Psychological predictors of chemotherapy-induced nausea in women with breast cancer: Expectancies and perceived susceptibility.

OBJECTIVE: Chemotherapy-induced nausea is challenging to predict and treat. Research indicates that pretreatment psychological variables including patients' perceptions of their susceptibility to nausea, expectancies of treatment-related nausea and nausea history (i.e., motion sickness, morning sickness and baseline levels of nausea) may aid in predicting nausea severity during chemotherapy. However, this research is dated and limited in quantity. We investigated whether psychological variables could improve prediction of nausea severity to inform interventions targeting chemotherapy-induced nausea. METHODS: In this secondary analysis, a subgroup of women receiving chemotherapy (for the first time) for breast cancer completed pretreatment measures: perceived nausea susceptibility, nausea expectancies, nausea history and baseline nausea. They rated subsequent nausea severity across 4-days, during treatment and posttreatment in a self-report diary. Structural Equation Modelling was used to explore associations. RESULTS: Across the women (N = 481), perceived nausea susceptibility predicted subsequent nausea severity (ß = 0.16), but nausea expectancies did not (ß = 0.05). Nausea history variables demonstrated small-moderate associations with perceived susceptibility (ß = 0.21-0.32) and negligible-small associations with nausea expectancies (ß = 0.07-0.14). CONCLUSION: Perceived nausea susceptibility appears to capture patients' nausea history, to a degree, and is related to nausea severity during treatment. This is an important variable to include in pretreatment prediction of patients at risk of severe nausea.

Effect of a twin-emitter design strategy on a previously reported thermally activated delayed fluorescence organic light-emitting diode.

In this work we showcase the emitter DICzTRZ in which we employed a twin-emitter design of our previously reported material, ICzTRZ. This new system presented a red-shifted emission at 488 nm compared to that of ICzTRZ at 475 nm and showed a comparable photoluminescence quantum yield of 57.1% in a 20 wt % CzSi film versus 63.3% for ICzTRZ. The emitter was then incorporated within a solution-processed organic light-emitting diode that showed a maximum external quantum efficiency of 8.4%, with Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage coordinate of (0.22, 0.47), at 1 mA cm-2.

Visibility of hexagonal boron nitride on transparent substrates.

The high transmittance and low reflectance of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) lead to its invisibility under white-light, causing serious troubles in the search, transfer, and fabrication of 2D material devices. In this work, we demonstrate enhancing the contrast of hBN on a transparent substrate by simulation and experimental observation, where the highest contrast is obtained by using a polymer-based interfacial layer on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate. The simulation result reveals that the contrast under short wavelength light is higher than that under long wavelength. To confirm this, the red-green-blue components are extracted from the optical color image. The blue component image shows an hBN flake clearly on the substrate, while the hBN flake fades on the green and red components. Moreover, the contrast on transparent substrates have only positive value, while opaque substrates cause both negative and positive contrast depending on the thickness of the interfacial layer. Thus, the high contrast (∼4.5%) of hBN on the PDMS substrate enables us to observe mono- and few-layer hBN flakes under white-light illumination by an optical microscope.

Understanding the role of digitalization and social media on energy citizenship.

The digitalisation of the energy domain can bring forth numerous aspects of the energy transition that can boost the emergence of energy citizenship, information sharing, and improved decision-making processes. However, this is premised on citizens being able to make sense of (digital) information. Hence, this paper proposes a link between energy informatics and energy citizenship via energy literacy, considering the cognitive and affective aspects of energy literacy and their relation to behaviour and action. By doing so, this paper aims to understand how the use of energy-related information and social media within five different case studies from the GRETA project can impel energy citizenship. This paper approaches this rationale through different means: (a) structured interviews to understand how citizens understand and make use of energy information within the case studies; (b) topic modelling on the content of those interviews to identify common factors that might spur on hinder behaviour change towards energy citizenship; and (c) social media content analysis to identify key energy-related topics of discussions among citizens around the globe and assess the role of social media as a tool for energy citizenship. As a result, this paper identified some key takeaways to improve the delivery of energy-related information to energy citizens for enhanced energy citizenship. These takeaways allow to conclude that it is fundamental to surpass the formal boundaries of techno-economic constructs and start addressing qualitative/subjective constructs (e.g., emotions, affections, and feelings) to foster energy citizenship. Also, these takeaways could be translated into social mechanism principles in the design of frontend energy-related digital platforms for improved end-user interactions and energy citizenship. Finally, this paper recognised the need to incentivise energy citizens to use social media for consuming energy-related information, and the need to formulate coordinated and coherent response strategies for disseminating energy-related information.

Corrigendum: What Controls the Orientation of TADF Emitters?

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00750.].

What Controls the Orientation of TADF Emitters?

Thermally-activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters-just like phosphorescent ones-can in principle allow for 100% internal quantum efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), because the initially formed electron-hole pairs in the non-emissive triplet state can be efficiently converted into emissive singlets by reverse intersystem crossing. However, as compared to phosphorescent emitter complexes with their bulky-often close to spherical-molecular structures, TADF emitters offer the advantage to align them such that their optical transition dipole moments (TDMs) lie preferentially in the film plane. In this report, we address the question which factors control the orientation of TADF emitters. Specifically, we discuss how guest-host interactions may be used to influence this parameter and propose an interplay of different factors being responsible. We infer that emitter orientation is mainly governed by the molecular shape of the TADF molecule itself and by the physical properties of the host-foremost, its glass transition temperature Tg and its tendency for alignment being expressed, e.g., as birefringence or the formation of a giant surface potential of the host. Electrostatic dipole-dipole interactions between host and emitter are not found to play an important role.

Fabrication of Robust Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Electrocatalyst Using Ag2Se by Vacuum Evaporation.

Much research has been done on reliable and low-cost electrocatalysts for hydrogen generation by water splitting. In this study, we synthesized thin films of silver selenide (Ag2Se) using a simple thermal evaporation route and demonstrated their electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity. The Ag2Se catalysts show improved electrochemical surface area and good HER electrocatalytic behavior (367 mV overpotential @ 10 mA·cm-2, exchange current density: ~1.02 × 10-3 mA·cm-2, and Tafel slope: 53 mV·dec-1) in an acidic medium). The reliability was checked in 0.5 M sulfuric acid over 20 h. Our first-principles calculations show the optimal energy of hydrogen adsorption, which is consistent with experimental results. The works could be further extended for finding a new catalyst by associating the selenide, sulfide or telluride-based materials without complex catalyst synthesis procedures.

Visualizing Degradation of Black Phosphorus Using Liquid Crystals.

Black Phosphorus (BP) is an excellent material from the post graphene era due to its layer dependent band gap, high mobility and high Ion/Ioff. However, its poor stability in ambient poses a great challenge for its practical and long-term usage. The optical visualization of the oxidized BP is the key and the foremost step for its successful passivation from the ambience. Here, we have conducted a systematic study of the oxidation of the BP and developed a technique to optically identify the oxidation of the BP using Liquid Crystal (LC). It is interesting to note that we found that the rapid oxidation of the thin layers of the BP makes them disappear and can be envisaged by using the alignment of the LC. The molecular dynamics simulations also proved the preferential alignment of the LC on the oxidized BP. We believe that this simple technique will be effective in passivation efforts of the BP, and will enable it for exploitation of its properties in the field of electronics.

A vertical WSe2-MoSe2 p-n heterostructure with tunable gate rectification.

Here, we report the synthesis of a vertical MoSe2/WSe2 p-n heterostructure using a sputtering-CVD method. Unlike the conventional CVD method, this method produced a continuous MoSe2/WSe2 p-n heterostructure. WSe2 and MoSe2 back-gated field effect transistors (FETs) exhibited good gate modulation behavior, and high hole and electron mobilities of ∼2.2 and ∼15.1 cm2 V-1 s-1, respectively. The fabricated vertical MoSe2/WSe2 p-n diode showed rectifying I-V behavior with back-gate tunability. The rectification ratio of the diode was increased with increasing gate voltage, and was increased from ∼18 to ∼1600 as the gate bias increased from -40 V to +40 V. This is attributed to the fact that the barrier height between p-WSe2 and n-MoSe2 is modulated due to the back-gate bias. The rectification ratio is higher than the previously reported values for the TMDC p-n heterostructure grown by CVD.

Temperature-Dependent and Gate-Tunable Rectification in a Black Phosphorus/WS2 van der Waals Heterojunction Diode.

Heterostructures comprising two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors fabricated by individual stacking exhibit interesting characteristics owing to their 2D nature and atomically sharp interface. As an emerging 2D material, black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets have drawn much attention because of their small band gap semiconductor characteristics along with high mobility. Stacking structures composed of p-type BP and n-type transition metal dichalcogenides can produce an atomically sharp interface with van der Waals interaction which leads to p-n diode functionality. In this study, for the first time, we fabricated a heterojunction p-n diode composed of BP and WS2. The rectification effects are examined for monolayer, bilayer, trilayer, and multilayer WS2 flakes in our BP/WS2 van der Waals heterojunction diodes and also verified by density function theory calculations. We report superior functionalities as compared to other van der Waals heterojunction, such as efficient gate-dependent static rectification of 2.6 × 104, temperature dependence, thickness dependence of rectification, and ideality factor of the device. The temperature dependence of Zener breakdown voltage and avalanche breakdown voltage were analyzed in the same device. Additionally, superior optoelectronic characteristics such as photoresponsivity of 500 mA/W and external quantum efficiency of 103% are achieved in the BP/WS2 van der Waals p-n diode, which is unprecedented for BP/transition metal dichalcogenides heterostructures. The BP/WS2 van der Waals p-n diodes have a profound potential to fabricate rectifiers, solar cells, and photovoltaic diodes in 2D semiconductor electronics and optoelectronics.

Correction: A vertical WSe2-MoSe2 p-n heterostructure with tunable gate rectification.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1039/C8RA03398F.].

Variables associated with recurrence in breast cancer patients-the Shaukat Khanum Memorial experience.

From a cohort of female breast cancer patients registered at the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center, in Lahore, Pakistan, during the time period extending from December 1994 to December 2002, 700 subjects who were followed up in time, were selected. Those who presented with benign tumors, carcinoma in situ, or metastases were excluded from the analyses. Age, tumor size, nodal status, menopause, estrogen receptor (ER), and progesterone receptor (PR) status, at the time of presentation, were determined. Tumors were classified according to the TNM classification (American Joint Commission on Cancer (AJCC)-sixth edition), and subsequently, grouped into T1/T2 and T3/T4. Lymph nodes were categorized as N0 (node-negative) and N1, N2, and N3 combined (node-positive). The odds ratio (OR) for developing recurrence in T3/T4 versus T1/T2 was determined to be 2.06 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.39-3.05, p < 0.001); the OR for node-positive relative to node-negative was found to be 2.54 (95 % CI 1.61-4.0, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the association between the odds of developing recurrence in ER-positive compared to ER-negative was represented by an OR of 0.61, (95 % CI 0.40-0.94 (p= 0.02)). These findings are consistent with the observations that ER-positive, node-negative, and T1/T2 lesions have a decreased risk of recurrence. Also, ER-positive patients may have a better response to hormonal treatment than those who are ER-negative.

Prevalence of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in Pakistani breast and ovarian cancer patients.

Among Asian countries, Pakistan has the highest rates of breast and ovarian cancer. To assess the contribution of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 germ line mutations to these high rates, we conducted the first study of 176 Pakistani breast and ovarian cancer patients, selected on family history and on age of diagnosis. Comprehensive BRCA mutation screening was performed using a range of techniques, including denaturing high-pressure liquid chromatography, single strand conformational polymorphism analysis and protein truncation test, followed by DNA sequencing. Thirty deleterious germ-line mutations were identified in the 176 families (17.0%), including 23 in BRCA1 and 7 in BRCA2. Four mutations, 185delAG, 185insA, S1503X and R1835X, were recurrent; these accounted for 52% of all identified BRCA1 mutations. Haplotype analyses suggested founder effects for 3 of these. The prevalence of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations was 42.8% for families with multiple cases of breast cancer, and was 50.0% for the breast/ovarian cancer families. The prevalence of mutations was 11.9% for single cases of early-onset breast cancer (< or =30 years) and was 9.0% for single cases of early-onset ovarian cancer (< or =45 years). Our findings show that BRCA mutations account for a substantial proportion of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer and early-onset breast and ovarian cancer cases in Pakistan.