Vitrectomy, Inner Limiting Membrane Peel, and Gas Tamponade in the Management of Traumatic Paediatric Macular Holes: A Case Series of 13 Patients

Purpose: To review the outcomes of pars plana vitrectomy, internal limiting membrane (ILM) peel, and gas tamponade in the management of traumatic paediatric macular holes. Methods: Retrospective case series of children undergoing vitrectomy, ILM peel, and gas tamponade for traumatic macular hole between March 2007 and July 2014. Main outcome measures were postoperative visual acuity at 3 and 12 months, anatomic closure rate, and surgical complications. Results: Anatomic macular hole closure was achieved in 12 (92.3%) of 13 cases. Mean preoperative logMAR visual acuity was 0.91 (95% CI 0.65-1.17) with improvement postoperatively to 0.54 (95% CI 0.43-0.64) at 3 months (p = 0.002) and 0.50 (95% CI 0.39-0.60) at 12 months (p = 0.002). There were no perioperative complications. Conclusion: Pars plana vitrectomy and ILM peel is an effective management option for paediatric macular holes

Sensitivity analysis of school parameters to compare schools from different surveys: a review of the standardisation task of the EC-FAIR programme CLUSTER

Echo traces seen on echo grams contain a lot of information about the aggregation of fish in schools. But the acosutic image obtained with a vertical biomass assessment echosounder contains distorsions mainly due to the beam angle, the equipment settings and the school depth. When the acoustic image of aggregation patterns changes over the years or varies between stocks, it is important to know up to what extent biological interpretation is meaningful!. The present paper reviews the work performed by a group of scientist within the EC FAIR programme CLUSTER. Simulations were performed to correct school parameters. Digital data were replayed to assess the importance of these corrections. Charts were derived to limit biological interpretation of changes on the school acoustic images

Planet formation in Binaries

Spurred by the discovery of numerous exoplanets in multiple systems, binaries have become in recent years one of the main topics in planet formation research. Numerous studies have investigated to what extent the presence of a stellar companion can affect the planet formation process. Such studies have implications that can reach beyond the sole context of binaries, as they allow to test certain aspects of the planet formation scenario by submitting them to extreme environments. We review here the current understanding on this complex problem. We show in particular how each of the different stages of the planet-formation process is affected differently by binary perturbations. We focus especially on the intermediate stage of kilometre-sized planetesimal accretion, which has proven to be the most sensitive to binarity and for which the presence of some exoplanets observed in tight binaries is difficult to explain by in-situ formation following the "standard" planet-formation scenario. Some tentative solutions to this apparent paradox are presented. The last part of our review presents a thorough description of the problem of planet habitability, for which the binary environment creates a complex situation because of the presence of two irradation sources of varying distance.Comment: Review chapter to appear in "Planetary Exploration and Science: Recent Advances and Applications", eds. S. Jin, N. Haghighipour, W.-H. Ip, Springer (v2, numerous typos corrected

Quantifying the Influence of Jupiter on the Earth's Orbital Cycles

A wealth of Earth-sized exoplanets will be discovered in the coming years, proving a large pool of candidates from which the targets for the search for life beyond the Solar system will be chosen. The target selection process will require the leveraging of all available information in order to maximise the robustness of the target list and make the most productive use of follow-up resources. Here, we present the results of a suite of $n$-body simulations that demonstrate the degree to which the orbital architecture of the Solar system impacts the variability of Earth's orbital elements. By varying the orbit of Jupiter and keeping the initial orbits of the other planets constant, we demonstrate how subtle changes in Solar system architecture could alter the Earth's orbital evolution -- a key factor in the Milankovitch cycles that alter the amount and distribution of solar insolation, thereby driving periodic climate change on our planet. The amplitudes and frequencies of Earth's modern orbital cycles fall in the middle of the range seen in our runs for all parameters considered -- neither unusually fast nor slow, nor large nor small. This finding runs counter to the `Rare Earth' hypothesis, which suggests that conditions on Earth are so unusual that life elsewhere is essentially impossible. Our results highlight how dynamical simulations of newly discovered exoplanetary systems could be used as an additional means to assess the potential targets of biosignature searches, and thereby help focus the search for life to the most promising targets.Comment: 19 pages; 11 figures; accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal Version 2 - incorporates typo corrections and minor changes noted at the proofing stage, after acceptanc

The effectiveness of various interventions versus standard stripping in patients with varicose veins in terms of quality of life

Purpose: Lower limb varicose veins have a significant effect upon the quality of life and a considerable socioeconomic impact despite their relatively benign nature. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of various therapeutic strategies among patients with varicose veins to surgical ligation and vein stripping on the basis of quality of life. Methods: PubMed/Medline and Scopus databases were systemically searched from 1 January 2000 until 23 December 2015 for studies reporting outcome on the quality of life of different treatment techniques for varicose veins. We used Cohen’s d to make the outcomes of the reported scales comparable. Heterogeneity was calculated with the use of the Q statistic and the I2. Results: A total of 1047 participants were randomized across all analyzed trials. The number of participants in a single trial ranged from 30 to 308. The majority of participants in any trial were C2 on the CEAP scores. Overall, the quality of evidence was low. For the meta-analysis performed at 12 months postintervention (seven studies, n = 1047 patients) and after random effects meta-analyses due to high heterogeneity, no differences are observed between intervention and surgical ligation and vein stripping. The pooled estimate is −0.001 and the 95% confidence interval is −0.069 to 0.067 with a p = 0.98. In the case of the 24 months, postintervention analysis (six studies, n = 840 patients) the inference is almost identical. The effect of various interventional modes of treatment compared to surgical ligation and vein stripping is negligible in terms of clinical outcomes and quality of life so that surgical ligation and vein stripping versus the other interventional procedures were equally effective approaches to treat great saphenous vein incompetence in terms of quality of life measurements. Conclusion: The procedures were at least equally efficient in treating patients with varicose vein disease in terms of quality of life assessment tools at 12 and 24 months compared to surgical ligation and vein stripping. © The Author(s) 2017