Electrophoresis of a Soft Sphere in a Necked Cylindrical Nanopore

[[abstract]]The influence of boundary shape on electrophoresis is modeled by considering a soft spherical particle comprising a positively charged rigid core and an uncharged membrane layer on the axis of a necked cylindrical pore with its throat positively charged. The presence of the throat makes the associated flow and electric fields nonuniform, yielding several interesting behaviors. In general, the reduction in the cross-section area of the pore intensifies the local electric field and, therefore, accelerates the particle. It also makes the ionic distribution nonuniform, and the electric field induced accelerates the particle. The maximum mobility occurs at the center of a throat, and the higher the charge density of the throat the larger the ratio of maximum mobility/mobility far away from the throat. This result is informative for the design of separation devices having variable cross sectional area.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

Bending Stress Analysis of Laminated Foldable Touch Panel

AbstractThe touch panel technology has been developed in recent years, and the foldable touch panel is one of the newly attractive characteristics. This article focuses on the bending stress analysis of foldable touch panel, composed of plastic substrate PET, adhesive layer, plastic layer PI, organic layer and conductive layer ITO to form a seven-layer laminated structure. By applying four-point bending, the stress distribution of the touch panel under different radius of curvature was analyzed. The results show that the maximum von Mises stress occurred in the ITO layer and the maximum von Mises stress increased from 0.497GPa to 1.242GPa with decreasing radius of curvature. The region near the center of the touch panel has higher von Mises stress, and the relation between the radius of curvature and the maximum von Mises stress exhibits a non-linear feature

Electrophoresis of Nano-Polyelectrolytes in Aqueous Electrolytes solutions:Influence on Ionic Polarization

[[abstract]]本文探討了奈米聚電解質，一可穿透性的帶電奈米尺寸的粒子，在電解質溶液中的電泳行為。其中特別考慮了液相中存在多種離子時對該行為的影響。吾人以文獻中之實驗數據驗證了所獲理論結果的適用性。吾人證實，除了粒子週遭的電滲透流外，兩種相互競爭的極化效應也扮演了重要的角色：反離子極化效應與離子極化效應。這兩種極化效應皆與電雙層之厚度密切相關。由於以上三種效應之存在，奈米聚電解質之電泳行為相較於一般剛性者複雜許多。吾人所獲結果，除了提供相關電泳分析的理論基礎外，也為各類電泳實驗數據的解釋提供了具參考價值的資訊。典型的例子包括目前廣受重視的用於DNA定序之奈米尺寸孔道的檢測元件。[[sponsorship]]Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Laussane , Universite De Geneve[[sponsorship]]University of Geneva; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20120709~20120712[[ispeerreviewed]]Y[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Lausanne, Switzerland[[countrycodes]]CH

Shape-controlled single-crystal growth of InP at low temperatures down to 220 °C.

III-V compound semiconductors are widely used for electronic and optoelectronic applications. However, interfacing III-Vs with other materials has been fundamentally limited by the high growth temperatures and lattice-match requirements of traditional deposition processes. Recently, we developed the templated liquid-phase (TLP) crystal growth method for enabling direct growth of shape-controlled single-crystal III-Vs on amorphous substrates. Although in theory, the lowest temperature for TLP growth is that of the melting point of the group III metal (e.g., 156.6 °C for indium), previous experiments required a minimum growth temperature of 500 °C, thus being incompatible with many application-specific substrates. Here, we demonstrate low-temperature TLP (LT-TLP) growth of single-crystalline InP patterns at substrate temperatures down to 220 °C by first activating the precursor, thus enabling the direct growth of InP even on low thermal budget substrates such as plastics and indium-tin-oxide (ITO)-coated glass. Importantly, the material exhibits high electron mobilities and good optoelectronic properties as demonstrated by the fabrication of high-performance transistors and light-emitting devices. Furthermore, this work may enable integration of III-Vs with silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processing for monolithic 3D integrated circuits and/or back-end electronics

A Polygon Model for Wireless Sensor Network Deployment with Directional Sensing Areas

The modeling of the sensing area of a sensor node is essential for the deployment algorithm of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, a polygon model is proposed for the sensor node with directional sensing area. In addition, a WSN deployment algorithm is presented with topology control and scoring mechanisms to maintain network connectivity and improve sensing coverage rate. To evaluate the proposed polygon model and WSN deployment algorithm, a simulation is conducted. The simulation results show that the proposed polygon model outperforms the existed disk model and circular sector model in terms of the maximum sensing coverage rate

Functional decline and mortality in long-term care settings: Static and dynamic approach

AbstractBackground/PurposeFunctional impairment is known to be associated with higher mortality risk and adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about whether functional decline could predict mortality among the elderly in the long-term care setting.MethodsThis is a prospective cohort study in two veteran homes in northern Taiwan with active use of the minimum data set (MDS). Evaluation tools retrieved from the MDS, including MDS Resource Utilization Group-III for Activities of Daily Living (RUG-III ADL), MDS Cognitive Scale, MDS Social engagement, triggers for resident assessment protocol (RAP) and Pain scale, were utilized for the analysis.ResultsA total of 1125 male participants were included in this study. The mean age of the participants was 83.1 ± 5.1 years, and 65 (5.8%) developed physical functional decline within a 6-month period. Participants with functional decline [odds ratio (OR) 2.305, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.002–5.303], poor baseline functional status (OR 1.116, 95% CI 1.002–1.242), positive RAP triggers for dehydration (OR 13.857, 95% CI 3.07–62.543), and underlying chronic lung diseases (OR 2.279, 95% CI 1.149–4.522), depression (OR 2.994, 95% CI 1.161–7.721), and cancer (OR 3.23, 95% CI 1.078–9.682) were more likely to have an additional 12-month mortality. By contrast, Parkinsonism (OR 3.875, 95% CI 1.169–12.841), increase in sum of RAP triggers (OR 6.096, 95% CI 2.741–13.562), and positive RAP triggers for cognitive loss (OR 3.164, 95% CI 1.612–6.212) and mood (OR 2.894, 95% CI 1.466–5.71) are strong predictors for functional decline within 6 months.ConclusionPhysical function decline within 6 months predicted the subsequent 1-year mortality, whereas increased sum of RAP triggers and positive trigger for cognitive loss and mood were associated with functional decline

Identification of SNP barcode biomarkers for genes associated with facial emotion perception using particle swarm optimization algorithm

BACKGROUND: Facial emotion perception (FEP) can affect social function. We previously reported that parts of five tested single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the MET and AKT1 genes may individually affect FEP performance. However, the effects of SNP-SNP interactions on FEP performance remain unclear. METHODS: This study compared patients with high and low FEP performances (n = 89 and 93, respectively). A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was used to identify the best SNP barcodes (i.e., the SNP combinations and genotypes that revealed the largest differences between the high and low FEP groups). RESULTS: The analyses of individual SNPs showed no significant differences between the high and low FEP groups. However, comparisons of multiple SNP-SNP interactions involving different combinations of two to five SNPs showed that the best PSO-generated SNP barcodes were significantly associated with high FEP score. The analyses of the joint effects of the best SNP barcodes for two to five interacting SNPs also showed that the best SNP barcodes had significantly higher odds ratios (2.119 to 3.138; P < 0.05) compared to other SNP barcodes. In conclusion, the proposed PSO algorithm effectively identifies the best SNP barcodes that have the strongest associations with FEP performance. CONCLUSIONS: This study also proposes a computational methodology for analyzing complex SNP-SNP interactions in social cognition domains such as recognition of facial emotion

Backtesting VaR in consideration of the higher moments of the distribution for minimum-variance hedging portfolios

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o The higher moments of a distribution often lead to estimated value-at-risk (VaR) biases. This study&apos;s objective is to examine the backtesting of VaR models that consider the higher moments of the distribution for minimumvariance hedging portfolios (MVHPs) of the stock indices and futures in the Greater China Region for both short and long hedgers. The results reveal that the best backtesting VaR for the MVHP considered both the higher moments of the MVHP distribution and the asymmetry in volatility, cross-market asymmetry in volatility, and level effects in the covariance matrix of assets in the MVHP. These empirical results provide references for investors in risk management

Myocardium-derived conditioned medium improves left ventricular function in rodent acute myocardial infarction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We investigated whether myocardium-derived conditioned medium (MDCM) is effective in preserving left ventricular (LV) function in a rat acute myocardial infarction (AMI) model.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Adult male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (n = 36) randomized to receive either left coronary artery ligation (AMI induction) or thoracotomy only (sham procedure) were grouped as follows (n = 6 per group): Group I, II, and III were sham-controls treated by fresh medium, normal rat MDCM, and infarct-related MDCM, respectively. Group IV, V, and VI were AMI rats treated by fresh medium, normal MDCM, and infarct-related MDCM, respectively. Either 75 μL MDCM or fresh medium was administered into infarct myocardium, followed by intravenous injection (3 mL) at postoperative 1, 12, and 24 h.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In vitro studies showed higher phosphorylated MMP-2 and MMP-9, but lower α-smooth muscle actin and collagen expressions in neonatal cardiac fibroblasts treated with MDCM compared with those in the cardiac fibroblasts treated with fresh medium (all p < 0.05). Sirius-red staining showed larger collagen deposition area in LV myocardium in Group IV than in other groups (all p < 0.05). Stromal cell-derived factor-1α and CXCR4 protein expressions were higher in Group VI than in other groups (all p < 0.05). The number of von Willebrand factor- and BrdU-positive cells and small vessels in LV myocardium as well as 90-day LV ejection fraction were higher, whereas oxidative stress was lower in Group VI than in Group IV and Group V (all p < 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>MDCM therapy reduced cardiac fibrosis and oxidative stress, enhanced angiogenesis, and preserved 90-day LV function in a rat AMI model.</p

Applicability of perturbative QCD to Λb→Λc\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c decays

We develop perturbative QCD factorization theorem for the semileptonic heavy baryon decay $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c l\bar{\nu}$, whose form factors are expressed as the convolutions of hard $b$ quark decay amplitudes with universal $\Lambda_b$ and $\Lambda_c$ baryon wave functions. Large logarithmic corrections are organized to all orders by the Sudakov resummation, which renders perturbative expansions more reliable. It is observed that perturbative QCD is applicable to $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c$ decays for velocity transfer greater than 1.2. Under requirement of heavy quark symmetry, we predict the branching ratio $B(\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c l{\bar\nu})\sim 2$, and determine the $\Lambda_b$ and $\Lambda_c$ baryon wave functions.Comment: 12 pages in Latex file, 3 figures in postscript files, some results are changed, but the conclusion is the sam