Global, regional, and national cancer incidence, mortality, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-Adjusted life-years for 29 cancer groups, 1990 to 2017 : A systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study

Importance: Cancer and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are now widely recognized as a threat to global development. The latest United Nations high-level meeting on NCDs reaffirmed this observation and also highlighted the slow progress in meeting the 2011 Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and the third Sustainable Development Goal. Lack of situational analyses, priority setting, and budgeting have been identified as major obstacles in achieving these goals. All of these have in common that they require information on the local cancer epidemiology. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study is uniquely poised to provide these crucial data. Objective: To describe cancer burden for 29 cancer groups in 195 countries from 1990 through 2017 to provide data needed for cancer control planning. Evidence Review: We used the GBD study estimation methods to describe cancer incidence, mortality, years lived with disability, years of life lost, and disability-Adjusted life-years (DALYs). Results are presented at the national level as well as by Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income, educational attainment, and total fertility rate. We also analyzed the influence of the epidemiological vs the demographic transition on cancer incidence. Findings: In 2017, there were 24.5 million incident cancer cases worldwide (16.8 million without nonmelanoma skin cancer [NMSC]) and 9.6 million cancer deaths. The majority of cancer DALYs came from years of life lost (97%), and only 3% came from years lived with disability. The odds of developing cancer were the lowest in the low SDI quintile (1 in 7) and the highest in the high SDI quintile (1 in 2) for both sexes. In 2017, the most common incident cancers in men were NMSC (4.3 million incident cases); tracheal, bronchus, and lung (TBL) cancer (1.5 million incident cases); and prostate cancer (1.3 million incident cases). The most common causes of cancer deaths and DALYs for men were TBL cancer (1.3 million deaths and 28.4 million DALYs), liver cancer (572000 deaths and 15.2 million DALYs), and stomach cancer (542000 deaths and 12.2 million DALYs). For women in 2017, the most common incident cancers were NMSC (3.3 million incident cases), breast cancer (1.9 million incident cases), and colorectal cancer (819000 incident cases). The leading causes of cancer deaths and DALYs for women were breast cancer (601000 deaths and 17.4 million DALYs), TBL cancer (596000 deaths and 12.6 million DALYs), and colorectal cancer (414000 deaths and 8.3 million DALYs). Conclusions and Relevance: The national epidemiological profiles of cancer burden in the GBD study show large heterogeneities, which are a reflection of different exposures to risk factors, economic settings, lifestyles, and access to care and screening. The GBD study can be used by policy makers and other stakeholders to develop and improve national and local cancer control in order to achieve the global targets and improve equity in cancer care. © 2019 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Fabrication of Semiconducting Methylammonium Lead Halide Perovskite Particles by Spray Technology

Abstract In this “nano idea” paper, three concepts for the preparation of methylammonium lead halide perovskite particles are proposed, discussed, and tested. The first idea is based on the wet chemistry preparation of the perovskite particles, through the addition of the perovskite precursor solution to an anti-solvent to facilitate the precipitation of the perovskite particles in the solution. The second idea is based on the milling of a blend of the perovskite precursors in the dry form, in order to allow for the conversion of the precursors to the perovskite particles. The third idea is based on the atomization of the perovskite solution by a spray nozzle, introducing the spray droplets into a hot wall reactor, so as to prepare perovskite particles, using the droplet-to-particle spray approach (spray pyrolysis). Preliminary results show that the spray technology is the most successful method for the preparation of impurity-free perovskite particles and perovskite paste to deposit perovskite thin films. As a proof of concept, a perovskite solar cell with the paste prepared by the sprayed perovskite powder was successfully fabricated

Photocatalytic Graphene-TiO2 Thin Films Fabricated by Low-Temperature Ultrasonic Vibration-Assisted Spin and Spray Coating in a Sol-Gel Process

In this work, we communicate a facile and low temperature synthesis process for the fabrication of graphene-TiO2 photocatalytic composite thin films. A sol-gel chemical route is used to synthesize TiO2 from the precursor solutions and spin and spray coating are used to deposit the films. Excitation of the wet films during the casting process by ultrasonic vibration favorably influences both the sol-gel route and the deposition process, through the following mechanisms. The ultrasound energy imparted to the wet film breaks down the physical bonds of the gel phase. As a result, only a low-temperature post annealing process is required to eliminate the residues to complete the conversion of precursors to TiO2. In addition, ultrasonic vibration creates a nanoscale agitating motion or microstreaming in the liquid film that facilitates mixing of TiO2 and graphene nanosheets. The films made based on the above-mentioned ultrasonic vibration-assisted method and annealed at 150 °C contain both rutile and anatase phases of TiO2, which is the most favorable configuration for photocatalytic applications. The photoinduced and photocatalytic experiments demonstrate effective photocurrent generation and elimination of pollutants by graphene-TiO2 composite thin films fabricated via scalable spray coating and mild temperature processing, the results of which are comparable with those made using lab-scale and energy-intensive processes

Excitation of Wet Perovskite Films by Ultrasonic Vibration Improves the Device Performance

In this work, a novel, facile, and low-cost mechanical post treatment technique, i.e., ultrasonic substrate vibration post treatment (SVPT) is applied on wet spun perovskite layers. The effect of varying the time of the SVPT on the characteristics of the perovskite crystals and the perovskite film is studied, in order to achieve the optimum time duration of the SVPT. Among the results, it is found that the application of only three minutes of the SVPT (for the ultrasonic vibration assembly used in this study, operated at 40 kHz) brings about significant improvement in the film coverage, and the contact between the perovskite and the m-TiO2 layers, owing to the effective penetration of the perovskite solution into the pores, leading to a superior charge transfer, and a significant increase in the device power conversion efficiency (PCE), when compared to the control device. This unprecedented effect is repeatable when applied on both single and mixed halide perovskites, putting forward a reliable and low-cost mechanical technique for the fabrication of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) in the lab and beyond, which could reduce or eliminate the tedious and expensive chemical optimization treatments, commonly used to increase the PCE

Viscosity, surface tension, density and contact angle of selected PbI2, PbCl2 and methylammonium lead halide perovskite solutions used in perovskite solar cells

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are currently under vigorous research and development, owing to their compelling power conversion efficiencies. PSCs are solution-processed and, therefore, are fabricated using casting and printing methods, such as spin, spray and blade coating. The coating characteristics significantly depend on the physical and rheological properties of the solutions. Thus, due to the scarcity of such properties, in this work, we report the surface tension, viscosity, density, and contact angle of selected methylammonium lead halide perovskite solutions, in order to gain insight into the behavior of the perovskite solutions and the range of such physical properties. The contact angles were measured on PEDOT:PSS and compact TiO2 (c-TiO2) substrates, commonly used as the underneath layers of the perovskite film. In total, 12 solutions of CH3NH3PbI3 and CH3NH3PbI3-xClx dissolved in common solvents, as well as solutions of PbI2, PbCl2, and CH3NH3I were tested. Among the results, it is shown that the tested perovskite solutions are Newtonian, the apparent contact angles on the mesoporous TiO2 (m-TiO2) are close to zero, on the PEDOT:PSS are around 10°, and on the c-TiO2 are around 30°. Also, contact angle hysteresis is observed in the case of the c-TiO2 substrates. Representative impact dynamics and spreading of perovskite solution droplets are also studied, to demonstrate the importance of the solution properties and process parameters on the coating process

Boosted Charge-Carrier Transport in Triple-Cation Perovskites by Ultrasonic Vibration Post Treatment

Ultrasonic vibration imposed on the substrate of a drying perovskite solution film has previously been proposed as a nearly annealing-free method to improve film quality and thus the photovoltaic performance for perovskite solar cells. However, an in-depth understanding of the underlying mechanism of the improved film quality via ultrasonic vibration is still lacking. In this work, the effects of substrate vibration post treatment on the carrier lifetime and mobility are studied in triple-cation perovskite films. With 80 s of annealing-free vibration, the perovskite film demonstrates much stronger photoluminescence intensity and much longer carrier lifetime up to 2.634 µs, 2 orders of magnitude longer than that of the thermal annealed films. Optical pump terahertz probe spectroscopy reveals that the charge-carrier mobility increases to 121 ± 44 cm2 V−1 s−1 when subjected to 80 s vibration followed by annealing. Such mobility is about 80 ± 40 cm2 V−1 s−1 higher than that of other polycrystalline organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite thin films of similar composition. The diffusion length is improved to nearly 1.5 times. The new understanding on the vibration-induced charge-carrier transport properties paves the way for the application of ultrasonic vibration toward the performance improvement of perovskite-based electronic devices.Through ultrasonic vibration imposed on as-spun films at proper power and duration, the charge-carrier mobility in the perovskite layer increases to 121 ± 44 cm2 V−1 s−1, about 80 ± 40 cm2 V−1 s−1 higher than other polycrystalline hybrid perovskite films of similar composition. Ultrasonic vibration post treatment effectively suppresses the overall charge-carrier trapping rate in the perovskite layer.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/173144/1/aelm202101286.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/173144/2/aelm202101286-sup-0001-SuppMat.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/173144/3/aelm202101286_am.pd

Reduction of dental filling metallic artifacts in CT-based attenuation correction of PET data using weighted virtual sinograms optimized by a genetic algorithm

PURPOSE: The presence of metallic dental fillings is prevalent in head and neck PET/CT imaging and generates bright and dark streaking artifacts in reconstructed CT images. The resulting artifacts would propagate to the corresponding PET images following CT-based attenuation correction (CTAC). This would cause over- and/or underestimation of tracer uptake in corresponding regions thus leading to inaccurate quantification of tracer uptake. The purpose of this study is to improve our recently proposed metal artifact reduction (MAR) approach and to assess its performance in a clinical setting. METHODS: The proposed MAR algorithm is performed in the virtual sinogram space to overcome the challenges associated with manipulating raw CT data. The corresponding bins of the virtual sinogram affected by metallic objects are obtained by forward projection of segmented metallic objects in the original CT image. These bins are then substituted by weighted values of three estimates: the affected bins in the original sinogram, the bins in the corrected sinogram using spline interpolation, and the sinogram bins in the neighboring column of the sinogram matrix. The optimized weighting factors (alpha, beta, and gamma) were estimated using a genetic algorithm (GA). The optimized combination of weighting coefficients was obtained using the GA applied to 24 clinical CT data sets. The proposed MAR method was then applied to 12 clinical head and neck PET/CT data sets containing dental artifacts. Analysis of the results was performed using Bland and Altman plots and a method allowing analysis in the absence of gold standard called regression without truth (RWT). The proposed method was also compared to an image-based MAR method. RESULTS: Optimization of the weighting coefficients using the GA resulted in an optimum combination of parameters of alpha=0.26, beta=0.67, and gamma=0.07. According to Bland and Altman plots generated for both CT and PET images of the clinical data, the proposed MAR algorithm is efficient for reduction of streak artifacts in CT images and such reduce the over- and/or underestimation o tracer uptake. The RWT method also confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed MAR method. The obtained figures of merit revealed that attenuation corrected PET data corrected using CTAC after applying the MAR algorithm are more similar to the assumed gold standard. Comparison with the knowledge-based method revealed that the proposed method mainly corrects the artifactual regions without modifying the unaffected regions. The knowledge-based method globally modifies the images including those that do not include metallic artifacts. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed MAR algorithm improves the quality and quantitative accuracy of clinical head and neck PET/CT images and could be easily integrated in clinical setting