Non-occlusive mesenteric ischemia (NOMI) is a type of acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) with a high mortality rate mainly because of a delayed or misdiagnosis. Intra-abdominal sepsis is one of the risk ...factors for developing NOMI, and its presence makes early diagnosis much more difficult. An increase in routine abdominal surgeries carries a corresponding risk of abdominal infection, which is a complication that should not be overlooked. It is critical that physicians are aware of the possibility for intestinal necrosis in abdominal sepsis patients due to the poor survival rate of NOMI. This review aims to summarize advances in the diagnosis of NOMI, and focuses on the diagnostic challenges of mesenteric ischemia in patients with intra-abdominal sepsis.
A rapid thermal anneal (RTA) is used to crystallize the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) deposited hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film to form the phosphorus-doped ...polysilicon passivated contact in tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cells. The effects of annealing temperature, annealing time, cooling time, and the polysilicon thickness on the surface passivation are investigated. The primary advantage of the RTA is reducing the whole crystallization period to ~15 min, shorter than the conventional tube-furnace annealing period of >60 min. We find that the RTA is a robust method to prepare high-quality polysilicon passivated contact without introducing blistering when the thickness of the a-Si:H is less than 40 nm. The optimized RTA process leads to an implied open-circuit voltage (iVoc) of 712 mV and a single-sided dark saturation current density (J0,s) of 12.5 fA/cm2 in the as-annealed state, which is inferior to the surface passivation of the controlled one prepared by a tube furnace annealing. Fortunately, a subsequent Al2O3 capping hydrogenation improves the iVoc and J0,s to 727 mV and 4.7 fA/cm2, respectively. The champion conversion efficiency of 23.04% (Voc = 679.0 mV, Jsc = 41.97 mA/cm2 and FF = 80.86%) is achieved, which demonstrates the effectiveness of RTA for preparing a high-efficiency polysilicon passivated-contact solar cell.
•N-type polysilicon passivated contact structure annealed by Rapid-Thermal Anneal (RTA) is studied.•The effects of the annealing temperature, annealing time, cooling time, polysilicon thickness on surface passivation are investigated.•The whole crystallization period of RTA is reduced to ~15 min with the best iVoc of 727 mV and J0,s of 4.7 fA/cm2 after hydrogenation.•Limiting polysilicon thickness to less than 40 nm helps to avoid blistering.•The polysilicon passivated-contact solar cell prepared using RTA shows a champion conversion efficiency of 23.04%.
Self‐assembled monolayers (SAMs) have emerged as effective carrier transport layers in perovskite (PVK) solar cells because of their unique ability to manipulate interfacial property, as well as ...simple processing and scalable fabrication. However, the defects and pinholes derived from their sensitive adsorption process inevitably deteriorate the final device performance. Herein, a sputtered nickel oxide (NiOx) interlayer is used as a seed layer to promote the adsorption of the 2‐(3,6‐dimethoxy‐9H‐carbazol‐9‐yl)ethylphosphonic acid (MeO‐2PACz) SAM on the indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate. The promoted adsorption is attributed to the enhanced tridentate binding between MeO‐2PACz and NiOx relative to the conventional bidentate binding between MeO‐2PACz and ITO. In addition, the NiOx modification can simultaneously improve the passivation ability and hole‐selectivity of the MeO‐2PACz, provide a favorable energy‐level alignment at the ITO/PVK interface, and prevent a direct contact between PVK and ITO. As a consequence, this NiOx‐seeded MeO‐2PACz hole transport layer enables a significantly enhanced power conversion efficiency of 19.9% in comparison with 18.4% of the control device. This work provides an effective strategy to improve the performance of the SAM‐based photoelectric device.
A sputtered NiOx seed layer is employed to promote the adsorption of 2‐(3,6‐dimethoxy‐9H‐carbazol‐9‐yl)ethylphosphonic acid (MeO‐2PACz) self‐assembled monolayers. The resulting high‐density MeO‐2PACz provides an increased passivation, an enhanced hole‐selectivity, a favorable energy‐level alignment, and a robust physical contact between perovskite and indium tin oxide. The corresponding inverted perovskite solar cell exhibits an impressive efficiency of 19.9%.
Using the technology of spectral selectivity to integrate different solar power generators in a hybrid system is a feasible way to improve the optical-electric efficiency. This paper presents an ...82-layer broadband optical interference thin-film filter matching with crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, which using TiO₂ and SiO₂ as fabrication materials and can be used in hybrid solar power systems like photovoltaic–thermoelectric generator (PV–TEG) systems. The design, optimization and fabrication process of the filter is described, high reflectance from 400nm to 1100nm as well as high transmittance from 1100nm to 2500nm over the broadband of solar spectrum are obtained. The classical electron beam evaporation plant is used to fabricate the filter. Four different incidence angles’ optical performances of the sample filter are measured which agree well with the numerical simulation results. The electrical characteristics of a typical Silicon photovoltaic cell using the fabricated sample filter are measured. An average efficiency increase of 3.24% for the solar cell with respect to the solar energy it receives can be obtained due to the filter. A calculation model for a hybrid PV–TEG system using this thin-film filter is proposed and the benefits of the filter for hybrid solar power systems are demonstrated.
As one of the most frequently occurring tumor types, the increasing incidence of gastric cancer (GC) has been observed in the past decades. The recent studies have illustrated that epigenetic ...modifications mediated by DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) are the major epigenetic hallmark in GC progression. Nowadays, DNA methylation was considered to be necessary for inducing the silence of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs). As an important group of peptides, the TFF family has been confirmed to function as a TSG in various kinds of cancers. However, whether TFFs could be modified by DNA methylation in gastric cancer remains unknown. Here, we initially screened out two transcriptional sequencing profiles about GC from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The lower expression levels of TFF1 and TFF2 were observed in GC tumor tissues as compared to those in normal tissues. Additionally, utilizing the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the expressions of TFF1 and TFF2 were identified to be associated with the prognosis of GC patients. Subsequently, the integrative analysis was performed to estimate the DNA methylation level of each site in TFF1/TFF2 CpG islands. Importantly, our findings indicated that hyper-methylation of cg01886855 and cg26403416 were separately responsible for the downregulation of TFF1 and TFF2 in GC samples. In addition, utilizing the experiments in vitro, we demonstrated that TFF1/TFF2 could suppress the proliferation of GC cells. Based on these results, we suspected that TFF1/TFF2 could potentially act as the putative tumor suppressor in GC, and these two TFFs were of great value for predicting the overall survival (OS) status in the gastric cancer cohort. Totally, our findings revealed a potential therapeutic method for targeting the TFFs for the treatment of GC.
The first-line treatment for recurrent or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) is imatinib, but the benefit of surgical intervention has not been determined. Surgery combined with ...long-term imatinib treatment (> 10 years) has rarely been reported. Patients with recurrent or metastatic GISTs who received surgery combined with long-term imatinib treatment (> 10 years) were included in this study. The demographic, surgical, and clinicopathologic data were retrospectively collected and analyzed. Five patients (three men and two women) with a median age of 47 (range 37–72) years were included. The primary tumor was located in the stomach and small intestine in three and two patients, respectively. Four patients who received complete resection (R0) had a single recurrent tumor. The remaining patient had more than two recurrent lesions, and the operation was done with gross residual disease (R2 resection, > 90% of the tumor bulk removed). All patients received more than 10 (median 13.50, range 12.30–13.67) years of imatinib treatment after resection of recurrent tumors. Two patients received a reduced dose of imatinib, and the remaining received 400 mg/day. The median follow-up was 17.0 (range 14.58–20.17) years since the primary tumor was resected. Two patients developed a tumor recurrence after 11.58 and 12.0 years of imatinib treatment, respectively. Surgical intervention may be beneficial when combined with long-term imatinib treatment for selected patients with recurrent or metastatic GISTs but should be further investigated.
All‐inorganic perovskite CsPbBr3 has drawn a lot of interest as an active layer applied in photovoltaics due to its outstanding stability in ambient air. However, the procedure of preparing ...high‐quality CsPbBr3 films still remains a serious challenge because of the tedious process and toxic solvent. Herein, a solvent engineering method that involves green solvent with mixed H2O/C2H5OH to dissolve CsBr is presented to produce all‐inorganic perovskite CsPbBr3 films. CsPbBr3 perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are fabricated based on planar n‐i‐p structure. Compared with CsBr H2O solution, the CsPbBr3 films with optimized mixed solvent method exhibit larger grain size and improved crystallinity. As a result, the carbon‐electrode PSCs based on the mixed solvent method exhibit an increased efficiency of 9.70%. The best‐performing device retains 96.95% of the initial power conversion efficiency (PCE) after storing 1000 h under ambient air and 86.46% of the initial PCE after continuous illumination for 100 min. Moreover, the photodetector based on the same structure as the CsPbBr3 device shows high responsivity and high detectivity. The result not only provides an easy and straightforward method to prepare the uniform and pinhole‐free CsPbBr3 films, but also reduces the toxicity of the CsBr solution used to make the CsPbBr3 PSCs.
A solvent‐engineering strategy is used to create high‐quality CsPbBr3 films with increased grain size and crystallinity and reduced carrier interfacial recombination. Finally, the multi‐function champion device has a satisfactory power conversion efficiency of 9.70% in the solar cell and a high detectivity of 2.5 × 1014 Jones in the photodetector.
Mutations in KIT proto-oncogene, receptor tyrosine kinase (KIT) and platelet-derived growth factor receptor-α (PDGFRA) render the available tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) ineffective in treating ...advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). Ripretinib, a broad-spectrum switch-control kinase inhibitor, has shown increased efficacy and manageable safety, but real-world evidence remains scarce. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of ripretinib among Chinese patients in a real-world setting.
Advanced GIST patients (N=23) receiving ripretinib following progression on previous lines of TKI treatment were enrolled to determine the efficacy progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Safety was assessed by the incidence and severity of adverse events (AEs). All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 20.0 and a p-value of <0.05 was considered significant.
The median PFS (mPFS) of efficacy analysis set (EAS) (N=21) was 7.1 months. mPFS of patients receiving ripretinib following ≤2 lines of previous TKI treatment and ≥3 prior lines of therapy were 7.1 and 9.2 months, respectively. The median OS (mOS) was 12.0 months and shorter interval between the end of the latest TKI and ripretinib therapy was correlated with longer median PFS and OS (p=0.054 and p=0.046), respectively. Alopecia and asthenia were the most common AEs observed.
Compared to previous lines of TKI in advanced GIST patients, ripretinib showed superior efficacy with clinically manageable AEs. Real-world results are comparable to that of phase III INVICTUS study and its Chinese bridging study. Hence, ripretinib can be used for the clinical management of advanced GIST patients.
The textured surfaces to reduce light reflectivity by using acid-alkali chemical etching and SiNx films are generally necessary for commercial crystalline silicon solar cells. However, this etching ...process requires a large amount of environmentally harmful acid-alkali solution and has limited options for texture and size. To overcome these disadvantages, a new anti-reflection strategy is proposed in this study, which is using soft nanoimprint lithography to prepare the textured structures on the outside of the SiNx films. The polyurethane with a high refractive index of 1.64 is selected as the texture material, and different templates are selected to prepare it into different light trapping structures, including positive-inverted pyramids, inverted lace cones, and positive-inverted moth-eye nanostructures allowing for easy customization of the textured structures. The finite element simulation and experiments demonstrate that these light trapping structures have a wide spectrum anti-reflection performance in visible and near-infrared bands. With the back surface of the commercial passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) bi-facial solar cells as the imprint substrates, some light trapping structures can reduce the surface weighted average light reflectivity (Rw) at the band of 300–1200 nm from 18.31% to less than 10% and the optimal structures can reduce Rw to 8.71%. This anti-reflection strategy can also be applied to thin-film solar cells and crystalline silicon solar cells of other structures, such as HIT, Topcon, Perovskite/c-Si tandem, and so forth, which shows great development potential.
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•New texture structure design: prepare texture on the outside of flat SiNx film.•Soft nanoimprint lithography facilitates custom texture.•Applying PU can easily adjust the refractive index and imprint various structures.•Texture does not affect the electrical performance of the solar cells.
•An optimization model of NF-TPV combined with cooling system is established.•Optimal temperatures of the emitter and the PV cell are determined.•Effects of operating parameters on the whole system ...are investigated.•Parametric optimum selection criteria are provided.•Provide guidance for NF-TPV application in solar energy harvesting.
Near-field thermophotovoltaic (NF-TPV) system based on the photon tunneling effect can effectively increase the output power, which has shown great application potential in solar energy utilization. In order to evaluate the performance of NF-TPV system more reasonably, this study established an optimization model of NF-TPV combined with a water-cooling system to better reflect the physical process of system running. Taking into account the energy consumption of cell water cooling, the performance of NF-TPV system with tungsten emitter and InAs cell was analyzed and optimized through numerical simulation. The influence of operating parameters such as emitter and cell temperatures, applied voltage and vacuum gap on the system performance was investigated. It is found that the operating parameters of NF-TPV combined with water cooling system have their optimal ranges, which can ensure the high efficiency and output power of the system simultaneously. When NF-TPV is applied in waste heat recovery, the cooling energy consumption could be ignored. In solar energy conversion, the emitter temperature should be kept as high as possible, and the cooling energy consumption must be considered when the emitter temperature is above 1000 K. If fuel combustion is used as NF-TPV heat source, the emitter temperature should not exceed 1500 K. This study provides guidance for the practical application of NF-TPV systems.
