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Van der Waals junctions hold significant potentials for various applications in multifunctional and low-power electronics and optoelectronics. The multistep device fabrication process usually introduces lattice mismatch and defects at the junction interfaces, which deteriorate device performance. Here the layer engineering synthesis of van der Waals homojunctions consisting of 2H-MoTe 2 with asymmetric thickness to eliminate heterogenous interfaces and thus obtain clean interfaces is reported. Experimental results confirm that the homostructure nature gives rise to the formation of pristine van der Waals junctions, avoiding chemical disorders and defects. The ability to tune the energy bands of 2H-MoTe 2 continuously through layer engineering enables the creation of adjustable built-in electric field at the homojunction boundaries, which leads to the achievement of self-powered photodetection based on the obtained 2H-MoTe 2 films. Furthermore, the successful integration of 2H-MoTe 2 homojunctions into an image sensor with 10 × 10 pixels, brings about zero-power consumption and near-infrared imaging functions. The pristine van der Waals homojunctions and effective integration strategies shed new insights into the development of large-scale application for two-dimensional materials in advanced electronics and optoelectronics., (© 2024 The Author(s). Advanced Materials published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

The controlled vapor-phase synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is essential for functional applications. While chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques have been successful for transition metal sulfides, extending these methods to selenides and tellurides often faces challenges due to uncertain roles of hydrogen (H 2 ) in their synthesis. Using CVD growth of MoSe 2 as an example, this study illustrates the role of a H 2 -free environment during temperature ramping in suppressing the reduction of MoO 3 , which promotes effective vaporization and selenization of the Mo precursor to form MoSe 2 monolayers with excellent crystal quality. As-synthesized MoSe 2 monolayer-based field-effect transistors show excellent carrier mobility of up to 20.9 cm 2 /(V·s) with an on-off ratio of 7 × 10 7 . This approach can be extended to other TMDs, such as WSe 2 , MoTe 2 , and MoSe 2 /WSe 2 in-plane heterostructures. Our work provides a rational and facile approach to reproducibly synthesize high-quality TMD monolayers, facilitating their translation from laboratory to manufacturing.

The metal-semiconductor interface fabricated by conventional methods often suffers from contamination, degrading transport performance. Herein, we propose a one-pot chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process to create a two-dimensional (2D) MoO 2 -MoSe 2 heterostructure by growing MoO 2 seeds under a hydrogen environment, followed by depositing MoSe 2 on the surface and periphery. The ultraclean interface is verified by cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscopy and photoluminescence. Along with the high work function of semimetallic MoO 2 ( E f = -5.6 eV), a high-rectification Schottky diode is fabricated based on this heterostructure. Furthermore, the Schottky diode exhibits an excellent photovoltaic effect with a high open-circuit voltage of 0.26 eV and ultrafast photoresponse, owing to the naturally formed metal-semiconductor contact with suppressed pinning effect. Our method paves the way for the fabrication of an ultraclean 2D metal-semiconductor interface, without defects or contamination, offering promising prospects for future nanoelectronics.

This study aimed to adapt and validate the Knee Osteoarthritis Fears and Beliefs Questionnaire (KOFBeQ) for Chinese patients, thereby advancing the understanding of fear-avoidance behaviors. Adopting a cross-sectional design, data were collected for 241 subjects (78.8% women; mean age 68.0 ± 7.8 years) across various healthcare settings in Hong Kong. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in an 11-item questionnaire with three distinct subscales, covering fears and beliefs related to physicians and disease (six items), daily living activities (three items), and sports and leisure activities (two items). The overall Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.86, indicating strong internal consistency. The questionnaire exhibited favorable convergent validity. Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a good model fit. Test-retest reliability analysis indicated a high intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.93 (95% confidence interval: 0.88, 0.96), and a Bland-Altman plot revealed a slight bias in two measurements (0.97 [0.19]) without a systematic trend. The adapted Chinese version of the KOFBeQ demonstrated robust psychometric properties in terms of validity and reliability, providing an effective tool for surveying Chinese patients with knee osteoarthritis. These findings offer valuable insights for clinicians and patients, aiding in informed decision-making and improved rehabilitation strategies.

With a high specific capacity and low electrochemical potentials, metal anode batteries that use lithium, sodium and zinc metal anodes, have gained great research interest in recent years, as a potential candidate for high-energy-density storage systems. However, the uncontainable dendrite growth during the repeated charging process, deteriorates the battery performance, reduces the battery life and more importantly, raises safety concerns. With their unique properties, two-dimensional (2D) materials, can be used to modify various components in metal batteries, eventually mitigating the dendrite growth, enhancing the cycling stability and rate capability, thus leading to safe and robust metal anodes. In this paper, we review the recent advances of 2D materials and summarize current research progress of using 2D materials in the applications of (i) anode design, (ii) separator engineering, and (iii) electrolyte modifications by guiding metal ion nucleation, increasing ion conductivity, homogenizing the electric field and ion flux, and enhancing the mechanical strength for safe metal anodes. The 2D material modifications provide the ultimate solution for obtaining dendrite-free metal anodes, realizes the high energy storage application, and indicates the importance of 2D materials development. Finally, in-depth understandings of subsequent metal growth are lacking due to research limitations, while more advanced characterizations are welcome for investigating the metal deposition mechanism. The more facile and simplified preparation of 2D materials possess great prospects in high energy density metal anode batteries, and thus fulfils the development of EVs., (© 2023. Korea Nanotechnology Research Society (KoNTRS).)

Aim: To develop a high-accuracy low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung nodule diagnosis system by combining artificial intelligence (AI) technology with the Lung CT Screening Reporting and Data System (Lung-RADS), which can be used in the future AI-aided diagnosis of pulmonary nodules., Materials and Methods: The study comprised the following steps: (1) the best deep-learning segmentation method for pulmonary nodules was compared and selected objectively; (2) the Image Biomarker Standardization Initiative (IBSI) was used for feature extraction and to determine the best feature reduction method; and (3) a principal component analysis (PCA) and three machine learning methods were used to analyse the extracted features, and the best method was determined. The Lung Nodule Analysis 16 dataset was applied to train and test the established system in this study., Results: The competition performance metric (CPM) score of the nodule segmentation reached 0.83, the accuracy of nodule classification was 92%, the kappa coefficient with the ground truth was 0.68, and the overall diagnostic accuracy (calculated by the nodules) was 0.75., Conclusion: This paper summarises a more efficient AI-assisted diagnosis process of pulmonary nodules, and has better performance compared with the previous literature. In addition, this method will be validated in a future external clinical study., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Zinc (Zn)-regulated and iron (Fe)-regulated transporter-like proteins (ZIP) are key players involved in the accumulation of cadmium (Cd) and Zn in plants. Sedum plumbizincicola X.H. Guo et S.B. Zhou ex L.H. Wu ( S. plumbizincicola ) is a Crassulaceae Cd/Zn hyperaccumulator found in China, but the role of ZIPs in S. plumbizincicola remains largely unexplored. Here, we identified 12 members of ZIP family genes by transcriptome analysis in S. plumbizincicola and cloned the SpZIP2 gene with functional analysis. The expression of SpZIP2 in roots was higher than that in the shoots, and Cd stress significantly decreased its expression in the roots but increased its expression in leaves. Protein sequence characteristics and structural analysis showed that the content of alanine and leucine residues in the SpZIP2 sequence was higher than other residues, and several serine, threonine and tyrosine sites can be phosphorylated. Transmembrane domain analysis showed that SpZIP2 has the classic eight transmembrane regions. The evolutionary analysis found that SpZIP2 is closely related to OsZIP2, followed by AtZIP11, OsZIP1 and AtZIP2. Sequence alignment showed that most of the conserved sequences among these members were located in the transmembrane regions. A further metal sensitivity assay using yeast mutant Δ yap1 showed that the expression of SpZIP2 increased the sensitivity of the transformants to Cd but failed to change the resistance to Zn. The subsequent ion content determination showed that the expression of SpZIP2 increased the accumulation of Cd in yeast. Subcellular localization showed that SpZIP2 was localized to membrane systems, including the plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum. The above results indicate that ZIP member SpZIP2 participates in the uptake and accumulation of Cd into cells and might contribute to Cd hyperaccumulation in S. plumbizincicola .

Over recent years, with the advances in image recognition technology for deep learning, researchers have devoted continued efforts toward importing anomaly detection technology into the production line of automatic optical detection. Although unsupervised learning helps overcome the high costs associated with labeling, the accuracy of anomaly detection still needs to be improved. Accordingly, this paper proposes a novel deep learning model for anomaly detection to overcome this bottleneck. Leveraging a powerful pre-trained feature extractor and the skip connection, the proposed method achieves better feature extraction and image reconstructing capabilities. Results reveal that the areas under the curve (AUC) for the proposed method are higher than those of previous anomaly detection models for 16 out of 17 categories. This indicates that the proposed method can realize the most appropriate adjustments to the needs of production lines in order to maximize economic benefits.

The tree density of virtual sportscape is the main factor that determines the benefits that generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients can obtain when they exercise with virtual environment. By using pupil size, fixation count and time as metrics, this research aimed to clarify the relationship between tree cover density and stress in the virtual environment. Ninety GAD patients were randomly grouped into the 36-60% tree density (high tree density, HTDS), 20-35% tree density (medium tree density, MTDS), or control groups ( n = 30). Researchers used eye-tracking technology to analyze fixation time, fixation count and changes in pupil size to evaluate the stress changes of participants after 20 min of aerobic exercise in a virtual environment. The results showed that pupil size expanded in GAD patients after exercising in the virtual environment. Furthermore, GAD patient cycling in the MTDS group can show smaller pupil size than those in HTDS. Those results suggest that GAD patient cycling 20 min in the MTDS group can perceived lower stress. The results of eye tracking analysis showed that GAD patients spend more time and counts observing tree elements in HTDS and MTDS sportscapes. Specifically, they spent more 48% and 27% time on tree and green plants in the HTDS condition and MTDS condition, respectively, than in non-natural sportsscapes. Although 36-60% tree density of virtual natural sportscape can get more visual attention from GAD patients, 20-35% tree density of virtual natural sportscape is more capable of reducing their stress., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wang, Tsai and Tang.)

In recent years, transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD)-based electronics have experienced a prosperous stage of development, and some considerable applications include field-effect transistors, photodetectors, and light-emitting diodes. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD), a typical bottom-up approach for preparing 2D materials, is widely used to synthesize large-area 2D TMD films and is a promising method for mass production to implement them for practical applications. In this review, we investigate recent progress in controlled CVD growth of 2D TMDs, aiming for controlled nucleation and orientation, using various CVD strategies such as choice of precursors or substrates, process optimization, and system engineering. We then survey different patterning methods, such as surface patterning, metal precursor patterning, and postgrowth sulfurization/selenization/tellurization, to mass produce heterostructures for device applications. With these strategies, various well-designed architectures, such as wafer-scale single crystals, vertical and lateral heterostructures, patterned structures, and arrays, are achieved. In addition, we further discuss various electronics made from CVD-grown TMDs to demonstrate the diverse application scenarios. Finally, perspectives regarding the current challenges of controlled CVD growth of 2D TMDs are also suggested., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

Atomically thin monolayer semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), exhibiting direct band gap and strong light-matter interaction, are promising for optoelectronic devices. However, an efficient band alignment engineering method is required to further broaden their practical applications as versatile optoelectronics. In this work, the band alignment of two vertically stacked monolayer TMDs using the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method is effectively tuned by two strategies: 1) formulating the compositions of MoS 2(1-x) Se 2x alloys, and 2) varying the twist angles of the stacked heterobilayer structures. Photoluminescence (PL) results combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculation show that by changing the alloy composition, a continuously tunable band alignment and a transition of type II-type I-type II band alignment of TMD heterobilayer is achieved. Moreover, only at moderate (10°-50°) twist angles, a PL enhancement of 28%-110% caused by the type I alignment is observed, indicating that the twist angle is coupled with the global band structure of heterobilayer. A heterojunction device made with MoS 0.76 Se 1.24 /WS 2 of 14° displays a significantly high photoresponsivity (55.9 A W -1 ), large detectivity (1.07 × 10 10 Jones), and high external quantum efficiency (135%). These findings provide engineering tools for heterostructure design for their application in optoelectronic devices., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Mental health benefits (i.e., relaxing and relieving pressure) can influence consumers' consumption decisions. However, there is still no clear understanding of the impact of mental health benefits on visual attention, behavioral intention, and choice behavior. Study 1 was thus aimed at exploring the visual attention and behavioral intention of older consumers with respect to exercise consumption. A sample of 186 older consumers was investigated. An eye-tracking analysis was used to evaluate the visual attention of participants observing health promotion messages, and questionnaires were used to assess the behavioral intention of the older consumers under consideration in this work. The findings confirmed that marketing pictures combining natural sportscapes with prevention focus messages (i.e., conveying information to consumers that it is safe and not easy to be injured when engaging in yoga activities in natural settings) can best capture older consumers' visual attention (e.g., fixation numbers and fixation times) and behavioral intentions. In Study 2, 75 participants were recruited. It was found that marketing pictures combining natural sportscapes with prevention focus messages were selected more by the participants, with health communication images successfully attracting them to choose the sports program products being presented. The findings of the two studies suggested that marketing pictures can effectively stimulate consumers' visual attention and has effects on their behavioral intention and choices toward exercising in a safe, natural environment., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wang, Tang and Tsai.)

Understanding the visual attention and psychological responses of consumers to marketing pictures allows hotel managers to design more attractive advertisements. Therefore, the purposes of the present study were to use an eye-tracking analysis to explore whether there were different effects from tourist hotels' wellness service pictures based on whether they had natural or built clues. The psychological responses with regard to perceived well-being and willingness to pay were also examined. Eighty-five older consumers were recruited. Their eye movement performance while observing marketing pictures with different visual clues and their subsequent psychological responses were measured. It was found that wellness service pictures with natural clues captured more visual attention and induced higher willingness-to-pay perceptions than those with built clues in these older consumers. The present results suggest that marketing pictures with natural clues may create positive visual responses in older customers and further enhance their purchase intention.

The prevalence of COVID-19 has caused global dysfunction in terms of public health, sustainability, and socio-economy. While vaccination shows potential in containing the spread, the development of surfaces that effectively reduces virus transmission and infectivity is also imperative, especially amid the early stage of the pandemic. However, most virucidal surfaces are operated under harsh conditions, making them impractical or potentially unsafe for long-term use. Here, it is reported that laser-induced graphene (LIG) without any metal additives shows marvelous antiviral capacities for coronavirus. Under low solar irradiation, the virucidal efficacy of the hydrophobic LIG (HLIG) against HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-229E can achieve 97.5% and 95%, respectively. The photothermal effect and the hydrophobicity of the HLIG synergistically contribute to the superior inactivation capacity. The stable antiviral performance of HLIG enables its multiple uses, showing advantages in energy saving and environmental protection. This work discloses a potential method for antiviral applications and has implications for the future development of antiviral materials., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2021 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Reversing the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) is a strategic initiative to sensitize cancer immunotherapy. Emerging evidence shows that cyclic diguanylate monophosphate (c-di-GMP or cdG) can induce the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway activation of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and upregulate expression of type I interferons (IFNs) to enhance tumor immunogenicity. In vitro anionic cdG revealed fast plasma clearance, poor membrane permeability, and inadequate cytosolic bioavailability. Therefore, we explored a comprehensive " in situ vaccination" strategy on the basis of nanomedicine to trigger robust antitumor immunity. Rhodamine B isothiocyanate (RITC) fluorescent mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) synthesized and modified with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and an ammonium-based cationic molecule (TA) were loaded with negatively charged cdG via electrostatic interactions to form cdG@RMSN-PEG-TA. Treatment of RAW 264.7 cells with cdG@RMSN-PEG-TA markedly stimulated the secretion of IL-6, IL-1β, and IFN-β along with phospho-STING (Ser365) protein expression. In vivo cdG@RMSN-PEG-TA enhanced infiltration of leukocytes, including CD11c + dendritic cells, F4/80 + macrophages, CD4 + T cells, and CD8 + T cells within the tumor microenvironment (TME), resulting in dramatic tumor growth inhibition in 4T1 breast tumor-bearing Balb/c mice. Our findings suggest that a nanobased platform can overcome the obstacles bare cdG can face in the TME. Our approach of an in situ vaccination using a STING agonist provides an attractive immunotherapy-based strategy for treating breast cancer.

Medical devices are widely used in modern medicine, but their utilities are often limited by the biofilm formation of bacteria that are tolerant to most antibiotics. In this report, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) were coated onto biomaterials by the aid of surfactant through hydrophobic interactions. To increase the coating efficiency, stability of AMPs in body fluids and spectrum of antimicrobial activity, pairs of AMPs were coated simultaneously onto various substrates, such as silicone, polyurethane and titanium, which are commonly used components of biomedical devices. These coated AMPs exhibited very low cytotoxicity and hemolytic activities because they were gradually released into urine or serum. The AMP pairs, such as T9W + SAAP159 and T9W + RRIKA, coated onto the silicone discs were able to inhibit in vitro bacterial adherence in urine. Most importantly, AMP pairs coated onto the silicone tubing by surfactant SDBS could prevent bacterial adherence to mouse bladder and the silicone tubing implanted within it. These results provide a promising approach towards circumventing urinary catheter-associated infections caused by bacterial adherence., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Medical devices are widely used in modern medicine, but the high prevalence of biomaterial-associated infections still presents a major problem. Especially problematic is the formation of biofilms that are tolerant to most antibiotics. In this report, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) were driven into an amphipathic structure by anionic surfactant. To increase the coating efficacy and spectrum of antimicrobial activity, the AMPs were coated simultaneously with antibiotic, Polymyxin B, by surfactant onto polystyrene, silicone, polyurethane, and titanium which are commonly used with biomedical devices. These coated antimicrobials stably adhered to the substrate and were gradually released into urine and serum. They exhibited high bactericidal activity, but low cytotoxicity and hemolytic activity. Most importantly, the antimicrobials coated onto silicone tubing inhibited the planktonic growth of E. coli in mouse urine and also markedly prevented bacterial adherence to the bladder and the silicone tubing implanted in the bladder. These results provide a promising approach to circumvent catheter-associated infections due to bacterial adherence.

Introduction: Many patients remain anxious during intravitreal injections, despite its increasing use. As music can alleviate anxiety for other procedures, we wanted to evaluate its effect during intravitreal injection., Methods: Patients undergoing routine intravitreal injection were recruited for a randomized controlled trial. Subjects complete a State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S) questionnaire before and after undergoing injection with or without background music. They were also assessed for subjective satisfaction, anxiety, pain, and future preferences after the injection., Results: There were 39 and 37 Chinese subjects in the music (age 68.08 ± 13.67) and control (age 73.24 ± 11.17) groups, respectively. The music group reported lower anxiety and pain, and a greater reduction in STAI-S score, but the differences were not statistically significant ( P = 0.830, 0.655, 0.199, respectively). More subjects in the music group (92.3%, control group 64.9%) preferred music for future injections ( P = 0.003). Age, but not the number of previous injections, was negatively correlated with reported anxiety ( r  = -0.27, P = 0.021)., Conclusion: Most subjects preferred music during future injections. Although music reduced anxiety, the effect was not statistically significant and may be masked by the higher age of our control group, as increasing age was correlated with lower anxiety., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Jonathan Cheuk-hung Chan et al.)

Virtual exercise therapy is considered a useful method by which to encourage patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to engage in aerobic exercise in order to reduce stress. This study was intended to explore the psychological and physiological responses of patients with GAD after cycling in a virtual environment containing natural images. Seventy-seven participants with GAD were recruited in the present study and randomly assigned to a virtual nature (VN) or a virtual abstract painting (VAP) group. Their electroencephalogram alpha activity, perceived stress, and levels of restorative quality and satisfaction were assessed at baseline and after an acute bout of 20 min of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. The results showed that both the VN and VAP groups showed significantly higher alpha activity post-exercise as compared to pre-exercise. The VN group relative to the VAP group exhibited higher levels of stress-relief, restorative quality, and personal satisfaction. These findings imply that a virtual exercise environment is an effective way to induce a relaxing effect in patients with GAD. However, they exhibited more positive psychological responses when exercising in such an environment with natural landscapes.

Recently, researchers have been studying methods to introduce deep learning into automated optical inspection (AOI) systems to reduce labor costs. However, the integration of deep learning in the industry may encounter major challenges such as sample imbalance (defective products that only account for a small proportion). Therefore, in this study, an anomaly detection neural network, dual auto-encoder generative adversarial network (DAGAN), was developed to solve the problem of sample imbalance. With skip-connection and dual auto-encoder architecture, the proposed method exhibited excellent image reconstruction ability and training stability. Three datasets, namely public industrial detection training set, MVTec AD, with mobile phone screen glass and wood defect detection datasets, were used to verify the inspection ability of DAGAN. In addition, training with a limited amount of data was proposed to verify its detection ability. The results demonstrated that the areas under the curve (AUCs) of DAGAN were better than previous generative adversarial network-based anomaly detection models in 13 out of 17 categories in these datasets, especially in categories with high variability or noise. The maximum AUC improvement was 0.250 (toothbrush). Moreover, the proposed method exhibited better detection ability than the U-Net auto-encoder, which indicates the function of discriminator in this application. Furthermore, the proposed method had a high level of AUCs when using only a small amount of training data. DAGAN can significantly reduce the time and cost of collecting and labeling data when it is applied to industrial detection.

Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to help clinical medicine manage generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, patients with GAD who use traditional head-mounted VR to cycle may cause them to feel motion sickness and fatigue. To solve this problem, a projection-based virtual environment (VE) system was built to provide GAD patients with a sense of immersion while they are cycling. This projection-based VE system allows patients with GAD to interact with the virtual environment and produce experiences similar to cycling in the outdoors. Sixty GAD patients met several screening criteria and were selected as participants. All participants were randomly assigned to one of the two 20-min conditions: (1) Observing watercolor paintings projected by the projector while engaged in cycling with a stationary bicycle; or (2) observing the scenes (i.e., forest or park) projected by the VE system and engaging in cycling with a stationary bicycle. Finally, this study confirmed that patients with GAD in the projection-based VE group exhibited higher alpha values and lower galvanic skin responses (GSR) after cycling than those cycling in the control group. These results showed that cycling in the projection-based VE group allowed the patient with GAD to achieve higher exercise intensity and lower perceived emotional stress.

Cardiac inflammation is considered by many as the main driving force in prolonging the pathological condition in the heart after myocardial infarction. Immediately after cardiac ischemic injury, neutrophils are the first innate immune cells recruited to the ischemic myocardium within the first 24 h. Once they have infiltrated the injured myocardium, neutrophils would then secret proteases that promote cardiac remodeling and chemokines that enhance the recruitment of monocytes from the spleen, in which the recruitment peaks at 72 h after myocardial infarction. Monocytes would transdifferentiate into macrophages after transmigrating into the infarct area. Both neutrophils and monocytes-derived macrophages are known to release proteases and cytokines that are detrimental to the surviving cardiomyocytes. Paradoxically, these inflammatory cells also play critical roles in repairing the injured myocardium. Depletion of either neutrophils or monocytes do not improve overall cardiac function after myocardial infarction. Instead, the left ventricular function is further impaired and cardiac fibrosis persists. Moreover, the inflammatory microenvironment created by the infiltrated neutrophils and monocytes-derived macrophages is essential for the recruitment of cardiac progenitor cells. Recent studies also suggest that treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs may cause cardiac dysfunction after injury. Indeed, clinical studies have shown that traditional ant-inflammatory strategies are ineffective to improve cardiac function after infarction. Thus, the focus should be on how to harness these inflammatory events to either improve the efficacy of the delivered drugs or to favor the recruitment of cardiac progenitor cells.

We here report an unusual case of Hb Bart's (γ4) disease. Thalassemia screening of a couple showed that the wife was an α(0)-thalassemia (α(0)-thal) carrier and her husband's mean corpuscular volume (MCV) was normal. Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) was performed at 13 weeks' gestation for positive Down syndrome screening and chromosomal study of the cultured CVS showed a normal karyotype. Ultrasound examination at 22 weeks' gestation showed fetal cardiomegaly and raised middle cerebral artery peak systolic velocity. Cordocentesis confirmed fetal anemia and showed Hb Bart's disease. Multiplex gap-polymerase chain reaction (gap-PCR) for α-thal deletions on DNA extracted from the CVS showed the presence of a homozygous α(0)-thal - -(SEA) (Southeast Asian) deletion. The husband was found to be a carrier of the α(+)-thal -α(3.7) (rightward) deletion. Non paternity was excluded by fluorescent PCR using short tandem repeat (STR) markers on chromosomes 13, 18 and 21. A de novo terminal deletion of chromosome 16 was excluded by array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH). Detection of uniparental disomy (UPD), using STR markers on chromosome 16 showed maternal uniparental isodisomy from 16pter to 16p13.2, and uniparental heterodisomy from 16p13.13 to 16qter.

Although the relationships between procedural justice climate and organizational citizenship behaviors have been examined in recent years, little research has explored the mechanism by which procedural justice climate shapes individual employee prosocial behaviors in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of a group-level cooperative norm on the relationships between the group-level procedural justice climate and individual-level organizational citizenship behaviors. The survey involved 45 work groups in four different industry fields in Taiwan, including manufacturing, technology, banking, and insurance, and each of the groups was composed of one supervisor and three subordinates. Cross-level analyses using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) indicated that the cooperative norm fully mediated the relationship between procedural justice climate and individual helping behaviors. Procedural justice climate indirectly affects individual helping behaviors through their effects on the cooperative norm.

Non-rigid image registration is an ill-posed yet challenging problem due to its supernormal high degree of freedoms and inherent requirement of smoothness. Graph-cuts method is a powerful combinatorial optimization tool which has been successfully applied into image segmentation and stereo matching. Under some specific constraints, graph-cuts method yields either a global minimum or a local minimum in a strong sense. Thus, it is interesting to see the effects of using graph-cuts in non-rigid image registration. In this paper, we formulate non-rigid image registration as a discrete labeling problem. Each pixel in the source image is assigned a displacement label (which is a vector) indicating which position in the floating image it is spatially corresponding to. A smoothness constraint based on first derivative is used to penalize sharp changes in displacement labels across pixels. The whole system can be optimized by using the graph-cuts method via alpha-expansions. We compare 2D and 3D registration results of our method with two state-of-the-art approaches. It is found that our method is more robust to different challenging non-rigid registration cases with higher registration accuracy.

In late 2003 a severely hypotonic neonate, just 38 h old at onset of illness, was found to have infant botulism caused by neurotoxigenic Clostridium baratii type F. Environmental investigations failed to identify a source of this strain. This is the youngest patient reported to have infant botulism and the fifth instance of infant botulism caused by C. baratii type F.

Little is known of how the genetic background effects the phenomenon of genomic imprinting. The H19 gene belongs to a cluster of imprinted genes on human chromosome 11. Here we show that the alternative splicing of a human H19 transcript is genotype-specific. Moreover, this variant transcript, which lacks exon 4, is either not found at all, is widely expressed or is confined to extra-villous cytotrophoblasts in first trimester placenta, depending on a combination of the genotype and the sex of the transmitting parent.

Combined paresis of all three ocular motor nerves is a rare ocular manifestation in diabetic patients. We present a case of a 73-year-old female with complete ophthalmoplegia. There was no evidence of peripheral neuropathy. Diagnostic angiography showed atherosclerotic stenosis in the cavernous segment of left internal carotid artery. The ophthalmoplegia had a self-limited course despite the severe vascular lesions.