No abstract

No abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the changes of diurnal blood pressure pattern after 8 weeks of red ginseng medication (4.5 g/day) by 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. In 26 subjects with essential hypertension, 24 hour mean systolic blood pressure decreased significantly (p = 0.03) while diastolic blood pressure only showed a tendency of decline (p = 0.17). The decrease in pressures were observed at daytime (8 A.M.-6 P.M.) and dawn (5 A.M.-7 A.M.). In 8 subjects with white coat hypertension, no significant blood pressure change was observed. We suggest that red ginseng might be useful as a relatively safe medication adjuvant to current antihypertensive medications.

No abstract

Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) nanofibers (PEDOT-NFs) with 10-50 nm diameters and high electrical conductivity (up to 83 S cm À1 ) have been fabricated chemically within micelles composed of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as nanoreactors. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO, 5 wt%) was added to a methanol-based colloidal dispersion containing PEDOT-NFs to improve dispersibility. The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using PEDOT-NFs as a counter electrode (CE) with low surface resistance and a highly porous surface exhibited enhanced power conversion efficiency (9.2%) compared to bulk PEDOT (6.8%). To date, PEDOT-NFs have shown the highest performance among CEs using PEDOT. It also surpassed the efficiency of platinum (Pt) CEs (8.6%). Electrochemical characterization, such as cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), showed that PEDOT-NFs efficiently reduced triiodide due to the enhanced electrical and morphological properties, which contributed to the high current density (17.5 mA cm À2 ) and fill factor (72.6%).