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Single or doubly ionized metal and gas ions (i.e., N+, N2+, Ti+, Ti2+, Ar+) in the HiPIMS plasma discharge of Ti contribute multiple functions, and the dissociated ions that arrive on a substrate during deposition differ in terms of distribution time and incident flux. Through the application of bias voltage, the incident flux and impact energy of various species of gas and metal ions can be independently controlled to obtain a dense structure, low residual stress, and high adhesion of coating at low deposition temperatures. In this work, we aimed to control the behavior of metal ions through a synchronous pulse DC (SP-DC) bias with variable trigger delay (TD; 0, 50, 100, and 150 μs), and its results were compared with that of a DC bias mode. The SP-DC bias can precisely control the flux of Ti+ and N+ ion, allowing for the deposition rate of TiN coating to be increased. Furthermore, when TD time was increased from 0 to 100 μs, the preferred orientation was (111), and when a DC bias with a TD of 150 μs was applied, the preferred orientation was (200). When the bias system was changed from a DC to synchronous one, residual stress decreased from −6.7 to −4.0 GPa because of a less intensive Ar+ ion bombardment, which improved adhesion from 62.7 to 83.7 N. The most favorable results for hardness (31.1 GPa), elastic modulus (561 GPa), adhesion strength (83.7 N), and lowest wear rate (2 × 10−5 mm3 N−1 m−1) were obtained in a synchronous mode. • TiN was deposited by HiPIMS with the synchronous DC bias (various trigger delay times). • The fastest deposition rate was occurred with synchronous mode (TD 0). • The preferred orientation of coating changed due to ion bombardment energy and thickness. • Residual stress is effectively reduced, which led to an adhesion strength increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A parametric delay fault could arise in a through-silicon via (TSV) of a 3-D IC due to a manufacturing defect. Identification of such a fault is essential for fault diagnosis, yield-learning, and/or reliability screening. In this paper, we present an innovative design-for-testability technique called variable output thresholding. We discovered that by dynamically switching the output of a TSV from a normal inverter to a Schmitt–Trigger inverter, the parametric delay fault on the TSV can be characterized and detected. SPICE simulation reveals that this technique remains effective even when there is significant process variation. A scalable test infrastructure indicates that the test time is modest at only 17.2 ms for 1024 TSVs and 648.8 ms for 32768 TSVs when the test clock is running at 10 MHz. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Scrub typhus is a clinically important endemic disease in Taiwan. The aims of this study were to analyze the clinical manifestations, laboratory data and complications of pediatric scrub typhus in eastern Taiwan. Patients and Methods: We searched medical records for all patients with scrub typhus who were hospitalized between 1992 and 2002 at the Taitung branch of Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taiwan. Records of children under the age of 18 with a confirmed diagnosis were selected for retrospective review. Results: During the study period, 145 patients fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for scrub typhus, of whom 106 (73%) were adults and 39 (27%) were children. The mean age of the children was 7.6 ± 4.6 years. The most common clinical manifestations of pediatric scrub typhus were fever (n = 39; 100%), cough (n = 28; 72%), anorexia (72%), eschar (69%), chill (67%) and lymphadenopathy (64%). The most common complications were hepatic dysfunction (77%) and pneumonitis (54%). Three children (8%) required intensive care, but the overall survival rate was 97%. One child died with multi-organ failure within 8 hours after admission. Conclusion: Scrub typhus should be considered in children with fever and hepatic dysfunction, particularly in those with a history of environmental exposure in an endemic area for scrub typhus. The presence of an eschar offers an important diagnostic clue, but not for all cases. Children with scrub typhus may develop serious complications and may even die if appropriate treatment is not given. Doxycycline is an effective antibiotic for pediatric scrub typhus in Taiwan. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Presents information on a study which introduced a method that uses the field programmable gate array-based emulation system for fault grading. Importance of measurement of a design quality through fault coverage; Process of serial fault emulation; Results and conclusion.

Soybeans are an important cash crop and are widely used as a source of vegetable protein and edible oil. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are endogenous small RNA that play an important regulatory role in the evolutionarily conserved system of gene expression. In this study, we selected four lines with extreme phenotypes, as well as high or low protein and oil content, from the chromosome segment substitution line (CSSL) constructed from suinong (SN14) and ZYD00006, and planted and sampled at three stages of grain development for small RNA sequencing and expression analysis. The sequencing results revealed the expression pattern of miRNA in the materials, and predicted miRNA-targeted regulatory genes, including 1967 pairs of corresponding relationships between known-miRNA and their target genes, as well as 597 pairs of corresponding relationships between novel-miRNA and their target genes. After screening and annotating genes that were targeted for regulation, five specific genes were identified to be differentially expressed during seed development and subsequently analyzed for their regulatory relationship with miRNAs. The expression pattern of the targeted gene was verified by Real-time Quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Our research provides more information about the miRNA regulatory network in soybeans and further identifies useful genes that regulate storage during soy grain development, providing a theoretical basis for the regulation of soybean quality traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnosis of intermittent scan chain failures still remains a hard problem. In this article, we demonstrate that the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) can lead to significantly higher accuracy. The key of this method is a multistage process incorporating ANNs with gradually refined focuses. During this process, the final fault suspect is elected through multiple rounds of ANN inference, instead of just one round. At each stage, identification of a proper Affine Group, used as the “candidate set of scan cells for the next round of ANN inference,” will influence the final diagnostic accuracy. Thus, we propose a validation-based learning procedure for Affine Group derivation to further boost the final diagnostic accuracy. The experimental results on benchmark circuits have shown that this method is, on the average, 17.46% more accurate than a state-of-the-art commercial tool for intermittent stuck-at-0 faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A clock network is not only difficult to design, but also challenging to test. For high-performance designs with a rigorous clock-skew requirement, small defects in a clock tree network could lead to unexpected failures in the field and thus need to be identified during the manufacturing test. In this paper, we present a novel flush test procedure to determine if a clock network has any small delay faults. This method does not require any change of the clock network, but it does require a “special test clock signal,” which can be generated on the chip by using only standard cells. Experimental results of transistor-level simulation on benchmark circuits injected with resistive open defects in the layout show that the proposed method is capable of detecting a delay fault as small as 52.8 ps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to develop and validate a risk score to aid in the early identification of laboratory-confirmed dengue patients at high risk of severe dengue (SD) (i.e. severe plasma leakage with shock or respiratory distress, or severe bleeding or organ impairment). We retrospectively analyzed data of 1184 non-SD patients at hospital presentation and 69 SD patients before SD onset. We fit a logistic regression model using 85% of the population and converted the model coefficients to a numeric risk score. Subsequently, we validated the score using the remaining 15% of patients. Using the derivation cohort, two scoring algorithms for predicting SD were developed: models 1 (dengue illness ≤4 days) and 2 (dengue illness >4 days). In model 1, we identified four variables: age ≥65 years, minor gastrointestinal bleeding, leukocytosis, and platelet count ≥100×109 cells/L. Model 1 (ranging from −2 to +6 points) showed good discrimination between SD and non-SD, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.848 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.771–0.924). The optimal cutoff value for model 1 was 1 point, with a sensitivity and specificity for predicting SD of 70.3% and 90.6%, respectively. In model 2 (ranging from 0 to +3 points), significant predictors were age ≥65 years and leukocytosis. Model 2 showed an AUC of 0.859 (95% CI, 0.756–0.963), with an optimal cutoff value of 1 point (sensitivity, 80.3%; specificity, 85.8%). The median interval from hospital presentation to SD was 1 day. This finding underscores the importance of close monitoring, timely resuscitation of shock including intravenous fluid adjustment and early correction of dengue-related complications to prevent the progressive dengue severity. In the validation data, AUCs of 0.904 (95% CI, 0.825–0.983) and 0.917 (95% CI, 0.833–1.0) in models 1 and 2, respectively, were achieved. The observed SD rates (in both cohorts) were <3% for patients with a score <1 point, but >50% for those with a score of ≥2 points, irrespective of the day of illness onset, suggesting that our simple risk score can be easily implemented in resource-limited countries for early prediction of dengue patients at risk of SD provided that they have rapid dengue confirmed tests. For patients with other acute febrile illnesses or bacterial infections usually have SD risk score of >1. Thus, these scoring algorithms cannot totally replace good clinical judgement of the physician, and most importantly, early differentiating dengue from other febrile illnesses is critical for appropriate monitoring and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a radar system for extracting human respiratory features. The proposed radar chip comprises three major components: a digital-to-time converter (DTC), a transmitter, and a receiver. The all-digital standard cell-based DTC achieves a timing resolution of 10 ps on a 100-ns time scale, supporting a range-gated sensing process. The transmitter is composed of a digital pulse generator. The receiver comprises a direct-sampling passive frontend for achieving high linearity, an integrator for enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio, and a successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter for signal quantization. A fully integrated CMOS impulse radar chip was fabricated using 65-nm CMOS technology, and the total power consumption is 21 mW. In the backend, a real-time digital signal-processing platform captures human respiratory waveforms via the radar chip and processes the waveforms by applying a human respiratory feature extraction algorithm. Furthermore, a clinical trial was conducted for establishing a new diagnosis workflow for identifying respiratory diseases by the proposed wireless sensor system. The proposed system was validated by applying an adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system and support vector machine algorithm to the clinical trial results. These algorithms confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed system in diagnosing respiratory diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• We identified DEGs potentially concerned with growth in P. vannamei. • The upstream genes of the ecdysone signal pathway were not DEGs. • High levels of stress are found in slow-growing individuals. • Reducing the stress level is one of the ways to improve growth performance of shrimps. Penaeus vannamei is the principle cultured shrimp species in China. However, with the increase of culture density, the growth difference between individuals is also expanding. Here, we make use of RNA-seq to study the growth mechanisms of P. vannamei. After 120 days, we examined the transcriptomes of rapid-growing individuals (RG) and slow-growing individuals (SG). A total of 2116 and 176 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were found in SG and RG, respectively. Moreover, the main DEGs are opsin, heat shock protein (HSP), actin, myosin, superoxide dismutase (SOD), cuticle protein, and chitinase. GO analysis further revealed that the DEGs were enriched in biological processes significantly, such as "sensory perception," "sensory perception of light stimulus," "response to stimulus," and "response to stress." Additionally, KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the DEGs were mainly enriched in "pentose and glucuronate interconversions," "amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism," "glycophospholipid biosynthesis," and "glutathione metabolism." Interestingly, the upstream genes in the ecdysone signaling pathway, including molting inhibition hormone (MIH) and crustacean hyperglycemic hormone (CHH), did not differ significantly between RG and SG, which suggests that the cause for the inconsistent growth performance is due to the stress levels rather than the ecdysone signal pathway. In summary, this work provides data that will be useful for future studies on shrimp growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transverse myelitis is the second most common symptoms in myelin oligodendrocyte antibody-associated diseases (MOGAD), causing obvious clinical manifestation. T2-hyperintense lesions mainly restricted to the gray matter in the spinal cord on axial magnetic resonance imaging, produce the H-sign, which is thought to be the typical finding of MOGAD. Contrast enhancement can be observed in some cases of myelin oligodendrocyte antibody-associated transverse myelitis (MOG-TM). However, reports on the enhancement pattern associated with the H-sign are rarely seen. In this report, we describe a case of pediatric MOG-TM in which the H-sign was observed without enhancement, while the surrounding white matter exhibited enhancement. This pattern contradicts the previously observed gray matter involvement. Then we reviewed the literatures of myelin oligodendrocyte antibody-positive myelitis to focus on the neuroimaging features and discuss the implications of our finding., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (© 2024 Zhang, Feng, He, Huang, Liu and Fan.)

The determination of charged particle trajectories in collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is an important but challenging problem, especially in the high interaction density conditions expected during the future high-luminosity phase of the LHC (HL-LHC). Graph neural networks (GNNs) are a type of geometric deep learning algorithm that has successfully been applied to this task by embedding tracker data as a graph-nodes represent hits, while edges represent possible track segments-and classifying the edges as true or fake track segments. However, their study in hardware- or software-based trigger applications has been limited due to their large computational cost. In this paper, we introduce an automated translation workflow, integrated into a broader tool called hls4ml, for converting GNNs into firmware for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). We use this translation tool to implement GNNs for charged particle tracking, trained using the TrackML challenge dataset, on FPGAs with designs targeting different graph sizes, task complexites, and latency/throughput requirements. This work could enable the inclusion of charged particle tracking GNNs at the trigger level for HL-LHC experiments., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elabd, Razavimaleki, Huang, Duarte, Atkinson, DeZoort, Elmer, Hauck, Hu, Hsu, Lai, Neubauer, Ojalvo, Thais and Trahms.)

Natural berberine-derived azolyl ethanols as new structural antibacterial agents were designed and synthesized for fighting with dreadful bacterial resistance. Partial target molecules exhibited potent activity against the tested strains, particularly, nitroimidazole derivative 4d and benzothiazole-2-thoil compound 18b , with low cytotoxicity both exerted strong antibacterial activities against multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli at low concentrations as 0.007 and 0.006 mM, respectively. Meanwhile, the active compounds 4d and 18b possessed the ability to rapidly kill bacteria and observably eradicate the E. coli biofilm by reducing exopolysaccharide content to prevent bacterial adhesion, which was conducive to alleviating the development of E. coli resistance. Preliminary mechanistic explorations suggested that the excellent antibacterial potential of molecules 4d and 18b might be attributed to their ability to disintegrate membrane, accelerate ROS accumulation, reduce bacterial metabolism, and intercalate into DNA groove. These results provided powerful information for the further exploitation of natural berberine derivatives against bacterial pathogens.

We conducted a retrospective study to compare clinical and laboratory findings between 1) severe influenza A and mild influenza A and 2) pandemic 2009 H1N1 (pdm09 A/H1) and seasonal H3N2 (A/H3) from 2009 to 2010. A total of 526 (mean age, 13.6 years; 447 pdm09 A/H1, 79 seasonal A/H3) patients were included, 41 (7.8%) with severe influenza (mean age, 28.1 years; 26 pdm09 A/H1, 15 seasonal A/H3). Influenza-associated complications were pneumonia (75.6%), meningoencephalitis (14.6%), acute kidney injury (14.6%), and acute respiratory distress syndrome (12.2%). Patients with seasonal A/H3 were significantly less likely to experience sore throat ( P < 0.001), malaise ( P < 0.001), and muscle pain ( P < 0.001); they were significantly more likely to have hypertension ( P < 0.001), diabetes mellitus ( P = 0.001), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( P < 0.001), delayed hospital presentation ( P = 0.001), delayed oseltamivir treatment ( P < 0.001), and higher in-hospital mortality ( P = 0.02) than patients with pdm09 A/H1. Further comparison between severe pdm09 A/H1 and severe seasonal A/H3 revealed that severe seasonal A/H3 patients (median age, 71 years) were significantly older than patients with severe pdm09 A/H1 (median age, 7 years) ( P < 0.001). Comparison between severe influenza and mild influenza, regardless of influenza A subtypes, by multivariate analysis, found that tachypnea (odds ratio [OR] = 44.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 15.7-124.6) and delayed oseltamivir therapy ≧ 48 hours after illness onset (OR = 3.7, 95% CI = 1.3-10.5) were independent risk factors for severe influenza. The findings of this study will improve the understanding of the clinical differences between pdm09 A/H1 and seasonal A/H3, and of influenza-associated complications and predictors for severe outcomes that can help to direct clinicians toward the most effective management of influenza patients to reduce the preventable mortality and morbidity.

The characteristics of the Fourier-transform infrared spectra of sturgeon and shark chondroitin sulfates (CHSs) were comparatively studied. The results show that sturgeon CHS exhibits special vibrations at the wavenumbers of 1 376, 1 344, 1 310, 1 157, 883 and 856 cm(-1). Further analysis shows that shark CHS contains 6-sulfated-CHS, while sturgeon CHS contains 4, 6-disulfated CHS, indicating that sturgeon CHS could have higher biological activities in decreasing the toxicity of medicine and in killing cancer cells. In general, the two kinds of CHSs have similar infrared spectra and groups of acylamino, carboxyl, sulfate, and saccharide ring. But the N-H variable-angle vibration of acylamino group of sturgeon CHS occurs at the higher wavenumber, and the vibration intensity of carboxyl group at 1 415 cm(-1) is also stronger than that of shark CHS. Chemical analysis shows that sturgeon CHS has a higher content of glucuronic acid, suggesting that it probably could be a better kind of medical materials for the bone mineralization.