Increasing the treatment zone in orthokeratology through a larger optical zone diameter

Standard ortho-k lenses have a treatment zone (area of corneal flattening) of 5.0mm in diameter. If the pupil dilates to more than 5.0mm, at night for example, the result is glare. Currently, standard ortho-k lenses have an optical zone of 6.0mm, leading to a 5.0mm treatment zone. In our experiment, we attempted to increase the treatment zone to 6.0m by using ortho-k lenses with a 7.0mm optical zone. Increasing the treatment zone would not only significantly reduce complaints of night-time glare, but it would put us on par with corrective laser surgery, which also has a 6.0mrn treatment zone. This would ultimately make orthokeratology a more viable option to a larger segment of the population. Originally 16 subjects were used for the experiment. The 1 half of the experiment consisted of fitting the students with standard 5.Om treatment zone ortho-k lenses. This trial period allows for lens parameter changes to achieve the optimum fit. The second trial consisting of the larger treatment zone has not been reached as of right now. The initial standard fits are being refined to custom fits for many patients. There have also been significant complications in terms of allergic reactions, undercorrection/overcorrection, non-compliance and high patient discomfort. The study has yet to be completed and therefore any results regarding the treatment zone expansion are inconclusive. The study will be completed within 1 year of this paper\u27s release date and definitive conclusions will be made at that time

Chronic cough: new insights and future prospects

Chronic cough is defined in adults as a cough that lasts for ≥8 weeks. When it proves intractable to standard-of-care treatment, it can be referred to as refractory chronic cough (RCC). Chronic cough is now understood to be a condition of neural dysregulation. Chronic cough and RCC result in a serious, often unrecognized, disease burden, which forms the focus of the current review.The estimated global prevalence of chronic cough is 2-18%. Patients with chronic cough and RCC report many physical and psychological effects, which impair their quality of life. Chronic cough also has a significant economic burden for the patient and healthcare systems. RCC diagnosis and treatment are often delayed for many years as potential treatable triggers must be excluded first and a stepwise empirical therapeutic regimen is recommended.Evidence supporting most currently recommended treatments is limited. Many treatments do not address the underlying pathology, are used off-label, have limited efficacy and produce significant side-effects. There is therefore a significant unmet need for alternative therapies for RCC that target the underlying disease mechanisms. Early clinical data suggest that antagonists of the purinergic P2X3 receptor, an important mediator of RCC, are promising, though more evidence is needed

The real-time measurement of wear using ultrasonic reflectometry

Ultrasonic reflectometry is commonly used in the fields of non-destructive testing (NDT) for crack detection, wall thickness monitoring and medical imaging. A sound wave is emitted through the material using a piezoelectric transducer. This waveform travels through the host medium at a constant speed and is either partially or fully reflected at an interface. The reflected wave is picked up by the same sensor; the signal is then amplified and digitised. If the speed that sound travels through a host medium is known as well as the time this takes, the thickness of the material can be established using the speed, distance and time relationship. Previous work has concluded that the ultrasonic method is too inaccurate to measure wear due to the errors caused by temperature, vibration and the experimental arrangement. This body of work looks at methods to minimise these errors, particularly the inaccuracies introduced from the change in temperature caused by change of acoustic velocity and the thermal expansion of the material, which can be significant in many applications. Numerous case studies are presented using the technique in both laboratory and industrial environments using low cost retro-fittable sensors and small form electronics

AN EXPLORATION INTO FOOTBALL FANS VIEWS OF ENGLISH FOOTBALL SPONSORSHIP WITH A FOCUS ON THE CONSUMER AWARENESS OF THE SPONSORS'BUSINESS ACTIVITY

ABSTRACT This is a qualitative study that focuses on consumers' perceptions of sponsorship in English professional football. Research objectives look at the level of recall of sponsors within English football; the consumers' awareness of the business activities of the sponsors and the possible pitfalls, including ambush marketing, of being involved in football sponsorship. The relevant background is outlined in the research context, which is followed by a comprehensive literature review. The researcher conducted a thorough interview with a football sponsor, E-on, to ascertain the corporations' motivations and goals. This was followed by ten in depth, semi-structured interviews with football fans, in order to gain an understanding from consumer perspective. The findings are analysed and the results are discussed. A conclusion chapter is followed by a section which addresses the limitations of the study and suggests recommendations for future research

Detection of Creep Damage by Ultrasonics

Creep damage is known to affect the service life of fossil plant components. Nondestructive examination for the detection of such damage is important for assessing the remaining service life of the affected component. Ultrasonic methods have been investigated for use as inservice inspection tools in a project being funded by the Electric Power Research Institute (RP 1865–7). This on-going research has shown that the velocity of sound waves is altered by the material damage (cavitation at grain boundaries). The amount of change in the velocity can be correlated to the amount of damage. Other EPRI projects have developed a methodology to correlate the amount of cavitation to remaining service life of the material. Development of these ultrasonic methods will allow rapid performance of a volumetric examination during a short plant outage to detect the damage and estimate the remaining service life

Cough frequency monitors : can they discriminate patient from environmental coughs?

BACKGROUND: Objective cough frequency measurements are increasingly applied in clinical research. Technological advances enable automated detection and counting of cough events from sound recordings of many hours’ duration. A possible limitation of sound-based cough frequency measurement is the contamination of recordings by environmental coughs (coughs from persons other than the patient). This study aimed to investigate the accuracy of a sound-based cough monitor for detecting and discriminating patient cough from environmental cough. METHODS: As part of a stroke trial (ISRCTN40298220), patients on a hospital ward underwent 15-minute recordings using the Leicester Cough Monitor (LCM), a sound-based cough monitor (‘semi-automated counts’). Participants and other persons in the environment were prompted to cough. An observer present in the room recorded the number of patient and environmental coughs (‘live counts’). LCM counts were also compared against a manual cough count, the most commonly used gold standard to determine accuracy (‘manual sound counts’ from listening to recordings), by a blinded assessor who cross-referenced timed cough events from the respective methods. Data for automated, manual and live cough counts were analyzed using agreement statistics. RESULTS: On sound recordings from five patients, there were 65 patient coughs and 78 environmental coughs (manual counts). Absolute agreement for patient cough count between all three measurement methods (LCM automated, live, and manual sound counts) was high, with intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.94 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.74, 0.99]. The proportion of exact agreements for patient cough between LCM and manual count was 0.92, and kappa was 0.84 (95% CI: 0.75, 0.93). The LCM showed sensitivity of 0.94 (95% CI: 0.84, 0.98), specificity of 0.91 (95% CI: 0.82, 0.96), positive predictive value of 0.90 (95% CI: 0.79, 0.95) and negative predictive value of 0.95 (95% CI: 0.86, 0.98) for detecting patient coughs. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study supports the validity of the cough monitor for detecting and discriminating patient from environmental cough. Further validation is recommended, to describe the level of accuracy with greater precision

The assessment of quality of life in acute cough with the Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ-acute)

INTRODUCTION: Acute cough has a significant impact on physical and psychosocial health and is associated with an impaired quality of life (QOL). The Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) is a validated cough-related health status questionnaire designed for patients with chronic cough. The purpose of this study was to validate the LCQ for the assessment of health related QOL in patients with acute cough and determine the clinical minimal important difference (MID). METHODS: 10 subjects with cough due to acute upper respiratory tract infection underwent focused interviews to investigate the face validity of the LCQ. The LCQ was also evaluated by a multidisciplinary team. 30 subjects completed the revised LCQ-acute and a cough visual analogue score (VAS: 0-100 mm) within one week of onset of cough and again 0.9. There was a significant correlation between LCQ-acute and VAS (ρ = -0.48, p = 0.007). The LCQ-acute and its domains were highly responsive to change; effect sizes 1.7-2.3. The MID for total LCQ and VAS were 2.5 and 13 mm respectively. CONCLUSION: The LCQ-acute is a brief, simple and valid instrument to assess cough specific health related QOL in patients with acute cough. It is a highly responsive tool suggesting that it will be particularly useful to assess the effect of antitussive therapy

Inspection of Refinery Vessels for Hydrogen Attack Using Ultrasonic Techniques

Hydrogen attack is a damage mechanism occurring in steels exposed to high pressure hydrogen at elevated temperatures. Under such conditions, hydrogen atoms diffuse into steels and react with carbides. The reaction leads to formation of methane and, subsequently, intergranular fissuring and losses of material strength and toughness