To assess functional vision in children with bilateral aphakia and pseudophakia

INTRODUCTION: Functional vision is defined as vision loss in terms of the individual’s abilities and skills to perform activities of daily living. Congenital cataract is one of the treatable causes of childhood blindness worldwide. Cataract has significant long-term impact on functional visual ability and quality of life in children and young people. Good visual performance is not just determined by good visual acuity but also by visual functions like contrast sensitivity and stereopsis which may be affected in children with bilateral cataract. Most studies done on congenital and developmental cataract have concentrated on visual acuity outcomes after cataract surgery. Only few studies have been done to determine the functional vision outcome after cataract surgery. We have conducted this study to see how visual functions influence the functional vision which in turn affects the quality of life in school going children. METHODS: It was a cross sectional study which extended over a period of 1 year 6 months (From March 2016 to August 2017). Participants included children aged 5-15 years who came to the outpatient department and peadiatric ophthalmology clinic of Schell eye hospital and who have undergone bilateral cataract surgery with or without intraocular lens implantation and were on, regular follow up. Children with co-existing ocular conditions like corneal scar in the visual axis and posterior segment pathology like macular scar as well as children with developmental delay were excluded. RESULTS: There is no correlation between mother’s education and functional vision. (P = 0.4451). There is no correlation between father’s education and functional vision (P = 0.3814). On comparing, lens status with gender, P value is 0.137) 76% of study patients had good visual acuity. On comparing of Lea logmar vision to functional vision based on child’s questionnaire, corelation coefficient was -0.066 (95% CI: -0.338 to 0.216). Comparison of Lea logmar vision to functional vision based on mother’s questionnaire, corelation coefficient was -0.114 (95% CI: -0.381 to 0.169). 62% children had good near vision. 44 children had good functional vision score. According to Mother’s questionnaire, above 80% in score was taken as good outcome.The percentage of good outcome is 88% (95% CI: 75.7). According to child’s questionnaire, above 80% in score was taken as good outcome. The percentage of good outcome is 88% (95% CI: 75.7). Positive correlation between mother and child’s questionnaire was obtained (r) = 0.365 (95% CI: 0.180 to 0.637) There were 4 children with good stereopsis and 27 children with no stereopsis. Correlation of visual acuity and functional vision according to child’s questionnaire is -0.066, (95% CI: -0.338 to 0.216). Correlation of visual acuity and functional vision according to mother’s questionnaire is -0.114, (95% CI: -0.381 to 0.169). Correlation of stereopsis to functional vision according to child’s questionnaire is 0.189 (95% CI: -0.097 to 0.447). Correlation of stereopsis to functional vision according to mother’s questionnaire is 0.099 (95% CI: -0.184 to 0.367). Correlation of contrast sensitivity to functional vision according to mother’s questionnaire is 0.118 (95% CI: -0.166 to 0.384) Correlation of contrast sensitivity and functional vision according to child’s questionnaire is 0.032 (95% CI: -0.249 to 0.307). There is no difference in post op vision between pseudophakic and aphakic children. Comparison of functional vision in pseudophakia and aphakia (As per child’s questionnaire) is P value= 0.261. Comparison of functional vision in pseudophakia and aphakia (As per mother’s questionnaire) is P value= 0.385. Nil significant statistical difference between the contrast sensitivity in pseudophakic and aphakic children. P value= 0.161. There is a clinically acceptable difference stereopsis in pseudophakics and aphakics which is statistically not significant (p-value = 0.112). CONCLUSION: Most children had good functional vision. Mostly all children in the study had good contrast sensitivity. Lot of children had no depth perception (stereopsis) post surgery. Around 25% of the children were found to have low vision but despite of this they had good functional vision. Hence, it was concluded that there is no correlation between functional vision and the visual acuity and visual functions like stereopsis and contrast sensitivity. In pseudophakic and aphakic children, vision, functional vision and contrast sensitivity are not correlated. There is no difference in post op visual acuity and functional vision between pseudophakic and aphakic children which in turn shows that there is no hurry to put intraocular lens in a child post congenital/developmental cataract surgery. There is no statistical difference between the contrast sensitivity and stereopsis in pseudophakic and aphakic children but clinically there is a significant difference between these two groups which shows that stereopsis can be affected by the presence/absence of intraocular lens

DIGITIZATION OF EDUCATION AND ITS SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACTS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TRIVANDRUM

This study is makes a comparative analysis of the rural-urban divide in digital education and examines the benefits and challenges of e-learning. A total of 124 respondents consisting of students, teachers and parents residing in the rural and urban areas of Trivandrum were surveyed using a well-structured questionnaire administered in both English and Malayalam. The sample population was identified through stratified random sampling. The study finds that disruption of internet connectivity due to signal unavailability is a major challenge of e-learning. Also, majority of the stakeholders were unwilling to make a conscious shift to a digitised education mode. Mostly students favoured online education because of its ease of usage, convenience, remote accessibility and system response speed. But most of the parents and teachers preferred offline education

Deep learning network to correct axial and coronal eye motion in 3D OCT retinal imaging

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is one of the most important retinal imaging technique. However, involuntary motion artifacts still pose a major challenge in OCT imaging that compromises the quality of downstream analysis, such as retinal layer segmentation and OCT Angiography. We propose deep learning based neural networks to correct axial and coronal motion artifacts in OCT based on a single volumetric scan. The proposed method consists of two fully-convolutional neural networks that predict Z and X dimensional displacement maps sequentially in two stages. The experimental result shows that the proposed method can effectively correct motion artifacts and achieve smaller error than other methods. Specifically, the method can recover the overall curvature of the retina, and can be generalized well to various diseases and resolutions

Optimization of effective doping concentration of emitter for ideal c-Si solar cell device with PC1D simulation

Increasing silicon solar cell efficiency plays a vital role in improving the dominant market share of photo-voltaic systems in the renewable energy sector. The performance of the solar cells can be evaluated by making a profound analysis on various effective parameters, such as the sheet resistance, doping concentration, thickness of the solar cell, arbitrary dopant profile, etc., using software simulation tools, such as PC1D. In this paper, we present the observations obtained from the evaluation carried out on the impact of sheet resistance on the solar cell’s parameters using PC1D software. After which, the EDNA2 simulation tool was used to analyse the emitter saturation current density for the chosen arbitrary dopant profile. Results indicated that the diffusion profile with low surface concentration and shallow junction depth can improve the blue response at the frontal side of the solar cell. The emitter saturation current density decreases from 66.52 to 36.82 fA/cm2 for the subsequent increase in sheet resistance. The blue response also increased from 89.6% to 97.5% with rise in sheet resistance. In addition, the short circuit density and open circuit voltage was also observed to be improved by 0.6 mA/cm2 and 3 mV for the sheet resistance value of 130 Ω/sq, which resulted in achieving the highest efficiency of 20.6%

Bringing Stellar Evolution & Feedback Together: Summary of proposals from the Lorentz Center Workshop, 2022

Stars strongly impact their environment, and shape structures on all scales throughout the universe, in a process known as ``feedback''. Due to the complexity of both stellar evolution and the physics of larger astrophysical structures, there remain many unanswered questions about how feedback operates, and what we can learn about stars by studying their imprint on the wider universe. In this white paper, we summarize discussions from the Lorentz Center meeting `Bringing Stellar Evolution and Feedback Together' in April 2022, and identify key areas where further dialogue can bring about radical changes in how we view the relationship between stars and the universe they live in.Comment: Accepted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacifi

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

Decline in subarachnoid haemorrhage volumes associated with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, decreased volumes of stroke admissions and mechanical thrombectomy were reported. The study\u27s objective was to examine whether subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) hospitalisations and ruptured aneurysm coiling interventions demonstrated similar declines. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional, retrospective, observational study across 6 continents, 37 countries and 140 comprehensive stroke centres. Patients with the diagnosis of SAH, aneurysmal SAH, ruptured aneurysm coiling interventions and COVID-19 were identified by prospective aneurysm databases or by International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, codes. The 3-month cumulative volume, monthly volumes for SAH hospitalisations and ruptured aneurysm coiling procedures were compared for the period before (1 year and immediately before) and during the pandemic, defined as 1 March-31 May 2020. The prior 1-year control period (1 March-31 May 2019) was obtained to account for seasonal variation. FINDINGS: There was a significant decline in SAH hospitalisations, with 2044 admissions in the 3 months immediately before and 1585 admissions during the pandemic, representing a relative decline of 22.5% (95% CI -24.3% to -20.7%, p\u3c0.0001). Embolisation of ruptured aneurysms declined with 1170-1035 procedures, respectively, representing an 11.5% (95%CI -13.5% to -9.8%, p=0.002) relative drop. Subgroup analysis was noted for aneurysmal SAH hospitalisation decline from 834 to 626 hospitalisations, a 24.9% relative decline (95% CI -28.0% to -22.1%, p\u3c0.0001). A relative increase in ruptured aneurysm coiling was noted in low coiling volume hospitals of 41.1% (95% CI 32.3% to 50.6%, p=0.008) despite a decrease in SAH admissions in this tertile. INTERPRETATION: There was a relative decrease in the volume of SAH hospitalisations, aneurysmal SAH hospitalisations and ruptured aneurysm embolisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings in SAH are consistent with a decrease in other emergencies, such as stroke and myocardial infarction