High-efficiency robust perovskite solar cells on ultrathin flexible substrates.

Wide applications of personal consumer electronics have triggered tremendous need for portable power sources featuring light-weight and mechanical flexibility. Perovskite solar cells offer a compelling combination of low-cost and high device performance. Here we demonstrate high-performance planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells constructed on highly flexible and ultrathin silver-mesh/conducting polymer substrates. The device performance is comparable to that of their counterparts on rigid glass/indium tin oxide substrates, reaching a power conversion efficiency of 14.0%, while the specific power (the ratio of power to device weight) reaches 1.96 kW kg(-1), given the fact that the device is constructed on a 57-μm-thick polyethylene terephthalate based substrate. The flexible device also demonstrates excellent robustness against mechanical deformation, retaining >95% of its original efficiency after 5,000 times fully bending. Our results confirmed that perovskite thin films are fully compatible with our flexible substrates, and are thus promising for future applications in flexible and bendable solar cells

Effectiveness and safety of co-administration of moxifloxacin with netilmicin in drug-resistant tuberculosis patients, and its impact on inflammatory factors and immune function

Purpose: To study the effectiveness and safety of co-administration of moxifloxacin with netilmicin in drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) patients, and its impact on levels of inflammatory factors and immune function. Methods: We enrolled 100 patients with drug-resistant TB admitted to People’s Hospital of Rizhao between May 2017 and October 2019. The patients were randomly allocated to control group and study group, with 50 patients per group. The control group received moxifloxacin at a dose of 0.2 g t.i.d. for 6 months and the study group received netilmicin at a dose of 0.1 g t.i.d. plus. The response, incidence of adverse reactions, expression levels of inflammatory factors, immune function, and sputum-negative status after 2, 4 and 6 months of TB treatment were compared. Results: The study group showed markedly higher response than the control group (p < 0.05). Moreover, there were lower incidence of adverse effects in the study group than in the control group (p < 0.05). The expression levels of inflammatory factors were significantly lower in the study group, while the concentrations of CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ were markedly higher (p < 0.05). After 2, 4 and 6 months of TB treatment, cases of sputum-negative conversion were significantly higher in the study group than in the control group (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Co-administration of moxifloxacin with netilmicin produces much higher effectiveness and safety than moxifloxacin monotherapy, decreases inflammatory factor levels and improves immune function in patients with drug-resistant TB

Phototriggered Complex Motion by Programmable Construction of Light-Driven Molecular Motors in Liquid Crystal Networks

Recent developments in artificial molecular machines have enabled precisely controlled molecular motion, which allows several distinct mechanical operations at the nanoscale. However, harnessing and amplifying molecular motion along multiple length scales to induce macroscopic motion are still major challenges and comprise an important next step toward future actuators and soft robotics. The key to addressing this challenge relies on effective integration of synthetic molecular machines in a hierarchically aligned structure so numerous individual molecular motions can be collected in a cooperative way and amplified to higher length scales and eventually lead to macroscopic motion. Here, we report the complex motion of liquid crystal networks embedded with molecular motors triggered by single-wavelength illumination. By design, both racemic and enantiomerically pure molecular motors are programmably integrated into liquid crystal networks with a defined orientation. The motors have multiple functions acting as cross-linkers, actuators, and chiral dopants inside the network. The collective rotary motion of motors resulted in multiple types of motion of the polymeric film, including bending, wavy motion, fast unidirectional movement on surfaces, and synchronized helical motion with different handedness, paving the way for the future design of responsive materials with enhanced complex functions

Urban-Rural Disparity in Helicobacter Pylori Infection–Related Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer in China and the Decreasing Trend in Parallel with Socioeconomic Development and Urbanization in an Endemic Area

Background: Globally China has the largest urban-rural disparity in socioeconomic development, and the urban-rural difference in upper gastrointestinal cancer (UGIC) is similar to the difference between developed and developing countries. Objectives: To describe urban-rural disparity in UGIC and to emphasize prevention by socioeconomic development and urbanization in China. Methods: Age-standardized incidence rates (ASRs) of cancers in 2012 were compared between urban Shijiazhuang city and rural Shexian County, and trends from 2000-2015 in Shexian County were analyzed. Findings: Compared with urban Shijiazhuang city, the ASR of gastroesophageal cancers in rural Shexian County was 5.3 times higher in men (234.1 vs 44.2/100,000, 'P' 'Helicobacter pylori' infection prevalence of 75% vs 50%. From 2000-2015, the GDP per capita in Shexian County increased from US$860 to US$3000, urbanization rate increased from 22.4% to 54.8%, and prevalence of 'H pylori' infection among 3- to 10-year-old children decreased from 60% to 46.1% ('P' 'gallbladder cancers and leukemia in both sexes and breast, ovary, thyroid, and kidney cancer in women increased significantly. Despite this offset, ASR of all cancers combined decreased 25% in men (from 378.2 to 283.0/100,000, 'P' '=' '.'00) and 19% in women (from 238.5 to 193.6/100,000, 'P' '=' '.'00). ConclusionsUrban-rural disparity in UGIC is related to inequity in socioeconomic development. Economic growth and urbanization is effective for prevention in endemic regions in China and should be a policy priority

Experimental investigation on an integrated thermal management system with heat pipe heat exchanger for electric vehicle

An integrated thermal management system combining a heat pipe battery cooling/preheating system with the heat pump air conditioning system is presented to fulfill the comprehensive energy utilization for electric vehicles. A test bench with battery heat pipe heat exchanger and heat pump air conditioning for a regular five-chair electric car is set up to research the performance of this integrated system under different working conditions. The investigation results show that as the system is designed to meet the basic cabinet cooling demand, the additional parallel branch of battery chiller is a good way to solve the battery group cooling problem, which can supply about 20% additional cooling capacity without input power increase. Its coefficient of performance for cabinet heating is around 1.34 at −20 °C out-car temperature and 20 °C in-car temperature. The specific heat of the battery group is tested about 1.24 kJ/kg °C. There exists a necessary temperature condition for the heat pipe heat exchanger to start action. The heat pipe heat transfer performance is around 0.87 W/°C on cooling mode and 1.11 W/°C on preheating mode. The gravity role makes the heat transfer performance of the heat pipe on preheating mode better than that on cooling mode

Differential DARC/ACKR1 expression distinguishes venular from non-venular endothelial cells in murine tissues

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant AI112521 and the John and Virginia Kaneb Fellowship

Attracting and Quasi-Invariant Sets of Cohen-Grossberg Neural Networks with Time Delay in the Leakage Term under Impulsive Perturbations

A class of impulsive Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with time delay in the leakage term is investigated. By using the method of M-matrix and the technique of delay differential inequality, the attracting and invariant sets of the networks are obtained. The results in this paper extend and improve the earlier publications. An example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of our conclusion