We report the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) grown by an electrochemical deposition process. The ZnO NRAs were grown on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates with a thin sputtered Al-doped ZnO (AZO) seed layer and compared with ones directly grown without the seed layer. The growth condition dependence of ZnO NRAs was investigated for various synthetic parameters. The morphology and density of the ZnO NRAs were accordingly controlled by means of zinc nitrate concentration and growth time. From photoluminescence results, the ultraviolet emission was significantly enhanced after thermal treatment. For ZnO NRAs grown on ITO glass without the seed layer, the diffuse transmittance was enhanced despite the reduction in the total transmittance, indicating a high haze value. By using a thin AZO seed layer, the well-aligned ZnO NRAs on AZO/ITO glass are controllably and reproducibly synthesized by varying the growth parameters, exhibiting a total transmittance higher than 91% in the visible wavelength range as well as good optical and crystal quality.

Several hepatic steatosis formulae have been validated in various cohorts using ultrasonography. However, none of these studies has been validated in a community-based setting using the gold standard method. Thus, the aim of this study was to externally validate hepatic steatosis formulae in community-based settings using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A total of 1301 community-based health checkup subjects who underwent liver fat quantification with MRI were enrolled in this study. Diagnostic performance was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) liver fat score showed the highest diagnostic performance with an AUROC of 0.72, followed by Framingham steatosis index (0.70), hepatic steatosis index (HSI, 0.69), ZJU index (0.69), and fatty liver index (FLI, 0.68). There were considerable gray zones in three fatty liver prediction models using two cutoffs (FLI, 28.9%; HSI, 48.9%; and ZJU index, 53.6%). The diagnostic performance of NAFLD liver fat score for detecting steatosis was comparable to that of ultrasonography. The diagnostic agreement was 72.7% between NAFLD liver fat score and 70.9% between ultrasound and MRI. In conclusion, the NAFLD liver fat score showed the best diagnostic performance for detecting hepatic steatosis. Its diagnostic performance was comparable to that of ultrasonography in a community-based setting.

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Let F[∂; σ, δ] be the ring of Ore polynomials over a field (or a skew field) F, where σ is an automorphism of F and δ is a σ-derivation. Given a matrix A ∈ F[∂; σ, δ] m×n , we show how to compute the Hermite form H of A and a unimodular matrix U such that U A = H. The algorithm requires a polynomial number of operations in F in terms of the dimensions m and n, and the degrees (in ∂) of the entries in A. When F = k(z) for some field k, it also requires time polynomial in the degrees in z of the coefficients of the entries, and if k = Q it requires time polynomial in the bit length of the rational coefficients as well. Explicit analyses are provided for the complexity, in particular for the important cases of differential and shift polynomials over Q(z). To accomplish our algorithm, we apply the Dieudonné determinant and quasideterminant theory for Ore polynomial rings to get explicit bounds on the degrees and sizes of entries in H and U .