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Confocal laser scanning microscopy systems rely on a pinhole placed at the confocal point to act as a spatial filter. The diameter of the pinhole critically affects both the brightness and resolution of the imaging. Furthermore, different imaging conditions, such as sample type, depth of the sample, wavelength of the signal, and its inherent emission or reflection strength, require varying balances between the brightness and optical resolution for optimal observability. However, exchanging the pinhole, and its subsequent alignment, is often a time consuming challenge when implemented in customized systems. These systems are important since they are often used in studies for which commonly available ones lack sufficient capabilities. As such, we have developed an auto-positioning interchangeable pinhole array, manufactured via a patented laser machining process and designed for convenient implementation in confocal laser scanning microscopy systems and we demonstrate its effectiveness and versatility.

Purpose The treatment of choice for chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) has been established as burr-hole trephination with drain insertion; however, controversy remains over the best place for the drainage catheter. In this study, we compare the safety and efficacy of a subperiosteal drain (SPD) with that of a subdural drain (SDD) after one burr-hole trephination for CSDH. Methods This retrospective and comparative study includes all CSDH patients treated with burr-hole trephination at our institution between January 2015 and December 2019. 59 patients were treated with SPD insertion (SPD group), and 203 patients were treated with SDD insertion (SDD group). Results The median hematoma thickness of the SPD group within 24 hours after surgery was significantly thicker than that of the SDD group (9.5 mm vs. 7.5 mm, p = 0.003), but the midline shifting of the SPD group did not differ from that of the SDD group (3.8 mm vs. 3.5 mm, p = 0.280). The recurrence rate in the SPD group did not differ significantly from that in the SDD group (13.2% vs. 8.5%, p = 0.351). The frequency of bleeding events after surgery also did not differ significantly (5.1% vs. 3.5% p-value = 0.636). In contrast to surgery-related morbidities, medical morbidities such as pneumonia were significantly higher in the SDD group (4.4% vs. 0.0%, p = 0.044). The all-cause mortality rates during the perioperative period did not differ between the two groups (5.1% vs. 3.4%, p = 0.848). Conclusion Our findings may suggest that burr-hole trephination with SPD insertion had better surgical feasibility and fewer perioperative complications than SDD insertion. The type of anesthesia seems to be related with fewer medical complications at perioperative period. Larger, randomized clinical trials focusing not only the drain type but anesthesia type, are needed to validate our findings.

A 15 year old male who had been involved in a motor vehicle accident underwent a craniotomy for an acute EDH and a subsequent splenectomy for the splenic rupture, which was complicated by ischemia and a series of severe infection. Splenectomy was performed for concern of therapy refractory thrombocytopenia. We suggest that a thorough consideration on possible and potential complications along with a detailed description of his clinical courses and a review of the literature. Keywords: Combined surgery, Complications of splenectomy, Thrombosis, TBI induced ischemia

Ti alloy matrix composites reinforced with nanosized TiB whiskers (TiBw/Ti–6Al–4V) were synthesized through an in situ reaction between TiB2 and Ti–6Al–4V powders during a spark plasma sintering process. The TiBw/Ti–6Al–4V composites reinforced by whiskers with an aspect ratio of 58 exhibited threefold greater strengthening efficiency compared to those reinforced by whiskers with low aspect ratios. It was determined that the strengthening originates from the high load-bearing capability of TiB whiskers with a diameter of 100 nm formed in situ in a Ti alloy matrix.

Twenty plant species were selected from Jeju, Korea, and extracts made using a pressurised liquid extraction system. Integral antioxidative capacity (IAC), inhibitory activity of nitric oxide (NO) production, and cell toxicity were evaluated to identify new dietary antioxidants of natural origin with a low degree of cell toxicity. Geranium thunbergii and Pyrrosia lingua showed high IAC values of water-soluble substances (9.76 and 9.48 mmol ascorbic acid equivalents/g), with high IAC values of lipid-soluble substances of 5.20 and 1.97 mmol trolox equivalents/g, respectively. Prunus padus and Rhus javanica did not show any cytotoxicity on RAW 264.7 macrophages or HS-68 normal skin fibroblast cells and showed inhibitory activity of NO production (IC 50 = 327 and 337 μg/ml) with LPS-induced RAW 264.7 macrophages. Malus sieboldii did not exhibit cytotoxicity with either cell type and showed high inhibitory activity of NO production (IC 50 = 219 μg/ml) and high IAC values of water-soluble substances (4.93 mmol ascorbic acid equivalents/g).

Effects of multi-doping of rare-earth oxides (R = Yb, Sm, Ho, La and Nd) on the microstructure development and electric properties of BaTiO 3 ceramics were studied. The addition of samarium oxide leads to poor densification and small grains, whereas ytterbium oxide develops large grains and secondary phases along the grain boundary, and Ho ion with an intermediate ionic radius gives rise to higher densities with fine grains. The grain size of Yb-doped BaTiO 3 decreased with increasing Sm contents. The system coated with 2.0 at.% Sm and 2.0 at.% Yb exhibited dense microstructures with uniform small grains, and Yb-rich second phases were not observed. It was confirmed that an appropriate ratio of donor to acceptor is necessary to the optimum microstructure. Curie temperature of rare-earth doped BaTiO 3 was strongly dependent on the unit-cell volume associated with the ionic sizes of rare-earth ions.

In this paper, we propose a method that controls the depth of the three-dimensional (3D) object existing over the depth-of-focus in integral imaging. The depth control method is performed only in a computer by synthesizing the intermediate sub-images between original sub-images obtained by transforming the captured elemental images. In the reconstruction process, we can obtain reconstructed 3D images with the better image quality within depth-of-focus than that reconstructed over the depth-of-focus. To demonstrate the feasibility of our method, optical and computational experiments are carried out and its results are presented.

The entire virion protein 2 (VP2) gene of Canine Parvovirus (CPV) was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and engineered to be expressed by a bacterial expression vector pET-28a, under the control of the IPTG-inducible T7lac promoter. SDS-PAGE gel revealed that VP2 expressed as a 67 kDa, and found mainly in the pellet of the bacterial lysates, suggesting that cytoplasmic expression is not preferred. The recombinant protein VP2 fused with His-tag was purified from Esherichia coli using Ni-NTA resin under denaturing conditions. SDS-PAGE analysis also showed the high expression of several lower molecular weight (LMW) bands. Western blot analysis showed that polyclonal antisera produced by rabbit against E. coli-VP2 protein reacted specifically with the purified VP2 protein as well as two other LMW bands. Some of the resulting LMW products failed to keep their antigenic site in the N-terminal region of the VP2. The degradation of recombinant VP2 protein in E. coli could be due to the action of host proteases. The immunodetection ability of the polyclonal antisera was compared with that of a commercial monoclonal antibody to test numerous clinical specimens by immuno-dot blot assays. There were distinctive differences in the degree of immunodetection ability of polyclonal antisera and monoclonal antibody to react with CPV antigens. The reaction time of polyclonal antisera was much faster in visual color appearance than that of monoclonal antibody during NBT/BCIP staining. The result from diagnostic PCR assay confirmed the presence of CPV in 44 out of 46 specimens collected, consistent with polyclonal antisera-positive result. Therefore, the polyclonal antisera can be used for CPV detection in the faeces of diarrhoeic dogs, which was found to be more rapid, sensitive, broad but less specific than the monoclonal antibody.

In this paper, a novel resolution-enhanced three-dimensional (3D) image correlator using the computationally reconstructed integral images is proposed in order to extract target object’s 3D location data in a scene. Elemental images of the reference and target objects are picked up by lenslet arrays and using these elemental images, reference and target plane images are reconstructed on the output plane by means of a modified computational integral imaging reconstruction technique. Then, through cross-correlations between the reconstructed reference and the target plane images, 3D location data of the target object can be extracted from the correlation outputs. With the purpose of showing the feasibility of the proposed method, some computational and optical experiments on the target objects in space are carried out and the results are presented.

MgO coated BaTiO3 powder prepared by a homogeneous precipitation method revealed an adsorption of fine MgO particles on the BaTiO3 surface. MgO coated BaTiO3 increased the onset temperature of shrinkage, compared with mechanically MgO added BaTiO3. Dielectric constants of MgO mixed BaTiO3 decreased with increasing MgO contents, whereas MgO coated BaTiO3 showed less dependence on MgO contents. The shell phase formation temperature of MgO coated BaTiO3 were higher than the mixed ones. MgO coated BaTiO3 showed smaller lattice parameters compared with mixed samples, where both specimens have the same MgO content. Extra MgO phase was detected on all of the MgO-doped BaTiO3. However, MgO mixed BaTiO3 showed weaker characteristic X-ray diffraction peaks of MgO phase than coated samples.

Effects of MgO coating on microstructure and dielectric properties of BaTiO 3 have been studied compared with mechanically MgO mixed BaTiO 3 . MgO-coated BaTiO 3 particles were prepared by a homogeneous precipitation method using MgCl 2 ·6H 2 O and urea. TEM micrograph showed homogeneous adsorption of MgO particles on the BaTiO 3 surfaces. MgO coated and mixed samples showed different dielectric behaviors because uniformity of microstructures and shape of core-shell structure were different each other. Bulk density was slightly decreased with increasing MgO content. EPMA analysis indicates that microstructures and dielectric behaviors were affected by the distribution of MgO in the BaTiO 3 matrix.

In this study solid-state NMR spectroscopy was used to identify structure and guest distribution of the mixed N 2 + CO 2 hydrates. These results show that it is possible to recover CO 2 from flue gas by forming a mixed hydrate that removes CO 2 preferentially from CO 2 /N 2 gas mixture. Hydrate phase equilibria for the ternary CO 2 –N 2 –water system in silica gel pores were measured, which show that the three-phase H–L w –V equilibrium curves were shifted to higher pressures at a specific temperature when the concentration of CO 2 in the vapor phase decreased. 13 C cross-polarization (CP) NMR spectra of the mixed hydrates at gas compositions of more than 10 mol% CO 2 with the balance N 2 identified that the crystal structure of mixed hydrates as structure I, and that the CO 2 molecules occupy mainly the abundant 5 12 6 2 cages. This makes it possible to achieve concentrations of more than 96 mol% CO 2 gas in the product after three cycles of hydrate formation and dissociation.

The effect of particle size of BaTiO 3 on the preparation of magnesia-coated BaTiO 3 particles was studied through a surface-induced precipitation method. MgO-coated BaTiO 3 particles were prepared by a homogeneous precipitation method using MgCl 2 ·6H 2 O and urea. Particle sizes of starting BaTiO 3 powders were ∼30 and ∼400 nm, respectively. Amorphous magnesia precursor with ∼10 nm was heat treated and transformed to crystalline MgO. Crystallization of MgO was observed at the temperature range between 600 and 700 °C. Zeta potentials were all negative such as −2 mV for MgO, −18 mV for 400 nm BaTiO 3 and −22 mV for 30 nm BaTiO 3 at pH 7.0. The MgO-coating layer was observed on BaTiO 3 particles with ∼400 nm, whereas none of the coating layer was observed on BaTiO 3 with ∼30 nm. According to calculation of the total interaction potential energy, the most strong attraction energy was observed between 400 nm BaTiO 3 and MgO particles.

Currently many aerospace vehicle systems require lightweight, high performance pressurized tank for storage of propellant, nitrogen, oxygen, or other medium. Aircrafts have several needs for high-pressure stored gas, like aircraft escape slide inflation systems, emergency oxygen supply, landing gear actuator, engine pressurized air start system and on-board inert gas generating system nitrogen enriched air receivers. For spacecraft application, the high-pressure gas is utilized for attitude control of the vehicle and propulsion purpose. Therefore, the leakage of the pressure vessel results in serious malfunction of the vehicle system causing a mission failure or mishap. It is prudent to recognize the fact that pressure vessels can fail in spite of high standard of qualification program. This paper reports an experimental investigation of the failure behavior of pressure vessels during high pressure of hydraulic loading. The pressure vessels were manufactured by two different procedures. One method is spin forming and tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding process and the other is blow forming and solid-state diffusion bonding process. The failure behavior has been studied and the effect of forming method has been analyzed. The result shows that the pressurization rate and the acoustic emission signal increasing rate provide a similar tendency for a vessel of integrity, while the signal increasing rate is much higher than the pressurization rate for a vessel with defects. It is clear that the acoustic emission response of the vessel to the pressure loading can be successfully applied to predict the structural integrity and failure behavior of the vessels manufactured with both methods.

Physical characteristics of silica-coated BaTiO 3 powders were studied. BaTiO 3 powders (∼30 nm) were coated with TEOS and ethanol, and KOH solution was used as a catalyst. As the silica content was increased, silica coating changed the surface state of BaTiO 3 powders and improved dispersion of the powder. Effects of silica coating on the sintering behavior of BaTiO 3 were investigated using TMA. The specimen coated with 5.0 wt.% silica showed the maximum shrinkage of 25.5%, whereas the shrinkage of the uncoated BaTiO 3 was 20.4%. At the silica content greater than 1.0 wt.%, the characteristic X-ray peaks of fresnoite (Ba 2 TiSi 2 O 8 ) were observed. The specimen coated with silica less than 1.0 wt.% completed densification below 1250 °C, whereas the specimen with greater than 3.0 wt.% gave rise to swelling.

We have identified and cloned a novel toxin gene (tccC1/xptB1) from Xenorhabdus nematophilus strain isolated from Korea-specific entomophagous nematode Steinernema glaseri MK. The DNA sequence of cloned toxin gene (3048 bp) has an open reading frame encoding 1016 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 111058 Da. The toxin sequence shares 50-96% identical amino acid residues with the previously reported tccC1 cloned from X. nematophilus, Photorhabdus luminescens W14 P. luminescens TTO1, and Yersinia pestis CO92. The toxin gene was successfully expressed in Escherichia coli, and the recombinant toxin protein caused a rapid cessation in mortality of Galleria mellonella larvae (80% death of larvae within 2 days). Conclusively, the heterologous expression of the novel gene tccC1 cloned into E. coli plasmid vector produced recombinant toxin with high insecticidal activity.

In this study, filament winding patterns were calculated using a semi-geodesic fiber path equation for an arbitrary surface. Because the fiber path depends on the surface where fibers are wound, the winding angle varies in the longitudinal and thickness directions of a wound structure. The fiber angle difference through the thickness was calculated for several design parameters, such as helical winding thickness and angle. Finite element analyses were performed considering the change of winding angles through the thickness by a commercial FEA code, ABAQUS. A user subroutine, ORIENT, was coded to impose the change of winding angles to each solid element. Water-pressuring tests were performed for an advanced standard test evaluation bottle (ASTEB). The results of the finite element analysis considering geometrical nonlinearities were verified with the experimental data.