Measurement of the magnitude of tongue pressure shows promise as a simple, non-invasive and quantitative method by which tongue activity in post-stroke patients, in whom swallowing ability is a concern, could be evaluated.

It is suggested that in the elderly tongue pressure contributed to propulsion of the food bolus from oral cavity into the pharynx, and multiple swallowing contributed to the reduction in the amount of pharyngeal residue.

Positron-induced ion-desorption spectroscopy has been constructed and used for measurements of positron-induced hydrogen ion desorption from Ni surfaces. The cross-section for proton desorption at a positron incident energy of 1.9 keV was larger than that at a positron incident energy of 2.9 keV. This value is larger than that for electron-stimulated desorption with similar incident energies, suggesting that ion desorption is caused by the thermalized positrons in the bulk.

No abstract

Ultraviolet (UV) and white electroluminescence (EL) from metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) devices with indium–tin oxide (ITO)/[(Gd/(Gd + Dy/La/Ca/Ba)–Si–O] insulator layers/n+-Si substrate are reported. The insulator layers were fabricated from mixtures of organic liquid sources of (Gd) or [Gd+(Dy/La/Ca/Ba)], which were spin-coated on the n+-Si substrate and annealed at 950 °C for 30 min in air. The current I G under EL emission corresponded to the Fowler–Nordheim (FN) tunnel current. The EL intensity increased proportionally to I G to the n-th power, where n was about 1.2, and the EL spectra were independent of I G. The MOS device with the [(Gd + Dy)–Si–O] layer had the weakest EL in the UV range among the measured devices, while it had the strongest EL in the visible wavelength range. The UV and visible range EL originated from the intrashell transitions of 6P7/2–8S7/2 in Gd3+ and 4F9/2–6H J /2 (J = 9, 11, 13, and 15) in Dy3+, respectively. The devices with [(Gd/(Gd + La/Ca/Ba)–Si–O] layers emitted strong UV EL, which originated from the intrashell transitions of 6P7/2–8S7/2 in Gd3+, and had the moderate intensity of EL in the visible range. The insulator layers of EL devices had a thickness of 25–30 nm and the double layer structure, whose top surface layer contained [Gd2O3+DyO x +(Gd + Dy)–Si–O]/[Gd2O3+La2O3/CaO/BaO+(Gd + La/Ca/Ba)–Si–O] silicate, while the underlayer was composed of SiO x -rich oxide with various rare earth and alkaline earth oxides.

Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the number of coronavirus disease 2019-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome is rapidly increasing. The heterogeneity of coronavirus disease 2019-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome contributes to the complexity of managing patients. Here we described two patients with coronavirus disease 2019-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome showing that the bedside physiological approach including careful evaluation of respiratory system mechanics and visualization of ventilation with electrical impedance tomography was useful to individualize ventilatory management.

No abstract

No abstract