Precise Extraction of Charge Carrier Mobility for Organic Transistors

Unreliable mobility values, and particularly greatly overestimated values and severely distorted temperature dependences, have recently hampered the development of the organic transistor field. Given that organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs) have been routinely used to evaluate mobility, precise parameter extraction using the electrical properties of OFETs is thus of primary importance. This review examines the origins of the various mobilities that must be determined for OFET applications, the relevant extraction methods, and the data selection limitations, which help in avoiding conceptual errors during mobility extraction. For increased precision, the review also discusses device fabrication considerations, calibration of both the specific gate‐dielectric capacitance and the threshold voltage, the contact effects, and the bias and temperature dependences, which must actually be handled with great care but have mostly been overlooked to date. This review serves as a systematic overview of the OFET mobility extraction process to ensure high precision and will also aid in improving future research.     

Regulatory RNAs: A Universal Language for Inter-Domain Communication

In eukaryotes, microRNAs (miRNAs) have roles in development, homeostasis, disease and the immune response. Recent work has shown that plant and mammalian miRNAs also mediate cross-kingdom and cross-domain communications. However, these studies remain controversial and are lacking critical mechanistic explanations. Bacteria do not produce miRNAs themselves, and therefore it is unclear how these eukaryotic RNA molecules could function in the bacterial recipient. In this review, we compare and contrast the biogenesis and functions of regulatory RNAs in eukaryotes and bacteria. As a result, we discovered several conserved features and homologous components in these distinct pathways. These findings enabled us to propose novel mechanisms to explain how eukaryotic miRNAs could function in bacteria. Further understanding in this area is necessary to validate the findings of existing studies and could facilitate the use of miRNAs as novel tools for the directed remodelling of the human microbiota.     

Facile growth of novel morphology correlated Ag/Co-doped ZnO nanowire/flake-like composites for superior photoelectrochemical water splitting activity

In this paper, novel morphology correlation between silver nanowires (AgNWs) and cobalt (Co)-doped ZnO (Co-ZnO) flake-like thin films (nanowire/flake-like) has been proposed for enhanced photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting activity. Here in, high-quality AgNWs/Co-ZnO heterostructures enabled superior visible light water splitting activity compared to the pure ZnO and AgNWs/ZnO. To address the strategic effect of AgNWs coupling and transition metal (Co-2?at%) doping into the ZnO host lattice, we have carried out the X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV–Vis transmittance, water contact angle and PEC analyses. In this way, PEC water splitting activity was mainly examined by linear sweep voltammetry (I-V), amperometric I-t and photoconversion efficiency (η) studies. The experimental results provide clear evidence of morphology correlation between AgNWs and Co-ZnO flake-like structures for strong visible light absorption. Specifically, AgNWs/Co-ZnO composites exhibited significant enhancement in the photocurrent density (7.0?×?10^?4 A/cm²) than AgNWs/ZnO (3.2?×?10^?4 A/cm²) and pure ZnO (1.5?×?10^?6 A/cm²). As a result, detailed AgNWs/Co-ZnO geometry has great potential for photoconversion efficiency (0.73%). In a word, the merits of controllable AgNWs/Co-ZnO heterostructure are proposed to improve the visible light harvesting and charge carrier generation for energy conversion devices.     

D-limonene Inhibits Pentylenetetrazole-Induced Seizure via Adenosine A2A Receptor Modulation on GABAergic Neuronal Activity

Background: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by the recurrence of seizures. One-third of patients with epilepsy may not respond to antiseizure drugs. Purpose: We aimed to examine whether D-limonene, a cyclic monoterpene, exhibited any antiseizure activity in the pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced kindling mouse model and in vitro. Methods: PTZ kindling mouse model was established by administering PTZ (30 mg/kg) intraperitoneally to mice once every 48 h. We performed immunoblot blots, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis after the behavioral study. Results: An acute injection of PTZ (60 mg/kg) induced seizure in mice, while pretreatment with D-limonene inhibited PTZ-induced seizure. Repeated administration of PTZ (30 mg/kg) increased the seizure score gradually in mice, which was reduced in D-limonene (10 mg/kg)-pretreated group. In addition, D-limonene treatment increased glutamate decarboxylase-67 (GAD-67) expression in the hippocampus. Axonal sprouting of hippocampal neurons after kindling was inhibited by D-limonene pretreatment. Moreover, D-limonene reduced the expression levels of Neuronal PAS Domain Protein 4 (Npas4)-induced by PTZ. Furthermore, the adenosine A2A antagonist {"type":"entrez-protein","attrs":{"text":"SCH58261","term_id":"1052882304","term_text":"SCH58261"}}SCH58261 and ZM241385 inhibited anticonvulsant activity and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic neurotransmission-induced by D-limonene. Conclusion: These results suggest that D-limonene exhibits anticonvulsant activity through modulation of adenosine A2A receptors on GABAergic neuronal function.     

COVID-19 hospitalization rates rise exponentially with age,inversely proportional to thymic T-cell production

Here, we report that COVID-19 hospitalization rates follow an exponential relationship with age, doubling for every 16 years of age or equivalently increasing by 4.5% per year of life (R² = 0.98). This mirrors the well-studied exponential decline of both thymus volume and T-cell production, which halve every 16 years. COVID-19 can therefore be added to the list of other diseases with this property, including those caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MERS-CoV, West Nile virus, Streptococcus pneumoniae and certain cancers, such as chronic myeloid leukaemia and brain cancers. In addition, the incidence of severe disease and mortality due to COVID-19 are both higher in men, consistent with the degree to which thymic involution (and the decrease in T-cell production with age) is more severe in men compared to women. Since these properties are shared with some non-contagious diseases, we hypothesized that the age dependence does not come from social-mixing patterns, i.e. that the probability of hospitalization given infection rises exponentially, doubling every 16 years. A Bayesian analysis of daily hospitalizations, incorporating contact matrices, found that this relationship holds for every age group except for the under 20s. While older adults have fewer contacts than young adults, our analysis suggests that there is an approximate cancellation between the effects of fewer contacts for the elderly and higher infectiousness due to a higher probability of developing severe disease. Our model fitting suggests under 20s have 49–75% additional immune protection beyond that predicted by strong thymus function alone, consistent with increased juvenile cross-immunity from other viruses. We found no evidence for differences between age groups in susceptibility to infection or infectiousness to others (given disease state), i.e. the only important factor in the age dependence of hospitalization rates is the probability of hospitalization given infection. These findings suggest the existence of a T-cell exhaustion threshold, proportional to thymic output and that clonal expansion of peripheral T-cells does not affect disease risk. The strikingly simple inverse relationship between risk and thymic T-cell output adds to the evidence that thymic involution is an important factor in the decline of the immune system with age and may also be an important clue in understanding disease progression, not just for COVID-19 but other diseases as well.     

Food recognition using neural network classifier and multiple hypotheses image segmentation

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes the multiple-hypotheses image segmentation and feed-forward neural network classifier for food recognition to improve the performance. Initially, the food or meal image is given as input. Then, the segmentation is applied to identify the regions, where a particular food item is located using salient region detection, multi-scale segmentation, and fast rejection. Then, the features of every food item are extracted by the global feature and local feature extraction. After the features are obtained, the classification is performed for each segmented region using a feed-forward neural network model. Finally, the calorie value is computed with the aid of (i) food volume and (ii) calorie and nutrition measure based on mass value. The experimental results and performance evaluation are validated. The outcome of the proposed method attains 0.947 for Macro Average Accuracy (MAA) and 0.959 for Standard Accuracy (SA), which provides better classification performance.     

A New Approach for Built‐in Self‐Test of 4.5 to 5.5 GHz Low‐Noise Amplifiers

This paper presents a low‐cost RF parameter estimation technique using a new RF built‐in self‐test (BIST) circuit and efficient DC measurement for 4.5 to 5.5 GHz low noise amplifiers (LNAs). The BIST circuit measures gain, noise figure, input impedance, and input return loss for an LNA. The BIST circuit is designed using 0.18 μm SiGe technology. The test technique utilizes input impedance matching and output DC voltage measurements. The technique is simple and inexpensive.     

PdO/Pd system equilibrium phase diagram under a gas mixture of oxygen and nitrogen

The thermal equilibrium decomposition properties of the PdO-Pd system under oxygen partial pressures ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 atm in a total combined pressure of oxygen and nitrogen of 1.0 atm were investigated by means of thermal-gravimetric analyses. The phase diagram of Pd-PdO over the range of oxygen/nitrogen gas concentration was established. The decomposition temperature of PdO to Pd was found to increase with the partial pressure of oxygen.     

Measurements and correlation of effect of cosolvents on the solubilities of complex molecules in supercritical carbon dioxide

A new transparent microscale circulation-type high pressure equilibrium cell with on-line sampling was devised. With this apparatus, experimental solubility of molecularly complex species such as steroids (cholesterol, stigmasterol and ergosterol) and fatty acids (palmitic acid and stearic acid) in supercritical carbon dioxide(sc-C0₂) were measured. Also, to find an appropriate substance for enhancing both the polarity and the solubility power of the SC-CO₂ solvent, we arbitrarily selected three polar substances such as acetone, methanol and water and the effect of these cosolvents on the solubility of solutes in SC-CO₂ are examined. The supercritical phase equilibrium data of solute-cosolvent-sc-CO₂ systems were quantitatively correlated using a new equation of state based on the lattice fluid theory incorporated with the concept of multibody interaction. We found that the addition of tracer amount of acetone or methanol to SC-CO₂ enhances the solubility of all solutes about thirty to sixty times when compared with the case of pure sc-CO₂ However, for the case of cosolvent water, no further enhancement of the solubility of solutes was realized. Also, the versatile fittability of the equation of state proposed in this work was demonstrated with the newly measured ternary supercritical equilibrium data.