55-year-old Male with Exertional Dyspnea

Introduction: Dyspnea is a common presenting complaint for many patients in the emergency department.Case Presentation: A 55-year-old man with type I diabetes presented to the emergency department with one month of intermittent palpitations and dyspnea. His lungs were clear to auscultation, and his chest radiograph was normal.Discussion: This case takes the reader through the differential diagnosis and systematic work-up of dyspnea with discussion of the diagnostic study, which ultimately led to this patient’s diagnosis and successful treatment

The Orientation of Beavers (Castor Canadensis) When Cutting Trees

Author Institution: Department of Zoology, Ohio Wesleyan UniversityWe studied patterns in the orientation of cutting when beavers (Castor canadensis) cut trees around Alum Creek Lake in central Ohio. For 462 trees, we measured the slope at the base of the tree, the orientation of the cut relative to this slope, the distance of the tree from the water, the radius of the tree, and the symmetry of the cut. The land around Alum Creek Lake generally slopes toward the water, so to direct the fall of a tree towards the water a beaver should cut a symmetrical tree from the downhill side. Cutting from the downhill side occurred for trees >9.0 m from the water. Near the shore, trees tended to lean toward the water and would fall toward the water regardless of the side from which the beaver cut. At distances 30°) they cut predominantly from the uphill side. Beavers cut small trees (5.0 cm in diameter from the uphill side. Overall, enough factors interacted that no single pattern of cutting existed for all trees

Exact Solutions of the Saturable Discrete Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation

Exact solutions to a nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger lattice with a saturable nonlinearity are reported. For finite lattices we find two different standing-wave-like solutions, and for an infinite lattice we find a localized soliton-like solution. The existence requirements and stability of these solutions are discussed, and we find that our solutions are linearly stable in most cases. We also show that the effective Peierls-Nabarro barrier potential is nonzero thereby indicating that this discrete model is quite likely nonintegrable

Analysis of local Al-doped back surface fields for high efficiency screen-printed solar cells

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate the surface recombination of local screen-printed aluminum contacts applied to rear passivated solar cells. We measure the surface recombination velocity by microwave-detected photoconductance decay measurements on test wafers with various contact geometries and compare two different aluminum pastes. The aluminum paste which is optimized for local contacts shows a deep and uniform local back surface field that results in Smet=600cm/s on 1.5Ωcm p-type silicon. In contrast, a standard Al paste for full-area metallization shows a non-uniform back surface field and a Smet of 2000cm/s on the same material. We achieve an area-averaged rear surface recombination velocity Srear=(65±20) cm/s for line contacts with a pitch of 2mm. The application of the optimized paste to screen-printed solar cells with dielectric surface passivation results in efficiencies of up to 19.2% with a Voc=655mV and a Jsc=38.4mA/cm2 on 125×125 mm2 p-type Cz silicon wafers. The internal quantum efficiency analysis reveals Srear=(70±30) cm/s which is in agreement with our lifetime results. Applying fine line screen-printing, efficiencies up to 19.4% are demonstrated

Loss analysis and improvements of industrially fabricated Cz-Si solar cells by means of process and device simulations

We model currently fabricated industrial-type screen-printed boron-doped Cz silicon solar cells using a combination of process and device simulations. The model reproduces the experimental results precisely and allows us to predict both the efficiency gain after specific cell improvements and the associated thermal budgets. Separating the resistive losses (evaluated for various contributions) from the recombination losses (evaluated in different device regions) allows us to forecast the improvements of the emitter and the rear side necessary such that the recombination losses in the base dominate. We predict that to increase cell efficiency considerably beyond 19.7 %, the base material needs to be improved

Advances in the Surface Passivation of Silicon Solar Cells

AbstractThe surface passivation properties of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) on crystalline Si are compared with the traditional passivation system of silicon nitride (SiNx). It is shown that Al2O3 has fundamental advantages over SiNx when applied to the rear of p-type silicon solar cells as well as to the p+ emitter of n-type silicon solar cells. Special emphasis is paid to the transfer of Al2O3 into industrial solar cell production. We compare different Al2O3 deposition techniques suitable for mass production such as ultrafast spatial atomic layer deposition, inline plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition and reactive sputtering. Finally, we review the most recent cell results with Al2O3 passivation and give a brief outlook on the future prospects of Al2O3 in silicon solar cell production

Dementia in Swedish Twins: Predicting Incident Cases

Thirty same-sex twin pairs were identified in which both members were assessed at baseline and one twin subsequently developed dementia, at least 3 years subsequent to the baseline measurement, while the partner remained cognitively intact for at least three additional years. Eighteen of the 30 cases were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Baseline assessments, conducted when twins’ average age was 70.6 (SD = 6.8), included a mailed questionnaire and in-person testing. Which twin would develop dementia was predicted by less favorable lipid values (higher apoB, ratio of apoB to apoA1, and total cholesterol), poorer grip strength, and—to a lesser extent—higher emotionality on the EAS Temperament Scale. Given the long preclinical period that characterizes Alzheimer’s disease, these findings may suggest late life risk factors for dementia, or may reflect changes that are part of preclinical disease

Gene-environment interplay in depressive symptoms:Moderation by age, sex, and physical illness

BackgroundNumerous factors influence late-life depressive symptoms in adults, many not thoroughly characterized. We addressed whether genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms differed by age, sex, and physical illness.MethodThe analysis sample included 24 436 twins aged 40–90 years drawn from the Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) Consortium. Biometric analyses tested age, sex, and physical illness moderation of genetic and environmental variance in depressive symptoms.ResultsWomen reported greater depressive symptoms than men. After age 60, there was an accelerating increase in depressive symptom scores with age, but this did not appreciably affect genetic and environmental variances. Overlap in genetic influences between physical illness and depressive symptoms was greater in men than in women. Additionally, in men extent of overlap was greater with worse physical illness (the genetic correlation ranged from near 0.00 for the least physical illness to nearly 0.60 with physical illness 2s.d.above the mean). For men and women, the same environmental factors that influenced depressive symptoms also influenced physical illness.ConclusionsFindings suggested that genetic factors play a larger part in the association between depressive symptoms and physical illness for men than for women. For both sexes, across all ages, physical illness may similarly trigger social and health limitations that contribute to depressive symptoms.</jats:sec

Ultrashort filaments of light in weakly-ionized, optically-transparent media

Modern laser sources nowadays deliver ultrashort light pulses reaching few cycles in duration, high energies beyond the Joule level and peak powers exceeding several terawatt (TW). When such pulses propagate through optically-transparent media, they first self-focus in space and grow in intensity, until they generate a tenuous plasma by photo-ionization. For free electron densities and beam intensities below their breakdown limits, these pulses evolve as self-guided objects, resulting from successive equilibria between the Kerr focusing process, the chromatic dispersion of the medium, and the defocusing action of the electron plasma. Discovered one decade ago, this self-channeling mechanism reveals a new physics, widely extending the frontiers of nonlinear optics. Implications include long-distance propagation of TW beams in the atmosphere, supercontinuum emission, pulse shortening as well as high-order harmonic generation. This review presents the landmarks of the 10-odd-year progress in this field. Particular emphasis is laid to the theoretical modeling of the propagation equations, whose physical ingredients are discussed from numerical simulations. Differences between femtosecond pulses propagating in gaseous or condensed materials are underlined. Attention is also paid to the multifilamentation instability of broad, powerful beams, breaking up the energy distribution into small-scale cells along the optical path. The robustness of the resulting filaments in adverse weathers, their large conical emission exploited for multipollutant remote sensing, nonlinear spectroscopy, and the possibility to guide electric discharges in air are finally addressed on the basis of experimental results.Comment: 50 pages, 38 figure