MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarkers in the Differential Diagnosis of Lipomatous Tumors and Their Mimics

Adipocytic tumors are the most common subtype of soft tissue tumors. In current clinical practice, distinguishing benign lipomas from well-differentiated liposarcomas (WDLPS), as well as dedifferentiated liposarcomas (DDLPS) from their morphologic mimics, remains a significant diagnostic challenge. This is especially so when examining small biopsy samples and without the aid of additional ancillary tests. Recognizing the important role that microRNAs (miRNAs) play in tumorigenesis and their potential utility in tumor classification, we analyzed routine clinical tissue samples of benign and malignant lipomatous tumors, as well as other sarcoma mimics, to identify distinguishing miRNA-based signatures that can aid in the differential diagnosis of these entities. We discovered a 6-miRNA signature that separated lipomas from WDLPS with high confidence (AUC of 0.963), as well as a separate 6-miRNA signature that distinguished DDLPS from their more aggressive histologic mimics (AUC of 0.740). Functional enrichment analysis unveiled possible mechanistic involvement of these predictive miRNAs in adipocytic cancer-related biological processes and pathways such as PI3K/AKT/mTOR and MAPK signaling, further supporting the relevance of these miRNAs as biomarkers for adipocytic tumors. Our results demonstrate that miRNA expression profiling may potentially be used as an adjunctive tool for the diagnosis of benign and malignant adipocytic tumors. Further validation studies are warranted.     

The pH effect for rare earth metals Nd, Pr and Y in aqueous solution dissolved Mg, Zn and Al

The pH variations of Mg, Zn and Al solutions to which had been added the rare earth metals Nd, Pr and Y were observed in 3.5 wt.% NaCl with respect to high energy mechanical ball milling effects. Mg was directly dissolved and exhibited a pH value of 10.5. On the other hand, Zn and Al needed to be saturated for a certain amount of time. The addition of rare earth metals played a role in increasing the pH with low reduction potentials. Additionally, mechanical ball milling provided high energy to Mg + x wt.% Zn + 0.5 wt.% Nd mixture by fracturing fragmentation of metals, which led to an increase in the pH when the mixture was immersed in 3.5 wt.% NaCl. The addition of Zn to Mg + 0.5 wt.% Nd caused a higher pH than when Mg + 0.5 wt.% Nd alone was added.     

Minimum-loss strategy for three-phase PWM rectifier

In this paper, the conduction and switching losses of a voltage-fed three-phase pulsewidth modulation (PWM) rectifier are analyzed for various PWM schemes. On the basis of this result, a novel PWM strategy which minimizes the loss of a three-phase PWM rectifier is developed. This minimization result is derived from the following two factors: (1) less switching frequency ratio; and (2) the absence of switching in the vicinity of peak input current. As a result, it is anticipated that the switching loss of the rectifier is reduced by 46%, compared with continuous space-vector PWM rectifiers, and 20% compared with conventional discontinuous space-vector PWM rectifiers. Moreover, the proposed PWM scheme can produce the highest available output voltage because it is based on the concept of the voltage space vector. The effectiveness of the proposed PWM strategy is verified by experiments     

在双镶嵌铜互联中O.13微米器件生成用的基于PVD和ALD阻挡层的先进技术

1. Introduction The requirement of minimal bottom coverageand thick sidewall coverage for PVD-based films forlow via resistance and improved stress migration isnot easy to achieve with traditional depositionmethods. Modern I-PVD techniques give high bot-tom coverage, due to the ionized component of thedeposition flux. Sidewall coverage tends to be low,which is mainly due to off-normal deposition fluxand a less than unity sticking coefficient.     

Improving the electrical and mechanical behavior of electrically conductive paint by partial replacement of silver by carbon black

Partial replacement of silver particles by carbon black (low cost) in electrically conductive paint was found to decrease the electrical resistivity and increase the scratch resistance of the resulting thick film, which is for use in electrical interconnections. An effective carbon black content is 0.055 of the total filler volume. By using a total solid volume fraction of 0.1969 and a silane-propanol (1:1 by weight) solution as the vehicle, a paint that gives a thick film with resistivity 2 × 10⁻³ Ω·cm has been attained.     

Growth of InGaN HBTs by MOCVD

The design and growth of GaN/InGaN heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) are studied. Atomic-force microscopy (AFM) images of p⁺InGaN base layers (∼100 nm) deposited under various growth conditions indicate that the optimal growth temperature is limited to the range between 810 and 830°C due to a trade-off between surface roughness and indium incorporation. At these temperatures, the growth pressure must be kept above 300 Torr in order to keep surface pit density under control. An InGaN graded-composition emitter is adopted in order to reduce the number of V-shaped defects, which appear at the interface between GaN emitter and InGaN base and render an abrupt emitter-base heterojunction nearly impossible. However, the device performance is severely limited by the high p-type base contact resistance due to surface etching damage, which resulted from the emitter mesa etch.     

New ISFET interface circuit design with temperature compensation

An integrated and new interface circuit with temperature compensation has been developed to enhance the ISFET readout circuit stability. The bridge-type floating source circuit suitable for sensor array processing has been proposed to maintain reliable constant drain-source voltage and constant drain current (CVCC) conditions for measuring the threshold voltage variation of ISFET due to the corresponding hydrogen ion concentration in the buffer solution. The proposed circuitry applied to Si₃N₄ and Al₂O₃-gate ISFETs demonstrate a variation of the drain current less than 0.1 μA and drain-source voltage less than 1 mV for the buffer solutions with the pH value changed from 2 to 12. In addition, the scaling circuitry with the V_T temperature correction unit (extractor) and LABVIEW software are used to compensate the ISFET thermal characteristics. Experimental results show that the temperature dependence of the Si₃N₄-gate ISFET sensor improved from 8 mV/°C to less than 0.8 mV/°C.     

Effect of H2O evolving from TEOS based SiO2 film on the EEPROM cell characteristic

In this paper, we investigate the effect of water (H₂O) molecules evolving from silicon dioxide (SiO₂) film deposited by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) at 670 °C on the transistor characteristic of an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM) cell. Fourier Transform Infra red (FT-IR) analysis reveals that H₂O is captured during film deposition and diffused to silicon surface during high thermal processing. The diffused H₂O molecules lower threshold voltage (V_t) of cell transistor and, thus, leakage current of the cell transistor is increased. In erased cell, V_t lowering is 0.25 V in which it increases leakage current of cell transistor from 1 to 100 pA. This results in the lowering of high voltage margin of a 512 Kb EEPROM from 2.8 to 2.6 V at 85 °C.     

Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diode with f/sub r0/ 20.2 GHz and peak current density 218 kA/cm/sup 2/ for K-band mixed-signal applications

This letter presents the room-temperature high-frequency operation of Si/SiGe-based resonant interband tunnel diodes that were fabricated by low-temperature molecular beam epitaxy. The resulting devices show a resistive cutoff frequency f/sub r0/ of 20.2 GHz with a peak current density of 218 kA/cm/sup 2/, a speed index of 35.9 mV/ps, and a peak-to-valley current ratio of 1.47. A specific contact resistivity of 5.3/spl times/10/sup -7/ /spl Omega//spl middot/cm/sup 2/ extracted from RF measurements was achieved by Ni silicidation through a P /spl delta/-doped quantum well by rapid thermal sintering at 430/spl deg/C for 30 s. The resulting devices are very good candidates for RF high-power mixed-signal applications. The device structures presented here are compatible with a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor or heterojunction bipolar transistor process.