Kinetically Blocked Stable Heptazethrene and Octazethrene: Closed-Shell or Open-Shell in the Ground State?

Li, Yuan,Heng, Wee-Kuan,Lee, Byung Sun,Aratani, Naoki,Zafra, José,L.,Bao, Nina,Lee, Richmond,Sung, Young Mo,Sun, Zhe,Huang, Kuo-Wei,Webster, Richard D.,Ló,pez Navarrete, Juan T.,Kim, Dongh American Chemical Society 2012 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY - Vol.134 No.36

<P>Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with an open-shell singlet biradical ground state are of fundamental interest and have potential applications in materials science. However, the inherent high reactivity makes their synthesis and characterization very challenging. In this work, a convenient synthetic route was developed to synthesize two kinetically blocked heptazethrene (<B>HZ-TIPS</B>) and octazethrene (<B>OZ-TIPS</B>) compounds with good stability. Their ground-state electronic structures were systematically investigated by a combination of different experimental methods, including steady-state and transient absorption spectroscopy, variable temperature NMR, electron spin resonance (ESR), superconducting quantum interfering device (SQUID), FT Raman, and X-ray crystallographic analysis, assisted by unrestricted symmetry-broken density functional theory (DFT) calculations. All these demonstrated that the heptazethrene derivative <B>HZ-TIPS</B> has a closed-shell ground state while its octazethrene analogue <B>OZ-TIPS</B> with a smaller energy gap exists as an open-shell singlet biradical with a large measured biradical character (<I>y</I> = 0.56). Large two-photon absorption (TPA) cross sections (σ<SUP>(2)</SUP>) were determined for <B>HZ-TIPS</B> (σ<SUP>(2)</SUP><SUB>max</SUB> = 920 GM at 1250 nm) and <B>OZ-TIPS</B> (σ<SUP>(2)</SUP><SUB>max</SUB> = 1200 GM at 1250 nm). In addition, <B>HZ-TIPS</B> and <B>OZ-TIPS</B> show a closely stacked 1D polymer chain in single crystals.</P><P><B>Graphic Abstract</B> <IMG SRC='http://pubs.acs.org/appl/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/jacsat/2012/jacsat.2012.134.issue-36/ja304618v/production/images/medium/ja-2012-04618v_0015.gif'></P><P><A href='http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/ja304618v'>ACS Electronic Supporting Info</A></P>

Effects of Caponization and Testosterone on Bone and Blood Parameters of SCWL Male Chickens

Chen, Kuo-Lung,Tsay, Shiow-Min,Lo, Dan-Yuan,Kuo, Feng-Jui,Wang, Jiann-Hsiung,Chiou, Peter Wen-Shyg Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2007 Animal Bioscience Vol.20 No.5

This study was to investigate the caponization effects on bone characteristics in male chickens, and the optimum testosterone implantation dosage on bone characteristics improvement. Healthy Single Comb White Leghorn cockerels were caponized at 12-wk-old and selected at 16-wk-old for a 10-wk feeding experiment. Fifteen intact male and caponized male chickens (capon) respectively were assigned to trial 1. Ten sham-operated chickens and 40 capons (randomly allocated into four treatments) were implanted with cholesterol (1.62 mm i.d., 3.16 mm o.d., $9.24{\pm}0.36$ mg), low (1 mm i.d., 3 mm o.d., $5.88{\pm}0.23$ mg), medium (1.62 mm i.d., 3.16 mm o.d., $9.81{\pm}0.17$ mg) or high dose (2 mm i.d., 4 mm o.d., $16.7{\pm}0.24$ mg) of testosterone in trial 2. The results from trial 1 showed that the tibia length, relative tibia weight, breaking strength, bending moment and stress in intact males were higher than capons (p<0.05). The blood phosphorus concentration in capons was higher than the intact male chickens (p<0.05). Caponization also resulted in more antrums and osteoclasts within periosteum and cortical bone from histological observation. In trial 2, the adverse impact of caponization on the bone breaking strength, bending moment and stress could be alleviated through medium dose testosterone implantation. It appears that caponization reduced androgen secretion hence influenced the biomechanical characteristics of bone (tibia) and these adverse effects could be alleviated through appropriate dose of testosterone implantation.

Real-World Effectiveness and Safety of SOF/LDV for Pa-tients with Chronic Hepatitis C in Taiwan

( Ching-chu Lo ),( Pin-nan Cheng ),( Chi-yi Chen ),( Chung-feng Huang ),( Hsing-tao Kuo ),( Kuo-chih Tseng ),( Yi-hsiang Huang ),( Chi-ming Tai ),( Cheng-yuan Peng ),( Ming-jong Bair ),( Chien-hung Ch 대한간학회 2021 춘·추계 학술대회 (KASL) Vol.2021 No.1

Development of a Modified SPWM Control Inverter for Tidal Current Generation System

Jia-You Lee,Kuo-Yuan Lo,Chien-Tzu Ko,Chia-Ling Fan 전력전자학회 2019 ICPE(ISPE)논문집 Vol.2019 No.5

This paper proposes a modified sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation (SPWM) control single-phase inverters for the tidal current generation system. In general, a two-stage configuration is used to convert the generating AC power from the tidal current generator to DC power by a rectifier and transfer the DC power into AC power by an inverter to provide a stable voltage source. It is noticed that a small size capacitor of the rectifier is possible and the discontinuous current can be improved. However, a small size capacitor implies the higher voltage ripple and results in a lots of low-order voltage harmonics of the inverter with traditional SPWM control. Therefore, a modified modulation control strategy is developed in this paper. The proposed inverter has lower total harmonic distortion (THD) of the output voltage with high input voltage ripple. The low-order harmonics of output voltage can be reduced effectively and the THD is less than 2.5% in the experiments.

Development of an Inductorless Step-Down Converter

Wei-Yu Wang,Jia-Hao Kuo,Kuo-Yuan Lo 전력전자학회 2019 ICPE(ISPE)논문집 Vol.2019 No.5

The objective of this paper is to propose an inductorless non-isolated step-down converter. The proposed converter is composed of multiple charging pump dc-dc converters with interleaving operation. Based on the characteristic of charging pump capacitor, the presented converter does not require an inductor and can obtain the step-down output voltage. Advantages of the proposed converter include: inductorless power conversion, control circuit simplicity, low voltage stress, low input current ripple, low output voltage ripple, and fault-tolerant operation for each dc-dc converter module. Based on the circuit analysis, the power loss can be evaluated with the capacitance of bridge capacitor and switching frequency. Also, with the interleaved operation between the charging pump converters, the current ripple of the input can be reduced without the need of input inductor. The computer simulations and hardware experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed inductorless step-down converter. The peak efficiency from an input voltage 100 V, output voltage 50 V, and output power 75W prototype is around 97.2%.

Sofosbuvir/Ledipasvir in the Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C - A Subgroup Analysis from A Nationwide Real-World HCV Registry Program (TACR) in Taiwan

( Ming-Lung Yu ),( Chi-Yi Chen ),( Kuo-Chih Tseng ),( Ching-Chu Lo ),( Pin-Nan Cheng ),( Cheng-Yuan Peng ),( Ming-Jong Bair ),( Chih-Lang Lin ),( Chi-Ming Tai ),( Chi-Chieh Yang ),( Chih-Wen Lin ),( C 대한간학회 2020 춘·추계 학술대회 (KASL) Vol.2020 No.1

Aims: TASL HCV Registry (TACR) is a nationwide registry program organized and supervised by Taiwan Association for the Study of the Liver (TASL), which aims to setup the database and biobank of patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) in Taiwan. The present study aimed to evaluate the treatment outcome of sofosbuvir (SOF)/ledipasvir (LDV) in Taiwanese CHC patients in TACR. Methods: By May 2020, 19 tertiary hospitals, 23 community hospitals and one primary care clinic join the TACR program. The baseline characteristics, prior liver and non-liver related medical history, DAA regimens, laboratory results, treatment course and outcome were recorded. The primary objective was sustained virological response, defined as undetectable HCV RNA 3 months after end-of-treatment (SVR12). Results: A total of 4742 SOF/LDV+ ribavirin treated CHC patients with available SVR12 data from 39 sites were enrolled in the current analysis. The mean age was 61.3 years, and female accounted for 54.8% of the population. The dominant viral genotypes were GT1b (52.6%) and GT2 (35.6%). 1354 (28.6%) patients had liver cirrhosis, including 156 (3.3%) with liver decompensation, 552 (11.6%) had preexisting hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) before DAAs treatment and 413 (8.7%) had hepatitis B virus dual infections. The overall SVR12 rate was 98.5%, with 98.5%, 98.2%, 99.7% and 98.6% in treatment- naïve non-cirrhotics, treatment-naïve cirrhotics, treatment- experienced non-cirrhotics and treatment-experienced cirrhotics patients, respectively. While patients were stratified by HCV genotype, the SVR12 was 98.5%, 98.4% and 98.5% among those with GT1, GT2 and GT6 infection, respectively. The strongest factor independent associated with treatment failure was DAA adherence < 60% (odds ratio [OR]/95% confidence intervals [CI]: 125.4/25.7-612.4, P<0.0001), followed by active HCC (OR/CI: 6.20/2.57-14.97, P<0.0001), HIV co-infection (OR/CI: 3.01/1.14-7.92, P=0.026), and male gender (OR/ CI: 1.85/1.09-3.13, P=0.023). The eGFR decreased significantly at the end of treatment (EOT) (89.3 ml/min/1.73㎡ vs. 93.2 ml/min/1.73㎡, P< 0.001) and remained stable 3 months after EOT (89.3 ml/min/1.73㎡). However, the decreased eGFR was observed only in patients whose baseline eGFR > 90 ml/ min/1.73㎡. Instead, patients with chronic kidney diseases whose pretreatment eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73㎡ had improved eGFR after SOF/LDV. Conclusions: SOF/LDV is highly effective in treating CHC patients in real-world setting of Taiwan. The satisfactory result could be explicitly generalized to patients with different viral genotypes and liver disease severities.

Sofosbuvir/velpatasvir plus ribavirin for Child-Pugh B and Child-Pugh C hepatitis C virus-related cirrhosis

( Chen-hua Liu ),( Chi-yi Chen ),( Wei-wen Su ),( Chun-jen Liu ),( Ching-chu Lo ),( Ke-jhang Huang ),( Jyh-jou Chen ),( Kuo-chih Tseng ),( Chi-yang Chang ),( Cheng-yuan Peng ),( Yu-lueng Shih ),( Chia 대한간학회 2021 Clinical and Molecular Hepatology(대한간학회지) Vol.27 No.4

Background/Aims: Real-world studies assessing the effectiveness and safety of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (SOF/VEL) plus ribavirin (RBV) for Child-Pugh B/C hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related cirrhosis are limited. Methods: We included 107 patients with Child-Pugh B/C HCV-related cirrhosis receiving SOF/VEL plus RBV for 12 weeks in Taiwan. The sustained virologic response rates at off-treatment week 12 (SVR₁₂) for the evaluable population (EP), modified EP, and per-protocol population (PP) were assessed. The safety profiles were reported. Results: The SVR₁₂ rates in the EP, modified EP and PP were 89.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 82.5-94.2%), 94.1% (95% CI, 87.8-97.3%), and 100% (95% CI, 96.2-100%). Number of patients who failed to achieve SVR₁₂ were attributed to virologic failures. The SVR₁₂ rates were comparable regardless of patient characteristics. One patient discontinued treatment because of adverse events (AEs). Twenty-four patients had serious AEs and six died, but none were related to SOF/VEL or RBV. Among the 96 patients achieving SVR₁₂, 84.4% and 64.6% had improved Child-Pugh and model for endstage liver disease (MELD) scores. Multivariate analysis revealed that a baseline MELD score ≥15 was associated with an improved MELD score of ≥3 (odds ratio, 4.13; 95% CI, 1.16-14.71; P=0.02). Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 1 had more significant estimated glomerular filtration rate declines than patients with CKD stage 2 (-0.42 mL/min/1.73 ㎡/month; P=0.01) or stage 3 (-0.56 mL/min/1.73 ㎡/month; P<0.001). Conclusions: SOF/VEL plus RBV for 12 weeks is efficacious and well-tolerated for Child-Pugh B/C HCV-related cirrhosis. (Clin Mol Hepatol 2021;27:575-588)