Artifact mitigation of ptychography integrated with on-the-fly scanning probe microscopy

We report our experiences with conducting ptychography simultaneously with the X-ray fluorescence measurement using the on-the-fly mode for efficient multi-modality imaging. We demonstrate that the periodic artifact inherent to the raster scan pattern can be mitigated using a sufficiently fine scan step size to provide an overlap ratio of >70%. This allows us to obtain transmitted phase contrast images with enhanced spatial resolution from ptychography while maintaining the fluorescence imaging with continuous-motion scans on pixelated grids. This capability will greatly improve the competence and throughput of scanning probe X-ray microscopy

Structure and Transport in Coatings from Multiscale Computed Tomography of Coatings-New Perspectives for Eelectrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Modeling?

Computed Tomography (CT) is an approach that has been extensively applied in many areas of science from understanding structures in living organisms to materials science. In materials science, the study of structures within coatings presents challenges on at least two different levels. First, the structure of the coatings needs to be understood from the atomic scale, where dissolution reactions begin, up to length scales which cover the aggregation of inhibitors and other additives, which take place at ∼10−5 m, i.e. 4 to 5 orders of magnitude. CT is a favourable imaging technique since it allows multiscale information to be obtained non-destructively down to tens of nanometres. In this study X-ray absorption contrast imaging has been used to examine structures created using strontium chromate (SrCrO4) particles embedded in an epoxy film. It has been found that SrCrO4 particles can form clusters that extend a few hundred microns in the plane of the film, span the thickness of the film and have fractal characteristics. There are also volumes of low density epoxy of similar sizes and characteristics to the SrCrO4 clusters. The SrCrO4 clusters have a strong influence on the leaching behaviour since the release changes with time. Initially, leaching is controlled by direct dissolution but, as the clusters dissolve, the release is dominated by the fractal dimension of the cluster. The dissolved clusters leave behind voids filled with electrolyte that provide alternative transport pathways for corrosive ions through the polymer. In this paper, the nature of these clusters will be reviewed and the implication for transport properties and electrochemical assessment will be explored

Severity of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease is Associated with Development of Metabolic Syndrome: Results of a 5-Year Cohort Study

Aims: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is considered to be a hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome (MS). However, a few studies have examined the effect of NAFLD on the development of MS. We evaluated the relationship between the development of MS and clinical severity of NAFLD according to alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted. Participants who underwent abdominal ultrasonography and blood samplings for health check-ups both in 2005 and 2010 were recruited. NAFLD was diagnosed if a person showed fatty liver on ultrasonography without significant alcohol consumption. Subjects with MS at baseline were excluded. Results: A total of 2,728 subjects met the inclusion criteria. Fatty liver (FL) with normal ALT was found in 369 (13.5%) subjects and FL with elevated ALT in 328 (12.0%). During 5 years of follow up, 582 (21.3%) incident cases of MS developed between 2005 and 2010. The incidence of MS was higher in patients with NAFLD compared to control group (41.2% in FL with elevated ALT, 34.7% in FL with normal ALT and 15.7% in control, p<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for MS increased according to the severity of NAFLD [OR (95% CI), 1.29 (0.97−1.71) in FL with normal ALT and 1.54 (1.18−1.33) in FL with elevated ALT, p=0.01]. Conclusions: We have demonstrated that development of MS is significantly increased according to the clinical severity of NAFLD. These findings have implications in the clinical availability of NAFLD as a predictor of MS

Dipole source analysis of auditory P300 response in depressive and anxiety disorders

This paper is to study auditory event-related potential P300 in patients with anxiety and depressive disorders using dipole source analysis. Auditory P300 using 2-stimulus oddball paradigm was collected from 35 patients with anxiety disorder, 32 patients with depressive disorder, and 30 healthy controls. P300 dipole sources and peak amplitude of dipole activities were analyzed. The source analysis resulted in a 4-dipole configuration, where temporal dipoles displayed greater P300 amplitude than that of frontal dipoles. In addition, a right-greater-than-left hemispheric asymmetry of dipole magnitude was found in patients with anxiety disorder, whereas a left-greater-than-right hemispheric asymmetry of dipole magnitude was observed in depressed patients. Results indicated that the asymmetry was more prominent over the temporal dipole than that of frontal dipoles in patients. Patients with anxiety disorder may increase their efforts to enhance temporal dipole activity to compensate for a deficit in frontal cortex processing, while depressed patients show dominating reduction of right temporal activity. The opposite nature of results observed with hemispheric asymmetry in depressive and anxiety disorders could serve to be valuable information for psychiatric studies

Multiple criteria assessment of high-rise timber buildings

Although the majority of high-rise buildings are constructed from concrete and steel, there is a growing interest in the new generation of multi-storey timber buildings around the world and several ecologically sustainable structural systems have already been proposed. This research aims to review and compare the highest contemporary timber buildings in terms of economic and environmental efficiency. For this purpose, the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method is used. Five high-rise timber buildings are assessed according to the developed system of economic and environmental criteria. According to the multiple criteria assessment results, Mjøsa Tower, currently the tallest timber building in the world, located in Brumunddal, Norway, is ranked in the first place. This study also reveals that high-rise timber buildings are environmental friendly and high economic efficiency can be achieved by using lightweight modern engineered timber products, moreover, prefabrication of elements reduces duration and cost of the project

Myoclonic status epilepticus and cerebellar hypoplasia associated with a novel variant in the GRIA3 gene

AMPA-type glutamate receptors (AMPARs) are postsynaptic ionotropic receptors which mediate fast excitatory currents. AMPARs have a heterotetrameric structure, variably composed by the four subunits GluA1-4 which are encoded by genes GRIA1-4. Increasing evidence support the role of pathogenic variants in GRIA1-4 genes as causative for syndromic intellectual disability (ID). We report an Italian pedigree where some male individuals share ID, seizures and facial dysmorphisms. The index subject was referred for severe ID, myoclonic seizures, cerebellar signs and short stature. Whole exome sequencing identified a novel variant in GRIA3, c.2360A > G, p.(Glu787Gly). The GRIA3 gene maps to chromosome Xq25 and the c.2360A > G variant was transmitted by his healthy mother. Subsequent analysis in the family showed a segregation pattern compatible with the causative role of this variant, further supported by preliminary functional insights. We provide a detailed description of the clinical evolution of the index subjects and stress the relevance of myoclonic seizures and cerebellar syndrome as cardinal features of his presentation

A road to reality with topological superconductors

Topological states of matter are a source of low-energy quasiparticles, bound to a defect or propagating along the surface. In a superconductor these are Majorana fermions, described by a real rather than a complex wave function. The absence of complex phase factors promises protection against decoherence in quantum computations based on topological superconductivity. This is a tutorial style introduction written for a Nature Physics focus issue on topological matter.Comment: pre-copy-editing, author-produced version of the published paper: 4 pages, 2 figure

The Role of Lactic Acid Adsorption by Ion Exchange Chromatography

Background: The polyacrylic resin Amberlite IRA-67 is a promising adsorbent for lactic acid extraction from aqueous solution, but little systematic research has been devoted to the separation efficiency of lactic acid under different operating conditions. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this paper, we investigated the effects of temperature, resin dose and lactic acid loading concentration on the adsorption of lactic acid by Amberlite IRA-67 in batch kinetic experiments. The obtained kinetic data followed the pseudo-second order model well and both the equilibrium and ultimate adsorption slightly decreased with the increase of the temperature at 293–323K and 42.5 g/liter lactic acid loading concentration. The adsorption was a chemically heterogeneous process with a mean free energy value of 12.18 kJ/mol. According to the Boyd _ plot, the lactic acid uptake process was primarily found to be an intraparticle diffusion at a lower concentration (,50 g/liter) but a film diffusion at a higher concentration (.70 g/liter). The values of effective diffusion coefficient D i increased with temperature. By using our Equation (21), the negative values of DGu and DHu revealed that the adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic. Moreover, the negative value of DSu reflected the decrease of solid-liquid interface randomness at the solid-liquid interface when adsorbing lactic acid on IRA-67. Conclusions/Significance: With the weakly basic resin IRA-67, in situ product removal of lactic acid can be accomplishe

Efficient Attribute-based Proxy Re-Encryption with Constant Size Ciphertexts

Attribute-based proxy re-encryption (ABPRE) allows a semi-trusted proxy to transform an encryption under an access-policy into an encryption under a new access policy, without revealing any information about the underlying message. Such a primitive facilitates fine-grained secure sharing of encrypted data in the cloud. In its key-policy flavor, the re-encryption key is associated with an access structure that specifies which type of ciphertexts can be re-encrypted. Only two attempts have been made towards realising key-policy ABPRE (KP-ABPRE), one satisfying replayable chosen ciphertext security (RCCA security) and the other claiming to be chosen ciphertext secure (CCA secure). We show that both the systems are vulnerable to RCCA and CCA attacks respectively. We further propose a selective CCA secure KP-ABPRE scheme in this work. Since we demonstrate attacks on the only two existing RCCA secure and CCA secure schemes in the literature, our scheme becomes the first KP-ABPRE scheme satisfying selective CCA security. Moreover, our scheme has an additional attractive property, namely collusion resistance. A proxy re-encryption scheme typically consists of three parties: a delegator who delegates his decryption rights, a proxy who performs re-encryption, and a delegatee to whom the decryption power is delegated to. When a delegator wishes to share his data with a delegatee satisfying an access-policy, the proxy can collude with the malicious delegatee to attempt to obtain the private keys of the delegator during delegation period. If the private keys are exposed, security of the delegator\u27s data is completely compromised. The proxy or the delegatee can obtain all confidential data of the delegator at will at any time, even after the delegation period is over. Hence, achieving collusion resistance is indispensable to real-world applications. In this paper, we show that our construction satisfies collusion resistance. Our scheme is proven collusion resistant and selective CCA secure in the random oracle model, based on Bilinear Diffie-Hellman exponent assumption