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A germanium p-channel Schottky barrier metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (SB-MOSFET) with germanium–platinum Schottky contacts is demonstrated experimentally. The fabrication process has a low thermal budget of 450 ° C and requires neither intentional doping nor ion implantation. At a temperature of 4 K, the p-channel SB-MOSFET turns on at a gate voltage of −1.6 V and shows a peak mobility of 500 cm2/V s at a carrier density of 3 × 1012 cm–2. Under high drain–source bias voltages, the device operates in an unconventional mode where the current is limited by the source contact. Injection of carriers from the source contact to the germanium channel is controlled by the gate bias, which modulates the Schottky barrier capacitively. The transconductance in this mode deviates from and is significantly higher than the value expected for a conventional MOSFET with the same geometry, mobility, and capacitance. Based on four-point current–voltage measurements, we present a theoretical band diagram of the device and give a physical picture for the observed high currents and transconductances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yi-Wen Chen,1,2 Ai-Chia He,3 Tzu-Yun Huang,1,3 De-Hao Lai,3 Yi-Ping Wang,1 Wei-Wen Liu,1,3 Wei-Ting Kuo,1,3 Hsin-Han Hou,1,3 Shih-Jung Cheng,1,3 Chen-Yi Lee,1 Wei-Chun Chuang,1 Che-Chen Chang,4 Bor-Shiunn Lee1,3 1Department of Dentistry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, 100229, Taiwan; 2Graduate Institute of Clinical Dentistry, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 100229, Taiwan; 3Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 100229, Taiwan; 4Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, TaiwanCorrespondence: Bor-Shiunn Lee, Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Changde Street, Taipei, 100229, Taiwan, Tel +886-2-23123456 ext 66846, Fax +886-2-2383-1346, Email leebs@ntu.edu.twIntroduction: Cisplatin is one of the most effective chemotherapeutic drugs used in oral cancer treatment, but systemic administration has side effects. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of iontophoresis on the enhancement of cisplatin release from cisplatin-encapsulated chitosan nanoparticles.Methods: The effect of different mass ratios of chitosan to tripolyphosphate (TPP) (5:1, 10:1, 15:1, 20:1) on the encapsulation efficiency of cisplatin was investigated. Uptake of cisplatin-encapsulated chitosan by cells was observed using a confocal laser scanning microscope. The cell viability at different cisplatin concentrations was examined using a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Three iontophoresis methods, namely constant-current chronopotentiometry (CCCP), cyclic chronopotentiometry (CCP), and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), were used to enhance cisplatin release from cisplatin-encapsulated chitosan nanoparticles. In addition, mouse oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines were implanted into the mouse oral mucosa to induce oral cancer. The effects of enhanced cisplatin release by CCCP, CCP, and DPV on tumor suppression in mice were evaluated. Tumors and lymph nodes were isolated for hematoxylin-eosin staining and immunohistochemistry staining including Ki-67 and pan CK after sacrifice. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was conducted to quantify the platinum content within the tumors.Results: The results showed that nanoparticles with a mass ratio of 15:1 exhibited the highest cisplatin encapsulation efficiency (approximately 15.6%) and longest continued release (up to 35 days) in phosphate buffered saline with a release rate of 100%. Cellular uptake results suggested that chitosan nanoparticles were delivered to the cytoplasm via endocytosis. The results of the MTT assay revealed that the survival rate of cells decreased as the cisplatin concentration increased. The CCP (1 mA, on:off = 1 s: 1 s) and DPV (0– 0.06 V) groups were the most effective in inhibiting tumor growth, and both groups exhibited the lowest percentage of Ki-67 positive and pan CK positive.Conclusion: This study is the first to investigate and determine the efficacy of DPV in enhancing in vivo drug release from nanoparticles for the treatment of cancer in animals. The results suggest that the CCP and DPV methods have the potential to be combined with surgery for oral cancer treatment. Keywords: oral cancer, cisplatin, chitosan, nanoparticle, iontophoresis

ObjectivesThis study aims to assess the clinical value of dynamic monitoring of optic nerve sheath diameter using critical care ultrasound in the management of patients with intracranial hypertension.MethodsA total of 130 patients with craniocerebral injuries, treated at the Department of Critical Care Medicine of the Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University from January 2021 to November 2022, were selected and randomly assigned to either the control group (65 patients) or the observation group (65 patients). Patients in both groups were monitored based on clinical symptoms, cranial CT findings, and optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD). The control group received standard osmotic therapy to manage intracranial pressure (ICP), while the observation group was guided accordingly. Comparative analyses were conducted on Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) scores, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores, duration of ICU stay, and mechanical ventilation time between the two groups.ResultsOn the 28th day, the APACHE II scores of patients with craniocerebral injuries in both groups were significantly lower compared to admission scores, while GCS scores were higher (P < 0.05). Compared to conventional management, the observation group showed a 15% reduction in APACHE II scores, a 20% decrease in ICU stay duration, and a 25% reduction in mechanical ventilation time by day 28 post-admission. The observation group also showed a higher proportion of patients with favorable prognoses and a significant reduction in severe disability and vegetative survival rates (P < 0.05).ConclusionDynamic monitoring of ONSD using bedside critical care ultrasound has proven effective in guiding osmotic therapy for patients with intracranial hypertension. This approach significantly reduces ICP, offers a reliable basis to opt for subsequent treatments, and effectively lowers the rate of disability while improving patient prognosis.

Abstract The frontier molecular orbitals of organic semiconductor materials play a crucial role in the performance of photoelectric devices, including organic photovoltaics (OPVs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic photodetectors (OPDs). In this work, a model for predicting frontier molecular orbital of organic materials, including HOMO and LUMO levels, is established with the extreme gradient boosting algorithm and Klekota-Roth fingerprints. The correlation coefficients of HOMO or LUMO energy levels in the testing set are 0.75 and 0.84 in the transfer model from 11,626 DFT data in Harvard Energy database to 1198 experimental data in literature. The difference between the ML predicted value and the experimental value is smaller than the difference between ML prediction and DFT calculation, always less than 10%. Moreover, based on correlation and SHAP interpretability analysis, 13 key structural fragments influencing energy levels are selected to further verify the effective regulation of the frontier molecular orbital by the key structural fragments in practical applications. Considering the completely opposite regulatory functions of key structural fragments on HOMO and LUMO energy levels, four new Y6 derivatives, Y-PCP, Y-P6F, Y-PCF, and Y-P4FC, are designed to flexibly modify the HOMO and LUMO energy levels. The prediction trends of ML align closely with the computational trends from DFT. It is worth noting that the accuracy of LUMO energy level prediction by the prediction model makes up for the instability of DFT calculation on LUMO energy level. This work offers a cost-effective method to accelerate the acquisition of electronic properties of organic materials.

Automated assessing prosody of oral reading fluency presents challenges due to the inherent difficulty of quantifying prosody. This study proposed and evaluated an approach focusing on specific prosodic features using a deep-learning neural network. The current work focuses on cross-domain performance, researching how generalizable the prosody scoring is across students and text passages. The results demonstrated that the model with selected prosodic features had better cross-domain performance with an accuracy of 62.5% compared to 57% from the previous research. Our findings also indicate that students’ reading patterns influence cross-domain performance more than specific text passage patterns. In other words, letting the student read at least one passage is more important than having others read all passage texts. The specific prosodic features had a high generalization to capture the typical prosody characteristics for achieving a satisfactorily high accuracy and classification agreement rate. This result provides valuable information for developing future automated scoring algorithms of prosody. This study is an essential demonstration of estimating the prosody score using fewer selected features, which would be more efficient and interpretable.

To clarify the thermal runaway characteristics of lithium-ion battery pack, this study has established a thermal runaway experimental platform based on actual power battery pack. A 4 in series and 4 in parallel battery pack was assembled using 86 Ah lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the experiment of thermal runaway induced by overcharging and unilateral preheating was carried out. The behavior and characteristics including the temperature change characteristics of each cell, the heat generated and transfer paths during thermal runaway propagation, the voltage changes of each serial module and the total voltage, flame evolution behavior, gas generation characteristics, debris, and mass loss were investigated. The research results show that module 1 was the first to experience thermal runaway due to preheating. The redistributed current caused the batteries in the remaining modules to rapidly generate heat. Subsequently, the heat transfer from module 1 triggered thermal runaway in modules 2, 3, and 4 in sequence. The entire flame combustion process lasted for 38 min, with the maximum temperature reaching 937.1 °C, resulting in thermal runaway in all batteries. The sequence of thermal runaway has been clarified, with the flame generated by the ignition of the battery casing, connecting tabs, and combustible gases emitted from the batteries serving as the primary paths for heat transfer and thermal radiation. The experimental results provide valuable insights into the thermal engineering issues of large-scale lithium-ion battery pack.

Abstract Viral diseases are becoming an important problem in Amorphophallus production due to the propagation of seed corms and their trade across regions. In this study, combined-High-Throughput Sequencing, RT-PCR, electron microscopy, and mechanical inoculation were used to analyze virus-like infected Amorphophallus samples in Yunnan province to investigate the distribution, molecular characterization, and diversity and evolution of Amorphophallus-infecting viruses including three isolates of dasheen mosaic virus and three orthotospoviruses: mulberry vein banding associated virus (MVBaV), tomato zonate spot virus (TZSV) and impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV). The results showed that DsMV is the dominant virus infecting Amorphophallus, mixed infections with DsMV and MVBaV to Amorphophallus were quite common in Yunnan province, China. This is the first report on infection of Amorphophallus with MVBaV, TZSV, and impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV) in China. This work will help to develop an effective integrated management strategy to control the spread of Amorphophallus viral diseases.

Abstract Background Postoperative pneumonia (POP) is the most prevalent of all nosocomial infections in patients who underwent cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was to identify independent risk factors for pneumonia after cardiac surgery, from which we constructed a nomogram for prediction. Methods The clinical data of patients admitted to the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital from October 2020 to September 2021 who underwent cardiac surgery were retrospectively analyzed, and the patients were divided into two groups according to whether they had POP: POP group (n=105) and non-POP group (n=1083). Preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative indicators were collected and analyzed. Logistic regression was used to identify independent risk factors for POP in patients who underwent cardiac surgery. We constructed a nomogram based on these independent risk factors. Model discrimination was assessed via area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), and calibration was assessed via calibration plot. Results A total of 105 events occurred in the 1188 cases. Age (>55 years) (OR: 1.83, P=0.0225), preoperative malnutrition (OR: 3.71, P 135 min (OR: 2.80, P 20 hours (OR: 3.11, P