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We measure the electrical performance and stability of indium tin zinc oxide (ITZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs), respectively, covered with a passivation layer (PVL) of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) or scandium oxide (Sc2O3) prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The devices with the Sc2O3 PVL exhibit both satisfactory electrical performance and stability with a field effect mobility of 16.4 cm2/Vs, threshold voltage of 1.0 V, subthreshold swing of 0.09 V/decade, and especially, a minimum threshold voltage shift of 0.7 and −1.6 V under negative bias temperature stress (NBTS) and positive bias temperature stress (PBTS), respectively. This may be attributable to the suppression of oxygen vacancy formation and excellent capacity to protect the channel from environmental effects. Although the devices with the Al2O3 PVL show similar electrical performance, their stability is worse than that of the devices with Sc2O3. This shows the excellent potential of Sc2O3 thin films as a PVL.

Chiglitazar (Carfloglitazar) is a novel peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) pan-agonist that has shown promising effects on glycemic control and lipid regulation in patients with type 2 diabetes. In this randomized phase 3 trial, we compared the efficacy and safety of chiglitazar with sitagliptin in patients with type 2 diabetes who had insufficient glycemic control despite a strict diet and exercise regimen. Eligible patients were randomized (1:1:1) to receive chiglitazar 32 mg (n = 245), chiglitazar 48 mg (n = 246), or sitagliptin 100 mg (n = 248) once daily for 24 weeks. The primary endpoint was the change in glycosylated hemoglobin A1C (HbA1c) from baseline at week 24 with the non-inferiority of chiglitazar over sitagliptin. Both chiglitazar and sitagliptin significantly reduced HbA1c at week 24 with values of −1.40%, −1.47%, and −1.39% for chiglitazar 32 mg, chiglitazar 48 mg, and sitagliptin 100 mg, respectively. Chiglitazar 32 and 48 mg were both non-inferior to sitagliptin 100 mg, with mean differences of −0.04% (95% confidential interval (CI) −0.22 to 0.15) and −0.08% (95% CI −0.27 to 0.10), respectively. Compared with sitagliptin, greater reduction in fasting and 2-h postprandial plasma glucose and fasting insulin was observed with chiglitazar. Overall adverse event rates were similar between the groups. A small increase in mild edema in the chiglitazar 48 mg group and slight weight gain in both chiglitazar groups were reported. The overall results demonstrated that chiglitazar possesses good efficacy and safety profile in patients with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled with lifestyle interventions, thereby providing adequate supporting evidence for using this PPAR pan-agonist as a treatment option for type 2 diabetes.

Chiglitazar (Carfloglitazar) is a novel non-thiazolidinedione (TZD) structured peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) pan-agonist that has shown promising effects on glycemic control and lipid regulation in patients with type 2 diabetes in previous clinical studies. This randomized phase 3 trial aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of chiglitazar with placebo in patients with type 2 diabetes with insufficient glycemic control by strict diet and exercise alone. Eligible patients were randomly assigned to receive chiglitazar 32 mg (n = 167), chiglitazar 48 mg (n = 166), or placebo (n = 202) once daily. The primary endpoint was the change in glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) at week 24 with superiority of chiglitazar over placebo. The results showed that both chiglitazar 32 and 48 mg resulted in significant and clinically meaningful reductions in HbA1c, and placebo-adjusted estimated treatment differences at week 24 for chiglitazar 32 and 48 mg were −0.87% (95% confidential interval (CI): −1.10 to −0.65; P

Rosiglitazone has been reported to exert dual effects on liver steatosis, and it could exacerbate liver steatosis in obese animal models, which was suggested to be closely related to the elevated hepatic expression of FABP4. This study aimed to investigate whether combined treatment with FABP4 inhibitor I-9 could alleviate rosiglitazone-induced liver steatosis in obese diabetic db/db mice. Male C57BL/KsJ-db/db mice were orally treated with rosiglitazone, rosiglitazone combined with I-9 daily for 8 weeks. The liver steatosis was evaluated by triglyceride content and H&E staining. The expression of hepatic lipogenic genes or proteins in liver tissue or in FFA-treated hepatocytes and PMA-stimulated macrophages were determined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) or western blotting. Results showed that combined treatment with I-9 decreased rosiglitazone-induced increase in serum FABP4 level and expression of lipogenic genes in liver, especially FABP4, and ameliorated liver steatosis in db/db mice. Rosiglitazone-induced intracellular TG accumulation and increased expression of FABP4 in the cultured hepatocytes and macrophages were also suppressed by combined treatment. We concluded that combined treatment with FABP4 inhibitor I-9 could ameliorate rosiglitazone-exacerbated elevated serum FABP4 level and ectopic liver fat accumulation in obese diabetic db/db mice without affecting its anti-diabetic efficacy.

Chronic stress plays a critical role in the etiology of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, there are currently no effective drugs that can target chronic stress to prevent AD. In this study, we explored the neuroprotective effect of hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA) against chronic mild stress (CMS)-induced memory impairments in mice and the underlying mechanism. The Morris water maze test showed that HSYA significantly reduced CMS-induced learning and memory impairments in mice. HSYA increased the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and activated downstream tropomyosin-related kinase B (TrkB) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B(Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling. HSYA decreased the expression of regulator of calcineurin 1-1L (RCAN1-1L) that could promote the activity of glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β). HSYA also attenuated tau phosphorylation by inhibiting the activity of GSK-3β and cyclin-dependent kinase-5 (Cdk5). Our data indicated that HSYA has protective effects against CMS-induced BDNF downregulation, tau phosphorylation and memory impairments. HSYA may be a promising therapeutic candidate for AD by targeting chronic stress.

To overcome the environment susceptibility of flexible amorphous InSnZnO (a-ITZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs), a surface passivation method utilizing ${n}$ -octyltriethoxysilane (OTES) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) is developed. The electrical characteristics of the developed transistors indicate that device performance can be enhanced upon OTES passivation, exhibiting high mobility (~19.4 cm2 V−1s−1), a steep subthreshold slope (~90 mV/dec), near-zero threshold voltage (~0.6 V), and high ON– OFF current ratio ( $\sim 7.9\times 10^{{{9}}}$ ). The passivation layer can effectively improve the stability of flexible ITZO TFTs even under positive bias stress (PBS) and negative bias stress (NBS), and only 0.8/1.3 V threshold voltage shifts are shown after PBS/NBS. In addition, the OTES-passivated transistors exhibit good mechanical reliability and maintain its electrical characteristics during the 10-k bending period, without drastic decline. These results demonstrate that the SAM passivation method is suitable for the fabrication of flexible high-performance metal–oxide electronic devices.

Objective: To evaluate the combined effects of anemia and cognitive function on the risk of all-cause mortality in oldest-old individuals.Design: Prospective population-based cohort study.Setting and Participants: We included 1,212 oldest-old individuals (men, 416; mean age, 93.3 years).Methods: Blood tests, physical examinations, and health questionnaire surveys were conducted in 2012 were used for baseline data. Mortality was assessed in the subsequent 2014 and 2018 survey waves. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate anemia, cognitive impairment, and mortality risk. We used restricted cubic splines to analyze and visualize the association between hemoglobin (Hb) levels and mortality risk.Results: A total of 801 (66.1%) deaths were identified during the 6-year follow-up. We noted a significant association between anemia and mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.32, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14–1.54) after adjusting for confounding variables. We also observed a dose-response relationship between the severity of anemia and mortality (P < 0.001). In the restricted cubic spline models, Hb levels had a reverse J-shaped association with mortality risk (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.84–0.93 per 10 g/L-increase in Hb levels below 130 g/L). The reverse J-shaped association persisted in individuals without cognitive impairment (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.79–0.98 per 10 g/L-increase in Hb levels below 110 g/L). For people with cognitive impairment, Hb levels were inversely associated with mortality risk (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.78–0.89 per 10 g/L-increase in Hb levels below 150 g/L). People with anemia and cognitive impairment had the highest risk of mortality (HR 2.60, 95% CI 2.06–3.27).Conclusion: Our results indicate that anemia is associated with an increased risk of mortality in oldest-old people. Cognitive impairment modifies the association between Hb levels and mortality.

An analytical threshold-voltage (Vth) shift model of amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs) under positive gate bias stress (PGBS) is reported in this paper. It is demonstrated that electrons in active layers of a-IGZO TFTs can tunnel into gate insulators when PGBS is applied, and a portion of the tunneled electrons would tunnel back. The transfer distance of the tunneled electrons and the time-dependent electron distribution in gate insulators are analyzed with the back-tunneling effect taken into consideration. Finally the Vth shift under PGBS is predicted and the influences of gate voltage and stress time are discussed. The calculated Vth shift under PGBS shows good consistency with the reported experimental data.

As a widely used anti-gout drug, benzbromarone has been found to induce hepatic toxicity in patients during clinical treatment. Previous studies have reported that benzbromarone is metabolized via cytochrome P450, thus causing mitochondrial toxicity in hepatocytes. In this study, we found that benzbromarone significantly aggravated hepatic steatosis in both obese db/db mice and high fat diet (HFD)-induced obese (DIO) mouse models. However, benzbromarone had less effect on the liver of lean mice. It was found that the expression of mRNAs encoding lipid metabolism and some liver-specific genes were obviously disturbed in benzbromarone-treated DIO mice compared to the control group. The inflammatory and oxidative stress factors were also activated in the liver of benzbromarone-treated DIO mice. In accordance with the in vivo results, an in vitro experiment using human hepatoma HepG2 cells also confirmed that benzbromarone promoted intracellular lipid accumulation under high free fatty acids (FFAs) conditions by regulating the expression of lipid metabolism genes. Importantly, prolonged treatment of benzbromarone significantly increased cell apoptosis in HepG2 cells in the presence of high FFAs. In addition, in benzbromarone-treated hyperuricemic patients, serum transaminase levels were positively correlated with patients' obesity level. Conclusion This study demonstrated that benzbromarone aggravated hepatic steatosis in obese individuals, which could subsequently contribute to hepatic cell injury, suggesting a novel toxicological mechanism in benzbromarone-induced hepatotoxicity.

This study proposes a Manchester-encoded data transmission circuit suitable for 13.56 MHz radio-frequency identification (ID) tags integrated by indium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs). All the modules in the circuit are only constructed by two types of logic units: NOT gate and NOR gate. The 16 bit ID data are stored in the read-only-memory circuits realised by a fixed TFTs array. The 16 bit ID data are encoded by Manchester module as the output of the Manchester-encoded data transmission circuit with a bit rate of 103 kbps. The chip area is 6.5 mm 2 with the total number of gates as 76 and the sum of the transistors as 300. Moreover, the power consumption is 3.8 mW at VDD = 5 V.

This paper proposes a pull-up control scheme in the pseudo-CMOS inverter to design a low-power ring oscillator (RO) realized by only n-type transistors. For comparing 11-stages, the proposed RO and the conventional RO are both fabricated by metal–oxide thin-film transistors with the etch stop layer structure. It is measured that the power-delay product of the proposed RO is reduced by more than 50% under the same value of supply voltage. At the same oscillation frequency, the power consumption tends to be reduced by 18% as oscillation frequency increases. Furthermore, the peak-to-peak voltage of the proposed RO can almost receive a full swing at any supply voltage.

Summary The estimation of state-of-charge (SOC) is crucial to determine the remaining capacity of the Lithium-Ion battery, and thus plays an important role in many electric vehicle control and energy storage management problems. The accuracy of the estimated SOC depends mostly on the accuracy of the battery model, which is mainly affected by factors like temperature, State of Health (SOH), and chemical reactions. Also many characteristic parameters of the battery cell, such as the output voltage, the internal resistance and so on, have close relations with SOC. Battery models are often identified by a large amount of experiments under different SOCs and temperatures. To resolve this difficulty and also improve modeling accuracy, a multiple input parameter fitting model of the Lithium-Ion battery and the factors that would affect the accuracy of the battery model are derived from the Nernst equation in this paper. Statistics theory is applied to obtain a more accurate battery model while using less measurement data. The relevant parameters can be calculated by data fitting through measurement on factors like continuously changing temperatures. From the obtained battery model, Extended Kalman Filter algorithm is applied to estimate the SOC. Finally, simulation and experimental results are given to illustrate the advantage of the proposed SOC estimation method. It is found that the proposed SOC estimation method always satisfies the precision requirement in the relevant Standards under different environmental temperatures. Particularly, the SOC estimation accuracy can be improved by 14% under low temperatures below 0 °C compared with existing methods. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Background: Chiglitazar is a novel PPARα/γ/δ pan-agonist with moderate transcriptional activities. Phase 2 studies demonstrated that chiglitazar had significant effects on glycemic control and lipid modulation in patients with type 2 diabetes. The current CMAP study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of chiglitazar compared with placebo in type 2 diabetes patients who had not previously received anti-diabetic treatment. Methods: This study was a double-blind and placebo-controlled phase 3 trial conducted at 26 centres in China. Eligible patients were 18-70 years old, type 2 diabetes with HbA1c ≥7*5% and ≤10*0% and without previous anti-diabetic treatment. Patients were randomly assigned to receive chiglitazar 32 mg or 48 mg, or placebo once daily. The primary endpoint was change in HbA1c at week 24 with superiority of chiglitazar to placebo. Findings: Between June 17, 2014, and Oct 13, 2016, 535 patients were randomly assigned to receive chiglitazar 32 mg (n=167), 48 mg (n=166), or placebo (n=202). In the primary LOCF analysis in the full-analysispopulation, both chiglitazar doses were superior to placebo for HbA1c reduction at week 24, with the mean differences between chiglitazar 32 mg or 48 mg versus placebo were -0*87% [95% CI -1*10 to -0*65] or -1*05% [- 1*29 to -0*81], respectively. Overall frequency of adverse events and study discontinuation attributable to adverse events were similar among groups. Serious adverse events were reported for seven (3%) in the placebo group, four (2%) in the chiglitazar 32 mg group, and eight (5%) in the chiglitazar 48 mg group. A small increased mild edema events and body weight gain was reported in the chiglitazar dose groups. Interpretation: The PPAR pan-agonist chiglitazar had significant and clinically relevant improvements in glycaemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes, with no unexpected safety findings. Trial Registration: This study is registered with clinicaltrials.gov number NCT02121717. Funding Statement: Chipscreen Biosciences. This study was partly supported by grants from Chinese National and Provincial Major Project for New Drug Innovation (National: 2008ZX09101-002, 2013ZX09401301; Provincial: 2011A080501010) and Shenzhen Municipal Major Project (2010-1746). Declaration of Interests: ZN, HC, DP, HY and XL are employees of Chipscreen Biosciences Ltd. The other authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The study complied with the Declaration of Helsinki and Good Clinical Practice guidelines, and was approved by institutional review boards and independent ethics committees for participating centers. All participants provided written informed consent.

Summary State of Health (SOH) is one of the most important parameters of lead-acid batteries. Most of the existing SOH estimation methods only take the influence of charge cycles into consideration, and the estimation accuracy is limited. Batteries in the substations have two typical states: one is the check-discharge state, in which the batteries are discharged for 8 h at 0.1 C (Capacity) to determine whether the battery pack has certain reliability. The other is the floating charge state, in which the batteries are connected to the charger to maintain full power. This paper proposes a novel SOH estimation method based on the two states. In the check-discharge state, the relationship between the voltage and the age of battery is analysed. The health index, which is introduced in this model, is affected by the age of battery. In the floating state, the relationship between the internal resistance and the age of battery is discussed. Another SOH model is established based on the change of the internal resistance. By combining the two models, the estimation method can achieve real-time estimation and high accuracy for substation application. An accelerated life test is applied to verify the theoretical analysis. The experimental results demonstrate that the SOH estimation error is less than 3% which is very satisfactory for practical applications. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cinnamon extracts rich in procyanidin oligomers have shown to improve pancreatic β-cell function in diabetic db/db mice. The aim of this study was to identify the active compounds in extracts from two species of cinnamon responsible for the pancreatic β-cell protection in vitro. Cinnamon extracts were prepared from Cinnamomum tamala (CT-E) and Cinnamomum cassia (CC-E). Six compounds procyanidin B2 (cpd1), (−)-epicatechin (cpd2), cinnamtannin B1 (cpd3), procyanidin C1 (cpd4), parameritannin A1 (cpd5) and cinnamtannin D1 (cpd6) were isolated from the extracts. INS-1 pancreatic β-cells were exposed to palmitic acid (PA) or H2O2 to induce lipotoxicity and oxidative stress. Cell viability and apoptosis as well as ROS levels were assessed. Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion was examined in PA-treated β-cells and murine islets. CT-E, CC-E as well as the compounds, except cpd5, did not cause cytotoxicity in the β-cells up to the maximum dosage using in this experiment. CT-E and CC-E (12.5–50 μg/mL) dose-dependently increased cell viability in both PA- and H2O2-treated β-cells, and decreased ROS accumulation in H2O2-treated β-cells. CT-E caused more prominent β-cell protection than CC-E. Furthermore, CT-E (25 and 50 μg/mL) dose-dependently increased glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in PA-treated β-cells and murine islets, but CC-E had little effect. Among the 6 compounds, trimer procyanidins cpd3, cpd4 and cpd6 (12.5–50 μmol/L) dose-dependently increased the cell viability and decreased ROS accumulation in H2O2-treated β-cells. The trimer procyanidins also increased glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in PA-treated β-cells. Trimer procyanidins in the cinnamon extracts contribute to the pancreatic β-cell protection, thus to the anti-diabetic activity.

This brief presents a low-power high-stability scan driver integrated by In–Zn–O (IZO) TFTs on polyimide substrate. Observed from the experimental results of the scan driver with 48 stages, there is no distortion and good noise-suppressed characteristics for the output waveforms. In one stage of the proposed scan driver, there only needs a small TFT connected to clock signals by using a feedback inverter and a dc output module to minimize the dynamic power consumption. It is measured that the power consumption for one stage of the proposed gate driver is 18.3 $\mu \text{W}$ at the output swing of 15.3 V and the clock frequency of 50 kHz. There is a good noise-suppressed characteristic and high stability for the proposed scan driver as shown from a 300-h test.

In the robot feedback control system of visual feedback, the calibration of the hand-eye system is very important, because it directly affects the accuracy of the robot. Aiming at the small operating space and compact structure of the micro-assembly robot system, a fixed-vision hand-eye calibration method is proposed. The method first obtains the coordinates of 15 spatial points in the robot base coordinate system, and then uses the camera pose measurement principle to obtain the coordinates of the corresponding spatial points in the camera coordinate system, and then establishes the calibration equations. Based on the least squares method, the coordinate transformation matrix between the hand-eye systems is calibrated. The experimental results show that the constructed hand-eye system coordinate transformation matrix is effective and reliable. The calibration accuracy and effectiveness of the method are verified by relevant grabbing experiments.

With the development of the semiconductor manufacturing process, the size of the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) device has been on a tens-of-nanometer scale. The shot noise appears in the excess channel noise of the device, and the noise mechanism of the device begins to change gradually. Due to the fact that the electron temperature gradient is neglected in calculation and the significant enhancement of the lateral channel electric field are not taken into consideration, the traditional electron temperature model and the thermal noise model underestimate the effect of hot carrier effects, resulting in the underestimate of the thermal noise. Moreover, the traditional drain-source current model ignores the electron temperature gradient in the calculation and does not include the effect of the electron temperature on the mobility degradation effect either. Therefore, the calculation accuracy of the shot noise and the Fano factor on the basis of the traditional model will be reduced to a certain extent as the size of the device decreases, thus affecting the analysis of the noise mechanism of the device. In this paper, we establish the channel electron temperature model and the electron velocity model by solving the energy balance equation, and develop the drain source current model based on these two models. Moreover, the shot noise model and the thermal noise model suitable for devices below 40 nm are established based on the drain-source current model. Meanwhile, the Fano factor of the shot noise is calculated. The influence of the MOSFET device size on the noise mechanism and the Fano factor of the shot noise are also investigated when the device is under different bias voltages. The results show that the accuracy of the existing thermal noise model and the shot noise model decline as the device size decreases, which eventually leads the Fano factor of the shot noise to be overestimated. When the size of the NMOSFET device is below 20 nm, the shot noise affects the device noise in the strong inversion region. With the size decreasing, the characteristic of the noise mechanism of the NMOSFET device changes from the characteristic of single thermal noise to the common characteristic of both the thermal noise and the shot noise. When the NMOSFET device size is scaled down to 10 nm, the channel noise of the device can no longer be characterized by the thermal noise alone. Instead, the noise mechanism of the device changes and is characterized by both the channel thermal noise and the suppressed shot noise. The shot noise has become an important factor that contributes to the excessive noise in the device.

With the development of the integrated circuit manufacturing process, the device dimensions have been on a nanoscale, while the device performance, such as the mobility and thermal noise, is significantly affected by the hot-carrier effect, which further affects the channel thermal noise of the device. However, the thermal noise model based on the existing electron temperature expression does not take into account the influence of the temperature gradient on the electron temperature when it deals with the influence of the hot carrier effect. As the size of the device decreases, the thermal noise model based on the existing electron temperature expression underestimates the influence of the hot carrier effect and the channel thermal noise cannot be accurately predicted with this expression.In this paper, the expression of the channel transverse electric field is derived based on the channel potential equation and the boundary condition of the channel electric field. By combining the distribution of the temperature gradient and the expression of the transverse electric field, the energy balance equation is solved with considering the influence of the temperature gradient, and then the electron temperature expression is obtained. The electron temperature expression shows the distribution of the electron temperature along the channel. By utilizing the derived electron temperature expression and combining with the drain current expression, a channel thermal noise model is established. The hot carrier effect is taken into account in the thermal noise model by utilizing the proposed electron temperature expression. Meanwhile in calculating the thermal noise, the influence of the electron temperature on mobility degradation and the temperature gradient on thermal noise are also involved.The results show that the temperature gradient has a significant influence on the electron temperature with the reduction of the device size, which further increases the influence of the hot carrier effect, resulting in the increase of the thermal noise caused by the hot carrier effect exceeding the decrease of the thermal noise caused by the mobility degradation, thus leading the thermal noise to increase. The influence of the hot carrier effect on the channel thermal noise also increases significantly with the bias increasing. The channel thermal noise model proposed in this paper can be applied to analyzing the noise performance and modeling the nano-sized MOSFET devices.

With the increasing environmental concerns, plug-in electric vehicles will eventually become the main transportation tools in future smart cities. As a key component and the main power source, lithium-ion batteries have been an important object of research studies. In order to efficiently control electric vehicle powertrains, the state of charge (SOC) of lithium-ion batteries must be accurately estimated by the battery management system. This paper aims to provide a more accurate dynamic SOC estimation method for lithium-ion batteries. A dynamic Thevenin model with variable parameters affected by the temperature and SOC is established to model the battery. An unscented Kalman particle filter (UPF) algorithm is proposed based on the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) algorithm and the particle filter (PF) algorithm to generate nonlinear particle filter according to the advantages and disadvantages of various commonly used filtering algorithms. The simulation results show that the unscented Kalman particle filter algorithm based on the dynamic Thevenin model can predict the SOC in real time and it also has strong robustness against noises.

This paper presents a low-power and simple scan driver with a new output module called as AC–DC type output module. 46 stages of the scan driver are fabricated by integrating In–Zn–O Thin-film transistors (IZO TFTs) with back channel etch (BCE) structure on the glass substrate. Under 100 hours’ test, it is shown that the voltage fluctuation of the output signal can be well suppressed by the proposed AC–DC type output module up to the whole 46 stages. The power consumption can be obviously reduced by using the AC–DC type output module compared with the conventional AC–AC type output module. It is measured that the power consumption of one stage for the proposed scan driver with AC–DC type output module at the clock frequency of 16.7 kHz is 170 μW, as well as 393 μW for the proposed scan driver with the conventional AC–AC type output module. It is shown from the simulation results that there is a good tradeoff between the power consumption and the rising time for the proposed AC–DC type output module compared with AC–AC type output module and DC–DC type output module.

A method to extract the density of subgap states in amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors is proposed. The nonuniform characteristic of surface potential along the channel has been taken into account. The variation of interface state density with the applied bias voltage is derived from the capacitance–voltage characteristic. In addition, by combining the obtained density of interface states with the subthreshold swing, the energy distribution of bulk traps is determined. Results fit well with the experimental data.

This paper presents an on-chip process, voltage and temperature (PVT) compensation technique for a 1-MHz monolithic clock oscillator in a CMOS process. The oscillator is based on carrier mobility and frequency-to-voltage converter (FVC), which is based on charge pump circuit. An adaptive charge current maintains a constant frequency without trimming. Furthermore, a reference voltage with a second-order temperature coefficient further compensates the variation of frequency with temperature. It improves the accuracy of existing carrier-mobility-based oscillator, from 4.5% to 2.3%. The circuit was designed in a 130 nm CMOS 3.3 V device process. The results show that the output frequency is within ±2.3% variation in the worst case. The variations of frequency with process, temperature (−40 to 125°C) and power supply are within ±1.8%, ±0.8% and ±0.2%/V, respectively. It achieves a CMOS monolithic clock oscillator insensitive to PVT.

© 2017 by the authors. Battery equalization can increase batteries' life cycle, utilization, and reliability. Compared with battery equalization topologies based on resistance or energy storage components, the topologies based on transformers have the advantages of high balancing current and efficiency. However, the existence of switching losses will reduce the reliability and service life span of the equalization circuit. Aiming at resolving this problem, a new battery equalization topology by fly-back transformer with an absorbing circuit is proposed in this paper. Compared with other transformer-based topologies, it can decrease switching losses because the voltage/current spike is solved by the absorbing circuit which is composed of inductance, capacitance and diode (LCD), and it can also maintain a high balancing current of about 1.8 A and high efficiency of about 89%, while the balancing current and efficiency of other topologies were usually 1.725 A/1.5 A and 80%/80.4%. The working principle of the balancing topology and the process of soft switching are analyzed and calculated in the frequency domain. Due to the addition of the LCD absorbing circuit, soft switching can be realized to reduce the switching losses while the high equalization speed and efficiency are still maintained. The corresponding control strategy of the balancing topology is also proposed and the timely balancing is achieved. The theoretical analysis is verified by simulation and experimental results.

In this paper, we propose a new super-resolution algorithm based on wavelet coefficient. The proposed algorithm uses discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to decompose the input low-resolution image sequences into four subband images, including LL, LH, HL, HH. Then the input images have been processed by the 3DSKR (Three Dimensional Steering Kernel Regression) super resolution (SR) algorithm, and the result replaces the LL subband image, while the three high-frequency subband images have been interpolated. Finally, combining all these images to generate a new high-resolution image by using inverse DWT. Proposed method has been verified on Calendar and Foliage by Matlab software platform. The peak signal-to-noise (PSNR), structural similarity (SSIM) and visual results are compared, and show that the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm decline by 30 percent compared with the existing algorithm to obtain the approximate results.

An important parameter which characterizes thin-film transistors (TFTs) is the threshold voltage. Various methods have been proposed to extract the threshold voltage in amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) TFTs, but few models have been presented based on material characteristics and the carrier transport. With regard to a-IGZO films, under low carrier concentrations, current conduction would be dominated by trap-limited conduction, while it switches to the percolation conduction mechanism as the carrier concentration increased and the degenerate conduction is achieved at higher carrier concentrations. In this case, the threshold voltage can be defined as the gate voltage when the degenerate conduction comes into existence, and then a physics-based method of threshold voltage extraction for a-IGZO TFTs is developed. The accuracy of the proposed model was proved by comparison with the measured data. As the new definition makes it possible to combine the threshold voltage with the material property, it is expected to play a significant role in the device modeling for the simulation of circuits based on a-IGZO TFTs.

With the increasing integration and complexity of microelectronic devices, fault isolation has been challenged. Photon Emission Microscopy (PEM) and Optical Beam Induced Resistance Change (OBIRCH) are effective tools for defect localization and fault characterization in failure analysis. In this paper, the principles and different application condition of PEM and OBIRCH are discussed. PEM is very helpful for locating defects emitting photon, but can not detect the defects which have no photon emitting, such as shorted metal interconnects; OBIRCH as a complementary, has a high success rate for locating resistance defects. Two cases with failure mechanisms illuminated are presented to show the different application of PEM and OBIRCH.

Due to the strong inversion layer at the c-Si interface, there may be errors in the determination of the band offsets in a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunctions from the usual capacitance-voltage (C-V) method. Considering the charge effect in the strong inversion layer, the theoretical differential capacitance in (n+) a-Si:H/(p) c-Si heterojunctions at high frequency is developed. The calculated results of the capacitance show that, the errors depend on the minority carrier density at the c-Si interface, and increase with increasing conduction band offset in (n+) a-Si:H/(p) c-Si heterojunction solar cells. The apparent diffusion potential Vint accounts for the charge effect in the inversion layer. Particularly, a modification to the apparent diffusion potential is presented, and the simulation results show that the modified apparent diffusion potential Vint almost agrees with the theoretical value for various conduction band offsets. Accordingly, the band offsets are determined more precisely from the improved C-V method. However, there is still a small difference between VD and Vint as well as slight errors at the high values of AEC. The improved C-V method is based on the usual C-V method and the static coplanar conductance measurement to determine the band offsets.

This paper presents an ac driving pixel circuit for active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays, which is composed of one driving thin-film transistor (TFT), three switching TFTs and one capacitor. The proposed pixel circuit can not only make OLED work at the ac driving mode, but also effectively compensate for the threshold-voltage shift of the driving TFT and the degradation of OLED. Simulation results show that the nonuniformity of the proposed pixel circuit is significantly reduced (

Glucocorticoid-induced osteonecrosis is a common and severe adverse event. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate whether polymorphisms in target genes were associated with the risk of corticosteroid-induced osteonecrosis. Published literature from PubMed and EMBASE were searched for eligible publications. Pooled odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using a fixed- or random-effects model. There were 23 articles with 35 genes described the relationship between polymorphisms and glucocorticoid-induced osteonecrosis. Meta-analyses were carried out for those SNPs with three or more eligible studies, which included four SNPs located in three genes (PAI-1, MTHFR, ABCB1). The meta-analysis revealed that the PAI-1 4G allele was associated with an increased risk of osteonecrosis compared with the 5G allele (combined studies: OR = 1.932, 95% CI = 1.145–3.261). The OR for the 4G/4G vs. 5G/5G genotype of PAI-1 was 3.217 (95% CI 1.667–6.209 with combined studies), The relative risk of osteonecrosis was increased in the 4G allele vs. 5G/5G and 4G/4G genotype vs. 5G allele, with odds ratios of 2.304 (95% CI = 1.235–4.299) and 2.307 (95% CI = 1.527–3.485) in combined studies, respectively. The ABCB1 C3435T genotype distributions available confirmed that the C allele increased osteonecrosis risk compared with the T allele (OR 1.668, 95% CI = 1.214–2.293) and TT genotype (OR 2.946, 95% CI = 1.422–6.101). There was no evidence for significant association between MTHFR C677T and ABCB1 G2677T/A polymorphisms and risk of osteonecrosis. Results of this meta-analysis indicate that the PAI-1 4G/5G and ABCB1 C3435T polymorphisms may be risk factors for osteonecrosis.

The p-CuI /n-Si heterojunction diode have been prepared at a low cost by chemical method. The prepared hexagonal γ-CuI films are polycrystalline nature and observed preferential orientation along the (111) axis aligning with the growth direction. The heterojunction shows a good rectifying behavior and photovoltaic effects. The current and 1/C2 versus voltage curve of the p-CuI/ n-Si heterojunction diode was shown. The linear relationships of 1/C2 versus voltage curve imply that the built-in potential Vbi and the conduction band offset of the heterojunction ware found to be 1.5 eV and 0.98 eV, respectively. The current transport mechanism is dominated by the space-charge limited current (SCLC) conduction at forward bias voltages. The electronic potential barrier in p-CuI/n-Si heterojunction interface higher than hole at forward bias voltages. In this voltages area, a single carrier injuction was induced and the main current of p-CuI/n-Si heterojunction is hole current.This heterojunction diode can be good used for light emission devices and photovoltaic devices.

Series battery equalization can improve battery charge and discharge reliability and extend battery life. It requires a higher requirement in battery management system (BMS). This paper introduces the high speed inductor-based battery equalization schemes. It can realize energy transfer between the cells and batteries by charging and discharging of the inductors. Thus the equalization time can be improved. Finally the simulation and experimental results verify the theoretical analysis.

Introduction To investigate whether t-PA Alu repeat insertion/deletion (I/D) and PAI-1 4 G/5 G genetic variations are associated with the risk of MI. Methods We conducted a meta-analysis to assess the association between the t-PA I/D and PAI-1 4 G/5 G polymorphisms and risk of MI. We also performed subgroup analyses based on ethnicity (Caucasian, Asian, and African), gender and age. Forty one eligible studies including 12,461 cases and 14,993 controls were identified to evaluate the impact of PAI-1 4 G/5 G polymorphism on MI. Seven studies investigated the relationship between t-PA I/D and MI. Results This meta-analysis revealed that the PAI-1 4 G allele (4 G/4 G and 4 G/5 G genotype) was associated with an increased risk of MI compared with the 5 G allele in the overall population (OR = 1.094, 95% CI = 1.021 - 1.172, p = 0.011). The relative risks of MI for 4 G/4 G genotype was increased when compared to 5 G/5 G genotype and 5 G allele, with odds ratio at 1.157 (95% CI 1.015 - 1.320, p = 0.029) and 1.126 (95% CI = 1.015 - 1.249, p = 0.025). However, the results show that the 4 G/5 G polymorphism risk for MI was not associated with ethnicity stratification as Caucasian, Asian or African population. No substantial differences in the genotype distributions were observed in the MI group and control group along the lines of gender and age. After multivariable analysis t-PA I/D polymorphism showed no consistent association with MI. Conclusions This study suggests that the 4 G/5 G polymorphism of PAI-1 may be a risk factor for MI in overall populations.

To construct a reliable computational model for the classification of agonists and antagonists of 5-HT(1A) receptor.Support vector machine (SVM), a well-known machine learning method, was employed to build a prediction model, and genetic algorithm (GA) was used to select the most relevant descriptors and to optimize two important parameters, C and r of the SVM model. The overall dataset used in this study comprised 284 ligands of the 5-HT(1A) receptor with diverse structures reported in the literatures.A SVM model was successfully developed that could be used to predict the probability of a ligand being an agonist or antagonist of the 5-HT(1A) receptor. The predictive accuracy for training and test sets was 0.942 and 0.865, respectively. For compounds with probability estimate higher than 0.7, the predictive accuracy of the model for training and test sets was 0.954 and 0.927, respectively. To further validate our model, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted, and the Area-Under-the-ROC- Curve (AUC) value was calculated to be 0.883 for training set and 0.906 for test set.A reliable SVM model was successfully developed that could effectively distinguish agonists and antagonists among the ligands of the 5-HT(1A) receptor. To our knowledge, this is the first effort for the classification of 5-HT(1A) receptor agonists and antagonists based on a diverse dataset. This method may be used to classify the ligands of other members of the GPCR family.

(2 0 2)/(2 2 0)-oriented epitaxial β-FeSi2 thin films were deposited on textured Si (1 0 0) substrate by magnetron sputtering. The influences of thickness and annealing temperature on the β-FeSi2 crystallization were studied to find the optimal condition. The results of surface morphology and optical property measurements showed that the inverted pyramid array in the surface of β-FeSi2 thin films could reduce the surface reflection of β-FeSi2. In dark condition, the β-FeSi2/textured-Si heterojunction showed diode property with rectifying ratio of 2.89 × 105 and built-in potential of 0.58 V. These results indicated the potential application of textured Si substrate in β-FeSi2 solar cells.

An analytical expression of the surface potential for polysilicon thin-film transistors (poly-Si TFTs) working in the subthreshold region is obtained, following a quasi-2-D Poisson's equation, and then, an analytical subthreshold current model is subsequently developed based on the processes of diffusion and thermal emission. Furthermore, the kink effect is also taken into account in the subthreshold current model. Consequently, an analytical expression of the subthreshold swing is obtained from the surface potential equation and the subthreshold current expression. It is easily shown in our model that the subthreshold swing of poly-Si TFTs decreases with reducing the trap states or enlarging the grain size, and then, the switching performance of poly-Si TFTs will be improved. Moreover, this model has a simple functional form, and it can reduce to that of the conventional long-channel MOSFET in the case of large grain size and low trap states. The model has been verified by comparing simulated results with experimental data.

Processing parameters of micro thixoforming, such as height-diameter ratio, die/punch temperature, billet temperature, and punch speed, have direct and complex impact on final quality of the workpiece, which is to be applied as the reaction plate of a microreactor for hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming. The micro/meso features of the workpiece, which is for catalyst loading, are micro-pin-fin arrays. Size of the surface area and uniformity of the pin-fins are quantified by average height (Ha) and relative standard deviation (RSD). An orthogonal experiment design is adopted to investigate the influence of the parameters on the semi-solid forming process. The results of the orthogonal experiment show that the optimum parameters are 150 °C for die/punch temperature, 576 °C for billet temperature, 0.14 for height-diameter ratio and 8.33 mm/s for punch speed. The experimental results validate that the optimized processing parameters can improve the quality of the reaction plate with micro-pin-fin arrays.

Chatter often occurs during precision hole boring, it results in low quality of finished surface and even damages the cutting tool. In order to identify chatter rapidly and gain the precious time for chatter suppression, a chatter monitoring system was established and an effective feature extraction method for boring chatter recognition was presented. According to the characteristic of chatter signal, empirical mode decomposition (EMD) was introduced into chatter feature extraction, and its basic theories were investigated. The vibration signal was decomposed by EMD, then the intrinsic mode functions (IMF) was got. Finally, the feature of chatter symptom was extracted by analyzing the energy spectrum of each IMF. The results show that feature extracted from vibration of boring bar by EMD can indicate chatter outbreak symptom, and it can be used as feature vectors for rapidly recognizing chatter.

Objective To observe the effects of Tangnaikang (TNK), a compound traditional Chinese herbal medicine, on glucose metabolism and insulin resistance in obese Zucker rats. Methods Twelve male obese Zucker rats, 6 weeks old, were randomly divided into control group and TNK group (3.24 g/kg) after being fed for 2 weeks. All rats received high-fat diet and 4-week treatment. Body weight and blood glucose were tested every week. Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed and fasting insulin level was tested on days 0, 14 and 28. Triglyceride, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and free fatty acids (FFA) were tested on day 28. Glucose infusion rate (GIR) was tested by hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp from day 29. The protein expressions of protein kinase B (Akt), phospho-Akt (p-Akt) (Thr308) and glucose transporter protein 4 (GLUT4) in skeletal muscle and GLUT4 in adipose tissue were measured after hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp test. Results Compared with the control group, the fed blood glucose level and glucose level of OGTT at 120 min had a significant decline in TNK group on day 28, and TNK caused no alteration of the fasting serum insulin, and the GIR increased significantly in hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp study. Furthermore, TNK increased Akt and p-Akt (Thr308) protein expressions in skeletal muscle and decreased the protein expression of GLUT4 in white adipose tissue. Body weight, and triglyceride, cholesterol, LDL-C and FFA contents were slightly decreased in the TNK group, but there were no statistically significant effects. Conclusion TNK increases the protein expressions of Akt and p-Akt (Thr308) of the signal transduction pathway to influence the translocation of GLUT4 in skeletal muscle and improves glucose metabolism by reducing insulin resistance.

© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Series battery equalisation can improve battery charge and discharge reliability and extend battery life. Inductor-based battery equalisation schemes have the advantages of simple topologies and control strategies. According to the energy transfer pathway, inductor-based battery equalisation schemes can be divided into cell-to-cell and cell-to-pack equalisation schemes. The control strategies of the cell-to-cell schemes are simple; the inductor can only transfer energy between the neighbouring cells, so the equalisation speed is low. The cell-to-pack schemes are able to accomplish energy transfer between the cells and pack by charging and discharging the inductors. The equalisation speed is high, but the control strategies may be complex. In this paper, different equalisation topologies are reviewed, then a unified control strategy which is applicable to all of the inductor-based equalisation topologies is proposed. The equalisation speeds and efficiencies of these different schemes, including the newly-proposed unified control strategy, are analysed and compared. Based on the theoretical analysis, simulations, and experimental verifications, it is concluded that this unified control strategy can perform the battery equalisation process quickly and efficiently.

A driving circuit was designed for the electro-optical phase modulator, according to its structural characteristics. The circuit consists of OP37 and PA84. It is simple, but stable. The peak-to-peak value of the circuit’s output voltage is up to 200 V within the frequency range of 0 to 280 kHz. Phase compensation was designed for the output signals, and then an optical phase modulation experiment was conducted. The shift of interference fringes caused by the change of driving voltage imposed on the electro-optical modulator was observed by a photodetector.

Based on charge conservation assumption, analytical models of the drain-induced grain barrier lowering effect are developed for polysilicon films by 1-D Poisson's equation and for polysilicon thin-film transistors (poly-Si TFTs) by quasi-2-D Poisson's equation. It is shown that the voltage drop at the lower barrier side is less than that at the higher barrier side for both poly-Si films and poly-Si TFTs when applying a lateral bias across the grain-boundary barrier.

A physical model that includes the effects of self-heating and variable resistance in the above-threshold region is presented for hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film transistors (a-Si:H TFTs). The self heating effect is due to the low thermal conductivity of the gate insulator and the glass substrate. In order to predict the temperature rise as a function of device dimensions and material parameters, a steady-state thermal model derived from a system of coupled one-dimensional (1-D) energy equations and boundary conditions is presented. Then the developed thermal model is applied to study the self-heating effect in the a-Si:H TFT. In addition, the bulk resistance is decreased due to the the mechanism of space charge limited conduction in a n+–i–n+ structure. By considering both the effects of self-heating and variable resistance, a physical model in the above-threshold region has been developed. Using this model, the non-saturating output current and kink effects can be accurately described for a typical a-Si:H TFT. The accuracy of the proposed model has been verified with the experimental data.

This paper presents a rail-to-rail constant- g m operational amplifier input stage. The proposed circuit changes the tail current of the input differential pairs dynamically for a constant- g m by using dummy input differential pairs. The problem which causes total g m variation is input pairs and dummy input pairs can not take effect at the same time with the common-mode input voltage changes, because the tail current transistor of the input pairs are in triode region when the input pairs are turned off, the dummy input pairs will enter subthreshold region from cut-off region before the input pairs when common-mode voltage changes. The effect of this problem is more obviously in low supply voltage design. To solve this problem, compensate current sources is added to the tail current transistors of each dummy input differential pairs for lower g m variation. The g m of this Op Amp’s input stage varies around ±2%.

Self-chatter is a serious problem in cutting process. This paper aims to solve the problem by establishing time series model of vibration acceleration signal in cutting process based on Hidden Markov Model (HMM) technology and achieve the purpose of chatter recognition and prediction. Features which can indicate cutting state are extracted from the acceleration signal. HMM parameters are obtained by model training, and the reference models database is built. Then cutting state recognition is performed according to the feature matching level. Simulations and experiments are conducted, and the results show that the proposed method is feasible and it could get high recognition

Wavelet denoising method was introduced to improve the validity of identifying the guide rail irregularity in elevator. The horizontal acceleration signal measured from a test elevator was processed by wavelet denoising. Then the denoised signal was decomposed up to four levels using Daubechies 4 mother wavelet to identify the guide rail irregularity. The results indicate that the impulses due to the guide rail irregularity are prominent in wavelet decompositions. And the causes resulting in those characteristics of the vibration signal can be well revealed. So discrete wavelet transform (DWT) can be used as an effective tool for denoising the horizontal vibration signal of elevator and diagnosing faults in the guide rail.