Photothermal Length Measurement of Vickers Cracks in SI3N4

Ceramic materials are gaining ever increasing popularity in different high—technology applications, especially in those where high temperatures are used. However, the mechanical strength of ceramics has thus far set limitations on their utilizing. The critical size of cracks in ceramic material depends on the force applied, but in typical applications it is less than 100 µm. This small size in addition to the fact that critical cracks are often closed makes the use of conventional NDT methods in crack detection very difficult or even impossible. More nuisance comes from the porosity of the material which takes methods needing immersing in liquids out of consideration

Familial hypercholesterolaemia in children and adolescents from 48 countries: a cross-sectional study

Background Approximately 450 000 children are born with familial hypercholesterolaemia worldwide every year, yet only 2·1% of adults with familial hypercholesterolaemia were diagnosed before age 18 years via current diagnostic approaches, which are derived from observations in adults. We aimed to characterise children and adolescents with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (HeFH) and understand current approaches to the identification and management of familial hypercholesterolaemia to inform future public health strategies. Methods For this cross-sectional study, we assessed children and adolescents younger than 18 years with a clinical or genetic diagnosis of HeFH at the time of entry into the Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC) registry between Oct 1, 2015, and Jan 31, 2021. Data in the registry were collected from 55 regional or national registries in 48 countries. Diagnoses relying on self-reported history of familial hypercholesterolaemia and suspected secondary hypercholesterolaemia were excluded from the registry; people with untreated LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) of at least 13·0 mmol/L were excluded from this study. Data were assessed overall and by WHO region, World Bank country income status, age, diagnostic criteria, and index-case status. The main outcome of this study was to assess current identification and management of children and adolescents with familial hypercholesterolaemia. Findings Of 63 093 individuals in the FHSC registry, 11 848 (18·8%) were children or adolescents younger than 18 years with HeFH and were included in this study; 5756 (50·2%) of 11 476 included individuals were female and 5720 (49·8%) were male. Sex data were missing for 372 (3·1%) of 11 848 individuals. Median age at registry entry was 9·6 years (IQR 5·8–13·2). 10 099 (89·9%) of 11 235 included individuals had a final genetically confirmed diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolaemia and 1136 (10·1%) had a clinical diagnosis. Genetically confirmed diagnosis data or clinical diagnosis data were missing for 613 (5·2%) of 11 848 individuals. Genetic diagnosis was more common in children and adolescents from high-income countries (9427 [92·4%] of 10 202) than in children and adolescents from non-high-income countries (199 [48·0%] of 415). 3414 (31·6%) of 10 804 children or adolescents were index cases. Familial-hypercholesterolaemia-related physical signs, cardiovascular risk factors, and cardiovascular disease were uncommon, but were more common in non-high-income countries. 7557 (72·4%) of 10 428 included children or adolescents were not taking lipid-lowering medication (LLM) and had a median LDL-C of 5·00 mmol/L (IQR 4·05–6·08). Compared with genetic diagnosis, the use of unadapted clinical criteria intended for use in adults and reliant on more extreme phenotypes could result in 50–75% of children and adolescents with familial hypercholesterolaemia not being identified. Interpretation Clinical characteristics observed in adults with familial hypercholesterolaemia are uncommon in children and adolescents with familial hypercholesterolaemia, hence detection in this age group relies on measurement of LDL-C and genetic confirmation. Where genetic testing is unavailable, increased availability and use of LDL-C measurements in the first few years of life could help reduce the current gap between prevalence and detection, enabling increased use of combination LLM to reach recommended LDL-C targets early in life. Funding Pfizer, Amgen, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Sanofi–Aventis, Daiichi Sankyo, and Regeneron

Laminar and Dorsoventral Molecular Organization of the Medial Entorhinal Cortex Revealed by Large-scale Anatomical Analysis of Gene Expression

Neural circuits in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) encode an animal's position and orientation in space. Within the MEC spatial representations, including grid and directional firing fields, have a laminar and dorsoventral organization that corresponds to a similar topography of neuronal connectivity and cellular properties. Yet, in part due to the challenges of integrating anatomical data at the resolution of cortical layers and borders, we know little about the molecular components underlying this organization. To address this we develop a new computational pipeline for high-throughput analysis and comparison of in situ hybridization (ISH) images at laminar resolution. We apply this pipeline to ISH data for over 16,000 genes in the Allen Brain Atlas and validate our analysis with RNA sequencing of MEC tissue from adult mice. We find that differential gene expression delineates the borders of the MEC with neighboring brain structures and reveals its laminar and dorsoventral organization. We propose a new molecular basis for distinguishing the deep layers of the MEC and show that their similarity to corresponding layers of neocortex is greater than that of superficial layers. Our analysis identifies ion channel-, cell adhesion- and synapse-related genes as candidates for functional differentiation of MEC layers and for encoding of spatial information at different scales along the dorsoventral axis of the MEC. We also reveal laminar organization of genes related to disease pathology and suggest that a high metabolic demand predisposes layer II to neurodegenerative pathology. In principle, our computational pipeline can be applied to high-throughput analysis of many forms of neuroanatomical data. Our results support the hypothesis that differences in gene expression contribute to functional specialization of superficial layers of the MEC and dorsoventral organization of the scale of spatial representations

One Public, Two Health Systems: Hong Kong and China, Integration without Convergence

Thermal wave nondestructive evaluation is one of the few NDE methods applicable to the characterization of ceramic and composite materials. As a near surface characterization technique, it has been shown to be useful for metals and semiconductors and has been developed for use with those materials. Limited work has been done with the technique on ceramics, with little effort to investigate the resulting fundamental differences which can occur in the case of insulating materials

Full-field interferometry for counting and differentiating aquatic biotic nanoparticles: from laboratory to Tara Oceans

International audienc

The use of supraoccluding restorations in the management of the worn dentition

A beam of energetic electrons incident on a semiconductor produces a variety of effects depending on the primary beam energy and on the properties of the semiconductor. These effects include electron penetration, internai ionization and thermal deposition as well as external effects such as secondary and back scattered electrons, electron beam induced current (EBIC) and lattice strain. Modulated electron beams have been used for thermal wave imaging by the use of piezoelectric detectors in contact with the sample to monitor the modulated strain produced by the electron beam. This technique is termed Scanning Electron Acoustic Microscopy (SEAM). SEAM studies of integrated circuits have shown that subsurface features are imaged at depths controlled by the energy of the electron beam [1]. However, there is no adequate theory which describes this effect or the more generai question of image contrast in SEAM. This arises in part because SEAM images represent a convolution of thermal, acoustic and electron transport effects as well as the initial electron loss profile in the semiconductor. There is a need for improved understanding of electron injection, scattering, trapping and thermalization especially as they apply to the use of electron excitation beams for thermal wave imaging

Induction of axon-like processes from axotomized retinal ganglion cells of adult golden hamster after injection of scietic nerve extudate

The increasing use of polymers sets more demands on nondestructive characterization and testing of both raw materials and ready products. Thus far, plastics have been considered to be poor electric and thermal conductors but manipulation of electric conductivity has already become an important factor for many applications. Also the more profound knowledge of thermal conductivity mechanisms and the measurement of thermal characteristics is gaining increasing importance in the future