Quantum spin Hall effect in bound states in continuum

Moving the polarization of the incident wave along a meridian of the Poincaré sphere, experimentally we show that the coupling with the fundamental Bloch's surface waves of the mode, provide a spatially coherent, macroscopic spinmomentum locked propagation along the symmetry axes of the PhCM. This novel mechanism of light-spin manipulation enables a versatile implementation of spin-optical structures that may pave the way to novel strategies for light spin technology and photonic multiplatform implementations

Femtosecond Laser–Assisted Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty for Keratoconus: Multi-surgeon Results

PURPOSE: To compare the clinical outcomes in femtosecond laser–assisted deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (F-DALK) to manual non-laser deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (M-DALK) for keratoconus in a multi-surgeon public healthcare setting. DESIGN: Single-center, comparative, retrospective interventional case series. METHODS: Population: Consecutive cases of keratoconus treated with big-bubble F-DALK from August 1, 2015, to September 1, 2018 and big-bubble M-DALK from September 1, 2012, to September 30, 2016. Setting: Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. Observations: Data on preoperative status, operative details, intraoperative and postoperative complications, secondary interventions, and visual outcomes were archived on a customized spreadsheet for analysis. Main Outcome Measures: Rate of intraoperative perforation and conversion to penetrating keratoplasty (PK) and the percentage of patients, post removal of sutures (ROS), with corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) ≥20/40. RESULTS: We analyzed 58 eyes of 55 patients who underwent F-DALK and 326 eyes of 309 patients who underwent M-DALK. Intraoperative perforation of Descemet membrane occurred in 15 of 58 (25.9%) F-DALK cases compared to 148 of 326 (45.4%) M-DALK cases (P = .006). Intraoperative conversion to PK was carried out in 2 of 58 (3.4%) F-DALK cases compared to 80 of 326 (24.5%) M-DALK cases (P = .001). Post ROS, 86.5% of F-DALK eyes had a CDVA of ≥20/40 (15 ± 7.3 months after surgery) compared to 83.7% of M-DALK eyes (24.9 ± 10.6 months) (P = .825). CONCLUSION: Laser automation of some steps in DALK for keratoconus may reduce the rate of intraoperative Descemet perforation and the conversion to PK in a multi-surgeon setting

High sensitivity X-ray phase contrast imaging by laboratory grating-based interferometry at high Talbot order geometry

X-ray phase contrast imaging is a powerful analysis technique for materials science and biomedicine. Here, we report on laboratory grating-based X-ray interferometry employing a microfocus X-ray source and a high Talbot order (35th) asymmetric geometry to achieve high angular sensitivity and high spatial resolution X-ray phase contrast imaging in a compact system (total length <1 m). The detection of very small refractive angles (∼50 nrad) at an interferometer design energy of 19 keV was enabled by combining small period X-ray gratings (1.0, 1.5 and 3.0 µm) and a single-photon counting X-ray detector (75 µm pixel size). The performance of the X-ray interferometer was fully characterized in terms of angular sensitivity and spatial resolution. Finally, the potential of laboratory X-ray phase contrast for biomedical imaging is demonstrated by obtaining high resolution X-ray phase tomographies of a mouse embryo embedded in solid paraffin and a formalin-fixed full-thickness sample of human left ventricle in water with a spatial resolution of 21.5 µm

Risk assessment and suicide by patients with schizophrenia in secondary mental healthcare: a case-control study

Objectives: To investigate the role of risk assessment in predicting suicide in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) receiving secondary mental healthcare. We postulated that risk assessment plays a limited role in predicting suicide in these patients. Design: Retrospective case–control study. Setting: Anonymised electronic mental health record data from the South London and Maudsley National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust (SLaM) (London, UK) linked with national mortality data. Participants: In 242 227 SLaM service users up to 31 December 2013, 635 suicides were identified. 96 (15.1%) had a SSD diagnosis. Those who died before 1 January 2007 (n=25) were removed from the analyses. Thus, 71 participants with SSD who died from suicide over the study period (cases) were compared with 355 controls. Main outcome measure: Risk of suicide in relation to risk assessment ratings. Results: Cases were younger at first contact with services (mean±SD 34.5±12.6 vs 39.2±15.2) and with a higher preponderance of males (OR=2.07, 95% CI 1.18 to 3.65, p=0.01) than controls. Also, suicide occurred within 10 days after last contact with services in half of cases, with the most common suicide methods being hanging (14) and jumping (13). Cases were more likely to have the following ‘risk assessment’ items previously recorded: suicidal history (OR=4.42, 95% CI 2.01 to 9.65, p<0.001), use of violent method (OR=3.37, 95% CI 1.47 to 7.74, p=0.01), suicidal ideation (OR=3.57, 95% CI 1.40 to 9.07, p=0.01) and recent hospital discharge (OR=2.71, 95% CI 1.17 to 6.28, p=0.04). Multiple regression models predicted only 21.5% of the suicide outcome variance. Conclusions: Predicting suicide in schizophrenia is highly challenging due to the high prevalence of risk factors within this diagnostic group irrespective of outcome, including suicide. Nevertheless, older age at first contact with mental health services and lack of suicidal history and suicidal ideation are useful protective markers indicative of those less likely to end their own lives

Introducing a new breed of wine yeast: interspecific hybridisation between a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast and Saccharomyces mikatae

Interspecific hybrids are commonplace in agriculture and horticulture; bread wheat and grapefruit are but two examples. The benefits derived from interspecific hybridisation include the potential of generating advantageous transgressive phenotypes. This paper describes the generation of a new breed of wine yeast by interspecific hybridisation between a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast strain and Saccharomyces mikatae, a species hitherto not associated with industrial fermentation environs. While commercially available wine yeast strains provide consistent and reliable fermentations, wines produced using single inocula are thought to lack the sensory complexity and rounded palate structure obtained from spontaneous fermentations. In contrast, interspecific yeast hybrids have the potential to deliver increased complexity to wine sensory properties and alternative wine styles through the formation of novel, and wider ranging, yeast volatile fermentation metabolite profiles, whilst maintaining the robustness of the wine yeast parent. Screening of newly generated hybrids from a cross between a S. cerevisiae wine yeast and S. mikatae (closely-related but ecologically distant members of the Saccharomyces sensu stricto clade), has identified progeny with robust fermentation properties and winemaking potential. Chemical analysis showed that, relative to the S. cerevisiae wine yeast parent, hybrids produced wines with different concentrations of volatile metabolites that are known to contribute to wine flavour and aroma, including flavour compounds associated with non-Saccharomyces species. The new S. cerevisiae x S. mikatae hybrids have the potential to produce complex wines akin to products of spontaneous fermentation while giving winemakers the safeguard of an inoculated ferment.Jennifer R. Bellon, Frank Schmid, Dimitra L. Capone, Barbara L. Dunn, Paul J. Chamber

The Postpartum Specific Anxiety Scale: development and preliminary validation

Perinatal symptoms of anxiety are increasingly recognised due to their high prevalence and impact. Studies using pregnancy-specific anxiety measures have found that they may predict perinatal outcomes more effectively than general measures. However, no such measure exists to assess anxieties specific to the postpartum. This study aimed to develop and validate a measure (Postpartum Specific Anxiety Scale; PSAS) that accurately represents the specific anxieties faced by postpartum women, using a four-stage methodology: (1) 51 items were generated from interviews conducted with a group of 19 postpartum women at two time points, (2) the scale was reviewed and refined by a diverse expert panel, (3) an online pilot study (n = 146) was conducted to assess comprehensibility and acceptability and (4) an online sample of 1282 mothers of infants up to 6 months old completed the PSAS against a battery of convergent measures. A subsample (n = 262) repeated the PSAS 2 weeks later. The PSAS possessed good face and content validity and was comprehensible and acceptable to postpartum women. PSAS scores were significantly correlated with other measures indicating good convergent validity. Principal component analyses (PCA) revealed a simple four-factor structure. Reliability of the overall scale and individual PSAS factors proved to be good to excellent. A preliminary receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis also suggested that the PSAS may be a useful screening tool. The psychometric evidence suggests that the PSAS is an acceptable, valid, and reliable research tool to assess anxieties, which are specific to the postpartum period. Next steps in the iterative validation process are considered for both research and screening purposes

A high-order FEM formulation for free and forced vibration analysis of a nonlocal nonlinear graded Timoshenko nanobeam based on the weak form quadrature element method

The purpose of this paper is to provide a high-order finite element method (FEM) formulation of nonlocal nonlinear nonlocal graded Timoshenko based on the weak form quadrature element method (WQEM). This formulation offers the advantages and flexibility of the FEM without its limiting low-order accuracy. The nanobeam theory accounts for the von Kármán geometric nonlinearity in addition to Eringen’s nonlocal constitutive models. For the sake of generality, a nonlinear foundation is included in the formulation. The proposed formulation generates high-order derivative terms that cannot be accounted for using regular first- or second-order interpolation functions. Hamilton’s principle is used to derive the variational statement which is discretized using WQEM. The results of a WQEM free vibration study are assessed using data obtained from a similar problem solved by the differential quadrature method (DQM). The study shows that WQEM can offer the same accuracy as DQM with a reduced computational cost. Currently the literature describes a small number of high-order numerical forced vibration problems, the majority of which are limited to DQM. To obtain forced vibration solutions using WQEM, the authors propose two different methods to obtain frequency response curves. The obtained results indicate that the frequency response curves generated by either method closely match their DQM counterparts obtained from the literature, and this is despite the low mesh density used for the WQEM systems

Coordinate up-regulation of TMEM97 and cholesterol biosynthesis genes in normal ovarian surface epithelial cells treated with progesterone: implications for pathogenesis of ovarian cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ovarian cancer (OvCa) most often derives from ovarian surface epithelial (OSE) cells. Several lines of evidence strongly suggest that increased exposure to progesterone (P4) protects women against developing OvCa. However, the underlying mechanisms of this protection are incompletely understood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To determine downstream gene targets of P4, we established short term <it>in vitro </it>cultures of non-neoplastic OSE cells from six subjects, exposed the cells to P4 (10^-6M) for five days and performed transcriptional profiling with oligonucleotide microarrays containing over 22,000 transcripts.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified concordant but modest gene expression changes in cholesterol/lipid homeostasis genes in three of six samples (responders), whereas the other three samples (non-responders) showed no expressional response to P4. The most up-regulated gene was <it>TMEM97 </it>which encodes a transmembrane protein of unknown function (MAC30). Analyses of outlier transcripts, whose expression levels changed most significantly upon P4 exposure, uncovered coordinate up-regulation of 14 cholesterol biosynthesis enzymes, insulin-induced gene 1, low density lipoprotein receptor, <it>ABCG1</it>, endothelial lipase, stearoyl- CoA and fatty acid desaturases, long-chain fatty-acyl elongase, and down-regulation of steroidogenic acute regulatory protein and <it>ABCC6</it>. Highly correlated tissue-specific expression patterns of <it>TMEM97 </it>and the cholesterol biosynthesis genes were confirmed by analysis of the GNF Atlas 2 universal gene expression database. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR analyses revealed 2.4-fold suppression of the <it>TMEM97 </it>gene expression in short-term cultures of OvCa relative to the normal OSE cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings suggest that a co-regulated transcript network of cholesterol/lipid homeostasis genes and <it>TMEM97 </it>are downstream targets of P4 in normal OSE cells and that <it>TMEM97 </it>plays a role in cholesterol and lipid metabolism. The P4-induced alterations in cholesterol and lipid metabolism in OSE cells might play a role in conferring protection against OvCa.</p