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Clinical interest in using psychological interventions for people with epilepsy (PWE) aiming at decreasing mental health difficulties, improving health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and seizure-related outcomes, continues to grow. This article summarizes the 2020 update of the 2017 Cochrane Review and meta-analysis of psychological interventions for PWE, highlighting the reasons for major methodological modifications such as the recategorization of interventions and expanded risk of bias assessment. A 2020 literature search yielded 36 RCTs (n=3526) investigating psychological treatments for PWE with a validated HRQOL measure as an outcome. Twenty-seven trials were skills-based psychological interventions, whilst nine studies were education-only interventions. Among skills-based psychological interventions, 11 studies (n=643) used the Quality of Life in Epilepsy-31 (QOLIE-31) or other QOLIE inventories convertible to QOLIE-31 as an outcome measure and were pooled for meta-analysis. Significant mean changes were observed for the QOLIE-31 total score (mean improvement of 5.23 points; p< 0.001) and in six out of seven subscales (emotional well-being, energy and fatigue, overall QoL, seizure worry, medication and cognitive functioning). The mean changes in the QOLIE-31 total score and the overall QoL subscale exceeded the threshold of minimally important change (MIC), indicating clinically meaningful post-intervention improvement. These results provide moderate evidence that psychological treatments for adults and adolescents with epilepsy enhance HRQOL. In addition to the summary of the Cochrane review, we provide a detailed characterization of the interventions and patient populations of the meta-analyzed studies.

24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 21-25 September 2009, Hamburg, Germany; 2469-2472, Recently there has been considerable activity scaling thin film photovoltaics from R&D to high volume manufacturing because of their low cost potential. The CIGS (copper, indium, gallium (di)selenide) manufacturing challenges focus on optimizing the deposition process for high material utilization and high throughput. Veeco has developed roll-to-roll and glass CIGS deposition systems utilizing a scalable and modular architecture. The CIGS systems incorporate thermal evaporation sources for Cu, In, Ga and Se. Two separate linear nozzles deliver metals and Se, respectively. True three-stage CIGS film processing can be achieved by including an appropriate number of these linear sources, with a continuous throughput of either flexible or flat-plate substrates. The linear source design optimization and configuration was accomplished through a modeling process that provides a fast and effective way to determine the impact of process and hardware constraints. Modeling predicts excellent film uniformities with material utilization of 75% for substrates up to 1.2m. We will report here on the agreement between predicted and actual uniformity, and deposition rates and its impact on system cost of ownership.

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 1-5 September 2008, Valencia, Spain; 2607-2609, Recently there has been considerable activity scaling thin film photovoltaics from R&D to high volume manufacturing because of their low cost potential. For CIGS, the manufacturing challenges focus on optimizing the deposition for high material utilization, low thickness nonuniformity and decreased system footprint. In this contribution we report on a deposition modeling and optimization method that evaluates parameters such as number of sources, individual flux rates, source-to-substrate distance, source angle, source separation and deposition area in order to quantify the impact of these variables and their dependency on one another. We have used this process for a variety of deposition configurations including sources for copper, indium, gallium and an array of nozzles for selenium valved linear sources. The modeling process provides a fast, cost effective and low risk means of determining the optimal system design given the process and hardware constraints. This method is applicable for substrate sizes beyond 1m and we will present results for substrate sizes ranging from 300mm to 1200mm for copper, indium, and gallium point sources and valved linear sources illustrating that material utilization of upto 60% can be obtained for thickness nonuniformities