Until a century ago, Korean medicine was based mainly on Oriental philosophies and ideas. From a religious perspective, Chinese Confucianism was prevalent in Korea at that time. Since Confucianists believe that it is against one's filial duty to harm his or her body, given to them by their parents, most Koreans did not donate their bodies or organs for education in the past. However, by the end of the 20th century, a unique fusion of Western and Oriental medicines were produced on the Korean Peninsula, revolutionizing traditional perspectives on the human body, mortality, and the relationship of medical science to society. Koreans began to think about others' lives as well as their own by realizing the importance of donating one's organs and bodies for scientific purposes. Since then, the number of people donating their bodies to Korean medical and dental schools for the purpose of improving academic learning has increased dramatically. In response, Korean medical schools have begun to hold various types of funeral ceremonies to honor body donors. We have compared such ceremonies performed in Korea with those performed in the United States of America and Taiwan. These ceremonies are viewed as a suitable way to pay proper respect to the dead and to promote knowledge about body donation programs in Korea. Overall, the transition of religions and social ethics in Korea has greatly facilitated body bequeathal programs, benefiting both medical education and the Korean public health administration.

We report the fabrication of tungsten nanowires, by simple thermal treatment of W films, that behave as self-catalytic layers and their excellent electron field emission properties as well. The obtained nanowires have a diameter ranging from 10 to 50 nm, showing perfect straightness and neat appearance. Typical turn-on field for the electron emission is about 5 V/μm, and the field enhancement factor β becomes 38 256, which is very close to that of the high efficient single-wall carbon nanotube emitters. The most exciting result is the possibility of easy fabrication of perfectly straight nanowires as promising building blocks for terabit-level interconnection and nanomachine components without the intentional use of any heterogeneous catalysts.

This work describes the synthesis of silver/polyrhodanine-composite-decorated silica nanoparticles and their antibacterial activity. Polymerization of polyrhodanine proceeded preferentially on the surface of the silica nanoparticles where Ag(+) ions were located. In addition, the embedded Ag(+) ions were reduced to form metallic Ag nanoparticles; consequently, silver/polyrhodanine-composite nanoparticles (approximately 7 nm in diameter) were formed on the surface of the silica nanoparticles. The resulting nanostructure was investigated using electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The silver/polyrhodanine-nanocomposite-decorated silica nanoparticles exhibited excellent antimicrobial activity toward gram-negative Escherichia coli and gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus because of the antibacterial effects of the silver nanoparticles and the polyrhodanine. The silver/polyrhodanine-composite nanoparticles may therefore have potential for use as a long-term antibacterial agent.

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In this study, a 1D oriented hollow SiO 2 /TiO 2 (HST) rod-like material was successfully fabricated via a sequential combination of sol-gel use, TiO 2 incorporation, and a sonication-mediated etching and redeposition method. This carefully manipulated new material has numerous advantageous physical and intrinsic properties, such as increased surface area, pore volume, interfacial polarization, and dielectric properties introduced from each synthetic step. The synthesized HST rod was adopted as an electrorheological (ER) material for practical examination of these characteristics. The HST rod materials exhibited 1.5-and 3-fold higher ER performance than a non-metal SiO 2 rod and a non-hollow SiO 2 /TiO 2 core/shell (ST/CS) rod, which are interim synthetic steps. Moreover, the HST rod exhibited remarkable 6-fold increased ER efficiency relative to a sphere-shaped hollow SiO 2 /TiO 2 particle synthesized using a similar experimental method. These notable enhancements in ER performance are attributed to incorporation of the experimentally designed characteristics of the HST rod: 1D structure, metal oxide incorporation, and creation of a hollow cavity. For future study, we expect that these versatile HST rod materials can be applied in a range of fields including drug delivery, photo-catalysis, and as building blocks.SiO 2 rod, ST/CS rod, and HST rod (L/D ¼ 3), (2) TEM micrographs HCl untreated and calcined SiO 2 rod and resulting HST rod, (3) TEM micrographs of shell thickness controlled HST rod, (4) TEM micrographs of SiO 2 rod, ST/CS rod, and HST materials with varying aspect ratio (L/D ¼ 1, 2, 6), (5) low-magnied TEM micrographs of various HST materials (L/D ¼ 1, 2, 6), (6) physical parameters of various HST materials, (7) porosity, pore volume, and BET surface area of HST rod (L/D ¼ 3), (8) EDS analysis of SiO 2 rod, ST/CS rod, and HST rod (L/D ¼ 3), (9) STEM elemental mapping of SiO 2 rod (L/D ¼ 3), (10) FT-IR spectra and XRD pattern of SiO 2 rod, ST/CS rod, and HST rod (L/D ¼ 3), (11) FT-IR spectra of HCl treated and untreated SiO 2 rod, (12) atomic compositions of various HST materials (L/D ¼ 1, 2, 6), (13) shear stress of HST material-based ER uids with varying aspect ratio (L/D ¼ 1, 2, 6), (14) dielectric properties of HST sphere. See

Highly fluorescent surface modified polyacrylonitrile nanoparticles (PAN NPs) of 50 nm diameter were fabricated for selective Cu(2+) sensing. After surface modification, the PAN NPs were converted to amidine/Schiff base dual-modified PAN nanoparticles (tPAN NPs) with a Cu(2+) sensing property and high QY (0.19). The selectivity of tPAN NPs for Cu(2+) is much higher than that of other metal ions due to the fact that amidine group on the surface of tPAN NPs has a higher binding affinity with Cu(2+). The effect of other metal ions on the fluorescence intensity of the tPAN NPs was also studied, and other metal ions showed a low interference response in the detection of Cu(2+). Furthermore, as a metal ion chelator, ethylenediaminetetraacetate can competitively interact with Cu(2+) to recover the quenched fluorescence of tPAN NPs. The tPAN NPs are easily introduced into cells and exhibit low toxicity, enabling their use as a fluorescence sensor for Cu(2+) in living cells. The tPAN NPs provide a new direction for the development of copper ion sensors in living cells.

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