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Radiofrequencyablation (RFA) is one of the treatment options for lung nodules; however, the need for exact delivery of the rigid metal electrode into the center of the target mass often leads to complications or suboptimal results. To overcome these limitations, we report a novel bronchoscopy-guided atraumatic no-touch RFA procedure that uses a specially designed radiofrequency (RF) conductor balloon catheter (CAROL catheter) and an injectable bronchial electrode based on a medical grade liquid metal (E-GaIn) in porcine lungs. The bronchial electrode injected from the CAROL catheter was able to turn the target-site bronchial air pipe into a temporally multi-tined RF electrode. The mean volume of E-GaIn (bronchial electrode) for each effective CAROL was 0.46 ± 0.47 ml. The ablation results showed highly efficacious and consistent results especially in the peripheral lung. Most bronchial electrodes were also retrieved by either bronchoscopic suction immediately after the procedure or by natural expectoration thereafter. The residual bronchial electrode did not cause any significant safety issues. Our computer simulation model also supported preclinical data.

This brief presents a phase-difference modulation signaling enhanced by decision feedback equalization for multi-drop memory interfaces. The phase-difference modulation signaling enables efficient data communication via a multi-drop channel, but only if the stub lengths are specially engineered. In this brief, the phase-difference modulation signaling is combined with decision feedback equalization to extend the applicable channel range. A test chip with a phase-difference-modulation transmitter and a decision feedback equalization receiver was fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology. With a 2-tap decision feedback equalization, the test chip achieved the data rate of 7.8 Gb/s/pin via the both multi-drop channels with a long 10-cm stub and a short 2-cm stub, whereas the previous work without decision feedback equalization does not work with the 2-cm stub channel at 7.8Gb/s/pin.

This paper presents a phase-difference-modulation transceiver with simple clock recovery for highly-reflective interconnects. By greatly suppressing reflective intersymbol interferences with two new enabling mechanisms, phase–difference modulation enables high-speed data communication through highly-reflective multi-drop channels without utilizing decision feedback equalization. A systematic analytical approach is presented, and provides guidelines on how to determine channel and signaling parameters to exploit the two enabling mechanisms based on a newly derived formula of a single bit response of a channel. In addition, we propose a phase-difference amplifier that relieves the timing constraint of the bit decision at the receiver. By deserializing the received signals using the clock embedded in the received signals, the phase-difference amplifier can greatly reduce the design complexity of the clock recovery circuit. The proposed transceiver was fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology. In single-ended mode, the transceiver achieved a maximum speed of 7.8 Gb/s/pin at energy cost of only 1.96 pJ/b while overcoming 10 in-band notches without decision feedback equalization. Also, the phase-difference amplifier enables clock recovery at power and area costs of only 0.12 pJ/b and 550 $\mu \text{m}^{2}$ , respectively, in single-ended 6-Gb/s/pin operation.

For the first time, we prove that 7.8-Gb/s single-ended signaling through a highly reflective channel is feasible at low energy cost by an energy-efficient many-tap decision feedback equalization (DFE) receiver (RX). The reported data rate of 7.8 Gb/s is the fastest data rate that has been achieved through a single-ended highly reflective channel that has more than five taps of postcursor reflective intersymbol interference. Compared with the prior arts, the target multidrop has the most in-band notches: ten notches. To compensate for large reflection by many notches, the RX exploits the DFE with the largest tap count of 20 that has been never used in single-ended signaling before. Low-power circuit techniques such as a current-integrating summer and double-tail sense amplifiers were adequately adopted and engineered to reduce large power dissipation by many taps. The RX was fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS technology and occupies only 0.014 mm2. The energy efficiency was measured to be only 2.9 pJ/b at 7.8 Gb/s with 0.9-V supply, proving that fast single-ended signaling through a highly reflective channel is feasible at low energy cost by many-tap DFE if low-power circuit techniques are adequately applied. The horizontal and vertical eye sizes were measured to be 0.12 UI and 34 mV, respectively, at a bit error rate of

In this study, we propose the route-based group location registration (RGR) method to reduce location registration cost when many mobile stations (MSs) are aboard the transportation system (TS) such as trains. In addition to the existing group location tracking (GLT) method, RGR method seeks to minimize the location registration and paging costs of the TS by taking advantage of the characteristics that the TS moves along a specified route from the starting point to the arrival point. In particular, a scheme is adopted to significantly reduce the cost of location registration of the TS by using the implicit registration effect of call occurrences from/to MSs aboard the TS. We analyze the performance of the proposed RGR method using the semi-Markov process (SMP) model. Using the SMP model, accurate performance is analyzed by reflecting different cell staying times for different states and the general distribution for cell staying time. Numerical results show that the more MSs aboard the TS, the less the cost of location registration due to the GLT and implicit registration effects. The results of this study can be used directly in the study of mobility management in mobile communication network and the analytical method of this study can also be used to analyze the performance of other mobility management methods.

The number of mobile equipment for the mobile communication and mobile internet usage are increasing rapidly. From long-term evolution, the concept of a tracking area was adapted to guarantee and provide faster speed by grouping several cells together. This study shows that a different number of shared tracking areas makes the different models in central policy. The effect of shared tracking areas was modeled by an adapting clustered two-dimensional random walk model. Based on the steady state probabilities, the costs were calculated in mathematical approach to demonstrate the cost-effective model under selective paging and central policy.

To evaluate the serum cytokine profiles in patients with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoproteins antibody associated disease (MOGAD), compared to those in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder with aquaporin-4 immunoglobulin G (APQ4-IgG+ NMOSD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and other inflammatory demyelinating diseases (IDDs).The level of interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-17A, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and interferon (IFN)-γ in sera from 21 patients with MOGAD, 32 APQ4-IgG+ NMOSD, 24 MS, and 16 other IDDs were assessed.In MOGAD patients, the levels of IL-1β and IL-12p70 were elevated compared to APQ4-IgG+ NMOSD. The level of IL-10 and the ratio of T helper (Th)-1/Th2-related cytokines were elevated in MOGAD patients compared to MS or other IDDs. In an intragroup analysis, the IL-1β was increased in acute stage of MOGAD, APQ4-IgG+ NMOSD, and also MS compared to their chronic stage counterpart. It was inversely correlated with time from acute attack to sampling in MOGAD (p 0.001) and AQP4-IgG+ NMOSD (p = 0.001), but not in MS. Moreover, the IL-1β was most markedly upregulated in MOGAD sera sampled within 1 week from acute attack compared to those sampled after (p = 0.002).The serum IL-1β can be elevated in the acute stage of patients with diverse IDDs including, MOGAD, APQ4-IgG+ NMOSD, and MS. This upregulation of serum IL-1β can be most markedly observed in the early acute stage of MOGAD patients. Further studies seem to be needed to determine the proper mechanism for the upregulation of serum IL-1β and also the role of IL-1β inhibition especially at the early acute stage of MOGAD.

This brief presents an intuitive, simple, and widely applicable approximate closed-form transfer function model for multiconductor transmission lines (MTLs). Rigorous closed-form transfer functions are derived from the telegrapher’s equation and approximated for a wide range of MTLs that satisfy validity conditions. Theoretical error bounds are also proposed and tightly estimate the approximation errors. The approximate formulas are simple yet accurate, and can be intuitively interpreted by a simple voltage-controlled voltage source circuit model. In demonstration, we show that the proposed model allows designers intuitively to understand and accurately to analyze complex MTLs.

This brief presents an approximate transfer function model of two heterogeneous transmission lines connected in series. The proposed model is simple, intuitive, and can accurately describe the frequency response of various serially connected heterogeneous interconnects which satisfy a validity condition. The exact error of the proposed model is also provided. According to our analysis, the validity condition can be clearly interpreted by the propagation and the reflection waves. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by comparing the calculated transfer function of LC-dominant off-chip and RC-dominant on-chip examples against SPICE simulation results. In these verifications, the maximum errors between calculation and simulation are, respectively, 2.58% and 3.32% for off-chip and on-chip examples. The computation time is also reduced about 29.76 and 289.07 times compared with a single-channel model and the SPICE ${w}$ -element model. With the proposed model, designers can easily understand the channel responses of diverse serially connected heterogeneous interconnects.

The bone health in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder with aquaporin-4 immunoglobulin G antibodies (NMOSD-AQP4) have not been fully evaluated. To evaluate the prevalence of fractures and bone loss in patients with NMOSD-AQP4 compared to healthy controls and patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and to identify the risk factors associated with fractures and low bone mineral density (BMD) in patients with NMOSD-AQP4.Seventy-one patients with NMOSD-AQP4 were included. The two control groups consisted of 213 age-, sex-, menopause-, and body mass index (BMI)-matched healthy participants from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (healthy controls) and 41 patients with multiple sclerosis (disease controls). We collected demographic and clinical data related to bone health including BMD and FRAX score.Patients with NMOSD-AQP4 had a higher prevalence of fractures than the healthy control group (OR = 5.40, CI = 2.004-14.524, p = 0.001), with falling, but not steroid use, being associated with an increased risk of fractures after diagnosis with NMOSD-AQP4 (OR = 24.902, CI = 3.086-200.947, p = 0.003). They also had significantly lower BMD than controls (femur neck, p = 0.044; total hip, p 0.001), which was more prominent in young participants. The BMD in the NMOSD-AQP4 group was associated with cumulative dose of oral steroids, age, sex, BMI, and partly with the prophylactic calcium supplements. Though the patients with NMOSD-AQP4 did not differ significantly from patients with MS in terms of fracture rate and BMD, they had higher risk of fractures as measured by the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (for major osteoporotic fractures, (p = 0.001; for hip fractures, p = 0.018).Patients with NMOSD-AQP4 had a significantly higher risk of fractures that could mostly be attributed to falling. Additionally, low BMD was observed in these patients; it was more prominent among young patients, associated with steroid use, and may partially prevented by the use of prophylactic calcium supplements.

A hybrid silver nanowires (AgNWs)/indium tin oxide (ITO) contact was used as a transparent back-electrode to fabricate a bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cell. The photovoltaic properties of the bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cell were investigated under front and back illumination conditions. The hybrid AgNWs/ITO back contact changed the average conversion efficiency from 0.4% (front) and 3.5% (rear) to 8.1% (front) and 0.9% (rear), respectively, improving the sum efficiency from 3.9% (ITO-only) to 9.0%. Our research demonstrates the use of a nanowire network as a transparent electrode in CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cells for bifacial or tandem applications.

A series of cobalt(II) complexes, namely [LnCo(NO3)]+Y− (Ln = LA–LD; Y = NO3−, BPh4−) was prepared by the reaction of the corresponding metal starting materials with N,N-bis((1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methyl)-2-(piperidin-1-yl)ethanamine (LA), N,N-bis((1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methyl)-2-morpholinoethanamine (LB), N,N-bis((3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methyl)-2-(piperidin-1-yl)ethanamine(LC) and N,N-bis((3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methyl)-2-morpholinoethanamine (LD), respectively. X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the coordination geometry around the Co(II) centre in [LnCo(NO3)]BPh4 (Ln = LA, LB and LD) can be best described as distorted trigonal bipyramidal, whereas [LCCo(NO3)]NO3 showed a distorted octahedral geometry around the Co(II) centre due to the bidentate binding mode of the ligand NO3−. Specifically, the presence of methyl substituents at the pyrazole moieties plays an influential role in determining the anionic exchange capabilities of these complexes. The anion exchange reaction was found to be highly selective; the substitution of the smaller anion NO3− to the bigger anion BPh4− was achieved easily, whereas the attempted anion exchange of BPh4− with NO3− proved unsuccessful.

A bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cell with a superstrate configuration was demonstrated by using copper nanowire (CuNW)/indium tin oxide (ITO) back contacts as a transparent and conductive electrode (TCE). CdS and CdTe were deposited by chemical bath deposition and close-spaced sublimation techniques, respectively. The CuNWs acted both as an acceptor dopant and TCE for the p-CdTe, improving the total cell efficiency compared to a copper-free back contact. CuNW/ITO back contacts with high optical transmittance (72.3% at 550 nm) and low sheet resistance (47.1 Ω/sq.) were obtained. The average cell efficiency of the bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film cells with the optimized CuNW/ITO back contact was 10.0% (front-side illumination) and 0.55% (rear-side illumination). The quantum efficiencies under front-side and rear-side illumination were studied. The prepared bifacial cell can facilitate full usage of incoming sunlight (direct or diffused), enhancing the output power under cloudy conditions.

The downscaling of the feature size and pitches of the semi-conductor device requires enough process window and good CDU of exposure field for improvement of device characteristics and high yield. Recently several DBMs (Design Based Metrologies) are introduced for the wafer verification and feed back to for DFM and process control. The major applications of DBM are OPC feed back, process window qualification and advanced process control feed back. With these tools, since the applied tool in this procedure uses e-beam scan method with database of design layout like other ones, more precise and quick verification can be done. In this work the process window qualification procedure will be discussed in connection with EDA simulation results and then method for obtaining good CDU will be introduced. DoseMapperTM application has been introduced for better field CDU control, but it is difficult to fully correct large field with limited data from normal CD SEM methodology. New DBM has strong points in collecting lots of data required for large field correction with good repeatability (Intra / Inter field).