The rapid development of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells has resulted in laboratory-scale devices having power conversion efficiencies that are competitive with commercialised ...technologies. However, hybrid perovskite solar cells are yet to make an impact beyond the research community, with translation to large-area devices fabricated by industry-relevant manufacturing methods remaining a critical challenge. Here we report the first demonstration of hybrid perovskite solar cell modules, comprising serially-interconnected cells, produced entirely using industrial roll-to-roll printing tools under ambient room conditions. As part of this development, costly vacuum-deposited metal electrodes are replaced with printed carbon electrodes. A high-throughput experiment involving the analysis of batches of 1600 cells produced using 20 parameter combinations enabled rapid optimisation over a large parameter space. The optimised roll-to-roll fabricated hybrid perovskite solar cells show power conversion efficiencies of up to 15.5% for individual small-area cells and 11.0% for serially-interconnected cells in large-area modules. Based on the devices produced in this work, a cost of ~0.7 USD W
is predicted for a production rate of 1,000,000 m² per year in Australia, with potential for further significant cost reductions.
Interprofessional education (IPE) has been promoted as a breakthrough in healthcare because of the impact when professionals work as a team. However, despite its inception dating back to the 1960s, ...its science has taken a long time to advance. There is a need to theorize IPE to cultivate creative insights for a nuanced understanding of IPE. This study aims to propose a research agenda on social interaction by understanding the measurement scales used and guiding researchers to contribute to the discussion of social processes in IPE.
This quantitative research was undertaken in a cross-institutional IPE involving 925 healthcare students (Medicine, Nursing, Social Work, Chinese Medicine, Pharmacy, Speech Language Pathology, Clinical Psychology, Food and Nutritional Science and Physiotherapy) from two institutions in Hong Kong. Participants completed the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS-6) and Social Phobia Scale (SPS-6). We applied a construct validation approach: within-network and between-network validation. We performed confirmatory factors analysis, t-test, analysis of variance and regression analysis.
CFA results indicated that current data fit the a priori model providing support to within-network validity RMSEA=.08, NFI=.959, CFI=.965, IFI=.965, TLI=.955. The criteria for acceptable fit were met. The scales were invariant between genders, across year levels and disciplines. Results indicated that social interaction anxiety and social phobia negatively predicted behavioural engagement (F = 25.093, p<.001, R
2
=.065) and positively predicted behavioural disaffection (F = 22.169, p<.001, R
2
=.057) to IPE, suggesting between-network validity.
Our data provided support for the validity of the scales when used among healthcare students in Hong Kong. SIAS-6 and SPS-6 have sound psychometric properties based on students' data in Hong Kong. We identified quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research designs to guide researchers in getting involved in the discussion of students' social interactions in IPE.
Key Messages
The Social Anxiety Scale (SIAS-6) and Social Phobia Scale (SPS-6) scales have sound psychometric properties based on the large-scale healthcare students' data in IPE in Hong Kong.
Social interaction anxiety and social phobia negatively predicted students' behavioural engagement with IPE and positively predicted behavioural disaffection. The scales are invariant in terms of gender, year level and discipline.
Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies are proposed to aid researchers to contribute in healthcare education literature using the SIAS-6 and SPS-6.
Early-onset preeclampsia (EOPE) is a severe pregnancy complication associated with defective trophoblast differentiation and functions at implantation, but manifestation of its phenotypes is in late ...pregnancy. There is no reliable method for early prediction and treatment of EOPE. Adrenomedullin (ADM) is an abundant placental peptide in early pregnancy. Integrated single-cell sequencing and spatial transcriptomics confirm a high ADM expression in the human villous cytotrophoblast and syncytiotrophoblast. The levels of ADM in chorionic villi and serum were lower in first-trimester pregnant women who later developed EOPE than those with normotensive pregnancy. ADM stimulates differentiation of trophoblast stem cells and trophoblast organoids in vitro. In pregnant mice, placenta-specific ADM suppression led to EOPE-like phenotypes. The EOPE-like phenotypes in a mouse PE model were reduced by a placenta-specific nanoparticle-based forced expression of ADM. Our study reveals the roles of trophoblastic ADM in placental development, EOPE pathogenesis, and its potential clinical uses.
Trophoblastic adrenomedullin could be a target for nanoparticle-based treatment of early-onset preeclampsia.
Enhanced Conversational Recast (ECR) is an input-based grammatical intervention approach developed from research on statistical learning. Recent research reported evidence demonstrating the efficacy ...of ECR on the learning of grammatically obligatory morphemes in English-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD). This single-case experimental design study, which adopted a within-participant design with single baseline and control item, investigated the efficacy of ECR in promoting the learning of aspect markers in four Cantonese-speaking typically-developing preschool children. Two children demonstrated positive outcomes with the progressive aspect marker ‘gan2’ given 12 ECR training sessions within a mean dosage of 288. One of these children demonstrated statistically significant gains in the percentage of correct use in the probes. The lack of positive outcomes in the other two children on the earlier developing aspect marker ‘zo2’ and limitations of the study were discussed. With early evidence established in the typically developing children in this study, future research on Cantonese speaking children with DLD can be considered.
Newborn screening is important for early diagnosis and effective treatment of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM). In response to a 2008 coroners' report of a 14-year-old boy who died of an undiagnosed ...IEM, the OPathPaed service model was proposed. In the present study, we investigated the feasibility of the OPathPaed model for delivering expanded newborn screening in Hong Kong. In addition, health care professionals were surveyed on their knowledge and opinions of newborn screening for IEM.
The present prospective study involving three regional hospitals was conducted in phases, from 1 October 2012 to 31 August 2014. The 10 steps of the OPathPaed model were evaluated: parental education, consent, sampling, sample dispatch, dried blood spot preparation and testing, reporting, recall and counselling, confirmation test, treatment and monitoring, and cost-benefit analysis. A fully automated online extraction system for dried blood spot analysis was also evaluated. A questionnaire was distributed to 430 health care professionals by convenience sampling.
In total, 2440 neonates were recruited for newborn screening; no true-positive cases were found. Completed questionnaires were received from 210 respondents. Health care professionals supported implementation of an expanded newborn screening for IEM. In addition, there is a substantial need of more education for health care professionals. The majority of respondents supported implementing the expanded newborn screening for IEM immediately or within 3 years.
The feasibility of OPathPaed model has been confirmed. It is significant and timely that when this pilot study was completed, a government-led initiative to study the feasibility of newborn screening for IEM in the public health care system on a larger scale was announced in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Policy Address of 2015.
PE is a multifactorial gestational complication affecting 4.6% of pregnancies worldwide.1 It is the top cause of prenatal morbidity/mortality and is associated with a high incidence of maternal and ...perinatal complications, causing a heavy burden to the healthcare system.1 The aetiology of PE is associated with defective trophoblast differentiation and functions causing abnormal placental development, insufficient placental perfusion, and maternal–foetal exchange defects.1,2 Our limited knowledge of the pathogenesis of the disease has hindered the development of a reliable approach for the prediction and treatment of PE. ...renal damage including glomerular capillary endotheliosis and glomerular erythropenia (Figure 1I) and deterioration of development in terms of placental diameter and thickness, biparietal diameter, crown-rump length and foetal heart rate (Figure 1J) were observed in the knockdown mice. Suppression of CD147 functions by functional blocking antibody8 (Table S1) and siRNA (Figure S5) or stimulation of CD147 by ligation antibody9 (Table S1) showed that trophoblastic CD147 regulated characteristic features of the vascular remodelling process in early human pregnancy, including EVCT invasiveness and MMP2 expression/activity (Figure 3A,B), integration of EVCT into the endothelial network (Figure 3C), and endothelial cell angiogenesis (Figure 3D) and permeability (Figure 3E).
A partnership model in interprofessional education (IPE) is important in promoting a sense of global citizenship while preparing students for cross-sector problem-solving. However, the literature ...remains scant in providing useful guidance for the development of an IPE programme co-implemented by external partners. In this pioneering study, we describe the processes of forging global partnerships in co-implementing IPE and evaluate the programme in light of the preliminary data available.
This study is generally quantitative. We collected data from a total of 747 health and social care students from four higher education institutions. We utilized a descriptive narrative format and a quantitative design to present our experiences of running IPE with external partners and performed independent t-tests and analysis of variance to examine pretest and posttest mean differences in students' data.
We identified factors in establishing a cross-institutional IPE programme. These factors include complementarity of expertise, mutual benefits, internet connectivity, interactivity of design, and time difference. We found significant pretest-posttest differences in students' readiness for interprofessional learning (teamwork and collaboration, positive professional identity, roles, and responsibilities). We also found a significant decrease in students' social interaction anxiety after the IPE simulation.
The narrative of our experiences described in this manuscript could be considered by higher education institutions seeking to forge meaningful external partnerships in their effort to establish interprofessional global health education.
Purpose To compare pain scores with and without supplementary topical 2% lidocaine gel in patients undergoing simultaneous bilateral laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) under topical ...anesthesia using 0.5% proparacaine eye drops. Design Randomized double-masked placebo-controlled trial. Methods Fifty-one Chinese subjects (102 eyes, with 51 eyes in each arm) were included. One eye was randomly allocated to have supplementary 2% lidocaine gel while the other eye received carbomer gel as control, in addition to topical 0.5% proparacaine. The pain scores for each eye during microkeratome flap creation, during laser ablation, and at 15, 30, and 45 minutes after LASIK were assessed. An overall pain score of the LASIK procedure was also obtained. Primary outcome measures were pain scores during and after LASIK. Secondary outcomes included need for additional topical anesthesia, patient cooperation score, and duration and complications of surgery. Results In the 2% lidocaine gel–treated group, the pain scores were significantly lower during microkeratome flap creation and laser ablation, and postoperatively at 30 and 45 minutes ( P < .05 for all). Patients in the lidocaine gel group required less additional topical anesthesia ( P = .0004) and were more cooperative ( P = .019) as compared to the carbomer gel group. No surgical or postoperative complications were observed. Conclusions The use of supplementary 2% lidocaine gel in LASIK is effective in lowering the pain experienced during and up to 45 minutes after LASIK.
This study compared the findings of cervical cytology screening by ThinPrep Papanicolaou (Pap) tests (TP) with the findings of screening by conventional cervical smears (CS) in a screening population ...involving what to the authors' knowledge is the largest sample of ThinPrep Pap tests published to date.
Data from 191,581 CS that were screened in the period from March 1, 1998 to February 28, 2000 were compared with data from 190,667 TP performed from March 1, 2000 to February 28, 2002 and that were obtained from the same sources.
With TP, the unsatisfactory rate was reduced from 0.48% to 0.32%. Fewer cases were considered to be suboptimal (19.12% vs. 12.97%). The detection rates of squamous cell carcinomas, adenocarcinomas, and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) were essentially unchanged in the TP group (0.005%, 0.003%, and 0.25%, respectively) compared with the rates for the CS group (0.01%, 0.006%, and 0.25%, respectively). There was an increase in the detection of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS; 3.74% vs. 3.19%) and low-grade SIL (LSIL; 1.67% vs. 1.01%) with a decrease in the ASCUS-to-LSIL ratio from 3.15 for CS to 2.33 for TP. The detection of atypical glandular cells of undetermined significance (AGUS) increased slightly from 0.07% to 0.09%. The proportion of cells reported to have reactive atypia dropped from 2.71% to 1.48%. Limited biopsy correlation (range, 73.2-76.2%) confirmed the increased sensitivity of TP. More actinomyces (1.07% vs. 0.52%) were detected in TP samples despite of a similar portion of intrauterine-device users. The average primary screening and rapid rescreening time of each slide were reduced from 8 minutes to 4 minutes and from 2 minutes to less than 1 minute, respectively.
The preliminary experience of the authors of the current study appears to support the use of the ThinPrep Pap test to enhance the efficiency of cervical cytology screening.