Cost of Rehabilitation Treatment of Patients With Cerebral Palsy in Korea

Objective To investigate rehabilitation treatment cost of patients with cerebral palsy (CP) according to age. Methods We analyzed the cost of rehabilitation treatment from 2007 to 2013 for patients diagnosed with CP by sourcing data from the National Health Information Database. Results While the number of recently born children requiring rehabilitation treatment has decreased, the number of patients requiring this treatment in other age groups has gradually increased. In addition, annual physical therapy, occupational therapy, hydrotherapy, and botulinum toxin injection treatment costs per person have increased. On the other hand, the number of orthopedic surgeries and selective dorsal rhizotomy performed has decreased. Conclusion This study investigated trends in the cost of treatment for patients with CP. This study can be used as a basis to provide treatment support for patients with CP

Tunnel Barrier Engineering of Titanium Oxide for High Non-Linearity of Selector-less Resistive Random Access Memory

In this study, the effect of the oxygen profile and thickness of multiple-layers TiOx on tunnel barrier characteristics was investigated to achieve high non-linearity in low-resistance state current (I-LRS). To form the tunnel barrier in multiple-layer of TiOx, tunnel barrier engineering in terms of the thickness and oxygen profile was attempted using deposition and thermal oxidation times. It modified the defect distribution of the tunnel barrier for effective suppression of ILRS at off-state (1/2V(Read)). By inserting modified tunnel barrier in resistive random access memory, a high non-linear I-LRS was exhibited with a significantly lowered I-LRS for 1/2V(Read). (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.ope

Over 18% ternary polymer solar cells enabled by a terpolymer as the third component

“Ternary blending” and “random terpolymerization” strategies have both proven effective for enhancing the performance of organic solar cells (OSCs). However, reports on the combination of the two strategies remain rare. Here, a terpolymer PM6-Si30 was constructed by inserting chlorine and alkylsilyl-substituted benzodithiophene (BDT) unit (0.3 equivalent) into the state-of-the-art polymer PM6. The terpolymer exhibitsadeep highest-occupied-molecular-orbital energy and good miscibility with both PM6 and BTP-eC9 (C9) and enables its use as a third component into PM6:PM6-Si30:C9 bulk-heterojunction for OSCs. The resulting cells exhibit maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.27%, which is higher than that obtained for the optimized control binary PM6:C9-based OSC (17.38%). The enhanced performance of the PM6:PM6-Si30:C9 cells is attributed to improved charge transport, favorable molecular arrangement, reduced energy loss and suppressed bimolecular recombination. The work demonstrates the potential of random terpolymer as a third component in OSCs and highlights a new strategy for the construction of a ternary system with improved photovoltaic performance

Excellent Threshold Selector Characteristics of Cu2S-based Atomic Switch Device

Bipolar-threshold switching was demonstrated using volatile-atomic switches (VAS) for cross-point selector applications. The VAS (Cu/Cu2S/W) exhibits asymmetric current–voltage (I–V) characteristics. An abrupt conductance change occurs by the formation of a Cu filament when a positive voltage is applied to the Cu electrode. Meanwhile, nonlinear I–V characteristics are observed because of the high concentration of vacancy of Cu under a negative voltage. We thus introduce the complementary-VAS configuration for the self-compliance characteristics at both polarities. Furthermore, the increased the switching voltage at a fast sweeping rate allows the VAS to show a strong immunity to electrical disturbance.

Dual functionality of threshold and multilevel resistive switching characteristics in nanoscale HfO2-based RRAM devices for artificial neuron and synapse elements

We demonstrate the dependency of dual functionality on the operating current with threshold and multilevel switching behaviors in HfO2-based resistive memory (RRAM) devices. These devices can be used to produce electronic neurons and synapses for neuromorphic computing applications. The control of the formation and rupture of a conductive filament (CF) driven by the movement of oxygen vacancies (V-0) in a high-current (100 mu A) operated RRAM acting as synapse enables multilevel conductance states to be achieved. On the other hand, operation of the device in the low-current regime (<= 10 mu A) leads to a transition from-memory to threshold switching, which is activated only by applying voltage. This behavior is described by a weak CF composed of a few V0 created by using a Poole-Frenkel based analytical model. Thus, threshold switching in RRAM operated at a low current plays a role in generating output spikes as neurons when the accumulated inputs exceed the critical value. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights.reserved.113Nsciescopu