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Objectives: To investigate differences in the incidence of enteropathy or intestinal malabsorption in patients taking angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), calcium channel blocker (CCB), and beta blockers (BBs) at a single center in Korea. Methods: In this retrospective study, we utilized data from the Yangsan electronic medical records to identify 129,169 patients. These individuals were prescribed olmesartan, other ARBs, ACEI, CCB, and BBs between November 2008 and February 2021. Results: Of the 44,775 patients, 51 (0.11%) were observed to have enteropathy or intestinal malabsorption. Compared with the ACEI group, the adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for enteropathy and intestinal malabsorption were OR=1.313 (95% confidence interval [CI]: [0.188-6.798], p=0.893) for olmesartan, OR=0.915 (95% CI: [0.525-1.595], p=0.754) for the other ARBs, OR=0.928 (95% CI: [0.200-4.307]; p=0.924) for the CCB, and OR=0.663 (95% CI: [0.151-2.906]; p=0.586) for the BBs group. These findings were adjusted for factors such as age, gender, duration of antihypertensive medication, and comorbidities. Conclusion: In a retrospective cohort study of patients on antihypertensive medications, no significant difference was found in the incidence of enteropathy or intestinal malabsorption when ACEI was compared to olmesartan, other ARBs, CCB, and BBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report studies of the optical properties of silicon quantum dot structures. From time-resolved and time-integrated photoluminescence measurements we investigate the state-filling effect and carrier lifetime, and discuss the parabolic confinement of quantum dot structures and the large energy splitting between quantum dot levels. The photoluminescence intensities for different quantum dot levels decay with a stretched exponential function and the decay times are in the range 2–100 μs depending on the observation wavelength and the dot size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have studied the optical properties of silicon quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a silicon oxide matrix using photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved PL. A broad luminescence band is observed in the red region, in which the time evolution exhibits a stretched exponential decay. With increasing excitation intensity a significant saturation effect is observed. Direct electron-hole recombination is the dominant effect in the red band. A relatively narrow peak appears around 1.5 eV, which is attributed to the interface states overlapping with transition from the ground state of the silicon QDs. The saturation factor increases slowly with detection photon energy between 1.5 and 1.8 eV, which is attributed to the emission from zerophonon electron-hole recombination. At higher photon energies the significantly increased saturation factor suggests a different emission mechanism, most likely the defect states from silicon, silicon oxide or silicon rich oxide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed insulin-like growth factor receptor I (IGF-IR) and insulin growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) expression with respect to overall survival and relapse-free survival (RFS) in 460 patients with primary invasive breast cancer using immunohistochemistry. IGF-IR expression had a significant positive correlation with positive estrogen receptor (ER), positive progesterone receptor (PR) and Bcl-2 expression. Univariate analysis showed significantly better overall survival (p=0.000) and RFS (p=0.004), in the IGF-IR-positive group. Multivariate analysis showed a significant reduction in relative risk for overall survival (p=0.019, HR=0.221, 95% CI=0.062-0.780) and RFS (p=0.026, HR=0.462, 95% CI=0.234-0.913) in the IGF-IR-positive group. IGF-IR expression in primary breast cancer is an independent favorable prognostic factor. IGFBP-3 expression in breast cancer is associated with poor outcome.