In this study, we developed a novel isotope gas filter for a mid-infrared (IR) LED-based NDIR spectroscopy system. Our novel isotope gas filter contains high-purity CO
2
gas (99.99% content), and the ...intrinsic absorption characteristic of contained gas works as an optical stopband filter. Our filter achieves a 25 dB attenuation performance in the region of 4190–4350 nm, and is a core component in distinguishing the signal from different carbon isotopes such as
12
CO
2
and
13
CO
2
for an NDIR carbon-13 (C-13) based breath test. Compared with dielectric filters normally used for C-13 breath tests, our filter can provide more useful and consistent performance than dielectric filters in the mid-IR region.
In compliance with green chemistry, metallic nanoparticles can be biogenically synthesized using plant extracts. Herein, three different deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were used instead of water to ...prepare green tea extracts (GTEs). The resultant DES-based GTEs exerted different beneficial effects on the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles. Compared with the water-based GTE (W-GTE), the DES-based GTEs contained higher levels of catechins (up to 235% more) that are natural reducing and capping agents and showed higher synthesis efficiency. In particular, two DESs, which consist of glycerol and betaine with a common urea molecule and are designated as GU and BU, respectively, could produce silver nanoparticles with superior properties to water. Specifically, GU- and BU-GTE-based silver nanoparticles showed uniformly reduced sizes, 39.12 (±5.33) nm and 43.11 (±6.42) nm, respectively and homogenous face-centered cubic crystallinity. DESs added to W-GTEs lead to synthesis of silver nanoparticles with improved dispersion. The DES-GTE-based silver nanoparticles at 60 μg/mL displayed in vitro anti-cancer activity comparable to doxorubicin at 12.5 μg/mL. These results suggest that the tested DESs could serve as efficient extraction solvents for phytochemicals as well as effective surface modifiers without posing adverse effects for subsequent applications of the synthesized nanoparticles. The favorable effects of GU and BU were found to partially involve ammonia, which was formed during DES preparation at high temperatures (≥80 °C). This study shows that DESs can promote the biogenic synthesis of silver nanoparticles by playing diverse roles depending on the unique properties of the DESs and their constituents.
•DES-based green tea extracts were used to synthesize AgNPs for the first time.•DESs exert constructive effects on synthesis efficiency, particle size, and dispersion.•DESs can efficiently extract phytochemicals (reducing and end capping agents).•DESs can also serve as effective surface modifiers of AgNPs.•Ammonia unintentionally produced in DESs can affect the AgNP biosynthesis.
Metabolomics was applied to a C57BL/6N mouse model of chronic unpredictable mild stress (CMS). Such mice were treated with two antidepressants from different categories: fluoxetine and imipramine. ...Metabolic profiling of the hippocampus was performed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis on samples prepared under optimized conditions, followed by principal component analysis, partial least squares-discriminant analysis, and pair-wise orthogonal projections to latent structures discriminant analyses. Body weight measurement and behavior tests including an open field test and the forced swimming test were completed with the mice as a measure of the phenotypes of depression and antidepressive effects. As a result, 23 metabolites that had been differentially expressed among the control, CMS, and antidepressant-treated groups demonstrated that amino acid metabolism, energy metabolism, adenosine receptors, and neurotransmitters are commonly perturbed by drug treatment. Potential predictive markers for treatment effect were identified: myo-inositol for fluoxetine and lysine and oleic acid for imipramine. Collectively, the current study provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of the antidepressant effects of two widely used medications.
A country's attractiveness is a factor in its success in many areas of international competition, such as encouraging international investment, but its impact on international sporting events remains ...unexplored. Using various measurements of country attractiveness, statistical tests of the proposition that a country's economic, social, and environmental attractiveness are correlated with its success in bidding to host international sporting events were conducted using data on the results of competitions to host 54 world championships in Olympic sports/disciplines from 1990 to 2012. The results presented here affirm the impact of country attractiveness on the success of bids to host such events.
Polypropylene films with ultra-high oxygen barrier properties have been created using a combination of two-dimensional graphene oxide sheets and spin self-assembly for the highly ordered ...layer-by-layer structure. Highly transparent and extremely flat barrier films, with a thickness of several tens of nanometers and significantly reduced oxygen permeability, were easily assembled, layer by layer, using negatively charged graphene oxide monolayers and positively charged poly(allylamine hydrochloride). We also investigated the effect of the structural orderliness of nanosheets on the gas-barrier properties, using different deposition methods, including spin layer-by-layer, dip layer-by-layer, and mixture spin-coating deposition. Comparing the experimental data with theoretical models, the relationship between the structural order of nanosheets and the gas-barrier performance was clearly explained.
Because the food manufacturing sector, as a fundamental and regionally specialized enterprise, has a substantial impact on the rural economy, an empirical analysis of the food manufacturing ...industry's expansion is required. However, regarding the evidence and means of ensuring vitality in agricultural and rural areas, academic theories and empirical studies still lack depth among the existing scholarship. As such, this study conducted a spatial pattern analysis to determine whether small food manufacturers in Korea were more concentrated than other manufacturing industries by using cluster analysis methods. The data used for the analysis are business basic survey statistics (2010), taken from a comprehensive survey that discloses the number of businesses, number of employees, organizational type, employee size, and occupational status of all businesses nationwide every year, even at the 5-digit level of municipalities. Data from 2000 and 2010 were used to analyze the employment growth of the food manufacturing industry. In 2010, 230 cities (Si), counties (Gun), and boroughs (Gu) were targeted to analyze employment patterns in the food manufacturing industry. The analysis results indicated that there were differences in potential cluster regions according to regional characteristics. Through the results of the study of spatial patterns, several implications were found for Korea's food manufacturing industry promotion policy. In addition, this study provides basic information for analyzing the external effects of the food manufacturing industry through agglomeration by industry and region and the impact on productivity through related industries.
Depression is twice as prevalent in women as in men, however, most preclinical studies of depression have used male rodent models. This study aimed to examine how stress affects metabolic profiles ...depending on sex using a rodent depression model: sub-chronic variable stress (SCVS). The SCVS model of male and female mice was established in discovery and validation sets. The stress-induced behavioral phenotypic changes were similar in both sexes, however, the metabolic profiles of female plasma and brain became substantially different after stress, whereas those of males did not. Four stress-differential plasma metabolites-β-hydroxybutyric acid (BHB), L-serine, glycerol, and myo-inositol-could yield biomarker panels with excellent performance to discern the stressed individuals only for females. Disturbances in BHB, glucose, 1,5-anhydrosorbitol, lactic acid, and several fatty acids in the plasma of stressed females implied a systemic metabolic shift to β-oxidation in females. The plasma levels of BHB and corticosterone only in stressed females were observed not only in SCVS but also in an acute stress model. These results collectively suggest a sex difference in the metabolic responses by stress, possibly involving the energy metabolism shift to β-oxidation and the HPA axis dysregulation in females.
Carbon-14 (C-14) is a radioactive isotope that is easily combined with living organisms and has a long half-life time, requiring continuous monitoring. In a nuclear power plant, it is necessary to ...monitor the concentration of C-14 generated during the power generation process, and strict management is required, especially in the case of carbon-14 dioxide (
14
CO
2
) emitted to the outside as stack gas. In this study, a concentration measurement system of
14
CO
2
using a mid-infrared (mid-IR) range cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) system was established. In the mid-infrared region, carbon dioxide (CO
2
) has a strong absorption spectrum centered at a wavelength of 4.6 μm. This strong absorption allows for the measurement of CO
2
content with high sensitivity. To evaluate system performance, we measured
12
CO
2
absorption spectrum that is close to
14
CO
2
absorption. The measured sensitivity was ~ 50 ppt with 1000 s averaging based on noise equivalent sensitivity and long-term operation analysis was performed over 2 h for use in actual nuclear power plants. This technology will a be promising alternative to liquid scintillation counting (LSC) which is currently used for C-14 measurement in nuclear power plants.
This brief presents a 10 Gb/s receiver for an application processor (AP)-to-timing controller-embedded display (TED) interface that is capable of recovering its operating frequency fast from the ...sleep mode under the supply voltage drift. A hybrid clock and data recovery (CDR) loop is employed to support the fast entering and exiting of the sleep mode by adding AND gates to the digital loop filter, while offering good jitter performance by utilizing an analog loop filter. Also supply voltage drift cancellation (SVDC) circuit is added to maintain constant current in the presence of supply voltage drift. Thanks to the hybrid CDR and SVDC, even if the supply voltage drift occurs during the sleep mode, the same frequency is recovered fast without frequency re-tracking. A prototype chip fabricated in 28-nm CMOS technology occupies an active area of 0.089mm2 with 0.99-pJ/bit energy efficiency in the active mode. The measured results show that the frequency is recovered within 36 ns even if the worst-case supply voltage drift occurs during the sleep mode.
This brief presents an 8-GHz Octa-phase Error Corrector (OEC) employing a digital delay-locked loop (DLL) with a coprime phase comparison scheme. To alleviate timing constraint during the phase ...comparison, clock phases spaced in coprime to 8 is utilized, enabling up to a 64-Gb/s link operation. In particular, this brief applies 3T/8 spaced clock rather than T/8. In addition, by employing a clock-divided 5-bit selection scheme, a high-speed 8:2 multiplexer (MUX) operates seamlessly without glitches. To minimize a mismatch and calibration -induced jitter, a single shared phase comparator and a finite-state machine (FSM) for tracking the minimum total delay are employed. The test chip has been fabricated in the 40-nm CMOS technology in an active area of 0.0814 mm 2 . The core phase calibration loop consumes 10.8 mW at 8 GHz at a 0.9-V supply achieving a maximum residue phase error of 0.95 ps.
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