Trafficking in Women and Children: The U.S. and International Response - Updated August 1, 2001

CRSdoc1TraffickingWomen0801.pdf: 3541 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Analog/digital pH meter system I.C.

The project utilizes design automation software tools to design, simulate, and fabricate a pH meter integrated circuit (IC) system including a successive approximation type seven-bit analog to digital converter circuits using a 1.25 micron N-Well CMOS MOSIS process. The input voltage ranges from 0.5 to 1.0 V derived from a special type pH sensor, and the output is a three-digit decimal number display of pH with one decimal point

Nanoparticle Engineering for Chemical-Mechanical Planarization

Increasing reliance on electronic devices demands products with high performance and efficiency. Such devices can be realized through the advent of nanoparticle technology. This book explains the physicochemical properties of nanoparticles according to each step in the chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process, including dielectric CMP, shallow trend isolation CMP, metal CMP, poly isolation CMP, and noble metal CMP. The authors provide a detailed guide to nanoparticle engineering of novel CMP slurry for next-generation nanoscale devices below the 60nm design rule. This comprehensive text also presents design techniques using polymeric additives to improve CMP performance

DESIGNING HIGH-THROUGHPUT CANCER BIOMARKER MONITORING PLATFORM USING NANOPARTICLES

Developing high throughput cancer biomarker monitoring platform has been a long demand in cancer research. It can enable early diagnosis and help tracking recurrence of disease which will eventually increase patient’s survival rate without deteriorating quality of patient’s life. This will help doctors selectively treat patients and utilize precision medicine Most cancer biomarker monitoring studies take following two approaches; invasive and non-invasive method. First requires introduction of functionalized nanoparticles with an invasive way such as needle injection. It is designed to perform in vivo experiment where nanoparticles circulate in the body and target specific cancer cells of interest. Current obstacles in biomedical imaging for in vivo cancer diagnosis is the synthesis of hydrophilic Quantum Dots (QDs) with emission wavelength in the near-IR, a high quantum yield, stability in water, and relatively small sizes. The optimum wavelength for in vivo optical imaging, taking into account the absorbance from melanin in the epidermis, hemoglobin in blood, and water in tissue, is in the range of 700-900 nm. In this study, we successfully synthesized NIR-QDs that meets all these requirements for in vivo optical imaging. NIR QDs with emission wavelength > 700 nm, 60% QY, and high stability. High quantum yield was maintained for about 100 hours in water. We also studied circulation and retention of QDs in vivo. Fluorescent images showed that after 5 minutes of tail vein injection, QDs traveled throughout whole body and even big veins were easily visible. High fluorescence was maintained up to 100 minutes post injection (p.i.). NIR-QDs mostly cleared out by urine and feces and only 10% accumulated in RES system (especially in liver and spleen) after 24 hours p.i. Non-invasive method is also widely studied because it is more patient friendly, does not require a large amount of tumor tissue, and enables regular monitoring. Targeting cancer specific biomarkers from a collection of patients’ bodily fluids such as urine and blood is actively investigated. For example, about 10 million men take a serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) test for prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the USA. Due to its high controversy, alternate test methods are developed, including testing genomic biomarkers such as PCA3 and fusion genes. Identifying genetic diversity is important as it can provide insights on disease progression and treatment. In our study, we have tested a panel of prostate cancer genetic biomarkers (AMACR, PCA3, PSMA, TMPRSS2-ERG fusion genes) with oligonucleotide sandwich assay using gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). We established high sensitivity and throughput by controlling oligos conjugated to AuNPs. Using this in vitro test, patient urine samples are tested to find correlation between expression of panel of genetic biomarkers and clinical outcomes. We found that patients with same Gleason score and PSA result showed different TMPRSS2-ERG fusion gene expressions. This indicates that oligonucleotide sandwich assay can provide a very important insight on disease progression that conventional tests could not

Anti-Forensic Trace Detection in Digital Forensic Triage Investigations

Anti-forensics, whether intentionally to disrupt investigations or simply an effort to make a computer system run better, is becoming of increasing concern to digital investigators. This work attempts to assess the problem of anti-forensics techniques commonly deployed in South Korea. Based on identified challenges, a method of signature-based anti-forensic trace detection is proposed for triage purposes that will assist investigators in quickly making decisions about the suspect digital devices before conducting a full investigation. Finally, a prototype anti-forensic trace detection system is given to demonstrate the practicality of the proposed method

Analysis for the hierarchical architecture of the heterogeneous FitzHugh-Nagumo network inducing synchronization

Synchronization is a key topic of research in neuroscience, medicine, and artificial neural networks; however, understanding its principle is difficult, both scientifically and mathematically. Specifically, the synchronization of the FitzHugh-Nagumo network with a hierarchical architecture has previously been studied; however, a mathematical analysis has not been conducted, owing to the network complexity. Therefore, in this paper, we saught to understand synchronization through mathematical analyses. In particular, we consider the most common types of hierarchical architecture and present a condition of the hierarchical architecture to induce synchronization. First, we provide mathematical analyses of a Lyapunov function for each layer, from which we obtain sufficient conditions guaranteeing synchronization and show that the Lyapunov function decreases exponentially. Moreover, we show that the internal connectivity critically affects synchronization in the first layer; however, in the second and subsequent layers, the internal connectivity is not important for synchronization, and the connectivity up to the first layer critically affects synchronization. We expect that the results and mathematical methodology can be applied to study other similar neural models with hierarchical architectures