This intervention significantly reduced symptomatic Vibrio cholerae infection.

Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 (CZTS)-based solar cells show a promising performance in the field of sunlight-based energy production system. To increase the performance of CZTS-based solar cell, buffer layer optimization is still an obstacle. In this work, numerical simulations were performed on structures based on CZTS absorber layer, ZnO window layer, and transparent conducting layer n-ITO with different buffer layers using SCAPS-1D software to find a suitable buffer layer. Cadmium sulfide (CdS), zinc sulfide (ZnS) and their alloy cadmium zinc sulfide (Cd 0.4 Zn 0.6 S) were used as potential buffer layers to investigate the effect of buffer thickness, absorber thickness and temperature on open-circuit voltage (V oc), short-circuit current (J sc), fill factor (FF) and efficiency (η) of the solar cell. The optimum efficiencies using these three buffer layers are around 11.20%. Among these three buffers, Cd 0.4 Zn 0.6 S is more preferable as CdS suffers from toxicity problem and ZnS shows drastic change in performance parameters. The simulation results can give important guideline for the fabrication of high-efficiency CZTS solar cell.

Serum starvation is a widely used condition in molecular biology experiments. Opti‐MEM is a serum‐reduced media used during transfection of genetic molecules into mammalian cells. However, the impact of such media on cell viability and protein synthesis is unknown. A549 human lung epithelial cell viability and morphology were adversely affected by growing in Opti‐MEM. The cellular protein levels of chloride intracellular channel protein 1, proteasome subunit alpha Type 2, and heat shock 70 kDa protein 5 were dysregulated in A549 cells after growing in serum‐reduced media. Small interfering RNA transfection was done in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) with 10% fetal bovine serum, and knockdown efficacy was determined compared with Opti‐MEM. Similar amounts of knockdown of the target proteins were achieved in DMEM, and cell viability was higher compared with Opti‐MEM after transfection. Careful consideration of the impact of Opti‐MEM media during the culture or transfection is important for experimental design and results interpretation.

Abstract. Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age globally. The time patients and caregivers spend at a health facility for severe diarrhea presents the opportunity to deliver water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions. We recently developed Cholera-Hospital-Based Intervention for 7 days (CHoBI7), a 1-week hospital-based handwashing with soap and water treatment intervention, for household members of cholera patients. To investigate if this intervention could lead to sustained WASH practices, we conducted a follow-up evaluation of 196 intervention household members and 205 control household members enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of the CHoBI7 intervention 6 to 12 months post-intervention. Compared with the control arm, the intervention arm had four times higher odds of household members' handwashing with soap at a key time during 5-hour structured observation (odds ratio [OR]: 4.71, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.61, 8.49) (18% versus 50%) and a 41% reduction in households in the World Health Organization very high-risk category for stored drinking water (OR: 0.38, 95% CI: 0.15, 0.96) (58% versus 34%) 6 to 12 months post-intervention. Furthemore, 71% of observed handwashing with soap events in the intervention arm involved the preparation and use of soapy water, which was promoted during the intervention, compared to 9% of control households. These findings demonstrate that the hospital-based CHoBI7 intervention can lead to significant increases in handwashing with soap practices and improved stored drinking water quality 6 to 12 months post-intervention.