A life-threatening cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)-related injury can cause recurrent arrest after return of circulation. Such injuries are difficult to identify during resuscitation, and their contribution to failed resuscitation can be missed given the limitations of conventional CPR. Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), increasingly being considered for selected patients with potentially reversible etiology of arrest, may identify previously occult CPR-related injuries by restoring arterial pressure and flow. Herein, we describe two cases of severe CPR-related injuries contributing to recurrent arrest. Each case had ECPR implemented within 60 minutes of the start of CPR. After the presumed cardiac etiology had been addressed with percutaneous coronary intervention, life-threatening cardiovascular injuries with recurrent arrest were noted, and resuscitative thoracotomy was performed under ECPR. One patient survived to hospital discharge.

ECPR may provide an opportunity to identify and correct severe resuscitation-related injuries causing recurrent arrest. Chest compression depth >6 cm, especially in older women, may contribute to these injuries.

The liquid phase plasma reduction method has been applied to prepare silver nanoparticles from a solution of silver nitrate (AgNO3) using a bipolar pulsed electrical discharge system. The excited states of atomic silver, hydrogen and oxygen as well as the molecular bands of hydroxyl radicals were detected in the emission spectra. As the discharge duration increased up to 10 min, silver particle peaks produced by surface plasmon absorption were observed around 430 nm. Both the particle size and the particle numbers were observed to increase with the length of the plasma treatment time and with the initial AgNO3 concentration. Spherical nanoparticles of about 5–20 nm in size were obtained with the discharging time of 5 min, whereas aggregates of nanoparticles of about 10–50 nm in size were mainly produced with the discharging time of 20 min. The cationic surfactant of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) added with the CTAB/AgNO3 molar ratio of 30% was shown to inhibit nanoparticle aggregation.

We previously demonstrated that the chronic consumption of a high-fat diet (HFD) promotes lung and liver metastases of 4T1 mammary carcinoma cells in obesity-resistant BALB/c mice. To examine early transcriptional responses to tumour progression in the liver and lungs of HFD-fed mice, 4-week-old female BALB/c mice were divided into four groups: sham-injected, control diet (CD)-fed; sham-injected, HFD-fed (SH); 4T1 cell-injected, CD-fed (TC); 4T1 cell-injected, HFD-fed (TH). Following 16 weeks of either a CD or HFD, 4T1 cells were injected into the mammary fat pads of mice in the TC and TH groups and all mice were continuously fed identical diets. At 14 d post-injection, RNA was isolated from hepatic and pulmonary tissues for microarray analysis of mRNA expression. Functional annotation and core network analyses were conducted for the TH/SH Unique gene set. Inflammation in hepatic tissues and cell mitosis in pulmonary tissues were the most significant biological functions in the TH/SH Unique gene set. The biological core networks of the hepatic TH/SH Unique gene set were characterised as those genes involved in the activation of acute inflammatory responses (Orm1, Lbp, Hp and Cfb), disordered lipid metabolism and deregulated cell cycle progression. Networks of the pulmonary Unique gene set displayed the deregulation of cell cycle progression (Cdc20, Cdk1 and Bub1b). These HFD-influenced alterations may have led to favourable conditions for the formation of both pro-inflammatory and pro-mitotic microenvironments in the target organs that promote immune cell infiltration and differentiation, as well as the infiltration and proliferation of metastatic tumour cells.

TbMnO3 exists in an orthorhombic phase in nature. Recently, we successfully grew TbMnO3 thin films in the hexagonal phase using epitaxial stabilization techniques. In this article, we will show the details of the deposition conditions that allow us to fabricate the hexagonal TbMnO3 films on Pt–Al2O3(0001) substrates. The artificial hexagonal phase can be easily formed above 850 °C, irrespective of the oxygen partial pressure. The hexagonal TbMnO3 films showed ferroelectric properties, which are significantly enhanced compared to those of the orthorhombic TbMnO3 bulk phase. We find interesting anomalies in the magnetic and magnetodielectric properties of the TbMnO3 films at around 45 K, which should be related with the Mn3+ spin reorientation. We also find spin-glass-like behaviors in the magnetic susceptibility, which could be attributed to the geometric frustration of antiferromagnetically coupled Mn spins with an edge-sharing triangular lattice. This work shows details of the growth and properties of hexagonal TbMnO3 films.

Semi-insulating undoped GaN films were grown based on controlling the size of the nucleation sites through a special two-step growth method: First, 16 nm LT-GaN was annealed at 950 ° with a ramping time of 4 min, then the GaN was grown at this temperature for 1 min. Second, the growth temperature was increased to 1020° with a ramping time of 2 min and the GaN layer finally grown at 1020 ° for 40 min. The film grown by this sequence exhibited sheet resistance of up to 109 Ω/sq with mirror-like surface morphology. By slow ramping to 950° in the initial phase of growth, smaller grain sizes and higher nuclei densities were formed and the columnar growth mode along the c direction was dominant. The observation of higher resistance in two-step growth is believed due to the increased misorientation of nuclei when the growth proceeds during temperature ramping to 1020°. The fabricated saw filter on semi-insulating GaN exhibited a high velocity of 5342 m/s at center frequencies of 133.57 MHz and an electromechanical coupling coefficient(k2) of about 0.763 %, which was enhanced due to the improvement of surface morphology with high sheet resistance by the two- step ramping technique.

The effects of the isoelectronic Al-doping of GaN grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition were investigated for the first time using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Hall measurements, photoluminescence (PL), and time-resolved PL. When a certain amount of Al was incorporated into the GaN films, the room temperature photoluminescence intensity of the films was approximately two orders larger than that of the undoped GaN. More importantly, the electron mobility significantly increased from 130 for the undoped sample to 500 cm2/Vs for the sample grown at a TMAl flow rate of 10 νmol/min, while the unintentional background concentration only increased slightly relative to the TMAl flow. The incorporation of Al as an isoelectronic dopant into GaN was easy during MOCVD growth and significantly improved the optical and electrical properties of the film. This was believed to result from a reduction in the dislocation-related non-radiative recombination centers or certain other defects due to the isoelectronic Al-doping.

A short channel polycrystalline silicon thin film transistor (poly-Si TFT), which has single grain boundary in the center of channel, is reported. The reported poly-Si TFT employs lateral grain growth method through aluminum patterns, which acts as a selective beam mask and a lateral heat sink during the laser irradiation, on an amorphous silicon layer. The electrical characteristics of the proposed poly-Si TFT have been considerably improved due to grain boundary density lowered. The reported short channel poly-Si TFT with single grain boundary exhibits high mobility as 222 cm2/Vsec and large on/off current ratio exceeding 1 × 108.

We report new lateral grain growth mechanism by XeCl excimer laser annealing on a-Si film with pre-patterned Al layer. 2000Å-thick Al pattern on 800Å-thick PECVD a-Si film successfully reflects the incident laser beam and results in temperature gradient during the recrystallization process. The TEM images show that grain growth near the boundary between the liquid and the solid region exhibits a different mechanism compared with the conventional ELA. About 1.5 m-long lateral grain has been successfully obtained by single laser irradiation

A poly-Si TFT with single grain boundary in the channel has been fabricated by the proposed excimer laser annealing. An excellent device characteristics such as mobility more than 250cm2/Vsec, high On/Off current ratio of 6.3×106 and low threshold voltage less than 1 V has been obtained. The experimental results show that the mobility, threshold voltage and sub-threshold slope of proposed TFTs are superior to those of the conventional TFTs.

A new excimer laser recrystallization method of amorphous silicon is proposed to increase the grain size and control the grain boundary locations in polycrystalline silicon films. The proposed method is based on the lateral grain growth which occurs at the interface between molten and unmolten regions. To obtain selectively molten regions, the proposed method employs aluminum patterns on amorphous silicon. The aluminum patterns act as the beam shield during the laser irradiation as well as the lateral heat sink during the solidification period. The high reflectance of aluminum at the wavelength of XeCl excimer laser offers stable beam shielding property, and the high thermal conductivity enhances the lateral heat flow by the quick draining of laterally propagated heat. TEM observation has revealed that the well arranged large grains were successfully obtained.

We have proposed and fabricated a new poly-Si TFT that employs selectively doped regions between the source and drain in order to reduce leakage current without the sacrifice of the on current. In the proposed poly-Si TFTs, the selectively doped regions where doping concentration is identical to that of source/drain, reduce the effective channel length during the on state. Under the off state, the selectively doped regions may reduce the lateral electric field induced in the depletion region near drain so that the leakage current reduces considerably. The experimental data of the proposed TFT shows that it has the high on-current, low leakage current and low threshold voltage when compared with conventional TFT. The fabrication steps for the proposed TFT are reduced because ion-implantation for source/drain and selectively doped regions is performed simultaneously prior to an excimer laser irradiation. It should be noted that, in the proposed TFT, only one excimer laser annealing is required while two excimer laser annealing steps are required in conventional TFT.

A simple low-temperature excimer-laser doping process employing phosphosilicate glass (PSG) and borosilicate glass (BSG) films as dopant sources is proposed in order to form source and drain regions for polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors (poly-Si TFTs). We have successfully controlled sheet resistance and dopant depth profile of doped poly-Si films by varying PH3/SiH4 flow ratio, laser energy density and the number of laser pulses. The penetration depth and the surface concentration of dopants were increased with increasing laser energy density and the number of laser pulses. The minimum sheet resistance of 450ω/ for phosphorus (P) doping and 1100ω/ for boron (B) doping were successfully obtained. Our experimental results show that the proposed laser-doping process is suitable for source/drain formation of poly-Si TFTs.

Uniform and reproducible silicon tip arrays were fabricated using the reactive ion etching followed by the re-oxidation sharpening. Molybdenum was then coated on the some of the silicon tip array. Current-voltage characteristics and current fluctuations were measured in the high vacuum environment. Field emission currents were proved by the Fowler-Nordheim plot studies.

Strip-shaped diamond-tip field emitter array was fabricated by using the transfer mold technique. The sharp turn-on characteristic was observed from the current-voltage measurement of the fabricated diamond-tip field emitter array. The turn-on characteristic of the diamond-tip field emitter array was compared with that of a flat diamond film. High emission current density was obtained from the diamond-tip field emitter array. The threshold voltage of the diamond-tip field emitter array was lower than that of a flat diamond film.