Patient Satisfaction with Primary Care Office-Based Buprenorphine/Naloxone Treatment

BACKGROUND: Factors associated with satisfaction among patients receiving primary care–based buprenorphine/naloxone are unknown. OBJECTIVE: To identify factors related to patient satisfaction in patients receiving primary care–based buprenorphine/naloxone that varied in counseling intensity (20 vs 45 minutes) and office visit frequency (weekly vs thrice weekly). DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: One hundred and forty-two opioid-dependent subjects. MEASUREMENTS: Demographics, drug treatment history, and substance use status at baseline and during treatment were collected. The primary outcome was patient satisfaction at 12 weeks. RESULTS: Patients’ mean overall satisfaction score was 4.4 (out of 5). Patients were most satisfied with the medication and ancillary services and indicated strong willingness to refer a substance-abusing friend for the same treatment. Patients were least satisfied with their interactions with other opioid-dependent patients, referrals to Narcotics Anonymous, and the inconvenience of the treatment location. Female gender (β = .17, P = .04) and non-White ethnicity/race (β = .17, P = .04) independently predicted patient satisfaction. Patients who received briefer counseling and buprenorphine/naloxone dispensed weekly had greater satisfaction than those whose medication was dispensed thrice weekly (mean difference 4.9, 95% confidence interval 0.08 to 9.80, P = .03). CONCLUSIONS: Patients are satisfied with primary care office-based buprenorphine/naloxone. Providers should consider the identified barriers to patient satisfaction

Correlation between the Indium Tin Oxide morphology and the performances of polymer light-emitting diodes

This paper reports on performance enhancement of polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) based on poly(2,5-bis(3′,7′-dimethyl-octyloxy)1,4-phenylene-vinylene) (BDMO-PPV) after Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) pre-treatment. Diluted aqua regia surface treatments of ITO substrates were investigated before PLEDs manufacturing. The correlation between ITO surface morphology and the properties of devices were discussed. The residual roughness, the global ITO thickness and developed anodic active area were found extremely dependent on treatment time. The performances of the ITO/BDMO-PPV/Ca/Al diodes were improved. With long treatments, the roughness was dramatically increased and poor PLEDs performances were achieved. The incorporation of a conducting polymer layer, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) doped with polystyrene sulfonate, between the ITO layer and the emissive polymer, was also studied. With this buffer layer, no effect of the acidic treatment was observed on luminance–voltage characteristics and low turn-on voltage devices were made

O-Aminoalkyl-O-trimethyl-2,3-dehydrosilybins: Synthesis and In Vitro Effects Towards Prostate Cancer Cells.

As part of our ongoing silybin project, this study aims to introduce a basic nitrogen-containing group to 7-OH of 3,5,20-O-trimethyl-2,3-dehydrosilybin or 3-OH of 5,7,20-O-trimethyl- 2,3-dehydrosilybin via an appropriate linker for in vitro evaluation as potential anti-prostate cancer agents. The synthetic approaches to 7-O-substituted-3,5,20-O-trimethyl-2,3-dehydrosilybins through a five-step procedure and to 3-O-substituted-5,7,20-O-trimethyl-2,3-dehydrosilybins via a four-step transformation have been developed. Thirty-two nitrogen-containing derivatives of silybin have been achieved through these synthetic methods for the evaluation of their antiproliferative activities towards both androgen-sensitive (LNCaP) and androgen-insensitive prostate cancer cell lines (PC-3 and DU145) using the WST-1 cell proliferation assay. These derivatives exhibited greater in vitro antiproliferative potency than silibinin. Among them, 11, 29, 31, 37, and 40 were identified as five optimal derivatives with IC 50 values in the range of 1.40–3.06 µM, representing a 17- to 52-fold improvement in potency compared to silibinin. All these five optimal derivatives can arrest the PC-3 cell cycle in the G 0 /G 1 phase and promote PC-3 cell apoptosis. Derivatives 11, 37, and 40 are more effective than 29 and 31 in activating PC-3 cell apoptosis

Steps Towards the Development of Organic/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells in a 3-Terminal Design

International audienceThe laboratory record power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of single junction solar cells are getting closer and closer to the theoretical Shockley-Queisser limit, specifically the Auger limit of 29.4% for crystalline silicon (c-Si) . Strong research efforts are currently devoted to the development of tandem solar cells combining a high bandgap semiconductor for the top cell with a c-Si bottom cell. The recent high PCE, higher than 19%, obtained with single junction organic solar cells makes this technology credible to be associated with c-Si in a tandem configuration. We present here the first steps in the development of organic/silicon tandem solar cells in a 3-terminal architecture . This design consists in combining an interdigitated back contact (IBC) n-type silicon bottom cell with an n-i-p organic top cell. It offers the advantages of suppressing the constraints of photocurrent matching and of the tunnel junction between both subcells, both required in a 2- terminal tandem cell. Early studies were devoted to optimize an organic single junction cell with an active layer made of the wide bandgap non-fullerene acceptor GS-ISO and PBDB-T-2F as donor polymer.. In order to optimize the organic cell, we developed a ternary blend using F8T2 as additive. This strategy led to the increase of the fill factor (FF) by decreasing the recombination in the active layer and PCE up to 10% was achieved with 1.15 V as Voc. We performed the characterization (optical, electrical, morphology) of the active layer and correlated them to the device performance. These experimental results were also used as inputs to develop a realistic numerical model of the organic cells. One of the main objectives of numerical modelling is to simulate the full 3-terminal tandem device for a better understanding of band engineering, optical transmission and transport dynamics at the interface between both subcells. Indeed, the interface between the silicon and the organic subcells is one of the key points of the tandem cell integration. We compare the results obtained experimentally and from simulation for the single organic cells. These results give first insights for the interface optimization between organic cells deposited on n-doped c-Si substrates passivated with different interface layers