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Tin disulfide (SnS

Tin monosulfide (SnS) is a promising absorber layer material in solar cell devices. In addition to its outstanding electrical and optical properties, SnS does not contain rare heavy-metal atoms. Thus, many researchers have focused on fabricating highly efficient SnS-based solar cell devices. However, the effect H2 annealing on thermally evaporated SnS thin films and their transfer characteristics with various metals have not been thoroughly studied yet. In this paper, SnS was deposited by thermal evaporation and annealed in a H2 gas ambient at 400 °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy, Hall measurements, and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry revealed that our SnS thin films were single-phase with enhanced physical and electrical properties. Furthermore, the electrical band structure of SnS was investigated by UV-visible and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy analyses to predict the electrical band alignment when in contact with Ti, W, and Mo electrodes. XRD and atomic force microscopy analysis confirmed that SnS was well grown on these metal electrodes. Finally, SnS with Mo electrodes showed the most conductive transfer characteristics.

This study investigates amorphous SiCN thin films deposited by remote plasma atomic layer deposition. Bis[(diethylamino)dimethylsilyl](trimethylsilyl)amine (DTDN-2) and N2 plasma were used as the precursor and reactant, respectively. The deposition temperature ranged from 100 to 300 °C, and the plasma power was set to 100 and 300 W. It was determined that the SiCN film carbon content increased with decreasing plasma power and deposition temperature. Likewise, decreasing the plasma power and deposition temperature lowered the dielectric constant of the film owing to the low film density and high carbon content. It was found that the composition of the SiCN film deposited at 300 °C was similar to that of the SiN film. The wet etch rate of the film deposited at 200 °C had the lowest value owing to the carbon content and high film density. The chemical bonding states of Si, C, and N were measured by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Recently, high-quality SiO2 thin films deposited at low temperatures have become popular because of their excellent dielectric properties. In this study, SiO2 thin films were deposited through remote plasma atomic layer deposition (RPALD) using a bis(tertiary-butylamino)silane (BTBAS) precursor and O2 plasma. The growth rate was saturated at 1.0 Å/cycle between 300 °C and 400 °C and was maintained throughout the process. The SiO2 thin film was oxygen rich according to Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and the Si–O–Si bond structure was analyzed by measuring the binding energy differences using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The leakage current density was 2.0 × 10–7 A cm−2 at 2 MV cm−1. As the deposition temperature increased from 300 °C to 400 °C, the breakdown voltage increased from 8.5 MV cm−1 to 10.5 MV cm−1 and the dielectric constant decreased from 3.85 to 3.72, which is slightly lower than for typical SiO2.

Conduction band offset (CBO) is an important aspect in the development of SnS-based solar cells. Studies on buffer layers are needed to obtain a CBO that matches the SnS absorber layer. Zn(O,S) is a promising cadmium sulfide replacement for a thin film solar cell buffer layer due to its non-toxicity and large band gap, and its film characteristics can be optimized by adjusting the oxygen and sulfur ratio. However, very few studies have been conducted on processed Zn(O,S) film’s electronic band structure, and the absence is more serious for the case of atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. In this study, we deposited Zn(O,S) films with various ZnO/ZnS cycle ratios using the ALD supercycle method and identified their film characteristics and electronic band structures. Results showed that the Zn(O,S) films had high concentrations of ZnS compared to the ZnS cycle fraction. Mixing the ZnO and ZnS cycles reduced the film’s crystallinity and affected the Zn(O,S) films characteristics. Further, the electronic band structures were identified using UV–vis and UPS analysis. The Zn(O,S) films using 14:1 and 19:1 ZnO/ZnS cycle ratios showed an ideal flat CBO with SnS absorber.

We demonstrate the polyol synthesis of ultrathin Ag nanowires with diameters of 20 nm and an aspect ratio as high as ∼1000 under high-pressure conditions. The increase in pressure increases density and enhances solubility, making the reactive solution rapidly reach super-saturation and increase the nucleation rate to effect a near-instantaneous formation of Ag nuclei. Clearly, the particle size was small at high pressure and an increase in pressure promoted the formation of small-size Ag seed-particles and small diameter wires. As a result, the Ag nanostructures in this study were initially formed as Ag seed particles with a diameter of 20 nm and subsequently grew into well-defined Ag nanowires with a uniform and narrow diameter distribution in the range of 16–22 nm, with a long dimension of up to 20 μm. Fabrication of random networks of the 20 nm diameter Ag nanowires synthesized lead to the fabrication of flexible transparent electrodes with excellent optoelectronic performance, with a sheet resistance of 30 Ω sq−1 and 94% transmittance with a very low haze value of ≤1.0%, making them suitable for electronic display applications.

We have developed highly transparent and electrically conductive hybrid-gel films based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and thin silver nanowires (Ag NWs) with diameters of 20 nm. Ionic gels based on PEDOT:PSS are ionic conductors consisting of anionic PSS and cationic PEDOT. Ag NWs were combined with the conductive PEDOT:PSS chains to assemble electrically conductive gels. The hybrid-gel films were created with a structure that incorporates Ag NWs into the conductive PEDOT chain matrix. We found that the conductivity significantly increased with Ag NW content. The optimized Ag NW-PEDOT:PSS hybrid-gel films exhibited excellent performance with a high transmittance of 92% and a small haze of 1.1% at a low sheet resistance of 20 Ω sq−1, and good mechanical flexibility. Because of the high-performance, it is believed that the Ag NW-PEDOT:PSS hybrid-gel electrodes are highly suitable for practical use in flexible electronics.

The current requirement for expensive laboratory equipment and highly trained personnel highlights the critical need for simple, low cost technologies capable of point-of-care (POC) clinical detection, especially in resource-limited regions. In this report, we propose an innovative, ultra low-cost, plastic-based blood diagnostic platform for POC detection that requires only a minute volume (

Tin disulfide (SnS2) has emerged as a promising two-dimensional (2D) material due to its excellent electrical and optical properties. However, research into 2D SnS2 has mainly focused on its synthesis procedures and applications; its stability to humidity and temperature has yet to be studied. In this work, 2D SnS2 thin films were grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and characterized by various tools, such as X-ray diffraction, Raman analysis, and transmission electron spectroscopy. Characterization reveals that ALD-grown SnS2 thin films are a high-quality 2D material. After characterization, a four-inch-wafer-scale uniformity test was performed by Raman analysis. Owing to the quality, large-area growth enabled by the ALD process, 98.72% uniformity was obtained. Finally, we calculated the thermodynamic equations for possible reactions between SnS2 and H2O to theoretically presurmise the oxidation of SnS2 during accelerated humidity and temperature testing. After the accelerated humidity and temperature test, X-ray diffraction, Raman analysis, and Auger electron spectroscopy were performed to check whether SnS2 was oxidized or not. Our data revealed that 2D SnS2 thin films were stable at humid conditions.

The triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (TREM) family, which is abundantly expressed in myeloid lineage cells, plays a pivotal role in innate and adaptive immune response. In this study, we aimed to identify a novel receptor expressed on hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) by using in silico bioinformatics and to characterize the identified receptor. We thus found the TREM-like transcript (TLT)-6, a new member of TREM family. TLT-6 has a single immunoglobulin domain in the extracellular region and a long cytoplasmic region containing 2 immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif-like domains. TLT-6 transcript was expressed in HSCs, monocytes and macrophages. TLT-6 protein was up-regulated on the surface of bone marrow-derived and peritoneal macrophages by lipopolysaccharide stimulation. TLT-6 exerted anti-proliferative effects in macrophages. Our results demonstrate that TLT-6 may regulate the activation and proliferation of macrophages.

Background Adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AT-MSCs) offer potential as a therapeutic option for chronic discogenic low back pain (LBP) because of their immunomodulatory functions and capacity for cartilage differentiation. The goal of this study was to assess the safety and tolerability of a single intradiscal implantation of combined AT-MSCs and hyaluronic acid (HA) derivative in patients with chronic discogenic LBP. Methods We performed a single-arm phase I clinical trial with a 12-month follow-up and enrolled 10 eligible chronic LBP patients. Chronic LBP had lasted for more than 3 months with a minimum intensity of 4/10 on a visual analogue scale (VAS) and disability level ≥ 30% on the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). The 10 patients underwent a single intradiscal injection of combined HA derivative and AT-MSCs at a dose of 2 × 107 cells/disc (n = 5) or 4 × 107 cells/disc (n = 5). Safety and treatment outcomes were evaluated by assessing VAS, ODI, Short Form-36 (SF-36), and imaging (lumbar spine X-ray imaging and MRI) at regular intervals over 1 year. Results No patients were lost at any point during the 1-year clinical study. We observed no procedure or stem cell-related adverse events or serious adverse events during the 1-year follow-up period. VAS, ODI, and SF-36 scores significantly improved in both groups receiving both low (cases 2, 4, and 5) and high (cases 7, 8, and 9) cell doses, and did not differ significantly between the two groups. Among six patients who achieved significant improvement in VAS, ODI, and SF-36, three patients (cases 4, 8, and 9) were determined to have increased water content based on an increased apparent diffusion coefficient on diffusion MRI. Conclusions Combined implantation of AT-MSCs and HA derivative in chronic discogenic LBP is safe and tolerable. However, the efficacy of combined AT-MSCs and HA should be investigated in a randomized controlled trial in a larger population. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02338271 . Registered 7 January 2015.

Improved conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)-based electrode films were assembled by hybridization with charged silver nanowires (Ag NWs). The hybrid layers consisting of PEDOT chains interconnected between random Ag-NW networks were found to have better conductivity than PEDOT alone or intrinsic pure Ag NW networks. Various concentrations of Ag NWs with 30 nm size in diameter were incorporated into the PEDOT chains matrix. The optimized PEDOT/Ag NW hybrid layers exhibited excellent performance with a low sheet resistance of 15 Ω/sq, corresponds to the electrical conductivity of approximately 8500 S/cm, at 90% transparence when PEDOT was hybridized with 40 wt% Ag NWs. The organic solar cell devices deposited on these hybrid electrodes show a performance equivalent to that of the devices based on a conventional ITO electrode.

In this manuscript, we report on assembly issues of a new high-resolution airborne optical system (HRAOS), which consists of front-end optics, two after-end optical channels (electro-optical and infrared channels), and a connection module. The beam splitter (BS) plate in the connection module divides the output beam from the front-end optics by 50:50 and feeds into the after-end optical channels. The BS plate has a 116-mm elliptical shape on the major axis while the thickness is only 8 mm to meet the weight limitation of the system. As a result, a small amount of stress on the BS plate causes a relatively large deformation and ultimately leads to a serious deterioration of the image quality. To resolve this problem, we suggest a new assembly method (a four-point-bonding method) and verify it by using a finite-elements analysis. After the proposed method had been applied, the final wavefront error of the entire optical system showed a rms (root-mean-square) value of 66 nm. The error of a previous result was about 317 nm. Thermal effects were also observed.

Objective: This research proposes a methodology, which validates a grasp of the customers' emotions in the service design area. Background: As the era of service design has taken its approach, the need for a deliberate design that would reflect the customer's experience had emerged in the area of service. Therefore, a variety of methodologies has been adopted in the field of service design with the purpose of discovery of the customers' needs. Even though the importance of an emotion-sentient research of a service experience increases, its research progress remains to be inadequate in comparison to all the other areas. Method: Having had taken some resources from the emotional studies under other areas of expertise as a base, the concept of volatility of emotions has been introduced as the core element of this research, further followed by an elaboration of its special characteristics. The observation technique under Stakeholder's system: SOMC(Simultaneous Observation Method based on Cooperation) has been proposed in this study as it presents an effective way to grasp the concept of volatile emotions in contrast to the previously existent types of methodologies. Results: The SOMC rather supplements the existing research methods than substitutes the previous ones. In other words, although the existing research system allowed emotion detection, it was difficult to capture the change of momentary and fickle emotions. On the opposite, the SOMC provides a condition allowing a sufficient grasp of the customer's emotions and facilitates emotional capture. Conclusion: For that reason, it is hoped that this piece of research represents a valuable and effective approach in terms of grasping the true needs of the customers on the emotional level, which will in its turn contribute to the improvement of the service quality in the midst of a complicated service condition. Application: Moreover, the purpose of this research is that in its outcome it may serve as a sufficient contribution to the area of emotional studies within the field of service design.

In this study, the changes of displacement and stress are investigated by structural analysis according to the thickness of car body in case of overturn. In case of 5 mm thickness, the maximum displacement of 7.5024 mm at its right ceiling and the maximum equivalent stress of 113.69 MPa at the left lower part are occurred on the elapsed time of 2 second. In case of 10 mm thickness, the maximum displacement of 1.2557 mm at its right ceiling and the maximum equivalent stress of 15.134 MPa at the left lower part are occurred on the elapsed time of 2 second. In case of 15 mm thickness, the maximum displacement of 0.426067 mm at its right ceiling and the maximum equivalent stress of 4.4842 MPa at the left lower part are occurred on the elapsed time of 2 second. As stress and displacement are uniformly distributed according to time in this case, the design of car body can be stabilized. Key Words : Car body, Overturn, Thickness, Equivalent stress, Design stabilization 본 연구는 지식경제부 2010년도 지역산업기술개발사업으로 수행한 과제임.

Background/Aims Fabry disease is an X-linked recessive and progressive disease caused by α-galactosidase A (α-GaL A) deficiency. We sought to assess the prevalence of unrecognized Fabry disease in dialysis-dependent patients and the efficacy of serum globotriaosylceramide (GL3) screening. Methods A total of 480 patients of 1,230 patients among 17 clinics were enrolled. Serum GL3 levels were measured by tandem mass spectrometry. Additionally, we studied the association between increased GL3 levels and cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, or left ventricular hypertrophy. Results Twenty-nine patients had elevated serum GL3 levels. The α-GaL A activity was determined for the 26 patients with high GL3 levels. The mean α-GaL A activity was 64.6 nmol/hr/mg (reference range, 45 to 85), and no patient was identified with decreased α-GaL A activity. Among the group with high GL3 levels, 15 women had a α-GaL A genetics analysis. No point mutations were discovered among the women with high GL3 levels. No correlation was observed between serum GL3 levels and α-GaL A activity; the Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.01352 (p = 0.9478). No significant correlation was observed between increased GL3 levels and the frequency of cardiovascular disease or cerebrovascular disease. Conclusions Fabry disease is very rare disease in patients with end-stage renal disease. Serum GL3 measurements as a screening method for Fabry disease showed a high false-positive rate. Thus, serum GL3 levels determined by tandem mass spectrometry may not be useful as a screening method for Fabry disease in patients with end stage renal disease.

Web-based auctions are now regarded as among the most successful business models on the Internet. Buyers who are invited to a web-based auction site make decisions based on a wealth of on-line information. In such circumstances, commercial transactions tend to be influenced not only by the information content of the website, but also by its design. However, little effort has been made to analyse the relationships between transaction behaviour and these design factors. The aim of this paper is to identify information design factors and to analyse how these factors influence intention to bid in web-based auction sites. Our empirical study shows that information design factors and the specific characteristics of products are significantly related to a buyer's evaluations of an auction website and intention to bid.

Thin and long silver nanowires were successfully synthesized using the polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-assisted polyol method in the presence of ionic liquids, tetrapropylammonium chloride and tetrapropylammonium bromide, which served as soft template salts. The first step involved the formation of Ag nanoparticles with a diameter of 40 to 50 nm through the reduction of silver nitrate. At the growing stage, the Ag nanoparticles were converted into thin and long one-dimensional wires, with uniform diameters of 30 ± 3 nm and lengths of up to 50 μm. These Ag nanowires showed an electrical conductivity of 0.3 × 105 S/cm, while the sheet resistance of a two-dimensional percolating Ag nanowire network exhibited a value of 20 Ω/sq with an optical transmittance of 93% and a low haze value.

Primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (PPNAD) is a rare cause of Cushing’s syndrome in infants, children and young adults. It is characterized by non-adrenocorticotropic hormone-dependent hypersecretion of cortisol by multiple, pigmented nodules of hyperplastic adrenocortical cells. Biochemically, PPNAD is characterized by elevated levels of plasma and urinary cortisol that are not suppressed by high doses of dexamethasone (8mg/d for 2 days). Pathologically, the adrenal glands contain multiple dark brown or black nodules and the intervening cortical tissue is atrophic. Recognition of this diagnosis, although rare, is important, as bilateral adrenalectomy is the treatment of choice. We experienced a case of Cushing’s syndrome due to primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease and report it with reviews of the literature.

Objectives: Clevudine has demonstrated antiviral potency in the treatment of naïve chronic hepatitis B patients in pivotal studies. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a 1-year treatment with clevudine in chronic hepatitis B patients. Methods: This is a post-marketing surveillance using case report forms which were submitted to the health authorities. Results: Analysis of individual data showed that hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA after a 1-year treatment was Conclusion: Clevudine monotherapy demonstrates potent antiviral activity as well as biochemical and serological response with a 0.7% rate of viral breakthrough in naïve chronic hepatitis B patients.

In this paper, we consider two fairness problems that occur in the infrastructure network (fairness between TCP uplink/downlink flows and fairness between competing TCP uplink flows). A large number of existing works have studied the TCP fairness issues and greatly solved the TCP unfairness problems. However, these solutions suffer from the drawback of TCP throughput degradation even though the TCP unfairness problem can be solved. In order to solve these problems effectively, we propose a scheme that modifies the receiver window size on the basis of maximum window size which is able to maximize link utilization. We have evaluated our scheme with ns-2 simulator and the results demonstrate that our scheme greatly improves both the TCP fairness and total throughput.

In this paper, we propose a new affine projection sign algorithm (APSA) to improve the convergence speed of the conventional APSA which has been proposed to enable the affine projection algorithm (APA) to operate robustly in impulsive noise environment. The conventional APSA has two advantages; it operates robustly against impulsive noise and does not need calcula tion for the inverse matrix. The proposed algorithm also has the conventional algorithm’s advantages and furthermore, better convergence speed than the conventional algorithm. In the conventional algorithm, each input signal is normalized by   -norm of all input signals, but the proposed algorithm uses input signals normalized by their corresponding   -norm. We carried out a performance comparison of the proposed algorithm with the convention al algorithm using a system identification model. It is shown that the proposed algorithm has the faster convergence speed than the conventional algorithm. Keywords: Affine projection algorithm, Affine projection sign algorithm, Impulsive noise

In this paper, we propose a new sign subband adaptive filter to improve the convergence rate of the conventional sign subband adaptive filter which has been proposed to deal with colored input signal under the environment with impulsive noise. The existing sign subband adaptive filter does not increase the convergence speed by increasing the number of subband because each subband input signal is normalized by of all of the subband input signals. We devised a new sign subband adaptive filter that normalizes each subband input signal with of each subband input signal and increases the convergence rate by increasing the number of subband. We carried out a performance comparison of the proposed algorithm with the existing sign subband adaptive filter using a system identification model. It is shown that the proposed algorithm has faster convergence rate than the existing sign subband adaptive filter.

The time of expression of genes for blast resistance during the penetrati, Dn of Pyricularia oryzae into rice plants was examined using the leaf sheath inoculation method. It vras observed that the time of the expression varied from gene to gene.