Efficacy of early immunomodulator therapy on the outcomes of Crohn’s disease

BACKGROUND: The natural course of Crohn’s disease (CD), with continuing relapses and remissions, leads to irreversible intestinal damage. Early adoption of immunomodulator therapy has been proposed in order to address this; however, it is still uncertain whether early immunomodulator therapy could affect the natural course of the disease in real practice. We evaluated the efficacy of such therapy on the prognosis of newly diagnosed patients with CD. METHODS: This retrospective study included 168 patients who were newly diagnosed with CD and who started treatment at Severance Hospital, Seoul, Korea between January 2006 and March 2013. The short- and long-term outcomes were compared between patients treated with early immunomodulator therapy and those treated with conventional therapy. RESULTS: A Kaplan-Meier analysis identified that administration of immunomodulators within 6 months after diagnosis of CD was superior to conventional therapy in terms of clinical remission and corticosteroid-free remission rates (P=0.043 and P=0.035). However, P=0.827). Patients with a baseline elevated CRP level were more likely to relapse (P<0.005). Drug-related adverse events were more frequent in the early immunomodulator therapy group than in the conventional therapy group P=0.029). CONCLUSIONS: Early immunomodulator therapy was more effective than conventional therapy in inducing remission, but not in preventing relapse. Baseline high CRP level was a significant indicator of relapse

Controlling the Magnetic Anisotropy of the van der Waals Ferromagnet Fe3GeTe2 through Hole Doping.

Identifying material parameters affecting properties of ferromagnets is key to optimized materials that are better suited for spintronics. Magnetic anisotropy is of particular importance in van der Waals magnets, since it not only influences magnetic and spin transport properties, but also is essential to stabilizing magnetic order in the two-dimensional limit. Here, we report that hole doping effectively modulates the magnetic anisotropy of a van der Waals ferromagnet and explore the physical origin of this effect. Fe3-xGeTe2 nanoflakes show a significant suppression of the magnetic anisotropy with hole doping. Electronic structure measurements and calculations reveal that the chemical potential shift associated with hole doping is responsible for the reduced magnetic anisotropy by decreasing the energy gain from the spin-orbit induced band splitting. Our findings provide an understanding of the intricate connection between electronic structures and magnetic properties in two-dimensional magnets and propose a method to engineer magnetic properties through doping

A Small Dorsal Pontine Infarction Presenting with Total Gaze Palsy Including Vertical Saccades and Pursuit

A small localized infarction in the dorsal pontine area can cause various eye-movement disturbances, such as abducens palsy, horizontal conjugate gaze palsy, internuclear ophthalmoplegia, and one-and-a-half syndrome. However, complete loss of vertical saccades and pursuit with horizontal gaze palsy has not been reported previously in a patient with a small pontine lesion. We report a 67-year-old man with a small dorsal caudal pontine infarct who exhibited total horizontal gaze palsy as well as loss of vertical saccades and pursuit

Trophic diversity of chemosymbiont hosts in deep-sea hydrothermal vents using amino acid nitrogen isotopes

Chemosymbiotic species inhabiting deep-sea hydrothermal vents are known to rely on microbial symbionts for nutrition. However, the relative contributions of heterotrophic energy sources to their diets remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the trophic positions (TP) of symbiont-bearing taxa, including vent mussels, snails, and shrimps, and examine the contribution of copepods and detrital organic matter (OM) to the food chain. Amino acid nitrogen isotopic compositions (δ15NAA) were used to investigate the TP of vent mussels (Bathymodiolus septemdierum and Gigantidas vrijenhoeki), snails (Alviniconcha spp.), and shrimps (Alvinocaris sp. and Rimicaris kairei) from two different vent environments. δ15NAA values in copepods and OM were also measured. Microbial resynthesis index (ΣV) was calculated to predict the contribution of reworked OM as an energy source to the hydrothermal vent ecosystem. Variations in TP were observed among vent mussels and snails from different vent environments, with higher TP in species from diffusing vents than in those from black smoker vents. Shrimps dwelling in a single diffusing vent exhibited distinct TP, suggesting that microhabitat and phylogeny may influence their energy acquisition. Notably, copepods occupied higher TPs than expected, possibly owing to the consumption of detrital OM. Our findings provide new insights into the trophic diversity of chemosymbiotic species in deep-sea hydrothermal vents and demonstrate the utility of δ15NAA analysis as a tool for unraveling food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning in these unique environments

Efficient Perovskite Light-Emitting Diodes Using Polycrystalline Core-Shell-Mimicked Nanograins

Making small nanograins in polycrystalline organic-inorganic halide perovskite (OIHP) films is critical to improving the luminescent efficiency in perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs). 3D polycrystalline OIHPs have fundamental limitations related to exciton binding energy and exciton diffusion length. At the same time, passivating the defects at the grain boundaries is also critical when the grain size becomes smaller. Molecular additives can be incorporated to shield the nanograins to suppress defects at grain boundaries; however, unevenly distributed molecular additives can cause imbalanced charge distribution and inefficient local defect passivation in polycrystalline OIHP films. Here, a kinetically controlled polycrystalline organic-shielded nanograin (OSN) film with a uniformly distributed organic semiconducting additive (2,2 ',2 ''-(1,3,5-benzinetriyl)-tris(1-phenyl-1-H-benzimidazole), TPBI) is developed mimicking core-shell nanoparticles. The OSN film causes improved photophysical and electroluminescent properties with improved light out-coupling by possessing a low refractive index. Finally, highly improved electroluminescent efficiencies of 21.81% ph el(-1) and 87.35 cd A(-1) are achieved with a half-sphere lens and four-time increased half-lifetime in polycrystalline PeLEDs. This strategy to make homogeneous, defect-healed polycrystalline core-shell-mimicked nanograin film with better optical out-coupling will provide a simple and efficient way to make highly efficient perovskite polycrystal films and their optoelectronics devices.

Synthesis and Solubility Study of the Polyamides Containing 4,4'-(9- fluorenylidene)dianiline in the Backbone as an Antireflecting Spin-on Hardmask Materials

Due to the continuous demand for smaller microelectronic devices, there exists a need to reduce the size of structural shapes in microelectronics and other related industries. Toward this end, effective lithographic techniques are essential to achieve a reduction in the size of microelectronic structures. Typical lithographic processes involve etch resistant photoresist underlying materials having antireflecting properties at a certain wavelength exposure. In this work, such materials were synthesized by the step-polymerization of diamines 2,2'-bis(3-amino- 4-hydroxyphenyl)hexafluoropropane (6FP) and 4,4'-(9-fluorenylidene)dianiline (BAFL) with a variety of diacid chlorides [terepthaloyl, isophthaloyl, glutaryl, and succinyl chlorides] and characterized by 1H NMR in tetrahydrofuran (THF-d8), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) using polystyrene standards. The effect of the structure of the components on the copolymer solubility in mixture of propylene glycol monoethylether acetate (PGMEA) and cyclohexanone used in microelectronics processing was studied by UV-visible spectroscopy. The solubility of the copolymers was found to be in trade-off relationship with BAFL content needed for its antireflective properties and high plasma etch resistance. The polymers that were prepared by using the equimolar mixture of isophthaloyl dichloride and glutaryl dichloride equimolar mixture showed the best solubility, processability and functionality and are applicable as spin-on antireflecting hardmask materials for deep ultra violet (DUV) litfhography technology. They showed good coatability, chemical resistance, plasma etch resistance, and plasma etch selectivity