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Polymeric materials have been used to realize optical systems that, through periodic variations of their structural or optical properties, interact with light-generating holographic signals. Complex holographic systems can also be dynamically controlled through exposure to external stimuli, yet they usually contain only a single type of holographic mode. Here, we report a conjugated organogel that reversibly displays three modes of holograms in a single architecture. Using dithering mask lithography, we realized two-dimensional patterns with varying cross-linking densities on a conjugated polydiacetylene. In protic solvents, the organogel contracts anisotropically to develop optical and structural heterogeneities along the third dimension, displaying holograms in the form of three-dimensional full parallax signals, both in fluorescence and bright-field microscopy imaging. In aprotic solvents, these heterogeneities diminish as organogels expand, recovering the two-dimensional periodicity to display a third hologram mode based on iridescent structural colours. Our study presents a next-generation hologram manufacturing method for multilevel encryption technologies. Periodic patterns with varying cross-linking densities are realized in conjugated polydiacetylene films, creating multiple holographic images—all dynamically responsive to exposure to various solvents—simultaneously in the same polymeric structures.

Background and Objectives: Point of care test (POCT) is generally performed by non-laboratory staff who often lack an understanding on the quality control and quality assurance programs. The purpose of this study was to understand the current status of quality management of point of care (POC) blood glucose testing in a single institution where non-laboratory staff perform the tests. Materials and Methods: From July to August 2020, management status of glucometer, test strips, quality control (QC) materials, quality assurance program, and operators’ response to processing of displayed results was monitored in all Soonchunhyang University Bucheon hospital departments that performed POC blood glucose test. Results of the POC blood glucose test conducted from January 2019 to May 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. Results: A total 124 glucometers were monitored in 47 departments. Insufficient management of approximately 50% of blood sugar, test strips, and QC materials was observed. Although daily QC was conducted by 95.7% of the departments, the QC records were inaccurate. The method of recording test results varied with departments and operators. Various judgments and troubleshooting were performed on the unexpected or out of measurable range results, including some inappropriate processes. In POC blood glucose test results review, 4568 atypical results were identified from a total of 572,207 results. Conclusions: Sufficient training of the non-laboratory staff and ongoing assessment of competency through recertification is needed to maintain acceptable levels of POCT quality. In this study, various problems were identified in glucometer and reagent management, QC and post-analytic phase. We believe that these results provide meaningful basal information for planning effective operators’ training and competency evaluation, and the development of an efficient POCT quality management system.

True wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds are evolving into multifunctional wearable devices, offering opportunities not only for audio streaming but also for health-related applications. A fundamental requirement for such devices is the ability to accurately detect whether they are being worn, yet conventional proximity sensors remain limited in both reliability and functionality. This work explores the use of photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors, which are widely applied in heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, as an alternative solution for wearing detection. A PPG sensor was embedded into a TWS prototype to capture blood flow changes, and the wearing status was classified in real time using a lightweight k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) algorithm on an edge AI processor. Experimental evaluation showed that incorporating a validity check enhanced classification performance, achieving F1 scores above 0.95 across all wearing conditions. These results indicate that PPG-based sensing can serve as a robust alternative to proximity sensors and expand the capabilities of TWS devices.

WebAssembly (WASM) has emerged as a novel standard aimed at enhancing the performance of web applications, developed to complement traditional JavaScript. By offering a platform-independent binary code format, WASM facilitates rapid and efficient execution within web browsers. This attribute is particularly advantageous for tasks demanding significant computational power. However, in resource-constrained environments such as embedded systems, the processing speed and memory requirements of WASM become prominent drawbacks. To address these challenges, this paper introduces the design and implementation of a hardware accelerator specifically for WASM. The proposed WASM accelerator achieves up to a 142-fold increase in computation speed for the selected algorithms compared to embedded systems. This advancement significantly enhances the execution efficiency and real-time processing capabilities of WASM in embedded systems. The paper analyzes the fundamentals of WebAssembly and provides a comprehensive description of the architecture of the accelerator designed to optimize WASM execution. Also, this paper includes the implementation details and the evaluation process, validating the utility and effectiveness of this methodology. This research makes a critical contribution to extending the applicability of WASM in embedded systems, offering a strategic direction for future technological advancements that ensure efficient execution of WASM in resource-limited environments.

Stereo matching, utilized in diverse fields, poses a challenge to systems in resource-constrained environments due to the significant growth of computational load with image resolution. The challenge is crucial for the systems because fields utilizing stereo matching require short operational time for real-time applications and low power architecture. Stochastic computing (SC) is able to be a valuable approach to address the challenge by reducing the computational load by representing binary numbers with stochastic sequences, which are encoded as a probability value, and by leveraging the concept of mathematical probability. Also, it is possible for a system to be error-tolerant by utilizing the characteristics of stochastic computing. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an approach for lightweight and error-tolerant stereo matching with a hardware-implemented stochastic computing processor. To verify the feasibility and error tolerance of the proposed system, we implemented the proposed system and conducted experiments comparing depth maps with or without stochastic computing by calculating similarities. According to the experimental results, the proposed system indicated no significant differences in output depth maps and achieved an improvement in the depth maps from error-injected input images by an average of 58.95%. Therefore, we demonstrated that stereo matching with stochastic computing is feasible and error-tolerant.

Image analysis-based artificial intelligence (AI) models leveraging convolutional neural networks (CNN) take a significant role in evaluating the ripeness of strawberry, contributing to the maximization of productivity. However, the convolution, which constitutes the majority of the CNN models, imposes significant computational burdens. Additionally, the dense operations in the fully connected (FC) layer necessitate a vast number of parameters and entail extensive external memory access. Therefore, reducing the computational burden of convolution operations and alleviating memory overhead is essential in embedded environment. In this paper, we propose a strawberry ripeness classification system utilizing a convolution-based feature extractor (CoFEx) for accelerating convolution operations and an edge AI processor, Intellino, for replacing FC layer operations. We accelerated feature map extraction utilizing the CoFEx constructed with systolic array (SA) and alleviated the computational burden and memory overhead associated with the FC layer operations by replacing them with the k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) algorithm. The CoFEx and the Intellino both were designed with Verilog HDL and implemented on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The proposed system achieved a high precision of 93.4%, recall of 93.3%, and F1 score of 0.933. Therefore, we demonstrated a feasibility of the strawberry ripeness classification system operating in an embedded environment.

Vitamin B12 deficiency is a common complication in patients after gastrectomy. Elevated methylmalonic acid (MMA) and homocysteine are better indications of vitamin B12 deficiency than vitamin B12 serum level. We compared MMA and homocysteine levels of patients with gastric cancer after gastrectomy (n = 151) with controls (n = 142) and evaluated the prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency using MMA and homocysteine in patients. MMA and homocysteine levels were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in patients with gastric cancer after gastrectomy. Of the 151 patients assessed after gastrectomy, 32 patients (21.2%) were vitamin B12 deficient as defined by serum MMA levels > 350 nmol/L, and 8 patients (5.3%) were vitamin B12 deficient as defined by serum homocysteine levels > 15 μmol/L. Both MMA and homocysteine levels were elevated in 7 patients. Among 33 patients with elevated MMA or homocysteine levels, 8 patients (24.2%) were vitamin B12 deficient based on a serum vitamin B12 level < 200 pg/mL. Additionally, levels of MMA and homocysteine were compared pre- and post-gastrectomy in 27 patients. The median MMA level was higher in patients with post-gastrectomy compared to pre-gastrectomy, while the median serum homocysteine level was not significantly different. These results indicate that using serum vitamin B12 levels alone may fail to detect vitamin B12 deficiency. Additional assessments of MMA and homocysteine levels are useful to evaluate possible vitamin B12 deficiency in patients who underwent a gastrectomy, and MMA is a better indicator than homocysteine to detect early changes in vitamin B12 levels.

As microbiological diagnostic techniques improve and the frequency of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) infection increases worldwide, NTM-PD is becoming increasingly important to clinicians and researchers. Vitamin activity has been associated with the host immune response in tuberculosis; however, such information is very limited in NTM-PD. We performed a case-control study in 150 patients with NTM-PD and 150 healthy controls to investigate serum vitamin status. We measured concentrations of vitamins A, D, and E along with homocysteine and methylmalonic acid (MMA) as indicators of vitamin B12 deficiency, using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) or HPLC-tandem mass spectrometry. The serum concentrations of vitamins A and E were significantly lower in patients with NTM-PD than in healthy controls (1.5 vs. 2.1 µmol/L, p < 0.01 for vitamin A; and 27.3 vs. 33.1 µmol/L, p < 0.01 for vitamin E). In contrast, the serum concentrations of vitamin D and homocysteine were not significantly different between the two groups. Vitamin A deficiency (< 1.05 µmol/L) was significantly more prevalent in patients with NTM-PD than in healthy controls (p < 0.01) and was associated with an 11-fold increase in risk of NTM-PD. Multiple vitamin deficiencies were only observed in patients with NTM-PD (7.3% of all NTM-PD patients). Positive correlations were observed among vitamins (vitamins A and D; r = 0.200, p < 0.05; vitamins D and E, r = 0.238, p < 0.05; vitamins A and E, r = 0.352, p < 0.05). Serum vitamin status, demographic variables, and biochemical indicators were not associated with treatment outcomes. Vitamin A deficiency was strongly associated with patients with NTM-PD. Our study suggests that altered vitamin status is associated with mycobacterial disease. Future well-designed prospective studies with large patient cohorts addressing these issues are needed to clarify the significance of vitamins in NTM-PD.

We appreciate Hernández-Garduño’s interest in our recent research article [...]

Background: Esophageal cancer (EC), including esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), remains a lethal malignancy with limited molecularly tailored treatment options. Due to substantial histologic and transcriptomic differences between subtypes, therapeutic responses often vary, underscoring the need for subtype-stratified analysis and precision drug discovery. Methods: We integrated transcriptomic data from GEO and TCGA to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) specific to EAC, ESCC, and their shared profiles. Functional enrichment (GO, KEGG) and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analyses were conducted to extract hub genes using DAVID, STRING, and Cytoscape. Survival associations were evaluated using TCGA-ESCA and UALCAN. Drug repurposing was performed using L1000FWD, L1000CDS2, and SigCom LINCS. Results: We identified 79, 59, and 17 hub genes in the DEG-EAC, DEG-ESCC, and DEG-EAC&ESCC datasets, respectively. In EAC, 16 novel hub genes including SCARB1, SERPINH1, and DSC2 were discovered, which had not been previously implicated in this subtype. These genes were significantly enriched in pathways related to extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling and epithelial structure. In addition, shared hub genes across EAC and ESCC—such as COL1A1, SPARC, and MMP1—were enriched in ECM organization and cell adhesion processes, highlighting convergent tumor–stroma interactions. Drug repositioning analysis consistently prioritized MEK inhibitors, trametinib and selumetinib, as potential therapeutic candidates across all DEG datasets. Conclusions: This study presents a comprehensive, subtype-stratified transcriptomic framework for EC, identifying both unique and shared hub genes with potential functional relevance to ECM dynamics. Our findings suggest that ECM remodelers may serve as therapeutic targets, and highlight MEK inhibition as a promising, yet exploratory, repurposing strategy. While these results offer a molecular foundation for future precision oncology efforts in EC, further validation through proteomic analysis, functional studies, and clinical evaluation is warranted.