Childhood adversity and late-life depression: moderated mediation model of stress and social support

BackgroundAs life expectancy increases, understanding the mechanism for late-life depression and finding a crucial moderator becomes more important for mental health in older adults. Childhood adversity increases the risk of clinical depression even in old age. Based on the stress sensitivity theory and stress-buffering effects, stress would be a significant mediator, while social support can be a key moderator in the mediation pathways. However, few studies have tested this moderated mediation model with a sample of older adults. This study aims to reveal the association between childhood adversity and late-life depression in older adults, taking into consideration the effects of stress and social support.MethodsThis study used several path models to analyze the data from 622 elderly participants who were never diagnosed with clinical depression.ResultsWe found that childhood adversity increases the odds ratio of depression by approximately 20% in older adults. Path model with mediation demonstrates that stress fully mediates the pathway from childhood adversity to late-life depression. Path model with moderated mediation also illustrates that social support significantly weakens the association between childhood adversity and perceived stress.ConclusionThis study provides empirical evidence to reveal a more detailed mechanism for late-life depression. Specifically, this study identifies one crucial risk factor and one protective factor, stress and social support, respectively. This brings insight into prevention of late-life depression among those who have experienced childhood adversity

High efficiency AZO-InP nanopillar-based heterojunction solar cells

This paper reports heterojunction solar cells consisting of InP nanopillars and aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO). The AZO layer sputtered on an InP surface is used not only as a transparent electrode, but also as an excellent rectifying junction with InP. More importantly, the wide-bandgap-AZO functions as a window layer of solar cells, thereby suppressing carrier recombination loss at the AZO-InP heterointerface. The InP nanopillar array reduces the light reflectance and increases the optical path length of the solar cells. The AZO-InP nanopillar-based heterojunction solar cells exhibited an open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density, fill-factor, and power-conversion efficiency of 0.68 V, 36.8 mA/cm2, 68%, and 17.1%, respectively, under air-mass 1.5 simulated solar illumination (100 mW/cm2). •We produced high efficiency AZO-InP nanopillar solar cells.•The AZO layer is used not only as a transparent electrode, but also as a rectifying junction with InP.•The InP nanopillar array reduced light reflection dramatically.•The AZO-InP nanopillar solar cells exhibited the efficiency of 17.1%