The brain of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is characterized by neurodegeneration, especially an acetylcholine (ACh) neuronal deficit with accumulation of β-amyloid protein, which leads to oxygen stress and inflammation. The active oxygen directly damages the neuron by increasing intracellular Ca²⁺. The inflammation is due to activation of the microglia, thereby producing cytokines which inhibit the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). As the BDNF acts by neuronal protection, synaptogenesis and neurogenesis, the reduction of BDNF in the brain of AD patients worsens the symptoms of AD. On the other hand, treatment of AD patients with a cholinesterase inhibitor enhances ACh activity and inhibits inflammation. Then the expression of BDNF is restored and neuroprotection reestablished. However, there are several reports which showed controversial results concerning the relationship between BDNF and AD. We speculate that BDNF is related to some neurocognitive process and reflects neuronal activity in other neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders and that in the mild cognitive impairment stage, BDNF and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activities are hyperactivated because of a compensatory mechanism of AD pathology. In contrast, in the mild stage of AD, BDNF and ChAT activity are downregulated.

It is well known that the physical force cleaning such as megasonic (MS) and ultrasonic (US) cleaning are used in FEOL (front-end-of-line) and BEOL (back-end-of-line). Recently, with scaling down below 43 nm, the influence of pattern damage by physical force methods such as MS and US irradiation has been reported. Hence, for the 2x and 3x nm node devices, it will be very difficult to apply MS cleaning for particle removal process without understanding the cavitation force. Cavitation is a complex phenomena based on bubble formation and explosion in the liquid. To control “MS cleaning” and “cavitation” induced pattern damage, many studies using “Sonoluminescence” have been reported. This method is able to demonstrate the existence of high energy fields such as cavitation throughout the megasonic field. The damage clustering distribution was investigated for the damage size and damage length in batch MS conditions using gate structure patterned [1]. In this method, it is difficult to discuss the cavitation force, quantitatively. And this method can not obtain the quantitative physical force on the wafer surface, directly. To understand “cavitation force” induced pattern damage, the observation of “cavitation force” is highlighted with “imaging films” such as blanket aluminum film and resist film, directly.

Cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) are not allowed to be prescribed in combination, which means that we need to select 1 of 3 ChEIs for use in a patient with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, there is no quantitative analysis on the differences between these agents. In this article, we propose that plasma cholinesterase activity (pChE) could be used as the standard for differentiating between rivastigmine (Riv) and donepezil (Don) in the management of AD. To date, we have treated 6 patients with Riv 18 mg and 5 patients with Don 5 mg. The pChE is related to low-grade inflammation associated with AD, diabetes mellitus and lipid metabolic dysfunction. Moreover, low pChE is related to liver dysfunction. The pChE must be kept under control. We speculated that Riv is the most appropriate therapy for patients with relatively high pChE, whereas Don is best reserved for those AD patients with relatively low pChE.

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