A junctionless SONOS nonvolatile memory device constructed with in situ-doped polycrystalline silicon nanowires

In this paper, a silicon-oxide-nitride-silicon nonvolatile memory constructed on an n+-poly-Si nanowire [NW] structure featuring a junctionless [JL] configuration is presented. The JL structure is fulfilled by employing only one in situ heavily phosphorous-doped poly-Si layer to simultaneously serve as source/drain regions and NW channels, thus greatly simplifying the manufacturing process and alleviating the requirement of precise control of the doping profile. Owing to the higher carrier concentration in the channel, the developed JL NW device exhibits significantly enhanced programming speed and larger memory window than its counterpart with conventional undoped-NW-channel. Moreover, it also displays acceptable erase and data retention properties. Hence, the desirable memory characteristics along with the much simplified fabrication process make the JL NW memory structure a promising candidate for future system-on-panel and three-dimensional ultrahigh density memory applications

Self-supervised image quality assessment for X-ray tomographic images of Li-ion battery

International audienceImage perception plays a fundamental role in the tomography-based approaches for microstructure characterization and has a deep impact on all subsequent stages of image processing, such as segmentation and 3D analysis. The enhancement of image perception, however, frequently involves observer-dependence, which reflects user-to-user dispersion and uncertainties in the calculated parameters. This work presents an objective quantitative method, which uses convolutional neural networks (CNN) for the quality assessment of the X-ray tomographic images. With only dozens of annotations, our method allows to evaluate directly and precisely the quality of tomographic images. Different metrics were employed to evaluate the correlation between our predicted scores and subjective human annotations. The evaluation results demonstrate that our method can be a direct tool to guide the enhancement process in order to produce reliable segmentation results. The processing of the tomographic image can thus evolve into a robust observer-independent procedure and advance towards the development of an efficient self-supervised approach

Investigating the Threshold Conditions of Air Breakdown with Mode-Locked Q-Switched Laser Pulses, and the Temporal Dynamics of Induced Plasma with Self-Scattering Phenomenon

A Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with mode-locked modulations is utilized to explore the laser-induced air breakdown. The various modulation depths of the mode-locking within the Q-switched pulse can be utilized to investigate the threshold conditions. With the GHz high-speed detectors to accurately measure the temporal pulse shape pulse by pulse, it is verified that the air breakdown threshold is crucially determined by the peak-power density instead of the energy density from the statistic results, especially for mode-locked Q-switched lasers. The stability of the system for laser-induced breakdown can be evaluated by threshold width through fitting the statistical result. Otherwise, by measuring the temporal characteristics of the excitation pulse and the induced plasma, it is further found that the plasma radiation displays a few-nanoseconds time delay to the excitation pulse and shows a decaying tail to be 10 times longer than the plasma build-up time. Moreover, the incident laser pulse is observed to be self-scattered by the air breakdown, and a rapidly modulated scattering rate is found with a slight delay time to the excitation mode-locked subpulse modulations

A late embryogenesis abundant protein HVA1 regulated by an inducible promoter enhances root growth and abiotic stress tolerance in rice without yield penalty

Regulation of root architecture is essential for maintaining plant growth under adverse environment. A synthetic abscisic acid (ABA)/stress-inducible promoter was designed to control the expression of a late embryogenesis abundant protein (HVA1) in transgenic rice. The background of HVA1 is low but highly inducible by ABA, salt, dehydration and cold. HVA1 was highly accumulated in root apical meristem (RAM) and lateral root primordia (LRP) after ABA/stress treatments, leading to enhanced root system expansion. Water-use efficiency (WUE) and biomass also increased in transgenic rice, likely due to the maintenance of normal cell functions and metabolic activities conferred by HVA1 which is capable of stabilizing proteins, under osmotic stress. HVA1 promotes lateral root (LR) initiation, elongation and emergence and primary root (PR) elongation via an auxin-dependent process, particularly by intensifying asymmetrical accumulation of auxin in LRP founder cells and RAM, even under ABA/stress-suppressive conditions. We demonstrate a successful application of an inducible promoter in regulating the spatial and temporal expression of HVA1 for improving root architecture and multiple stress tolerance without yield penalty

Aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1) isoform expression and potential clinical implications in hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent and life-threatening malignancies worldwide. There are few diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and druggable targets for HCC. Aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1) is a marker of stem cells in a variety of cancers, but the mRNA levels and prognostic value of ALDH1 isoforms in HCC patients remain unknown. In the present study, gene ontology annotation of the ALDH1 family was performed using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID), and the gene pathway analsis was performed using GeneMANIA software. The initial prognostic value of ALDH1 expression in 360 HCC patients was assessed using the OncoLnc database. The expression levels of ALDH1 isoforms in normal liver tissues and clinical specimens of cancer vs. normal control datasets were determined using the GTEx and Oncomine databases, respectively. We then analyzed the prognostic value of ALDH1 expression in 212 hepatitis B virus (HBV)–related HCC patients using the GEO database. We found that the ALDH1 isoform showed high aldehyde dehydrogenase activity. The ALDH1A1, ALDH1B1, and ALDH1L1 genes encoded for the ALDH1 enzyme. High ALDH1B1 expression had protective qualities in HCC patients. Moreover, HBV–related HCC patients who showed high ALDH1L1 gene expression had a better clinical outcomes. In addition, high ALDH1A1 expression was associated with a 57–month recurrence–free survival in HBV-related HCC patients. High ALDH1B1 expression was protective for HCCs with multiple nodules and high serum alpha–fetoprotein (AFP) level. Furthermore, high serum AFP levels contributed to lower ALDH1L1. ALDH1A1, ALDH1B1, and ALDH1L1, all of which were considered promising diagnostic and prognostic markers as well as potential drug targets

Genome-Wide Association Study of MKI67 Expression and its Clinical Implications in HBV-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Southern China

Background/Aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant tumor with a high rate of recurrence. Immunohistochemical analysis of the marker of proliferation Ki-67 (MKI67) is used to assess proliferation activity of HCC The regulation of MKI67 expression remains unclear in HCC This study aims to explore the association between MKI67 expression and gene variants. Methods: A total of 195 hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related HCC patients were genotyped using Illumina HumanExome BeadChip-12-1-A (242,901 markers). An independent cohort (97 subjects) validated the association of polymorphism determinants and candidate genes with MKI67 expression. The relationships between MKI67 with p53 and variants of candidate genes in the clinical outcomes of HCC patients were analyzed. Results: We found that MKI67 combined with p53 was associated with a 3-year recurrence-free survival and five variants near TTN and CCDC8 were associated with MKI67 expression. TTN harboring rs2288563-TT and rs2562832-AA+CA indicated a favorable outcome for HCC patients. Conclusion: Variants near TTN and CCDC8 were associated with MKI67 expression, and rs2288563 and rs2562832 in TTN are potential biomarkers for the prediction of clinical outcomes in HBV-related HCC patients

Genome-Wide Association Study of MKI67 Expression and its Clinical Implications in HBV-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Southern China

Background/Aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant tumor with a high rate of recurrence. Immunohistochemical analysis of the marker of proliferation Ki-67 (MKI67) is used to assess proliferation activity of HCC The regulation of MKI67 expression remains unclear in HCC This study aims to explore the association between MKI67 expression and gene variants. Methods: A total of 195 hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related HCC patients were genotyped using Illumina HumanExome BeadChip-12-1_A (242,901 markers). An independent cohort (97 subjects) validated the association of polymorphism determinants and candidate genes with MKI67 expression. The relationships between MKI67 with p53 and variants of candidate genes in the clinical outcomes of HCC patients were analyzed. Results: We found that MKI67 combined with p53 was associated with a 3-year recurrence-free survival and five variants near TTN and CCDC8 were associated with MKI67 expression. TTN harboring rs2288563-TT and rs2562832-AA+CA indicated a favorable outcome for HCC patients. Conclusion: Variants near TTN and CCDC8 were associated with MKI67 expression, and rs2288563 and rs2562832 in TTN are potential biomarkers for the prediction of clinical outcomes in HBV-related HCC patients

A Comparison of Methods for 3D Scene Shape Retrieval

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. 3D scene shape retrieval is a brand new but important research direction in content-based 3D shape retrieval. To promote this research area, two Shape Retrieval Contest (SHREC) tracks on 2D scene sketch-based and image-based 3D scene model retrieval have been organized by us in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In 2018, we built the first benchmark for each track which contains 2D and 3D scene data for ten (10) categories, while they share the same 3D scene target dataset. Four and five distinct 3D scene shape retrieval methods have competed with each other in these two contests, respectively. In 2019, to measure and compare the scalability performance of the participating and other promising Query-by-Sketch or Query-by-Image 3D scene shape retrieval methods, we built a much larger extended benchmark for each type of retrieval which has thirty (30) classes and organized two extended tracks. Again, two and three different 3D scene shape retrieval methods have contended in these two tracks, separately. To solicit state-of-the-art approaches, we perform a comprehensive comparison of all the above methods and an additional new retrieval methods by evaluating them on the two benchmarks. The benchmarks, evaluation results and tools are publicly available at our track websites (Yuan et al., 2019 [1]; Abdul-Rashid et al., 2019 [2]; Yuan et al., 2019 [3]; Abdul-Rashid et al., 2019 [4]), while code for the evaluated methods are also available: http://github.com/3DSceneRetrieval

Association between <i>ALDH1A1/B1/L1</i> mRNA expression and clinical outcomes in HBV-related HCC patients.

<p>Association between <i>ALDH1A1/B1/L1</i> mRNA expression and clinical outcomes in HBV-related HCC patients.</p