Dynamic orthotic design for a four degree burned upper limb
Scars contracture, in four degree burns, reduces articulation mobility and it needs a dynamic orthotics intervention. The better ones are those that allow small steps of angle advance, up to 2°. The focus of this work is to show a new design capable to make an angle variation under 2° within 24 hours and a model to realize a treatment scheme. The device was built by the orthotics procedure using goniometry and trigonometric formulas. The idea was to use screw threaded systems designed for an angular extension under 2°. The easy way to build the modularity and the low production cost for this device recommends it for the use in clinical practice.
Organic bulk heterojunction solar cells suffer from a huge, nonmonotonic loss of open-circuit voltage ${V}_{o\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}c}$ at low temperatures, which thwarts their practical application. The authors incorporate energetic disorder into a drift-diffusion model to study the ${V}_{o\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}c}-T$ relations under various working conditions. In reproducing the empirical observations, they find that disorder-suppressed carrier mobility is the culprit. This work provides a comprehensive picture from the charge-dynamics perspective that will facilitate the engineering of this emerging class of devices.