OBJECTIVES Many groups are developing computer-interpretable clinical guidelines (CIGs) for use during clinical encounters. CIGs use "Task-Network Models" for representation but differ in their approaches to addressing particular modeling challenges. We have studied similarities and differences between CIGs in order to identify issues that must be resolved before a consensus on a set of common ...

BACKGROUND The use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) is increasing and there is widespread perception that e-cigs are safe. E-cigs contain harmful chemicals; more research is needed to evaluate the safety of e-cig use. Our aim was to investigate the effects of e-cigs on the inflammatory response of human neutrophils. METHODS Neutrophils were exposed to e-cig vapour extract (ECVE) and the expr...

In this paper, we use numerical simulations to investigate ultrathin Cu (In1−xGax) Se2 solar cells. the first part, focus on cell configuration in which PV parameters fit and match fabricated characteristics. Our goal is impact of different loss mechanisms, such as interface trap density (Dit) absorber (Nt), pitch sizes performances. Dit defines number carrier traps at CIGS/Al2O3 interfaces rec...

In the last twenty years, many different approaches to deal with Computer-Interpretable clinical Guidelines (CIGs) have been developed, each one proposing its own representation formalism (mostly based on the Task-Network Model) execution engine. We propose META-GLARE a shell for easily defining new CIG systems. Using META-GLARE, CIG system designers can easily define their own systems (basical...

BACKGROUND Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes or e-cigs) are a popular emerging tobacco product. Because e-cigs do not generate toxic tobacco combustion products that result from smoking regular cigarettes, they are sometimes perceived and promoted as a less harmful alternative to smoking and also as means to quit smoking. However, the safety of e-cigs and their efficacy in supporting smoking ...

Na is found to improve the performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells although the mechanism is not clear. This paper briefly reviews some of the observations on Na in CIGS polycrystalline and epitaxial films. Experiments suggest weak electrical effects of Na within grains, primarily by reducing compensation and in some cases by enhancing acceptor concentrations. As it segregates to surface...

Pulsed non-melt laser annealing (NLA) has been used for the first time to modify nearsurface defects and related junction properties in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells. CIGS films deposited on Mo/glass substrates were annealed using a 25 ns pulsed 248 nm laser beam at selected laser energy density in the range 20–60mJ/cm and pulse number in the range 5–20 pulses. XRD peak narrowing and SEM surf...

The laboratory performance of CIGS (Cu(In,Ga)Se2) based solar cells (20.8% efficiency) makes them promising candidate photovoltaic devices. However, there remains little understanding of how defects at the CIGS/CdS interface affect the band offsets and interfacial energies, and hence the performance of manufactured devices. To determine these relationships, we use density functional theory with...

I present a simple method for computing angle-domain Common Image Gather (CIG) using prestack reverse time migration. The proposed method is an extension of the method proposed by Rickett and Sava (2001) to compute CIGs by downward-continuation shotprofile migration. I demonstrate with a synthetic example the use of the CIG gathers for migration velocity updating. A challenge for imaging both o...

The effect of selenium-free annealing on cesium fluoride (CsF)-treated Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin films is investigated and their solar cell performance evaluated. Annealing CsF-treated CIGS changes the surface morphology chemical composition, reduces Urbach energy. However, full benefit reduced energies annealed samples not obtained, because an increased buffer/CIGS interface recombination as a ...