FLUIDIZATION TECHNOLOGY FOR STABLE STARTUP OF COMMERCIAL FCC UNIT

Conditions for maintaining good fluidization in the start-up of FCC have been determined. Catalyst defluidization and consequent catalyst losses from reactor cyclone are mainly affected by catalyst properties and stripper operating condition based on previous commercial startup experiences. Effect of fine catalyst contents on bed fluidity was determined. Bed fluidity in stripper was analyzed with slip velocity. Finally new startup guide was proposed and it was successfully applied to commercial FCC process of SK energy, Korea

Focused ultrasound-mediated suppression of chemically-induced acute epileptic EEG activity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder, which is attributed to uncontrollable abnormal hyper-excitability of neurons. We investigated the feasibility of using low-intensity, pulsed radiation of focused ultrasound (FUS) to non-invasively suppress epileptic activity in an animal model (rat), which was induced by the intraperitonial injection of pentylenetetrazol (PTZ).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After the onset of induced seizures, FUS was transcranially administered to the brain twice for three minutes each while undergoing electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring. An air-backed, spherical segment ultrasound transducer (diameter: 6 cm; radius-of-curvature: 7 cm) operating at a fundamental frequency of 690 KHz was used to deliver a train of 0.5 msec-long pulses of sonication at a repetitive rate of 100 Hz to the thalamic areas of the brain. The acoustic intensity (130 mW/cm²) used in the experiment was sufficiently within the range of safety guidelines for the clinical ultrasound imaging. The occurrence of epileptic EEG bursts from epilepsy-induced rats significantly decreased after sonication when it was compared to the pre-sonication epileptic state. The PTZ-induced control group that did not receive any sonication showed a sustained number of epileptic EEG signal bursts. The animals that underwent sonication also showed less severe epileptic behavior, as assessed by the Racine score. Histological analysis confirmed that the sonication did not cause any damage to the brain tissue.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results revealed that low-intensity, pulsed FUS sonication suppressed the number of epileptic signal bursts using acute epilepsy model in animal. Due to its non-invasiveness and spatial selectivity, FUS may offer new perspectives for a possible non-invasive treatment of epilepsy.</p

Major medical causes by breed and life stage for dogs presented at veterinary clinics in the Republic of Korea: a survey of electronic medical records

Background Age and breed are considered the greatest risk factors for disease prevalence and mortality in companion dogs. Understanding the prevalence of diseases, in relation to age and breed, would support appropriate guidance for future health care strategies and provide useful information for the early diagnosis of diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the major medical causes for dogs visiting primary-care veterinary clinics in the Republic of Korea, stratified by age and breed. Methods A total of 15,531 medical records of canine patients were analyzed from 11 veterinary clinics who shared data from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016. An electronic medical record (EMR) system was used for data collection, which included the animal identification number, age, breed, gender, neuter status, clinical information, and diagnosis. EMR data were classified using the International Classification of Disease system from the World Health Organization; presenting signs or diagnoses were identified according to breed and life stage. Results Within the age groups, preventive medicine (16.7% confidence intervals (CI) [15.9–17.5]) was the most common cause for clinic visits for the 10 year), the prevalences of heart disease, kidney disease, Cushing’s disease, and mammary tumors were higher than in the other age groups. Small and toy breed dogs comprised 67.7% of all dogs in this analysis. For all breeds, otitis externa, dermatitis or eczema, vomiting, and diarrhea were common medical problems. Discussion This study identified the most common medical disorders and differences in prevalences of diseases, according to age and breeds. The information from EMRs for dogs visiting primary-care veterinary clinics can provide background knowledge that is required to enable a better understanding of disease patterns and occurrence by age and breeds. The information from this study could enable the creation of strategies for preventing diseases and enable the identification of health problems for more effective disease management in companion dogs

Silane- and triazine-containing hole and exciton blocking material for high-efficiency phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes

One of the important factors for high efficiency phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices is to confine triplet excitons within the emitting layer. We synthesized and characterized a new hole blocking material containing silane and triazine moieties, 2,4-diphenyl-6-(4-triphenylsilanyl-biphenyl-4-yl)-1,3,5-triazine (DTBT). Electrophosphorescent devices fabricated using the material as the hole-blocking layer and N,N-dicarbazolyl-4,4-biphenyl (CBP) doped with fac-tris(2-phenylpyridine)iridium [Ir(ppy)3] as the emitting layer showed a maximum external quantum efficiency (ext) of 17.5% with a maximum power efficiency (p) of 47.8 lm W–1, which are much higher than those of devices using bathcuproine (BCP) (ext = 14.5%, p = 40.0 lm W–1) and 4-biphenyloxolate aluminium(III) bis(2-methyl-8-quinolinato)-4-phenylphenolate (BAlq) (ext = 8.1%, p = 14.2 lm W–1) as hole-blocking layers.This work was supported by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy through the OLED center and Cavendish-KAIST Cooperation Program

A Validation Study of the Korean Version of SPAN

Purpose: The SPAN, which is acronym standing for its four components: Startle, Physiological arousal, Anger, and Numbness, is a short post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) screening scale. This study sought to develop and validate a Korean version of the SPAN (SPAN-K). Materials and Methods: Ninety-three PTSD patients (PTSD group), 73 patients with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders (psychiatric control group), and 88 healthy participants (normal control group) were recruited for this study. Participants completed a variety of psychiatric assessments including the SPAN-K, the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results: Cronbach&#39;s alpha and test-retest reliability values for the SPAN-K were both 0.80. Mean SPAN-K scores were 10.06 for the PTSD group, 4.94 for the psychiatric control group, and 1.42 for the normal control group. With respect to concurrent validity, correlation coefficients were 0.87 for SPAN-K vs. CAPS total scores (p&lt;0.001) and 0.86 for SPAN-K vs. DTS scores (p&lt;0.001). Additionally, correlation coefficients were 0.31 and 0.42 for SPAN-K vs. STAI-S and STAI-T, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic analysis of SPAN-K showed good diagnostic accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.87. The SPAN-K showed the highest efficiency at a cutoff score of 7, with a sensitivity of 0.83, a specificity of 0.81, positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.88, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 0.73. Conclusion: These results suggest that the SPAN-K had good psychometric properties and may be a useful instrument for rapid screening of PTSD patients.This study was supported by a grant of the Korean Academy of Anxiety Disorders, Korean Neuropsychiatric Association, and Korean Research Foundation (2006-2005152), Republic of Korea

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M&gt;70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0&lt;e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM