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Biological and medical applications of plasma-activated media, water and solutions
No full textNon-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma has been proposed as a new tool for various biological and medical applications. Plasma in close proximity to cell culture media or water creates reactive oxygen and nitrogen species containing solutions known as plasma-activated media (PAM) or plasma-activated water (PAW) - the latter even displays acidification. These plasma-treated solutions remain stable for several days with respect to the storage temperature. Recently, PAM and PAW have been widely studied for many biomedical applications. Here, we reviewed promising reports demonstrating plasma-liquid interaction chemistry and the application of PAM or PAW as an anti-cancer, anti-metastatic, antimicrobial, regenerative medicine for blood coagulation and even as a dental treatment agent. We also discuss the role of PAM on cancer initiation cells (spheroids or cancer stem cells), on the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), and when used for metastasis inhibition considering its anticancer effects. The roles of PAW in controlling plant disease, seed decontamination, seed germination and plant growth are also considered in this review. Finally, we emphasize the future prospects of PAM, PAW or plasma-activated solutions in biomedical applications with a discussion of the mechanisms and the stability and safety issues in relation to humans.The presented work was supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), which is funded by the Korean Government, Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), Funder Id: 10.13039/501100003725, NRF-2016K1A4A3914113 and NRF-2016R1C1B2010851 and as well as supported by TBI-V-1-234-VBW-081. This work was also supported by Kwangwoon University in 2018 and Ministry of Trade; Industry and Energy grant No. 20131610101840
Efficacy of the HLA-B*58:01 Screening Test in Preventing Allopurinol-Induced Severe Cutaneous Adverse Reactions in Patients with Chronic Renal Insufficiency-A Prospective Study
No full textBACKGROUND: Thus far, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B*58:01 has been recognized as the most important risk factor for allopurinol induced severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCARs).
OBJECTIVE: To determine the usefulness of prospective screening for the HLA-B*58:01 allele to identify Korean individuals at risk for SCARs induced by allopurinol treatment.
METHODS: We prospectively enrolled 542 patients with chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) from 10 hospitals nationwide and performed DNA genotyping to determine whether they carried the HLA-B*58:01 allele. Of these, 503 HLA-B*58:01-negative patients (92.8% of total) were treated with allopurinol, and 39 HLA-B*58:01-positive patients (7.2%) were treated with febuxostat, an alternative drug. The patients then were followed up biweekly for 90 days using a telephone survey to monitor symptoms of adverse drug reactions, including SCARs. As a control, we used the historical incidence rate of allopurinol-induced SCARs in 4002 patients with CRI from the same hospitals who were enrolled retrospectively.
RESULTS: Nineteen patients in the prospective cohort developed mild and transient adverse reactions but none showed allopurinol-induced SCARs. By contrast, we identified 38 patients with allopurinol-induced SCARs (0.95%) in the historical control. The difference in the incidence of allopurinol-induced SCARs between the prospective cohort and historical control was statistically significant (0% vs 0.95%, respectively; P = .029).
CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the HLA-B*58:01 screening test before allopurinol administration to prevent allopurinol-induced SCARs in patients with CRI. (C) 2018 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & ImmunologyThis research was supported by a grant (15182MFDS506) from Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2016 and 2017
Effect of plasma treatment on adhesion strength and moisture absorption characteristics between epoxy molding compound/silicon chip (EMC/chip) interface
No full textReliability of interface between two dissimilar materials becomes an important issue due to increasing demands
of high-density integrated circuits. Most of failures of semiconductor package occur at the interface between two
dissimilar materials in high temperature reflow process, thus, adhesion strength under high temperature should
be investigated. In this study, an adhesion shear test jig was newly devised to measure the adhesion strength of
epoxy molding compound/Si chip (EMC/chip) interface at high temperature (200 °C). In order to investigate the
effect of plasma treatment on adhesion strength and moisture absorption characteristics, the number of plasma
treatments was varied. Also, moisture absorption time was varied to observe the moisture uptake and degradation
of adhesion strength with respect to plasma treatment number. Atomic force microscope (AFM) was
analyzed to verify the surface roughness of silicon chip, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to
observe cross-sectional fractured morphology after adhesion strength test. From this study, it was found that the
plasma treatments affect much the adhesion strength and moisture uptake at the interface between the EMC/
Chip interface.This research was supported by a Semiconductor Industry Collaborative Project between Hanyang University and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. This research was also supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (2013M2A2A9043280), and the Ministry of Education (2012R1A6A1029029 and 2015R1D1A1A09058418)
Benchmarking Tool for Modern Distributed Stream Processing Engines
No full textThere is an upsurge in the usage and adaptation of streaming applications in the recent years by both industry and academia. At the core of these applications is streaming data processing engines that perform resource management and allocation in order to support continuous track of queries over distributed data streams. Several stream processing engines exists to handle these distributed streaming applications. In this paper, we present different challenges of the stream processing systems, in particular to stateful operators and implement Linear Road benchmark to examine the characteristic and performance metrics of the streaming system, in particular Apache Flink. Furthermore, we examine that Apache Flink can be used as a core for an efficient Linear Road application implementation for distributed environments without breaching the SLA requirements of the application.This research was supported by the MIST (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the National Program for Excellence in SW (IITP-2016-0-00023) supervised by the IITP (Institute for information & communications Technology Promotion) and by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (No. 2017R1A2B4010395)
Inhaled corticosteroids and fractures in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: current understanding and recommendations
No full textPurpose of review
Inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) is commonly used in the management of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for symptom relief and exacerbation prevention; however, there is a growing concern that ICS increases risk of osteoporosis and fractures in patients with COPD.
Recent findings
Osteoporosis is a major comorbidity of COPD. There is evidence from large observational studies that use of ICS for prolonged period of time (e.g. >= 4 years) is associated with accelerated loss of bone mineral density and increased risk of fractures in a dose-dependent and time-dependent fashion in patients with COPD. The risk of fractures appears increase significantly when high doses of ICS (at least 250mg/day in fluticasone or equivalents) are used for a long period of time (at least 3 years).
Summary
ICS increases risk of bone demineralization and fracture in patients with COPD. It should be generally avoided in patients with previous fractures or significant osteoporosis. If they are used in such patients, close monitoring is recommended for accelerated bone demineralization.D.D.S. has received research funding from Merck, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) and AstraZeneca (AZ) and personal fees from BI, AZ, Regeneron, Novartis and Sanofi
Interactive multi-objective optimization using mobile application: application to multi-objective linear assignment problem
No full textIn the past decades, there has been a plenty of researches on multi-objective programming (MOP) problems due to the unreality of single-objective programming problems. However, multi-objective programming problems have also been discussed in terms of information security issues, the preference of people involved in decision-making and so on. A recently developed a decentralized coordination algorithm has the advantage of generating a single Pareto optimal solution under the condition that information of each agent involved in decision making is not shared. Nevertheless, this algorithm does not reflect the preference of each decision maker, and thus can generate a biased Pareto optimal solution.
Therefore, in this study, we developed a mobile application that iteratively searches the Pareto optimal solution through an interactive decentralized coordination algorithm (IDCA) by interactively exchanging agent’s preference information in the realm of multi-objective linear assignment problem. An empirical study was conducted to identify factors affecting to the generation of unbiased pareto solutions with 32 human decision makers.This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning(NRF-2017R1E1A1A03070435
Search for new particles decaying to a jet and an emerging jet
No full textA search is performed for events consistent with the pair production of a new heavy particle that acts as a mediator between a dark sector and normal matter, and that decays to a light quark and a new fermion called a dark quark. The search is based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 16.1 fb(-1) from proton-proton collisions at =13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2016. The dark quark is charged only under a new quantum-chromodynamics-like force, and forms an emerging jet via a parton shower, containing long-lived dark hadrons that give rise to displaced vertices when decaying to standard model hadrons. The data are consistent with the expectation from standard model processes. Limits are set at 95% confidence level excluding dark pion decay lengths between 5 and 225 mm for dark mediators with masses between 400 and 1250 GeV. Decay lengths smaller than 5 and greater than 225 mm are also excluded in the lower part of this mass range. The dependence of the limit on the dark pion mass is weak for masses between 1 and 10 GeV. This analysis is the first dedicated search for the pair production of a new particle that decays to a jet and an emerging jet.We congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC and thank the technical and administrative staffs at CERN and at other CMS institutes for their contributions to the success of the CMS effort. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the computing centers and personnel of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid for delivering so effectively the computing infrastructure essential to our analyses. Finally, we acknowledge the enduring support for the construction and operation of the LHC and the CMS detector provided by the following funding agencies: BMBWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, FAPERGS, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES and CSF (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); SENESCYT (Ecuador); MoER, ERC IUT, and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); NKFIA (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); MSIP and NRF (Republic of Korea); MES (Latvia); LAS (Lithuania); MOE and UM (Malaysia); BUAP, CINVESTAV, CONACYT, LNS, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MOS (Montenegro); MBIE (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Dubna); MON, RosAtom, RAS, RFBR, and NRC KI (Russia); MESTD (Serbia); SEIDI, CPAN, PCTI, and FEDER (Spain); MOSTR (Sri Lanka); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); MST (Taipei); ThEPCenter, IPST, STAR, and NSTDA (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU and SFFR (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (U.S.A.).
Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and Horizon 2020 Grant, contract No. 675440 (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A.P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation a la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the F.R.S.-FNRS and FWO (Belgium) under the "Excellence of Science - EOS" - be.h project n. 30820817; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Lendulet ("Momentum") Program and the Janos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the New National Excellence Program UNKP, the NKFIA research grants 123842, 123959, 124845, 124850 and 125105 (Hungary); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund, the Mobility Plus program of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the National Science Center (Poland), contracts Harmonia 2014/14/M/ST2/00428, Opus 2014/13/B/ST2/02543, 2014/15/B/ST2/03998, and 2015/19/B/ST2/02861, Sonata-bis 2012/07/E/ST2/01406; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu, grant MDM-2015-0509 and the Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias; the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University and the Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); the Welch Foundation, contract C-1845; and the Weston Havens Foundation (U.S.A.)
Single-Crystal Poly[4-(4,4-dihexadecyl-4H-cyclopenta[1,2-b:5,4-b ']dithiophen-2-yl)-alt-[1,2,5]thiadiazolo[3,4-c]pyridine] Nanowires with Ultrahigh Mobility
No full textWe fabricated single-crystal poly[4-(4,4-dihexadecyl-4H-cyclopenta[1,2-b:5,4-b']-dithiophen-2-yl)-alt-[1,2,5]thiadiazolo-[3,4-c]pyridine] (PCDTPT) nanowires with ultrahigh mobility using a liquid-bridge-mediated nanotransfer molding method. The structural analysis of the single-crystal PCDTPT nanowires reveals that PCDTPT crystals have a triclinic structure, and the nanowires grow parallel to PCDTPT backbone chains, which provide important insights into its intrinsic charge transport. The single-crystal PCDTPT nanowire exhibits a superior charge carrier mobility of 72.94 +/- 18.02 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) (maximum mobility up to 92.64 cm(2) V-1 s(-1)), which is a record high value among conjugated polymers to date. In the single-crystal PCDTPT nanowire, the backbone chains in the linear structure along the nanowire growth axis lead to strong backbone delocalization, resulting in highly conductive polymer backbones and a drastic increase in charge carrier mobility. In addition, the single-crystal PCDTPT nanowire shows good environmental stability under air conditions compared to small-molecule organic semiconductors.This work was supported by the Creative Materials Discovery Program (2015M3D1A1068061) and by a research grant (2017R1A2A1A17069769), administered by the National Research Foundation of Korea and funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of South Korea, and by Samsung Research Funding Center of Samsung Electronics under Project Number SRFC-MAI401-05
Biochemical characteristics, virulence traits and antifungal resistance of two major yeast species isolated from kefir: Kluyveromyces marxianus and Saccharomyces unisporus
No full textKefir yeasts were investigated for their possible virulence using an in vitro system. Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) cluster analysis of 46 biochemical traits showed that all kefir isolates formed clusters distinct from Candida albicans. No isolate showed N-acetylglucosaminidase activity, which is involved in resistance against host immune systems. All Kluyveromyces marxianus isolates formed pseudohyphae and grew at 42 degrees C, whereas Saccharomyces unisporus isolates did not. None of the kefir yeasts had proteolytic or haemolytic activities. All K. marxianus isolates were susceptible to fluconazole, whereas S. unisporus isolates were classified as resistant.This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2018R1D1A1B07049710). In addition, this work was also supported by the Strategic Initiative for Microbiomes in Agriculture and Food, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Republic of Korea (as part of the [multiministerial] Genome Technology to Business Translation Program; grant number 918015-2). In addition, this paper was supported by the KU Research Professor Program of Konkuk University