However, chemotherapy in megadose is followed by serious side effects such as nausea, vomiting, hair loss, neurotoxicity and myelosuppression. In general, the responses GSK1210151A in patients are unabiding with relapses accompanied by acquired resistance to the cytotoxic drugs in some heterogeneous survival cells because of indirect selection of chemotherapeutic drugs. At present the conventional dosing schedule is applied to balance the toxicity and efficacy, but the severe

side effects and the ultimate failures remain refractory obstacles to administration of most chemotherapies. So new approaches are required to achieve a high therapeutic response rate. A conventional dosing chemotherapy calls ACP-196 concentration for episodic application of a cytotoxic drug, and requires a period of rest during chemotherapy to let normal cells recover. With a low rate of replication and cell division (the proliferation index of endothelial cells in tumor vessels is usually less than 3%), the tumor-associated endothelial cells are only weakly damaged in the standard chemotherapy. Tumor-related angiogenesis can supply essential nutrients and oxygen for the remaining tumor cells,

which makes tumor relapse possible. Our current research confirmed that this website intratumoral injection of recombinant endostatin adenovirus plus a low dose of cisplatin could evidently improve antitumor efficacy, including tumor growth suppression, mice survival prolongation, and tumor cell apoptosis augmentation as well as neovascularization inhibition as compared with the controls. No serious adverse effects, such as ruffled fur, cachexia, anorexia, behavior change or toxic death were found in the combination group. However, up to now, the exact mechanism is not clear that how the combined agents induced anti-tumor

efficacy. Two possible mechanisms may get involved. The first is induction of apoptosis. The antiangiogenic agents decrease supply of oxygen and nutrients for the tumor cells by reducing tumor vascular density, perfusion and vascular permeability[12], which leads to apoptosis Sucrase of tumor cells and thus reinforces apoptosis efficacy of cisplatin. However, it is not clear whether the function of cisplatin in tumors is independent on gene transfer or is a specific part of adenovirus gene transfer. The second is antiangiogenesis. Cisplatin has been reported to influence the process of vascularization and to cause severe vasculotoxicity[13], which can strengthen the antiangiogenesis efficacy of endostatin. Low-dose cytotoxic treatment and antiangiogenesis therapy interact on each other. If the endothelial cells are treated by antiangiogenesis agents, they will lack certain adhesive contacts with matrix. Nonadherent endothelial cells are more susceptible to a cytotoxic agent, resulting in a higher apoptosis rate[14].

PubMedCrossRef 6. Lievre A, Bachet JB, Boige V, Cayre A, Le CD, Buc E, et al.: KRAS mutations as an independent prognostic factor in patients

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JH, Jung A, Kirchner T, Carneiro F, Seruca R, Bosman FT, et al.: KRAS mutation testing for predicting response to anti-EGFR therapy for colorectal carcinoma: Lenvatinib mw proposal for an European quality assurance program. Virchows Arch 2008, 453:417–431.PubMedCrossRef 12. Pettersson E, Lundeberg J, Ahmadian A: Generations of sequencing technologies. Genomics. 2009, 93:105–111. 13. Wojcik P, Kulig J, Okon K, Zazula M, Mozdzioch I, Niepsuj A, et al.: KRAS mutation profile in colorectal carcinoma and novel mutation–internal tandem duplication in KRAS. Pol J Pathol 2008, 59:93–96.PubMed 14. Hayes VM, Westra JL, Verlind E, Bleeker W, Plukker JT, Hofstra RMW, et al.: New comprehensive denaturing-gradient-gel-electrophoresis assay for not KRAS mutation detection applied to paraffin-embedded tumours. Genes

Chromosomes Cancer 2000, 29:309–314.PubMedCrossRef 15. Lee JS: Alternative dideoxy sequencing of double-stranded DNA by cyclic reactions using Taq polymerase. DNA Cell Biol 1991, 10:67–73.PubMedCrossRef 16. Gharizadeh B, Nordstrom T, Ahmadian A, Ronaghi M, Nyren P: Long-read pyrosequencing using pure 2′-deoxyadenosine-5′-O’-(1-thiotriphosphate) Sp-isomer. Anal Biochem 2002, 301:82–90.PubMedCrossRef 17. Ronaghi M, Uhlen M, Nyren P: A sequencing method based on real-time pyrophosphate. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/fosbretabulin-disodium-combretastatin-a-4-phosphate-disodium-ca4p-disodium.html Science 1998, 281:363–365.PubMedCrossRef 18. Angulo B, Garcia-Garcia E, Martinez R, Suarez-Gauthier A, Conde E, Hidalgo M, et al.: A commercial real-time PCR kit provides greater sensitivity than direct sequencing to detect KRAS mutations: a morphology-based approach in colorectal carcinoma. J Mol Diagn 2010, 12:292–299.PubMedCrossRef 19.

Sobin L, Wittekind C: International Union Against Cancer (UICC): TNM classification of malignant tumors 6 Edition New York: Wiley 2002. 9. Siewert JR, Bottcher K, Stein HJ, Roder JD: Relevant prognostic factors in gastric cancer: ten-year results of the German Gastric Cancer Study. Ann Surg 1998, 228: 449–461.CrossRefPubMed 10. Wang Z, Zhan W, He Y: Lymph node metastasis versus peritoneal dissemination in patients with gastric cancer: analysis of the correlated factors and prognosis. Chinese J General Surgery 2006, 15: 645–649. 11. Yu W, Choi GS, Whang I, Suh IS: Comparison of five

systems for staging lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer. Br J Surg 1997, 84: 1305–1309.CrossRefPubMed 12. Wu Y, Chen J, Yu J, Gao S, Shen H: A practical scoring system based upon ROC analysis for evaluating potential lymph nodes metastasis during gastric surgery. LXH254 clinical trial J Surg Oncol 2006, 93: 534–540.CrossRefPubMed 13. Wu Y, Guo E, Yu J, Xie Q: High DcR3 expression predicts stage pN2–3 in gastric cancer. Am J Clin Oncol 2008, 31: 79–83.CrossRefPubMed 14. Yanagita S, selleck inhibitor Natsugoe S, Uenosono Y, Arima H, Kozono T, Ehi K, Arigami T, Higashi H, Aikou T: Morphological distribution of metastatic foci in sentinel lymph nodes with gastric cancer. Ann Surg Oncol 2008, 15: 770–776.CrossRefPubMed 15. Moll R, Lowe A, Laufer J, Franke WW: Cytokeratin 20 in human Evofosfamide concentration carcinomas. A new histodiagnostic marker detected by monoclonal

antibodies. Am J Pathol 1992, 140: 427–447.PubMed many 16. Yanagita S, Natsugoe S, Uenosono Y, Arigami T, Arima H, Kozono T, Funasako Y, Ehi K, Nakajo A, Ishigami S, Aikou T: Detection of micrometastases in sentinel node navigation surgery for gastric cancer. Surg Oncol 2008, 17: 203–210.CrossRefPubMed 17. Nagata H, Arai T, Soejima Y, Suzuki H, Ishii H, Hibi T: Limited capability of regional lymph

nodes to eradicate metastatic cancer cells. Cancer Res 2004, 64: 8239–8248.CrossRefPubMed 18. Yanagita S, Natsugoe S, Uenosono Y, Kozono T, Ehi K, Arigami T, Arima H, Ishigami S, Aikou T: Sentinel node micrometastases have high proliferative potential in gastric cancer. J Surg Res 2008, 145: 238–243.CrossRefPubMed Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions JWY contributed in study concepts, manuscript preparation and manuscript editing. JGW carried out study design, definition of intellectual content, literature research, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis and manuscript preparation. LHZ, BZ, XCN and BJJ contributed in clinical managements. XQL contributed in pathological studies. BJJ contributed in guarantor of integrity of the entire study, study concepts, study design and manuscript review.”
“Correction After publication of the work [1], we noticed that we inadvertently failed to acknowledge an additional funding source. HK was supported by a National Cancer Institute grant 1K22CA102005-01A2.

e. not only preceding the present pregnancy) was registered from 1983 and on.

This was reported in 6.4% of births with any parent ever employed in the Milciclib order rubber industry, compared to 5.5% among food industry workers (Table 1). This corresponds to an odds ration of 1.20 (95% CI 1.09, 1.32) comparing all Pifithrin-�� chemical structure rubber workers groups (excluding those who were first employed in the rubber industry after the birth of the child) with food workers. When age and parity was included in the model, thus correcting for a potential artificial increase with increasing number of at risk times, the odds ratio was not elevated, OR 0.99 (95% CI 0.90, 1.09). The sex ratio was reversed, with a loss of boys when the mothers were exposed during the pregnancy (Table 2). The OR for having a girl was 1.15 (95% CI 1.02, 1.31) if only the mother was Transmembrane Transporters inhibitor exposed during the pregnancy. When both parents were exposed, the OR was even higher, 1.28 (95% CI 1.02, 1.62). In

the internal reference group (i.e. mother or father was a rubber worker, but not during the observed pregnancy/conception period), the sex ratio was similar to the external reference group. In the exposure–crossover analysis, comparing siblings for in rubber worker families and thus reducing the influence of unmeasured confounders, the odds ratio for a girl was 1.44 (95% CI 1.05,

2.07) when the mother was exposed. When both parents were exposed, an increased proportion of multiple births was observed, 5%, compared to the external reference group (Table 2), corresponding to an OR of 2.42 (95% CI 1.17, 5.01). The influence of rubber industry employment on birth weight was investigated, excluding multiple births. Girls with both maternal and paternal exposure had a reduced birth weight compared to the external reference cohort, median 3,370 vs 3,440 g (Table 3). Length at birth, and head circumference were similar between groups (Table 3). When mother was incorporated as random effect, the mean weight difference was −101 g (95% CI −189, −13) (Table 4).

Among them, it is widely believed that interfacial stress plays an important role in abnormal martensitic transformation of nanostructured materials due to the high volume fraction of interfaces. Nevertheless, this viewpoint has only been brought forward in theories, which has difficulty to be verified through experiment.

In addition, stress-induced martensitic transformation has been widely observed and selleckchem investigated in past half a century [9–11]. Martensitic transformations could be found to be affected in a variety of ways of the application of stress. However, whether the martensitic transformations in nanostructured materials can be influenced by the nanoscaled stress has rarely been documented, which is of great importance VX-689 in vitro to martensitic transformation research in nanostructured materials. The above investigations are difficult to carry out owing to the fact that it is difficult to artificially impose the nanoscaled stress within nanostructured materials. Fortunately, the current studies on nanomultilayered films provide us a feasibility of artificially imposing the interfacial stress in the nanosized films. Through alternately depositing two layers with different lattice parameters, d, the two layers can bear the interfacial tensile or compressive stress under the coherent growth structure in nanomultilayered films [12, 13]. Furthermore,

the interfacial stress can be modulated by changing the modulation NVP-AUY922 manufacturer period and ratio of two layers. To this end, Fe50Ni50 alloy (at.%, face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, d is 342 pm [14] (1 pm = 10-12 m)) with typical martensitic transformation [15, 16] and V (body-centered cubic (bcc) structure, d is 302.4 pm) without allotropic transformation PAK6 are alternately deposited to synthesize FeNi/V nanomultilayered films. By altering the thickness of the V layer, different interfacial stress will be imposed on FeNi nanolayers under

the coherent growth structure and the effect of interfacial stress on martensitic transformation of the FeNi nanofilm will be investigated. Methods Materials The FeNi/V nanomultilayered films were fabricated on silicon substrates by a magnetron sputtering system. The FeNi layer was deposited from a Fe50Ni50 alloy target (at.%, 99.99%) by DC mode, and the power was set at 100 W. The V layer was sputtered from a V target (99.99%) by RF mode, and the power was set at 80 W. Both FeNi and V targets were 75 mm in diameter. The substrates were ultrasonically cleaned in acetone and alcohol before being mounted on a rotatable substrate holder in the vacuum chamber. The distance between the substrate and target was 50 mm. The base pressure was pumped down to 5.0 × 10-4 Pa before deposition. The Ar flow rate was 15 sccm. The working pressure was 0.4 Pa, and the substrate was heated up to 300°C during deposition.

These are related to the first peak of the normalized thermogram because this peak appears to be less influenced by the

air volume present in the cell (see infra – oxygen dependence of growth). Table 3 Proposed bacterial microcalorimetric growth parameters for characterizing a volume-normalized thermogram Parameter Description tn0.05 (h) Time to reach a sample volume normalized heat flow of 0.05 mW/ml tn0.1 (h) Time to reach a sample volume normalized heat flow of 0.1 mW/ml tnMax1 (h) Time to reach the 1st peak maximum HFnMax1 FK866 (mW/ml) First peak amplitude (sample volume normalized heat flow) The Shapiro-Wilk data validity test indicated the validity of all parameters except for the first maximum of the normalized heat flow of E. coli. The statistical t-test JPH203 (CI = 95%, α = 0.05) and the Mann–Aurora Kinase inhibitor Whitney U test performed on the 4 parameters proved that there is a statistically significant difference (with a p value < 0.005) (Table  4). The most valuable parameters for bacterial differentiation using normalized thermograms seem to be tn0.1 (1.75 ± 0.37 h for E. coli vs. 2.87 ± 0.65 h for S. aureus, p <0.005), tnMax1 (3.78 ± 0.47 h vs. 5.12 ± 0.52 h, p < 0.0001) and HFnMax1 (0.33 (0.29, 0.47) mW/ml vs. 0.18 (0.13, 0.23) mW/ml, p < 0.001). Table 4 Statistical analysis ( t -test and Mann–Whitney U) results for strains differentiation on normalized data;

time (hours); normalized heat flow (mW/ml) Parameter Escherichia coli Staphylococcus aureus P value AUROC mean (SD) Mean (SD)   median (min, max) median (min, max)   4��8C   tn0.05 1.1505 (0.3557) 1.9206 (0.5063) <0.001* 0.917 tn0.1 1.7489 (0.3742) 2.8718 (0.6471) <0.005* 0.986 tnMax1 3.7819 (0.4671) 5.1243 (0.5236) <0.001*

0.951 HFnMax1 0.33 (0.29, 0.47) 0.18 (0.13, 0.23) <0.001 1 *t (Student) test; **Mann–Whitney U test. Again, tn0.1 parameter could be used to differentiate between strains in the first 3 to 4 hours and the combination with tnMax1 and HFnMax1 parameters could be used with a very high probability to differentiate between strains in the first 5 to 6 hours. The slight differences regarding the statistical results regarding the time to reach the first maximum in non-normalized and normalized thermograms are caused by manual baseline corrections. Statistical data analysis conclusions Analysis of the proposed parameters display statistically significant differences between the 2 strains (p < 0.05). Moreover, the AUROC [20] (area under receiver operating characteristic) curves display high values (between 0.9 and 1) of all proposed parameters, which makes these parameters highly sensitive and specific in discriminating between E. coli and S. aureus. Within the range used in the present study (0.3 to 0.7 ml), the sample volume does not influence the discriminating power of the parameters explored (the time shifts were negligible).

A 10 mmHg increase in BP had a significantly elevated RR for CV events (RR 2.00). Several studies using ambulatory or home BP monitoring in HD patients support the concepts that ambulatory BP and mortality are strongly related. Amar et al. [22] reported that nocturnal BP and 24-h pulse pressure were independent predictors of CV mortality in 57 treated hypertensive HD patients (34 ± 20 months). Tripepi et al. [23] analyzed

the prognostic power of 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring for all-cause and CV mortality in 168 nondiabetic, event-free HD patients (38 ± 22 months). The ratio of the average systolic BP during the night and day (night/day systolic ratio) used to indicate the nocturnal fall in BP was associated with all-cause and CV mortality. see more Moriya et al. [24] reported that WAB could be a good prognostic marker of the incidence of both CV events and all-cause mortality in 96 HD patients (35 months). Recently, Agarwal [11] evaluated the presence, strength, and shape of the relationship between BP measured using selleck inhibitor different modalities (home, ambulatory, and dialysis unit) and all-cause mortality among 326

HD patients (32 ± 20 months). Out-of-dialysis unit BP was reported as prognostically more informative than that recorded just before and after dialysis. The role of hypertension as a risk factor for increased CV events in the general population is indisputable. However, a lot of studies have shown an association between low BP and increased mortality, or have shown a U-shaped relationship, with both low and high BP associated with increased RR of death [25–27]. These paradoxical observations have been referred to as “reverse epidemiology” [28]. As the etiology of this inverse association between conventional risk factors and clinical outcome is not clear, presence of malnutrition and inflammation Tacrolimus (FK506) may explain the existence of reverse epidemiology in dialysis patients. In the present study, patients who were recently hospitalized or sick were excluded. All of the patients in the present study had hypertension, nor pre- and postdialysis LEE011 cost hypotension. Thus, this study differed in its

recruitment criteria compared with previous studies which have analyzed all patients in the dialysis unit regardless of their level of illness. In the present statistical evaluation, age did not contribute to the onset of CV events. Several reasons are considered to explain this phenomenon. First, the observation period was likely short to evaluate CV events. Second, patients in the present study had not experienced previous CV diseases. Third, few fatal events occurred, probably due to their healthy condition for dialysis patients. All of the patients in the present study had been prescribed one or more antihypertensive agents: 49 (100%) were on CCBs, 28 (57.1%) were on ARBs, 15 (30.6%) were on alpha blockers, and 3 (6.

pombe genomic DNA Pifithrin-�� nmr fragment. When Phx1-ND-GST was bound to glutathione Sepharose 4B column, S. pombe DNA was retained in the column whereas nearly no retention was observed in the absence of protein, suggesting that Phx1 is a DNA-binding protein (data not shown). However,

the specificity of the bound DNA was not readily extractable. In the absence of information on its specific target sequence, we moved on to find whether it has the ability to activate transcription when bound to a promoter region. For this purpose, we created a recombinant, where the N-terminal homeodomain region (from a.a. 1–238) of Phx1 was swapped with the N-terminal DNA(a space) binding domain (a.a. 1–117) of Pap1, a well-studied transcription factor with known target genes [18] (Figure 2A). The chimeric protein was expressed from a multi-copy plasmid pREP42 in

S. pombe cells, and the level of Pap1-dependent ctt1 + and trr1 + transcripts as well as Pap1-independent gpx1 + gene was examined by Northern analysis (Figure 2B). As a control, RNA samples from cells that express either the full-length (lane 2) or C-terminal domain of Phx1 (Phx1CD; a.a. 239–942; lane 1) were analyzed in parallel. The results in Figure 2B demonstrate that the chimeric construct that can bind to Pap1-binding sites elevated transcripts of Pap1 target genes (ctt1 + and trr1 + ) without affecting transcripts from Pap1-independent Oligomycin A for gpx1 + gene. We separately confirmed that overproduction of Pap1 in this strain increased the expression of trr1 + and ctt1 + genes by about 1.7- and 3.2-fold, respectively, whereas that of gpx1 + was not significantly changed (0.9-fold), when monitored by quantitative real-time PCR. These results indicate that the C-terminal two-thirds of Phx1 (a.a. 239–942) most likely contain a region that activates transcription when tethered nearby to the promoter. This supports the proposal that Phx1 is likely to be a transcription

factor. Whether Phx1 can act alone or needs interaction with other regulators remains to be elucidated. Figure 2 Transcriptional activation by DNA-bound Phx1. (A) Construction of Pap1-Phx1 chimeric protein where the N-terminal homeodomain region of Phx1 was replaced with the DNA-binding domain (DBD) of Pap1. The domain structure of full-length Phx1, N-terminally deleted one (Phx1CD; 239–942 aa), and the chimeric form (Pap1DBD-Phx1CD) that contains N-terminal region (1–117) of Pap1. (B) Freshly grown wild type (ED665) cells harboring pREP42-phx1CD (lane 1), pREP42-phx1 + (lane 2), or pREP42-pap1DBD-phx1CD (lane 3) were inoculated in liquid EMM media, and grown to OD600 of 1.0. selleck screening library Following cells harvest, RNA samples were analyzed by Northern blot, using gene-specific probes for ctt1 + , trr1, + or gpx1 + transcripts that encode catalase, thioredoxin reductase, or glutathione peroxidase, respectively. The ribosomal RNAs for each sample were visualized for loading control.

In the stromal compartment of a subset of CRCs, IHC staining for TLR4 localized to the PCMs. Vimentin and CD68 staining in the stromal compartments of CRCs with low and high expression of TLR4 confirmed that the increased TLR4 Go6983 concentration signal was localized to PCMs and not related to tumor-associated macrophages. Figure 5 Pericryptal Myofibroblasts are Responsible for Increased TLR4 Expression in a Subset of CRCs. A) CRCs were separated

into two groups representing low- and high- stromal expression of TLR4 by IHC staining. In normal tissue, stromal Fedratinib TLR4 expression is mainly due to macrophages (Green: TLR4, Red: CD68, Merge: TLR4 + CD68 + DAPI (blue)). Conversely, in CRCs increased vimentin and decreased CD68 staining in the pericryptal space confirm that this signal was due to pericryptal myofibroblasts and not related to tumor-associated macrophages. B) Double-stained immunofluorescence for TLR4 (green) and vimentin (red) in normal (I), adenoma (II), and colon adenocarcinoma (III) (10×). In the stromal compartment of CRCs, immunofluorescent staining for TLR4 localized to the pericryptal myofibroblasts in a subset of samples. C) IHC staining of colon adenocarcinoma for TLR4,

Sirolimus chemical structure vimentin, and α-SMA (40×). Staining co-localizes to the pericryptal space, confirming the signal arises from pericryptal myofibroblasts. D, E, and F) An increase in IHC staining for α-SMA and vimentin was noted in CRCs when compared to normal or low

grade dysplasia. A decrease in staining for CD68 positive macrophages was observed with higher degrees of dysplasia. Discussion We have leveraged available transcriptome databases and well-designed TMAs to address the biologic role of TLR4 in colon dysplasia. The current work both confirms hypotheses engendered from our basic science work and generates new hypotheses about TLR4 signaling and sporadic CRC. In our animal models, we have found second that mice constitutively expressing TLR4 have an increased severity of chemically-induced colitis and develop more colonic tumors [8]. This tumor burden could be attenuated using TLR4-inhibiting antibody. Bringing relevance to humans with colitis-associated cancers (CACs), TLR4 is over-expressed in the majority, with increasing expression with dysplastic progression [8]. We have further shown that TLR4 leads to activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway which is activated in most sporadic CRCs [9]. Analogous to CACs, we have found an association between TLR4 expression in sporadic CRC and the progression of neoplasia, stage, DFS, and MSS. In particular, an increased expression of TLR4 in the tumor stroma relative to the malignant epithelium was noted. These expression data were validated with IHC showing a similar stroma:epithelium gradient. 35.6% of CRCs demonstrate high levels of TLR4 protein in the tumor stroma, while 3.45% have high levels in the tumor epithelium.

On the other hand, the capacitance of NC Ge layer decreases with increasing dot size according to Equation 8 and leads to a larger voltage drop across the NC Ge layer. It implies a lower voltage drop across the tunneling oxide layer and a smaller charging current. The phenomenon about the charging current observed in Figure 2 is a compromise between the effects of the lowest conduction states and the capacitance of NCGe layer on the tunneling. Figure 2 Average check details number of electrons per NC Ge dot and charging current. Average number of electrons per NC Ge dot and charging current learn more as a function of

dot size at different charging times. Figure 3 depicts how the stored charge in the NC Ge layer changes with dot size at different charging times. One can find that the stored charge in the NC Ge layer initially rapidly increases, then saturates, and lastly, very slowly decreases with increasing dot size at any given charging time. In order to validate the theory, a comparison between the theoretical data using the parameters in [7] and experimental data from the same study [7] is given as the

inset figure. The inset figure clearly illustrates that the qualitative theory agrees well with the experiments. The deviance in quantity might origin from the charge captured by the defects in the oxide and NC Ge layer, buy Pritelivir inappropriate data about effective electron mass for the oxide and NC Ge layer, barrier height between silicon substrate and ultrathin tunneling oxide layer used in the calculation, and overestimation of the capacitance of the NC Ge layer. Figure 3 The stored charge in the NC Ge layer as a function of dot size at different charging times. Comparison between theoretical and experimental Metalloexopeptidase is given as the inset. Conclusions In conclusion, the stored charge and the charging current of NC Ge memory devices with the mean diameter of NC Ge being uniquely controlled by the nominal thickness of the deposition of Ge layer using molecular beam epitaxy are initially increased, then saturated

and lastly, decreased with increasing dot size. It is caused by a compromise between the effects of the lowest conduction states and the capacitance of NC Ge layer on the tunneling. Theoretical analysis also demonstrates that the voltage across the tunneling oxide layer is initially kept constant, then slowly decreased and lastly, rapidly decreased with charging time. It is worthy of being noted that NC Ge memory devices may suffer from a small charging current, especially on a few nanometers, due to the change in the lowest conduction states and the capacitance of NC Ge layer. Authors’ information LFM received the Ph.D degree in microelectronics and Solid State Electronics from the Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China in 2001. He is a professor in Soochow University.