Relationship between mutagenic effects of drinking water and incidence of liver cancer in Fusui County--a prevalent area

Relationship between mutagenic activity of drinking water and incidence of liver cancer was studied in Fusui County with micronucleus technique in the root tips of vicia faba. Results showed there existed substance that caused chromosome aberration in the drinking pond water of Fusui County. Micronucleus effects on the root tips of vicia faba induced by the substance in different kinds of drinking water coincided with the incidence of liver cancer (r = 0.86, P < 0.05). It suggested the existence of these chemical mutants in the water may be one of the important factors that caused high incidence of liver cancer. It provided experimental evidence for the etiological theory of liver cancer caused by the pollution of drinking water.     

Hybrid verrucous squamous cell carcinoma of sinonasal tract: a case report

Verrucous carcinoma is a variant of squamous cell carcinoma and should be distinguished from benign papilloma and well-differentiated nonverrucous squamous cell carcinoma. It is rare tumor of the sinonasal tract. Occasionally, conventional squamous cell carcinomatous components may be seen in verrucous carcinoma. This entity is called a hybrid verrucous squamous cell carcinoma. We report a case of hybrid verrucous squamous cell carcinoma occurring in the nasal cavity and paranasal sinus of a 67-year-old male. The removed mass shows the typical feature of verrucous carcinoma, but focally conventional squamous cell carcinomatous area is also noted. The treatment of this case follows verrucous carcinoma, but close follow up is mandatory because it may potentially spread to regional lymph nodes in contrast to pure form of verrucous carcinoma.     

Roll‐to‐roll UV embossing process applied for light bar‐based sub‐wavelength gratings for backlight

This study proposes a roll‐to‐roll process‐based sub‐wavelength grating, which is attached on a light bar to turn the side‐lit red/green/blue (620, 520, and 450 nm) incident rays into a uniformly and normally output white light with high illuminance from the light bar's surface. On the basis of the rigorous coupling wave analysis, the relationship between the first‐order transmission/reflection efficiency and the pitch of the gratings with different shapes was analyzed. The optimal design can effectively reduce the coupling length and enhance the white color balance for display applications.     

Ontology-based similarity for product information retrieval

Product development of today is becoming increasingly knowledge intensive. Specifically, design teams face considerable challenges in making effective use of increasing amounts of information. In order to support product information retrieval and reuse, one approach is to use case-based reasoning (CBR) in which problems are solved “by using or adapting solutions to old problems.” In CBR, a case includes both a representation of the problem and a solution to that problem. Case-based reasoning uses similarity measures to identify cases which are more relevant to the problem to be solved. However, most non-numeric similarity measures are based on syntactic grounds, which often fail to produce good matches when confronted with the meaning associated to the words they compare. To overcome this limitation, ontologies can be used to produce similarity measures that are based on semantics. This paper presents an ontology-based approach that can determine the similarity between two classes using feature-based similarity measures that replace features with attributes. The proposed approach is evaluated against other existing similarities. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated with a case study on product–service–system design problems.     

Effects of Copper Coating on the Crystalline Structure of Fine Barium Titanate Particles

We have investigated the effect of a metal coating—copper—on the tetragonal structure of fine barium titanate (BaTiO₃) particles. The BaTiO₃ particles were synthesized by a sol-gel method and heat treated at temperatures >900°C for various amounts of time before coating. The copper coating was achieved by an electroless coating technique. The transmission electron microscopy micrographs revealed that the coated powder contained fine BaTiO₃ particles that were embedded in copper patches. The X-ray diffractometry patterns showed that the copper coating increased the c/a ratio of the fine BaTiO₃ particles. For powders that were heat treated at 900°C for 10 h and were initially cubic, the copper coating changed the c/a ratio, from 1 to 1.0034. For powders that were calcined at 900°C for 20 h and were initially tetragonal, the copper coating further enhanced the c/a ratio, from 1.0028 to 1.0043. When the copper-coated BaTiO₃ particles were oxidized, the c/a ratio was reduced to a value that was approximately equal to or below that of the uncoated powders. A conductive coating can eliminate the depolarization energy of an insulating polar particle. The fact that the copper coating promoted the polar tetragonal phase but the nonconductive copper-oxide coating did not was consistent with the interpretation that the presence of the cubic phase (nonpolar) in small BaTiO₃ particles was caused by the depolarization effect.     

Exploring the Individual's Behavior on Self-Disclosure Online

Even though the ubiquity of technology can make many aspects of life more convenient, it may simultaneously raise some concerns about the privacy issues related to personal information. This research focused on the individual's behavior toward self-disclosure online and his or her cognition on personal privacy that was affected by not only the personal psychological factors but also the individual's computer knowledge and associated skills. To study how technological and psychological factors can simultaneously affect one's privacy concern and restrain behavior on disclosure, this study applied both perceived privacy and privacy concern to assess such factors as personal subjective attitude, computer self-efficacy, and perceived behavioral control to investigate the technological influence. A hypothesized model was proposed to describe the relationships among these constructs. After structural equation modeling is utilized to analyze the proposed hypotheses, the research findings showed that, although the perceived behavioral control had a negative effect on self-disclosure online, all the other hypotheses indicated a positive casual effect.     

Fabrication and flow test of long-term hydrophilic fluidic chip without using any surface modification treatment

In order to effectively pump liquid in a fluidic chip, the PDMS or SU8 channels were frequently modified by surface treatments to obtain the hydrophilic surface but encountered the problem of the hydrophobic recovery. In this article, long-term highly hydrophilic fluidic chips were demonstrated using rapid fabrication of low-power CO₂ laser ablation and low-temperature glass bonding with an interlayer of liquid crystal polymer (LCP). The intrinsic hydrophilic materials of glass and LCP were beneficial for self-driven flow in the long-term fluidic chip by surface-tension force with no extra fluidic pumps. The higher viscosity fluid could increase the difficulty of self-driven capability. The stability of contact angle and flow test of the chip after 2 months is similar to that at beginning. The high-viscosity human whole blood was successfully driven at an average moving velocity of about 1.89 mm/s for the beginning and at 2.04 mm/s after 2 months. Our fluidic chip simplifies the traditional complex fabrication procedure of glass chips and conquers the problem of traditional hydrophobic recovery.