Gate-Programmable Ozone Adsorption Gradients for Reconfigurable and Low-Power Palladium Diselenide Electronics.

Survivors of advanced Hodgkin disease, who were assigned randomly to treatment by mechlorethamine, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone (MOPP); doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD); or MOPP alternating with ABVD in a clinical trial of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (protocol 8251), were compared in terms of their psychosocial adaptation and psychosexual function an average of 2.2 years after completion of treatment (range, 1-5 years). The study was undertaken to determine if there were differences among treatments in these functional areas as a consequence of differential long-term gonadal damage in the three regimens. Ninety-three disease-free survivors of advanced Hodgkin disease (56 men and 37 women) were studied (a minimum of 1 year after completion of treatment) by an interview conducted over the telephone. Standardized measures were used to assess their psychologic, sexual, family, and vocational functioning, including the following tests: the Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale--Self Report, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Profile of Mood States, and the Impact of Event Scale. Contrary to expectation, no statistically significant differences in survivors' psychosocial adaptation or psychosexual function were found by treatment arm. Infertility (based on survivors' reports of medical test results and perceptions) and lower income 1 year before the diagnosis of cancer were significant predictors of poorer adjustment. Most survivors reported a range of problems that they attributed to having had cancer: 35%, proven or perceived infertility; 24%, sexual problems; 31%, health and life insurance problems; 26%, a negative socioeconomic effect; and 51%, conditioned nausea, associated with visual or olfactory reminders of chemotherapy. No significant long-term advantage in psychosocial adaptation or psychosexual function was found for survivors of Hodgkin disease treated by the less gonadally toxic ABVD regimen 1 to 5 years after completion of treatment.

Two-dimensional heterostructures for photocatalytic CO2 reduction

Two-dimensional (2D) devices and their van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures attract considerable attention owing to their potential for next-generation logic and memory applications. In addition, 2D devices are projected to have high integration capabilities, while maintaining nanoscale thickness. However, the fabrication of 2D devices and their circuits is challenging because of the high precision required to etch and pattern ultrathin 2D materials for integration. Here, the fabrication of a graphene via contact architecture to electrically connect graphene electrodes (or leads) embedded in vdW heterostructures is demonstrated. Graphene via contacts comprising of edge and fluorinated graphene (FG) electrodes are fabricated by successive fluorination and plasma etching processes. A one-step fabrication process that utilizes the graphene contacts is developed for a vertically integrated complementary inverter based on n- and p-type 2D field-effect transistors (FETs). This study provides a promising method to fabricate vertically integrated 2D devices, which are essential in 2D material-based devices and circuits.

Native fish are threatened globally by invasive species, and management actions largely focus on detecting and eradicating invaders before they become established. However, once established, invaders might also be controlled by taking advantage of adaptations of threatened species to local conditions. This strategy was explored in dwarf galaxias (Galaxiella pusilla) a freshwater-dependent species of national conservation significance in Australia, threatened by invasive eastern gambusia (Gambusia holbrooki). Most habitats occupied by G. pusilla experience a seasonally variable and unpredictable hydrologic regime, where water levels substantially contract during dry periods and expand during wet periods. It was hypothesised that they are likely to have developed adaptations to surviving in these habitats by persisting without surface water. In contrast to G. holbrooki, we found that G. pusilla could withstand longer periods without surface water, including air breathing and higher respiration rates in air, than could G. holbrooki. We showed, within a single G. pusilla population, large inter-annual variability in fish densities linked to natural wetting and drying regimes. These findings indicate that periodic drying provides a way of protecting G. pusilla in water bodies where G. holbrooki has invaded, representing a strategy that takes advantage of local adaptation and metapopulation structure of G. pusilla.

The advent of exascale computing, with the unpar¬alleled rise in the scale of data in Internet of Things (IoT), high performance computing (HPC), and big data domains, both at the center and the edge of the system, requires optimal exploitation of energy-efficient computing hardware dedicated for edge processing. Emerging hardware for data processing at the edge must take advantage of advanced concurrent data locality-aware algorithms and data structures in order to provide better throughput and energy efficiency. Their design must be performance portable for their implementation to perform equally well on the edge hardware as well as other high performance computing, embedded and accelerator platforms. Concurrent search trees are one such widely used back-end for many important big data systems, databases, and file systems. We analyze DeltaTree, a concurrent energy-efficient and locality-aware data structure based on relaxed cache-oblivious model and van Emde Boas trees, on Intel's specialized computing platform Movidius Myriad 2, designed for machine vision and computing capabilities at the edge. We compare the throughput and energy efficiency of DeltaTree with B-link tree, a highly concurrent B+tree, on Movidius Myriad 2, along with a high performance computing platform (Intel Xeon), an ARM embedded platform, and an accelerator platform (Intel Xeon Phi). The results show that DeltaTree is performance portable, providing better energy-efficiency and throughput than B-link tree on these platforms for most workloads. For Movidius Myriad 2 in particular, DeltaTree performs really well with its throughput and efficiency up to 4× better than B-link tree.

Accurate wound assessment is crucial for determining the progression of healing and guides treatment strategies. Portable wound assessment devices can be useful in providing an accurate evaluation in the community where most cases are treated. The objective of this review was to compare the performance of various portable wound assessment techniques used for wound healing assessment described in the literature. In April 2020, electronic databases were searched, using appropriate search terms, for all available publications on the use of portable wound assessment devices on human and artificial wounds. The primary outcome was the reliability and reproducibility of measurement while the secondary outcome was the feasibility of the instrument. All studies underwent quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS) to examine the quality of data. A total of 129 articles were identified and 24 were included in the final review; 17 articles discussed two-dimensional (2D) devices; three articles discussed three-dimensional (3D) devices; and four articles discussed application-based devices. Most studies (n=8) reported on a 2D device that had an ICC of 0.92-0.99 for area measurement and a coefficient of variance of 3.1% with an error of 2.3% in human wounds and 1.55-3.7% in artificial wounds. The inter/intra observer reliability was 0.998 and 0.985, respectively with a scan time of two minutes per wound. The median QUADAS score was 12. Based on the presented evidence, 2D-based portable wound assessment devices were the most studied and demonstrated good performance. Further studies are required for 3D and application-based measurement instruments.

In order to solve the problem of low success rate and high damage of spinach in mechanized harvesting process, a spinach continuous harvester was designed. The harvester mainly consists of holding mechanism, clamping mechanism, cutting mechanism and walking mechanism. It can realize the joint operation of collecting and supporting the spinach, cutting the roots under the ground, transporting the spinach and collecting the spinach. The harvester has the advantages of compact structure, complete function and strong adaptability. Experimental results showed that the success rate of this machine is 95%, and the damage rate is less than 5%, which can meet the requirement of harvest.

Increase of critical current density and voltage for triggering avalanche injection through use of graded collector doping

Chapter 25 - Fiber-Like Supercapacitor Devices Based on CNT and Graphene

In this letter, we propose a 3D spintronic device stacked by ferrimagnetic (FIM) alloy CoTb layers with a thickness gradient for realizing multi-bit storage and efficient in-memory computing (IMC). Firstly, spin-orbit torque (SOT) induced multi-level magnetization switching of a Pt/CoTb/W/CoTb/Pt stack is experimentally achieved and micromagnetically modeled. Furthermore, a 3D-FIM IMC device with multiple ferrimagnetic layers is constructed and analyzed. Its functionalities of ultra-dense storage and reconfigurable logic are both validated through micromagnetic studies. Due to the ultra-fast dynamics near the compensation point, this 3D-FIM IMC device can operate with ultra-low energy consumption (~18 aJ) and ultra-high speed (~25 ps).

Low energy consumption per synaptic event is important for artificial synapses in applications of highly integrated and large-scale neuromorphic computing systems. Reducing the channel length of a synaptic transistor is an effective method to achieve this goal because such devices can work under low operating voltage and current. In this Letter, we use femtosecond laser ablation to fabricate a microscale slit in an Ag film as the channel of an organic synaptic transistor to obtain low energy consumption. The length of the shortest channel is only 1.6 μm. As a result, the device could be driven by a 50 μV drain bias voltage while output 855 pA excitatory postsynaptic current under a gate spike of 50 mV and 30 ms. The calculated energy consumption per synaptic event is 1.28 fJ, which is comparable to that of a biological synapse (1–10 fJ per synaptic event). Femtosecond laser ablation has been demonstrated a rapid and effective process for the fabrication of microscale channel with high resolution for synaptic transistor, showing large potential for the development of neuromorphic electronics.

Brain-inspired electronics require artificial synapses that have ultra-low energy consumption, high operating speed, and stable flexibility. Here, we demonstrate a flexible artificial synapse that uses a rapidly crystallized perovskite layer at room temperature. The device achieves a series of synaptic functions, including logical operations, temporal and spatial rules, and associative learning. Passivation using phenethyl-ammonium iodide eliminated defects and charge traps to reduce the energy consumption to 13.5 aJ per synaptic event, which is the world record for two-terminal artificial synapses. At this ultralow energy consumption, the device achieves ultrafast response frequency of up to 4.17 MHz; which is orders of magnitude magnitudes higher than previous perovskite artificial synapses. A multi-stimulus accumulative artificial neuromuscular system was then fabricated using the perovskite synapse as a key processing unit to control electrochemical artificial muscles, and realized muscular-fatigue warning. This artificial synapse will have applications in future bio-inspired electronics and neurorobots.

Objectives Different types of X-ray equipment are used in dental radiology. Purpose of this study was to measure the absorbed doses of some critical organs and tissues in head and neck which were exposed by dental imaging devices that are used routinely in dental radiology. Materials and Methods Radiation exposures were performed by using a human equivalent head phantom and dose measurements were determined with thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD). After exposure of the phantom with dental imaging devices, absorbed and effective doses of critical organs were determined. Results Digital imaging systems produced lower effective doses. Effective doses of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) and multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) devices were close to each other. Conclusion Effective doses of digital imaging devices were measured lower than conventional imaging devices. Effective doses of 3D imaging devices were measured higher than all the other imaging devices. However, effective doses of 3D imaging devices were considered in acceptable levels. How to cite this article Eren H, Gorgun S. Evaluation of Effective Dose with Two-dimensional and Three-dimensional Dental Imaging Devices. J Contemp Dent 2015;5(2):80-85.

Many bacteria exist in a state of feast or famine where high nutrient availability leads to periods of growth followed by nutrient scarcity and growth stagnation. To adapt to the constantly changing nutrient flux, metabolite acquisition systems must be able to function over a broad range. This, however, creates difficulties as nutrient concentrations vary over many orders of magnitude, requiring metabolite acquisition systems to simultaneously balance ligand specificity and the dynamic range in which a response to a metabolite is elicited. Here we present how a gene duplication of a periplasmic binding protein in a mannose ATP-binding cassette transport system potentially resolves this dilemma through gene functionalization. Determination of ligand binding affinities and specificities of the gene duplicates with fluorescence and circular dichroism demonstrates that although the binding specificity is maintained the Kd values for the same ligand differ over three orders of magnitude. These results suggest that this metabolite acquisition system can transport ligand at both low and high environmental concentrations while preventing saturation with related and less preferentially metabolized compounds. The x-ray crystal structures of the β-mannose-bound proteins help clarify the structural basis of gene functionalization and reveal that affinity and specificity are potentially encoded in different regions of the binding site. These studies suggest a possible functional role and adaptive advantage for the presence of two periplasmic-binding proteins in ATP-binding cassette transport systems and a way bacteria can adapt to varying nutrient flux through functionalization of gene duplicates.

Nanostructure engineering has been proved to be an efficient approach for improving electrochemical properties for energy storage by accommodating volume changes, facilitating rapid mass transport paths, and enlarging ion storage sites and interfaces. The well‐designed fine nanostructures, unfortunately, are usually destroyed during long‐term cycles and ultimately lose their structural advantages. Herein, stimulated by the extraordinary structural stability, robust mechanical properties, and salient ventilation capacity of natural honeycomb species, bioinspired heterogeneous bimetallic Co–Mo oxide (CoMoOx) nanoarchitectures assembled from 2D nanounits are successfully fabricated via a molybdenum‐mediated self‐assembly strategy for improving the rate capability of electrochemical lithium storage devices. Owing to the robust structural stability and the ultrathin 2D wall structure, CoMoOx nanostructures present well‐maintained honeycomb‐like structure, rapid capacitive insertion–desertion behaviors, and thus significantly enhanced lithium ion storage performance at high rates (5.0 A g−1). It is also revealed that the reversible transition of cobalt and molybdenum phases closely associated with the ultrathin 2D wall structures greatly contribute to the outstanding electrochemical lithium storage performances. This attractive integration of structural and functional advantages achieved by learning from nature offers new insights into the design of cost‐effective electrode materials for high‐performance energy devices.