• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.190-196
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• 2002

Zinc deficiency has been shown to result in poor appetite, causing anorexia. However, the role of zinc in the regulation of food intake is not well understood. In the present study, we hypothesized that zinc deficiency dysregulates circulating leptin level and leptin mRNA gene expression, and that whether these changes were occuring as a direct result of, or as a compensatory effect of zinc deficiency in rats. After an adaptation period of 4 weeks, Sprague Dawley rats were provided with three different level of zinc, as one week of a Zn-adequate (30 mg/kg) diet, then two weeks of a Zn-depletion (1 mg/kg ), and finally by two weeks of a Zn-repletion (50 mg/kg) diet. At the end of each dietary experimental period, one third of the 26 rats were killed. Zinc levels of blood subfractions (plasma, yee blood cells and mononuclear cells) and in the liver were substantially decreased, despite the fact that food intake was not substantially decreased during the Zn-depletion period. Serum leptin concentration was significantly increased during the zinc depletion period. Leptin mRNA in adipose tissue was also shown to be highly expressed during the Zn-depletion period. Presumably, increased leptin level and leptin mRNA induction during Zn-depletion conditions may be the cause of lowered appetite which is the common symptom of Zn-deficiency. In conclusion, These increases in circulating leptin levels and in leptin gene expression would be the direct result of, rather than the compensatory effect of, zinc deficiency.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.56 no.12
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• pp.2166-2172
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• 2007

In this study a low-signal equivalent circuit based on the Double Schottky Barrier model is proposed for ZnO-based varistor. Since pin-lead inductance and stray capacitance are considered in pin-lead type ZnO varistor these inductance and capacitance could be removed from the experimental dielectric data of the varistor. According to the equivalent circuit simulation results the higher the varistor-voltage of varistor sample the capacitance of dielectric layer is larger, and the capacitances of semiconducting layer and depletion layer are smaller, while the parallel resistances of semiconducting layer and depletion layer are more larger values. Spectra of the dielectric loss factor $tan{\delta}$ show 2 peaks in low frequency and high frequency regions respectively. The low-frequency peak is due to the relaxation by deep donors and the high-frequency peak is due to the relaxation by shallow donors. Above results are well consistent with the theoretical mechanism of ZnO varistor.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.563-569
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• 2020

Purpose: The vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in mature animals have implicated to play a major role in the progression of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. This study aimed at optimizing the protocol in culturing primary VSMCs (pVSMCs) from rat thoracic aorta and investigating the effect of cellular zinc (Zn) deficiency on cell proliferation of the isolated pVSMCs. Methods: The thoracic aorta from 7-month-old Sprague Dawley rats was isolated, minced and digested by the enzymatic process of collagenase I and elastase, and then inoculated with the culture Dulbecco Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) at 37℃ in an incubator. The primary cell culture morphology was observed using phase-contrast microscopy and cellular Zn was depleted using Chelex-100 resin (extracellular zinc depletion only) or 3 µM N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-pyridinylmethyl)-1,2-ethanediamine (TPEN) (extracellular and intracellular zinc depletion). Western blot analysis was used for the detection of SM22α and calponin as smooth muscle cell marker proteins and von Willebrand factor as endothelial cell marker protein to detect the culture purity. Cell proliferation by Zn depletion (1 day) was measured by MTT assay. Results: A primary culture protocol for pVSMCs from rat thoracic aorta was developed and optimized. Isolated cultures exhibited hill and valley morphology as the major characteristics of pVSMCs and expressed the smooth muscle cell protein markers, SM22α and calponin, while the endothelial marker von Willebrand factor was hardly detected. Zn deprivation for 1 day culture decreased rat primary vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and this pattern was more prominent under severe Zn depletion (3 µM TPEN), while less prominent under mild Zn depletion (Chelexing). Conclusion: Our results suggest that cellular Zn deprivation decreased pVSMC proliferation and this may be involved in phenotypic modulation of pVSMC in the aorta.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2007

Trace mineral studies involving metal ion chelators have been conducted in investigating the response of gene and protein expressions of certain cell lines but a few had really focused on how these metal ion chelators could affect the availability of important trace minerals such as Zn, Mn, Fe and Cu. The aim of the present study was to investigate the availability of Zn for the treatment of MC3T3-E1 osteoblast-like cells and the availability of some trace minerals in the cell culture media components after using chelexing resin in the FBS and the addition of N,N,N',N'-tetrakis-(2-pyridylmethyl)ethylenediamine (TPEN, membrane-permeable chelator) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA, membrane-impermeable chelator) in the treatment medium. Components for the preparation of cell culture medium and Zn-treated medium have been tested for Zn, Mn, Fe and Cu contents by atomic absorption spectrophotometer or inductively coupled plasma spectrophotometer. Also, the expression of bone-related genes (ALP, Runx2, PTH-R, ProCOL I, OPN and OC) was measured on the cellular Zn depletion such as chelexing or TPEN treatment. Results have shown that using the chelexing resin in FBS would significantly decrease the available Zn (p<0.05) $(39.4{\pm}1.5{\mu}M\;vs\;0.61{\pm}10.15{\mu}M)$ and Mn (p<0.05) $(0.74{\pm}0.01{\mu}M\;vs\;0.12{\pm}0.04{\mu}M)$. However, levels of Fe and Cu in FBS were not changed by chelexing FBS. The use of TPEN and DTPA as Zn-chelators did not show significant difference on the final concentration of Zn in the treatment medium (0, 3, 6, 9, $12{\mu}M$) except for in the addition of higher $15{\mu}M\;ZnCl_2$ which showed a significant increase of Zn level in DTPA-chelated treatment medium. Results have shown that both chelators gave the same pattern for the expression of the five bone-related genes between Zn and Zn+, and TPEN-treated experiments, compared to chelex-treated experiment, showed lower bone-related gene expression, which may imply that TPEN would be a stronger chelator than chelex resin. This study showed that TPEN would be a stronger chelator compared to DTPA or chelex resin and TPEN and chelex resin exerted cellular zinc depletion to be enough for cell study for Zn depletion.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1349-1354
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• 2011

In this work, we fabricated the CdZnS/CdTe heterojunction and investigated the C-V characteristics to determine the depletion width and the charge density distribution. A parallel experiment on CdS/CdTe heterojunction was also carried out for comparison. The depletion region width, for CdZnS/CdTe heterojunction, was nearly constant, regardless of bias voltage. However, the depletion region was wider than that of CdS/CdTe heterojunction due to high resistivity of CdZnS film. The interface charge density of CdZnS/CdTe heterojunction was increased linearly with the bias voltage and showed lower values than those for CdS/CdTe junction. The open circuit voltage of CdZnS/CdTe heterojunction solar cells increased with zinc mole ratio due to reducing of the electron affinity difference between CdZnS and CdTe films. However, the increase of series resistance due to the high resistivity of Cd1-xZnxS films results in reducing conversion efficiency.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.104-108
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• 2016

To research the correlation between oxygen vacancy and the electrical characteristics of ZTO, which is made by using a target mixed ZnO:SnO₂=1:1, the ZnO, SnO₂ and ZTO were analyzed by PL, XPS, XRD patterns and electrical properties. It was compared with the electron orbital spectra of O 1s in accordance with the electrical characteristics of ZnO, SnO₂ and ZTO. The electrical characteristics of ZTO were improved by increasing the annealing temperatures, due to the high degree of crystal structures at a high temperature, and the physical properties of ZTO was similar to that of ZnO. The amorphous structure of SnO₂ was increased with increasing the temperature. The Schottky contact of oxide semiconductors was formed using the depletion region, which is increased by the electron-hole combination due to the annealing processes. ZnO showed the Ohmic contact in spite of a high annealing temperature, but SnO₂ and ZTO had Schottky contact. As such, it was confirmed that the electrical properties of ZTO are affected by the molecules of SnO₂.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.10
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• pp.1019-1026
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• 1996

In this study, we may be presented the carrier oscillation properties for the low-voltage varistor fabricated by a new method of three composition seed grain, in order to analyze the behavior of carriers at the its equivalent circuit model. The oscillation phenomena of carriers appeared from current-voltage characteristics under knee voltage is shown by the transient flow of nontrapped carriers group in the trap level of intergranular layer, surface state and/or depletion layer. In particularly, current oscillation phenomena is hardly shown in the high electric field. It is that the injected carriers from both electrodes are directly from the conduction band of forward biased ZnO grain through the intergranular layer into the reverse biased ZnO grain, because the trap level in the electric field above the knee voltage is mostly filled.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.27-31
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• 2015

It was the electrical properties of ZnS treated by the annealing in a vaccum and an atmosphere conditions to reseached the leakage current effect of semiconductor devices. Most samples were shown the non-linear with unipolar properties, but the ZnS annealed at $100^{\circ}C$ in a vaccum was only observed no leakage current in a range of -20 V< voltage < 15 V. The crystallinity of ZnS with no leakage current was improved and optical property was also improved. Because the ambipolar characteristics and low leakage currents originated from the extension effect of a depletion width by electron-hole combination in the depletion layer.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.15-22
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• 2012

A low power consumption scan driver using depletion-mode n-type InGaZnO thin-film transistors is proposed. The proposed circuit uses 2 clock signals and generates the non-overlap output signals without the additional masking signals and circuits. The power consumption of the proposed circuit is decreased by reducing the number of the clock signals and short circuit current. The simulation results show that the proposed circuit operates successfully when the threshold voltage of TFT is varied from -3.0V to 1.0V. The proposed scan driver consumes 4.89mW when the positive and negative supply voltage is 15V and -5V, respectively, and the operating frequency is 46KHz on the XGA resolution panel.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.359-365
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• 2007

In this paper we present a bottom-gate type of zinc oxide (ZnO) and Gallium (Ga) doped zinc oxide (GZO) based thin film transistors (TFTs) through applying a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method at room temperature. The gate leakage current can be reduced up to several ph by applying $SiO_2$ thermally grown instead of using new gate oxide materials. The root mean square (RMS) values of the ZnO and GZO film surface were measured as 1.07 nm and 1.65 nm, respectively. Also, the transmittances of the ZnO and GZO film were more than 80% and 75%, respectively, and they were changed as their film thickness. The ZnO and GZO film had a wurtzite structure that was arranged well as a (002) orientation. The ZnO TFT had a threshold voltage of 2.5 V, a field effect mobility of $0.027\;cm^2/(V{\cdot}s)$, a on/off ratio of $10^4$, a gate voltage swing of 17 V/decade and it operated in a enhancement mode. In case of the GZO TFT, it operated in a depletion mode with a threshold voltage of -3.4 V, a field effect mobility of $0.023\;cm^2/(V{\cdot}s)$, a on/off ratio of $2{\times}10^4$ and a gate voltage swing of 3.3 V/decade. We successfully demonstrated that the TFTs with the enhancement and depletion mode type can be fabricated by using pure ZnO and 1wt% Ga-doped ZnO.