CMOS scaling into the nanometer regime

Starting with a brief review on 0.1-μm (100 nm) CMOS status, this paper addresses the key challenges in further scaling of CMOS technology into the nanometer (sub-100 nm) regime in light of fundamental physical effects and practical considerations. Among the issues discussed are: lithography, power supply and threshold voltage, short-channel effect, gate oxide, high-field effects, dopant number fluctuations and interconnect delays. The last part of the paper discusses several alternative or unconventional device structures, including silicon-on-insulator (SOI), SiGe MOSFET's, low-temperature CMOS, and double-gate MOSFET's, which may lead to the outermost limits of silicon scaling     

AC hot-carrier effects in MOSFETs with furnaceN2O-nitrided gate oxides

AC hot-carrier effects in n-MOSFETs with thin (~85 Å) N₂O-nitrided gate oxides have been studied and compared with control devices with gate oxides grown in O₂. Results show that furnace N₂O-nitrided oxide devices exhibit significantly reduced AC-stress-induced degradation. In addition, they show weaker dependences of device degradation on applied gate pulse frequency and pulse width. Results suggest that the improved AC-hot-carrier immunity of the N₂O-nitrided oxide device may be due to the significantly suppressed interface state generation and neutral electron trap generation during stressing     

Experimental demonstration of multiwavelength optical network with microwave subcarriers

The authors use the unique multiwavelength filtering capability of the acousto-optic tunable filter to demonstrate multiple broadband services with only one fixed-wavelength transmitter and receiver per user in the first experimental demonstration of a multiwavelength subcarrier network.<>     

Increased pressor function of central vasopressinergic system in hypertensive renin transgenic rats

OBJECTIVE: Renin transgenic hypertensive rats [TGR(mRen2)27] have increased contents of angiotensin II and arginine vasopressin (AVP) in the cardiovascular brain regions. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of centrally released AVP on the regulation of baseline blood pressure in TGR(mRen2)27 rats and to determine the interaction between AVP and angiotensin II in the central control of blood pressure in this model of hypertension. DESIGN: Three basic series of experiments were performed on 20 TGR(mRen2)27 and 20 Hannover Sprague-Dawley conscious rats, chronically instrumented with lateral cerebral ventricle (LCV) cannulae and femoral artery catheters. In series 1, blood pressure and heart rate were recorded during an LCV infusion of artificial cerebrospinal fluid before and after LCV administration of angiotensin II. In series 2, the effects of an LCV administration of angiotensin 11 (100 ng) on mean arterial pressure and the heart rate were determined during LCV infusion of a selective AVP receptor (V1) antagonist [1-(1-mercapto-4-methylcyclohexaneacetic acid)-8-arginine vasopressin (MeCAAVP) and d(CH2)5[Tyr(Me)2,Ala-NH2(9)]AVP] or a selective angiotensin II type 1 (AT1) receptor antagonist (losartan) or both. In series 3, mean arterial pressure and the heart rate were determined after an LCV injection of either AVP (10 ng) or AVP together with angiotensin II. RESULTS: The LCV infusions of antagonists to V1 and AT1 receptors caused significant comparable decreases in baseline MAP in TGR(mRen2)27 but not in Sprague-Dawley rats. Angiotensin II elicited significant pressor responses, both in TGR(mRen2)27 and in Sprague-Dawley rats. Blockade of V1 receptors significantly reduced the duration and the maximum amplitude of the central pressor response to angiotensin II in TGR(mRen2)27 rats, whereas in Sprague-Dawley rats the maximum pressor effect was not significantly altered. In both strains, the pressor response to angiotensin II was abolished by blockade of AT1 receptors. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that the elevated blood pressure in TGR(mRen2)27 rats is partly caused by increased function of the brain angiotensinergic AT1 and vasopressinergic V1 systems. Centrally released AVP is involved in mediation of the pressor effect exerted by centrally applied angiotensin II in TGR(mRen2)27 rats.     

Multi-criteria Decision-making Approach for Environmental Impact Assessment to Reduce the Adverse Effects Of Dams

Water Resources Management - Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) of development projects are necessary to minimize negative impacts and maximize benefits. The objective of this paper is to...     

Calcium carbonate and ammonium polyphosphate flame retardant additives formulated to protect ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer against fire: Hydrated or carbonated calcium?

In this study, the effect of the chemical nature of different calcium (Ca)-based minerals as flame retardant additives in combination with ammonium polyphosphate (APP), in 1:1 proportions, on the flame retardancy behavior and performance of ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer was discussed. Combining APP with partly and completely hydrated calcium oxide led to superior flame-retardant function detected in mass loss calorimeter measurements with respect to the corresponding system containing carbonated calcium. This privileged character was attributed to the higher reactivity of hydrated Ca-based fillers toward APP in comparison with Ca carbonate, which induced the formation of an intumescent residue. The difference between reactivity potential of hydrated and dry Ca was demonstrated by the newly formed thermally stable species, and further evidenced by thermogravimetric analysis performed on APP/fillers blends. Moreover, the presence of more crystalline domains in the Ca/phosphorus-based compounds was evidenced by XRD analysis of the mass loss calorimeter test residues. The results of this work highlight the role of blend additive systems on the performance of flame retardancy of polymer materials.     

Molecular Imaging and Preclinical Studies of Radiolabeled Long-Term RGD Peptides in U-87 MG Tumor-Bearing Mice

The Arg–Gly–Asp (RGD) peptide shows a high affinity for α_vβ₃ integrin, which is overexpressed in new tumor blood vessels and many types of tumor cells. The radiolabeled RGD peptide has been studied for cancer imaging and radionuclide therapy. We have developed a long-term tumor-targeting peptide DOTA-EB-cRGDfK, which combines a DOTA chelator, a truncated Evans blue dye (EB), a modified linker, and cRGDfK peptide. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of indium-111(¹¹¹In) radiolabeled DOTA-EB-cRGDfK in α_vβ₃ integrin-expressing tumors. The human glioblastoma cell line U-87 MG was used to determine the in vitro binding affinity of the radiolabeled peptide. The in vivo distribution of radiolabeled peptides in U-87 MG xenografts was investigated by biodistribution, nanoSPECT/CT, pharmacokinetic and excretion studies. The in vitro competition assay showed that ¹¹¹In-DOTA-EB-cRGDfK had a significant binding affinity to U-87 MG cancer cells (IC₅₀ = 71.7 nM). NanoSPECT/CT imaging showed ¹¹¹In-DOTA-EB-cRGDfK has higher tumor uptake than control peptides (¹¹¹In-DOTA-cRGDfK and ¹¹¹In-DOTA-EB), and there is still a clear signal until 72 h after injection. The biodistribution results showed significant tumor accumulation (27.1 ± 2.7% ID/g) and the tumor to non-tumor ratio was 22.85 at 24 h after injection. In addition, the pharmacokinetics results indicated that the ¹¹¹In-DOTA-EB-cRGDfK peptide has a long-term half-life (T_1/2λz = 77.3 h) and that the calculated absorbed dose was safe for humans. We demonstrated that radiolabeled DOTA-EB-cRGDfK may be a promising agent for glioblastoma tumor imaging and has the potential as a theranostic radiopharmaceutical.     

Production of propylene glycol fatty acid monoesters by lipase-catalyzed reactions in organic solvents

Fatty acid monoesters of propylene glycol (1,2-propanediol) are good water-in-oil emulsifiers. These esters were synthesized enzymatically to overcome the problems associated with chemical processes. APseudomonas lipase was added to reaction mixtures containing propylene glycol and various acyl donors (fatty acids, fatty acid ethyl esters, fatty acid anhydrides and triglycerides) in organic solvents, and the mixtures were shaken at 30°C. The products were analyzed by gas chromatography. The yield of monoesters was affected by the acyl donors, organic solvents, temperature, water content, pH memory and reaction time. The anhydrous (lyophilized) enzyme and fatty acid anhydrides were best for monoester production. The optimum pH ranges were 4–5 and 8–10. The yields of propylene glycol monolaurate, monomyristate, monopalmitate, monostearate and monooleate with 50 mM fatty acid anhydrides as acyl donors were 97.2, 79.6, 83.7, 89.7 and 93.4 mM, respectively; those with 50 mM fatty acids as acyl donors were 37.3, 28.7, 28.7, 35.3 and 36.2 mM, respectively. The yields of propylene glycol monopalmitate, monostearate and monooleate with 50 mM triglycerides as acyl donors were 87.4, 65.1 and 83.2 mM, respectively.     

Engineering a pharmacologically superior form of leptin for the treatment of obesity

Leptin plays a central role in the homeostasis of body weight through its regulatory effects on appetite and energy expenditure, yet in trials as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of obesity in humans it has been disappointing. The poor clinical efficacy of leptin results from its short circulating half-life, low potency and poor solubility, necessitating large and frequent doses to obtain even modest clinical benefit. Engineered Fc-leptin immunofusins, consisting of the Fc fragment of an immunoglobulin gamma chain followed by leptin, exhibit improved pharmacological properties with very consistent and potent biological activities. Furthermore, in extending the circulating half-life of the protein in vivo from a few minutes for leptin to many hours for Fc-leptin, these proteins have the potential to reduce drastically the dosage and frequency of administration required to obtain clinical benefit. The results of this study show that the engineered leptin immunofusins described here have significantly enhanced pharmacological properties in comparison with the recombinant leptin that was used in clinical trials. As such, they could represent an important step towards a therapeutically superior form of leptin if the disappointing performance of leptin in early clinical trials was due to its poor pharmacological properties rather than any conceptual weakness in the strategy of using leptin for the treatment of obesity and its related disorders.     

Betweenness estimation in OLSR-based multi-hop networks for distributed filtering

In traditional networks special efforts are put to secure the perimeter with firewalls: particular routers that analyze and filter the traffic to separate zones with different levels of trust. In wireless multi-hop networks the perimeter is a concept extremely hard to identify, thus, it is much more effective to enforce control on the nodes that will route more traffic. But traffic filtering and traffic analysis are costly activities for the limited resources of mesh nodes, so a trade-off must be reached limiting the number of nodes that enforce them. This work shows how, using the OLSR protocol, the centrality of groups of nodes with reference to traffic can be estimated with high accuracy independently of the network topology or size. We also show how this approach greatly limits the impact of an attack to the network using a number of firewalls that is only a fraction of the available nodes.