A Frequency-Reconfigurable Antenna With 1-mm Nonground Portion for Metal Frame and Full-Display Screen Handset Applications Using Mode Control Method

A frequency-reconfigurable antenna featuring four integrated switches for metal-frame and full-display screen handset applications is proposed in this paper. To achieve full-display aesthetics, the nonground portion of the proposed antenna is reduced to only 1 mm, making it impossible to formulate additional parasitic strips to enhance the bandwidth and radiation efficiency of the antenna. Four switches are employed in conjunction with the devised antenna to excite five resonant modes using the mode control method (MCM) to operate from 699 to 960 MHz and from 1710 to 2690 MHz. The proposed antenna is designed by employing several peripheral metallic components, such as steel sheet, USB, speaker box, and full-display screen into consideration, which enables the overall structure to be much closer to a practical smartphone environment. A prototype was fabricated and measured. The experimental results confirm that the proposed antenna features radiation efficiency from 30% to 55% for metal-frame and full-display screen handset applications.11Ysciescopu

Clinical Outcomes of a Hospital-Based Teleophthalmology Service: What Happens to Patients in a Virtual Clinic?

PURPOSE: Demographic changes as well as increasing referral rates from national screening services put pressure on available ophthalmologic resources in the United Kingdom. To improve resource allocation, virtual medical retina clinics were introduced in 2016 in Moorfields Eye Hospital, South Division. The scope of this work was to assess clinical outcomes of patients followed up in a virtual clinic setting. DESIGN: Retrospective database study. PARTICIPANTS: Patients booked for a consecutive appointment in our virtual medical retina clinic. METHODS: Seven hundred twenty-eight patients booked for their second virtual clinic appointment in a tertiary eye care referral center between November 2016 and July 2018 were identified retrospectively from our electronic health records and patient administration systems. Information about disease grade and clinical and visual outcomes was assessed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical outcome of the virtual clinic visit, including virtual follow-up, urgent referral to face-to-face clinic, or discharge. RESULTS: Seven hundred twelve of 728 patients received a clinical outcome. Four hundred ninety-seven patients (70%) were eligible for further virtual follow-up after the second virtual clinic visit, whereas 15% each (107 and 108 patients) were either discharged or referred to a face-to-face clinic. In total, 661 patients attended their appointments in person and were reviewed by trained staff. Seventeen patients were referred for urgent treatment and 8 patients were not suitable for virtual follow-up. In 542 (82%) of all patients, diabetic retinopathy was the most common diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: This study reports clinical outcomes of a virtual model of care for medical retina clinics that imply safety of patient care in this clinic setting. This clinic format optimizes the use of already available resources and increases the skills of our existing workforce while maintaining high-quality clinical standards

Can oral infection be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a scourge of longevity that will drain enormous resources from public health budgets in the future. Currently, there is no diagnostic biomarker and/or treatment for this most common form of dementia in humans. AD can be of early familial-onset or sporadic with a late-onset. Apart from the two main hallmarks, amyloid-beta and neurofibrillary tangles, inflammation is a characteristic feature of AD neuropathology. Inflammation may be caused by a local central nervous system insult and/or by peripheral infections. Numerous microorganisms are suspected in AD brains ranging from bacteria (mainly oral and non-oral Treponema species), viruses (Herpes simplex type I) and yeasts (Candida species). A causal relationship between periodontal pathogens/non-oral Treponema species of bacteria has been proposed via the amyloid-beta and inflammatory links. Periodontitis constitutes a peripheral oral infection that can provide the brain with intact bacteria and virulence factors and inflammatory mediators due to daily, transient bacteraemias. If and when genetic risk factors meet environmental risk factors in the brain, disease is expressed, in which neurocognition may be impacted, leading to the development of dementia. To achieve the goal of finding a diagnostic biomarker and possible prophylactic treatment for AD, there is an initial need to solve the etiological puzzle contributing to its pathogenesis. This review therefore addresses oral infection as the plausible aetiology of late onset AD (LOAD)

T145 Comprehensive flow cytometry tracking of regulatory T cells and other lymphocyte subsets during HD IL-2 therapy for melanoma

High dose IL-2 (HD IL-2) has been extensively used as an immunotherapy against metastatic melanoma However, why HD IL-2 is effective only in a subset of patients and whether predictive biomarkers, before or early during the course of therapy, can be used to improve response rates remain unresolved. In addition, it has been found that IL-2 therapy potently expands CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T-regulatory cells (Tregs) but how Treg cell levels, phenotype, and function change and whether specific subsets of Tregs are activated and expanded during HD IL-2 therapy is remain unclear. In this study, we performed comprehensive multi-parameter FACS analysis of patient blood before and two days after the last bolus of IL-2 infusion during cycle 1 of HD IL-2 therapy. Two lymphocyte subsets were found to expand the most during the first cycle of IL-2 therapy: CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ Tregs expressing an activation marker, inducible costimulator (ICOS), and CD3-CD56hiCD16loPerforin+ NK cells. ICOS+ Tregs expressed significantly higher levels of CD25, Foxp3 and had a more activated phenotype than ICOS− Tregs as indicated by lower levels of CD45RA and CD127 expression. Further phenotypic characterization revealed a more suppressive phenotype on ICOS+ Treg with higher expression levels of CD39, CD73, and TGF-β/LAP than ICOS− Treg. ICOS+ Tregs were also the predominant Treg cells that secreted IL-10 and have potent T-cell suppressor function. Majority of ICOS+ Tregs from HD IL-2-treated patients were Ki67+ and exhibited an enhanced proliferative response to IL-2 ex vivo relative to ICOS− Tregs. Functional analysis revealed that ICOS+ Tregs secreted little IFN- and IL-2 in comparison to CD4+Foxp3 – cells. Furthermore, analysis on 38 IL-2-treated patients at MD Anderson, we found that non-responders had a significantly higher degree of ICOS+ Treg expansion than responders during the first cycle of IL-2 therapy, while no significant changes in the ICOS− or bulk Treg population. In conclusion, our data suggests that tracking changes in ICOS+ Tregs early during the course of HD IL-2 therapy may be a new predictive biomarker of clinical outcome

Delocalization and conductance quantization in one-dimensional systems

We investigate the delocalization and conductance quantization in finite one-dimensional chains with only off-diagonal disorder coupled to leads. It is shown that the appearence of delocalized states at the middle of the band under correlated disorder is strongly dependent upon the even-odd parity of the number of sites in the system. In samples with inversion symmetry the conductance equals $2e^{2}/h$ for odd samples, and is smaller for even parity. This result suggests that this even-odd behaviour found previously in the presence of electron correlations may be unrelated to charging effects in the sample.Comment: submitted to PR

Toward a first-principles integrated simulation of tokamak edge plasmas

Performance of the ITER is anticipated to be highly sensitive to the edge plasma condition. The edge pedestal in ITER needs to be predicted from an integrated simulation of the necessary first-principles, multi-scale physics codes. The mission of the SciDAC Fusion Simulation Project (FSP) Prototype Center for Plasma Edge Simulation (CPES) is to deliver such a code integration framework by (1) building new kinetic codes XGC0 and XGC1, which can simulate the edge pedestal buildup; (2) using and improving the existing MHD codes ELITE, M3D-OMP, M3D-MPP and NIMROD, for study of large-scale edge instabilities called Edge Localized Modes (ELMs); and (3) integrating the codes into a framework using cutting-edge computer science technology. Collaborative effort among physics, computer science, and applied mathematics within CPES has created the first working version of the End-to-end Framework for Fusion Integrated Simulation (EFFIS), which can be used to study the pedestal-ELM cycles

Constraining Type Ia supernova models: SN 2011fe as a test case

The nearby supernova SN 2011fe can be observed in unprecedented detail. Therefore, it is an important test case for Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) models, which may bring us closer to understanding the physical nature of these objects. Here, we explore how available and expected future observations of SN 2011fe can be used to constrain SN Ia explosion scenarios. We base our discussion on three-dimensional simulations of a delayed detonation in a Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf and of a violent merger of two white dwarfs-realizations of explosion models appropriate for two of the most widely-discussed progenitor channels that may give rise to SNe Ia. Although both models have their shortcomings in reproducing details of the early and near-maximum spectra of SN 2011fe obtained by the Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory), the overall match with the observations is reasonable. The level of agreement is slightly better for the merger, in particular around maximum, but a clear preference for one model over the other is still not justified. Observations at late epochs, however, hold promise for discriminating the explosion scenarios in a straightforward way, as a nucleosynthesis effect leads to differences in the 55Co production. SN 2011fe is close enough to be followed sufficiently long to study this effect.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letter

Transplantation of canine olfactory ensheathing cells producing chondroitinase ABC promotes chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan digestion and axonal sprouting following spinal cord injury

Olfactory ensheathing cell (OEC) transplantation is a promising strategy for treating spinal cord injury (SCI), as has been demonstrated in experimental SCI models and naturally occurring SCI in dogs. However, the presence of chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans within the extracellular matrix of the glial scar can inhibit efficient axonal repair and limit the therapeutic potential of OECs. Here we have used lentiviral vectors to genetically modify canine OECs to continuously deliver mammalian chondroitinase ABC at the lesion site in order to degrade the inhibitory chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans in a rodent model of spinal cord injury. We demonstrate that these chondroitinase producing canine OECs survived at 4 weeks following transplantation into the spinal cord lesion and effectively digested chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans at the site of injury. There was evidence of sprouting within the corticospinal tract rostral to the lesion and an increase in the number of corticospinal axons caudal to the lesion, suggestive of axonal regeneration. Our results indicate that delivery of the chondroitinase enzyme can be achieved with the genetically modified OECs to increase axon growth following SCI. The combination of these two promising approaches is a potential strategy for promoting neural regeneration following SCI in veterinary practice and human patients

The United Kingdom Diabetic Retinopathy Electronic Medical Record Users Group: Report 3: Baseline Retinopathy and Clinical Features Predict Progression of Diabetic Retinopathy

Purpose To determine the time and risk factors for developing proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and vitreous hemorrhage (VH). Design Multicenter, national cohort study. Methods Anonymized data of 50 254 patient eyes with diabetes mellitus at 19 UK hospital eye services were extracted at the initial and follow-up visits between 2007 and 2014. Time to progression of PDR and VH were calculated with Cox regression after stratifying by baseline diabetic retinopathy (DR) severity and adjusting for age, sex, race, and starting visual acuity. Results Progression to PDR in 5 years differed by baseline DR: no DR (2.2%), mild (13.0%), moderate (27.2%), severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) (45.5%). Similarly, 5-year progression to VH varied by baseline DR: no DR (1.1%), mild (2.9%), moderate (7.3%), severe NPDR (9.8%). Compared with no DR, the patient eyes that presented with mild, moderate, and severe NPDR were 6.71, 14.80, and 28.19 times more likely to develop PDR, respectively. In comparison to no DR, the eyes with mild, moderate, and severe NPDR were 2.56, 5.60, and 7.29 times more likely to develop VH, respectively. In severe NPDR, the eyes with intraretinal microvascular abnormalities (IRMA) had a significantly increased hazard ratio (HR) of developing PDR (HR 1.77, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.25–2.49, P = .0013) compared with those with venous beading, whereas those with 4-quadrant dot-blot hemorrhages (4Q DBH) had 3.84 higher HR of developing VH (95% CI 1.39–10.62, P = .0095). Conclusions Baseline severities and features of initial DR are prognostic for PDR development. IRMA increases risk of PDR whereas 4Q DBH increases risk of VH