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Taiwan is located in a seismically active zone between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Taiwan has a great geological diversity, but widespread alluvium deposits create the potential for soil liquefaction, which has considerable impact on society and the economy. Taiwan residential earthquake insurance was established after the Chi-Chi earthquake occurred in 1999, which had a death toll of more than 2400 and a ranking as the 12th costliest earthquake worldwide, with US$10 billion in property losses. The damage and impact of soil liquefaction were observed at the first time after the Chi-Chi earthquake. Nevertheless, the earthquake insurance claim criteria were based on the evaluation of structural components. Such criteria created difficulties for earthquake insurance inspectors in assessing the building damage caused by soil liquefaction during the 0206 Meinong earthquake in 2016 because such damage is often appeared as building rigid body tilt and settlement. As a result, geotechnical-related structural damage assessments were all performed by registered professional engineers. This study aims to develop and suggest earthquake insurance claim criteria for soil liquefaction-induced building damage, with the dual indices of settlement and tilt. The suggested criteria meet the requirements of current evaluation standards, reduce the necessity for further assessments performed by registered professional engineers, and would expedite the process of earthquake insurance claims for the ultimate goal of emergency relief.

A binary mixture solution of blue and green CsPbBr3 QDs was prepared without anion-exchange issues to realize CsPbBr3 QDLEDs with dual-emission peaks, and adding red CdSe QDs to obtain a white LED with CIE coordinates of (0.34, 0.33) was achieved.

Over the past decade, immunotherapy has emerged as one of the most promising approaches to cancer treatment. The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors has resulted in impressive and durable clinical responses in the treatment of various cancers. Additionally, immunotherapy utilizing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T cells has produced robust responses in blood cancers, and T cell receptor (TCR)-engineered T cells are showing promising results in the treatment of solid cancers. Despite these noteworthy advancements in cancer immunotherapy, numerous challenges remain. Some patient populations are unresponsive to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, and CAR T cell therapy has yet to show efficacy against solid cancers. In this review, we first discuss the significant role that T cells play in the body’s defense against cancer. We then delve into the mechanisms behind the current challenges facing immunotherapy, starting with T cell exhaustion due to immune checkpoint upregulation and changes in the transcriptional and epigenetic landscapes of dysfunctional T cells. We then discuss cancer-cell-intrinsic characteristics, including molecular alterations in cancer cells and the immunosuppressive nature of the tumor microenvironment (TME), which collectively facilitate tumor cell proliferation, survival, metastasis, and immune evasion. Finally, we examine recent advancements in cancer immunotherapy, with a specific emphasis on T-cell-based treatments.

Perovskite white light-emitting diodes were realized by using a mixture of sky-blue MAPb(Br0.6Cl0.4)3 and orange-red rhodamine 6G as the emissive layer. The influences of rhodamine 6G on the properties of perovskite films were investigated using absorption spectroscopy, steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and confocal laser-scanning fluorescence microscopy. The emissions from MAPb(Br0.6Cl0.4)3 and rhodamine 6G were mixed to realize white light. The CIE chromaticity coordinates of (0.33, 0.4) and (0.36, 0.40) were obtained for devices with 2 wt% and 3 wt% rhodamine 6G, respectively.

Organic-inorganic perovskite nanocrystals with excellent optoelectronic properties have been utilized in various applications, despite their stability issues. The perovskite materials are sensitive to environments such as polar solvents, moisture, and heat. Thus, they are not used for extrusion three-dimensional (3D) printing, as it is usually conducted in the ambient environment and requires heating to liquefy the printed materials. In this work, 11 thermoplastic polymers conventionally used for extrusion 3D printing were investigated to test their capability as protective encapsulation materials for perovskite nanocrystals. Three of them exhibited good protective properties, and one (polycaprolactone, PCL) of these three could be blended with perovskite nanocrystals to form perovskite nanocrystal-PCL composites, which were deformable and stretchable once heated. Because of the low melting point of PCL, the perovskite nanocrystals maintained their optical properties after 3D printing, and the printed objects were still having fluorescent behavior. Moreover, fluorescent micrometer-sized fibers based on the perovskite nanocrystal-PCL composites could also be simply prepared using cotton candy makers. Perovskite nanocrystal-PCL composite films with different emission wavelengths were incorporated with blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to realize white LEDs with Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage chromaticity coordinates of (0.33, 0.33).

Perovskite light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are attractive because of their high efficiency and narrow emission. However, most of the current research on perovskite LEDs with primary color emission is focused on performance enhancement. Only a few studies focused on perovskite white LEDs. Here, we realized a perovskite white light-emitting diode with a single emissive layer by mixing the emission from a sky-blue perovskite material and an orange-near infrared (NIR) organic compound. Compounds with orange-NIR emission are synthesized and the influence of the compounds on the perovskite films is investigated by absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and confocal laser-scanning fluorescence microscopy. Perovskite white LEDs were realized with CIE chromaticity coordinates of (0.3, 0.49), which are approaching the ideal pure white emission coordinates (0.33, 0.33).

Organometal halide perovskites are attracting a great deal of attention because of their long carrier diffusion lengths, wide wavelength tunability, and narrow-band emission. However, the toxicity of lead has caused considerable environmental and health concerns. In this work, lead-free cesium tin halide nanocrystals are synthesized and investigated. CsSnBr3 and CsSnI3 nanocrystals, 25 and 7 nm in size, are synthesized by a facile hot injection method. Absorption spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction were used to understand their structural and optical properties. CsSnBr3 and CsSnI3 nanocrystals show emission peaks at 683 and 938 nm, respectively. These nanocrystals show shelf stability for a few months. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence is utilized to know more about fundamental physical parameters, such as exciton binding energy, charge carrier–phonon interactions and band gap. Light-emitting diodes and color down-conversion films are also demonstrated using these lead free perovskite nanocrystals.

Background Biological data has grown explosively with the advance of next-generation sequencing. However, annotating protein function with wet lab experiments is time-consuming. Fortunately, computational function prediction can help wet labs formulate biological hypotheses and prioritize experiments. Gene Ontology (GO) is a framework for unifying the representation of protein function in a hierarchical tree composed of GO terms. Results We propose GODoc, a general protein GO prediction framework based on sequence information which combines feature engineering, feature reduction, and a novel ​k​-nearest-neighbor algorithm to resolve the multiple GO prediction problem. Comprehensive evaluation on CAFA2 shows that GODoc performs better than two baseline models. In the CAFA3 competition (68 teams), GODoc ranks 10th in Cellular Component Ontology. Regarding the species-specific task, the proposed method ranks 10th and 8th in the eukaryotic Cellular Component Ontology and the prokaryotic Molecular Function Ontology, respectively. In the term-centric task, GODoc performs third and is tied for first for the biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the long-term memory of Drosophila melanogaster, respectively. Conclusions We have developed a novel and effective strategy to incorporate a training procedure into the k-nearest neighbor algorithm (instance-based learning) which is capable of solving the Gene Ontology multiple-label prediction problem, which is especially notable given the thousands of Gene Ontology terms.

As the organization grows onto multiple countries, several feature deliveries become more complex and introduce interactive impact. Since the widely used Git branch model could not well support cross-site concurrent development, this paper points out the challenges of large-scale software delivery for engineering teams across sites and propose an enhanced Git branch model, including geographic branch hierarchy and weekly release cycle to reduce Git merge complexity and ease feature planning. The theoretical model and practical historical data are provided to prove the effect.

Nuclear containment structure is one of the most important infrastructure systems ensuring the safety of a nuclear power plant. In this paper, the structural behavior of cylindrical concrete containment structure was investigated using two 1/13-scaled nuclear containment specimens subjected to reversed cyclic loadings. The presentation will first describe the experimental program, including the dimensions, the reinforcement detailing, the test setup, and the loading method. Second, the experimental results of the specimens are discussed including the cracking patterns, the total load versus displacement curves, and the failure modes. Third, the test results were compared to the analytical results predicted at the University of Houston using a 3D finite element program with the CSMM-based shell elements. The predicted results agree very well with the experimental data.

Lead-free perovskite infrared light-emitting diodes are achieved by using a halide perovskite CsSnI3 as an emissive layer. The film shows compact micrometer-sized grains with only a few pinholes and cracks at the grain boundaries. The device exhibits maximum radiance of 40 W sr-1 m-2 at a current density of 364.3 mA cm-2 and maximum external quantum efficiency of 3.8% at 4.5 V.

Organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells have attracted considerable attention because of its high efficiency, low-cost fabrication, and flexibility. The film morphology has to be well controlled since the presence of pinholes in the perovskite films deteriorates the performance of the devices. Therefore, a variety of methods have been developed to realize high quality perovskite films and excellent device performance. In this work, hot-casting technique and additive engineering were investigated for obtaining a better film morphology. Optical microscopy, electron scanning microscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to monitor the morphology and the crystallinity of the perovskite films. We found that pinhole-free perovskite films cannot be obtained by the hot-casting technique alone. By using the hot-casting technique and incorporating the additive in the perovskite precursor, perovskite films with minimum pinholes were obtained when optimum hot-casting temperature and the amount of the additive were used. A reproducible average power conversion efficiency of 9.24 % was observed. The findings showed that the perovskite films depend not only on the usage of hot-casting technique but also through the incorporation of additives which can be used for other perovskite materials utilizing as solar cells.

Nowadays, transferring a variable bit rate (VBR) video streaming on mobile devices is getting popular and necessary. Such traffic streams usually have stringent transferring requirements and in many cases they should be indeed delivered as they were generated. Hence, the IEEE 802.11e hybrid coordination function-controlled channel access (HCCA) access method was proposed to provide better quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for a real-time traffic in the wireless network. However, the reference scheduler of HCCA offered in the standard of the IEEE 802.11e is insufficient for the VBR video stream since it only considers a few characteristics. Hence, choosing the right parameters to meet the QoS requirements of the VBR stream remains an unsolved and opened issue. In this paper, we propose a pragmatic packet scheduling policy for the VBR stream and try to enhance the transmission efficiency for the IEEE 802.11e HCCA access method. The proposed scheduler considers not only traffic characteristics, but also the queue state and the real-time information of the packet. An efficiency analysis is provided to evaluate the transmission efficiency of the proposed scheduler. The result shows that our method can reach higher transmission efficiency than the reference scheduler. Simulations on the transmission of the VBR video stream are also performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme. As it turns out, our design indeed provides a better performance than the reference and other well-known schedulers.

The performance of AlGaAs/GaAs quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) with and without NH3 plasma treatment are investigated. It is demonstrated that the NH3 plasma treatment not only gets rid of the oxide defects, such as Ga2O3, As2O3, and As2O5, but also prevents the formation of oxides on the GaAs surface when exposed to atmosphere for one month. The peak responsivity of the QWIPs without NH3 plasma treatment is 0.48 A/W, and the detectivity is 3.13×109 cm-Hz1/2/W at 1.5 V and 60 K. However, the QWIP after the 10-m NH3 plasma treatment exhibits a better performance. The highest operation temperature can be increased from 60 to 90 K. At 90 K, the peak responsivity of the QWIP is 1.25 A/W and the detectivity is 3.54×109 cm-Hz1/2/W at 1.5 V.

In this research, we demonstrate inverted perovskite light-emitting devices (PeLEDs) based on zinc oxide nanorod arrays (ZnO NAs) as the electron transport layer and methylammonium lead bromide nanoplatelets (MAPbBr3 NPLs) as the emissive material for the first time. The polyethyleneimine ethoxylated (PEIE) was inserted between the ZnO NAs and the MAPbBr3 NPLs layer to reduce the energy barrier and improve the electron injection efficiency. Besides, different weight ratios of poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVK) were blended with MAPbBr3 NPLs to make evenly dispersed nanocomposite films, thereby enhancing the performance of devices. Meanwhile, the photoluminescence of MAPbBr3 NPLs:PVK nanocomposite film was increased due to reduced self-quenching and prolonged carrier lifetime. Inverted PeLEDs with the configuration of ITO/PEIE-modified ZnO NAs/MAPbBr3 NPLs:PVK/TFB/Au were fabricated and evaluated, using TFB as the hole transport layer. The current density of the devices containing PVK matrix was significantly suppressed compared to those without PVK. Herein, the best device revealed a max brightness of 495 cd m−2 and a low turn-on voltage of 3.1 V that shows potential use in light-emitting applications.

Designing marine and maritime systems require the probabilistic characterization of sea waves in the time-history and spectral domains. These probabilistic models include parameters that can be empirically estimated based on limited data in durations, locations and applicability to particular designs. Characterizing the statistical uncertainties associated with the parameters and the models is an essential step for risk-based design methods. This paper introduces proposed statistical methods to assess confidence intervals for prediction of sea conditions at points of interest in the sea environment. The methodology is briefly introduced and demonstrated using illustrative simulation examples based on notional information.

Risks from future sea level rise entail significant uncertainties concerning overall potential impacts, the specific threats faced by particular areas, and what benefit or costs are associated with strategies for addressing such risks. Quantitatively assessing these risks requires the development of spatial risk profiles based on several analytical and computational steps of hazard likelihood assessment, scenario identification, consequence and criticality assessment based on inventories of assets along coastal areas particularly of population centers, vulnerability and inundation assessment, and benefit-cost analysis to manage risks. The proposed risk quantification and management framework is consistent with quantitative risk analysis practices in order to enable decision making. The methodology is briefly introduced and demonstrated using illustrative examples based on notional information.

Cargo rail systems entail uncertainties and associated risks, particularly with the transport of hazardous materials. The risk associated with their release is assessed through the development of spatial risk profiles which vary based on several analytical and computational steps. The complete assessment of risk involves scenario identification, evaluation of the consequences based on inventories of assets and a hazard assessment to obtain the final risk profile along the rail. Using this framework any given length of railway can be analyzed for risk given the appropriate spatially mapped information on the areas surrounding the rail tracks. The proposed risk quantification and management framework is consistent with current quantitative risk analysis practices in order to enable all-hazard decision making. The methodology is briefly introduced and demonstrated using illustrative examples based on notional information.

Variable bit rate (VBR) traffic may have a wide range of packet sizes and generation intervals. While the former can be handled in the IEEE 802.11e uplink scheduling, e.g., by adapting transmission opportunity (TXOP) durations according to backlogged traffic reports, the latter may cause packet losses if service intervals of the scheduling do not fit the generation intervals. In this paper, a scheduler that employs adaptive maximum service interval (MSI) is proposed to fix this problem, while attempting to minimize scheduling overheads.

The seven prediction modes for P-slice provided in the inter-frame coding tool of H.264/AVC enables significant compression gain but at the cost of computational complexity. To address the issue, we propose in this paper a fast mode decision algorithm that is able to reduce the computational complexity of this coding tool by exploiting the coding modes of previously coded neighboring blocks and by leveraging the rate-distortion characteristics of processed modes. The target efficiency is achieved because the combination of various techniques used in the algorithm incurs little overhead. The algorithm provides an average 70% saving of encoding time for QCIF video and 73% for CIF video in comparison with the brute-force scheme, with only 0.032 dB PSNR drop or, equivalently, 0.38% bit rate increase.

A basic concept in 802.11e is Transmission Opportunities (TXOPs). The draft amendment of IEEE 802.11e includes a Simple Scheduler, in which a fixed length of TXOPs is assigned according to mean data rates. Since some traffic present bursts of variable size, several enhancements have been proposed previously; e.g., TXOPs are allocated according to the actual buffered data which is indicated through transmissions performed in the previous TXOP. Though the allocations are efficient in channel utilization, a delay could inevitably be incurred by packets, due to that new arrivals cannot be transmitted in the current TXOP, but have to wait until next. In this paper, an efficient scheduling scheme is proposed that aims at improving packet delay while maintaining high channel utilization. In the proposed scheme, maximal residual bandwidth is assigned to a station taking into account demands from all the other stations, and the unused portion is reclaimed. From extensive simulation results, it is shown that packet delay is effectively improved, compared to two previous enhancements of the Simple Scheduler, while achieving high throughput performance.

H.264/AVC achieves higher compression efficiency than previous video coding standards. However, this performance gain comes at the cost of an increased computational complexity due, in part, to the use of variable block-size motion estimation, multiple reference frames, and rate-distortion mode decision. In this paper, we develop a combined algorithm for fast motion estimation and mode decision by exploiting the motion and cost information available from the blocks that have been processed prior to the current block. At the cost of a slight bit rate increase and PSNR drop, this method, on the average, is about 10.5 times faster than the H.264 reference software JM 8.5 in the total encoding time