This study aimed to evaluate associations between toxoplasmosis and psychiatric disorders in Taiwan based on the National Health Insurance Research Database, Taiwan (1997–2013). Patients newly diagnosed with toxoplasmosis formed the case group (n = 259), and the control group included propensity-score matched patients without toxoplasmosis (n = 1036). The primary outcome was incidence of psychiatric disorders. Cox proportional hazards regression and stratified analyses were performed to examine risk of developing specific psychiatric disorders between patients with and without toxoplasmosis. Patients with toxoplasmosis had significantly higher incidence of psychiatric disorders than those without toxoplasmosis (P = 0.016). A significant difference was found in numbers of psychiatric disorders between the two groups during 14 years of follow-up (log-rank P < 0.001). Those with toxoplasmosis had significantly higher risk of bipolar disorder [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR = 3.60, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.07, 7.26), depression (aHR = 4.94, 95% CI = 2.15, 11.80) and anxiety (aHR = 5.36, 95% CI = 2.98, 25.88), but no significant between-group differences were found for schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. In conclusion, the present nationwide population-based analysis revealed that Toxoplasma gondii infection in Taiwan significantly increases the risk for developing bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety, but not for schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.

Sexual offenses cause harm to the victims’ physical and psychological functions. This study was conducted to evaluate the risk of incident psychiatric disorders in sexual assault victims. Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database was used to conduct a nationwide population-based cohort study to assess the risk of incident psychiatric disorders in sexual assault victims and to further evaluate the respective risk estimates on the basis of diagnostic patterns. A total of 81 sexual assault victims and 324 controls matched by sex, age and residential area were included. The mean age of the sexual assault victims was 18.39 (sd 10.23) years, and 93.83% (76/81) of the sample were females. Sexual assault victims had a higher incidence density of psychiatric disorders than did the control group (9.2% per year, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1–33.2% per year v. 1.1% per year, 95% CI .4–15.7% per year; p=.037). Sexual assault was an independent risk factor for incident psychiatric disorders, with an incidence rate ratio of 3.40 (95% CI 1.04–26.41) after adjustment for potential confounding factors. Assessment of psychiatric disorders should be implemented in the integrative care of sexual assault victims. Physicians providing clinical care to the sexual assault victims should receive more all-round training to understand and manage this type of violence.

This study presents the mechanical and electrical properties (including elastic modulus, yield strength and electrical resistance) of PDMS/CNTs nanocomposites. The elastic modulus and yield strength were determined from tensile tests. In addition, a high resistance meter was used to measure the electrical resistances of the PDMS/CNTs nanocomposites. The test specimens of nanocomposites were manufactured using the thermoforming method. There were two recipes used during the thermoforming process: 100 °C for 1 hour, and 150 °C for 15 minutes. The mixtures of PDMS and CNTs were stirred by ultrasonic instrument to prevent polymerization. A feeler gap was used to define the thickness of the specimens. Therefore, the thickness could be controlled within the range of ∼100 μm. Four different kinds of specimens were investigated, including pure PDMS, 1.0 wt%, 2.0 wt% and 4.0 wt% CNTs polymeric composites. As for the l00°C recipe, the elastic modulus of pure PDMS, 1.0 wt%, 2.0 wt%, and 4.0 wt% CNTs were 1.05MPa, 1.17MPa, 1.10MPa and 1.35MPa, respectively. A for the l50°C recipe, the elastic modulus of pure PDMS, 1.0 wt%, 2.0 wt% and 4.0 wt% CNTs were 1.32MPa, 1.42MPa, 1.43MPa, and 1.54MPa. The differences of electrical resistance of PDMS/CNTs nanocomposites at two different conditions and the microstructures composed of the mixtures are also described in this article.

In this paper, location-controlled Silicon crystal grains are fabricated by a novel excimer laser crystallization method. An array of 1.8-μm-sized disk-liked grains are formed by this method, and the high-performance n-channel LTPS TFTs with field-effect-mobility reaching 308 cm2/Vs can be fabricated owing to the artificially-controlled lateral grain growth. This position-manipulated Silicon grains are essential to high performance and good uniformity thin film transistors.

A novel T-shaped-gated (T-Gate) polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistor (poly-Si TFT) with vacuum gaps has been proposed and fabricated only with a simple process. The T-Gate structure is formed only by a selective undercut-etching technology of the Mo/Al bi-layers. Then, vacuum gaps are in-situ embedded in this T-Gate structure subsequent to capping the SiH4-based passivation oxide under the vacuum process chamber. Experimental results reveal that the proposed T-Gate poly-Si TFTs have excellent electrical performance, which has higher maximum on-off current ratio of 4.6 e107, and the lower off-state leakage current at VGS = -10 V and VDS = 5V of about 100 times less than that of the conventional one. It is attributed to the additional undoped offset region and the vacuum gap to reduce the maximum electric field at drain junction while ascribed to the sub-gate to maintain the on-current. Therefore, such a T-Gate poly-Si TFT is very suitable for the applications and manufacturing in active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs) and active matrix organic light emitting diodes (AMOLEDs).

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.

Breakdown characteristics of ultra-thin gate oxides caused by plasma charging were studied in this work. It is observed that as oxide thickness is scaled down to 4 nm, some traditional monitor parameters may lose their sensitivity for detecting oxide degradation induced by plasma charging damage, due to insignificant trap generation. Even the gate leakage current, although sensitive for 4 nm oxide, may no longer be sensitive enough for even thinner oxide (e.g., 2.6 nm), due to the existence of large tunneling current. Moreover, several soft-breakdown events were found to occur in ultrathin oxide before the final onset of a catastrophic hard-breakdown. Finally, an equivalent local oxide thickness is calculated using local oxide thinning model to estimate the stepwise increase of gate current after soft-breakdown event.