Nanoscale Local Contacts Enable Inverted Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells with 20.8 % Efficiency

Inorganic perovskite solar cells (IPSCs) have gained significant attention due to their excellent thermal stability and suitable band gap (~1.7 eV) for tandem solar cell applications. However, the defect-induced non-radiative recombination losses, low charge extraction efficiency, energy level mismatches, and so on render the fabrication of high-efficiency inverted IPSCs remains challenging. Here, the use of 3-amino-5-bromopyridine-2-formamide (ABF) in methanol was dynamically spin-coated on the surface of CsPbI2.85Br0.15 film, which facilitates the limited etching of defect-rich subsurface layer, resulting in the formation of vertical PbI2 nanosheet structures. This enabled localized contacts between the perovskite film and the electron transport layer, suppress the recombination of electron-hole and beneficial to electron extraction. Additionally, the C=O and C=N groups in ABF effectively passivated the undercoordinated Pb2+ at grain boundaries and on the surface of CsPbI2.85Br0.15 film. Eventually, we achieved a champion efficiency of 20.80 % (certified efficiency of 20.02 %) for inverted IPSCs with enhanced stability, which is the highest value ever reported to date. Furthermore, we successfully prepared p-i-n type monolithic inorganic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells (IPSTSCs) with an efficiency of 26.26 %. This strategy provided both fast extraction and efficient passivation at the electron-selective interface.

Assessing the economic and energy use efficiencies of hybrid and inbred rice varieties through omission-plot technique in Lamjung, Nepal

Agricultural productivity relies upon energy input in the form of improved seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, irrigation and mechanization including management practices. This energy input is crucial for enhancing crop yields and meeting the demands of an ever-growing population. The increasing demand for rice production from an ever-increasing population and the dwindling nature of natural resources as a result of their continuous and excessive use underscore the urgency of studying energy use efficiency and sustainability in rice production. By conducting this experiment, the goal was to assess the yields, economics, and energy use efficiencies in rice. The experiment employed a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications, comprising ten treatment combinations viz. US-312 + 60:30:20 kg NPK ha-1, US-312 + 0:30:20 kg NPK ha-1, US-312 + 60:0:20 kg NPK ha-1, US-312 + 60:30:0 kg NPK ha-1, US-312 + 0:0:0 kg NPK ha-1, Sukhadhan-2+60:30:20 kg NPK ha-1, Sukhadhan-2+0:30:20 kg NPK ha-1, Sukhadhan-2+60:0:20 kg NPK ha-1, Sukhadhan-2+60:30:0 kg NPK ha-1, Sukhadhan-2+ 0:0:0 kg NPK ha-1. Results revealed that the highest grain yield and yield attributes were obtained from US-312 + 60:30:20 kg NPK ha-1 (4.98 t ha-1) followed by US-312 + 60:30:0 kg NPK ha-1 (4.76 t ha-1), and US-312 + 60:0:20 kg NPK ha-1 (4.54 t ha-1). The highest energy use efficiency of 3.95 was observed under US-312 + 60:30:0 kg NPK ha-1 which was supported by the highest output energy obtained from grain and biomass yield (153 GJ ha-1) and the highest net energy (117 GJ ha-1). The benefit-cost ratio was found highest in US-312 + 60:30:20 kg NPK ha-1 (1.98), signifying its economic viability and potential profitability. In the context of the western mid-hills of Nepal, the rice variety US-312, coupled with a nutrient composition of 60:30:20 kg NPK ha-1 proved to be an optimal selection. This combination demonstrated higher grain yields and noteworthy economic efficiency.

Characterization of yield and cumulative nitrous oxide emission of maize varieties in responses to different nitrogen application rates

The nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of maize is usually below 60%. Considering future food supply and climate change, selective breeding of maize with high nitrogen (N)-efficient varieties, covering genetic diversities, is an effective strategy for identifying specific elements for controlling NUE and productivity per arable farming unit while reducing environmental damage. This study evaluated the yield and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emission of 30 maize varieties under two different N doses of 57.5 kg N ha^-1 (N1, N-sufficient) and 173 kg N ha^-1 (N3, N-high) applied in two equal splits on 2 and 4 weeks after germination (WAG). Then, the tested maize varieties were categorized into four groups based on the grain yield and cumulative N₂O, that is, efficient-efficient (EE) under both N1 and N3, high-N efficient (HNE) under N3 only, low-N efficient (LNE) under N1 only, and nonefficient-nonefficient (NN) under neither N1 nor N3. Maize yield was significantly positively correlated with shoot biomass, N-accumulation, and kernel-number under N1 and with N₂O-flux at 5 WAG, NH₄⁺, shoot biomass, and all of yield components under N3, whereas cumulative N₂O showed a significant positive correlation with NO₃^- under N3 only and with N₂O flux at 3 WAG under both N levels. The EE generally showed higher grain yield, yield components, N-accumulation, dry matter accumulation, root volume, and NH₄⁺ in soil and lower cumulative N₂O and NO₃^- in soil relative to NN maize varieties. The EE variety groups of maize can be a feasible strategy for increasing N fertilizer efficiency without reducing maize production as well as decrease the negative impact of N lost in agricultural system.

The determinants of effective defluorination by the LiAl-LDHs

Millions of people in poor areas are still under the threat of fluoride contamination. How to effectively separate fluorine in water is an important step to reduce the ecological risk. In this paper, we performed a systematic DFT calculation focused on the defluorination behavior between the LiAl- and MgAl-LDHs. The results indicated that the LiAl-LDHs exhibited high chemical activity before the defluorination, because of the better electronic structure. After the defluorination, the LiAl-LDHs with adsorbed-F^- were also more stable than the MgAl-LDHs. In addition, the existence of coordination covalent bond for the adsorbed-F^- attached to the LiAl-LDHs was confirmed. This is an important reason for the high defluorination efficiency by the LiAl-LDHs. In addition, a series of weak interaction, including hydrogen bond and van der Waals interaction were also observed. Finally, a LiAl-LDHs with excellent fluoride removal properties were synthesized well by simple hydrothermal method. The results showed that our synthesized LiAl-LDHs with the capacity of 156.09 mg/g, could be effectively defluorinated in water. Notably, it surpasses most materials and has potential applications.

An efficient, fast and inexpensive method for genomic DNA extraction of fish tissue

BACKGROUND

DNA extraction is an essential step for many genetic techniques like PCR and other molecular analyses. Based on the method of extraction and type of tissue used, the quality of extracted DNA for genetic studies varies. An appropriate extraction method is evaluated by the high concentration and purity of DNA. Thus, this study aimed to find a more efficient and effective method of DNA extraction from fish tissues and compare it to commercially available kits.

METHODS AND RESULTS

A total of 200 fish tissue samples were extracted using each method and then validated with restriction enzymes and PCR amplification. The result revealed that the mean quantity of the isolated genomic DNA, when measured by Nanodrop for grass and common carp, was estimated at (624.41 ± 34.51) µg/ml and (651.27 ± 46.31) µg/ml, respectively, and the purity of this DNA was about (1.83 ± 0.04) and (1.88 ± 0.03) respectively, as compared to commercial extraction kits. Furthermore, gel electrophoresis was performed on the PCR-ready DNA, and the results were confirmed with restriction enzymes and PCR amplification. Based on results obtained from restriction enzymes and PCR analysis, it was determined that no significant inhibitors existed for the enzymes that were used in molecular biology reactions.

CONCLUSION

As a result, this technique provides an efficient and versatile alternative to the traditional method for obtaining bulk amounts of highly qualified DNA from fish tissue and can be easily used for subsequent analyses such as PCR and several molecular experiments on other fish species.

Operational complexity versus design efficiency: challenges of implementing a phase IIa multiple parallel cohort targeted treatment platform trial in advanced breast cancer

BACKGROUND

Platform trial designs are used increasingly in cancer clinical research and are considered an efficient model for evaluating multiple compounds within a single disease or disease subtype. However, these trial designs can be challenging to operationalise. The use of platform trials in oncology clinical research has increased considerably in recent years as advances in molecular biology enable molecularly defined stratification of patient populations and targeted therapy evaluation. Whereas multiple separate trials may be deemed infeasible, platform designs allow efficient, parallel evaluation of multiple targeted therapies in relatively small biologically defined patient sub-populations with the promise of increased molecular screening efficiency and reduced time for drug evaluation. Whilst the theoretical efficiencies are widely reported, the operational challenges associated with these designs (complexity, cost, regulatory, resource) are not always well understood. MAIN: In this commentary, we describe our practical experience of the implementation and delivery of the UK plasmaMATCH trial, a platform trial in advanced breast cancer, comprising an integrated screening component and multiple parallel downstream mutation-directed therapeutic cohorts. plasmaMATCH reported its primary results within 3 years of opening to recruitment. We reflect on the operational challenges encountered and share lessons learnt to inform the successful conduct of future trials. Key to the success of the plasmaMATCH trial was well co-ordinated stakeholder engagement by an experienced clinical trials unit with expert methodology and trial management expertise, a federated model of clinical leadership, a well-written protocol integrating screening and treatment components and including justification for the chosen structure and intentions for future adaptions, and an integrated funding model with streamlined contractual arrangements across multiple partners. Findings based on our practical experience include the importance of early engagement with the regulators and consideration of a flexible resource infrastructure to allow adequate resource allocation to support concurrent trial activities as adaptions are implemented in parallel to the continued management of patient safety and data quality of the ongoing trial cohorts.

CONCLUSION

Platform trial designs allow the efficient reporting of multiple treatment cohorts. Operational challenges can be overcome through multidisciplinary engagement, streamlined contracting processes, rationalised protocol and database design and appropriate resourcing.

Resource use during systematic review production varies widely: a scoping review

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to map the resource use during systematic review (SR) production and reasons why steps of the SR production are resource intensive to discover where the largest gain in improving efficiency might be possible.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We conducted a scoping review. An information specialist searched multiple databases (e.g., Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus) and implemented citation-based and grey literature searching. We employed dual and independent screenings of records at the title/abstract and full-text levels and data extraction.

RESULTS

We included 34 studies. Thirty-two reported on the resource use-mostly time; four described reasons why steps of the review process are resource intensive. Study selection, data extraction, and critical appraisal seem to be very resource intensive, while protocol development, literature search, or study retrieval take less time. Project management and administration required a large proportion of SR production time. Lack of experience, domain knowledge, use of collaborative and SR-tailored software, and good communication and management can be reasons why SR steps are resource intensive.

CONCLUSION

Resource use during SR production varies widely. Areas with the largest resource use are administration and project management, study selection, data extraction, and critical appraisal of studies.

Efficient chemical hydrophobization of lactic acid bacteria - One-step formation of double emulsion

A novel concept of stabilizing multiple-phase food structure such as emulsion using solely the constitutional bacteria enables an all-natural food grade formulation and thus a clean label declaration. In this paper, we propose an efficient approach to hydrophobically modifying the surface of lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillus rhamnosus (LGG) using lauroyl ahloride (LC) in non-aqueous media. Compared to the unmodified bacteria, cell hydrophobicity was dramatically altered upon modification, according to the higher percentages of microbial adhesion to hexadecane (MATH) and water contact angles (WCA) of LC-modified bacteria. No evident changes were found in bacterial surface charge before and after LC modification. By using one-step homogenization, all the modified bacteria were able to generate stabile water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double emulsions where bacteria were observed on oil-water interfaces of the primary and secondary droplets. Modification using high LC concentrations (10 and 20 w/w%) led to rapid autoaggregation of bacteria in aqueous solution. A long-term lethal effect of modification primarily came from lyophilization and no apparent impact was detected on the instantaneous culturability of modified bacteria.

Practical choice for robust and efficient differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have the distinct advantage of being able to differentiate into cells of all three germ layers. Target cells or tissues derived from hPSCs have many uses such as drug screening, disease modeling, and transplantation therapy. There are currently a wide variety of differentiation methods available. However, most of the existing differentiation methods are unreliable, with uneven differentiation efficiency and poor reproducibility. At the same time, it is difficult to choose the optimal method when faced with so many differentiation schemes, and it is time-consuming and costly to explore a new differentiation approach. Thus, it is critical to design a robust and efficient method of differentiation. In this review article, we summarize a comprehensive approach in which hPSCs are differentiated into target cells or organoids including brain, liver, blood, melanocytes, and mesenchymal cells. This was accomplished by employing an embryoid body-based three-dimensional (3D) suspension culture system with multiple cells co-cultured. The method has high stable differentiation efficiency compared to the conventional 2D culture and can meet the requirements of clinical application. Additionally, ex vivo co-culture models might be able to constitute organoids that are highly similar or mimic human organs for potential organ transplantation in the future.

LCQS: an efficient lossless compression tool of quality scores with random access functionality

Background

Advanced sequencing machines dramatically speed up the generation of genomic data, which makes the demand of efficient compression of sequencing data extremely urgent and significant. As the most difficult part of the standard sequencing data format FASTQ, compression of the quality score has become a conundrum in the development of FASTQ compression. Existing lossless compressors of quality scores mainly utilize specific patterns generated by specific sequencer and complex context modeling techniques to solve the problem of low compression ratio. However, the main drawbacks of these compressors are the problem of weak robustness which means unstable or even unavailable results of sequencing files and the problem of slow compression speed. Meanwhile, some compressors attempt to construct a fine-grained index structure to solve the problem of slow random access decompression speed. However, they solve the problem at the sacrifice of compression speed and at the expense of large index files, which makes them inefficient and impractical. Therefore, an efficient lossless compressor of quality scores with strong robustness, high compression ratio, fast compression and random access decompression speed is urgently needed and of great significance.

Results

In this paper, based on the idea of maximizing the use of hardware resources, LCQS, a lossless compression tool specialized for quality scores, was proposed. It consists of four sequential processing steps: partitioning, indexing, packing and parallelizing. Experimental results reveal that LCQS outperforms all the other state-of-the-art compressors on all criteria except for the compression speed on the dataset SRR1284073. Furthermore, LCQS presents strong robustness on all the test datasets, with its acceleration ratios of compression speed increasing by up to 29.1x, its file size reducing by up to 28.78%, and its random access decompression speed increasing by up to 2.1x. Additionally, LCQS also exhibits strong scalability. That is, the compression speed increases almost linearly as the size of input dataset increases.

Conclusion

The ability to handle all different kinds of quality scores and superiority in compression ratio and compression speed make LCQS a high-efficient and advanced lossless quality score compressor, along with its strength of fast random access decompression. Our tool LCQS can be downloaded from https://github.com/SCUT-CCNL/LCQSand freely available for non-commercial usage.

Electricity generation in fuel cell with light and without light and decomposition of tetracycline hydrochloride using g-C3N4/Fe0(1%)/TiO2 anode and WO3 cathode

Visible-light-driven photocatalytic Fuel Cell (PFC) is of great interest in the environmental pollutant remediation with energy recovering. Herein, enhancement in photocatalytic degradation of Tetracycline Hydrochloride (TC) with electricity generation was achieved in a single reactor of PFC with paired stainless-steel mesh electrode loaded with anodic g-C₃N₄/Fe⁰(1%)/TiO₂ and cathodic WO₃ catalyst (at various pH, 0.05 M Na₂SO₄, 10 Ω external resistance) with visible light and without light. With light, TC molecules were successfully removed (97.3% in 90 min, at initial and optimal pH 5), while generating 0.98 V cell voltage and 24 W m^-2 power density, simultaneous removal of COD (chemical oxygen demand) and TOC (total organic carbon) was 91.3% and 95%, respectively, suggesting superior mineralization that can be explained by the excitation of the anodic triple component g-C₃N₄/Fe⁰(1%)/TiO_2. In contrast, without light, the removal of COD, TOC and the cell voltage were much lower (48.8%, 65.3%, 0.78 V). In dark, the fuel cell is self-driven and self-biased, forming potential gradient and degrading pollutants. The effects of solution pH, initial TC concentration on degradation and power generation were evaluated. This PFC degrading TC can maintain high photocatalytic activity and high power output capacity after 5 cycles with light. Without light, the electricity generation capacity was 50-70% that in visible light PFC. These features reveal that fuel cell with g-C₃N₄/Fe⁰(1%)/TiO₂ photo anode and WO₃ photocathode has great application potential for removing refractory pollutants from wastewater.

Ambulatory pediatric surgery

Ambulatory pediatric surgery has become increasingly common in recent years, with greater numbers of procedures being performed on an outpatient basis. This practice has clear benefits for hospitals and healthcare providers, but patients and families also often prefer outpatient surgery for a variety of reasons. However, maximizing the potential opportunities requires critical attention to patient and procedure selection, as well as anesthetic choice. A subset of outpatient procedures can be performed as single visit procedures, further simplifying the process for families and providers.

A new method to predict hospital mortality in severe community acquired pneumonia

BACKGROUND & AIMS

The aim of this study is to develop a new method that is able to accurately predict the 28day hospital mortality in patients with severe community acquired pneumonia (SCAP) at an early stage.

METHODS

We selected 37,348 SCAP patients in ICU from 173 hospitals during 2011.1-2013.12. The predictive factors for 28day hospital mortality were evaluated retrospectively. All cases underwent intensive care, blood routine, blood biochemical tests and arterial blood gas analysis. Under the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis, a new clinical scoring system was developed for early prediction in SCAP patients. The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted to calculate the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC).

RESULTS

A novel clinical model named CLCGH scoring system, including Serum creatinine (Cr) >259.5μmol/L, leukocyte (WBC)>17.35×10⁹/L, C-reactive protein (CRP)>189.4μg/mL, GCS≤9 and serum HCO₃^-≤17.65mmol/L, was carried out and each index was an independent factor for hospital mortality in SCAP. In validation cohort, the AUC of the new scoring system was 0.889 for prediction of hospital mortality, which was similar to SOFA score 0.877, APACHEII score 0.864, and was better than the PSI score 0.761 and CURB-65 score 0.767.

CONCLUSIONS

The new scoring system CLCGH is an efficient, accurate and objective method to predicate the early hospital mortality among SCAP patients.

Efficient dehydration of 6-gingerol to 6-shogaol catalyzed by an acidic ionic liquid under ultrasound irradiation

6-Gingerol and 6-shogaol are the main bioactive compounds in ginger. Although 6-shogaol has more and better bioactivities than its precursor 6-gingerol, the low content of 6-shogaol in ginger restricts its bioactive effects in functional foods. The traditional preparation methods of 6-shogaol are defective because of the environmental hazards and low efficiency of the processes. In this study, an efficient, easy and eco-friendly dehydration conversion of 6-gingerol to 6-shogaol is presented using an acidic ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrosulfate ([Bmim]HSO4) under ultrasound irradiation. The key parameters, including reaction temperature, reaction time, mass ratio of catalyst to substrate and ultrasonic power in each reaction process, were investigated. The yield of 6-shogaol reached as high as 97.16% under optimized condition. The catalyst could be separated from the reaction mixture and reused five times with only a slight loss of activity.

QuEChERS extraction for multi-residue analysis of PCBs, PAHs, PBDEs and PCDD/Fs in biological samples

In this study, a fast and rugged method is presented for the analysis of PCBs, PAHs, PBDEs and PCDD/Fs in biological tissues using a simple Quick, Easy, Cheap, Efficient, Rugged and Safe (QuEChERS) extraction and a clean-up by Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) and silica Solid Phase Extraction (SPE). Development was performed on blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) for evaluation of two ranges of lipid and water content of biological tissues. Statistical validation was performed with Atlantic salmon samples. Forty-five PAHs were analyzed including the priority list of the US EPA and the European Union with 41 PCBs, 24 PBDEs and 17 PCDD/Fs. Instrumental analyses were performed on Gas Chromatography - High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (GC-HRMS). Accuracy was evaluated for PCBs and PCDD/Fs with a certified reference material furnished by the National Research Council Canada (NRCC) and also compared with results obtained by the conventional Soxhlet extraction. Statistical validation showed recoveries for PCBs, PAHs, PBDEs and PCDD/Fs close to 100% with average Relative Standard Deviation (RSD) lower than 10% and internal standard recoveries in the range of 70% with average RSD ranging from 5-15%. Average calculated Method Detection Limits (MDLs) were lower than 0.05μg/Kg for PCBs, 0.2μg/Kg for PAHs and PBDEs and 1ng/Kg for PCDD/Fs. The method is a faster and cheaper alternative to the time-consuming conventional method that has been used in most environmental laboratories.

Disposition of flavonoids via recycling: Direct biliary excretion of enterically or extrahepatically derived flavonoid glucuronides

SCOPE

Enterohepatic recycling is often thought to involve mostly phase II metabolites generated in the liver. This study aims to determine if direct biliary excretion of extrahepatically generated glucuronides would also enable recycling.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Conventional and modified intestinal perfusion models along with intestinal and liver microsomes were used to determine the contribution of extrahepatically derived glucuronides. Glucuronidation of four flavonoids (genistein, biochanin A, apigenin, and chrysin at 2.5-20 μM) were generally more rapid in the hepatic than intestinal microsomes. Furthermore, when aglycones (at 10 μM each) were perfused, larger (1.7-9 fold) amounts of glucuronides were found in the bile than in the luminal perfusate. However, higher concentrations of glucuronides were not found in jugular vein than portal vein, and apigenin glucuronide actually displayed a significantly lower concentration in jugular vein (<1 nM) than portal vein (≈4 nM). A direct portal infusion of four flavonoid glucuronides (5.9-10.4 μM perfused at 2 mL/h) showed that the vast majority (>65%) of the glucuronides (except for biochanin A glucuronide) administered were efficiently excreted into the bile.

CONCLUSION

Direct biliary excretion of extrahepatically generated flavonoid glucuronides is a highly efficient clearance mechanism, which should enable enterohepatic recycling of flavonoids without hepatic conjugating enzymes.

Stated Choice design comparison in a developing country: recall and attribute nonattendance

BACKGROUND

Experimental designs constitute a vital component of all Stated Choice (aka discrete choice experiment) studies. However, there exists limited empirical evaluation of the statistical benefits of Stated Choice (SC) experimental designs that employ non-zero prior estimates in constructing non-orthogonal constrained designs. This paper statistically compares the performance of contrasting SC experimental designs. In so doing, the effect of respondent literacy on patterns of Attribute non-Attendance (ANA) across fractional factorial orthogonal and efficient designs is also evaluated. The study uses a 'real' SC design to model consumer choice of primary health care providers in rural north India. A total of 623 respondents were sampled across four villages in Uttar Pradesh, India.

METHODS

Comparison of orthogonal and efficient SC experimental designs is based on several measures. Appropriate comparison of each design's respective efficiency measure is made using D-error results. Standardised Akaike Information Criteria are compared between designs and across recall periods. Comparisons control for stated and inferred ANA. Coefficient and standard error estimates are also compared.

RESULTS

The added complexity of the efficient SC design, theorised elsewhere, is reflected in higher estimated amounts of ANA among illiterate respondents. However, controlling for ANA using stated and inferred methods consistently shows that the efficient design performs statistically better. Modelling SC data from the orthogonal and efficient design shows that model-fit of the efficient design outperform the orthogonal design when using a 14-day recall period. The performance of the orthogonal design, with respect to standardised AIC model-fit, is better when longer recall periods of 30-days, 6-months and 12-months are used.

CONCLUSIONS

The effect of the efficient design's cognitive demand is apparent among literate and illiterate respondents, although, more pronounced among illiterate respondents. This study empirically confirms that relaxing the orthogonality constraint of SC experimental designs increases the information collected in choice tasks, subject to the accuracy of the non-zero priors in the design and the correct specification of a 'real' SC recall period.