[Lived Experience of Middle-Aged Patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome].

PURPOSE: This qualitative study aimed to explore the lived and true meaning of experiences of middle-aged patients with complex regional pain syndrome. METHODS: The participants were 10 men and women aged 40 to 60 years who received outpatient treatment at a university hospital, could communicate, and agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected through individual interviews using open and semi-structured questions from September 2019 to July 2021 and were analyzed using the content analysis method suggested by Hsieh and Shannon (2005). RESULTS: As a result of this study, 42 summarized semantic units related to life experience, 15 subthemes, and seven themes were derived. The seven themes were "pressed by severe pain," "frustrated because I cannot be part of the community," "distressed because people do not recognize my disease," "sad about conflicts with family," "unmotivated because of desperate life," "appreciating for support," and "putting oneself together and living daily life." CONCLUSION: The vivid experiences of the participants derived in this study are the basic data for developing treatment guidelines. In the future, we propose a study on life and family care experiences according to the developmental characteristics of the life cycle of patients with complex regional pain syndrome and develop and apply programs to support patients and their families.

A Designed Angiopoietin-1 Variant, Dimeric CMP-Ang1 Activates Tie2 and Stimulates Angiogenesis and Vascular Stabilization in N-glycan Dependent Manner.

Angiopoietin-1 (Ang1), a potential growth factor for therapeutic angiogenesis and vascular stabilization, is known to specifically cluster and activate Tie2 in high oligomeric forms, which is a unique and essential process in this ligand-receptor interaction. However, highly oligomeric native Ang1 and Ang1 variants are difficult to produce, purify, and store in a stable and active form. To overcome these limitations, we developed a simple and active dimeric CMP-Ang1 by replacing the N-terminal of native Ang1 with the coiled-coil domain of cartilage matrix protein (CMP) bearing mutations in its cysteine residues. This dimeric CMP-Ang1 effectively increased the migration, survival, and tube formation of endothelial cells via Tie2 activation. Furthermore, dimeric CMP-Ang1 induced angiogenesis and suppressed vascular leakage in vivo. Despite its dimeric structure, the potencies of such Tie2-activation-induced effects were comparable to those of a previously engineered protein, COMP-Ang1. We also revealed that these effects of dimeric CMP-Ang1 were affected by specified N-glycosylation in its fibrinogen-like domain. Taken together, our results indicate that dimeric CMP-Ang1 is capable of activating Tie2 and stimulating angiogenesis in N-glycan dependent manner.

Oxidative degradation of endotoxin by advanced oxidation process (O3/H2O2 & UV/H2O2).

The presence of endotoxin in water environments may pose a serious public health hazard. We investigated the effectiveness of advanced oxidative processes (AOP: O3/H2O2 and UV/H2O2) in the oxidative degradation of endotoxin. In addition, we measured the release of endotoxin from Escherichia coli following typical disinfection methods, such as chlorine, ozone alone and UV, and compared it with the use of AOPs. Finally, we tested the AOP-treated samples in their ability to induce tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in mouse peritoneal macrophages. The production of hydroxyl radical in AOPs showed superior ability to degrade endotoxin in buffered solution, as well as water samples from Korean water treatment facilities, with the ozone/H2O2 being more efficient compared to UV/H2O2. In addition, the AOPs proved effective not only in eliminating E. coli in the samples, but also in endotoxin degradation, while the standard disinfection methods lead to the release of endotoxin following the bacteria destruction. Furthermore, in the experiments with macrophages, the AOPs-deactivated endotoxin lead to the smallest induction of TNF-α, which shows the loss of inflammation activity, compared to ozone treatment alone. In conclusion, these results suggest that AOPs offer an effective and mild method for endotoxin degradation in the water systems.

Nanodiamonds as photocatalysts for reduction of water and graphene oxide.

Detonated nanodiamonds (NDs) exhibit remarkable photocatalytic activity towards the hydrogen gas generation upon 532 nm laser pulse irradiation. Hydrogenation dramatically increases the quantum yield, suggesting that hydrogen-terminated sites work as electron reservoirs. NDs can also be used as effective photocatalysts to reduce graphene oxide. The resulting composites exhibit high and stable photocurrent generation upon visible light irradiation.

Geometry-dependent terahertz emission of silicon nanowires.

THz emission was observed from the vertically aligned silicon nanowire (Si NW) arrays, upon the excitation using a fs Ti-sapphire laser pulse (800 nm). The Si NWs (length = 0.3 approximately 9 microm) were synthesized by the chemical etching of n-type silicon substrates. The THz emission exhibits significant length dependence; the intensity increases sharply up to a length of 3 mum and then almost saturates. Their efficient THz emission is attributed to strong local field enhancement by coherent surface plasmons, with distinctive geometry dependence.

Three synthetic routes to single-crystalline PbS nanowires with controlled growth direction and their electrical transport properties.

Single-crystalline rock-salt PbS nanowires (NWs) were synthesized using three different routes; the solvothermal, chemical vapor transport, and gas-phase substitution reaction of pregrown CdS NWs. They were uniformly grown with the [100] or [110], [112] direction in a controlled manner. In the solvothermal growth, the oriented attachment of the octylamine (OA) ligands enables the NWs to be produced with a controlled morphology and growth direction. As the concentration of OA increases, the growth direction evolves from the [100] to the higher surface-energy [110] and [112] directions under the more thermodynamically controlled growth conditions. In the synthesis involving chemical vapor transport and the substitution reaction, the use of a lower growth temperature causes the higher surface-energy growth direction to change from [100] to [110]. The high-resolution X-ray diffraction pattern and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results revealed that a thinner oxide-layer was produced on the surface of the PbS NWs by the substitution reaction. We fabricated field effect transistors using single PbS NW, which showed intrinsic p-type semiconductor characteristics for all three routes. For the PbS NW with a thinner oxide layer, the carrier mobility was measured to be as high as 10 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1).