1,204 research outputs found
A High-Performance Triple Patterning Layout Decomposer with Balanced Density
Triple patterning lithography (TPL) has received more and more attentions
from industry as one of the leading candidate for 14nm/11nm nodes. In this
paper, we propose a high performance layout decomposer for TPL. Density
balancing is seamlessly integrated into all key steps in our TPL layout
decomposition, including density-balanced semi-definite programming (SDP),
density-based mapping, and density-balanced graph simplification. Our new TPL
decomposer can obtain high performance even compared to previous
state-of-the-art layout decomposers which are not balanced-density aware, e.g.,
by Yu et al. (ICCAD'11), Fang et al. (DAC'12), and Kuang et al. (DAC'13).
Furthermore, the balanced-density version of our decomposer can provide more
balanced density which leads to less edge placement error (EPE), while the
conflict and stitch numbers are still very comparable to our
non-balanced-density baseline
A Novel Family of Cyst Proteins with Epidermal Growth Factor Repeats in Giardia lamblia
The biological goal of Giardia lamblia life cycle is differentiation into a cyst form (encystation) that can survive in the environment and infect a new host. Since cystic stages are key to transmission of parasites, this differentiation may be a target for interruption of the life cycle. Synthesis and assembly of the extracellular cyst wall are the major hallmarks of this important differentiation. During encystation, cyst wall structural proteins are coordinately synthesized and are mainly targeted to the cyst wall. However, only a few such proteins have been identified to date. In this study, we used a combination of bioinformatics and molecular approaches to identify new cyst structural proteins from G. lamblia and found a group of Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF)-like Repeats containing Cyst Proteins (EGFCPs). Interestingly, the levels of EGFCPs proteins increased significantly during encystation, which matches the characteristics of the Giardia cyst wall protein. Further characterization and localization studies suggest that EGFCPs may function like cyst wall proteins, involved in differentiation of G. lamblia trophozoites into cysts. Our results provide valuable information regarding the function of a new group of cyst proteins in parasite differentiation into cysts and help develop ways to interrupt the parasite life cycle
Sampling Neural Radiance Fields for Refractive Objects
Recently, differentiable volume rendering in neural radiance fields (NeRF)
has gained a lot of popularity, and its variants have attained many impressive
results. However, existing methods usually assume the scene is a homogeneous
volume so that a ray is cast along the straight path. In this work, the scene
is instead a heterogeneous volume with a piecewise-constant refractive index,
where the path will be curved if it intersects the different refractive
indices. For novel view synthesis of refractive objects, our NeRF-based
framework aims to optimize the radiance fields of bounded volume and boundary
from multi-view posed images with refractive object silhouettes. To tackle this
challenging problem, the refractive index of a scene is reconstructed from
silhouettes. Given the refractive index, we extend the stratified and
hierarchical sampling techniques in NeRF to allow drawing samples along a
curved path tracked by the Eikonal equation. The results indicate that our
framework outperforms the state-of-the-art method both quantitatively and
qualitatively, demonstrating better performance on the perceptual similarity
metric and an apparent improvement in the rendering quality on several
synthetic and real scenes.Comment: SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 Technical Communications. 4 pages, 4 figures, 1
table. Project: https://alexkeroro86.github.io/SampleNeRFRO/ Code:
https://github.com/alexkeroro86/SampleNeRFR
Synthesis of SnO 2
Zinc oxides deposited on Tin dioxide nanowires have been successfully synthesized by atomic layer deposition (ALD). The diameter of SnO2-ZnO core-shell nanowires is 100 nm by ALD 200 cycles. The result of electricity measurements shows that the resistance of SnO2-ZnO core-shell nanowires (ALD: 200 cycles) is 925 Ω, which is much lower than pure SnO2 nanowires (3.6 × 106 Ω). The result of UV light test shows that the recovery time of SnO2-ZnO core-shell nanowires (ALD: 200 cycles) is 328 seconds, which is lower than pure SnO2 nanowires (938 seconds). These results demonstrated that the SnO2-ZnO core-shell nanowires have potential application as UV photodetectors with high photon-sensing properties
Roles of Reactive Oxygen Species in Anticancer Therapy with Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. We aim to provide a systematic review about the roles of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in anticancer therapy with Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge (Danshen). Danshen, including its lipophilic and hydrophilic constituents, is potentially beneficial for treating various cancers. The mechanisms of ROS-related anticancer effects of Danshen vary depending on the specific type of cancer cells involved. Danshen may enhance TNF-α-induced apoptosis, upregulate caspase-3, caspase-8, caspase-9, endoplasmic reticulum stress, P21, P53, Bax/Bcl-2, DR5, and AMP-activated protein kinase, or activate the p38/JNK, mitogen-activated protein kinase, and FasL signaling pathways. Conversely, Danshen may downregulate human telomerase reverse transcriptase mRNA, telomerase, survivin, vascular endothelial growth factor/vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, CD31, NF-κB, Erk1/2, matrix metalloproteinases, microtubule assembly, and receptor tyrosine kinases including epidermal growth factor receptors, HER2, and P-glycoprotein and inhibit the PI3K/Akt/mTOR or estrogen receptor signaling pathways. Therefore, Danshen may inhibit cancer cells proliferation through antioxidation on tumor initiation and induce apoptosis or autophagy through ROS generation on tumor progression, tumor promotion, and tumor metastasis. Based on the available evidence regarding its anticancer properties, this review provides new insights for further anticancer research or clinical trials with Danshen
Brain Activation by Peptide Pro-Leu-Gly-NH2 (MIF-1)
MIF-1 (Pro-Leu-Gly-NH2) is a tripeptide for which the therapeutic potential in Parkinson's disease and depression has been indicated by many studies. However, the cellular mechanisms of action of MIF-1 are not yet clear. Here, we show the specific brain regions responsive to MIF-1 treatment by c-Fos mapping, and determine the kinetics of cellular signaling by western blotting of pERK, pSTAT3, and c-Fos in cultured neurons. The immunoreactivity of c-Fos was increased 4 hours after MIF-1 treatment in brain regions critically involved in the regulation of mood, anxiety, depression, and memory. The number of cells activated was greater after peripheral treatment (intravenous delivery) than after intracerebroventricular injection. In cultured SH-SY5Y neuronal cells, c-Fos was induced time- and dose-dependently. The activation of cellular c-Fos was preceded by a transient increase of mitogen-activated protein kinase pERK but a reduction of phosphorylated Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (pSTAT3) initially. We conclude that MIF-1 can modulate multiple cellular signals including pERK, and pSTAT3 to activate c-Fos. The cellular activation in specific brain regions illustrates the biochemical and neuroanatomical basis underlying the therapeutic effect of MIF-1 in Parkinson's disease and depression
Entanglement Structure: Entanglement Partitioning in Multipartite Systems and Its Experimental Detection Using Optimizable Witnesses
Creating large-scale entanglement lies at the heart of many quantum
information processing protocols and the investigation of fundamental physics.
For multipartite quantum systems, it is crucial to identify not only the
presence of entanglement but also its detailed structure. This is because in a
generic experimental situation with sufficiently many subsystems involved, the
production of so-called genuine multipartite entanglement remains a formidable
challenge. Consequently, focusing exclusively on the identification of this
strongest type of entanglement may result in an all or nothing situation where
some inherently quantum aspects of the resource are overlooked. On the
contrary, even if the system is not genuinely multipartite entangled, there may
still be many-body entanglement present in the system. An identification of the
entanglement structure may thus provide us with a hint about where
imperfections in the setup may occur, as well as where we can identify groups
of subsystems that can still exhibit strong quantum-information-processing
capabilities. However, there is no known efficient methods to identify the
underlying entanglement structure. Here, we propose two complementary families
of witnesses for the identification of such structures. They are based on the
detection of entanglement intactness and entanglement depth, each requires only
the implementation of solely two local measurements. Our method is also robust
against noises and other imperfections, as reflected by our experimental
implementation of these tools to verify the entanglement structure of five
different eight-photon entangled states. We demonstrate how their entanglement
structure can be precisely and systematically inferred from the experimental
data. In achieving this goal, we also illustrate how the same set of data can
be classically postprocessed to learn the most about the measured system.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure
Hypoalbuminemia in peritoneal dialysis patients
This study aimed to determine the factors that were associated with hypoalbuminemia in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. End-stage renal disease patients who had received PD at the National Taiwan University Hospital for more than three months were included and divided into two groups. Patients who had mean serum albumin levels greater or equal to 3.5g/dL were allocated to Group 1, while those who had mean serum albumin levels less than 3.5g/dL were allocated to Group 2. Demographic characteristics, clinical parameters and laboratory data were then compared between the two groups. Logistic regression was also performed to identify the factors that were associated with hypoalbuminemia. There were 359 patients (mean age 54.3 years, male 46.5%) included. Group 2 patients (10.3%) were older (P=0.0536), had lower body mass index (P=0.0008), lower total Kt/V (P=0.0060), and lower levels of hemoglobin (P=0.0268), blood urea nitrogen (P=0.0501), creatinine (P<0.0001), triglyceride (P=0.0014), potassium (P=0.0028), phosphorus (P=0.0036), but higher levels of C-reactive protein (P=0.0194). More Group 2 patients had high or high-average peritoneal equilibration test (PET) (P=0.0199). Using logistic regression, factors that were found to be associated with hypoalbuminemia were total Kt/V (P=0.0015), hemoglobin (P=0.0019), creatinine (P<0.0001), triglyceride (P=0.0060), and potassium (P=0.0126). In conclusion, hypoalbuminemia in our PD patients was associated with total Kt/V as well as levels of hemoglobin, creatinine, triglyceride, and potassium
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