Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Emerging Treatments – with Advice from Dr. Ajay Kuriyan on Balancing Research with Clinical Responsibilities

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic disease of the central retina and a leading cause of vision loss worldwide. Although the early stages of AMD may present asymptomatically, the disease may progress and lead to severe visual impairment via geographic atrophy (“late dry”) or neovascular (“wet”) AMD. In geographic atrophy (GA), there is progressive atrophy of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), choriocapillaris, and photoreceptors due to lipofuscin (Drusen) accumulation between the RPE and Bruch’s membrane.1 These Drusen deposits grow and create an inflammatory and metabolically dysfunctional environment for the photoreceptors supplying the macula (Figure 1).2 Eventually, the photoreceptors die off, and central vision is lost. In the wet form of AMD, choroidal neovascularization occurs, which leaks blood, fluid, and lipids leading to fibrous scarring and loss of vision (Figure 2).

Trust and Experience in Online Auctions

This paper aims to shed light on the complexities and difficulties in predicting the effects of trust and the experience of online auction participants on bid levels in online auctions. To provide some insights into learning by bidders, a field study was conducted first to examine auction and bidder characteristics from eBay auctions of rare coins. We proposed that such learning is partly because of institutional-based trust. Data were then gathered from 453 participants in an online experiment and survey, and a structural equation model was used to analyze the results. This paper reveals that experience has a nonmonotonic effect on the levels of online auction bids. Contrary to previous research on traditional auctions, as online auction bidders gain more experience, their level of institutional-based trust increases and leads to higher bid levels. Data also show that both a bidder’s selling and bidding experiences increase bid levels, with the selling experience having a somewhat stronger effect. This paper offers an in-depth study that examines the effects of experience and learning and bid levels in online auctions. We postulate this learning is because of institutional-based trust. Although personal trust in sellers has received a significant amount of research attention, this paper addresses an important gap in the literature by focusing on institutional-based trust

Roscoe Reid Graham (1890 to 1948): a Canadian pioneer in general surgery.

Roscoe Reid Graham, a Canadian surgeon trained at the University of Toronto, was a true pioneer in the field of general surgery. Although he may be best known for his omental patch repair of perforated duodenal ulcers-often referred to as the Graham patch -he had a number of other significant accomplishments that decorated his surgical career. Dr. Graham is credited with being the first surgeon to successfully enucleate an insulinoma. He ventured to do an essentially brand new operation based solely on his patient\u27s symptoms and physical findings, a courageous move that even some of the most talented surgeons would shy away from. He also spent a large portion of his career dedicated to the study of rectal prolapse, working tirelessly to rid his patients of this awful affliction. He was recognized by a number of different surgical associations for his operative successes and was awarded membership to those both in Canada and the United States. Despite all of these accolades, Dr. Graham remained grounded and always fervent in his dedication to the patient and their presenting symptom(s), reminding us that to do anything more would be meddlesome. In an age when medical professionals are often all too eager to make unnecessary interventions, it is imperative that we look back at our predecessors such as Roscoe Reid Graham, for they will continually redirect us toward our one and only obligation: the patient

Mary H. Gibbon: teamwork of the heart.

Mary Maly Hopkinson Gibbon was born on September 25, 1903, to an affluent New England family who encouraged her to embrace her intelligence and to follow that by which she was intrigued. In doing this, Maly pursued work in scientific research, where she ultimately met her first husband, Dr. John ‘‘Jack’’ H. Gibbon. Jack and Maly were partners in every sense of the word. Their collaboration, both within and beyond the walls of the research laboratory, made it possible for the Gibbon dream of the heart–lung machine to be realized

Case Report: A patient with severe peritonitis

No Abstrac

Revisiting Deniability in Quantum Key Exchange via Covert Communication and Entanglement Distillation

We revisit the notion of deniability in quantum key exchange (QKE), a topic that remains largely unexplored. In the only work on this subject by Donald Beaver, it is argued that QKE is not necessarily deniable due to an eavesdropping attack that limits key equivocation. We provide more insight into the nature of this attack and how it extends to other constructions such as QKE obtained from uncloneable encryption. We then adopt the framework for quantum authenticated key exchange, developed by Mosca et al., and extend it to introduce the notion of coercer-deniable QKE, formalized in terms of the indistinguishability of real and fake coercer views. Next, we apply results from a recent work by Arrazola and Scarani on covert quantum communication to establish a connection between covert QKE and deniability. We propose DC-QKE, a simple deniable covert QKE protocol, and prove its deniability via a reduction to the security of covert QKE. Finally, we consider how entanglement distillation can be used to enable information-theoretically deniable protocols for QKE and tasks beyond key exchange.Comment: 16 pages, published in the proceedings of NordSec 201

Un outil simple de projection démographique pour estimer la productivité d'un cheptel : application à un cheptel bovin de la zone cotonnière au Mali-Sud

International audienceL'article présente une interface développée sous forme de feuilles de tableur, appelée Dynmod (http://livtools.cirad.fr), permettant de réaliser des projections démographiques de cheptel de ruminants et d'estimer leur productivité. Après la présentation de quelques concepts de base, l'article illustre l'utilisation de l'outil par une analyse de sensibilité sur la productivité numérique du cheptel bovin de la zone cotonnière au Mali-Sud

Validation of New Process Models for Large Injection-Molded Long-Fiber Thermoplastic Composite Structures

This report describes the work conducted under the CRADA Nr. PNNL/304 between Battelle PNNL and Autodesk whose objective is to validate the new process models developed under the previous CRADA for large injection-molded LFT composite structures. To this end, the ARD-RSC and fiber length attrition models implemented in the 2013 research version of Moldflow was used to simulate the injection molding of 600-mm x 600-mm x 3-mm plaques from 40% glass/polypropylene (Dow Chemical DLGF9411.00) and 40% glass/polyamide 6,6 (DuPont Zytel 75LG40HSL BK031) materials. The injection molding was performed by Injection Technologies, Inc. at Windsor, Ontario (under a subcontract by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL) using the mold offered by the Automotive Composite Consortium (ACC). Two fill speeds under the same back pressure were used to produce plaques under slow-fill and fast-fill conditions. Also, two gating options were used to achieve the following desired flow patterns: flows in edge-gated plaques and in center-gated plaques. After molding, ORNL performed measurements of fiber orientation and length distributions for process model validations. The structure of this report is as follows. After the Introduction (Section 1), Section 2 provides a summary of the ARD-RSC and fiber length attrition models. A summary of model implementations in the latest research version of Moldflow is given in Section 3. Section 4 provides the key processing conditions and parameters for molding of the ACC plaques. The validations of the ARD-RSC and fiber length attrition models are presented and discussed in Section 5. The conclusions will be drawn in Section 6