Abstract. Reemerged Plasmodium vivax malaria in South Korea has not yet been eradicated despite continuous governmental efforts. It has rather become an endemic disease. Our study aimed to determine the genetic diversity in P. vivax merozoite surface protein-1 (PvMSP-1) and circumsporozoite protein (PvCSP) genes over an extended period after its reemergence to its current status. Sequence analysis of PvMSP-1 gene sequences from the 632 P. vivax isolates during 1996-2007 indicates that most isolates recently obtained were different from isolates obtained in the initial reemergence period. There was initially only one subtype (recombinant) present but its subtypes have varied since 2000; six MSP-1 subtypes were recently found. A similar variation was observed by CSP gene analysis; a new CSP subtype was found. Understanding genetic variation patterns of the parasite may help to analyze trends and assess extent of endemic malaria in South Korea.

Human dermal fibroblasts were inoculated into chitosan sponge scaffolds coated with type I collagen and it might be developed as a dermal substitute and/or dressing material. The application of 14% uniaxial cyclic strain to the cellular scaffolds affected the characteristics of the seeded human dermal fibroblasts. Cyclic strain enhanced cellular proliferation, the activity of metalloproteinase-2, and the expression of extracellular matrix proteins such as fibronectin. Moreover, cyclic strain increased the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and interleukin (IL)-6, which are critical to wound healing. Even under static culture (strain, 0%) following 14% cyclic strain, the expression of VEGF and IL-6, which had increased under 14% strain, was amplified or maintained for at least 3 days. Uniaxial cyclic strain may enhance the wound-healing potential of human dermal fibroblasts seeded on chitosan scaffolds through the changes in the cellular characteristics of the fibroblasts when the cellular scaffold is transplanted into skin wounds, especially chronic wounds such as diabetic wounds.

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A fully integrated four-input combining receiver front-end circuit is designed in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology for laser radar with a static unitary detector (STUD). This circuit consists of four independent transimpedance amplifiers, one signal combiner, a balun and an output buffer in one single integrated chip. The circuit provides 16.2 mW power consumption for a 1.8 V supplied voltage and 59.8 dBΩ transimpedance gain in the implemented experimental prototype for electrical pulse measurement. The fabricated prototype is worked exactly the same as the operation principle of the STUD in the two-dimensional optical pulse scanning measurement. Therefore, the proposed circuit is available for the STUD-based laser detection and ranging (LADAR) system as one integrated chip. This is the first demonstrated IC for the STUD-based laser radar system. Introduction: Laser detection and ranging (LADAR) sensors are commonly used to acquire real-time three-dimensional (3D) images using the time-of-flight (TOF) of a short laser pulse. Since the LADAR technology has a potential to obtain the 3D images of the fast moving target, it has been deployed in many applications like reconnaissance, autonomous vehicles and robots, remote sensing, terrain visualisation, and surface mapping for buildings and scenes [1,2]. For the real-time acquisition of 3D images, LADAR systems need to process all reflected TOF laser signals from every direction for a region of interest (ROI) in real time.There are different operation methods of LADAR systems with varying scanning mechanisms, number of lasers and geometric configurations. Recently, a new technique for real-time 3D images acquisition using a static unitary detector (STUD) was reported [3]. In this method, a large-area photodetector is mainly utilised instead of using the rotational motion [4] or the focal-plane-array (FPA) [5]. Specially, to overcome the bandwidth limitation by large parasitic capacitance of the large-area photodetector, multiple partitioned photosensitive cells are adapted in the STUD to collect incident photons. In the STUD, each cell has an independent cascading transimpedance amplifier (TIA) which amplifies the received signals from each cell, and all the outputs of each TIA are summed by a signal combiner. Consequently, each of the partitioned photodetectors can be operated independently without affecting each other, which indicates that no bandwidth limitation exists even increasing the number of cells. To implement the STUD-based LADAR system, however, TIAs are needed as much as the number of partitioned photosensitive cells and they are assembled on a single board. This causes restriction in the number of cells for higher-resolution 3D images on a large ROI due to the interconnection problem between a partitioned photodetector and multiple TIAs.In this Letter, a fully integrated compact four-input combining receiver front-end circuit for the STUD-based LADAR system is first proposed. Generally, in a readout IC (ROIC) for the FPA-based LADAR, minimising crosstalk betwe...

This paper introduces a digital-assisted multiple echo detection scheme, which utilizes the waste time of the full serial data readout period in a focal plane array (FPA)-based laser detection and ranging (LADAR) receiver. With the support of an external digital signal processor (DSP) and additional analog memory inserted into the receiver, the proposed readout scheme can effectively enhance multi-target resolution (MTR) three times higher than the conventional FPA-based LADAR, while maintaining low power consumption and a small area. A prototype chip was fabricated in a 0.18-μm CMOS process with an 8 × 8 FPA configuration, where each single receiver pixel occupied an area of 100 μm × 100 μm. The single receiver achieved an MTR of 20 ns with 7.47 mW power dissipation, an input referred noise current of 4.48 pA/√Hz with a bandwidth 530 MHz, a minimum detectable signal (MDS) of 340 nA, a maximum walk error of 2.2 ns, and a maximum non-linearity of 0.05% among the captured multiple echo images.