A first episode of psychosis (FEP) is a stressful, often life-changing experience. Scarce information is available about personal preferences regarding their care needs during and after a FEP. Whereas a more thorough understanding of these preferences is essential to aid shared decision-making during treatment and improve treatment satisfaction. Methods: Face-to-face interviews with participants in remission of a FEP were setup, addressing personal preferences and needs for care during and after a FEP. The interviews were conducted by a female and a male researcher, the latter being an expert with lived experience. Results: Twenty individuals in remission of a FEP were interviewed, of which 16 had been hospitalized. The distinguished themes based on personal preferences were tranquility, peace and quietness, information, being understood, support from significant others, and practical guidance in rebuilding one's life. Our findings revealed that the need for information and the need to be heard were often not sufficiently met. For 16/20 participants, the tranquility of inpatient treatment of the FEP was pre-dominantly perceived as a welcome safe haven. The presence and support of family and close friends were mentioned as an important factor in the process of achieving remission.
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Plasma treatment is a commonly used technology to modify the wetting behavior of polymer films in the production process for, e.g., printed electronics. As the effect of the plasma treatment decreases in time, the so-called "aging effect", it is important to gain knowledge on how this effect impacts the wetting behavior of commonly used polymers in order to be able to optimize production processing times. In this article the authors study the wetting behavior of polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate (PC), fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) and polyimide (PI) polymer films after plasma treatment in time. The plasma treatment was performed using a novel maskless DBD plasma patterning technology, i.e., Plasma Printing, at atmospheric pressure under nitrogen atmosphere. After treatment, the samples were stored at room temperature at 30%-40% relative humidity for up to one month. An increase in wettability is measured for all polymers directly after Plasma Printing. The major increase in wettability occurs after a small number of treatments, e.g., low energy density. More treatments show no further beneficial gain in wettability. The increase in wettability is mainly due to an increase in the polar part of the surface energy, which can probably be attributed to chemical modification of the surface of the investigated polymers. With the exception of FEP, during storage of the plasma treated polymers, the wettability partially declines in the first five days, after which it stabilizes to approximately 50% of its original state. The wettability of FEP shows little decline during storage. As the storage time between production steps is mostly under two days, Plasma Printing shows good promise as a pre-treatment step in the production of printed electronics. d c 2013 Society for Imaging Science and Technology.
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This study aims to explore the experiences and needs of individuals after a first episode of psychosis with regard to the way in which information about diagnosis, treatment options and prognosis is communicated with them. psychosis, communicating, stigma, needs, individual’s perception
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Inkjet printing is a rapidly growing technology for depositing functional materials in the production of organic electronics. Challenges lie among others in the printing of high resolution patterns with high aspect ratio of functional materials to obtain the needed functionality like e.g. conductivity. μPlasma printing is a technology which combines atmospheric plasma treatment with the versatility of digital on demand printing technology to selectively change the wetting behaviour of materials. In earlier research it was shown that with μPlasma printing it is possible to selectively improve the wetting behaviour of functional inks on polymer substrates using atmospheric air plasma. In this investigation we show it is possible to selectively change the substrate wetting behaviour using combinations of different plasmas and patterned printing. For air and nitrogen plasmas, increased wetting of printed materials could be achieved on both polycarbonate and glass substrates. A minimal track width of 320 μm for a 200 μm wide plasma needle was achieved. A combination of N2 with HMDSO plasma increases the contact angle for water up from <100 to 1050 and from 320 to 460 for DEGDMA making the substrate more hydrophobic. Furthermore using N2-plasma in combination with a N2/HMDSO plasma, hydrophobic tracks could be printed with similar minimal track width. Combining both N2 -plasma and N2/HMDSO plasma treatments show promising results to further decrease the track width to even smaller values.
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Vast empirical evidence underscores that exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters. As governments accordingly pursue export-promoting policies we are interested in the firmness of these conclusions with respect to African small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the influence of the destination of export trade. Using a micro-panel dataset from five African countries we confirm the self-selection. We apply propensity scores to match exporters and use a difference-in-difference methodology to test if African SMEs experience productivity gains because of export participation. Results indicate that African firms significantly learn-by-exporting. Manufacturers obtain significant performance improvements due to internationalization although this effect is moderated by export destination. Firms that export outside Africa become more capital intensive and at the same time hire more workers. In contrast we find evidence that exporters within the African region significantly downsize in capital intensity. Results regarding skill-bias of internationally active firms are mixed, where exporters within the region expand in size and hire more relatively unskilled workers.
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