Revealing Large-Scale Homogeneity and Trace Impurity Sensitivity of GaAs Nanoscale Membranes

III-V nanosttuctures have the potential to revolutionize optoelectronics and energy harvesting. For this to become a reality, critical issues such as reproducibility and sensitivity to defects should be resolved. By discussing the optical properties of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown GaAs nanomembranes we highlight several features that bring them closer to large scale applications. Uncapped membranes exhibit A very high optical quality, expressed by extremely narrow neutral exciton emission, allowing. the-resolution of the more complex excitonic structure for the first time. Capping of the membranes With an AlGaAs :shell results in a strong increase of emission intensity but-ars in a shift and broadening of the exciton peak. This is attributed to,the existence of impurities in the shell, beyond MBE grade quality, showing the high. sensitivity. of these structures to the presence of impurities. Finally,: emission properties are identical at the snbinicron and sulpmillimeter scale, demonstrating the potential of these: structures for large scale applications.LMS

A dataset of acoustic measurements from soundscapes collected worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic

Political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in city soundscapes around the globe. From March to October 2020, a consortium of 261 contributors from 35 countries brought together by the Silent Cities project built a unique soundscape recordings collection to report on local acoustic changes in urban areas. We present this collection here, along with metadata including observational descriptions of the local areas from the contributors, open-source environmental data, open-source confinement levels and calculation of acoustic descriptors. We performed a technical validation of the dataset using statistical models run on a subset of manually annotated soundscapes. Results confirmed the large-scale usability of ecoacoustic indices and automatic sound event recognition in the Silent Cities soundscape collection. We expect this dataset to be useful for research in the multidisciplinary field of environmental sciences

Abstract P643: Incidence of Ischemic Stroke Among Migraineurs on Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Inhibitors

Introduction: Migraine is common and often disabling. Recent research has focused on a new class of treatments targeting the pain-signaling molecule calcitonin-gene-related peptide (CGRP). CGRP inhibitors are the first preventive therapies designed specifically for migraine. However, CGRP also induces vasodilation, and plays a role in cerebral blood flow autoregulation. The clinical cerebrovascular effects of long-term blockade of CGRP are not yet known. Methods: We analyzed a retrospective cohort of migraine patients from a large administrative dataset in the United States (OPTUM) that covers patients with commercial insurance and Medicare Advantage, during 2018 and 2019, using ICD-10 codes for all types of migraines. Migraine patients were divided into two groups based on their use of CGRP inhibitors (erenumab, fremanezumab, galcanezumab). We determined the incidence of stroke during 2018 and 2019 among both groups. For the group of migraine patients who used CGRP inhibitors, we focused on the incidence of stroke after these medications were initiated. Results: We identified 646,404 migraine patients; 18, 692 (2.9%) of them had used a CGRP inhibitor. Among the users of CGRP inhibitors, 86% were females, and 58% of patients were in the 41 to 65-year-old range. The average time of follow-up was 197 days after initiation of the medication. A total of 1.3 % of patients who used CGRP inhibitors had an ischemic stroke during the follow-up period versus 2.4% of patients who did not use CGRP inhibitors. The lower rate of stroke in the CGRP antibody group was found in both sexes and all age groups. Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that CGRP inhibitors are not associated with a higher frequency of stroke in the initial months of use. This could be related to the avoidance of these medications in patients with known cardiovascular risk factors. Further analyses will be completed on vascular risk factor incidence in these populations as well as multiple regression. Prospective, long term studies are needed to confirm these results. </jats:p

Are symptoms distinguishable in ovarian cancer? A nested case control study of insurance claims.

6063 Background: Over 60% of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed with Stage III and IV disease. The US healthcare system does not support a standard screening method for ovarian cancer. Our goal was to determine whether certain symptoms based on ICD-9 categories are distinguishable among women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and women without ovarian cancer. Methods: Women diagnosed with ovarian cancer were randomly matched 1:1 to women without cancer to support a nested case-control analysis of health insurance claims between 2008 through 2013 from a commercial payer. The following eligibility criteria were applied: 1) 24 years of age or older; 2) continuously enrolled in healthcare plan for a minimum period of 6 months; 3) experienced more than 1 symptom over the observation period; and 4) an observation period of a minimum of 6 months. Symptoms were based on 47 ICD-9 diagnosis codes and categorized specific to pain, abdominal and pelvic, digestive, and bladder. The analysis was based on 1,578 women (789 cases; 789 controls). Results: Overall, 90% (n = 1,421) of the women experienced abdominal and pelvic symptoms, and 92% (n = 725) of the women with ovarian cancer visited their physician for this complaint 6-70 months prior to diagnosis, OR 1.66 (CI 1.14 to 2.41; p = .008). Pain was reported as a complaint by cases at nearly 60% (n = 464) and controls at 48% (n = 376); OR 1.75 (CI 1.39 to 2.19; p &lt; .001). Symptoms for bladder and digestive combined represented 68% of complaints for both cases (n = 507) and controls (n = 555), p = .024 and p = .298, respectively. Of the 1,578 women, 77% (cases = 621; controls = 595) experienced more than one category of symptoms. Both cases (n = 206) and controls (n = 153) complained of abdomen and pelvic symptoms along with pain; OR 1.54 (CI 1.19 to 1.99; p = .001). A second combination included abdomen and pelvic symptoms with pain and digestive symptoms in 14% of women (cases n = 99; controls n = 67); OR 1.58 (CI 1.13 to 2.22; p = .008). Sixty percent (n = 473) of women with ovarian cancer experienced the majority of associated pre-diagnosed symptoms analyzed for the study. Conclusions: Certain recurring symptoms associated with abdomen and pelvic as well as pain appear to indicate an association with ovarian cancer, signifying that symptom awareness remains relevant to this disease that is diagnosed at a late stage and currently does not have routine screening methods to support early detection. </jats:p