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Byline: Melvin. Kumar, Bobby. Joseph, B. Goud, Merlyn. Joseph, M. Rajitha Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne communicable disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Infection is most likely to occur when [...]

Background: Pregnancy, though joyful, may be a time of fear and anxiety. Twenty percent of pregnant women in developed nations report a fear of childbirth, and 6%–10% describe a severe fear that is crippling. This could lead to adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Data on fear of childbirth among pregnant women are lacking in India and would help in incorporating measures to enhance routine antenatal care. Methodology: With the objective of documenting fear of childbirth and associated factors, a cross-sectional study was conducted in rural Karnataka among women availing antenatal care services, using a face-validated 30 item questionnaire developed by the authors which was then scored to determine fear of childbirth. Results: Of 388 women studied, 45.4% (176) had a fear of childbirth. The commonest fears documented were: not feeling confident about childbirth, being afraid or tense about the process of childbirth, fear of labor pains, and fear of cesarean section. Teenage pregnancy, nulliparity, primigravida status, and having no living child were significantly associated with fear of childbirth. Conclusion: Overall, 45.4% (176) of women had a fear of childbirth. It is important to identify and address the various fears of childbirth that women may have, as revealed by this study, with a view to providing information and reassurance to the mother, with the aim of improved maternal and fetal outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extreme NIR photodetector was achieved by using transparent conducting layers on a small energy bandgap germanium (Ge) semiconductor. The optically-transparent and electrically-conducting layers (AZO and ITO) were sequentially coated on a Ge substrate by a large-scale available sputtering method, which spontaneously forms a Schottky junction (ITO/AZO/Ge) without an intentional doping process. The interface effect between AZO and Ge materials was studied at different depth levels from the surface using XPS and UPS measurements. The energy bands of AZO were bent at the interface to make a rectifying junction with Ge. The band bending at the interface is one of the important characteristics of Schottky photodiodes. The dark I-V profile of the AZO/Ge device showed rectification ratio of 22.36 along with the lowest reverse saturation current of 53.6 μA. The leakage current was perfectly suppressed due to the passivation effect of GeO x interfacial layer. At low frequency region, the Mott-Schottky analysis measured the barrier height as 0.38 eV which was correlated well with the value derived from the simulated band offset using SCAPS. This functionally designed transparent-embedding photodetector showed the excellent photoresponses for NIR regions. We propose a promising approach for highly-sensitive NIR photodetector by using a small energy bandgap Ge semiconductor with the transparent conducting layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a large-scale applicable nanolens-embedding solar cell. An electrically conductive and optically transparent indium-tin-oxide (ITO) thin film was coated on a Si substrate. After then, periodically patterned ITO nanodome-arrays were formed on the ITO film by using a nano-imprint method. This structure is effective to reduce the incident light reflection for broad wavelengths and also efficient to drive the incident photons into a light-absorbing Si substrate. There exist two electric fields. One is by a p/n junction and the other is by the light absorption into Si. We designed nanolens structures to overlap two electric fields and demonstrate highly improved solar cell performances of current and voltage values from a planar structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]