Potassium stearate doped PEDOT:PSS improves the performance of inverted perovskite solar cells.

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) suffers from lower conductivity and surface defects, which hinders the extraction and transport of effective charges, thereby reducing the Power conversion efficiency (PCE) and long-term stability of PSCs. Therefore, this study introduces potassium stearate (KSt) doping in PEDOT:PSS to regulate its conductivity and interface charge transfer. As a result, KSt-doped PEDOT:PSS increase the PCE of the device from 16.35% to 18.35%. Moreover, the PCE of PSCs with KSt-doped PEDOT:PSS can maintain 87% of its initial value after being stored in a glove box for over 700 hours. This work provides a simple and effective method for designing high-performance and stable PSCs.

Research progress of pre-hospital emergency during 2000-2020: a bibliometric analysis.

BACKGROUND: The past decade has witnessed the preliminary development of pre-hospital emergency. We analyzed the scientific output related to pre-hospital emergency in the past two decades, aiming to evaluate the publication status of the literature related to pre-hospital emergency through bibliometrics analysis, and hope to provide enlightenment of trends and hotspots for the development of pre-hospital emergency. METHOD: By web of science, all literature on pre-hospital emergency from 2000 to 2 October 2020 was retrieved and screened by two researchers. Excel, Social Sciences Statistics Package (SPSS, version 24) and software GraphPad Prism 8 were used to analyze the publication trend in related fields. Besides, VOSviewer, Citespace were also applied to visualize the research trends and study the co-occurring keywords in pre-hospital emergency. RESULTS: As of 2 October 2020, a total of 1839 pre-hospital emergency publications with total citation of 32800 times were identified. The United States accounted for the largest number of publications (36.7%) and the highest number of citations (12825), but its H-index was fourth (20.17). In the aspects of journals and articles, Prehospital Emergency Care is the most published journal in pre-hospital emergency (256), while the articles from Smith K presented the highest citation frequency (751). We can also obtain the information that the overall trend is upward, and developed countries contribute most. "Complications" is a hot research field in intensive care. In the identification research cluster, "acute ischemic stroke" was determined to be the hotspot, while "secondary outcome" was the new trend in the first-aid cluster. As for the management, "embase" was noted as new topics. CONCLUSION: In the past decade, researches on pre-hospital emergency has increased rapidly. However, the related articles were mainly published in developed countries, the United States has absolute advantages especially. Moreover, first-aid studies may become hotspots in the near future.

Neurokinin-1 Receptor Antagonist Can Prevent the Delayed Phase in Patients: A Single Center Retrospect Study.

BACKGROUND: Neurokinin-1 receptor antagonists are playing a major advance in Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting (CINV) as powerful prophylactic agents. Therefore, it is significant to find the association between risk factors of patients and CINV so as to adjust the anti-emetic regimens. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the role of Neurokinin-1 Receptor (NK-1R) antagonist in preventing chemotherapy-induced vomiting in the acute and delayed phases following the first cycle of treatment. METHODS: 145 adult patients with various cancers were recruited in Shanghai Changhai Hospital between September 2017 to November 2017, receiving dual or triple antiemetics. RESULTS: NK-1R antagonist combined with dexamethasone, 5-HT3R antagonist could effectively control delayed- vomiting in patients after Cycle 1 chemotherapy treatment (4.1% vs. 15.6%, P = 0.041<; 0.05). This study also showed that a history of motion sickness was a predictor of chemotherapy-induced vomiting (CINV) (P = 0.023 <; 0.05). In delayed phase a low consumption of alcohol and history of CIV for males were also significantly associated with CINV (P = 0.036 <; 0.05 and P = 0.002 <; 0.05 respectively). CONCLUSION: In this study, we found that triple anti-emetic regimen with NK-1R antagonist could effectively prevent the delayed-vomiting than dual agents. Moreover, some risk factors were observed to be associated with CINV in the delayed phase.

Do baseline WAIS-III subtests predict treatment outcomes for depressed inpatients receiving fluoxetine?

This study aimed to determine whether baseline WAIS-III subtests could be associated with treatment outcomes for patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) receiving a 6-week fluoxetine treatment. A total of 131 acutely ill MDD inpatients were enrolled to receive 20 mg of fluoxetine daily for 6 weeks. Eight WAIS-III subtests were administered at baseline. Symptom severity and functional impairment were assessed at baseline, and again at weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 using the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17) and the Modified Work and Social Adjustment Scale (MWSAS), respectively. The generalized estimating equations method was used to analyze the influence of potential predictors over time on the HAMD-17 and MWSAS, after adjusting for covariates. Of the 131 participants, 104 (79.4%) who completed 8 WAIS-III subtests at baseline and had at least one post-baseline assessment were included in the analysis. Patients with lower forward digit span scores were more likely to have poor treatment outcomes, both measured by HAMD-17, and by MWSAS. Forward digit span may be clinically useful in identifying MDD patients with greater treatment difficulty in symptoms and functioning. Other neurocognitive tests to predict treatment outcome require further exploration.

Parallel improvement of cognitive functions and P300 latency following donepezil treatment in patients with Alzheimer's disease: a case-control study.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of donepezil, one of the cholinesterase inhibitors, on P300 measurements in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and investigate the relationship between the subfactors of cognitive performance and P300 components. METHODS: One hundred outpatients with AD were evaluated for cognitive function (cognitive ability screening instrument) and event-related potentials before and after 22 to 23 weeks of treatment with donepezil (5 mg/day). Twenty age-matched normal control subjects were recruited. RESULTS: The patients with AD showed prolonged P300 and N200 latency, no significant differences in N100 and P200 components, and poor performance in neuropsychological assessments compared with control subjects at baseline. After donepezil treatment, the patients with AD had reduction in P300 latency at Pz lead, which was associated with a parallel improvement in cognitive function in terms of remote memory, recent memory, visual instruction, and orientation. The pre-post treatment difference of P300 latency significantly correlated with the cognitive ability screening instrument score difference and recent memory score difference, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The patients with AD still had intact early sensory processing but impaired higher-level cognitive processes that could influence behavior deviation. The donepezil treatment, which enhances higher-level cognitive processing time, revealed that P300 latency decreases as cognitive capability increases, especially improved in recent memory.

Sequencing of 50 human exomes reveals adaptation to high altitude.

Residents of the Tibetan Plateau show heritable adaptations to extreme altitude. We sequenced 50 exomes of ethnic Tibetans, encompassing coding sequences of 92% of human genes, with an average coverage of 18x per individual. Genes showing population-specific allele frequency changes, which represent strong candidates for altitude adaptation, were identified. The strongest signal of natural selection came from endothelial Per-Arnt-Sim (PAS) domain protein 1 (EPAS1), a transcription factor involved in response to hypoxia. One single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at EPAS1 shows a 78% frequency difference between Tibetan and Han samples, representing the fastest allele frequency change observed at any human gene to date. This SNP's association with erythrocyte abundance supports the role of EPAS1 in adaptation to hypoxia. Thus, a population genomic survey has revealed a functionally important locus in genetic adaptation to high altitude.

Correlation of attention deficit, rapid eye movement latency and slow wave sleep in schizophrenia patients.

AIM: Schizophrenia patients present both reduced slow wave sleep (SWS) and shortened rapid eye movement latency (REML) in polysomnographic (PSG) profiles, which have been linked to dopaminergic and muscarinic impairment, respectively. Two main selective attentional systems involve different anatomical structures. The first system is the parietal cortical areas and thalamic areas, which are linked to cholinergic neurotransmission. This is responsible for automatic attention response. The second system is the frontal regions, which are linked to dopaminergic neurotransmission. This is responsible for voluntary control of attentional resources. It was hypothesized that low attentional performance in schizophrenia patients is associated with shortened REML and reduced SWS. METHODS: The PSG profile was correlated with the continuous performance test (CPT) in 15 schizophrenia inpatients under treatment with risperidone. Schizophrenia was diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria, and clinical symptoms were evaluated on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. RESULTS: REML was negatively correlated with errors of omission (P < 0.05), reaction time (RT; P < 0.05) and positively correlated with hit rate (HR; P < 0.05). No association was found between SWS and CPT performance. CONCLUSIONS: The significant indicators of CPT represent different attention processes. Errors of omission, which are linked to the problems with automatic attention processing, RT, which represent the speed of automatic processing, and HR, are involved in the integration of autonomic and voluntary attention control. The present results suggest that REML is associated with thalamus-related automatic attention response. Due to study limitations, however, confirmation of these findings in a large-scale controlled study of drug-naïve patients is needed.