The Joint Observation in Neonatology and Neurodevelopmental Outcome of Preterm Infants at Six Months Corrected Age: Secondary Outcome Data from a Randomised Controlled Trial.

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a standardised joint observation (JOIN) performed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) on the neurodevelopment of preterm infants at six months corrected age (CA) compared with a preterm control group. In this monocentric interventional randomised controlled trial, we allocated 76 mothers and their preterm neonates to either JOIN, an early one-session intervention, or standard care during the NICU hospitalisation. The neurodevelopment of the preterm infants was assessed by standardised developmental tests at six months CA and compared between the intervention and the control groups. This randomised controlled trial was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02736136) in April 2016. Sixty-five infants underwent neurodevelopmental assessment at six months CA. There were no significant differences between the two groups in neurodevelopmental outcome measures. The JOIN intervention was not associated with significant improvement in neurodevelopment at six months CA in preterm infants

Transmission through a quantum dot molecule embedded in an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer

We study theoretically the transmission through a quantum dot molecule embedded in the arms of an Aharonov-Bohm four quantum dot ring threaded by a magnetic flux. The tunable molecular coupling provides a transmission pathway between the interferometer arms in addition to those along the arms. From a decomposition of the transmission in terms of contributions from paths, we show that antiresonances in the transmission arise from the interference of the self-energy along different paths and that application of a magnetic flux can produce the suppression of such antiresonances. The occurrence of a period of twice the quantum of flux arises to the opening of transmission pathway through the dot molecule. Two different connections of the device to the leads are considered and their spectra of conductance are compared as a function of the tunable parameters of the model.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Fluorescent nanopigments: Quantitative assessment of their quantum yield

In the last few years, an intense research effort has focused on the synthesis of fluorescent nanopigments for functional inks, light harvesting, tagging, tracing, (bio)labeling, imaging, and lighting applications. Moreover, combined with dielectric matrices, these fluorescent nanoparticles may open the way to the realization of novel optophotonic devices. In particular, due to the large variety of available organic fluorescent dyes, their encapsulation into either an inorganic or an organic host is a very promising approach to synthesize a large palette of new fluorescent nanopigments. However, since the dye encapsulation may affect the fluorescence efficiency, measuring the quantum yield of fluorescent nanopigments is of paramount importance for the development of any connected application. In this article, we present a diffuse reflectance (DR) technique that enables the quantitative assessment of the quantum yield of fluorescent nanoparticles such as zeolite L nanocrystals and poly(methyl methacrylate) nanospheres both loaded with fluorescent perylene molecules. Our method is validated by measuring a well known fluorescence standard and by comparing the results obtained for a model zeolite nanopigment with those provided by an alternative DR technique. Reliable and reproducible quantum yield values are obtained for both low- and high-efficiency fluorescent nanoparticles. Our technique can thus enable systematic and quantitative studies that may yield an important insight in the mechanisms affecting the fluorescence efficiency of a large variety of nanopigments

Descripción y evaluación de un método-de tratamiento con colchicina en híbridos de trigo (Triticum aestivum L.) por centeno(Secale cereale L.)

Se describe y evalúa un método de tratamiento con colchicina denominado "Método de Inyección en Macollas", para la duplicación del número de cromosomas en híbridos de trigo (Triticum aestivum L.) por centeno ( Secale cereale L.). Se efectuaron a mano las emasculaciones y los cruzamientos para la obtención de las plantas híbridas F,. En el primer año de evaluación se compara el "Método de Inyección en Macollas" con el "Método de Corona Modificado". Los resultados de plantas poliploides logradas con ambos métodos no expresan diferencias significativas en el análisis estadístico, pero si se observan importantes diferencias en el consumo de colchicina, siendo notablemente menor en el "Método de Inyección en Macollas". Este método permite por lo tanto tratar un gran número de plantas con una concentración más baja de la droga. En los dos años siguientes se utiliza sólo el "Método de Inyección en Macollas". La eficiencia de los tratamientos se incrementa en el tercer año del experimento, lográndose los mejores resultados

Magnetic field induced entropy change and magnetoelasticity in Ni-Mn-Ga alloys

The magnetocaloric effect that originates from the martensitic transition in the ferromagnetic Ni-Mn-Ga shape-memory alloy is studied. We show that this effect is controlled by the magnetostructural coupling at both the martensitic variant and magnetic domain length scales. A large entropy change induced by moderate magnetic fields is obtained for alloys in which the magnetic moment of the two structural phases is not very different. We also show that this entropy change is not associated with the entropy difference between the martensitic and the parent phase arising from the change in the crystallographic structure which has been found to be independent of the magnetic field within this range of fields