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Key Points: ● The Facial Clinimetric Evaluation (FaCE) scale, consisting of six subscales, measures facial palsy-specific quality of life. ● Each subscale’s weight in the total FaCE score is based on the number of questions but may not reflect the subscale’s true contributions to ‘overall’ facial-palsy specific quality of life. ● In 80 patients, we analyzed the subscales’ correlations with a validated Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score that quantifies overall facial palsy-related burden. ● Social function and facial comfort had stronger correlations with overall facial palsy-related quality of life than their weights in the FaCE total score suggests. ● Greater importance should be placed on social function and facial comfort when estimating the quality of life of patients with facial palsy.

Canine coronavirus is a single-stranded RNA virus that causes enteritis in dogs of any age. Coronaviral enteritis is seldom definitively diagnosed, since it is usually much less severe than many other types of enteritis and is self-limiting. Conventional diagnostics for the canine coronaviral enteritis such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), virus isolation, and electron microscopic examination are inappropriate for small animal clinics due to the complicated experimental processes involved. Therefore, a commercially available lateral flow test kit based on chromatographic immunoassay techniques was tested to evaluate its performance as a first-line diagnostic test kit that could be used in clinics. The coronavirus antigen test kit detected canine coronavirus-infected dogs with 93.1% sensitivity and 97.5% specificity. The detection limit of the test kit was between 1.97 × 104/mL and 9.85 × 103/mL for samples with a 2- fold serial dilution from 1.25 × 106 TCID50 (TCID50, 50% tissue culture infectious dose). Additionally, the test kit had no cross-reactivity with canine parvovirus, distemper virus, or Escherichia coli. Overall, the commercially available test kit showed good diagnostic performance in a clinical setting, with results similar to those from PCR, confirming their potential for convenient and accurate use in small animal clinics.

Background A low serum total bilirubin (T-bil) level is associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis. However, the differential impact of the serum T-bil level on cerebral atherosclerosis and cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is still unclear. Methods We evaluated serum T-bil levels from 1,128 neurologically healthy subjects. Indices of cerebral atherosclerosis (extracranial arterial stenosis [ECAS] and intracranial arterial stenosis [ICAS]), and indices of SVD (silent lacunar infarct [SLI], and moderate-to-severe white matter hyperintensities [msWMH]) were evaluated by the use of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and MR angiography. Results In logistic regression analysis after adjusting for confounding variables, subjects within middle T-bil (odds ratio [OR]: 0.63; 95% CI: 0.41–0.97) and high T-bil tertiles (OR: 0.54; 95% CI: 0.33–0.86) showed a lower prevalence of ECAS than those in a low T-bil tertile. Although subjects with a high T-bil tertile had a lower prevalence of ICAS than those with a low T-bil tertile, the statistical significance was marginal after adjusting for confounding variables. There were no significant differences in the proportions of subjects with SLI and msWMH across serum T-bil tertile groups. Conclusions The serum T-bil level is negatively associated with cerebral atherosclerosis, especially extracranial atherosclerosis, but not with SVD.

We report the synthesis method and dimension-dependent magnetic properties of CoFe/Au barcode nanowire arrays. Well-separated multisegment nanowire arrays are synthesized by a pulsed electrodeposition process in a single bath. Samples with four different aspect ratios defined as the CoFe thicknesses to the nanowire diameter are prepared to investigate dimensional effects on the magnetic properties. It is evident except for very low aspect ratio case that each hysteresis loop shows a soft magnetic characteristic with an easy axis parallel to the nanowire axis. Magnetic reversal in most samples is primarily dominated by a transverse domain wall mode.

A Lightly Doped Drain (LDD) structure is known to be very effective in preventing hot electrons in modern NMOS transistors. In this work, the lightly doped region was formed in poly TFT by using a separate LDD mask aligned to a gate mask. The misalignment can be calculated to be about 1.5 microm, and depending on the location of the V(d) application between the source and drain, an LDD or Lightly Doped Source (LDS) structure can be realized on the same TFT. In this way, we can make a perfect comparison between these two structures. It turned out that the LDD is mainly responsible for the low leakage current, and no more than 0.5 microm of the lightly doped region is necessary to lower the leakage current down to less than 5 x 10(-11) amps at V(d) = 10 volts. Typically, the on-current of MILC TFT is more than 10(-4) amps, but 2.5 microm LDS decreases it to below 10(-7) amps.

Magnetic multi-granule nanoclusters (MGNCs) were easily formed by the simple reaction of FeCl3 in ethylene glycol, which served as both the solvent and reductant, in the presence of sodium acetate. Simple refluxing within glassware at atmospheric pressure allowed us to monitor changes in the color of reaction mixtures and isolate intermediates to be characterized. On the basis of these observations, we could suggest a new mechanism of solid-state phase transformation after the hydrolysis/condensation of FeCl3 along with the partial reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+ by ethylene glycol. The size of MGNCs could be precisely and reproducibly controlled from 50 to 500 nm by varying the reaction conditions. These MGNCs exhibited relatively high MS values of 73–85 emu g−1 and ferrimagnetic properties, but they were stably dispersed in the solution via a strong interaction between solvent molecules and surface functional groups; this interaction overcame the magnetic interactions between particles that caused the formation of aggregates.

Nanobarcodes consisting of multicomponents and multisegments have gained attention lately because they can offer multiple functionalities. Here, we report the structure, composition, and magnetic properties of CoFe/Au nanobarcodes fabricated by a pulsed electrodeposition method in one solution bath. The nanobarcodes with three different compositions in magnetic segments including Co68Fe32 (Co-rich), Co50Fe50 (equiatomic), and Co35Fe65 (Fe-rich) exhibit different magnetic characteristics as a result of compositional variation. The highest saturation magnetization value of 1739 emu/cm3 was observed in the Fe-rich case.

NiFe/Au barcode nanowires were synthesized by pulsed electrodeposition using anodic aluminum oxide nanotemplate, comprising magnetic, catalytic, and optical segments, respectively. The self-powered motion of the BNWs due to the catalytic reaction was observed in aqueous H2O2. The approach demonstrates how sophistication in barcode nanoarchitecture can be used to synthesize a wide range of hybrid materials.

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