Report from the third international consensus meeting to harmonise core outcome measures for atopic eczema/dermatitis clinical trials (HOME).

This report provides a summary of the third meeting of the Harmonising Outcome Measures for Eczema (HOME) initiative held in San Diego, CA, U.S.A., 6-7 April 2013 (HOME III). The meeting addressed the four domains that had previously been agreed should be measured in every eczema clinical trial: clinical signs, patient-reported symptoms, long-term control and quality of life. Formal presentations and nominal group techniques were used at this working meeting, attended by 56 voting participants (31 of whom were dermatologists). Significant progress was made on the domain of clinical signs. Without reference to any named scales, it was agreed that the intensity and extent of erythema, excoriation, oedema/papulation and lichenification should be included in the core outcome measure for the scale to have content validity. The group then discussed a systematic review of all scales measuring the clinical signs of eczema and their measurement properties, followed by a consensus vote on which scale to recommend for inclusion in the core outcome set. Research into the remaining three domains was presented, followed by discussions. The symptoms group and quality of life groups need to systematically identify all available tools and rate the quality of the tools. A definition of long-term control is needed before progress can be made towards recommending a core outcome measure

Method for modulating the effective work function

EP1863072A1Published Applicatio

Assessing socio-economic impacts of wave overtopping: An institutional perspective

One way to address the assessment of strategies to control wave overtopping at seawalls and related coastal defence structures is to make use of Cost-Benefit Analysis. The institutional context in which Cost-Benefit Analysis takes place influences decisions on the types of values that are taken into consideration and the subsequent selection of valuation methods. We suggest to consider Cost-Benefit Analysis in a broad institutional framework when decisions are to be made on coastal defence strategies. It is argued that the institutional context provides the rules of the game on how a balance can be found between social, economic and ecologic functions of projects that protect societies against overtopping.status: publishe

On the low-frequency noise of high-kappa gate stacks : what did we learn?

A review is given on the low-frequency (LF) noise behavior of transistors fabricated with a high-kappa/metal gate stack. It is shown that the implementation of a work function tuning metal oxide cap layer has a pronounced impact on the gate stack quality and more in particular on the effective density of oxide traps

On the possibilities of straightforward characterization of plasma activated water

Plasma activated deionized water from a hot arc 150 W PAW synthesizer has been analyzed for nitrite, nitrate and peroxide densities. Observed nitrite and nitrate levels are impressive, reaching several millimoles per liter at few hundred kiloJoules per liter energy input. Nitrate levels appear positively influenced by the applied energy density, together with a less pronounced increase in nitrite levels and limiting energy density for maximum peroxide levels. Active PAW cooling during synthesis appears to be essential for obtaining relevant peroxide levels and connected PAW activity. In addition to established laboratory diagnostics, alternative low access tools have been investigated for applicability of PAW characterization in off-lab situations. Although no unique parameter exists to properly represent PAW activity, pH, oxidizing-reduction potential and electrical conductivity provide important insight, together with aqueous phase nitrite absorption spectrometry. Finally, classic acid-base titration has been applied to find access to the complex mixture of acidic reactive nitrogen species

TaN Versus TiN Metal Gate Input/Output pMOSFETs: A Low-Frequency Noise Perspective

© 1963-2012 IEEE. It is shown that replacing a TiN effective work function metal by TaN results in a pronounced reduction of the low-frequency noise power spectral density (PSD) of thick-SiO2 input/output (I/O) DRAM peripheral pMOSFETs. The 1/f noise is originating from carrier number fluctuations, suggesting that the observed reduction results from a decrease of the oxide trap density in the SiO2. On the other hand, I/O pMOSFETs with a TiN gate deposited by different methods or used as a sacrificial gate in a gate replacement integration scheme yield a similar high 1/f noise PSD and corresponding oxide trap density.status: publishe

A simplified method for (circular) transmission line model simulation and ultralow contact resistivity extraction

The metal resistance in the transmission line model (TLM) structures creates a serious obstacle to determine precisely the intrinsic contact resistivity. To tackle this problem, we propose a new model, the Lump Model, to evaluate the metal resistance influence in both TLM and circular TLM (CTLM) test structures. In this work, we demonstrate the high simplicity, great robustness and flexibility of the Lump Model. The previous reported contact resistivity values extracted with CTLM are usually above 1×10-7 Ω·cm2 because the metal resistance impact is commonly neglected. This is the first time that the role of the metal in CTLM is appropriately analyzed. Low contact resistivity, 3.6×10-8 Ω·cm2, of standard NiSi/n-Si contact has been extracted and this shows the high sensitivity of this method.status: publishe