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Results from measuring the angular dependence of magnetoresistance (MR) on the [La.sub.0.7][Ca.sub.0.3]Mn[O.sub.3] (LCMO] biepitaxial step junctions (BSJs) obtained by depositing LCMO film onto SrTiO3(100) substrate partially buffered with a layer of anatase TiO2(001) is reported. The magnetudes of anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) suggest that the conventional spin-orbit coupling effect, though may explain the in-plane anisotropy is inadequate to account for the perpendicular anisotropy.

The near-field scanning optical lithography (NSOL) integration system with stepper technology is applied to fabricate the non-volatile phase change memory nanocell with feature size beyond optical diffraction limitation. The combination system was employed to fabricate the nanocell by creating an opening via on SiO2 through photoresist patterning.

Byline: C.-Y. Lin (1), Chia-Chang Hsieh (1), Wei-Perng Chen (1), Ling-Yoeu Yang (1), Hsin-Hui Wang (1) Keywords: KeywordsaMass urinary screening; Proteinuria; Hypertension; Chronic renal insufficiency; Systemic lupus erythematosus Abstract: To date, the underlying diseases and follow-up of Taiwanese children screened by urinalysis have not been reported. The grading of urine abnormalities varied from grade A (microscopic hematuria only), grade B (light proteinuria only), grade C (light proteinuria and microscopic hematuria) to grade D (heavy proteinuria). From January 1991 to August 1998, 630 students, aged 6--15 years and with positive urinary screening, were admitted to our hospital for further evaluation. Of these, 573 students had confirmed abnormal findings, 298 were boys, 275 were girls, and 294 students received a renal biopsy and have had regular follow-up visits. This study was designed to retrospectively elucidate: (1) the relationship between grading of urine abnormality and underlying disease (2) the relationships among hypertension, grading of urine abnormality, and underlying disease (3) the underlying disease of low serum C3 level and (4) to determine whether urinary screening progressively decreased the number of students with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) annually. The results show that glomerular nephritis (GN) is still one of the major causes of urinary abnormalities. The most-important secondary GN was systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with lupus nephritis. One-quarter of the patients fulfilled at least four of the revised American Rheumatology Association (ARA) criteria for SLE at first administration, while the others who fulfilled only two to three of the revised ARA criteria had gradually developing signs and symptoms of SLE at follow-up. The percentage of SLE patients amongst anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) positive children was 72%. Membranoproliferative GN is very rare. The distribution of hypertension was 8.2% in grade A, 10.7% in grade B, 9.7% in grade C, and 28.9% in grade D urinary abnormality. There were statistical differences between grade D and either grade A or B or C (P&lt 0.05). Lower serum C3 levels were found only in a minority of patients, including those with SLE. In this series, focal segmental glomerular sclerosis (FSGS) and active class IV lupus nephritis patients were found early enough to receive methylprednisolone pulse plus cyclosporine A therapy. To date there have been only 2 cases (5%) of FSGS with impaired renal function, and none of the lupus nephritis patients are in the predialysis stage. In conclusion, GN is still the major cause of urinary screening abnormality. ANA study is indicated in all Chinese students with abnormal urinary screening. The correlations between the severity of proteinuria and hypertension showed more-severe proteinuria in patients with nephritis as well as in those with hypertension. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Pediatrics, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Shih-Pai, Taipei, Taiwan, 11217, Republic of China e-mail: cylin2@vghtpe.gov.tw Tel.: +886-2-2875-7140, Fax: +886-2-2873-9019, TW (2) National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, TW Article note: Received: 4 October 1999 / Revised: 13 July 2000 / Accepted: 1 November 2000

Foreign investors depend upon the manipulation of the state apparatus to gain a competitive edge in the Chinese industry. The new economic policy of the post-Mao period has increased the power of the state officials while retaining the allocative and regulatory powers of the state. In these conditions, the promotion of the officials' self-interests becomes the only means for gaining favors and reducing unfavorable conditions. While the legal-political institutional framework is quite unfavorable for foreign direct investment, the existing social network facilitates transactions.

The noise figure (NF) reduction of the nano metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (nMOSFET) low-noise amplifier (LNA) by external package strain is described. The results have shown that NF reduction of the strained LNA is due to the enhanced transconductance and cutoff frequency of the individual nMOSFET device under the same strain and bias conditions.

Byline: Y. Lin (1), C. Lee (1) Keywords: Appendicitis Infancy Pseudomonas aeruginosa Abstract: Acute appendicitis is the most common cause of abdominal pain requiring surgery in children. But it is an uncommon entity in young children and rare in infants. During a 10-year period, between January 1991 and December 2000, 7 infants (age from 17 days to 8 months) were treated for acute appendicitis at Changhua Christian Hospital. All of the preoperative symptoms and signs, the duration between admission and operation, pathology reports, and laboratory data were reviewed. There were no specific clinical signs and symptoms. The duration between admission and operation ranged from 2 hours to 5 days (mean: 31.4 hours). The pathology reports revealed 3 were gangrenous, 3 were gangrenous with perforation and one was suppurative. There was one death. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was cultured from blood, ascites, bile or stool in 6 cases (85.7%). Early diagnosis of acute appendicitis in infants is still difficult. Although the mortality has declined, the morbidity still remains high. The high percentage of infection by Pseudomonas aeruginosa should be further evaluated in infantile appendicitis. Author Affiliation: (1) Division of Pediatric Surgery, Changhua Christian Hospital, No.135 Nanhsiau Street, Changhua, Taiwan, Republic of China Article History: Accepted Date: 13/03/2002 Article note: Electronic Publication

A novel gene coding for recombinant Ling Zhi-8 (LZ-8), recombinant LZ-8, is designed by using the preferred codons for both Bacillus subtilis and Lactococcus lactis and synthesized by overlap extension PCR (OE-PCR). Recombinant LZ-8s are purified from the extracellular media and used in cytokine stimulation assays in order to examine the immunomodulatory functions of the proteins from various recombinant sources.

Systematic measurements on magnetization and electrical transport for oxygen-deficient [La.sub.0.67][Ca.sub.0.33]Mn[O.sub.3-y] (LCMO) films are performed to examine the nonlinear I-V characteristics of oxygen-deficient LCMO films. For the slightly oxygen-deficient LCMO films, dips around the zero bias are seen in nonlinear dynamic conductance curves, which are attributed to spin-flip scattering, with oxygen vacancies serving as scattering centers.

The first indirectly detected 2D correlation spectrum of species bound to a surface of mesoporous MCM-41 type silica (allyl-MCM) is reported.

A method that combines both polarized femtosecond spectroscopy and thin films with specific orientations is demonstrated to bring out the dichotomy of photoinduced quasiparticle dynamics directly.

Compositional, structural and optical properties of molecular beam epitaxy grown [Al.sub.x][Ga.sub.1-x]N films were characterized by different methods. Spontaneous modulation, phase separation and band gap reductions were observed to vary systematically with AIN mole fraction across the full alloy series.

The solute-drag-dependent growth kinetics of core-shell-structured grains in rare-earth-doped BaTiO(sub 3) ceramics was studied based on an analytical description of the diffusion of rare-earth atoms doped. Dependence of the sizes of grain core and shell on the sintering conditions, dopant content, and starting powder size was revealed and the effective dielectric constant of the ceramics was calculated in terms of the relative contents of the ferroelectric core and paraelectric shell.

A design of phase mask for a single-exposure fabrication of microsphere-type photonic crystals is presented by means of holographic lithography. The photonic crystal is proposed to have body-centered tetragonal, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, or face-centered tetragonal symmetry.

A systematic solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study of MCM-41-type mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) prepared under low surfactant concentration is described. The study shows that the surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was almost completely removed by acid extraction.

Electrical transport measurements on metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy grown In-rich In(sub x)Ga(sub 1-x)N (x = 1, 0.98, and 0.92) films. The experimental results demonstrate that the electron transport in In-rich In(sub x)Ga(sub 1-x)N film is metalliclike.

The angle effect in laser nanopatterning with particle-mask is investigated. The two kinds of patterns left on the substrate surface after single laser pulse irradiation are detailed and it is observed that the depths of nanodents decreases as incidence angle increases due to the fast decay of maximum intensity field.

A systematic study of the optical properties of three Ga(sub 0.69)In(sub 0.31)N(sub x)As(1-x)/GaAs single quantum well (SQW) structures with different nitrogen compositions investigated by temperature dependent photoreflectance (PR) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements is reported. Various excitonic transitions originating from the quantum well region and Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKOs) above the GaAs band edge are observed in the PR spectra.

The sensitivity to both the substrate temperature and laser energy density of the growing single-phase electron-doped LCeMo manganite thin films is described. Experimental findings indicate a strong coupling between the electron and lattice degree of freedom.

Chinese-style meatball containing varying levels of bacterial cellulose (nata) was evaluated for its physicochemical, textural, and quality characteristics. Results showed that nata could be used as a functional ingredient to enhance Chinese style emulsified meat products like Chinese-style meatballs.

The E ll c O 1s XANES spectra of YBa2Cu3O6.9 (YBCO) were measured from the normal incidence geometry using the (110) YBCO thin film. With correction of self-absorption effect, the Ellab O 1s XANES spectra of the same (110) film obtained from the normal incidence and grazing incidence geometries are very similar.

From the mixture of Sn powders and SiO2 nanoparticle powders, rutile structured SnO2 nanobelts are synthesized. Micro-Raman spectrum measurement shows that there exist the A(sub 1g) mode and two weak Raman bands corresponding to IR-active longitudinal optical and transverse optical of A(sub 2u) modes in the rutile SnO2 nanobelts.

Positron annihilation lifetime (PAL) and photoinduced current transient spectroscopies (PICTS) are used to investigate compensation defects, formed under pure phosphorous (PP) and iron-phosphide (IP) ambient annealing. These compensation defects are responsible for the conversion of undoped n-type InP into two different types of SI states.

A study was conducted to estimate the suitable width for vegetated buffer strips in the riparian zone along the stream using a geographic information system and an index model. The ground water in the study area is contaminated easily by pollutants due to high hydraulic conductivity in the riparian zone of the Chi-Jia-Wang Stream.

A guest host poly(2-methoxy,5-(2'-(ethyl)hexyloxy)-p-phenylene vinlene) with poly(methyl methacrylate)polymer blend was synthesized and its linear and nonlinear optical properties were investigated. The single beam Z-scan technique measured third-order nonlinear optical properties.

A novel gene transfection system, where second generation (G2) PAMAMs are covalently attached to the surface of a MCM-41-type mesoporous silica nanosphere (MSM)(super 2) material is reported. The G2-PAMAM capped MSM material is used to complex with a plasmid DNA that codes for an enhanced green fluorescence protein.