Tailoring excitonic states of van der Waals bilayers through stacking configuration, band alignment and valley-spin

Excitons in monolayer semiconductors have large optical transition dipole for strong coupling with light field. Interlayer excitons in heterobilayers, with layer separation of electron and hole components, feature large electric dipole that enables strong coupling with electric field and exciton-exciton interaction, at the cost that the optical dipole is substantially quenched (by several orders of magnitude). In this letter, we demonstrate the ability to create a new class of excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) hetero- and homo-bilayers that combines the advantages of monolayer- and interlayer-excitons, i.e. featuring both large optical dipole and large electric dipole. These excitons consist of an electron that is well confined in an individual layer, and a hole that is well extended in both layers, realized here through the carrier-species specific layer-hybridization controlled through the interplay of rotational, translational, band offset, and valley-spin degrees of freedom. We observe different species of such layer-hybridized valley excitons in different heterobilayer and homobilayer systems, which can be utilized for realizing strongly interacting excitonic/polaritonic gases, as well as optical quantum coherent controls of bidirectional interlayer carrier transfer either with upper conversion or down conversion in energy

Performance-based Fire Safety Design for Existing Small-scale Hospitals

AbstractThe new era of National Health Insurance in 2000 has had a significant impacted on the management and operation of smallscale hospitals. In response to social needs, and in order to survive under the new insurance system, some small-scale hospitals have transformed or established new Respiratory Care Wards by using existing hospital space. According to the 2009 statistics released by Department of Health, Executive Yuan, there are a total of 307 small-scale medical institutes which provide servicesunder 99 beds. Compared with other large-scale medical centers and general hospitals, small-scale hospitals cannot properly deal with safety management and response to emergency evacuation due to lack of facilities, equipment and human resources. Therefore, small-scale hospitals face a major challenge in emergency response once a fire has occurred. As a result of such a situation, this study has focused mainly on Respiratory Care Wards (RCW) where patients are unable to evacuate. It hopes to analyse the safety management, and emergency response in small-scale hospitals by means of understanding the space characteristics and fire risk. Through on-site surveys, we can understand the fire risk, space features, patient characteristics, facilities and equipment. With reference to the related regulations of hospital emergency management and response, we will propose some fire safety engineering approaches, such as refuge areas in horizontal evacuation and so-called “besieged zones” for “defense-in-place”, etc., to provide some alternative measures to improve fire safety for those small-scale hospitals

Nemonoxacin (Taigexyn^®): A New Non-Fluorinated Quinolone

Nemonoxacin (Taigexyn®), a novel C-8-methoxy non-fluorinated quinolone, has been approved for use in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in Taiwan (2014) and mainland China (2016). The FDA granted nemonoxacin ‘qualified infectious disease product’ and ‘fast-track’ designations for CAP and acute bacterial skin and skin structure infection in December 2013. It possesses a broad spectrum of bactericidal activity against typical and atypical respiratory pathogens. In particular, nemonoxacin has activity against resistant Gram-positive cocci, including penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Oral nemonoxacin was compared with oral levofloxacin for efficacy and safety in three randomized, double-blinded, controlled Phase II–III clinical trials for the treatment of CAP. This article will review the microbiological profile of nemonoxacin against respiratory pathogens including S. pneumoniae and S. aureus, and microbiological outcome data from the three Phase II–III studies

A New Seamless Bitstream Switching Scheme for H.264 Video Adaptation with Enhanced Coding Performance

[[abstract]]In this paper, we propose a new seamless bitstream switching scheme to improve the coding performance of H.264 SP-frames for rate adaptation. Our method removes one of the two re-quantization blocks in the SP-frame encoders so as to significantly improve coding performance. The seamless switching property of SP-frames is retained by properly restructuring the primary and secondary switching frame codecs. Experimental results show that our proposed scheme achieves close coding performance to that of regular H.264 P-frames and significantly better performance than that of SP-frames. The proposed method also provides the advantage of using a single secondary switching bitstream for both switching-up and switching-down processes[[fileno]]2030144030014[[department]]電機工程學

Arabidopsis mTERF15 Is Required for Mitochondrial nad2 Intron 3 Splicing and Functional Complex I Activity

Mitochondria play a pivotal role in most eukaryotic cells, as they are responsible for the generation of energy and diverse metabolic intermediates for many cellular events. During endosymbiosis, approximately 99% of the genes encoded by the mitochondrial genome were transferred into the host nucleus, and mitochondria import more than 1000 nuclear-encoded proteins from the cytosol to maintain structural integrity and fundamental functions, including DNA replication, mRNA transcription and RNA metabolism of dozens of mitochondrial genes. In metazoans, a family of nuclear-encoded proteins called the mitochondrial transcription termination factors (mTERFs) regulates mitochondrial transcription, including transcriptional termination and initiation, via their DNA-binding activities, and the dysfunction of individual mTERF members causes severe developmental defects. Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa contain 35 and 48 mTERFs, respectively, but the biological functions of only a few of these proteins have been explored. Here, we investigated the biological role and molecular mechanism of Arabidopsis mTERF15 in plant organelle metabolism using molecular genetics, cytological and biochemical approaches. The null homozygous T-DNA mutant of mTERF15, mterf15, was found to result in substantial retardation of both vegetative and reproductive development, which was fully complemented by the wild-type genomic sequence. Surprisingly, mitochondria-localized mTERF15 lacks obvious DNA-binding activity but processes mitochondrial nad2 intron 3 splicing through its RNA-binding ability. Impairment of this splicing event not only disrupted mitochondrial structure but also abolished the activity of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I. These effects are in agreement with the severe phenotype of the mterf15 homozygous mutant. Our study suggests that Arabidopsis mTERF15 functions as a splicing factor for nad2 intron 3 splicing in mitochondria, which is essential for normal plant growth and development

An Empirical Study on Consumption Intention of Virtual Tour Streaming

This study employs the social interaction motivation of the audience to explore the social capital dual-model relationship generated by the audience of “Virtual Tour Streaming,” a term that describes virtual tour streaming’s nascent digital economy. This is situated in a virtual tour streaming platform to ascertain how it influences the intention of the audience and to use “Swift Guanxi” as the interaction variable to actual intention behavior. This is done to understand the contributions of virtual tour streaming adoption in a direct dial platform of different audience levels and their consumption behavior. The remaining sections discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the study

Supported Zinc Oxide Photocatalyst for Decolorization and Mineralization of Orange G Dye Wastewater under UV365 Irradiation

To solve the environmental challenge of textile wastewater, a UV/ZnO photocatalytic system was proposed. The objective of this study was to prepare a photocatalytic system by utilizing both cold cathode fluorescent light (CCFL) UV irradiation and steel mesh supported ZnO nanoparticles in a closed reactor for the degradation of azo dye C.I. Orange G (OG). Various operating parameters such as reaction time, preparation temperature, mixing speed, ZnO dosage, UV intensity, pH, initial dye concentration, and service duration were studied. Results presented efficient color and total organic carbon (TOC) removal of the OG azo dye by the designed photocatalytic system. The optimal ZnO dosage for color removal was 60 g m−2. An alkaline pH of 11.0 was sufficient for photocatalytic decolorization and mineralization. The rate of color removal decreased with the increase in the initial dye concentration. However, the rate of color removal increased with the increase in the UV intensity. The steel mesh supported ZnO can be used repeatedly over 10 times without losing the color removal efficiency for 120 min reaction time. Results of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and ion chromatography (IC) indicated the breakage of N=N bonds and formation of sulfate, nitrate, and nitrite as the major and minor products. The observation indicated degradation of dye molecules

Management of Anaphylactic Shock During Intravenous Fluorescein Angiography at an Outpatient Clinic

We report the proper management of a severe adverse reaction of anaphylactic shock during intravenous fluorescein angiography at an outpatient clinic. A 72-year-old male developed the severe, life-threatening complication after intravenous injection of sodium fluorescein dye for retinal angiography. Three minutes after receiving an intravenous injection of fluorescein, the patient developed syncope, apnea and circulatory shock. Fortunately, he recovered without any neurologic sequelae after immediate intensive resuscitation with fluid and inotropic support. We highlight the occurrence of anaphylactic shock as a potentially fatal complication during intravenous fluorescein angiography. Thus, one should be alert to the possibility of this adverse event and be prepared to deal with it when fluorescein angiography is performed. When it happens, immediate intensive medical resuscitation is essential to minimize morbidity and to avoid mortality