High-Loading Lithium-Sulfur Batteries with Solvent-Free Dry-Electrode Processing.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, with their high energy density, nontoxicity, and the natural abundance of sulfur, hold immense potential as the next-generation energy storage technology. To maximize the actual energy density of the Li-S batteries for practical applications, it is crucial to escalate the areal capacity of the sulfur cathode by fabricating an electrode with high sulfur loading. Herein, ultra-high sulfur loading (up to 12 mg cm-2) cathodes are fabricated through an industrially viable and sustainable solvent-free dry-processing method that utilizes a polytetrafluoroethylene binder fibrillation. Due to its low porosity cathode architecture formed by the binder fibrillation process, the dry-processed electrodes exhibit a relatively lower initial capacity compared to the slurry-processed electrode. However, its mechanical stability is well maintained throughout the cycling without the formation of electrode cracking, demonstrating significantly superior cycling stability. Additionally, through the optimization of the dry-processing, a single-layer pouch cell with a loading of 9 mg cm-2 and a novel multi-layer pouch cell that uses an aluminum mesh as its current collector with a total loading of 14 mg cm-2 are introduced. To address the reduced initial capacity of dry-processed electrodes, strategies such as incorporating electrocatalysts or employing prelithiated active materials are suggested.

Interphase Stabilization of LiNi0.5 Mn1.5 O4 Cathode for 5 V-Class All-Solid-State Batteries.

Employing high voltage cobalt-free spinel LiNi0.5 Mn1.5 O4 (LNMO) as a cathode is promising for high energy density and cost-effectiveness, but it has challenges in all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs). Here, it is revealed that the limitation of lithium argyrodite sulfide solid electrolyte (Li6 PS5 Cl) with the LNMO cathode is due to the intrinsic chemical incompatibility and poor oxidative stability. Through a careful analysis of the interphase of LNMO, it is elucidated that even the halide solid electrolyte (Li3 InCl6 ) with high oxidative stability can be decomposed to form resistive interphase layers with LNMO in ASSBs. Interestingly, with Fe-doping and a Li3 PO4 protective layer coating, LNMO with Li3 InCl6 displays stable cycle performance with a stabilized interphase at a high voltage (≈4.7 V) in ASSBs. The enhanced interfacial stability with the extended electrochemical stability window through doping and coating enables high electrochemical stability with LNMO in ASSBs. This work provides guidance for employing high-voltage cathodes in ASSBs and highlights the importance of stable interphases to enable stable cycling in ASSBs.

Machine learning-based quantification for disease uncertainty increases the statistical power of genetic association studies.

MOTIVATION: Allowance for increasingly large samples is a key to identify the association of genetic variants with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Accordingly, we aimed to develop a method that incorporates patients with mild cognitive impairment and unknown cognitive status in GWAS using a machine learning-based AD prediction model. RESULTS: Simulation analyses showed that weighting imputed phenotypes method increased the statistical power compared to ordinary logistic regression using only AD cases and controls. Applied to real-world data, the penalized logistic method had the highest AUC (0.96) for AD prediction and weighting imputed phenotypes method performed well in terms of power. We identified an association (P<5.0×10-8) of AD with several variants in the APOE region and rs143625563 in LMX1A. Our method, which allows the inclusion of individuals with mild cognitive impairment, improves the statistical power of GWAS for AD. We discovered a novel association with LMX1A. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Simulation codes can be accessed at https://github.com/Junkkkk/wGEE_GWAS.

Characteristics of HONO and its impact on O3 formation in the Seoul Metropolitan Area during the Korea-US Air Quality Study.

Photolysis of nitrous acid (HONO) is recognized as an early-morning source of OH radicals in the urban air. During the Korea-US air quality (KORUS-AQ) campaign, HONO was measured using quantum cascade - tunable infrared laser differential absorption spectrometer (QC-TILDAS) at Olympic Park in Seoul from 17 May, 2016 to 14 June, 2016. The HONO concentration was in the range of 0.07-3.46 ppbv, with an average of 0.93 ppbv. Moreover, it remained high from 00:00-05:00 LST. During this time, the mean concentration was higher during the high-O3 episodes (1.82 ppbv) than the non-episodes (1.20 ppbv). In the morning, the OH radicals that were produced from HONO photolysis were 50% higher (0.95 pptv) during the high-O3 episodes than the non-episodes. Diurnal variations in HOx and O3 concentrations were simulated by the F0AM model, which revealed a difference of ~20 ppbv in the daily maximum O3 concentrations between the high-O3 episodes and non-episodes. Furthermore, the HONO concentration increased with an increase in relative humidity (RH) up to 80%; the highest HONO was associated with the top 10% NO2 in each RH group, confirming that NO2 is one of the main precursors of HONO. At night, the conversion ratio of NO2 to HONO was estimated to be 0.88×10-2 h-1; this ratio was found to increase with an increase in RH. The Aitken mode particles (30-120 nm), which act as catalyst surfaces, exhibited a similar tendency with a conversion ratio that increased along with RH, indicating the coupling of surfaces with HONO conversion. Using an artificial neural network (ANN) model, HONO concentrations were successfully simulated with measured variables (r2 = 0.66 as an average of five models). Among these variables, NOx, aerosol surface area, and RH were found to be the main factors affecting the ambient HONO concentrations. The results reveal that RH facilitates the conversion of NO2 to HONO by constraining the availability of aerosol surfaces. This study demonstrates the coupling of HONO with the HOx-O3 cycle in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) and provides practical evidence of the heterogeneous formation of HONO by employing the ANN model.

Acute and repeated toxicological study of Myelophil, an ethanol extract of a mixture of Astragali Radix and Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix, in beagle dogs.

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the pharmaceutical safety of Myelophil, an ethanol extract of a mixture of Astragali Radix and Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix, using both acute and repeated toxicological studies. METHODS: A total of 40 beagle dogs (20 each male and female) were fed doses up to 5,000 mg/kg for the acute study and up to 1,250 mg/kg for the 13-week repeated dose toxicological study. Adverse effects were examined intensively by comparing the differences between normal and drug-administered groups using clinical signs, autopsies, histopathological findings, hematology, urinalysis, and biochemical analysis. RESULTS: No mortality or drug-related clinical signs were observed in the Myelophil-treated groups, except for vomiting due to an excessive dose (5,000 mg/kg). Likewise, in the repeated toxicity test, compound-colored stools in the Myelophil-treated groups and soft stools in all groups, including the control, were observed. No drug-related abnormalities were found in the histopathology, hematology, urinalysis, and biochemical analyses for any doses of Myelophil. CONCLUSION: These results support the safety of Myelophil with a no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of 1250 mg/kg in beagle dogs, which corresponds to a human equivalent dose (HED) of 694 g/kg.

Design of a Low-Power, Small-Area AEC-Q100-Compliant SENT Transmitter in Signal Conditioning IC for Automotive Pressure and Temperature Complex Sensors in 180 Nm CMOS Technology.

In this paper, a low-power and small-area Single Edge Nibble Transmission (SENT) transmitter design is proposed for automotive pressure and temperature complex sensor applications. To reduce the cost and size of the hardware, the pressure and temperature information is processed with a single integrated circuit (IC) and transmitted at the same time to the electronic control unit (ECU) through SENT. Due to its digital nature, it is immune to noise, has reduced sensitivity to electromagnetic interference (EMI), and generates low EMI. It requires only one PAD for its connectivity with ECU, and thus reduces the pin requirements, simplifies the connectivity, and minimizes the printed circuit board (PCB) complexity. The design is fully synthesizable, and independent of technology. The finite state machine-based approach is employed for area efficient implementation, and to translate the proposed architecture into hardware. The IC is fabricated in 1P6M 180 nm CMOS process with an area of (116 µm × 116 µm) and 4.314 K gates. The current consumption is 50 µA from a 1.8 V supply with a total 90 µW power. For compliance with AEC-Q100 for automotive reliability, a reverse and over voltage protection circuit is also implemented with human body model (HBM) electro-static discharge (ESD) of +6 kV, reverse voltage of -16 V to 0 V, over voltage of 8.2 V to 16 V, and fabricated area of 330 µm × 680 µm. The extensive testing, measurement, and simulation results prove that the design is fully compliant with SAE J2716 standard.

Natalenamides A⁻C, Cyclic Tripeptides from the Termite-Associated Actinomadura sp. RB99.

In recent years, investigations into the biochemistry of insect-associated bacteria have increased. When combined with analytical dereplication processes, these studies provide a powerful strategy to identify structurally and/or biologically novel compounds. Non-ribosomally synthesized cyclic peptides have a broad bioactivity spectrum with high medicinal potential. Here, we report the discovery of three new cyclic tripeptides: natalenamides A⁻C (compounds 1⁻3). These compounds were identified from the culture broth of the fungus-growing termite-associated Actinomadura sp. RB99 using a liquid chromatography (LC)/ultraviolet (UV)/mass spectrometry (MS)-based dereplication method. Chemical structures of the new compounds (1⁻3) were established by analysis of comprehensive spectroscopic methods, including one-dimensional (¹H and 13C) and two-dimensional (¹H-¹H-COSY, HSQC, HMBC) nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), together with high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HR-ESIMS) data. The absolute configurations of the new compounds were elucidated using Marfey's analysis. Through several bioactivity tests for the tripeptides, we found that compound 3 exhibited significant inhibitory effects on 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX)-induced melanin production. The effect of compound 3 was similar to that of kojic acid, a compound extensively used as a cosmetic material with a skin-whitening effect.

A nationwide study of the incidence rate of herb-induced liver injury in Korea.

Discrepant incidence has been reported regarding the incidence of herb-induced liver injury (HILI). To address the growing worldwide concern of HILI, we evaluated the risk of HILI in a nationwide prospective study. Between April 2013 and January 2016, 1001 inpatients (360 males and 641 females) from 10 tertiary hospitals throughout South Korea were treated with herbal drugs and had their liver enzymes periodically measured. A total of six patients met the criteria for HILI with RUCAM scores ranging from 4 to 7. All these participants were women and developed the hepatocellular type of HILI. One HILI participant met the criteria for Hy's law; however, none of six cases presented clinical symptoms related to liver injury. This is the first nationwide prospective study that estimated the extent of the incidence of HILI [total: 0.60%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.12-1.08; women: 0.95%, 95% CI 0.19-1.68] and described its features in hospitalized participants.

The ratio of medial and lateral hamstring muscle thickness does not correlate with the lateral tibial rotation angle in the standing position in healthy young adults.

[Purpose] To investigate the relationship between the lateral tibial rotation angle during knee joint flexion and the medial and lateral hamstring muscle thickness ratio during knee joint extension while resting, doing nothing, in upright standing position. The lateral tibial torsion is an important factor of orthopedic knee joint diseases as well as other weight bearing joint diseases such as osteoarthritis, meniscus syndrome, anterior cruciate ligament rupture, etc. [Subjects and Methods] Thirty healthy young adults participated in this study. The thickness of the medial and lateral hamstrings was measured using ultrasonographic imaging technique during knee extension in a resting position. The angle of tibial rotation was measured with 2D motion analysis during knee flexion in a half kneeling position. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to test the relationship. [Results] There is no significant relationship between the angle of lateral tibial rotation and the ratio of hamstring muscle thickness. [Conclusion] These results demonstrate that lateral tibial rotation is not affected by hamstrings during rest in a standing position.

Congestion estimation technique in the optical network unit registration process.

We present a congestion estimation technique (CET) to estimate the optical network unit (ONU) registration success ratio for the ONU registration process in passive optical networks. An optical line terminal (OLT) estimates the number of collided ONUs via the proposed scheme during the serial number state. The OLT can obtain congestion level among ONUs to be registered such that this information may be exploited to change the size of a quiet window to decrease the collision probability. We verified the efficiency of the proposed method through simulation and experimental results.

Preserved high-centrality hubs but efficient network reorganization during eyes-open state compared with eyes-closed resting state: an MEG study.

A question to be addressed in the present study is how different the eyes-closed (EC) and eyes-open (EO) resting states are across frequency bands in terms of efficiency and centrality of the brain functional network. We investigated both the global and nodal efficiency and betweenness centrality in the EC and EO resting states from 39 volunteers. Mutual information was used to obtain the functional connectivity for each of the four frequency bands (theta, alpha, beta, and gamma). We showed that the cortical hubs with high betweenness centrality were maintained in the EC and EO resting states. We further showed that these hubs were associated with more than three frequency bands, suggesting that these hubs play an important role in the brain functional network at multiple temporal scales in the resting states. Enhanced global efficiency values were found in the theta and alpha bands in the EO state compared with those in the EC state. Moreover, it turned out that in the EO state the functional network was reorganized to enhance nodal efficiency at the nodes related to both the default mode and the dorsal attention networks and sensory-related resting-state networks. This result suggests that in the EO state the brain functional network was efficiently reorganized, facilitating the adaptation of the brain network to the change in state, which could help in understanding brain disorders that have a disturbance in communication with external environments by using the adaptation ability of brain functional networks.

Dual cyclic power saving technique for XG-PON.

In a passive optical network (PON), energy conservation is an important system design goal to satisfy the global demands for an energy efficient green network. In this paper, we show that a separate period control for the transmitter and receiver of an optical transceiver can result in better power saving performances in PON systems. Then, we propose a power saving mode called the Dual Cyclic Sleep (DCS) mode. We have implemented the DCS mode in an ETRI XG-PON system and conducted experiments to show the power saving efficiency of the proposed DCS mode. The results indicate that the DCS mode provides higher power saving efficiency than the doze and cyclic sleep modes.

Diagnostic utility of worry and rumination: a comparison between generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

AIM: Although previous reports have addressed worry and rumination as prominent cognitive processes in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) and their distinct correlation with anxious and depressive symptoms, the differential association of worry and rumination with the diagnosis of GAD and MDD remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the distinct features of worry and rumination in factor structure and their predictive validity for the diagnosis of GAD and MDD. METHODS: Four hundred and sixty-eight patients with GAD (n = 148) and MDD (n = 320) were enrolled and the diagnoses were confirmed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Participants completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and Ruminative Response Scale and the severity of anxiety and depressive symptoms was assessed via clinician ratings. RESULTS: In joint factor analysis using the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and Ruminative Response Scale items, worry and rumination emerged as distinct factors. In logistic regression analyses, worry contributed to a higher probability of the diagnosis of GAD than rumination, as rumination did in MDD than worry. CONCLUSION: This is the first comprehensive study investigating the diagnostic utility of worry and rumination in a well-defined clinical sample of both GAD and MDD. Our results suggest that worry and rumination are distinct cognitive processes and play a differential role in the diagnosis of GAD and MDD, distinguishing them at the cognitive level.

Classification and analysis of retinal interneurons by computational structure under natural scenes.

Inhibitory neurons are diverse across the brain, but for the visual system we lack the ability to functionally classify these neurons under complex natural stimuli. Here we take the approach of classifying retinal amacrine cell responses to natural scenes using optical recording and an interpretable neural network model. We fit mouse amacrine cell responses to a two-layer convolutional neural network model of a class shown previously to accurately capture salamander ganglion cell responses to natural scenes. Using an approach from interpretable machine learning, we determined for each stimulus the model interneurons that generated each amacrine response, analogous to the set of bipolar cells that target the amacrine population. From this analysis we clustered amacrine cells not by their natural scene responses, but by the model presynaptic neurons that constructed those responses, conservatively finding approximately seven groups by this approach. By analyzing the set of model presynaptic input neurons for each amacrine cluster, we find that distributed rather than dedicated inputs generate natural scene responses for different amacrine cell types. Additional analyses revealed distinct transient and sustained modes exhibited by the network during the response to simple flashes. These results give insight into the computational structure of how the diverse amacrine cell population responds to natural scenes, and generate multiple quantitative hypotheses for how synaptic inputs generate those responses.

The effect of itopride combined with lansoprazole in patients with laryngopharyngeal reflux disease.

The objective of this study is to determine the efficacy of adding a prokinetic agent to proton pump inhibitors (PPI) for the treatment of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) disease. A prospective, randomized open trial comparing lansoprazole plus itopride to lansoprazole single therapy was performed for 12 weeks. Sixty-four patients with a reflux finding score (RFS) >7 and a reflux symptom index (RSI) >13 were enrolled and received either lansoprazole 30 mg once daily with itopride 50 mg three times daily or lansoprazole 30 mg once daily for 12 weeks. RSI and RFS were completed at baseline, after 6 weeks, and after 12 weeks. During the treatment period, RSI and RFS were significantly improved compared with the pretreatment scores in both study groups. Reductions of total RSI and globus symptom were significantly higher in the lansoprazole plus itopride group compared to the lansoprazole group. In the RFS, however, there were no significant differences between the two groups. In conclusion, itopride in addition to PPI did not show any superior RFS improvement compared to PPI single therapy, but was helpful in speeding up relief of reflux symptoms in LPR patients. Thus, itopride may be considered as the secondary additive agent in the PPI treatment of LPR patients.

Hepatoprotective effect of Amomum xanthoides against dimethylnitrosamine-induced sub-chronic liver injury in a rat model.

CONTEXT: Amomum xanthioides Wall. ex Baker (Zingiberaceae) is a tropical medicinal plant that is commonly utilized in the treatment of digestive system disorders in Asia for a long time. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the hepatoprotective effect and related mechanisms of A. xanthoides. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sub-chronic liver injury was induced by dimethylnitrosamine (DMN, 10 mg/kg, three times per week for 3 weeks, i.p.) in rats. Water extract of A. xanthoides (WAX, 50 and 100 mg/kg) was given once a day for 3 weeks. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: WAX (100 mg/kg) significantly attenuated the DMN-induced excessive release of alanine aminotransferase (123.6 IU/L), aspartate aminotransferase (227.9 IU/L), alkaline phosphatase (820.9 IU/L) and total bilirubin (0.50 g/dL) in serum (p < 0.01), and hydroxyproline (30.5 mg/g tissue) and malondialdehyde (MDA) (53.6 µM/g tissue) contents (p < 0.01) in liver tissue. Furthermore, WAX significantly ameliorated the depletion of total antioxidant capacity (2.54 µM/mg tissue), superoxide dismutase (0.30 U/mg tissue), glutathione (2.10 µM/mg tissue) and catalase (605.0 U/mg tissue) activities (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01) in liver tissue. Histopathological and immunohistochemical analyses indicated that WAX markedly reduced inflammation, necrosis, collagen accumulation and activation of hepatic satellite cells in the liver. Our findings demonstrated that A. xanthoides exerts favorable hepatoprotective effects via positive regulation of the antioxidative system.

Distributions of Sasang constitutions and six syndromes in patients with functional dyspepsia and healthy subjects.

OBJECTIVE: To investigated the characteristics of patients with functional dyspepsia (FD) in terms of Sasang constitutional medicine. METHODS: A total of 116 patients with FD were recruited based on diagnosis by gastroscopy and symptomatic measurements. The distributions of Sasang constitutions and six syndromes in terms of TKM theory in the patients was compared with those from 1423 healthy subjects. RESULTS: The distribution of Sasang constitutions for the patients with FD significantly differed from that for healthy subjects, especially among women; 36.7% vs 45.6% for Taeumin, 28.9% vs 33.9% for Soumin, and 34.4% vs 20.4% for Soyangin. Our results assumed a high prevalence of Soyangin women (around 1.7 folds), and Soumin (45.2%), in particular, had a high prevalence of "deficiency and coldness of spleen and stomach" compared with Taeumin (14.9%) and Soyangin types (15.7%). CONCLUSION: This study identified a trend for the frequency of FD and the Sasang constitutions. The findings may provide new ideas for the study of prevention and management of FD,

Stable Cycling with Intimate Contacts Enabled by Crystallinity-Controlled PTFE-Based Solvent-Free Cathodes in All-Solid-State Batteries.

All-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) employing Li-metal anodes and inorganic solid electrolytes are attracting great attention due to high safety and energy density for next-generation energy storage devices. However, the volume change of cathode active materials can cause contact loss, resulting in charge carrier isolation, heterogeneous current distribution, and poor electrochemical properties in ASSBs. Here, a simple, yet effective, solvent-free electrode engineering approach with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as a binder for ASSBs is reported, enabling intimate contact and stable interfaces with the cathode. It is substantiated that the crystallinity of PTFE can be controlled depending on the heat history, and highly crystalline PTFE displays robust mechanical properties. High-nickel LiNi0 . 8 Mn0.1 Co0.1 O2 cathode prepared with crystalline PTFE show improved cycle and rate performances in ASSBs. In addition, it is revealed that the intimate contact between cathode particles with a stable cathode electrolyte layer is maintained during cycling by postmortem studies. This simple engineering method can be applied to prepare cathodes with a variety of active materials and solid electrolytes in ASSBs.

Information Geometry of the Retinal Representation Manifold.

The ability for the brain to discriminate among visual stimuli is constrained by their retinal representations. Previous studies of visual discriminability have been limited to either low-dimensional artificial stimuli or pure theoretical considerations without a realistic encoding model. Here we propose a novel framework for understanding stimulus discriminability achieved by retinal representations of naturalistic stimuli with the method of information geometry. To model the joint probability distribution of neural responses conditioned on the stimulus, we created a stochastic encoding model of a population of salamander retinal ganglion cells based on a three-layer convolutional neural network model. This model not only accurately captured the mean response to natural scenes but also a variety of second-order statistics. With the model and the proposed theory, we computed the Fisher information metric over stimuli to study the most discriminable stimulus directions. We found that the most discriminable stimulus varied substantially across stimuli, allowing an examination of the relationship between the most discriminable stimulus and the current stimulus. By examining responses generated by the most discriminable stimuli we further found that the most discriminative response mode is often aligned with the most stochastic mode. This finding carries the important implication that under natural scenes, retinal noise correlations are information-limiting rather than increasing information transmission as has been previously speculated. We additionally observed that sensitivity saturates less in the population than for single cells and that as a function of firing rate, Fisher information varies less than sensitivity. We conclude that under natural scenes, population coding benefits from complementary coding and helps to equalize the information carried by different firing rates, which may facilitate decoding of the stimulus under principles of information maximization.

A Case-Control Clinical Trial on a Deep Learning-Based Classification System for Diagnosis of Amyloid-Positive Alzheimer's Disease.

OBJECTIVE: A deep learning-based classification system (DLCS) which uses structural brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose Alzheimer's disease (AD) was developed in a previous recent study. Here, we evaluate its performance by conducting a single-center, case-control clinical trial. METHODS: We retrospectively collected T1-weighted brain MRI scans of subjects who had an accompanying measure of amyloid-beta (Aß) positivity based on a 18F-florbetaben positron emission tomography scan. The dataset included 188 Aß-positive patients with mild cognitive impairment or dementia due to AD, and 162 Aß-negative controls with normal cognition. We calculated the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the DLCS in the classification of Aß-positive AD patients from Aß-negative controls. RESULTS: The DLCS showed excellent performance, with sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and AUC of 85.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 79.8-90.0), 90.1% (95% CI, 84.5-94.2), 91.0% (95% CI, 86.3-94.1), 84.4% (95% CI, 79.2-88.5), and 0.937 (95% CI, 0.911-0.963), respectively. CONCLUSION: The DLCS shows promise in clinical settings where it could be routinely applied to MRI scans regardless of original scan purpose to improve the early detection of AD.