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Aims and objectives To explore the lived experiences of family caregivers of epidermolysis bullosa (EB) patients. Background Patients with EB need long-term care. Their family experiences physical and mental stress while proving that care. However, very little research has explored the family caregivers' actual lived experiences when caring for EB patients. Design This is a qualitative research using the phenomenological approach. Methods Data were collected with the assistance of the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders (TFRD). Interviews were conducted between 2015 and 2017 with primary family caregivers (n = 10) who had cared for EB patients for at least five years. Data were analysed using Colaizzi's (1978) seven-step phenomenological method. COREQ reporting guidelines were utilised. Results Four themes and eleven subthemes emerged after data analysis: (a) transformation and helplessness: changing expectations and helplessness associated with the rare, unknown disease; (b) mother's responsibility: mothers loving and protecting their children, surviving through adversity and challenges and self-experiencing a child's pain; (c) physical and mental fatigue experienced by the whole family: physical and mental exhaustion, and unbalanced lives; and (d) adjustment and social support: providing mutual assistance to mitigate adversity, hopeful search for treatments, the importance of patient associations and rare disease foundations, and social assistance requirements. Conclusion Family caregivers experience many challenges when caring for EB patients and experience substantial stress and overwhelming burdens. Consequently, they would benefit greatly from various support systems to reduce the burden of caring for EB patients. Relevance to clinical practice Healthcare professionals can use the findings from this study to understand the circumstances faced by family caregivers and tailor care and education specifically to support each family's financial, social and household needs, thereby helping them reduce the stress of caring for EB patients.

Objectives The increasing prevalence of advanced maternal age (AMA) coupled with poor sleep quality among pregnant women makes it important to study their association with perinatal outcomes. However, little is known about the interaction of AMA and maternal antenatal sleep on perinatal outcomes. Here, we examined whether associations between AMA and perinatal outcomes are modified by antenatal sleep quality. Participants Data were collected from 446 women, with a singleton pregnancy and no pregnancy complications, who participated in the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) birth cohort study. Measurements Participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) at 26-28 weeks gestation and had perinatal outcome data collected upon delivery. Interactions between AMA and maternal sleep quality on perinatal outcomes were investigated and where significant, analyses were further stratified by maternal age. All analyses were adjusted for maternal BMI at 26-28 weeks gestation, ethnicity, and maternal education. Results Neonates of mothers of AMA and poor sleep quality (PSQI score >5) had increased odds of stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (adjusted odds ratio = 3.53, 95% CI: −1.21 to 10.27) and shorter birth length (adjusted mean difference = −1.05 cm, 95% CI: −1.82 to −0.20), as compared with women of AMA and good sleep quality (PSQI score ≤5). In women Conclusion Poor sleep quality in women of AMA was associated with neonatal health outcomes. Improving maternal antenatal sleep may potentially improve perinatal outcomes in offspring of women of AMA.

This study aimed to enhance nursing students' professional knowledge, attitudes and self-confidence in handling child abuse cases through a Child Abuse Simulation-Based Education (CASE).Given that nursing students seldom learn about child abuse case management in textbooks, simulation-based education could assist them in appropriately handling child abuse cases when they become nurses.Using a quasi-experimental design.190 nurses enrolled in a night school in-service program at a Taiwanese university were recruited for this study. Ninety-four nurses in the experimental group took a simulation-based education on child abuse while 96 nurses in the contrast group took a general nursing course. The pretest and posttest professional knowledge, attitudes and self-confidence of both groups were analyzed using generalized estimating equations in SPSS V22 software.Following the introduction of the CASE course, the experimental group's posttest professional knowledge, attitudes and self-confidence in handling child abuse cases were higher than those of the contrast group (p .001). Further analysis showed that professional knowledge increased with tenure, positivity in attitude increased with clinical ladder rating and male nurses were more confident than female nurses when handling child abuse cases.Based on the results, this study proposes recommendations for implementing child abuse simulation-based education for new nurses and those undergoing continuing education.

The aim of the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) is to regulate the collection, processing, and use of personal information; to avoid the infringement of personal rights; and to promote the reasonable use of personal information. Clinical nurses are frontline patient caregivers, and they are the most likely to have access to patients' personal information. If these nurses do not clearly understand the PDPA, they may violate the law and affect patients' rights.The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge level of clinical nurses regarding the PDPA and related factors, with the findings intended to serve as a reference for continuing education.A cross-sectional research design was adopted. A purposive sample of nurses working at a regional hospital in southern Taiwan was selected. A self-administered survey incorporating the self-developed Nurses Knowledge Scale for Patient Personal Data Protection Act (NKSPPDPA) was used to collect data from May to June 2017.A total of 269 valid responses were received (return rate: 89.67%). The mean score on the NKSPPDPA was 68.80 out of a total-possible 100 points. Knowledge related to patient privacy and penalties was relatively low. Moreover, working department, job title, and participation in PDPA-related on-the-job education were found to be significant predictors of NKSPPDPA score, while years of experience was found to have a low correlation only.The results suggest that clinical nurses have knowledge gaps regarding PDPA, especially in terms of privacy and penalties. Nurses should participate in continuing education to address these knowledge gaps.臨床護理人員對病人個人資料保護之知識調查.「個人資料保護法」（簡稱個資法）規範個人資料之蒐集、處理及利用，目的為避免人格權受侵害並促進個人資料之合理利用。護理人員為第一線的照護者，常接觸到病人的個人資料，倘若對法規的認識不足，可能誤觸法律且影響病人權益。.探討臨床護理人員對於病人個人資料保護的知識現況與相關因素，以做為規劃繼續教育之參考。.採用橫斷式研究設計，立意抽樣南部某區域醫院之護理人員為研究對象，於2017年5–6月實施問卷調查，研究工具為自擬之「護理人員對病患個人資料保護法知識量表」。.回收有效問卷269份（回收率89.67%），護理人員的知識得分平均為68.80/100，在病人隱私與罰則部分的觀念較不清楚。護理人員之服務單位、職稱、是否接受過個資法在職教育於知識得分有顯著差異，且護理工作年資與知識得分呈低度正相關。.臨床護理人員對個資法的部分知識尚須充實，可藉由個資保護教育訓練，補強有關病人隱私與法規罰則的知識落差。.

Koi herpesvirus (KHV, Cyprinidherpesvirus 3) causes a fatal disease of koi and common carp. To obtain safe and efficacious live vaccines, we generated deletion mutants of KHV lacking the nonessential genes encoding two enzymes of nucleotide metabolism, thymidine kinase (TK, ORF55) and deoxyuridine-triphosphatase (DUT, ORF123). Since single-deletion mutants based on a KHV isolate from Israel (KHV-I) only exhibited partial attenuation (Fuchs W, Fichtner D, Bergmann SM, Mettenleiter TC. Arch Virol 2011;156 : 1059–1063), a corresponding double mutant was generated and tested in vivo, and shown to be almost avirulent but still protective. To overcome the low in vitro virus titres of KHV-I (≤105 p.f.u. ml−1), single and double TK and DUT deletions were also introduced into a cell culture-adapted KHV strain from Taiwan (KHV-T). The deletions did not affect in vitro virus replication, and all KHV-T mutants exhibited wild-type-like plaque sizes and titres exceeding 107 p.f.u. ml−1, as a prerequisite for economic vaccine production. Compared to wild-type and revertant viruses, the single-deletion mutants of KHV-T were significantly attenuated in vivo, and immersion of juvenile carp in water containing high doses of the double mutant caused almost no fatalities. Nevertheless, the deletion mutants induced similar levels of KHV-specific serum antibodies to the parental wild-type virus, and conferred solid protection against disease after challenge with wild-type KHV. For the convenient differentiation of DNA samples prepared from gill swabs of carp infected with wild-type and TK-deleted KHV we developed a triplex real-time PCR. Thus, KHV-TΔDUT/TK might be suitable as a genetic DIVA vaccine in the field.

While zero valent aluminum (ZVAl) is a promising reductant for eliminating bromate from water, ZVAl is typically obtained from reagent grade aluminum. As used aluminum beverage can is the most common aluminum waste, it can be conveniently used to prepare ZVAl. Thus, in this study aluminum beverage cans are employed for the first time as a plentiful and easily accessible aluminum source to afford ZVAl for eliminating bromate from water. As aluminum is easily oxidized to form aluminum oxide, aluminum can pieces (ACPs) are pre-treated with HCl for removing the oxide layer to afford ZVAl. While non-acid-treated ACP is ineffective to remove bromate, the acid-treated ACP successfully eliminates bromate from water completely. Bromate elimination by ACP is attributed to reduction of bromate to bromide by the reactive sites of ACP and adsorption of bromate to the surface of ACP. Bromate elimination by ACP also proceeds much faster at higher temperatures and low pH values, while the alkaline condition causes serious negative effects on bromate elimination. Besides, oxalic acid is found to facilitate bromate elimination not only on the kinetics but also reduction to bromide because the passivation layer is suppressed in the presence of oxalic acid. ACP could also be reused and the acid-washing regeneration could enable used ACP to restore its reactive sites for bromate elimination. This study successfully demonstrates the valorization of aluminum beverage cans for mitigating the toxic bromate and the findings here provide useful information and insights to develop aluminum beverage cans for controlling pollutants in water.

As technology advances, the complexity and size of integrated circuits continue to grow. Hierarchical design flow is a mainstream solution to speed up timing closure. Static timing analysis is a pivotal step in the flow but it can be timing-consuming on large flat designs. To reduce the long runtime, we introduce ATM, a high- accuracy extracted timing model for hierarchical timing analysis. Interface logic model (ILM) and extracted timing model (ETM) are the two popular paradigms for generating timing macros. ILM is accurate but large in model size, and ETM is compact but less accurate. Recent research has applied graph compression techniques to ILM to reduce model size with simultaneous high accuracy. However, the generated models are still very large compared to ETM, and its efficiency of in-context usage may be limited. We base ATM on the ETM paradigm and address its accuracy limitation. Experimental results on TAU 2017 benchmarks show that ATM reduces the maximum absolute error of ETM from 131 ps to less than 1 ps. Compared to the ILM-based approach, our accuracy differs within 1 ps and the generated model can be up to 270× smaller.

Cigarette smoking is undoubtedly the single most important risk factor and trigger for vasospastic angina, a condition also known as Prinzmetal angina secondary to coronary artery vasospasm. Even decades before vasospastic angina was first described by Dr. Myron Prinzmetal and his colleagues in 1959, there had been suspected connections between smoking and coronary artery vasospasm in what was alluded to then as "tobacco angina." The intimate relationship between smoking and vasospastic angina has since been extensively researched and validated through decades of epidemiological and clinical studies. The fact that smoking would aggravate vasospastic angina comes with very little surprise, as it has been shown to adversely impact many of the disease processes thought to underlie vasospastic angina, including autonomic dysfunction, endothelial dysfunction, smooth muscle hyperactivity, and genetic susceptibility. While avoidance of smoking is the first logical step in managing smokers with vasospastic angina, there have been reported cases of vasospastic angina paradoxically triggered by smoking cessation or relieved with smoking resumption or nicotine replacement therapy. Thus, there appears to be patient-specific factors that could significantly alter the close connection between smoking and vasospastic angina, warranting further mechanistic investigations. In this review, we will examine this complicated relationship between smoking and vasospastic angina from multiple perspectives (historical, mechanistic, and clinical) and call attention to the "smoking paradox," which, with further elucidation, may provide additional insight into the complex mechanisms of VSA and potentially new strategies to treat medically refractory VSA, at least in selected individuals.

Koi herpesvirus (KHV) is a highly contagious virus that causes KHV disease (KHVD) inducing high mortality in carp and koi (Cyprinus carpio L.). In the late stage, latency occurs with very low, often non-detectable virus concentrations, which represents a challenge for virus detection. After validation according to OIE recommendations, an antibody ELISA was established to recognize antibodies of C. carpio against KHV infection. In this study, the ELISA was modified to detect anti-KHV antibodies from a non-cyprinid fish. Experimentally infected rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were able to transmit KHV to naive carp at two different temperatures, demonstrating their potential as a reservoir host. At 20°C, KHVD was induced in carp but not at 15°C. Unexpectedly, rainbow trout developed humoral response against KHV at both temperatures. In contrast to carp, at 15°C trout produced neutralizing antibodies but not at 20°C. While antibodies obtained from infected carp sera reacted in a similar way against all KHV, antibodies from rainbow trout sera reacted differently to the same isolates by ELISA. The data show that even when non-cyprinid fish species are infected with KHV, they can produce antibodies that differ from those observed in carp.

In recent years, artificial intelligence/deep learning field is growing rapidly. The AI system-on-chip designs are actively developed. These designs often have properties of many IP blocks/embedded memories and complicated logic interconnect. In this paper, we propose an automatic floorplanning algorithm by using dataflow information and design exploration techniques to obtain high quality mixed macro and cell placement to handle numerous macros and complicated logic interconnect in AI SoCs.

BACKGROUND: ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in developed countries. Therefore, understanding the prevalence and trends of major risk factors may facilitate primary and secondary prevention of STEMI. METHODS: In the present study, 2446 consecutive patients with STEMI admitted to Far Eastern Memorial Hospital from 2005 to 2016 were enrolled. A comprehensive analysis of the prevalence, distribution, and trends over time of major risk factors as well as Framingham risk scores of all patients was performed. RESULTS: The most prevalent risk factors were male sex, hypertension (HTN), smoking, age, dyslipidemia, and diabetes mellitus. Furthermore, 95%-97% of the patients had at least one modifiable risk factor, and < 1% of the patients did not have any identifiable risk factors. The prevalence trends of smoking, HTN, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome increased significantly from 2005 to 2016. Seasonal variation analysis revealed a 15% increase in STEMI cases between January and March compared with those between April and December. Isolated low high- density lipoprotein-cholesterol syndrome was the second most common type of dyslipidemia, with a prevalence rate of 16.6%. Moreover, only 56.8% of the male and 32% of the female patients were in the Framingham high-risk group. CONCLUSIONS: A high prevalence rate and an increasing trend of modifiable risk factors resulted in a high number of STEMI cases at our hospital. Controlling modifiable risk factors and improving nontraditional risk factor detection could facilitate primary and secondary preventions for STEMI.

As designs continue to grow in size and complexity, EDA paradigm shifts from flat to hierarchical timing analysis. In this article, we present compact and accurate timing macro modeling, which is the key to efficient and accurate hierarchical timing analysis. Our goal is to contain only a minimal amount of interface logic in our timing macro model. The main idea is to separate the interface logic into variant and constant timing regions. Then, the variant timing region is reserved for accuracy, while the constant timing region is reduced for compactness. For reducing the constant timing region, we propose anchor pin insertion and deletion by generalizing existing timing graph reduction techniques. Furthermore, we devise a lookup table index selection technique to achieve high model accuracy over the possible operating condition range. Compared with two common models used in industry, extracted timing model and interface logic model, our model has high model accuracy and small model size. Based on the TAU 2016 and 2017 timing macro modeling contest benchmark suites, our results show that our algorithm delivers superior efficiency and accuracy: Hierarchical timing analysis using our model can significantly reduce runtime and memory compared with flat timing analysis on the original design. Moreover, our algorithm outperforms TAU 2016 and 2017 contest winners in model accuracy, model size, model generation performance, and model usage performance.

Background: A quantitative worldview has long dominated nursing research, causing it to lack the humanized inspiration of a qualitative worldview. This study sought to develop and evaluate an innovative and qualitative research methodology course in one graduate master nursing program of Southern Taiwan.Methods: Qualitative research design was to develop the innovative and qualitative research methodology course with training the Listening, Empathy, and Presence (LEP) skills and the qualitative worldview of master nursing students. This study was approved by the improved teaching project grant from a University (FYU1008-109-04) during March 1 to October 31, 2020.Results: The results identified that first, the innovative and qualitative research methodology course incorporated the course objectives, teaching content, and innovative strategies in two elective credits with content validity as .86. Additionally, the nine master nursing students reported that the quantitative worldview was closely associated with numbers, statistics, and measurement, whereas the qualitative worldview had a greater tendency to entail aspects of humanism with conversations, communication, and caring among nine master nursing students.Conclusions: The innovative and qualitative research methodology course could train master nursing students to master qualitative research skills and help nursing educators achieve balance with mutual coexistence and understanding between qualitative and quantitative approaches.

It is crucial for future 5G networks to intelligently understand how users move so that the networks can allocate different resources efficiently. In this paper, we try to find practical features to identify four common types of motorized transportations, including High-Speed Rail (HSR), subway, railway, and highway. We propose a system architecture that can provide accurate, real-time, and adaptive solution by using cellular information only. Because we do not use GPS as that in most of the prior studies, we can reduce energy consumption, size of log data, and computational time. Around 500-hour data are collected for performance evaluation. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, which can improve well-known machine learning algorithms to approximately 98% classification accuracy. The results also show that battery consumption can be reduced about 37%.

Ming-Chang Ku,1,2 Victor C Kok,3,4 Ming-Yung Lee,5 Soa-Min Hsu,1 Pei-Yu Lee,1 Che-Wei Chang,1 Yeu-Sheng Tyan,6 Chi-Wen Juan7,8 1Department of Radiology, Kuang Tien General Hospital, Taichung, 2Department of Nursing, Jen-Teh Junior College of Medicine, Nursing and Management, Miaoli, 3Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, Kuang Tien General Hospital, 4Department of Bioinformatics and Medical Engineering, Asia University, 5Department of Statistics and Informatics Science, Providence University, 6Department of Medical Imaging, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, 7Department of Emergency Medicine, Kuang Tien General Hospital, 8Department of Nursing, HungKuang University, Taichung, Taiwan Objectives: Gallbladder opacification (GBO) on computed tomography (CT) imaging may obscure certain pathological or emergent conditions in the gallbladder, such as neoplasms, stones, and hemorrhagic cholecystitis. This study aimed to investigate the clinical contributing factors that could predict the presence of delayed GBO determined by CT.Methods: This study retrospectively evaluated 243 consecutive patients who received enhanced CT or intravenous pyelography imaging and then underwent abdominal CT imaging within 5days. According to the interval between imaging, the patients were divided into group A (1day), group B (2 or 3days), and group C (4 or 5days). Three radiologists evaluated CT images to determine GBO. Fisher’s exact test and multivariate backward stepwise elimination logistic regression were performed.Results: Positive GBO was significantly associated with the interval between imaging studies, contrast type, contrast volume, renal function, and hypertransaminasemia (P

Background: The principal investigator has integrated the teaching strategies and activities of critical and creative thinking with integration and problem-solving abilities in the process of guiding nursing students in the course of Nursing Practicum Project Production (NPPP) for seven years. Although the course has developed a set of indicators for evaluating the products; however, there is a lack of indicators of evaluating the critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities of the nursing students. In the 2018 year, the professional growth program for the teachers through the expert meeting and faculties discussion has developed the indicators of evaluating the critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities for the nursing students completing the course of NPPP. The purpose of this study was to explore the evidences of the innovative teaching among the critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities of nursing students before and after the course of NPPP.Methods: The mixed methods including the quasi-experimental and four factor designs were used in this study and the samples were the two-year program nursing students of the AB classes with the majority of them who have had the clinical working experiences. A class was the experimental group, integrating the teaching strategies and activities of critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities. B class was used the traditional teaching. The two classes of nursing students were conducted self-assessment of the critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities before and after the 2019 course of NPPP to understand the effectiveness of innovative teaching in the critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities of RN-BSN students.Results: The critical and creative thinking, integration and problem-solving abilities of RN-BSN students in A class not only has improved significantly after conducting the innovative teaching, but also has the higher scores than the comparison B class. Additionally, no matter the principal investigator or other two faculties instructed the A group of RN-BSN students, the critical and creative thinking as well as the integration and problem solving abilities of RN-BSN students have improved before and after the NPPP course although there is the tendency of decreasing four abilities from group 1 to 4, but did not approach in the significant level.Conclusions: It is the evidences of the innovative teaching of critical and creative thinking, the integration and problem solving abilities for RN-BSN students in the first five weeks of the NPPP course. Additionally, the principal investigator instructed the group 1 and 2 that performed better than group 3 and 4 by the other two instructors that might be interesting to further study the group 1 and 2 dynamics as beneficence of teaching those thinking and abilities by the principal investigator.

Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) is a promising paradigm to collect large-scale network data globally. However, how to motivate people to collect and share data is a challenge. We believe the major reason why many MCS systems are not pervasive is because there are no incentives for people to use them. In this paper, we present SensingGO, a system which encourages people to keep sensing data by integrating incentive mechanisms. The sensed data are then transmitted to our backend server. The data we collected and the source code of SensingGO are open to anyone freely. We also demonstrate the analysis of real mobile data collected from SensingGO.

As designs continue to grow in size and complexity, EDA paradigm shifts from flat to hierarchical timing analysis. In this paper, we discuss timing macro modeling, which is the key to enable efficient and accurate hierarchical timing analysis. We briefly review conventional models and recent research progresses in timing macro modeling. We try to answer the following questions: How can timing macro models be made compact and accurate? How do state-of-the art works maintain model accuracy, model size, model generation performance, and model usage performance? Finally, future research directions on timing macro modeling are identified.

In this paper, we present DATC Robust Design Flow Database covering the stages from logic synthesis to physical design [1]. Based on this database, design flow and cross-stage optimization research can be conducted via various EDA tools developed from academia.

In this paper, we demonstrated the changes of electrical and optical characteristics of a phosphorescent organic light-emitting device (OLED) with tris(phenylpyridine)iridium Ir(ppy)3 thin layer (4 nm) slightly codoped (1%) inside the emitting layer (EML) close to the cathode side. Such a thin layer helped for electron injection and transport from the electron transporting layer into the EML, which reduced the driving voltage (0.40 V at 100 mA/cm2). Electroluminescence (EL) spectral shift at different driving voltage was observed in our blue OLED with [(4,6-di-fluoropheny)-pyridinato-N,C2′]picolinate (FIrpic) emitter, which came from the recombination zone shift. With the incorporation of thin-codoped Ir(ppy)3, such EL spectral shift was almost undetectable (color coordinate shift (0.000, 0.001) from 100 to 10,000 cd/m2), due to the compensation of Ir(ppy)3 emission at low driving voltage. Such a methodology can be applied to a white OLED which stabilized the EL spectrum and the color coordinates ((0.012, 0.002) from 100 to 10,000 cd/m2).

A permanent growing cell line, designated as koi snout (KS), was established from snout tissues of koi utilizing the trypsin method. The KS cell line was maintained in Leibovitz's L-15 medium supplemented with 10–20% fetal bovine serum (FBS) within incubation temperatures ranging from 22 to 27 °C. Maximum cell proliferation rates occurred at 27 °C in Leibovitz's L-15 medium containing 10% FBS. The KS cell line was subcultured more than 115 times, and karyotyping analysis indicated the modal chromosome number was 2n = 100. The results of virus isolation demonstrated that KS cells were susceptible to koi herpesvirus (KHV), which was demonstrated by the presence of obvious cytopathic effects and abundant virus particles with high virus titer of 10 6.98 TCID 50 /mL. Immunofluorescence and Western blot assays provided confirmation that KS could replicate KHV. The newly established KS cell line will provide a useful tool for KHV detection.

Worldwide koi herpesvirus (KHV) causes high mortalities in Cyprinus carpio L. aquaculture. So far, it is unknown how the different variants of KHV have developed and how they spread in the fish, but also in the environmental water bodies. Therefore, a phylogenetic method based on variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) was improved to gain deeper insights into the phylogeny of KHV and its possible worldwide distribution. Moreover, a VNTR-3 qPCR was designed which allows fast virus typing. This study presents a useful method for molecular tracing of diverse KHV variants and lineages based on in vitro experiments. Including these techniques on can observe samples from natural sources.

As designs continue to grow in size and complexity, EDA paradigm shifts from flat to hierarchical timing analysis. In this paper, we propose compact and accurate timing macro modeling, which is the key to achieve efficient and accurate hierarchical timing analysis. Our macro model tries to contain only a minimal amount of interface logic. For timing graph reduction, we propose anchor pin insertion and deletion by generalizing existing reduction techniques. Furthermore, we devise a lookup table index selection technique to achieve high model accuracy over the possible operating condition range. Compared with two common models used in industry, extracted timing model and interface logic model, our model has high model accuracy and small model size. Based on the TAU 2016 timing contest on macro modeling benchmark suite, our results show that our algorithm delivers superior efficiency and accuracy: Hierarchical timing analysis using our model can significantly reduce runtime and memory compared with flat timing analysis on the original design. Moreover, our algorithm outperforms TAU 2016 contest winner in model accuracy, model size, model usage runtime and memory.

Research of cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV-3) is focused on the infection mechanism and disease development in animals using genetic and immunological approaches to improve treatments and diagnostics. In contrast, only few tried to investigate the CyHV-3 replication behaviour in available cell cultures. Whereas, obtaining high virus yields by in vitro replication enables achieving of the mentioned above goals easier and more reliable. The following work presents an attempt to illuminate the KHV replication in common carp brain (CCB) cell cultures from the engineering point of view. The isolate KHV-TP30 was used testing the influence on process parameters, such as multiplicity of infection (MOI), time of infection (TOI) and time of harvest (TOH). Virus concentrations and infectivity at different time points of infection were examined using hydrolyzed probe qPCR (Gilad et al. 2004) and 50% tissue culture infectivity dose (TCID50). The data obtained show that while the amount of the virus DNA remains constant after reaching its maximum, the infectivity of the virus decreases. Thus, especially, TOH can be crucial for generating a high-quality virus stock. Applying optimized parameters improved the infectivity of the harvested virus and reached a robust titre as high as 1.9 × 108 TCID50/mL. To our knowledge, so far, there is no information in the peer-reviewed literature showing comparably high virus titres. Such virus yields not only facilitate conduction of further studies, including stability tests of the virus stock under various supplementation or disinfection trails, but also provide enough virus material to perform more detailed examinations of the infection mechanism.

During recent decades, cloud-based shared storage has become a popular storage solution. Nevertheless, current cloud-based I/O subsystem assumes that the storage devices are homogeneous. Recently, the multi-tiered storage system extends the storage hierarchy by using SSDs to cache data from the hard disks has received significant attention. Thus, in this paper, we design an I/O framework for multi-tiered storages in multi-tenant cloud-based shared storage environments. Specifically, we propose a two-tier per-user queuing structure to solve the user interference and device interference problem. Furthermore, on the basis of the credit-based request scheduling algorithm, we introduce the concept of device credits, instead user credits in previous schemes, to proper charge users in different types of storage devices. The experimental results show our proposed framework is effective in realizing the multi-tiered-based shared storage systems in cloud computing environments.