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Reports of implant fixtures dislocating into the maxillary sinus during sinus graft procedures are well-documented. However, cases of fixtures migrating into the sinus long after placement have yet to be reported. This case report details the surgical extraction of a displaced screw and cement-retained prosthesis, including a fixture and its abutment, from the maxillary sinus after a minimum of 5 years under functional load. The extracted implant was subsequently examined using scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. We found that the migration commenced with peri-implantitis surrounding the implant, replacing the second molar. This was accompanied by a loss of cement from the crown on this implant and concurrent loosening of the abutment screw on the implant, replacing the first molar. We hypothesize that the inability of the bony tissue surrounding the second molar implant to withstand occlusal forces resulted in forming a bony sequestrum. This process ultimately precipitated the migration of the fixture, along with its abutment and adjacent necrotic bone, into the sinus cavity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuous scaling down of dynamic random access memory devices has necessitated a comprehensive understanding of the initial growth mechanism in atomic layer deposition. In this study, HfO2 was deposited using tetrakis(ethylmethylamido)hafnium (TEMAHf)-H2O on H-/OH-terminated Si (100) surfaces. By analyzing the Hf-O peak in the FTIR spectra and medium-energy ion scattering measurements, it was determined that a monolayer was formed on the H-Si surface at a rate (10 cycles) lower than that for the OH-Si surface (4 cycles). The ligand variations during each cycle, as determined by FTIR measurements, enabled the suggestion of the initial precursor adsorption mechanism. An analysis of the infrared spectra and secondary ion mass spectrometry depth profiles revealed surface-dependent differences in interfacial bonding. This explained the variation in the rate of formation of 1 Ml. Additionally, theoretical investigations using density functional theory calculations identified the reaction pathway with the lowest energy barrier, thereby validating the experimentally proposed mechanism. This study to elucidate the Si surface and the TEMAHf-H2O reaction mechanism provided insights into the analysis of the initial precursor adsorption mechanism for other types of precursors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic properties of 6 nm (HfO2)x(SiO2)1-x dielectric thin films, deposited on Si(100) by atomic layer deposition with x equal to 0.75 and 0.25, were studied by means of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy (REELS). XPS measurements confirmed the formation of a silicate structure, and showed shifts of the Hf 4f and Si 2p peaks with varying Hf concentrations; these shifts are believed to be caused by changes in the amount of charge transfer and by the substitution of Si by Hf as second-nearest-neighbors. The band gap, Eg, was estimated from REELS. It increased from 5.52 eV for Hf silicate with a Hf/Si ratio of 3:1 to 6.61 eV for Hf silicate with a Hf/Si ratio of 1:3. For Hf silicate dielectrics, the band gap is mainly determined by Hf 5d conduction-band and O 2p valence-band states, and the increase with increasing Si concentration is due to mixing with the Si 3s electrons. By quantitative analysis of REELS spectra, the dielectric functions of the thin films were also determined and expressed as a sum of oscillators. The position, strength, and width of the oscillators were determined quantitatively for the different dielectric films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Damage profiles on Si (001) surface via argon gas cluster ion beam sputtering and mono-atomic argon ion beam sputtering were investigated using medium energy ion scattering. The surface thickness damaged by Ar cluster ion beam sputtering was approximately 10 nm for 20 keV, 6.4 nm for 10 keV, and 4.2 nm for 5 keV and the composition of the implanted Ar atoms was 0.2 at% for 20 keV and 0.1 at% for both 10 and 5 keV. The surface thickness damaged by Ar ion beam sputtering was approximately 5.3 nm for 1 keV, 8.5 nm for 2 keV, and 12 nm for 3 keV and the maximum Ar concentration of the implanted Ar atoms in the Si substrate was 5.5 at% for 1 keV, 5.8 at% for 2 keV, and 7.8 at% for 3 keV. The depth of the damaged layers after Ar ion sputtering on Si (001) is proportional to the in-depth distribution of the implanted primary Ar ions. The depth of the damaged layer after the Ar cluster ion beam sputtering did not depend on the implanted Ar atoms because the implanted Ar atoms are negligible. Understanding the details about the damage process via Ar cluster ion beam sputtering can be useful for the practical surface analysis. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of electroless wet treatment on multi-crystalline silicon solar cells was investigated. We prepared nanostructures on a multi-crystalline silicon surface via wet nano-texturing processes to ensure that less light is reflected off the surface. Nano-texturing can reduce the average reflectance to about 2.5% in the wavelength range of 400-900 nm. Further, we obtained an effective reflectance of 1.9% with Al2O3/SiNx:H coating. The use of our wet nano-texturing process resulted in a reflectance value lower than that obtained with conventional acid texturization. Thus, the nano-texturing of multi-crystalline silicon via the wet chemical process can further increase the efficiency of silicon solar cells (© 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charge transporting materials (CTMs) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have played an important role in improving the stability by replacing the liquid electrolyte with solid state electron or hole conductors and enhancing the photovoltaic efficiency by the efficient electron collection. Many organic and inorganic materials for charge transporting in PSCs have been studied and applied to increase the charge extraction, transport and collection, such as Spiro-OMeTAD for hole transporting material (HTM), TiO2 for electron transporting material (ETM) and MoOX for HTM etc. However, recently inorganic CTMs are used to replace the disadvantages of organic materials in PSCs such as, the long-term operational instability, low charge mobility. Especially, atomic layer deposition (ALD) has many advantages in obtaining the conformal, dense and virtually pinhole-free layers. Here, we review ALD inorganic CTMs and their function in PSCs in view of the stability and contribution to enhancing the efficiency of photovoltaics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphite tattoos are rarely reported because they are mainly caused by an accidental injury or habits during childhood that cause a pencil to penetrate the oral mucosa. Unlike other pigmentations, it stains layers that are deeper than the subepithelial and mucosal layers, and in most cases, it takes the form of a grayish black macule. This case report describes depigmentation with the denudation technique that was followed by a novel approach of using platelet-rich fibrin to cover exposed bone. A 41-year-old male patient presented with an aesthetic complaint from a grayish black staining on the labial gingiva near the maxillary central and lateral incisors. The lesion was diagnosed as a graphite tattoo due to the patient's history of sticking his gum with pencils when he was young. The entire pigmented gingiva was surgically removed and covered with two layers of PRF membrane to protect the exposed bone surface and provide an extracellular matrix for migration of gingival fibroblasts. Healing patterns were observed at 1, 2, 4, and 8 weeks, and satisfactory clinical and aesthetic results were obtained. Creeping attachment was observed at 8 years postop, and there was no recurrence for a long-term period of 13 years., Competing Interests: No other conflicts of interest to declare regarding the work presented in this article., (Copyright © 2024 Young Joon Cho et al.)

Background: Deep learning (DL)-based artificial intelligence may have different diagnostic characteristics than human experts in medical diagnosis. As a data-driven knowledge system, heterogeneous population incidence in the clinical world is considered to cause more bias to DL than clinicians. Conversely, by experiencing limited numbers of cases, human experts may exhibit large interindividual variability. Thus, understanding how the 2 groups classify given data differently is an essential step for the cooperative usage of DL in clinical application., Objective: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the differential effects of clinical experience in otoendoscopic image diagnosis in both computers and physicians exemplified by the class imbalance problem and guide clinicians when utilizing decision support systems., Methods: We used digital otoendoscopic images of patients who visited the outpatient clinic in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Severance Hospital, Seoul, South Korea, from January 2013 to June 2019, for a total of 22,707 otoendoscopic images. We excluded similar images, and 7500 otoendoscopic images were selected for labeling. We built a DL-based image classification model to classify the given image into 6 disease categories. Two test sets of 300 images were populated: balanced and imbalanced test sets. We included 14 clinicians (otolaryngologists and nonotolaryngology specialists including general practitioners) and 13 DL-based models. We used accuracy (overall and per-class) and kappa statistics to compare the results of individual physicians and the ML models., Results: Our ML models had consistently high accuracies (balanced test set: mean 77.14%, SD 1.83%; imbalanced test set: mean 82.03%, SD 3.06%), equivalent to those of otolaryngologists (balanced: mean 71.17%, SD 3.37%; imbalanced: mean 72.84%, SD 6.41%) and far better than those of nonotolaryngologists (balanced: mean 45.63%, SD 7.89%; imbalanced: mean 44.08%, SD 15.83%). However, ML models suffered from class imbalance problems (balanced test set: mean 77.14%, SD 1.83%; imbalanced test set: mean 82.03%, SD 3.06%). This was mitigated by data augmentation, particularly for low incidence classes, but rare disease classes still had low per-class accuracies. Human physicians, despite being less affected by prevalence, showed high interphysician variability (ML models: kappa=0.83, SD 0.02; otolaryngologists: kappa=0.60, SD 0.07)., Conclusions: Even though ML models deliver excellent performance in classifying ear disease, physicians and ML models have their own strengths. ML models have consistent and high accuracy while considering only the given image and show bias toward prevalence, whereas human physicians have varying performance but do not show bias toward prevalence and may also consider extra information that is not images. To deliver the best patient care in the shortage of otolaryngologists, our ML model can serve a cooperative role for clinicians with diverse expertise, as long as it is kept in mind that models consider only images and could be biased toward prevalent diseases even after data augmentation., (©Dongchul Cha, Chongwon Pae, Se A Lee, Gina Na, Young Kyun Hur, Ho Young Lee, A Ra Cho, Young Joon Cho, Sang Gil Han, Sung Huhn Kim, Jae Young Choi, Hae-Jeong Park. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (https://medinform.jmir.org), 08.12.2021.)

Background: Though cluster analysis has become a routine analytic task for bioinformatics research, it is still arduous for researchers to assess the quality of a clustering result. To select the best clustering method and its parameters for a dataset, researchers have to run multiple clustering algorithms and compare them. However, such a comparison task with multiple clustering results is cognitively demanding and laborious., Results: In this paper, we present XCluSim, a visual analytics tool that enables users to interactively compare multiple clustering results based on the Visual Information Seeking Mantra. We build a taxonomy for categorizing existing techniques of clustering results visualization in terms of the Gestalt principles of grouping. Using the taxonomy, we choose the most appropriate interactive visualizations for presenting individual clustering results from different types of clustering algorithms. The efficacy of XCluSim is shown through case studies with a bioinformatician., Conclusions: Compared to other relevant tools, XCluSim enables users to compare multiple clustering results in a more scalable manner. Moreover, XCluSim supports diverse clustering algorithms and dedicated visualizations and interactions for different types of clustering results, allowing more effective exploration of details on demand. Through case studies with a bioinformatics researcher, we received positive feedback on the functionalities of XCluSim, including its ability to help identify stably clustered items across multiple clustering results.

Erythema multiforme (EM) is an extremely rare condition in infancy. To the best of our knowledge, there have been only three cases of neonatal EM described in the literature, and no such cases have been reported in Korea. A preterm neonate born at 35 weeks and six days of gestation presented with multiple annular erythematous patches with a targetoid shape over his entire body at 36 days of age (corrected age of 7 days). He had no systemic symptoms except for transient mild fever. No triggering factor except for hepatitis B and BCG vaccination was found. Neutropenia was noted upon laboratory analysis. Skin biopsy specimens showed findings suggestive of erythema multiforme. The skin lesions improved rapidly upon administration of intravenous methylprednisolone; however, neutropenia continued for a much longer period. The significance of neutropenia with respect to the development of EM was not clarified. There has been no recurrence of skin lesions over a one-year follow-up period.

A 32-year-old woman presented at our clinic with a moderately soft, nontender, subcutaneous mass in the left temporal region and white hairs overlying the swelling. The lesion was surgically excised, and there was no recurrence at one year postoperatively. On histological examination, the hair follicles overlying the subcutaneous mass were devoid of pigment and a poorly demarcated fibrocellular process was seen in the subcutaneous mass, which was typical of neurofibroma. To our knowledge, only one case of poliosis associated with neurofibroma has been previously reported.