Interventional treatment of traumatic carotid-cavernous fistula: A case report.

RATIONALE: Patients with traumatic carotid-cavernous fistula (TCCF) usually go to the ophthalmology department first because of the symptoms such as protrusion of eyes, edema and congestion of combined membrane, vision loss and so on. It is easy to be misdiagnosed and missed. PATIENT CONCERNS: We report a case of left eye swelling and vision loss caused by TCCF after head injury due to traffic accident, which failed to respond to ophthalmic treatment for many times. The similar situation is very likely to cause panic among patients. DIAGNOSIS: Cerebral angiography revealed left internal carotid-cavernous fistula (high flow type). INTERVENTIONS: Left internal carotid artery covered stent implantation was performed. OUTCOMES: The fistulas and the original venous mass were completely covered by the covered stent, and the development of the vascular mass disappeared. The patient's eye symptoms basically disappeared 14 days after the operation. LESSONS: Interventional treatment of TCCF is effective.

Optimization of Sacrificial Layer Etching in Single-Crystal Silicon Nano-Films Transfer Printing for Heterogeneous Integration Application.

As one of the important technologies in the field of heterogeneous integration, transfer technology has broad application prospects and unique technical advantages. This transfer technology includes the wet chemical etching of a sacrificial layer, such that silicon nano-film devices are released from the donor substrate and can be transferred. However, in the process of wet etching the SiO2 sacrificial layer present underneath the single-crystal silicon nano-film by using the transfer technology, the etching is often incomplete, which seriously affects the efficiency and quality of the transfer and makes the device preparation impossible. This article analyzes the principle of incomplete etching, and compares the four factors that affect the etching process, including the size of Si nano-film on top of the sacrificial layer, the location of the anchor point, the shape of Si nano-film on top of the sacrificial layer, and the thickness of the sacrificial layer. Finally, the etching conditions are obtained to avoid the phenomenon of incomplete etching of the sacrificial layer, so that the transfer technology can be better applied in the field of heterogeneous integration. Additionally, Si MOSFETs (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors) on sapphire substrate were fabricated by using the optimized transfer technology.

High concentration of sugars is genotoxic to folate-deficient cells.

Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are associated with an elevated, but poorly understood baseline of genomic instability (GIN). Expert panels are still debating on whether hyperglycemia is the key element in conferring this high GIN. Since high blood glucose and low blood folate are prevalent in T2DM, we hypothesized that high glucose may work with low folate to induce GIN. Using NCM460, CCD841 and L02 cell lines as in vitro cell models, we investigated the genotoxic effects of high sugars (HS; 1-2% glucose, fructose, galactose or sucrose) alone or in combination with folate deficiency (23 nM, FD) over a course of 7 days by the cytokinesis block micronucleus assay. We found that HS is nongenotoxic to NCM460, CCD841 and L02 cells. However, the combination of HS and FD induced significantly higher levels of micronuclei, nucleoplasmic bridges and nuclear buds. Our in vitro work demonstrates that HS is non-genotoxic under folate repletive condition, but is genotoxic under FD condition. These results provide preclinal proof of concept that concomitant hyperglycemia and low folate may explain, at least in part, the high baseline of GIN in T2DM patients, suggesting that folate levels should be kept under control in order to limit the risk of GIN and carcinogenesis in T2DM.

Biphasic regulation of spindle assembly checkpoint by low and high concentrations of resveratrol leads to the opposite effect on chromosomal instability.

Resveratrol (RSV) is a naturally occurring polyphenolic phytoalexin possessing numerous health-promoting effects. Chromosomal instability (CIN), usually results from defective spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC), is a major contributor to many diseases. While it's recently recognized that RSV exhibits a nonlinear dose response for disease prevention, whether it's the case for its role in CIN remains unknown. Here, we investigated the potential of a broad range of RSV concentrations (0.01-100µM) on CIN and the underlying mechanisms in human normal colon epithelial NCM460 cells. CIN was measured by cytokinesis-block micronucleus assay; mitotic fidelity was determined by aberrant mitosis analysis; SAC activity was assessed by nocodazole-challenge assay, and the expression of SAC genes was examined by RT-qPCR. We found that 0.1µM RSV significantly reduced CIN (P<0.01), while 100µM RSV significantly induced it (P<0.05). Mitotic infidelity was significantly prevented by 0.1µM RSV but promoted by 100µM RSV (P<0.05 for both). Moreover, the function of SAC was sustained and impaired by 0.1µM and 100µM RSV, respectively. Several SAC genes, including Aurora-B, Aurora-C, Plk-1 and CENP-E, were significantly up-regulated and down-regulated by 0.1µM and 100µM RSV, respectively (P<0.05). In conclusion, RSV exhibited a biphasic dose-dependent effect on CIN that was exerted via the regulation of mitotic fidelity through the SAC network. The health implications of these findings were summarized.

Design of Donor Polymers with Strong Temperature-Dependent Aggregation Property for Efficient Organic Photovoltaics.

Bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells (OSCs) have attracted intensive research attention over the past two decades owing to their unique advantages including mechanical flexibility, light weight, large area, and low-cost fabrications. To date, OSC devices have achieved power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) exceeding 12%. Much of the progress was enabled by the development of high-performance donor polymers with favorable morphological, electronic, and optical properties. A key problem in morphology control of OSCs is the trade-off between achieving small domain size and high polymer crystallinity, which is especially important for the realization of efficient thick-film devices with high fill factors. For example, the thickness of OSC blends containing state-of-the-art PTB7 family donor polymers are restricted to ∼100 nm due to their relatively low hole mobility and impure polymer domains. To further improve the device performance and promote commercialization of OSCs, there is a strong demand for the design of new donor polymers that can achieve an optimal blend morphology containing highly crystalline yet reasonably small domains. In this Account, we highlight recent progress on a new family of conjugated polymers with strong temperature-dependent aggregation (TDA) property. These polymers are mostly disaggregated and can be easily dissolved in solution at high temperatures, yet they can strongly aggregate when the solution is cooled to room temperature. This unique aggregation property allows us to control the disorder-order transition of the polymer during solution processing. By preheating the solution to high temperature (∼100 °C), the polymer chains are mostly disaggregated before spin coating; as the temperature of the solution drops during the spin coating process, the polymer can strongly aggregate and form crystalline domains yet that are not excessivelylarge. The overall blend morphology can be optimized by various processing conditions (e.g., temperature, spin-rates, concentration, etc.). This well-controlled and near-optimal BHJ morphology produced over a dozen cases of efficient OSCs with an active layer nearly 300 nm thick that can still achieve high FFs (70-77%) and efficiencies (10-11.7%). By studying the structure-property relationships of the donor polymers, we show that the second position branched alkyl chains and the fluorination on the polymer backbone are two key structural features that enable the strong TDA property. Our comparative studies also show that the TDA polymer family can be used to match with non-fullerene acceptors yielding OSCs with low voltage losses. The key difference between the empirical matching rules for fullerene and non-fullerene OSCs is that TDA polymers with slightly reduced crystallinity appear to match better with small molecular acceptors and yield higher OSC performances.

Efficient Nonfullerene Polymer Solar Cells Enabled by a Novel Wide Bandgap Small Molecular Acceptor.

A wide bandgap small molecular acceptor, SFBRCN, containing a 3D spirobifluorene core flaked with a 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole (BT) and end-capped with highly electron-deficient (3-ethylhexyl-4-oxothiazolidine-2-yl)dimalononitrile (RCN) units, has been successfully synthesized as a small molecular acceptor (SMA) for nonfullerene polymer solar cells (PSCs). This SMA exhibits a relatively wide optical bandgap of 2.03 eV, which provides a complementary absorption to commonly used low bandgap donor polymers, such as PTB7-Th. The strong electron-deficient BT and RCN units afford SFBRCN with a low-lying LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital) level, while the 3D structured spirobifluorene core can effectively suppress the self-aggregation tendency of the SMA, thus yielding a polymer:SMA blend with reasonably small domain size. As the results of such molecular design, SFBRCN enables nonfullerene PSCs with a high efficiency of 10.26%, which is the highest performance reported to date for a large bandgap nonfullerene SMA.

Donor polymer design enables efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells.

To achieve efficient organic solar cells, the design of suitable donor-acceptor couples is crucially important. State-of-the-art donor polymers used in fullerene cells may not perform well when they are combined with non-fullerene acceptors, thus new donor polymers need to be developed. Here we report non-fullerene organic solar cells with efficiencies up to 10.9%, enabled by a novel donor polymer that exhibits strong temperature-dependent aggregation but with intentionally reduced polymer crystallinity due to the introduction of a less symmetric monomer unit. Our comparative study shows that an analogue polymer with a C2 symmetric monomer unit yields highly crystalline polymer films but less efficient non-fullerene cells. Based on a monomer with a mirror symmetry, our best donor polymer exhibits reduced crystallinity, yet such a polymer matches better with small molecular acceptors. This study provides important insights to the design of donor polymers for non-fullerene organic solar cells.

Terthiophene-based D-A polymer with an asymmetric arrangement of alkyl chains that enables efficient polymer solar cells.

We report a series of difluorobenzothiadizole (ffBT) and oligothiophene-based polymers with the oligothiophene unit being quaterthiophene (T4), terthiophene (T3), and bithiophene (T2). We demonstrate that a polymer based on ffBT and T3 with an asymmetric arrangement of alkyl chains enables the fabrication of 10.7% efficiency thick-film polymer solar cells (PSCs) without using any processing additives. By decreasing the number of thiophene rings per repeating unit and thus increasing the effective density of the ffBT unit in the polymer backbone, the HOMO and LUMO levels of the T3 polymers are significantly deeper than those of the T4 polymers, and the absorption onset of the T3 polymers is also slightly red-shifted. For the three T3 polymers obtained, the positions and size of the alkyl chains play a critical role in achieving the best PSC performances. The T3 polymer with a commonly known arrangement of alkyl chains (alkyl chains sitting on the first and third thiophenes in a mirror symmetric manner) yields poor morphology and PSC efficiencies. Surprisingly, a T3 polymer with an asymmetric arrangement of alkyl chains (which is later described as having an "asymmetric bi-repeating unit") enables the best-performing PSCs. Morphological studies show that the optimized ffBT-T3 polymer forms a polymer:fullerene morphology that differs significantly from that obtained with T4-based polymers. The morphological changes include a reduced domain size and a reduced extent of polymer crystallinity. The change from T4 to T3 comonomer units and the novel arrangement of alkyl chains in our study provide an important tool to tune the energy levels and morphological properties of donor polymers, which has an overall beneficial effect and leads to enhanced PSC performance.

High-Performance Non-Fullerene Polymer Solar Cells Based on a Pair of Donor-Acceptor Materials with Complementary Absorption Properties.

A 7.3% efficiency non-fullerene polymer solar cell is realized by combining a large-bandgap polymer PffT2-FTAZ-2DT with a small-bandgap acceptor IEIC. The complementary absorption of donor polymer and small-molecule acceptor is responsible for the high-performance of the solar-cell device. This work provides important guidance to improve the performance of non-fullerene polymer solar cells.

Facile TMSOTf-catalyzed preparation of 2-deoxy α-O-aryl-D-glycosides from glycosyl acetates.

2-Deoxy α-O-aryl glycosides were conveniently obtained by reaction of 2-deoxy-glycosyl acetates with phenols in the presence of TMSOTf as the promoter. The current method provides the O-aryl glycosides with good to excellent yields, and sole alpha selectivity.