Survey among survivors of the 1995 Ebola epidemic in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo: their feelings and experiences

This study describes experiences of the survivors of the 1995 Ebola epidemic in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of the survivors in our sample had cared for a sick family member before becoming ill themselves, and most had never heard of Ebola before they developed symptoms and therefore did not suspect that they were infected by the virus. Fear, denial and shame were their principal initial feelings. After release from hospital, survivors were abandoned by family or friends more often than they had expected. Belief in god was an important aid to all of them. Their most negative experiences were witnessing other people dying in the isolation ward of the Kikwit General Hospital, and the reluctance of hospital personnel to treat them. During Ebola outbreaks more attention should be given to the psychosocial implications of such an epidemic. Information campaigns should include antidiscrimination messages and more psychosocial support should be given to patients and their families.     

Chalcopyrite thin film solar cells by electrodeposition

This paper reviews the state of the art in using electrodeposition to prepare chalcopyrite absorber layers in thin film solar cells. Most of the studies deal with the direct preparation of Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ films, and show that the introduction of gallium in the films is now becoming possible from single bath containing all the elements. Electrodeposition can also be used to form precursor films with stacked layer structures, of pure elements or of combinations with binary or even ternary films. Thermal annealing treatments are of dramatic importance to provide suitable electronic quality to the layers. They are often done in the presence of a chalcogen (selenium or sulfur) over pressure and there is a tendency to use rapid thermal processes. Less studies are devoted to complete solar cell formation. Significant progresses have been made in the recent period with several groups achieving cell efficiencies around 8–10% on different substrates. A record efficiency of 11.3% is reported for a cell with an absorber presenting a band gap of 1.47 eV. First results on the manufacturability of the corresponding process to large areas are presented.     

Fibrillar Elastomeric Micropatterns Create Tunable Adhesion Even to Rough Surfaces

Biologically inspired, fibrillar dry adhesives continue to attract much attention as they are instrumental for emerging applications and technologies. To date, the adhesion of micropatterned gecko‐inspired surfaces has predominantly been tested on stiff, smooth substrates. However, all natural and almost all artificial surfaces have roughnesses on one or more different length scales. In the present approach, micropillar‐patterned PDMS surfaces with superior adhesion to glass substrates with different roughnesses are designed and analyzed. The results reveal for the first time adhesive and nonadhesive states depending on the micropillar geometry relative to the surface roughness profile. The data obtained further demonstrate that, in the adhesive regime, fibrillar gecko‐inspired adhesive structures can be used with advantage on rough surfaces; this finding may open up new applications in the fields of robotics, biomedicine, and space exploration.     

Energetic analysis of fragmentation mechanisms and dynamic delamination modelling in CFRP composites

This paper deals with the understanding and the numerical simulation of complex dissipative phenomena involved in composite absorbers for two main degradation modes: the fragmentation and the delamination modes. Fragmentation is the last step of degradation in pure compression leading to total failure of a laminate and for CFRP it is mainly initiated by a microbuckling mechanism, which is dependant on the microstructural imperfections. The dissipated energies associated to the fragment creation are evaluated through micromodelling approaches and contrary to expectations, these energies seem to be insensitive to microscopic parameters. A Weibull density knowledge on peak load and dissipated energy is also proposed. On the other hand, computation control on the delamination process has been investigated. Numerical sensitivities are justified, thanks to analytical approaches and physical-based mesh criteria are proposed for classical propagation tests. Some quasi-static experiments have been performed and good accuracy is obtained with the model. All these results give perspectives to implement delamination and fragmentation interactions at mesoscale within an absorber-like configuration.     

CW Lasing at 1.35 $mu$m From Ten InAs–Sb : GaAs Quantum-Dot Layers Grown by Metal–Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

We report the fabrication of GaAs-based quantum-dot (QD) lasers grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) above 1.3 m. We fabricated a laser diode with ten stacked InAs-Sb:GaAs(100) QD layers, grown by antimony-surfactant-mediated growth. Ground-state lasing was obtained under continuous-wave operation at room temperature at 1.35 mum, with a maximum ground state modal gain of 19.3 cm^-1. These values are the highest values reported for MOCVD-grown GaAs-based QD laser.