Fabrication and characterization of the charge-plasma diode

We present a new lateral Schottky-based rectifier called the charge-plasma diode realized on ultrathin silicon-oninsulator. The device utilizes the workfunction difference between two metal contacts, palladium and erbium, and the silicon body. We demonstrate that the proposed device provides a low and constant reverse leakage-current density of about 1 fA/μm with ON/OFF current ratios of around 107 at 1-V forward bias and room temperature. In the forward mode, a current swing of 88 mV/dec is obtained, which is reduced to 68 mV/dec by back-gate biasing

Strain characterization of FinFETs using Raman spectroscopy

Metal induced strain in the channel region of silicon (Si) fin-field effect transistor (FinFET) devices has been characterized using Raman spectroscopy. The strain originates from the difference in thermal expansion coefficient of Si and titanium-nitride. The Raman map of the device region is used to determine strain in the channel after preparing the device with the focused ion beam milling. Using the Raman peak shift relative to that of relaxed Si, compressive strain values up to – 0.88% have been obtained for a 5 nm wide silicon fin. The strain is found to increase with reducing fin width though it scales less than previously reported results from holographic interferometry. In addition, finite-element method (FEM) simulations have been utilized to analyze the amount of strain generated after thermal processing. It is shown that obtained FEM simulated strain values are in good agreement with the calculated strain values obtained from Raman spectroscop

The clinical effectiveness of concise cognitive behavioral therapy with or without pharmacotherapy for depressive and anxiety disorders; a pragmatic randomized controlled equivalence trial in clinical practice

Background: Depressive and anxiety disorders contribute to a high disease burden. This paper investigates whether concise formats of cognitive behavioral- and/or pharmacotherapy are equivalent with longer standard care in the treatment of depressive and/or anxiety disorders in secondary mental health care. Methods: A pragmatic randomized controlled equivalence trial was conducted at five Dutch outpatient Mental Healthcare Centers (MHCs) of the Regional Mental Health Provider (RMHP) \u27Rivierduinen\u27. Patients (aged 18-65 years) with a mild to moderate anxiety and/or depressive disorder, were randomly allocated to concise or standard care. Data were collected at baseline, 3, 6 and 12 months by Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM). Primary outcomes were the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Web Screening Questionnaire (WSQ). We used Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) to assess outcomes. Results: Between March 2010 and December 2012, 182 patients, were enrolled (n = 89 standard care; n = 93 concise care). Both intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses demonstrated equivalence of concise care and standard care at all time points. Severity of illness reduced, and both treatments improved patient\u27s general health status and subdomains of quality of life. Moreover, in concise care, the beneficial effects started earlier. Discussion: Concise care has the potential to be a feasible and promising alternative to longer standard secondary mental health care in the treatment of outpatients with a mild to moderate depressive and/or anxiety disorder. For future research, we recommend adhering more strictly to the concise treatment protocols to further explore the beneficial effects of the concise treatment

Cohort profile of the longitudinal Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) on etiology, course and consequences of depressive and anxiety disorders

INTRODUCTION: The Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA, www.nesda.nl) is a longitudinal, multi-site, naturalistic, case-control cohort study set up to examine the etiology, course and consequences of depressive and anxiety disorders. This paper presents a cohort profile of NESDA. METHODS AND RESULTS: The NESDA sample recruited initially 2329 persons with a remitted or current DSM-IV based depressive (major depressive disorder, dysthymia) and/or anxiety disorder (panic disorder, social phobia, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder), 367 of their siblings and 652 healthy controls, yielding a total of 3348 participants. Half-day face-to-face assessments of participants started in 2004 and since then have been repeated six times over a period of 9 years. A 13-year follow-up assessment is ongoing, at what time we also recruit offspring of participants. Retention rates are generally high, ranging from 87.1% (after 2 years) to 69.4% (after 9 years). Psychiatric diagnostic interviews have been administered at all face-to-face assessments, as was monitoring of clinical characteristics, psychosocial functioning and somatic health. Assessed etiological factors include e.g. early and current environmental risk factors, psychological vulnerability and resilience factors as well as (neuro)biology through hypothesis-driven biomarker assessments, genome-wide and large-scale '-omics' assessments, and neuroimaging assessments. LIMITATIONS: The naturalistic design allows research into course and consequences of affective disorders but is limited in treatment response interpretation. CONCLUSIONS: NESDA provides a strong research infrastructure for research into depressive and/or anxiety disorders. Its data have been used for many scientific papers describing either NESDA-based analyses or joint collaborative consortia-projects, and are in principle available to researchers outside the NESDA consortium

On the modelling and optimisation of a novel Schottky based silicon rectifier

The charge plasma (CP) diode is a novel silicon rectifier using Schottky barriers, to circumvent the requirement for doping and related problems when small device dimensions are used. We present a model for the DC current voltage characteristics and verify this using device simulations. The model revealed an exponential dependence of the current on the metal work functions. And approximate linear dependence on the device geometry. The model is used to optimize the device performance. We show a factor 30 improvement in on/off current ratio (and hence rectification) toward 10E7 by appropriate sizing of the lateral device dimensions at given specific metal work functions

Familial risk for depressive and anxiety disorders:associations with genetic, clinical, and psychosocial vulnerabilities

BACKGROUND: In research and clinical practice, familial risk for depression and anxiety is often constructed as a simple Yes/No dichotomous family history (FH) indicator. However, this measure may not fully capture the liability to these conditions. This study investigated whether a continuous familial loading score (FLS), incorporating family- and disorder-specific characteristics (e.g. family size, prevalence of depression/anxiety), (i) is associated with a polygenic risk score (PRS) for major depression and with clinical/psychosocial vulnerabilities and (ii) still captures variation in clinical/psychosocial vulnerabilities after information on FH has been taken into account. METHODS: Data came from 1425 participants with lifetime depression and/or anxiety from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety. The Family Tree Inventory was used to determine FLS/FH indicators for depression and/or anxiety. RESULTS: Persons with higher FLS had higher PRS for major depression, more severe depression and anxiety symptoms, higher disease burden, younger age of onset, and more neuroticism, rumination, and childhood trauma. Among these variables, FH was not associated with PRS, severity of symptoms, and neuroticism. After regression out the effect of FH from the FLS, the resulting residualized measure of FLS was still associated with severity of symptoms of depression and anxiety, rumination, and childhood trauma. CONCLUSIONS: Familial risk for depression and anxiety deserves clinical attention due to its associated genetic vulnerability and more unfavorable disease profile, and seems to be better captured by a continuous score that incorporates family- and disorder-specific characteristics than by a dichotomous FH measure

Feature-based diversity optimization for problem instance classification

Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XIVUnderstanding the behaviour of heuristic search methods is a challenge. This even holds for simple local search methods such as 2-OPT for the Traveling Salesperson problem. In this paper, we present a general framework that is able to construct a diverse set of instances that are hard or easy for a given search heuristic. Such a diverse set is obtained by using an evolutionary algorithm for constructing hard or easy instances that are diverse with respect to different features of the underlying problem. Examining the constructed instance sets, we show that many combinations of two or three features give a good classification of the TSP instances in terms of whether they are hard to be solved by 2-OPT.Wanru Gao, Samadhi Nallaperuma, and Frank Neuman

Sleep, circadian rhythm, and physical activity patterns in depressive and anxiety disorders:A 2-week ambulatory assessment study

BACKGROUND: Actigraphy may provide a more valid assessment of sleep, circadian rhythm (CR), and physical activity (PA) than self-reported questionnaires, but has not been used widely to study the association with depression/anxiety and their clinical characteristics. METHODS: Fourteen-day actigraphy data of 359 participants with current (n = 93), remitted (n = 176), or no (n = 90) composite international diagnostic interview depression/anxiety diagnoses were obtained from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety. Objective estimates included sleep duration (SD), sleep efficiency, relative amplitude (RA) between day-time and night-time activity, mid sleep on free days (MSF), gross motor activity (GMA), and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA). Self-reported measures included insomnia rating scale, SD, MSF, metabolic equivalent total, and MVPA. RESULTS: Compared to controls, individuals with current depression/anxiety had a significantly different objective, but not self-reported, PA and CR: lower GMA (23.83 vs. 27.4 milli-gravity/day, p = .022), lower MVPA (35.32 vs. 47.64 min/day, p = .023), lower RA (0.82 vs. 0.83, p = .033). In contrast, self-reported, but not objective, sleep differed between people with current depression/anxiety compared to those without current disorders; people with current depression/anxiety reported both shorter and longer SD and more insomnia. More depressive/anxiety symptoms and number of depressive/anxiety diagnoses were associated with larger disturbances of the actigraphy measures. CONCLUSION: Actigraphy provides ecologically valid information on sleep, CR, and PA that enhances data from self-reported questionnaires. As those with more severe or comorbid forms showed the lowest PA and most CR disruptions, the potential for adjunctive behavioral and chronotherapy interventions should be explored, as well as the potential of actigraphy to monitor treatment response to such interventions

A novel astrovirus-like RNA virus detected in human stool

Several novel clades of astroviruses have recently been identified in human faecal samples. Here, we describe a novel astrovirus-like RNA virus detected in human stools, which we have tentatively named bastrovirus. The genome of this novel virus consists of 6,300 nucleotides organized in three open reading frames. Several sequence divergent strains were detected sharing 67–93 per cent nucleotide identity. Bastrovirus encodes a putative structural protein that is homologous to the capsid protein found in members of the Astroviridae family (45% amino acid identity). The virus also encodes a putative non-structural protein that is genetically distant from astroviruses but shares some homology to the non-structural protein encoded by members of the Hepeviridae family (28% amino acid identity). This novel bastrovirus is present in 8.7 per cent (35/400) of faecal samples collected from 300 HIV-1-positive and 100 HIV-1-negative individuals suggesting common occurrence of the virus. However, whether the source of the virus is infected human cells or other, for example, dietary, remains to be determined