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Pathological angiogenesis (PA) contributes to various ocular diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and retinopathy of prematurity, which are major causes of blindness over the world. Current treatments focus on anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy, but persistent avascular retina, recurrent intravitreal neovascularization, and general adverse effects are reported. We have previously found that recombinant thrombomodulin domain 1 (rTMD1) can suppress vascular inflammation. However, the function of rTMD1 in VEGF-induced PA remains unknown. In this study, we found that rTMD1 inhibited VEGF-induced angiogenesis in vitro. In an oxygen induced retinopathy (OIR) animal model, rTMD1 treatment significantly decreased retinal neovascularization but spared normal physiological vessel growth. Furthermore, loss of TMD1 significantly promoted PA in OIR. Meanwhile, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, the transcription factor that upregulates VEGF, was suppressed after rTMD1 treatment. The levels of interleukin-6, and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 were also significantly suppressed. In conclusion, our results indicate that rTMD1 not only has dual effects to suppress PA and inflammation in OIR, but also can be a potential HIF-1α inhibitor for clinical use. These data bring forth the possibility of rTMD1 as a novel therapeutic agent for PA.

In collaboration with the American College of Veterinary Pathologists

Periodic circuit analog absorbers (PCAAs) are widely used to reduce electromagnetic (EM) scattering fields in various applications. Their performances are sensitive to various geometric parameters. Thus, the stability and sensitivity of the EM absorbing characteristics of PCAAs during a fabrication discrepancy due to the manufacturing uncertainty were investigated. These discrepancies are large in terms of the wavelengths at high frequencies. This article considered randomly produced nonuniform thicknesses of a conductive ink to fabricate the array structure of a PCAA and its two sandwiching dielectric substrate layers on both sides. To examine the discrepancies in fabrication, the thicknesses of the conductive ink were generated from random numbers with a desired mean value and a reasonable standard deviation of the normal distribution. To indicate the EM-field absorbing capability, we studied characteristics, such as S -parameters (reflection and transmission coefficients) and the resulting power efficiency, using numerical high frequency structure simulator (HFSS) full-wave simulations at a frequency band of 10 GHz. They were further validated by conducting experiments on prototype samples. We observed that the resonant frequencies were considerably affected by the thickness of the conductive ink in the PCAA structures. A fabrication accuracy of less than ${10^{ - 4}}\lambda $ was required to attain a stable performance.

We utilized the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database which was stemmed from the Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database to conduct a retrospective cohort study investigating the risk of becoming dialysis dependent after receiving intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) agents for retinal diseases. Patients newly receiving intravitreal ranibizumab or aflibercept from 2000 to 2017 for age-related macular degeneration, polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy, diabetic macular edema, retinal vein occlusions, or myopic choroid neovascularization were included as the study group, and patients with same retinal diseases but did not receive intravitreal anti-VEGFs served as controls extracted by age- and sex-matched (1:4) and further propensity score matching (PSM). Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the risk of dialysis. A cohort of 2447 anti-VEGF users and 2447 controls by PSM were evaluated. Higher dialysis risks were observed among patients newly receiving anti-VEGF agents compared to controls (adjusted HR: 1.849; 95% CI: 1.378-2.482) in the PSM cohort. For subgroup analysis, patients newly receiving anti-VEGF treatment for diabetic macular edema had significant risk (adjusted HR: 1.834; 95% CI: 1.448-2.324) of becoming dialysis-dependent, while patients in other subgroups demonstrated similar risks as the controls. In conclusion, intravitreal anti-VEGF agents might increase the risk of becoming dialysis-dependent, especially in patients who are treated for diabetic macular edema.

In this letter, a three-dimensionally printed one-sixteenth fractional spherical homogeneous dielectric lens antenna on a metallic corner reflector is designed. This lens antenna is fed by an open-ended rectangular waveguide for high-gain radiation. The main design concept is to produce an equivalent spherical dielectric lens that is excited by multiple virtual sources arising from the multiple images of the original feed by the corner reflector's walls. Thus, the antenna can retain a compact size with a sufficiently effective aperture to produce a higher radiation gain. In particular, a ray-tracing method of geometrical optics is introduced for easily determining the proper sizes of the corner reflector's walls, which leads the proposed work to be more efficient than using a full-wave simulation. The superiority of the antenna is validated by examining a practical design for a radar system at 9 GHz band. It is found that the optimum dielectric constant (ϵ r ), ground plane size, and effective aperture area, relatively speaking, depend on the radius of the lens's sphere. This proposed antenna well suits multifeed satellite communication antennas, radar, and other high-gain antennas applications.

A two-dimensional (2-D) discrete dielectric lens antenna is designed to radiate fan-shaped multi-beam patterns for gain stability in beam switching. The target is to minimize adjacent-beam overlapping transition regions and provide sufficient and similar gains for all field angles when the antenna is employed in a mobile device. This design starts with a conventional 2-D Luneburg lens antenna, and distorts its dielectric permittivity and the sizes of discrete dielectric rings to defocus the pencil beam patterns into shaped ones with a relatively flat pattern for uniform field distribution. The design is realistically implemented at 38 GHz with both simulation and measurement results shown to validate the concept. Successful validation of feasibility in beam synthesis is achieved. Fabrication discrepancy to result in slight radiation degradation is also discussed.

This paper presents a design of periodic circuit analog absorbers (PCAAs) for electromagnetic (EM) scattering fields reduction. The performance sensitivities to the geometric parameters in fabrications are examined to estimate the manufacturing uncertainty. We consider randomly nonuniform thicknesses of a conductive ink and the two sandwiching dielectric substrate layers on both sides to fabricate PCAAs. The EM absorbing capability is studied on the S-parameters (the reflection and transmission coefficients) and the resulting power efficiency, using numerical HFSS full-wave simulations at a frequency band of 10 GHz. Experiments on prototype samples are also conducted. They showed that a fabrication accuracy of better than $10^{-4}\lambda$ is required to assure a stable performance.

AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) combined with a dual anode metal (ohmic and Schottky contacts) and a p-GaN layer were studied for improving the reverse breakdown voltage (VBR) and reducing the turn-on voltage (VON). Structures with various distances of p-GaN layer (LG) were investigated using the current-voltage (I–V), reverse recovery time, and voltage stress characteristics. The SBDs fabricated with LG = 3 µm realized a lower RON of 4.26 mΩ-cm2 and lower VON of 0.10 V compared with the SBDs fabricated with LG = 5 and 8 µm as well as the standard device. Moreover, the VBR of the SBDs with LG = 3, 5, and 8 µm was − 606, − 679, and − 713 V, respectively. The results indicated that the SBDs combined with a dual anode metal and a p-GaN layer have significantly improved VBR than does of standard device. The reverse recovery time and reverse recovery charge of the SBD combined with a dual anode metal and a p-GaN layer design decreased due to the low noise and traps from the p-n junction.

In this paper, a multi-shell spherical dielectric lens antenna is synthesized to radiate multi-beams with optimum shaped patterns for radio coverage at millimeter wave (mmW) frequencies. In particular, the design considers the composing characteristics of discrete multi-shell Luneburg lens antenna as an initial structure, and synthesizes its permittivity and sizes of dielectric shells to produce relatively shaped main beam patterns rather than conventional pencil-shapes. It targets to minimize inter-beam overlapping transition regions with slowly varying power density in the coverage boundary, and therefore reduce the ping-pong effect of inter-sector handovers to potentially minimize the inter-cell interferences arising from the over-large gain of pencil beam when the user equipment (UE) is at near the sector boundary far-off the beam peak. After the synthesis, the antenna is implemented at 38 GHz with both numerical simulation and measurement results shown to validate the concept. Successfully validation on the feasibility of beam synthesis in comparison to that of Luneburg lens antennas has been achieved. Discrepancy in fabrication to potentially result in slight radiation degradation is also discussed.

A normally-OFF p-GaN gate AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor with high ON-state resistance ( ${R}_{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}$ ) uniformity was realized using a self-terminated digital etching technique. ${R}_{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}$ uniformity control was improved by simultaneously using an AlN etching stop layer in an epitaxial design and a novel digital etching procedure. Digital etching includes the multiple-cycle oxidation and the wet etching of p-GaN layers and provides easy control of p-GaN removal depth and surface damage reduction at the gate-to-drain and gate-to-source spacing areas. Low-frequency noise and pulse measurements indicated that device surface traps and current collapse phenomena were suppressed.

We investigated the temporal changes in major eye injuries in Taiwan by reviewing the medical records of all patients with ocular trauma hospitalized at the National Cheng Kung University Hospital during 2002–2004 and 2012–2014. A total of 169 eyes (161 patients) during 2002–2004 and 121 eyes (120 patients) during 2012–2014 were enrolled (mean ± SD age: 41.9 ± 20.8 years in 2002–2004, and 51.8 ± 19.3 years in 2012–2014). Males accounted for ~75% of patients. The most frequent injury-causing object was metallic material (~24%), and blunt traumas were most frequently attributable to traffic accidents and falls. The most common locations of injuries for males and females were the workplace and home, respectively. Open-globe injuries occurred in ~70% of eyes, requiring primary repair, cataract extraction, and/or intraocular lens implantation. The frequencies of fall injury, lacrimal system laceration, lens injury, corneal/scleral foreign bodies, and use of intracameral antibiotics increased from 2002–2004 to 2012–2014, while those of closed-globe injury, vitreous haemorrhage, optic nerve injury, and medical treatment decreased. The final visual acuity remained poor (≤20/200) in >1/3 of injured eyes. Despite therapeutic advancements, major eye injuries still pose a high risk for poor visual outcome.

This study investigated the “real-world” use of ranibizumab for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) in Taiwan and assessed the visual outcome. We reviewed the medical records at National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Taiwan, during 2012–2014 for 264 consecutive eyes of 229 patients with nAMD, who applied for ranibizumab covered by national health insurance. A total of 194 eyes (73.5%) in 179 patients (65.5% men; mean ± standard deviation age 69.4 ± 10.7 years) were pre-approved for treatment. Applications for treatment increased year by year, but approval rates decreased during this time. The major causes of rejection for funding were diseases mimicking nAMD, including macular pucker/epiretinal membrane, macular scarring, dry-type AMD, and possible polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy. After completion of three injections in 147 eyes, visual acuity significantly improved, gaining ≥1 line in 51.8% of eyes and stabilising in 38.3% of 141 eyes in which visual acuity was measured. The 114 eyes approved with only one application had a better visual outcome than the 27 eyes approved after the second or third applications. In conclusion, ranibizumab is effective for nAMD; however, approval after the second or third application for national health insurance cover is a less favourable predictor of visual outcome.

Upon invasion by foreign pathogens, specific antibodies can identify specific foreign antigens and disable them. As a result of this ability, antibodies can help with vaccine production and food allergen detection in patients. Many studies have focused on predicting linear B-cell epitopes, but only two prediction tools are currently available to predict the sub-type of an epitope. NIgPred was developed as a prediction tool for IgA, IgE, and IgG. NIgPred integrates various heterologous features with machine-learning approaches. Differently from previous studies, our study considered peptide-characteristic correlation and autocorrelation features. Sixty kinds of classifier were applied to construct the best prediction model. Furthermore, the genetic algorithm and hill-climbing algorithm were used to select the most suitable features for improving the accuracy and reducing the time complexity of the training model. NIgPred was found to be superior to the currently available tools for predicting IgE epitopes and IgG epitopes on independent test sets. Moreover, NIgPred achieved a prediction accuracy of 100% for the IgG epitopes of a coronavirus data set. NIgPred is publicly available at our website.

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To protect privacy of individuals or companies that may be leaked in street view images, we present a system to automatically detect and remove cars as if they had never been there. Although street view service providers have made efforts on blurring human faces and license plates, we argue that remaining features, such as license numbers and phone numbers printed on car bodies, could cause privacy leak. Given a sequence of street view images, this system first detects cars by the deformable part model, and then determines foreground/background seeds for the GrabCut image segmentation module in order to facilitate automatic car segmentation. After removing cars, an exemplar-based inpainting method is developed with special designs on filling priority determination and road structure propagation. Hierarchical texture propagation and randomized texture propagation are integrated to implement the inpainting process, so that aesthetically pleasing inpainting results as well as privacy protection can be accomplished.

Background/PurposeRetinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of childhood blindness. This retrospective study investigated ROP, including incidence, demographic information,risk factors, treatments, and refractive outcomes, in southern Taiwan over a 10-year period.MethodsThe authors retrieved the National Cheng Kung University Hospital database between the years 2000 and 2009 for newborns with a gestational age less than 32 weeks and/or with a birth weight less than 1500 g who had been screened for ROP. We recorded sex, birth weight, gestational age, in-hospital versus out-of-hospital birth, paternal and maternal ages, whether there were multiple gestations, parity, Apgar scores, length of hospital stay, risk factors, presence and severity of ROP and whether it was treated, and refraction at the last visit. Regression analyses were performed to identify risk factors for ROP.ResultsA total of 503 live births were included. ROP was identified in 190 (37.8%) and met criteria for treatment in 59 (11.7%).ROP was diagnosed as stage 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in 61 (12.1%), 36 (7.2%), 81 (16.1%), 11 (2.2%), and 1 (0.2%) infant, respectively. Lower birth weight and younger gestational age were risk factors for greater severity of ROP (p

Replacement of dysfunctional or dying photoreceptors offers a promising approach for retinal neurodegenerative diseases, including age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Several studies have demonstrated the integration and differentiation of developing rod photoreceptors when transplanted in wild-type or degenerating retina; however, the physiology and function of the donor cells are not adequately defined. Here, we describe the physiological properties of developing rod photoreceptors that are tagged with green fluorescent protein (GFP) driven by the promoter of rod differentiation factor, Nrl. GFP-tagged developing rods show Ca2 + responses and rectifier outward currents that are smaller than those observed in fully developed photoreceptors, suggesting their immature developmental state. These immature rods also exhibit hyperpolarization-activated current (Ih) induced by the activation of hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels. When transplanted into the subretinal space of wild-type or retinal degeneration mice, GFP-tagged developing rods can integrate into the photoreceptor outer nuclear layer in wild-type mouse retina and exhibit Ca2 + responses and membrane current comparable to native rod photoreceptors. A proportion of grafted rods develop rhodopsin-positive outer segment-like structures within 2 weeks after transplantation into the retina of Crx-knockout mice and produce rectifier outward current and Ih upon membrane depolarization and hyperpolarization. GFP-positive rods derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells also display similar membrane current Ih as native developing rod photoreceptors, express rod-specific phototransduction genes, and HCN-1 channels. We conclude that Nrl-promoter-driven GFP-tagged donor photoreceptors exhibit physiological characteristics of rods and that iPS cell-derived rods in vitro may provide a renewable source for cell-replacement therapy.

The integration of Hive, Impala and Spark SQL platforms has achieved to perform rapid data retrieval using SQL query in big data environment. This paper is to design the optimized platform selection for highly improving the response of data retrieval. It can automatically choose the best-perform platform to best perform SQL commands. In addition, the distributed memory storage systems using Memcached and the distributed file system Hadoop HDFS have implemented the caching so that the fastest data retrieval has done once the repeated SQL command has applied.

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, the global incidence rate of which is rapidly rising. Surgery and radioiodine therapies are common and effective treatments only for nonmetastasized primary tumors. Therefore, effective treatment modalities are imperative for patients with radioiodine-resistant thyroid cancer. Honokiol, a biophenolic compound derived from Magnolia spp., has been shown have diverse biological and pharmacological activities, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antiangiogenic, and anticancer properties. In the present study, three human thyroid cancer cell lines, namely anaplastic, follicular, and poorly differentiated thyroid cancer cells, were used to evaluate the chemotherapeutic activity of honokiol. Cell viability, cell cycle, apoptosis, and autophagy induction were determined through flow cytometry and western blot analysis. We found that honokiol treatment can suppress cell growth, induce cell cycle arrest, and enhance the induction of caspase-dependent apoptosis and autophagy in cancer cells. Moreover, honokiol treatment modulated signaling pathways including Akt/mTOR, ERK, JNK, and p38 in the studied cells. In addition, the antitumorigenic activity of honokiol was also confirmed in vitro and in vivo. Our data provide evidence that honokiol has a unique application in chemotherapy for human thyroid cancers.

Infectious keratitis after penetrating keratoplasty (PK) is a devastating condition that may result in graft failure and poor visual outcome. In this study, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients who underwent PK between 2009 and 2014, and recorded those who developed infectious keratitis. We compared the predisposing factors and organisms isolated to those identified in our previous study, conducted between 1989 and 1994. The incidence of post-PK infectious keratitis decreased from 11.6% (41 out of 354 cases, 1989–1994) to 6.5% (9 out of 138 cases, 2009–2014). Graft epithelial defect and suture-related problems remained the leading two risk factors of infectious keratitis after PK. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial infection decreased from 58.5% and 46.3% to 11.1% and 22.2%, respectively (P = 0.023 and P = 0.271). In contrast, fungus infection increased from 9.8% to 66.7% (P = 0.001); fungi have become the major pathogen for post-PK infectious keratitis. In conclusion, while the incidence of post-PK infectious keratitis has decreased over time, the number and frequency of fungal infections have significantly increased in the recent study period. Clinicians should be aware of the shifting trend in pathogens involved in post-PK infectious keratitis.

Most solar cells are installed outdoors in order to receive as much sunlight as possible. Outdoor environment, however, is harmful to solar cells. Therefore, solar cells nowadays are well designed and able to work longer than 20 years. Besides improvements in sturdiness of solar cells, changes in structure of solar collector are also an effective way to prolong the lifespan of a solar cell. Thus, the research was aimed at the design of a solar collector that was able to transfer intensified sunlight to an indoor solar cell via a fiber bundle, so as to avoid dreadful environment. After being optimized by commercial optical software LightTools, the solar collector achieved a good efficiency, more than 20%, and had high tolerance to optical errors.

The aim of the study was to investigate the toxicity of benzyl alcohol (BA), the preservative in commercial triamcinolone acetonide (TA) suspensions, on retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Cultured RPE cells from a human cell line (ARPE-19) and from rabbits were exposed to the balanced salt solution (control) or BA (0.0225, 0.225, 0.9, 3 or 9 mg/mL) for 5, 30, 60, or 120 min. Morphological changes of RPE cells were evaluated by the trypan blue in situ staining. The proportions of dead cells were quantitatively measured by the trypan blue exclusion assay, and those of functional cells were assessed by a mitochondrial dehydrogenase assay. The mechanism of cytotoxicity was determined by the acridine orange/ethidium bromide staining and DNA laddering technique. Furthermore, ultrastructural changes were observed by transmission electron microscopy. The results showed that RPE cell damage was dose- and time-dependent. BA 0.225 mg/mL, the clinically relevant concentration in TA following intravitreal injection, caused ultrastructural damage and impaired human RPE cell function at 2 h; but BA 0.0225 mg/mL did not. BA 9.0 mg/mL, the concentration in commercial TA suspensions, was toxic within 5 min on each assay for both human and rabbit RPE cells. The major mechanism of cell death was necrosis. In conclusion, BA in commercial TA suspensions injected intravitreally (0.225–9 mg/mL) can damage RPE cells. Our in vitro study on benzyl alcohol cytotoxicity has significant clinical implications for intravitreal use of TA. We suggest that, before a commercial TA solution is used intravitreally, the vehicle should be removed to prevent damaging the RPE layer, particularly during macular hole surgery. Commercial development of a preservative-free TA suspension for intraocular use is urged.

Introduction: Thyroid cancer is the most prevalent cancer among endocrine malignancies. In clinically, surgical resection combined with radioactive iodine therapy has been proved effective in treating differentiated thyroid cancer, including papillary and follicular thyroid cancers (FTC). However, patients with incurable differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), poorly differentiated thyroid cancer (PDTC) and anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) exhibit worse prognosis. Therefore, a novel and effective treatment is urgently needed to deal with the current treatment. Evodiamine is one of the important components isolated from Chinese herb Wu-Chu-Yu, and has been demonstrated to contribute on anti-inflammatory effects, anti-angiogenesis, anti-tumor growth, anti-invasive and metastatic activities, and up-regulating apoptosis. In the present study, we examined the effects of evodiamine in FTC, PDTC and ATC cells, respectively. Evodiamine inhibited cellular proliferation and the colonies formation of FTC, PDTC and ATC cells. Cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase was found in all of the cells during evodiamine treatment. Moreover, caspase-dependent apoptosis in these cells was also revealed under evodiamine treatment. In addition, autophagy induction was also found in evodiamine treated human thyroid cancer cells. Finally, we verified the effects of evodiamine on anti-human thyroid cancers in a xenograft nude mice model. Our results demonstrate that evodiamine induces cell cycle arrest, caspase-dependent apoptosis and autophagy leading to inhibit proliferation of multiple types of human thyroid cancer cells. We suggest that evodiamine could be a chemo-therapeutic candidate for human thyroid cancers.

This paper presents the actual production procedure of an electromagnetic absorber by using the well-known Salisbury screens, which are distributed periodically to overcome the bonding difficulty between the upper and lower layers of the absorbing materials. In particular, the unit cell of the Salisbury screen is square with a 15 cm in side-length (5λ at the resonance frequency, 10 GHz) and 30 µm in thickness. The return loss at the resonance frequency can reach 34 dB (equivalent to more than 99.9% of EM wave absorption) with a bandwidth of 10 dB by 6 GHz. The absorber is consisted of 4 × 4 unit cells with a gap of 5mm (0.2λ) between them. The central frequency is 12 GHz, with a return loss by 27 dB (i.e., more than 99% of EM wave absorption) and a bandwidth of 10dB by 6.6 GHz.

This work proposed the normally-off gate-recessed AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with more suitable threshold voltages by adjusting the Al mole fraction in the various AlGaN layer thickness under the gate region. It is found that the slope of threshold voltage versus Al mole fraction curves is decreased with decreasing the thickness of AlGaN layer due to the decrease of piezoelectric effect on 2DEG concentration.

Purpose To investigate the cytotoxicity of triamcinolone acetonide (TA) suspensions to corneal endothelial cells (CECs). Setting Department of Ophthalmology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Methods New Zealand white rabbit CECs were exposed for 1 minute to balanced salt solution (BSS); commercial TA suspension (cTA); vehicle-removed TA (–vTA); pure vehicle (V); 1/10 dilutions of cTA, –vTA, or V in BSS; or benzyl alcohol (BA) (cTA preservative) 9 mg/mL. Corneal endothelial cell toxicity was assessed by light microscopy (trypan blue staining) and transmission electron microscopy. The effects of 3-, 10-, or 30-minute exposures to 1/10 cTA, 1/10 –vTA, or V were also investigated. Results One-minute exposures to –vTA or 1/10 –vTA did not damage CECs; however, cTA, V, or 1/10 dilutions of cTA or V caused damage and cells exposed to BA showed severe ultrastructural damage/lysis. A 30-minute exposure to 1/10 –vTA did not cause significant cell damage, whereas 3- to 30-minute exposures to 1/10 cTA or V showed significant time-dependent cytotoxicity. Conclusions Commercial TA suspension was cytotoxic to cultured rabbit CECs because of the preservative, BA, in the vehicle. Because 1/10 –vTA appeared to be safe for up to 30 minutes of exposure, use of 1/10 dilutions of vehicle-removed TA is suggested to help surgeons visualize prolapsed vitreous during anterior vitrectomy in complicated cataract surgeries.

Purpose: To investigate the corneal endothelial cytotoxicity of commercial formulations of agents used for intracameral anesthesia in cataract and other ocular surgery. Methods: Cultured corneal endothelial cells (CECs) of New Zealand White rabbits were exposed for 1 minute to balanced salt solution (control); Xylocaine (lidocaine) 1% E (with epinephrine), 2% E, 2%, or 4%; or Marcaine (bupivacaine) 0.5% or 0.5% spinal heavy. The degree of cytotoxicity was determined by in vitro staining with trypan blue and light microscopic evaluation of cell morphology. The effect of longer exposure (up to 16 minutes) to lidocaine 1% E was also investigated. Results: CECs were not significantly damaged by 1-minute exposure to lidocaine 1% E or 2% E; however, significant cytotoxicity was seen after 1-minute exposure to lidocaine 2% or 4% or bupivacaine 0.5% or 0.5% spinal heavy. Exposure to lidocaine 1% E showed a trend toward time-dependent cytotoxicity that reached significance at 16 minutes. Conclusions: One-minute exposure to lidocaine 1% E or 2% E appears to be safe for cultured rabbit CECs, although longer exposures could cause time-dependent cytotoxicity, which should be considered in planning cataract or other ocular surgery. Because bupivacaine 0.5% and 0.5% spinal heavy cause cytotoxic effects within the first minute of contact with CECs, they should be used with great caution, if at all, in the anterior chamber of human eyes.

Background— Thrombomodulin is an anticoagulant, endothelial-cell-membrane glycoprotein. A recombinant thrombomodulin domain containing 6 epidermal growth factor–like structures exhibits mitogenic activity. This study explored the novel angiogenic effects of the recombinant domain using in vitro and in vivo models. Methods and Results— Human recombinant thrombomodulin containing 6 epidermal growth factor–like structures (TMD2) and TMD2 plus a serine and threonine-rich domain (TMD23) were prepared using the Pichia pastoris expression system. Combined with purified TMD2 or TMD23, thrombin effectively activated protein C. TMD23 had higher activity than TMD2 in stimulating DNA synthesis in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Additionally, TMD23 stimulated chemotactic motility and capillarylike tube formation in human umbilical vein endothelial cells, an effect mediated through phosphorylation of extracellular signal–regulated kinase 1/2 and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase/Akt/endothelial nitric oxide synthase pathway. TMD23 also stimulated endothelial cell expression of matrix metalloproteinases and plasminogen activators, which mediated extracellular proteolysis, leading to endothelial cell invasion and migration during angiogenesis. Furthermore, TMD23-containing implants in rat cornea induced ingrowth of new blood vessels from the limbus. With the murine angiogenesis assay, TMD23 not only induced neovascularization coinjected with Matrigel and heparin but also enhanced angiogenesis in Matrigel containing melanoma A2058 cells in nude mice. Conclusions— The recombinant thrombomodulin domain TMD23 enhanced the angiogenic response in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that thrombomodulin fragments may play a role in the formation of new vessels. These findings may provide a new therapeutic option for treating ischemic diseases.

A 74-year-old man with hypertension and diabetes mellitus presented with a three-month history of intermittent orbital pain and progressive vision loss in his left eye, deteriorating to hand motions. The intraocular pressure was in the normal range at 13 mm Hg. Biomicroscopy showed prominent iris

This work presents a design guideline for free latch-up in the CMOS inverter caused by shifting time waveform for various device sizes which is demonstrated by 2D TCAD simulations. The design window for improving the CMOS latch-up is investigated by increasing distance anode to cathode of parasitic silicon-controlled-rectifier (SCR) or source to bulk of NMOS.

The service-oriented hosts in enterprises like ERP system have always encountered the crucial problem of unexpected down-time or system failure that will cause data loss and system termination. Failover is a challenge issue that it cannot be done successfully between physical hosts. Therefore this paper introduces high availability architecture to build an in-cloud Enterprise Resources Planning together with access control authentication deployed in the virtual machine cluster, which can resolve the problems mentioned above. Access control authentication has been designed in the cloud computing system to prevent the service-oriented hosts form external fraud or intrusion. As a result, the approach proposed in this paper outperforms two well-known benchmark ERP systems, in-house ECC 6.0 and in-cloud ByDesign.

This paper introduces Cloud-Mobile Computing system to realize a real-time video/voice over IP (VVoIP) applications, called Cloud-VVoIP. In addition, access control designs authentication authorization, and accounting mechanism using biometrics technology (including face recognition and fingerprint identification) that is applied to secure legal access from the outsider, giving a safer way to login into Cloud-VVoIP. After that adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) together with particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been employed to tune seamless handoff properly and analyze network traffic flow over time. Finally the performance of Cloud-VVoIP is measured and discussed. Cloud-based VVoIP outperforms the traditional peer-to-peer type of VVoIP due to three benefits. According to the analysis of Cloud-VVoIP, power consumption will be estimated in web-based browsing and Android APP. In addition, through stress test to analyze the performance of Cloud-VVoIP, we found the resources allocation about CPU, memory, bandwidth and disk.

This paper introduces a private cloud with SaaS service to realize a real-time video/voice over IP (VVoIP) in cloud-mobile computing system, called Cloud-VVoIP. In order to optimize traffic flow of video/voice streaming, adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) together with particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been employed to off-line tune seamless handoff and network traffic flow. Besides the performance of Cloud-VVoIP is evaluated and a comparison of this approach and the traditional peer-to-peer VVoIP. A flexible usage for users is that they do not need to know what real IP assigned for both sides to dial a phone call and web-based browsing is available. Next, smart phone with Android APP is applicable to attach Cloud-VVoIP to yield the cost-effective for users. Third, VVoIP program is mainly installed in the private cloud, rather than user devices, so that the power consuming in battery is reduced dramatically at user devices. Finally, the stress test has been performed successfully to analyze the system efficiency of Cloud-VVoIP on the resources allocation of CPU, memory, bandwidth and disk.