Reintroductions of large carnivore species present unique opportunities to model population dynamics as populations can be monitored from the beginning of a reintroduction. However, analysis of the population dynamics of such reintroduced populations is rare and may be limited in incorporating the complex movements and environmental interactions of large carnivores. Starting in 2004, Asiatic black bears Ursus thibetanus were reintroduced and tracked in the Republic of Korea, along with their descendants, using radio telemetry, yielding 33,924 tracking points over 12 years. Along with information about habitat use, landscape, and resource availability, we estimated the population equilibrium and dispersal capability of the reintroduced population. We used a mixed modelling approach to determine suitable habitat areas, population equilibria for three different resources-based scenarios, and least-cost pathways (i.e. corridors) for dispersal. Our population simulations provided a mean population equilibrium of 64 individuals at the original reintroduction site and a potential maximum of 1,438 individuals in the country. The simulation showed that the bear population will disperse to nearby mountainous areas, but a second reintroduction will be required to fully restore U. thibetanus. Northern suitable habitats are currently disconnected and natural re-population is unlikely to happen unless supported. Our methodologies and findings are also relevant for determining the outcome and trajectories of reintroduced populations of other large carnivores.

A life-threatening cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)-related injury can cause recurrent arrest after return of circulation. Such injuries are difficult to identify during resuscitation, and their contribution to failed resuscitation can be missed given the limitations of conventional CPR. Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), increasingly being considered for selected patients with potentially reversible etiology of arrest, may identify previously occult CPR-related injuries by restoring arterial pressure and flow. Herein, we describe two cases of severe CPR-related injuries contributing to recurrent arrest. Each case had ECPR implemented within 60 minutes of the start of CPR. After the presumed cardiac etiology had been addressed with percutaneous coronary intervention, life-threatening cardiovascular injuries with recurrent arrest were noted, and resuscitative thoracotomy was performed under ECPR. One patient survived to hospital discharge.

ECPR may provide an opportunity to identify and correct severe resuscitation-related injuries causing recurrent arrest. Chest compression depth >6 cm, especially in older women, may contribute to these injuries.

When a drop is deposited on a superhydrophilic micropillar array, the upper part of the drop (referred to as the bulk) collapses while the bottom part penetrates into the gaps of the array, forming a fringe film. Here we quantify the early stage dynamics of this process using a combination of experiment and theory. We show that the circular front of the fringe film spreads like t1/2, t being time, when coupled to the bulk flow. However, the film is found to advance like t1/3 through faceted zippering in the absence of the bulk. We then show that the spreading of the bulk and the entire drop footprint follows a power law (t1/4) that is different from Washburn's law. This work can be a starting point to completely understand the spreading of liquids on superhydrophilic surfaces and opens questions specific to superwetting behaviour including the criteria to determine whether the fringe film will expand through lateral zipping or advance radially outwards.

Despite numerous previous studies, relationships between watershed land use and adjacent streams and rivers at various scales in Korea remain unclear. This study investigated the relationships between land uses and the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of 720 sites of streams and rivers across the country. The land uses at two spatial scales, including a 1-km buffer and the base watershed management region (BWMR), were computed in a geographical information system (GIS) with a digital land use/land cover map. Characteristics of land uses at two spatial scales were then correlated with the monitored multidimensional characteristics of the streams and rivers. The results of this study indicate that land use types have significant effects on stream and river characteristics. Specifically, most characteristics were negatively correlated with the proportions of urban, rice paddy, agricultural, and bare soil areas and positively correlated with the amount of forest. The site-scale and BWMR-scale analyses suggest that BWMR land use patterns were more strongly related to ecological integrity than they were to site land use patterns. Improving our understanding of land use effects will largely depend on relating the results of site-specific studies that use similar response techniques and measures to evaluate ecological integrity. In addition, our results clearly indicate that the characteristics of streams and rivers are closely linked and that land use types differentially affect those characteristics. Thus, effective restoration and management for ecological integrity of lotic system should consider the physical, chemical, and biological factors in combination.

We report the binding and conductivity characteristics of PbSe nanocrystal quantum dots which have different ligands on the surface. The PbSe nanocrystal quantum dots were surface functionalized using chemical treatment. The results of post-treatment analysis show that the PbSe surface can be successfully functionalized with various ligands based on thiol- and amine-molecules (e.g., oleic acid, dodecanethiol and butylamine). Conductivity measurements performed using a metal-semiconductor-metal structure indicate that there is an increase of conductivity as the length of the ligand connecting the quantum dots is reduced.

Successful integration of solution-processible nanocrystal quantum dots, active over a wide spectral range in the infrared, organic molecules and polymers, to fabricate efficient photoconductive and photorefractive devices operational at important optical communication wavelengths is achieved. Sensitization of the polymeric composites by quantum dots led to high photocurrents at 1340 nm, yielding a high photoconductive quantum efficiency. In the photorefractive composites, pronounced two-beam coupling was observed, leading to good optical gains achievable by low-power continuous-wave illumination. The photoresponse was further extended to 1550 nm. A steady state diffraction efficiency was obtained in the dynamic refractive-index gratings with appreciable response times. In order to enhance the photoconductive performance of the devices, the organic semiconductor pentacene was incorporated into the hybrid composite through a soluble presursor. At the operating wavelength of 1340 nm, the photocurrent increased significantly as the amount of pentacene in the composite was increased, resulting in a spectacular improvement of external quantum efficiency.

The swelling behavior of chitosan hydrogels in ionic liquid–water binary systems was studied using hydrophilic room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) to elucidate the swelling properties of chitosan hydrogels. It was confirmed that chitosan hydrogels are much stiffer after immersing in a pure RTIL because the water existing inside the chitosan polymer network is extracted into the RTIL. The pH of the binary system changes when the RTIL is in contact with water. The chitosan hydrogels were fully dissociated at a 90% water content in the BMI-BF4-water binary system. The equilibrium binary system content behavior of the chitosan hydrogels depended upon the amount of free water present. The water behavior in a pure RTIL was examined using differential scanning calorimetry.

Composite fibers composed of chitosan and single-wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been fabricated using a wet spinning method. The dispersion was improved by the sonic agitation of the CNTs in a chitosan solution followed by centrifugation to remove tube aggregates and any residual catalyst. The mechanical behavior was investigated using a dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA). The mechanical tests showed a dramatic increase in Young's modulus for the chitosan/CNT composite fibers fabricated using the improved dispersion method. The strain on the microfibers was determined from tensile load measurements during pH switching in acidic or basic electrolyte solutions. The microfibers showed a general actuation behavior of expanding at pH = 2 and contracting at pH = 7 under low tensile loads. However, a reverse of this actuation behavior was exhibited under high tensile loads. This anomalous pH actuation is both new and surprising. It was explained from an analysis of the differences in sample stiffness and Poisson’s ratio under tensile load in electrolyte solutions with different pH values.

System in package (SiP) is a superb candidate to enhance the area efficiency and performance of electronic packaging. Here, recent work on stacked chip type 3D SiP with vertically interconnected through hole vias are reported. The process includes; formation of 50um-diameter via holes, conformal deposition of SiO2 dielectric layer, deposition of Ta and Cu barrier layers, via filling by Cu electroplating, Cu/Sn bump formation for multi-chip stacking, and finally chip-to-PCB bonding using Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu solder and ENIG pad. A prototype 3D SiP stacked up to 10 layers was successfully fabricated.

A high frequency electrical model of the through hole via was proposed and the model parameters were extracted from measured S-parameters. The proposed model was verified by TDR/TDT (time domain reflectometry/time domain transmission) and eye-diagram measurement. Contact resistances of Cu via and bump joint were presented.

Composite nanofibers including ferritin nanoparticles or multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were fabricated to enhance the physical properties of the nanofibers, such as the elastic modulus and electrical conductivity. The ferritin was homogeneously incorporated in the polymeric nanofibers, but excess carbon nanotubes (CNTs) added to the polymer solution resulted in the fabrication of composite nanofibers with rough surfaces. PVA/ferritin/CNT composite nanofibers were fabricated that had smooth surfaces, and had a good dispersion of ferritin and CNTs. These composite nanofibers are applicable to artificial muscles requiring enhanced physical properties.

The interests of low-k dielectric materials to reduce capacitance in multilevel metal interconnects of integrated circuits are well known in the semiconductor industry. Mechanical properties of low-k film are currently the main issues. Improved hardness and modulus are desirable because, when building a multilayered stack and doing sequential processing, films go through chemical mechanical planarization. In this proceeding, we reports the Young's moduli of the typical low k materials, and the effects of various factors for Young's moduli of materials, such as, structures of precursors, density, and porosity. Using atomistic molecular dynamics simulation with experimental measurements, the Young's moduli of films of amorphous silicon oxide in which 25% of Si-O-Si chains were replaced by Si-(CH3 H3C)-Si, Si-CH2-Si, Si-(CH2)2-Si, Si-(CH2)3-Si, Si-(CH2)4-Si, Si-(CH2)6-Si, were measured and analyzed. The predicted trends of Young's moduli of films formed by above precursors are in good consistent with those observed from experiments. The Young's moduli of materials are largely dependent on the densities of materials. Young's modulus of material increases as the density of the material increases. The chemical properties, chain length, and connectivity of material take effects on the Young's modulus of material. Given the same densities of material the smaller number of cavities per unit volume the material has, the lower Young's modulus it shows. Based on the results, the method of predict mechanical properties of materials by the conjunction of basic experimental measurements and atomistic simulation will be discussed.

CMP(Chemical Mechanical Planarization) process is widely used to reduce step height in semiconductor fabrication processes. As a design rule shrinks, a highly planar surface becomes inevitable within wafer scales. In order to get a high degree of a planarization, self-stopping characteristics of a ceria-based slurry should be studied and used in semiconductor process. In this study, threshold polishing pressure for a self-stopping characteristics was obtained by optimizing down pressure, pad conditioning, and mixing ratio of ceria abrasive and additive. A series of experiments were made to optimize the threshold polishing pressure in variable line & space patterns that consist of 0.8um step height and unit oxide film. As a result, self-stopping cmp process is twice batter than conventional silica-based process with respect to planarity and WIWNU. In addition, WIWNU and step height was dramatically decreased to less than 1000Å when applying to real fabrication devices over 2um step height.

Porous low dielectric films containing nano pores (∼20Å) with low dielectric constant (<2.2), have been prepared by using various kinds of cyclodextrin derivatives as porogenic materials. The pore structure such as pore size and interconnectivity can be controlled by changing functional groups of the cyclodextrin derivatives. We found that mechanical properties of porous low-k thin film prepared with mCSSQ (modified cyclic silsesquioxane) precursor and cyclodextrin derivatives were correlated with the pore interconnection length. The longer the interconnection length of nanopores in the thin film, the worse the mechanical properties of the thin film (such as hardness and modulus) even though the pore diameter of the films were microporous (∼2nm).

BaIn2S4, BaIn2S4:Ho3+, BaIn2S4:Er3+, BaIn2S4:Tm3+, BaIn2Se4, BaIn2Se4:Ho3+, BaIn2Se4:Er3+, and BaIn2Se4:Tm3+ single crystals were grown by the chemical transport reaction method. The optical energy gap of the single crystals was found to be 3.057, 2.987, 2.967, 2.907, 2.625, 2.545, 2.515, and 2.415 eV, respectively, at 11 K. The temperature dependence of the optical energy gap was well fitted by the Varshni equation. Broad emission peaks were observed in the photoluminescence spectra of the single crystals. They were assigned to donor–acceptor pair recombination. Sharp emission peaks were observed in the doped single crystals. They were attributed to be due to radiation recombination between the Stark levels of the Ho3+, Er3+, and Tm3+ ions sited in C1 symmetry.

MgxZn1-xSi: Ho3+, MgxZn1-xSe: Er3+, and MgxZn1-xSe: Tm3+ single crystals were grown by the closed-tube sublimation method. The single crystals crystallized into a zincblende structure at the composition x = 0.11 and a wurtzite structure at the composition x = 0.25, 0.32, and 0.41. The trivalent ions (Ho3+, Er3+, and Tm3+) of the rare-earth elements Ho, Er, and Tm site in Td and C3v symmetries in the single crystals with zincblende and wurtzite structures, respectively. Sharp emission peaks appeared in the photoluminescence spectra of the single crystals. These emission peaks are identified to originate from the radiation recombination between the energy levels of the trivalent ions sited in Td and C3v symmetries.

Ferroelectric BaTiO 3 thin films with perovskite structure were grown by sol-gel spin-on processing onto (111)Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates. In order to investigate the effects of space charge in BaTiO3 thin films, we measured the relative dielectric constant and the ac conductivity of the films as a function of frequency, ac oscillation amplitude and temperature. Dielectric constant and dielectric loss were 147 and 0.03 at 100 kHz, respectively. Also, BaTiO3 thin films exhibited marked dielectric relaxation above the Curie temperature and in the low frequency region below 100 Hz. This low frequency dielectric relaxation is attributed to the ionized space charge carriers such as oxygen vacancies and defects in BaTiO3 film and the interfaical polarization. The thermal activation energy for the relaxation process of the ionized space charge carriers was 0.72 eV.

Basic mechanisms for both Ni- and Pd-metal induced lateral crystallization (MILC) are investigated. For both cases, tiny silicides were formed under the metal deposited area, and propagated toward amorphous Si films leaving crystallized Si behind at temperatures as low as 500 °C. Ni-MILC was influenced by Pd such that the lateral crystallization rate was enhanced, and the temperature for the lateral crystallization was lowered to 450 °C. Through TEM analysis and external stress experiments, it was found that the enhancement of the lateral crystallization rate was closely related to the compressive stress generated by the formation of nearby Pd2Si.