A simple coating procedure employing a sol-gel process to modify the inner surface of a bare fused-silica capillary with a positively charged quaternary ammonium group is established. Scanning electron microscopic studies reveal that a smooth coating with 1 to approximately 2 microm thickness can be obtained at optimized coating conditions. With 40 mM citrate as a running electrolyte, the plot ...

Asymmetrically shaped nanopores have been shown to rectify the ionic current flowing through pores in a fashion similar to a p-n junction in a solid-state diode. Such asymmetric nanopores include conical pores in polymeric membranes and pyramidal pores in mica membranes. We review here both theoretical and experimental aspects of this ion current rectification phenomenon. A simple intuitive mod...

Surface modifications of microfluidic devices are of essential importance for successful bioanalytical applications. Here, we investigate three different coatings for quartz and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) surfaces. We employed a triblock copolymer with trade name F(108), poly(L-lysine)-g-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLL-PEG), as well as the hybrid coating n-dodecyl-β-D-maltoside and methyl cellulo...

Control of EOF in microfluidic devices is essential in applications such as protein/DNA sizing and high-throughput drug screening. With the growing popularity of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as the substrate for polymeric-based microfludics, it is important to understand the effect of surfactants on EOF in these devices. In this article, we present an extensive investigation exploring chang...

In this study, an improved Data INterpolating Empirical Orthogonal Functions (DINEOF) algorithm for determination of missing values in a spatio-temporal dataset is presented. Compared with the ordinary DINEOF algorithm, the iterative reconstruction procedure until convergence based on every fixed EOF to determine the optimal EOF mode is not necessary and the convergence criterion is only reache...

Observational data from the Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program were used to calculate the upper ocean heat content (OHC) anomaly. The thickness of the upper layer is taken as 300 m for the Pacific/Atlantic Ocean and 150 m for the Indian Ocean since the Indian Ocean has shallower thermoclines. First, the optimal spectral decomposition scheme was used to build up monthly synoptic tem...

The ionospheric F2 peak height hmF2 is an important parameter that is much needed in ionospheric research and practical applications. In this paper, an attempt is made to develop a global model of hmF2. The hmF2 data, used to construct the global model, are converted from the monthly median hourly values of the ionospheric propagation factor M(3000)F2 observed by ionosondes/digisondes distribut...

OBJECTIVES Poor nutritional status following abdominal surgeries for esophageal and gastric cancers remains a major challenge in postoperative care. Our study aimed to investigate the efficacy of starting early oral feeding (EOF) in patients undergoing surgical resection of upper gastrointestinal malignancies. METHODS A total of 180 consecutive patients with a diagnosis of esophageal or gastr...

BACKGROUNDS/AIMS Pancreaticoduodenctomy (PD) is associated with high rates of postoperative morbidity and mortality. Although many studies have shown that early postoperative enteral nutrition improves postoperative outcomes, limited clinical information is available on postoperative early oral feeding (EOF) after PD. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical feasibility, safety, and n...