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Radiofrequencyablation (RFA) is one of the treatment options for lung nodules; however, the need for exact delivery of the rigid metal electrode into the center of the target mass often leads to complications or suboptimal results. To overcome these limitations, we report a novel bronchoscopy-guided atraumatic no-touch RFA procedure that uses a specially designed radiofrequency (RF) conductor balloon catheter (CAROL catheter) and an injectable bronchial electrode based on a medical grade liquid metal (E-GaIn) in porcine lungs. The bronchial electrode injected from the CAROL catheter was able to turn the target-site bronchial air pipe into a temporally multi-tined RF electrode. The mean volume of E-GaIn (bronchial electrode) for each effective CAROL was 0.46 ± 0.47 ml. The ablation results showed highly efficacious and consistent results especially in the peripheral lung. Most bronchial electrodes were also retrieved by either bronchoscopic suction immediately after the procedure or by natural expectoration thereafter. The residual bronchial electrode did not cause any significant safety issues. Our computer simulation model also supported preclinical data.

This brief presents a phase-difference modulation signaling enhanced by decision feedback equalization for multi-drop memory interfaces. The phase-difference modulation signaling enables efficient data communication via a multi-drop channel, but only if the stub lengths are specially engineered. In this brief, the phase-difference modulation signaling is combined with decision feedback equalization to extend the applicable channel range. A test chip with a phase-difference-modulation transmitter and a decision feedback equalization receiver was fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology. With a 2-tap decision feedback equalization, the test chip achieved the data rate of 7.8 Gb/s/pin via the both multi-drop channels with a long 10-cm stub and a short 2-cm stub, whereas the previous work without decision feedback equalization does not work with the 2-cm stub channel at 7.8Gb/s/pin.

This paper presents a phase-difference-modulation transceiver with simple clock recovery for highly-reflective interconnects. By greatly suppressing reflective intersymbol interferences with two new enabling mechanisms, phase–difference modulation enables high-speed data communication through highly-reflective multi-drop channels without utilizing decision feedback equalization. A systematic analytical approach is presented, and provides guidelines on how to determine channel and signaling parameters to exploit the two enabling mechanisms based on a newly derived formula of a single bit response of a channel. In addition, we propose a phase-difference amplifier that relieves the timing constraint of the bit decision at the receiver. By deserializing the received signals using the clock embedded in the received signals, the phase-difference amplifier can greatly reduce the design complexity of the clock recovery circuit. The proposed transceiver was fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology. In single-ended mode, the transceiver achieved a maximum speed of 7.8 Gb/s/pin at energy cost of only 1.96 pJ/b while overcoming 10 in-band notches without decision feedback equalization. Also, the phase-difference amplifier enables clock recovery at power and area costs of only 0.12 pJ/b and 550 $\mu \text{m}^{2}$ , respectively, in single-ended 6-Gb/s/pin operation.

This brief presents an intuitive, simple, and widely applicable approximate closed-form transfer function model for multiconductor transmission lines (MTLs). Rigorous closed-form transfer functions are derived from the telegrapher’s equation and approximated for a wide range of MTLs that satisfy validity conditions. Theoretical error bounds are also proposed and tightly estimate the approximation errors. The approximate formulas are simple yet accurate, and can be intuitively interpreted by a simple voltage-controlled voltage source circuit model. In demonstration, we show that the proposed model allows designers intuitively to understand and accurately to analyze complex MTLs.

This brief presents an approximate transfer function model of two heterogeneous transmission lines connected in series. The proposed model is simple, intuitive, and can accurately describe the frequency response of various serially connected heterogeneous interconnects which satisfy a validity condition. The exact error of the proposed model is also provided. According to our analysis, the validity condition can be clearly interpreted by the propagation and the reflection waves. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by comparing the calculated transfer function of LC-dominant off-chip and RC-dominant on-chip examples against SPICE simulation results. In these verifications, the maximum errors between calculation and simulation are, respectively, 2.58% and 3.32% for off-chip and on-chip examples. The computation time is also reduced about 29.76 and 289.07 times compared with a single-channel model and the SPICE ${w}$ -element model. With the proposed model, designers can easily understand the channel responses of diverse serially connected heterogeneous interconnects.

A hybrid silver nanowires (AgNWs)/indium tin oxide (ITO) contact was used as a transparent back-electrode to fabricate a bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cell. The photovoltaic properties of the bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cell were investigated under front and back illumination conditions. The hybrid AgNWs/ITO back contact changed the average conversion efficiency from 0.4% (front) and 3.5% (rear) to 8.1% (front) and 0.9% (rear), respectively, improving the sum efficiency from 3.9% (ITO-only) to 9.0%. Our research demonstrates the use of a nanowire network as a transparent electrode in CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cells for bifacial or tandem applications.

A bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film solar cell with a superstrate configuration was demonstrated by using copper nanowire (CuNW)/indium tin oxide (ITO) back contacts as a transparent and conductive electrode (TCE). CdS and CdTe were deposited by chemical bath deposition and close-spaced sublimation techniques, respectively. The CuNWs acted both as an acceptor dopant and TCE for the p-CdTe, improving the total cell efficiency compared to a copper-free back contact. CuNW/ITO back contacts with high optical transmittance (72.3% at 550 nm) and low sheet resistance (47.1 Ω/sq.) were obtained. The average cell efficiency of the bifacial CdS/CdTe thin-film cells with the optimized CuNW/ITO back contact was 10.0% (front-side illumination) and 0.55% (rear-side illumination). The quantum efficiencies under front-side and rear-side illumination were studied. The prepared bifacial cell can facilitate full usage of incoming sunlight (direct or diffused), enhancing the output power under cloudy conditions.

We analyze a new tandem system in which items are transported through a sequence of stations from an origin to a destination via a series of vehicles that move back and forth between consecutive stations. Each pair of consecutive stations is connected by a single vehicle with unit capacity that travels back and forth between the upstream and downstream station. Each vehicle travels with an item in the downstream direction and without an item in the upstream direction. The stations act as holding areas for items awaiting further transport within the system. Stations may have non-identical capacities. We model this system as a continuous time Markov chain and develop a recursive algorithm for generating the state transition matrix. After solving for the steady state probabilities using the Gauss-Seidel method, we compute the average throughput rate, average number of items in the system, and average sojourn time for various system configurations.