Laser measuring system accurately locates point coordinates on photograph

Laser activated ultraprecision ranging apparatus interfaced with a computer determines point coordinates on a photograph. A helium-neon gas CW laser provides collimated light for a null balancing optical system. This system has no mechanical connection between the ranging apparatus and the photograph

Oral health awareness and care preferences in patients with diabetes : a qualitative study

Background People with type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of oral health problems; however, oral health is currently not included in structured diabetes reviews and education in the UK. Aim and Objectives This study explores the patient experience related to oral health and diabetes, especially in relation to: • Awareness of the link between oral health and diabetes and oral self care needs • Interaction with health professionals in dental and general practice • Preferences for receiving oral health information and education Methods This nested qualitative study involved semi-structured telephone interviews with a purposive sample of 20 participants from a questionnaire study on oral health awareness in patients with diabetes. Interview transcripts were analysed using a thematic framework approach. Results Participants were mostly unaware of the link between oral health and diabetes. Those that had been made aware by a health professional were not given concrete self care advice. Interactions with dental professionals were often limited to informing the dental practice of their diagnosis and current medication. Most participants were in favour of dentists screening for diabetes, but as their general practice was the hub for diabetes care, they felt GPs or nurses should provide oral health information and discuss oral health with patients. Conclusions Written information regarding diabetes and its possible effects on oral health needs to be more readily available to people with diabetes, especially at diagnosis. There may be a place for introducing a structured oral health question in routine diabetes reviews

An overview of plastic optical fiber end finishers at Fermilab

Several years ago the need for equipment to precisely finish the ends of plastic optical fibers was recognized. Many high energy physics experiments use thousands of these fibers which must be polished on one or both ends. A fast, easy-to-operate machine yielding repeatable finishes was needed. Three types of machines were designed and constructed that are in daily use at Fermilab, all finish the fiber ends by flycutting with a diamond tool. Althrough diamond flycutting of plastic is not new, the size and fragility of plastic optical fibers present several challenges

Alcohol homograph priming in alcohol-dependent inpatients

Item does not contain fulltextAim: Alcohol dependency is characterized by alcohol-related interpretation biases (IBs): Individuals with high levels of alcohol consumption generate more alcohol-related than alcohol-unrelated interpretations in response to ambiguous alcohol-related cues. However, a response bias could be an alternative account, meaning that individuals with high levels of alcohol consumption generate more alcohol-related IBs because of a greater baseline tendency to endorse alcohol-related responses. Methods: To test this alternative explanation, the present study employed a homograph-priming task, reliability of which was also examined. The sample included 577 clinically diagnosed alcohol-dependent inpatients and 61 control inpatients. Participants completed a homograph priming task (primes: homographs with and without an alcohol-related meaning, target words: alcohol and soft drinks) before commencing their behavioral cognitive treatment at a rehabilitation clinic. Results: Contrary to our expectations, we did not find an enhanced priming effect in alcohol-dependent inpatients. Moreover, there was no correlation between the priming score and levels of harmful drinking (AUDIT scores). Conclusions: The data provide limited support for the existence of alcohol-related IBs, possibly because of the low reliability of the priming task, the features of the task, and the study’s design.8 p

Measurement of the CMS Magnetic Field

The measurement of the magnetic field in the tracking volume inside the superconducting coil of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector under construction at CERN is done with a fieldmapper designed and produced at Fermilab. The fieldmapper uses 10 3-D B-sensors (Hall probes) developed at NIKHEF and calibrated at CERN to precision 0.05% for a nominal 4 T field. The precise fieldmapper measurements are done in 33840 points inside a cylinder of 1.724 m radius and 7 m long at central fields of 2, 3, 3.5, 3.8, and 4 T. Three components of the magnetic flux density at the CMS coil maximum excitation and the remanent fields on the steel-air interface after discharge of the coil are measured in check-points with 95 3-D B-sensors located near the magnetic flux return yoke elements. Voltages induced in 22 flux-loops made of 405-turn installed on selected segments of the yoke are sampled online during the entire fast discharge (190 s time-constant) of the CMS coil and integrated offline to provide a measurement of the initial magnetic flux density in steel at the maximum field to an accuracy of a few percent. The results of the measurements made at 4 T are reported and compared with a three-dimensional model of the CMS magnet system calculated with TOSCA.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, 15 reference

Effects of depressive symptoms and peripheral DAT methylation on neural reactivity to alcohol cues in alcoholism

In alcohol-dependent (AD) patients, alcohol cues induce strong activations in brain areas associated with alcohol craving and relapse, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and amygdala. However, little is known about the influence of depressive symptoms, which are common in AD patients, on the brain’s reactivity to alcohol cues. The methylation state of the dopamine transporter gene (DAT) has been associated with alcohol dependence, craving and depression, but its influence on neural alcohol cue reactivity has not been tested. Here, we compared brain reactivity to alcohol cues in 38 AD patients and 17 healthy controls (HCs) using functional magnetic resonance imaging and assessed the influence of depressive symptoms and peripheral DAT methylation in these responses. We show that alcoholics with low Beck’s Depression Inventory scores (n=29) had higher cue-induced reactivity in NAc and amygdala than those with mild/moderate depression scores (n=9), though subjective perception of craving was higher in those with mild/moderate depression scores. We corroborated a higher DAT methylation in AD patients than HCs, and showed higher DAT methylation in AD patients with mild/moderate than low depression scores. Within the AD cohort, higher methylation predicted craving and, at trend level (P=0.095), relapse 1 year after abstinence. Finally, we show that amygdala cue reactivity correlated with craving and DAT methylation only in AD patients with low depression scores. These findings suggest that depressive symptoms and DAT methylation are associated with alcohol craving and associated brain processes in alcohol dependence, which may have important consequences for treatment. Moreover, peripheral DAT methylation may be a clinically relevant biomarker in AD patients

Macroscopic nucleation phenomena in continuum media with long-range interactions

Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a microscopic process (at most nano-meter), implying the formation of a microscopic nucleus of the stable phase. Here we show for the first time, that considering long-range interactions mediated by elastic distortions, nucleation can be a macroscopic process, with the size of the critical nucleus proportional to the total system size. This provides a new concept of "macroscopic barrier-crossing nucleation". We demonstrate the effect in molecular dynamics simulations of a model spin-crossover system with two molecular states of different sizes, causing elastic distortions.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/scientificreport

Involving people with diabetes and the wider community in diabetes research: a realist review protocol.

BACKGROUND: Patient and public involvement in diabetes research is now actively encouraged in different countries because it is believed that involving people with experience of the condition will improve the quality and relevance of the research. However, reviews of patient involvement have noted that inadequate resources, patients' and communities' lack of research knowledge, and researchers' lack of skills to involve patients and communities in research may present significant contextual barriers. Little is known about the extent of patient/community involvement in designing or delivering interventions for people with diabetes. A realist review of involvement will contribute to assessing when, how and why involvement works, or does not work, to produce better diabetes interventions. METHODS/DESIGN: This protocol outlines the process for conducting a realist review to map how patients and the public have been involved in diabetes research to date. The review questions ask the following: How have people with diabetes and the wider community been involved in diabetes research? What are the characteristics of the process that appear to explain the relative success or failure of involvement? How has involvement (or lack of involvement) in diabetes research influenced the development and conduct of diabetes research? The degree of support in the surrounding context will be assessed alongside the ways in which people interact in different settings to identify patterns of interaction between context, mechanisms and outcomes in different research projects. The level and extent of the involvement will be described for each stage of the research project. The descriptions will be critically reviewed by the people with diabetes on our review team. In addition, researchers and patients in diabetes research will be asked to comment. Information from researcher-patient experiences and documents will be compared to theories of involvement across a range of disciplines to create a mid-range theory describing how involvement (or lack of involvement) in diabetes research influences the development and conduct of diabetes research