Sunmi Han

Enhanced out-coupling factor of microcavity organic light-emitting devices with irregular microlens array

We studied microcavity organic light-emitting devices with a microlens system. A microcavity for organic light-emitting devices (OLED) was fabricated by stacks of SiO(2) and SiN(x) layers and a metal cathode together with the microlens array. Electroluminescence of the devices showed that color variation under the viewing angle due to the microcavity is suppressed remarkably by microlens arrays, which makes the use of devices acceptable in many applications. It was also demonstrated that the external out-coupling factor of the devise increases by a factor of ~1.8 with wide viewing angles compared to conventional OLEDs.

Enhanced light emission from one-layered organic light-emitting devices doped with organic salt by simultaneous thermal and electrical annealing

The authors studied the effect of thermal and electrical annealing on light emission of fluorescent one-layered organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) doped with organic salts. From the annealed OLEDs, we clearly observed homogeneous and enhanced electroluminescent (EL) emission over the whole active area with fast responses. Moreover, improved efficiency was also observed from annealed phosphorescent OLEDs. These improved EL characteristics indicate that simultaneous annealing can induce proper adsorption of charged salt ions at the electrode surfaces, leading to enhanced electroluminescence of one-layered OLEDs due to increased and balanced injection of carriers.

Analytical performance of a new one-step quantitative prostate-specific antigen assay, the FREND™ PSA Plus

Abstract Background: We evaluated the analytical performance of a new one-step rapid quantitative sandwich immunoassay for total prostate-specific antigen (tPSA), the FREND™ PSA Plus (FREND PSA) (NanoEnTek Inc., Seoul, Korea). Methods: The imprecision, linearity, hook effect, detection limit (LoD), and interference were evaluated and trueness verification and matrix validation were performed. For method comparison, 79 patient specimens were analyzed with FREND PSA and two comparative tPSA assays (Architect® total PSA and cobas® total PSA assay). Results: Total CVs of the imprecision for low (0.208 ng/mL), medium (4.051 ng/mL), and high PSA levels (5.469 ng/mL) were 15.9%, 6.4%, and 9.1%, respectively. Linearity was observed from 1.01 to 19.15 ng/mL and the hook phenomenon was absent up to 171.48 ng/mL. The LoD was 0.094 ng/mL. The regression equations between FREND (y) and Architect or cobas were as follows: y=0.0133+1.054x (r=0.973), y=–0.2144+1.066x (r=0.977), respectively. Differences between FREND PSA and the comparative methods at a medical decision level of 4.0 ng/mL were less than the optimum specification bias (9.3%). The percentage biases from the trueness verification and interference test were less than the desirable specifications for bias (18.7%). The plasma tPSA level measured with lithium heparin or K2EDTA was comparable to that in the serum. Conclusions: The FREND PSA provided reliable analytical performance and test results in comparison to two widely used tPSA assays. It is a simple and rapid test for tPSA and can be applied in point-of-care testing.

ELECTRO-OPTIC AND ELECTRO-GYRATION EFFECTS IN CHIRAL MOLECULAR SYSTEMS

The linear electro-optic (EO) and electro-gyration (EG) effects are studied in an optically active material systems including Bi12SiO20 (BSO) oxide and bent-core liquid crystals. In an isotropic BSO sample, the breaking of intrinsic centro-symmetry allowed the EO modulation of the refractive index. In a mixture of bent-shaped liquid crystalline molecules having both optical activity and birefringence, the observed intensity modulation is investigated, which is related to the nonlinear optical responses of both the optical rotatory power and the birefringence. Both the linear EO and EG effects are understood in terms of the superposition principle of linear and circular birefringences.

HiComet: a high-throughput comet analysis tool for large-scale DNA damage assessment

BackgroundDNA damage causes aging, cancer, and other serious diseases. The comet assay can detect multiple types of DNA lesions with high sensitivity, and it has been widely applied. Although comet assay platforms have improved the limited throughput and reproducibility of traditional assays in recent times, analyzing large quantities of comet data often requires a tremendous human effort. To overcome this challenge, we proposed HiComet, a computational tool that can rapidly recognize and characterize a large number of comets, using little user intervention.ResultsWe tested HiComet with real data from 35 high-throughput comet assay experiments, with over 700 comets in total. The proposed method provided unprecedented levels of performance as an automated comet recognition tool in terms of robustness (measured by precision and recall) and throughput.ConclusionsHiComet is an automated tool for high-throughput comet-assay analysis and could significantly facilitate characterization of individual comets by accelerating its most rate-limiting step. An online implementation of HiComet is freely available at https://github.com/taehoonlee/HiComet/.

Correction to: HiComet: a high-throughput comet analysis tool for large-scale DNA damage assessment

After publication of the original article [1], it has been found that the author affiliations have been accidentally left out in the PDF. The full affiliations can be found in this correction:

Development and analytical performance evaluation of FREND-SAA and FREND-Hp

The FREND System is a portable cartridge reader, quantifying analytes by measuring laser-induced fluorescence in a single-use reagent cartridge. The objective of this study was to evaluate FREND-SAA and FREND-Hp assays. The FREND-SAA and Hp assays were standardized to the WHO and IFCC reference materials. Analytical performance studies of Precision, Linearity, Limits of Detections, Interferences, and Method Comparisons for both assays were performed according to the CLSI guidelines. Both assays demonstrated acceptable imprecision of %CV in three different levels of samples. The linearity of the assays was found to be acceptable (SAA 5~150 mg/L, Hp 30~400 mg/dL). The detection limits were 3.8 mg/L (SAA) and 10.2 mg/dL (Hp). No significant interference and no significant deviation from linearity was found in the both comparison studies. In conclusion, NanoEnTek’s FREND-SAA and Hp assays represent rapid, accurate and convenient means to quantify SAA and Hp in human serum on FREND system.

Robust classification of DNA damage patterns in single cell gel electrophoresis

Single cell gel electrophoresis, also known as comet assay, has been widely used for assessing the effect of genotoxicity and detecting DNA damage of individual eukaryotic cells. There exist established imaging techniques for cometassay analysis, but these platforms have limitations such as required user interventions, low throughput, and weakness to noise caused by incomplete dyeing of fluorescent materials and other experimental errors. To resolve these, we propose a novel procedure for analyzing comet assay images, which considers various DNA damage patterns and classifies them in a robust manner. We tested our approach with twenty golden data sets containing over 300 comets and achieved satisfactory classification accuracy.