The high sensitivity and spatial resolution enabled by two-photon excitation fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy/fluorescence resonance energy transfer (2PE-FLIM/FRET) provide an effective approach that reveals protein-protein interactions in a single cell during stimulated exocytosis. Enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP)–labeled synaptosomal associated protein of 25 kDa (SNAP25A) and red fluorescence protein (mRFP)–labeled Rabphillin 3A (RPH3A) were co-expressed in PC12 cells as the FRET donor and acceptor, respectively. The FLIM images of EGFP-SNAP25A suggested that SNAP25A/RPH3A interaction was increased during exocytosis. In addition, the multidimensional (three-dimensional with time) nature of the 2PE-FLIM image datasets can also resolve the protein interactions in the z direction, and we have compared several image analysis methods to extract more accurate and detailed information from the FLIM images. Fluorescence lifetime was fitted by using one and two component analysis. The lifetime FRET efficiency was calculated by the peak lifetime (τpeak) and the left side of the half-peak width (τ1/2), respectively. The results show that FRET efficiency increased at cell surface, which suggests that SNAP25A/RPH3A interactions take place at cell surface during stimulated exocytosis. In summary, we have demonstrated that the 2PE-FLIM/FRET technique is a powerful tool to reveal dynamic SNAP25A/RPH3A interactions in single neuroendocrine cells.

We investigated structural and characteristic changes in thin HfO2 films (<10 nm) by varying their thicknesses and also examined their influence on the properties of Pt/SrBi2Ta2O9/HfO2/Si metal/ferroelectric/insulator/semiconductor (MFIS) structures. HfO2 films with different thicknesses were found to exhibit rather distinct characteristics and to profoundly affect the properties of the fabricated MFIS capacitor. We found that, when employing 3.2-nm-thick HfO2 as the buffer layer, the MFIS capacitor showed good memory performance at low operation voltage. However, this study demonstrated that some of the HfO2 limited its application in MFIS memory, even though it is the most promising alternative gate dielectric material.

We investigated a cluster of postoperative febrile episodes and episodes of Acinetobacter baumannii bacteremia in obstetrics and gynecology wards after an electrical blackout and loss of the water supply. The use of patient-controlled analgesia was the only independent risk factor associated with postoperative fever, and A. baumannii isolates recovered from the blood of patients who had received patient-controlled analgesia were genetically related to an isolate recovered from the diluted morphine solution used for this procedure. After inappropriate preparation of the morphine solution was identified and stopped, the outbreak ended.

We report two cases of carcinoma in situ in the external auditory canal (EAC), presenting with symptoms such as pain, long-term itching of the ear, easy contact bleeding, canal otorrhea and hearing loss. Otoscopic examination revealed granulation tissue and a greyish-black tumour with irregular surface. The first patient had previously been diagnosed with otitis externa with persistent ear itching for the past three years. The second patient had received tympanoplasty for treatment of chronic otitis media on the right ear ten years ago. The first case was treated with wide excision, whereas the second patient received resection of the skin of the EAC together with its adjacent soft tissue, followed by skin grafting. No tumour recurrence was noted in the fourth and third post-operative year for the first and second patient respectively. We suggest that EAC carcinoma can be detected early and treated.

In this paper, an efficient macromodel extraction technique for dynamical MEMS gas damping effects is presented. The technique applies an Arnoldi-based model-order-reduction algorithm to generate low-order macromodels from a FEM approximation of the governing equation of the squeeze-film fluidic damping effect, the Reynolds equation. We demonstrate that this approach is more than 100 times efficient than previous approaches, which solve the Reynolds equation using transient finite-element/finite-difference methods. The generated gas-damping macromodels can be easily inserted into system-level modeling packages, such as SPICE, Saber and Simulink, for transient and frequency coupled-domain analysis. We also demonstrated that the simulated results are in good agreement with experimental results for various MEMS devices.

Ink jet technology is applied to the industry application of CPU cooling in this study. The PZT actuated micro-cooling device which generating the micro-scale liquid droplet is used in the CPU cooling of desktop and laptop PCs. It consists the advantages of long lifetime of operation, simple and easily manufactured of the structure with PZT actuator. Since the high latent heat transfer rate, 2260 J/g, of water droplet for the liquid-vapor phase change cooling system, it removes heat from the CPU surface effectively for over 100 W. In order to design an efficient cooling device, it is important to study the PZT material property varies after the laser cutting process and the dimensional effects of PZT actuator on the nozzle plate vibration mode. The frequency and amplitude of the voltage used to energize the PZT transducer are also important parameters that should be properly controlled in order to achieve the optimal liquid breakup conditions. It also reveals the low noise and power consumption in the CPU cooling system with some appropriate operational conditions.

The effects of a seeding layer, which was deposited on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates using magnetron sputtering, on the characteristics of sol-gel-deposited strontium-bismuth-tantalate (SBT) thin films are investigated. The seeding layer serves as nucleation sites so homogeneous crystalline SBT films of bismuth-layered structure (BLS) with fine grains are successfully obtained by 750°C rapid thermal annealing in O2 ambient. The remanent polarization (2Pr) improves from 12.1 to 18.8 μC/cm2 with the addition of the seeding layer. In addition, the seeding layer also results in a lower nucleation temperature, allowing the use of 700°C annealing for 10 min to grow SBT films that are fully crystallized with BLS phase and shows good ferroelectric properties. Finally, crystallinity and microstructures of SBT films are found to be strongly dependent on the thickness of the seeding layer. Optimum Ta-seeded SBT thin film crystallized at 700°C for 10min depicts a higher 2Pr value (12.9 μC/cm2 (@5V) than that of the un-seeded films crystallized at 750°C for 1min.

The effects of global and feature-specific probabilities of auditory stimuli were manipulated to determine their effects on the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the human event-related potential. The question of interest was whether the automatic comparison of stimuli indexed by the MMN was performed on representations of individual stimulus features or on gestalt representations of their combined attributes. The design of the study was such that both feature and gestalt representations could have been available to the comparator mechanism generating the MMN. The data were consistent with the interpretation that the MMN was generated following an analysis of stimulus features.

The effects of global and feature-specific probabilities of auditory stimuli were manipulated to determine their effects on the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the human event-related potential. The question of interest was whether the automatic comparison of stimuli indexed by the MMN was performed on representations of individual stimulus features or on gestalt representations of their combined attributes. The design of the study was such that both feature and gestalt representations could have been available to the comparator mechanism generating the MMN. The data were consistent with the interpretation that the MMN was generated following an analysis of stimulus features.