Antithyroid drug-induced agranulocytosis

Thyrotoxicosis is a common endocrine disorder. Antithyroid drug therapy is the standard treatment for this disease, especially in young women of reproductive age. A serious side effect of antithyroid drug use, however, is agranulocytosis. We report on two patients with antithyroid drug-induced agranulocytosis. Both patients presented with fever and severe neutropenia. The administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor resulted in a dramatic improvement in the white blood cell count and symptoms. Antithyroid drug-induced agranulocytosis is a potentially lethal condition but is completely reversible when recognised early and when prompt treatment is offered.published_or_final_versio

Ising metamagnets in thin film geometry: equilibrium properties

Artificial antiferromagnets and synthetic metamagnets have attracted much attention recently due to their potential for many different applications. Under some simplifying assumptions these systems can be modeled by thin Ising metamagnetic films. In this paper we study, using both the Wang/Landau scheme and importance sampling Monte Carlo simulations, the equilibrium properties of these films. On the one hand we discuss the microcanonical density of states and its prominent features. On the other we analyze canonically various global and layer quantities. We obtain the phase diagram of thin Ising metamagnets as a function of temperature and external magnetic field. Whereas the phase diagram of the bulk system only exhibits one phase transition between the antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases, the phase diagram of thin Ising metamagnets includes an additional intermediate phase where one of the surface layers has aligned itself with the direction of the applied magnetic field. This additional phase transition is discontinuous and ends in a critical end point. Consequently, it is possible to gradually go from the antiferromagnetic phase to the intermediate phase without passing through a phase transition.Comment: 8 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

A pattern reconfigurable U-slot antenna and its applications in MIMO systems

A new compact pattern reconfigurable U-slot antenna is presented. The antenna consists of a U-slot patch and eight shorting posts. Each edge of the square patch is connected to two shorting posts via PIN diodes. By switching between the different states of the PIN diodes, the proposed antenna can operate in either monopolar patch or normal patch mode in similar frequency ranges. Therefore, its radiation pattern can be switched between conical and boresight patterns electrically. In addition, the plane with the maximum power level of the conical pattern can be changed between two orthogonal planes. Owing to a novel design of the switch geometry, the antenna does not need dc bias lines. The measured overlapping impedance bandwidth of the two modes is 6.6% with a center (S/ 11/<frequency of 5.32 GHz. The measured radiation patterns agree well with simulated results. The antennas are incorporated in a 2×2 multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system to demonstrate the improvement in system capacity. In the real-time MIMO-OFDM channel measurement, it is shown that compared to omnidirectional antennas, the pattern reconfigurable antennas can enhance the system capacity, with 17% improvement in a line-of-sight (LOS) scenario and 12% in a non-LOS (NLOS) scenario at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 10 dB. © 2011 IEEE

Organic light-emitting diodes based on a cohost electron transporting composite

The efficiency of green organic electroluminescent devices have been improved by cohosting the electron dominant complex, 4,7-diphenyl-1,10- phenanthroline into the traditional electron transporting layer of tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum. In this cohost strategy, we demonstrate that the luminous efficiency is enhanced by >20% while the driving voltage can be reduced by ∼30% in a uniformly mixed composition as compared to the traditional device configuration. The corresponding device lifetime under atmospheric condition is extended by a factor of ∼1.8, attributed to the reduction of the accumulated positive charges near the electron-hole recombination regime. Results indicate that the knowledge of bulk conductivity engineering of organic n-type transporters is essential in enhancing organic light-emitting devices. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Antioxidant Properties of Novel Solid-State Fermented Culinary-Medicinal Mushroom and Fungi Products

[[abstract]]Four culinary-medicinal fungi and mushrooms (Cordyceps sinensis, Termitomyces albuminosus, Antrodia camphorata, and A. salmonea) were individually inoculated into different cooked grains, and new products were formed after fungal fermentation and their antioxidant properties studied. The effectiveness of ethanolic extracts in antioxidant activities was in the descending order: the grains > products > mycelia. EC50 values of the hot water extract from four products in reducing power were 2.14-10.11 mg/mL, whereas those of the ethanolic extracts were 2.56-71.34 mg/mL. With regard to scavenging ability, all EC50 values of both extracts from 12 samples were less than 13 mg/mL, except for the hot water extract from A. camphorata mycelium. EC50 values of both extracts from four products in chelating ability were 1.50-9.96 mg/mL, except for the hot water extract from Cordyceps-fermented polished rice and the ethanolic extract from A. camphorata-fermented embryo rice. Total phenol contents of both extracts from mycelia, products, and grain substrates were 2.45-12.26, 3.24-13.13, and 1.15-7.74 mg/g, respectively. Overall, four medicinal mushroom and fungi-fermented products were relatively effective in the antioxidant properties assayed and might be potential antioxidants for application in food products

Estimation of potential gains from bank mergers:a novel two-stage cost efficiency DEA model

This paper develops a novel two-stage cost efficiency model to estimate and decompose the potential gains from Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). In this model, a merged DMU is defined as a combination of two or more candidate DMUs. The merged DMU would surpass the traditional Production Possibility Set (PPS). In order to solve the problem, a Merger Production Possibility Set (PPSM) is constructed. The model minimizes the total cost of the merged DMU while maintaining its outputs at the current level, estimates the overall merger efficiency by comparing its minimal total cost with its actual cost. Moreover, the overall merger efficiency could be decomposed into technical efficiency, harmony efficiency and scale efficiency. We show that the model can be extended to a two-stage structure and these efficiencies can be decomposed to both sub-systems. To show the usefulness of the proposed approach, we applied it to a real dataset of top 20 most competitive Chinese City Commercial Banks (CCBs). We concluded that (1) There exist considerably potential gains for the proposed merged banks. (2) It is also shown that the main impact on potential merger gains are from technical and harmony efficiency. (3) As an interesting result we found that the scale effect works against the merger, indicating that it is not favorable for a full-scale merger

Plasmon signatures in high harmonic generation

High harmonic generation in polarizable multi-electron systems is investigated in the framework of multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree-Fock. The harmonic spectra exhibit two cut offs. The first cut off is in agreement with the well established, single active electron cut off law. The second cut off presents a signature of multi-electron dynamics. The strong laser field excites non-linear plasmon oscillations. Electrons that are ionized from one of the multi-plasmon states and recombine to the ground state gain additional energy, thereby creating the second plateau.Comment: Major revision, 12 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Phys. B (2005), accepte

Preparation and properties of the specific anti-influenza virus transfer factor

Specific anti-influenza virus and normal transfer factors prepared in an experimental animal model, the pig, have been tested for their components, characteristics, and activity of known specificity. Two transfer factors are small molecular mixture which consist entirely or partly of polypeptides and polynucleosides. Moreover, the biological activity of transfer factors could be approved by Rosettes test and specific skin test. The study would lay a foundation for the research and development of other specific transfer factor

Highly sensitive, stretchable and durable strain sensors based on conductive double-network polymer hydrogels

Hydrogel-based strain sensors have been attracting immense attention for wearable electronic devices owing to their intrinsic soft characteristics and flexibility. However, developing hydrogel sensors with hightensile strength, stretchability, and strain sensitivity remains a great challenge. Herein, we report a technique to synthesize highly sensitive hydrogel-based strain sensors by integrating carbon nanofibers (CNFs) with a double-network (DN) polymer hydrogel matrix comprising of a physically cross-linked agar network and a covalently cross-linked polyacrylamide (PAAm) network. The resultant nanocomposite sensors display superior piezoresistive sensitivity with a hightrue gauge factor (GFT = 1.78) at an ultrahigh strain of 1,000%, a fast response time and linear correlation of ln(R/R0) and ln(L/L0) up to 1,000% strain. Most significantly, these sensors possess highmechanical strength (~0.6 MPa) and superb durability (>1,000 cycles at strain of 100%), stemming from the effective energy dissipation mechanism of the first agar network acting as sacrificial bonds and the CNFs serving as dynamic nanofillers. The combination of highstrain sensitivity and ultrahigh stretchability of hydrogel sensors makes it possible to sense both small mechanical deformations induced by human motions and large strain up to 1,000%

On the variational limits of lattice energies on prestrained elastic bodies

We study the asymptotic behaviour of the discrete elastic energies in presence of the prestrain metric $G$, assigned on the continuum reference configuration $\Omega$. When the mesh size of the discrete lattice in $\Omega$ goes to zero, we obtain the variational bounds on the limiting (in the sense of $\Gamma$-limit) energy. In case of the nearest-neighbour and next-to-nearest-neibghour interactions, we derive a precise asymptotic formula, and compare it with the non-Euclidean model energy relative to $G$