СВЧ плазмохимическое осаждение структур для высокоапертурных планарных оптических волноводов

Представлены результаты разработки технологии и исследования оптических характеристик высокоапертурных ПОВ на основе SiO₂-F | SiO₂ | SiO₂-F-структур, формируемых в плазме СВЧ-разряда

The lady vanishes: what's missing from the stem cell debate

Most opponents of somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or potential human being in order to produce stem cell lines. Proponents’ justifications of stem cell research are more varied, but not enough to escape the charge of obsession with the status of the embryo. What unites the two warring sides in ‘the stem cell wars’ is that women are equally invisible to both: ‘the lady vanishes’. Yet the only legitimate property in the body is that which women possess in their reproductive tissue and the products of their reproductive labour. By drawing on the accepted characterisation in law of property as a bundle of rights, and on a Hegelian model of contract as mutual recognition, we can lessen the impact of the tendency to regard women and their eggs as merely receptacles and women’s reproductive labour as unimportant

TRH: Pathophysiologic and clinical implications

Thyrotropin releasing hormone is thought to be a tonic stimulator of the pituitary TSH secretion regulating the setpoint of the thyrotrophs to the suppressive effect of thyroid hormones. The peptide stimulates the release of normal and elevated prolactin. ACTH and GH may increase in response to exogenous TRH in pituitary ACTH and GH hypersecretion syndromes and in some extrapituitary diseases. The pathophysiological implications of extrahypothalamic TRH in humans are essentially unknown. The TSH response to TRH is nowadays widely used as a diganostic amplifier in thyroid diseases being suppressed in borderline and overt hyperthyroid states and increased in primary thyroid failure. In hypothyroid states of hypothalamic origin, TSH increases in response to exogenous TRH often with a delayed and/or exaggerated time course. But in patients with pituitary tumors and suprasellar extension TSH may also respond to TRH despite secondary hypothyroidism. This TSH increase may indicate a suprasellar cause for the secondary hypothyroidism, probably due to portal vessel occlusion. The TSH released in these cases is shown to be biologically inactive

Nucleosynthesis Calculations for the Ejecta of Neutron Star Coalescences

We present the results of fully dynamical r-process network calculations for the ejecta of neutron star mergers (NSMs). The late stages of the inspiral and the final violent coalescence of a neutron star binary have been calculated in detail using a 3D hydrodynamics code (Newtonian gravity plus backreaction forces emerging from the emission of gravitational waves) and a realistic nuclear equation of state. The found trajectories for the ejecta serve as input for dynamical r-process calculations where all relevant nuclear reactions (including beta-decays depositing nuclear energy in the expanding material) are followed. We find that all the ejected material undergoes r-process. For an initial Ye close to 0.1 the abundance distributions reproduce very accurately the solar r-process pattern for nuclei with A above 130. For lighter nuclei strongly underabundant (as compared to solar) distributions are encountered. We show that this behaviour is consistent with the latest observations of very old, metal-poor stars, despite simplistic arguments that have recently been raised against the possibility of NSM as possible sources of Galactic r-process material.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of Nuclei in the Cosmos 2000, to be published in Nucl. Phys. A; minor correctio

Exact Bayesian curve fitting and signal segmentation.

We consider regression models where the underlying functional relationship between the response and the explanatory variable is modeled as independent linear regressions on disjoint segments. We present an algorithm for perfect simulation from the posterior distribution of such a model, even allowing for an unknown number of segments and an unknown model order for the linear regressions within each segment. The algorithm is simple, can scale well to large data sets, and avoids the problem of diagnosing convergence that is present with Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) approaches to this problem. We demonstrate our algorithm on standard denoising problems, on a piecewise constant AR model, and on a speech segmentation problem

Tricuspid valve myxoma in a patient with congestive heart failure

Myxomas are the most frequent benign primary cardiac tumours (50% of benign heart tumours). This kind of tumour is most likely to be localized in the left atrium, followed by the right atrium, right ventricle and left ventricle. Quite exceptional is the presence of a myxoma originating from the tricuspid valve or from the Eustachian valve. We describe the case of a woman with moderate dyspnoea of unknown origin and the presence of tricuspid myxoma who underwent tricuspid valve curettage

Meaningful informed consent with young children: looking forward through an interactive narrative approach

Ideas about ethical research with young children are evolving at a rapid rate. Not only can young children participate in the informed consent process, but researchers now also recognize that the process must be meaningful for them. As part of a larger study, this article reviews children's rights and informed consent literature as the foundation for the development of a new conceptual model of meaningful early childhood informed consent. Based on this model, an ‘interactive narrative’ approach is presented as a means to inform three- to eight-year-old children about what their participation might involve and to assist them to understand and respond as research participants. For use with small groups, this approach revolves around a storybook based on research-related factual images delivered via interactive (re)telling. This narrative approach to informed consent is unique in its holistic design which seeks to address the specific needs of young children in research

Pneumococcal carriage in sub-Saharan Africa--a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Pneumococcal epidemiology varies geographically and few data are available from the African continent. We assess pneumococcal carriage from studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa (sSA) before and after the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) era. METHODS: A search for pneumococcal carriage studies published before 2012 was conducted to describe carriage in sSA. The review also describes pneumococcal serotypes and assesses the impact of vaccination on carriage in this region. RESULTS: Fifty-seven studies were included in this review with the majority (40.3%) from South Africa. There was considerable variability in the prevalence of carriage between studies (I-squared statistic = 99%). Carriage was higher in children and decreased with increasing age, 63.2% (95% CI: 55.6-70.8) in children less than 5 years, 42.6% (95% CI: 29.9-55.4) in children 5-15 years and 28.0% (95% CI: 19.0-37.0) in adults older than 15 years. There was no difference in the prevalence of carriage between males and females in 9/11 studies. Serotypes 19F, 6B, 6A, 14 and 23F were the five most common isolates. A meta-analysis of four randomized trials of PCV vaccination in children aged 9-24 months showed that carriage of vaccine type (VT) serotypes decreased with PCV vaccination; however, overall carriage remained the same because of a concomitant increase in non-vaccine type (NVT) serotypes. CONCLUSION: Pneumococcal carriage is generally high in the African continent, particularly in young children. The five most common serotypes in sSA are among the top seven serotypes that cause invasive pneumococcal disease in children globally. These serotypes are covered by the two PCVs recommended for routine childhood immunization by the WHO. The distribution of serotypes found in the nasopharynx is altered by PCV vaccination