Worldwide, some 240 million people have chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV), with the highest rates of infection in Africa and Asia. Our understanding of the natural history of HBV infection and the potential for therapy of the resultant disease is continuously improving. New data have become available since the previous APASL guidelines for management of HBV infection were published in 2012. The objective of this manuscript is to update the recommendations for the optimal management of chronic HBV infection. The 2015 guidelines were developed by a panel of Asian experts chosen by the APASL. The clinical practice guidelines are based on evidence from existing publications or, if evidence was unavailable, on the experts’ personal experience and opinion after deliberations. Manuscripts and abstracts of important meetings published through January 2015 have been evaluated. This guideline covers the full spectrum of care of patients infected with hepatitis B, including new terminology, natural history, screening, vaccination, counseling, diagnosis, assessment of the stage of liver disease, the indications, timing, choice and duration of single or combination of antiviral drugs, screening for HCC, management in special situations like childhood, pregnancy, coinfections, renal impairment and pre- and post-liver transplant, and policy guidelines. However, areas of uncertainty still exist, and clinicians, patients, and public health authorities must therefore continue to make choices on the basis of the evolving evidence. The final clinical practice guidelines and recommendations are presented here, along with the relevant background information.

The external quantum efficiency of solar cells can be improved by using texturing pyramid- and honeycomb-like structures with minimum reflection. In this study, we investigated the reflection properties of texturing structures through rigorous coupled-wave analysis and the three-dimensional finite-difference time domains (FDTD) method to analyze close-packed texturing structures. We also demonstrate a simple method-combining sub-wavelength-scale monolayer and bilayer polystyrene spheres with a one-step reactive ion etching process-to fabricate optimized pyramid- and honeycomb-shaped antireflection structures, respectively. Thus, sub-wavelength pyramidal and honeycomb-like structures displaying low reflectance were obtained readily without the need for any lithography equipment.

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In this paper, we describe a thermal embossing imprint method, which we name "nano-imprinting in metal" (NIM), for patterning metal films with a variety of profiles. Metal films exhibiting either perforated hole-arrays or corrugated structures with various surface morphologies can be fabricated rapidly. The SPR phenomenon allowed energy coupling to the other side of the textured metal film, causing a dramatic increase in the transmission. As a technique for readily controlling the working wavelength and transmittance, the NIM method has great potential for application in various optoelectronic devices.