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Does strabismus surgery improve quality and mood, and what factors influence this?
Aims
To establish the impact of adult strabismus surgery on clinical and psychosocial well-being and determine who experiences the greatest benefit from surgery and how one could intervene to improve quality of life post-surgery.
Methods
A longitudinal study, with measurements taken pre-surgery and at 3 and 6 months post-surgery. All participants completed the AS-20 a disease specific quality of life scale, along with measures of mood, strabismus and appearance-related beliefs and cognitions and perceived social support. Participants also underwent a full orthoptic assessment at their preoperative visit and again 3 months postoperatively. Clinical outcomes of surgery were classified as success, partial success or failure, using the largest angle of deviation, diplopia and requirement for further therapy.
Results
210 participants took part in the study. Strabismus surgery led to statistically significant improvements in psychosocial and functional quality of life. Those whose surgery was deemed a partial success did however experience a deterioration in quality of life. A combination of clinical variables, high expectations, and negative beliefs about the illness and appearance pre-surgery were significant predictors of change in quality of life from pre- to post-surgery.
Conclusions
Strabismus surgery leads to significant improvements in quality of life up to 6 months postoperatively. There are however a group of patients who do not experience these benefits. A series of clinical and psychosocial factors have now been identified, which will enable clinicians to identify patients who may be vulnerable to poorer outcomes post-surgery and allow for the development of interventions to improve quality of life after surgery
The Void Galaxy Survey
The Void Galaxy Survey (VGS) is a multi-wavelength program to study 60
void galaxies. Each has been selected from the deepest interior regions of
identified voids in the SDSS redshift survey on the basis of a unique geometric
technique, with no a prior selection of intrinsic properties of the void
galaxies. The project intends to study in detail the gas content, star
formation history and stellar content, as well as kinematics and dynamics of
void galaxies and their companions in a broad sample of void environments. It
involves the HI imaging of the gas distribution in each of the VGS galaxies.
Amongst its most tantalizing findings is the possible evidence for cold gas
accretion in some of the most interesting objects, amongst which are a polar
ring galaxy and a filamentary configuration of void galaxies. Here we shortly
describe the scope of the VGS and the results of the full analysis of the pilot
sample of 15 void galaxies.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. This is an extended version of a paper to appear
in "Environment and the Formation of Galaxies: 30 years later", Proceedings
of Symposium 2 of JENAM 2010, eds. I. Ferreras, A. Pasquali, ASSP, Springer.
Version with highres figures at
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~weygaert/vgs_jenam_weygaert.col.pd
Moisture transport by Atlantic tropical cyclones onto the North American continent
Tropical Cyclones (TCs) are an important source of freshwater for the North American continent. Many studies have tried to estimate this contribution by identifying TC-induced precipitation events, but few have explicitly diagnosed the moisture fluxes across continental boundaries. We design a set of attribution schemes to isolate the column-integrated moisture fluxes that are directly associated with TCs and to quantify the flux onto the North American Continent due to TCs. Averaged over the 2004â2012 hurricane seasons and integrated over the western, southern and eastern coasts of North America, the seven schemes attribute 7 to 18 % (mean 14 %) of total net onshore flux to Atlantic TCs. A reduced contribution of 10 % (range 9 to 11 %) was found for the 1980â2003 period, though only two schemes could be applied to this earlier period. Over the whole 1980â2012 period, a further 8 % (range 6 to 9 % from two schemes) was attributed to East Pacific TCs, resulting in a total TC contribution of 19 % (range 17 to 22 %) to the ocean-to-land moisture transport onto the North American continent between May and November. Analysis of the attribution uncertainties suggests that incorporating details of individual TC size and shape adds limited value to a fixed radius approach and TC positional errors in the ERA-Interim reanalysis do not affect the results significantly, but biases in peak wind speeds and TC sizes may lead to underestimates of moisture transport. The interannual variability does not appear to be strongly related to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomenon
Re-evaluating early breast neoplasia
Historically, histomorphological and epidemiological data suggested that atypical ductal hyperplasia and ductal carcinoma in situ are the earliest recognizable neoplastic stages of breast cancer progression. Over the past several years, detailed high-throughput molecular genetic, gene expression and epigenetic analyses have enhanced our understanding of these early neoplastic lesions and have re-shaped our view of human breast cancer progression to include multiple distinct pathways of evolution
Genetic Diversity and Population Parameters of Sea Otters, Enhydra lutris, before Fur Trade Extirpation from 1741â1911
All existing sea otter, Enhydra lutris, populations have suffered at least one historic population bottleneck stemming from the fur trade extirpations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We examined genetic variation, gene flow, and population structure at five microsatellite loci in samples from five pre-fur trade populations throughout the sea otter's historical range: California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Russia. We then compared those values to genetic diversity and population structure found within five modern sea otter populations throughout their current range: California, Prince William Sound, Amchitka Island, Southeast Alaska and Washington. We found twice the genetic diversity in the pre-fur trade populations when compared to modern sea otters, a level of diversity that was similar to levels that are found in other mammal populations that have not experienced population bottlenecks. Even with the significant loss in genetic diversity modern sea otters have retained historical structure. There was greater gene flow before extirpation than that found among modern sea otter populations but the difference was not statistically significant. The most dramatic effect of pre fur trade population extirpation was the loss of genetic diversity. For long term conservation of these populations increasing gene flow and the maintenance of remnant genetic diversity should be encouraged
New insights into the classification and nomenclature of cortical GABAergic interneurons.
A systematic classification and accepted nomenclature of neuron types is much needed but is currently lacking. This article describes a possible taxonomical solution for classifying GABAergic interneurons of the cerebral cortex based on a novel, web-based interactive system that allows experts to classify neurons with pre-determined criteria. Using Bayesian analysis and clustering algorithms on the resulting data, we investigated the suitability of several anatomical terms and neuron names for cortical GABAergic interneurons. Moreover, we show that supervised classification models could automatically categorize interneurons in agreement with experts' assignments. These results demonstrate a practical and objective approach to the naming, characterization and classification of neurons based on community consensus
SingleâColumn Model Simulations of Subtropical Marine BoundaryâLayer Cloud Transitions Under Weakening Inversions
Results are presented of the GASS/EUCLIPSE singleâcolumn model intercomparison study on the subtropical marine lowâlevel cloud transition. A central goal is to establish the performance of stateâofâtheâart boundaryâlayer schemes for weather and climate models for this cloud regime, using largeâeddy simulations of the same scenes as a reference. A novelty is that the comparison covers four different cases instead of one, in order to broaden the covered parameter space. Three cases are situated in the NorthâEastern Pacific, while one reflects conditions in the NorthâEastern Atlantic. A set of variables is considered that reflects key aspects of the transition process, making use of simple metrics to establish the model performance. Using this method, some longstanding problems in lowâlevel cloud representation are identified. Considerable spread exists among models concerning the cloud amount, its vertical structure, and the associated impact on radiative transfer. The sign and amplitude of these biases differ somewhat per case, depending on how far the transition has progressed. After cloud breakup the ensemble median exhibits the wellâknown âtoo few too brightâ problem. The boundaryâlayer deepening rate and its state of decoupling are both underestimated, while the representation of the thin capping cloud layer appears complicated by a lack of vertical resolution. Encouragingly, some models are successful in representing the full set of variables, in particular, the vertical structure and diurnal cycle of the cloud layer in transition. An intriguing result is that the median of the model ensemble performs best, inspiring a new approach in subgrid parameterization
Phenomenology of Light Sneutrino Dark Matter in cMSSM/mSUGRA with Inverse Seesaw
We study the possibility of a light Dark Matter (DM) within a constrained
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (cMSSM) framework augmented by a SM
singlet-pair sector to account for the non-zero neutrino masses by inverse
seesaw mechanism. Working within a 'hybrid' scenario with the MSSM sector fixed
at high scale and the singlet neutrino sector at low scale, we find that,
contrary to the case of the usual cMSSM where the neutralino DM cannot be very
light, we can have a light sneutrino DM with mass below 100 GeV satisfying all
the current experimental constraints from cosmology, collider as well as
low-energy experiments. We also note that the supersymmetric inverse seesaw
mechanism with sneutrino as the lightest supersymmetric partner can have
enhanced same-sign dilepton final states with large missing transverse energy
(mET) coming from the gluino- and squark-pair as well as the squark-gluino
associated productions and their cascade decay through charginos. We present a
collider study for the same-sign dilepton+jets+mET signal in this scenario and
propose some distinctions with the usual cMSSM. We also comment on the
implications of such a light DM scenario on the invisible decay width of an 125
GeV Higgs boson.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 7 tables; matches published versio
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