing the surface conductivity by annealing in vacuum. Between the two competing models proposed for surface conductivity with a sheet hole density of ${10}^{13}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2},$ these results favor the surface transfer-doping model strongly over the subsurface acceptor model.

We show two GA-based approaches to the linguistic modeling of nonlinear functions from numerical input-output data. Our task is to find a small number of linguistic rules for approximately realizing nonlinear functions. In both approaches, the fitness value of each rule set is defined by the weighted sum of three criteria: the total squared error, the number of linguistic rules, and their total length. The length of each rule is defined by the number of antecedent conditions. One approach is rule selection where a small number of linguistic rules are selected from a large number of candidate rules by genetic algorithms. The other approach is fuzzy genetics-based machine learning (GBML) where each linguistic rule is coded as a symbolic substring by its antecedent and consequent linguistic values. A rule set is represented by a concatenated string of variable length. The two approaches are compared with each other through computer simulations on numerical examples.

We have developed the first ever low-energy, high-dosage boron ion implantation technology using a decaborane (B10H14) molecule. Since B10H14 consists of ten boron atoms, they are implanted with about a one-tenth lower effective acceleration energy and a ten times higher effective beam current compared with those of boron. Using this implantation, we show an ultra-shallow 500 eV boron profile, which do not show transient diffusion after rapid thermal annealing.

L-Carnitine is essential for the transport of long-chain fatty acids from cytosol into mitochondria for generating metabolic energy. The survey of crystal structures of carnitine-containing proteins in the Protein Data Bank reveals that carnitine can take several conformations with the quarternary trimethylammonium terminal being always bound to aromatic residues through cation- interactions in acyltransferases or carnitine-binding proteins. In order to demonstrate the importance of cation- interaction as a carnitine recognition mechanism in the artificial receptor-ligand system that mimics the carnitine-binding sites, we have determined the crystal structure of a complex formed between L-carnitine and pyrogallol(4)arene (pyrogallol cyclic tetramer: PCT) as a carnitine receptor, 2PCT∙2(L-carnitine)∙4EtOH. There form two crystallographically independent monomeric (PCT∙L-carnitine) substructures, which further form an obliquely arranged capsule-like dimeric (PCT∙L-carnitine)2 structure through a pair of O-H (PCT)∙∙∙O (L-carnitine) hydrogen bonds. This is the first report of PCT complex with chiral molecules. In each of the two monomeric (PCT∙L-carnitine) substructures, the L-carnitine molecule takes the elongated form with an intramolecular hydrogen bond between the hydroxyl group and the carboxylate oxygen, and the cationic trimethylammonium moiety is incorporated into the cavity of the bowl-shaped PCT molecule through cation- interactions. These features are similar to those at the D- carnitine-binding site in the crystal structure of the glycine betaine/carnitine/choline- binding protein complex.

It is desirable to improve the properties of polyimide (PI) films in order to fabricate good liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and good insulators for quantum devices. We study a new method, ion beam assisted vapor deposition (IBAVD), which is useful to control both the physical and chemical properties of PI films. This could also be a powerful method for controlling the PI chain orientation for electrical and optical device applications.

Graphite surfaces were bombarded by Ar+ ions with and without a simultaneous Ni supply at room temperature. The sputtered surfaces without Ni supply were characterized by densely distributed conical protrusions with aligned single carbon nanofibers (CNFs) on the tops. By contrast, an excess Ni supply during Ar+ bombardment suppressed the CNF formation, while under the proper Ni supply conditions, single Ni-doped CNFs grew on slender needle-like structures or conical protrusions depending on the supply rate of Ni atoms. Non-doped CNFs were characterized by the amorphous-like or very fine-crystallites nature, whereas the Ni-doped CNFs were featured by polycrystalline structure. Thus, the crystalline structure was controllable by Ni doping. Because any kinds of materials can be doped into ion-induced CNFs, it is believed that the ion-irradiation method will open up a new approach to fabricate 1-dimensional composite nanomaterials at room temperature.

The implantation of Ar and B into Si by cluster ion has been examined. Shallow implantation was clearly demonstrated with a high energy cluster ion. The damage layer thickness is less than 200 /spl Aring/, when 150 keV Ar cluster ions are implanted into Si. This thickness is one order of magnitude smaller than that by Ar monomer ion bombardment with the same total energy. The thickness of the damaged layer formed by cluster ion bombardment increased with the cluster size, when the total energy of cluster ion remain the same. This is one of the non-linear effect of cluster implantation. Poly-atomic cluster-ion implantation with decaborane has also been demonstrated. Shallow implantation (

Cluster ion implantation realizes ultra-shallow (