Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2015-08-28"

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Congenital muscular dystrophy with fatty liver and infantile-onset cataract caused by TRAPPC11 mutations: broadening of the phenotype
(2015-08-28)
Liang, Wen-Chen
;
Zhu, Wenhua
;
Mitsuhashi, Satomi
;
Noguchi, Satoru
;
Sacher, Michael
Background: Transport protein particle (TRAPP) is a multiprotein complex involved in endoplasmic reticulum-to-Golgi trafficking. Zebrafish with a mutation in the TRAPPC11 orthologue showed hepatomegaly with steatosis and defects in visual system development. In humans, TRAPPC11 mutations have been reported in only three families showing limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) or myopathy with movement disorders and intellectual disability. Methods: We screened muscular dystrophy genes using next-generation sequencing and performed associated molecular and biochemical analyses in a patient with fatty liver and cataract in addition to infantile-onset muscle weakness. Results: We identified the first Asian patient with TRAPPC11 mutations. Muscle pathology demonstrated typical dystrophic changes and liver biopsy revealed steatosis. The patient carried compound heterozygous mutations of a previously reported missense and a novel splice-site mutation. The splice-site change produced two aberrantly-spliced transcripts that were both predicted to result in translational frameshift and truncated proteins. Full-length TRAPPC11 protein was undetectable on immunoblotting. Conclusion: This report widens the phenotype of TRAPPC11-opathy as the patient showed the following: (1) congenital muscular dystrophy phenotype rather than LGMD; (2) steatosis and infantile-onset cataract, both not observed in previously reported patients; but (3) no ataxia or abnormal movement, clearly indicating that TRAPPC11 plays a physiological role in multiple tissues in human.
Efficient far-infrared thermal bremsstrahlung radiation from a heterojunction bipolar transistor
(2015-08-28)
Chung, Pei-Kang
;
Yen, Shun-Tung
;
電子工程學系及電子研究所
;
Department of Electronics Engineering and Institute of Electronics
We investigate the far-infrared thermal radiation properties of a heterojunction bipolar transistor. The device conveniently provides a high electric field for electrons to heat the lattice and the electron gas in a background with ions embedded. Because of very high effective temperature of the electron gas in the collector, the electron-ion bremsstrahlung makes efficient the thermal radiation in the far-infrared region. The transistor can yield a radiation power of 0.1 mW with the spectral region between 2 and 75 THz and a power conversion efficiency of 6 x 10(-4). Such output contains a power of 20 mu W in the low-frequency part (2-20 THz) of the spectrum. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.
Quantum-mechanical approach to predissociation of water dimers in the vibrational adiabatic representation: Importance of channel interactions
(2015-08-28)
Mineo, H.
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Niu, Y. L.
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Kuo, J. L.
;
Lin, S. H.
;
Fujimura, Y.
The results of application of the quantum-mechanical adiabatic theory to vibrational predissociation (VPD) of water dimers, (H2O)(2) and (D2O)(2), are presented. We consider the VPD processes including the totally symmetric OH mode of the dimer and the bending mode of the fragment. The VPD in the adiabatic representation is induced by breakdown of the vibrational adiabatic approximation, and two types of nonadiabatic coupling matrix elements are involved: one provides the VPD induced by the low-frequency dissociation mode and the other provides the VPD through channel interactions induced by the low-frequency modes. The VPD rate constants were calculated using the Fermi golden rule expression. A closed form for the nonadiabatic transition matrix element between the discrete and continuum states was derived in the Morse potential model. All of the parameters used were obtained from the potential surfaces of the water dimers, which were calculated by the density functional theory procedures. The VPD rate constants for the two processes were calculated in the non-Condon scheme beyond the so-called Condon approximation. The channel interactions in and between the initial and final states were taken into account, and those are found to increase the VPD rates by 3(1) orders of magnitude for the VPD processes in (H2O)(2) ((D2O)(2)). The fraction of the bending-excited donor fragments is larger than that of the bending-excited acceptor fragments. The results obtained by quantum-mechanical approach are compared with both experimental and quasi-classical trajectory calculation results. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.
Lasing action and extraordinary reduction in long radiative lifetime of type-II GaSb/GaAs quantum dots using circular photonic crystal nanocavity
(2015-08-31)
Hsu, Kung-Shu
;
Hung, Wei-Chun
;
Chang, Chih-Chi
;
Lin, Wei-Hsun
;
Shih, Min-Hsiung
We demonstrated the lasing action and remarkable reduction in long radiative lifetimes of type-II GaSb/GaAs quantum dots using a circular photonic-crystal nano-cavity with high Purcell factors. The associated enhancement in carrier recombination was surprisingly high and could even surpass type-I counterparts in similar conditions. These phenomena reveal that the type-II sample exhibited extremely low nonradiative recombination so that weak radiative transitions were more dominant than expected. The results indicate that type-II nanostructures may be advantageous for applications which require controllable radiative transitions but low nonradiative depletions. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.
A Fast Prototyping Framework for Analog Layout Migration With Planar Preservation
(2015-09-01)
Pan, Po-Cheng
;
Chin, Ching-Yu
;
Chen, Hung-Ming
;
Chen, Tung-Chieh
;
Lee, Chin-Chieh
Analog layout generation in the advanced CMOS design is challenging by its increasing layout constraints and performance requirements. This situation becomes more intricate by the growing parasitic variability and manufacturing reliability. To facilitate the feasibility of template-based layout migration, this paper first introduces a layout preservation, which extracts placement and routing behaviors from an existing layout into a crossing graph via constrained Delaunay triangulation. And later this crossing graph can be migrated into multiple layouts with placement and routing reconnection. The proposed approach also provides a refinement for wire to optimize the performance metrics. This approach is applied to a variable-gain amplifier, a folded-cascode operational amplifier, and a low dropout regulator. The experimental results demonstrate more possibility on layout migration, such that averagely more than 75% routing of migrated layout is generated by our approach. Additionally, it exhibits the productivity with qualified performance on different designs.
Enabling High-Injection Current Light-Emitting Diodes Prepared on 10-mu m-Thick GaN Films Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy
(2015-09-01)
Chen, Yu-An
;
Chang, Chia-Wei
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Kuo, Cheng-Huang
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照明與能源光電研究所
;
Institute of Lighting and Energy Photonics
In this paper, we successfully introduced the sputtered AlN/patterned sapphire substrate template into hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) using a two-step growth method. This method simplified the procedure, realized uninterrupted growth, and improved the crystal quality of GaN films. The effects of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) grown on a 10-mu m-thick GaN film through HVPE were also compared with those of the LEDs grown on a 2.4-mu m-thick GaN film through metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Compared with the LEDs grown on the 2.4-mu m-thick GaN film through MOCVD, the LEDs grown on the 10-mu m-thick GaN film through HVPE had significantly enhanced light output power (3.24-4.79 mW) and extended saturation current (300-355 mA). These improvements of the LEDs were attributed to the better thermal conductivities and better crystal quality of the 10-mu m-thick GaN film through HVPE than those of the 2.4-mu m-thick GaN film through MOCVD.
Analytical representation of the state-dependent coefficients in the SDRE/SDDRE scheme for multivariable systems
(2015-09-01)
Lin, Li-Gang
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Vandewalle, Joos
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Liang, Yew-Wen
;
電控工程研究所
;
Institute of Electrical and Control Engineering
Recently, the easy-to-implement state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) strategy has been shown effective for numerous practical applications. Since being similar to SDRE, the newly emerged state-dependent differential Riccati equation (SDDRE) approach shares most of the benefits of SORE, and exhibits interesting potential from both the analytical and practical viewpoints. By generalizing previous works to the general-order nonlinear time-variant systems, we try to resolve several problems related to the design flexibility (the infinitely many candidates of the state-dependent coefficient matrix), since they appear at the beginning of the implementation of both schemes. Finally, we demonstrate the proposed scheme via examples. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Reversible DCT-based data hiding in stereo images
(2015-09-01)
Yang, Wen-Chao
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Chen, Ling-Hwei
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資訊工程學系
;
Department of Computer Science
Stereo images captured from a pair of CCDs simultaneously are widely used to create the illusion of 3D depth. Each pair of stereo images has many similar block pairs. In this paper, a novel reversible data hiding method is proposed to embed secret data in these similar block pairs. To increase the embedding capacity, each 3-bit secret data is first converted to a pair of integers. Then, similar block pairs are found based on the lower frequency DCT-quantized coefficients. Each converted integer is embedded via the difference of a pair of middle frequency DCT-quantized coefficients from these similar block pairs. It is worth mentioning that the proposed method is reversible, but the existing data hiding methods for stereo images are irreversible. Experimental results show that the proposed method is undetectable under Chi-square analysis, and it provides high embedding capacity while maintaining acceptable quality of stereo images higher than 30 dB. The experimental results also show that the proposed method outperforms Chang et al.\'s method and Lin and Shiu\'s method in embedding capacity and image quality.
Quantitative evaluation of the impact of night shifts and alcohol consumption on construction tiling quality
(2015-09-01)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Wang, Shih-Hsu
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Fang, Yi-Cho
;
土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
The adverse effects of night-shift work and alcohol consumption on performance have received considerable attention. However, how night shifts and alcohol affect productivity in workers has not been quantified. This paper describes the experiments featuring multiple tiling tasks and patterns. The tiling quality performed by the graduate student participants in four different statuses was objectively evaluated by an edge-detection computer program. The results indicate that both night shift and alcohol significantly reduce the quality in general, and the effects of the factors on position and alignment-angle qualities were dissimilar in distinct areas due to tile patterns and size. Both night-shift and alcohol conditions affected the basic (-34.01% and -25.79%) and advanced tiling abilities (-40.14% and -26.16%), and night shift had a larger impact than alcohol. These results provide jobsite managers with usable information regarding how night shifts and alcohol affect workers\' abilities to execute basic and advanced tasks. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.
LOW-COST PERVASIVE 'MOBI-IN-A-BOX'
(2015-09-01)
Jung, Tzyy-Ping
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Wu, Ying
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Wang, Tu-Te
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Zheng, Guang-Yu
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Gan, Gary
Tool Replacement for Photovoltaic Industry Processes With Multiple Characteristics Based on Capability Index
(2015-09-01)
Hsu, Ya-Chen
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Jane, Amber
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Pearn, W. L.
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工業工程與管理學系
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Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
In the photovoltaic industry, measuring efficiency is an important process for manufacturing silicon wafers. The cutting tool gradually wears during the measuring efficiency process. Consequently, the fraction of defectives would gradually become significant. When the fraction defective reaches a certain level, the tool must be replaced. Therefore, it is essential to find out the optimal time to replace the cutting tool for minimizing the fraction defective and reducing the manufacturing cost. In this research, we consider the replacement problem in the photovoltaic industry to obtain the optimal replacement time for the measuring efficiency process. The measuring efficiency process involves multiple product quality characteristics, including the I-sc, V-oc, and R-sh. In order to maintain the high wafer process quality and to minimize the production cost, we first develop a method for measuring the manufacturing capability of measuring efficiency process. Then, a tool replacement policy is proposed to assess the true capability at each time period of measuring efficiency process and to find out the optimal time for tool replacement.
On the regularity of solutions to Poisson's equation
(2015-09-01)
Garg, Rahul
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Spector, Daniel
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應用數學系
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Department of Applied Mathematics
In this note, we announce new regularity results for some locally integrable distributional solutions to Poisson\'s equation. This includes, for example, the standard solutions obtained by convolution with the fundamental solution. In particular, our results show that there is no qualitative difference in the regularity of these solutions in the plane and in higher dimensions. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of Academie des sciences.
人生中的許多第一次－芬蘭交換學習心得
(國立陽明大學, 2015-09)
方端儀
Tour de India－A Bohemian Story
(國立陽明大學, 2015-09)
Monoj Mon Kalita
Biothiol-triggered, self-disassembled silica nanobeads for intracellular drug delivery
(2015-09-01)
Huang, Xin-Chun
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Wu, Li-Bang
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Hsu, Jen-Fang
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Shigeto, Shinsuke
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Hsu, Hsin-Yun
Silica-based nanomaterials have demonstrated great potential in biomedical applications due to their chemical inertness. However, the degradability and endosomal trapping issues remain as rate-limiting barriers during their innovation. In this study, we provide a simple yet novel sol-gel approach to construct the redox-responsive silica nanobeads (ReSiNs), which could be rapidly disassembled upon redox gradient for intracellular drug delivery. The disulfide-linked scaffold of the nanobead was synthesized by employing the dithiobis-(succinimidyl propionate) to bridge (3-aminopropyI)-trimethoxysilane. Such silica matrix could be efficiently disrupted in response to intracellular glutathione, resulting in drug release and collapse of entire nanocarrier. Moreover, the ReSiNs exhibited insignificant cytotoxicity before and after the degradation. These results indicated the potential of using ReSiNs as a novel silica-based, biothiol-degradable nanoplatform for future drug delivery. (C) 2015 Acts Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A small world based overlay network for improving dynamic load-balancing
(2015-09-01)
Daraghmi, Eman Yasser
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Yuan, Shyan-Ming
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資訊工程學系
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Department of Computer Science
Load-balancing algorithms play a key role in improving the performance of distributed-computing-systems that consist of heterogeneous nodes with different capacities. The performance of load-balancing algorithms and its convergence-rate deteriorate as the number-of-nodes in the system, the network-diameter, and the communication-overhead increase. Moreover, the load-balancing technical-factors significantly affect the performance of rebalancing the load among nodes. Therefore, we propose an approach that improves the performance of load-balancing algorithms by considering the load-balancing technical-factors and the structure of the network that executes the algorithm. We present the design of an overlay network, namely, functional small world (FSW) that facilitates efficient load-balancing in heterogeneous systems. The FSW achieves the efficiency by reducing the number-of-nodes that exchange their information, decreasing the network diameter, minimizing the communication-overhead, and decreasing the time-delay results from the tasks remigration process. We propose an improved load-balancing algorithm that will be effectively executed within the constructed FSW, where nodes consider the capacity and calculate the average effective-load. We compared our approach with two significant diffusion methods presented in the literature. The simulation results indicate that our approach considerably outperformed the original neighborhood approach and the nearest neighbor approach in terms of response time, throughput, communication overhead, and movements cost. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Ultrathin single-crystalline silicon solar cells for mechanically flexible and optimal surface morphology designs
(2015-09-01)
Lin, Ching-Chang
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Chuang, Yi-Jiun
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Sun, Wen-Hsien
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Cheng, Chieh
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Chen, Yu-Tzu
Recently, the evolution of photovoltaic cells in together with flexible electronics rapidly grows up so as to satisfy the flexibility and elasticity needs. Therefore, it will be a breakthrough impact if it is able to develop flexible single-crystalline photovoltaic cells which are fabricated with traditional procedure and provide highly electrical properties as well. This study aims to fabricate the flexible solar photovoltaic device with practical and reproducible method. Generally, the flexible solar photovoltaic is manufactured on the 30 gm-thickness single-crystalline silicon chip by chemical etching process. Versatile design on the flexible device can enhance light trapping effect. The surface texturization and antireflection layer deposition successfully minimize the reflectivity losses from the incident light. In addition, the developed devices under concave bending morphology demonstrates better operating performance than convex and flat configurations. As to the concave bending type, the significant improvement of power conversion efficiency (129% better than flat type, and 161% better than convex type) is observed from a large device current, which is related to the contribution of light trapping enhancement. In combination of all optimal conditions, the flexible device exhibits conversion efficiency up to 13.8%. The development of novel flexible solar photovoltaics with the excellent mechanical flexibility, low silicon material consumption and low fabrication cost demonstrates the potential capability for future solar cells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Applying Dielectrophoresis on Silver Nanowires Alignment and Assembly to Enhance the Efficiency of Plasmonic Silicon Solar Cells
(2015-09-01)
Lin, Ching-Chang
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Wang, Szu-Yu
;
Lin, Wei-Ling
;
Lin, Ya-Lin
;
Cheng, Chieh
The enhancement effects for solar cell are examined on the plasmonic properties of Ag nanowires (AgNWs) arrays, which fabricated by dielectrophoresis techniques. AgNWs in 100 nm diameters with aspect ratio (AR) of 100 were assembled into an array between the micrometer spaced electrodes by applying an AC electric field. The simulating results show that the array AgNWs can enhance the localized surface electric field on the silicon surface efficiently. Since, the incident lights can be scattered and trapped in the silicon layers which improves the enhancement of the external quantum efficiency. The optimized result of alignment of AgNWs average angle are 89.17 degree to the electrode edges and 21.98 degree of standard deviation under 100 Vpp, 250 kHz. In addition, the reflectance is 18.4% lower than those without AgNWs ones. The optimized plasmonic solar cells increase efficiency from 7.78% to 8.72%.
Predicating team performance in technology industry: Theoretical aspects of social identity and self-regulation
(2015-09-01)
Lin, Chieh-Peng
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經營管理研究所
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Institute of Business and Management
The technology industry environment has been so complex that oftentimes only effective and well-coordinated work teams can efficiently detect, assess, and deal with the drastic changes of such environment This study develops a research model based on the theories of social identity and self-regulation to forecast team performance in order to understand the interrelations between social, emotional, and motivational factors of teams in technology industry. In the model, team performance is influenced indirectly by goal commitment, emotional intelligence, and teamwork interdependence via the full mediation of team planning and team identity. At the same time, the effects of team planning and team identity on team performance are hypothetically moderated by goal commitment Empirical testing of this model, by investigating team personnel in high-tech firms from technology industry, confirms the applicability of team planning and team identity as dual mediators among these work teams. The managerial implications and research limitations based on the empirical findings herein are provided. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A New Method for Accurate Extraction of Source Resistance and Effective Mobility in Nanoscale Multifinger nMOSFETs
(2015-09-01)
Guo, Jyh-Chyurn
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Lo, Yi-Zen
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電子工程學系及電子研究所
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Department of Electronics Engineering and Institute of Electronics
A new method is is developed for accurate extraction of the effective mobility (mu(eff)) in the multifinger nMOSFETs with various poly-to-poly (PO-PO) spaces. The wide PO-PO space intends to increase the tensile stress from a contact etching stop layer (CESL) and yields higher mu(eff) in the nMOSFETs. However, the source resistance (RS) emerges as a critical parasitic element in the multifinger devices with a large finger number. The wide PO-PO space generally leads to the further increase of RS, which may offset mu(eff) improvement and degrade transconductance (gm). A two-end source line is proposed to reduce RS and the impact on gm. The complicated layout-dependent effects containing the CESL strain, RS, and 3-D fringing capacitances bring a crucial challenge to the mu(eff) extraction. In this paper, a distributed transmission line model is derived for a reliable determination of RS, which is a key to the realization of accurate extraction of mu(eff) and layout-dependent effects in multifinger devices.