A Comparative Study of the Paris System and Common Reporting System for Urine Cytology With Cyto-Histology Correlation: A Study of 829 Urine Cytology Specimens.

BACKGROUND: The Paris System (TPS) diligently detects high-grade urothelial carcinoma (HGUC) and creates a uniform, standardized, reproducible reporting system for urine cytology. However, many centres might still use a common reporting system (CRS). The study aims to compare TPS and CRS for urine cytology with histology correlation. METHOD: It was a cross-sectional study done from July 2016 to December 2022. RESULTS: The study included 829 urine cytology samples (96% voided urine) from 478 patients. Histology correlation was available for 138 (16.6%) samples of 115 patients. The frequency of NHGUC, AUC, HGUC and SHGUC was 40.6%, 17.4%, 12.2% and 5.5%, respectively, in TPS. In contrast, in CRS, the frequency of NM, AUS, SM and PM was 69.2%, 13.3%, 4.5% and 13.0%, respectively. TPS and CRS had 64% agreement overall with the kappa test (κ-value 0.479, moderate strength). The agreement between TPS and CRS was 39.8% for NHGUC, 10.97% for AUC and 10.85% for HGUC. After combining a few TPS categories, the agreement increased to 87.7% (κ-value 0.7640, good strength). Histological concordance for AUC, HGUC and NHGUC was 75%, 31.8% and 31.3% in TPS, and it was 50% and 33.3% for AUS and PM, respectively, in CRS. The sensitivity and specificity of TPS and CRS against histology were 37.5% vs. 26.0%, p = 0.0005 and 76.5% vs. 85.3%, p = 0.0083, respectively. CONCLUSION: TPS and CRS have moderate strength of agreement for urine cytology. TPS was more sensitive than CRS. It may be easy for institutes to transition to a newer TPS system if they still use a CRS.

Upcycling of surgical facemasks into carbon based thin film electrode for supercapacitor technology.

Polypropylene (PP), a commonly used plastic, is used for making the outer layers of a surgical face mask. In 2020, around 3 billion surgical face masks were disposed into the environment, causing a huge threat to wildlife, aquatic life, and ecosystems. In this work, we have reported the sulfonation technique for stabilizing the surgical face masks and their conversion into carbon nanoparticles for application as a supercapacitor electrode. The electrode is fabricated by preparing a slurry paste of carbon nanoparticles and pasting it on a conductive wearable fabric. To investigate the performance of the carbon thin film electrode, electrochemical techniques are employed. The Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) analysis performed at different scan rates in a 6 molar KOH electrolyte reveals that the carbon thin film acts as a positive electrode. At 4 A g-1, the electrode shows a specific capacitance of 366.22 F g-1 and 100% retention of specific capacitance for 8000 cycles. A two-electrode asymmetric device is fabricated using carbon thin film as the positive electrode, NiO thin film as the negative electrode, and a KOH separator between two electrodes. The device shows a specific capacitance of 113.73 F g-1 at 1.3 A g-1 and glows a red LED for 6 min. This work is a step towards upcycling the waste produced from surgical face masks used during the COVID-19 pandemic and its application for energy storage.

Role of Electrochemical Techniques for Photovoltaic and Supercapacitor Applications.

Electrochemistry forms the base of large-scale production of various materials, encompassing numerous applications in metallurgical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, and material science. This field is important for energy harvesting applications, especially supercapacitors (SCs) and photovoltaic (PV) devices. This review examines various electrochemical techniques employed to fabricate and characterize PV devices and SCs. Fabricating these energy harvesting devices is carried out by electrochemical methods, including electroreduction, electrocoagulation, sol-gel process, hydrothermal growth, spray pyrolysis, template-assisted growth, and electrodeposition. The characterization techniques used are cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, photoelectrochemical characterization, galvanostatic charge-discharge, and I-V curve. A study on different recently reported materials is also presented to analyze their performance in various energy harvesting applications regarding their efficiency, fill factor, power density, and energy density. In addition, a comparative study of electrochemical fabrication techniques with others (including physical vapor deposition, mechanical milling, laser ablation, and centrifugal spinning) has been conducted. The various challenges of electrochemistry in PVs and SCs are also highlighted. This review also emphasizes the future perspectives of electrochemistry in energy harvesting applications.