Scotopic contrast sensitivity and glare after accelerated corneal cross-linking

Background: The aim was to assess one-year changes in uncorrected and corrected contrast sensitivity (CS) and glare under scotopic conditions after accelerated cross-linking (CXL) using the 18 mW/cm2 protocol for the treatment of progressive keratoconus and compare results with unoperated controls. Methods: In this non-randomised clinical trial, 30 eyes were enrolled in the CXL group and 30 were assigned to the control group. Scotopic CS at spatial frequencies (SFs) of 0.5, 1.1, 2.2, 3.4, 7.1 and 15 cycles per degree (cpd) were assessed using the MonCv3System (Metrovision, Pérenchies, France) under scotopic conditions (0.5 lux) at baseline and at six and 12 months. Results: The mean ages of the participants in the CXL and control groups were 24.32 ± 5.17 and 30.93 ± 7.43 years, respectively (p < 0.001). After adjusting for age, changes in uncorrected and corrected CS and glare were similar in the two groups (all p > 0.05) except for corrected CS at SF 7.1 cpd (1.45 ± 4.31 versus 3.21 ± 4.69 dB, p = 0.010) and 15 cpd (1.12 ± 4.63 versus 3.03 ± 5.48 dB, p = 0.007), which were reduced as an effect of CXL. Based on covariate analyses, among corrected CS indices, corrected CS7.1 and CS15 were related to CXL and their baseline values (all p < 0.050). Uncorrected CS in all SFs and uncorrected and corrected glare were related to their pre-operative values (all p < 0.001). Conclusion: Accelerated CXL can reduce scotopic corrected CS at SFs higher than 7.0 cpd in cases with better baseline values of these parameters. Changes in uncorrected CS and glare are only a factor of baseline values and the indices reduce in cases with better baseline values after one year. © 2017 Optometry Australi

Chronic subclinical inflammation after phakic intraocular lenses implantation: Comparison between Artisan and Artiflex models

Purpose To compare chronic subclinical inflammation induced after implantation of Artisan vs. Artiflex phakic intraocular lenses (pIOLs). Methods This prospective, comparative, non-randomized study included consecutive patients with moderate to high myopia who underwent Artisan or Artiflex pIOL implantation with standard surgery and postoperative care. Anterior chamber flare was assessed quantitatively using laser flare photometry (LFP) at baseline, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 2 years after surgery. Results PIOLs were implanted in 72 eyes (40 patients); Artisan pIOLs in 16 eyes (Artisan group) and Artiflex pIOLs in 56 eyes (Artiflex group). The mean preoperative anterior chamber flare was 6.5 ± 2.3 (range, 4.2�9.5) photons per millisecond (ph/ms) and 4.2 ± 0.9 (range, 2.5�11.7) ph/ms in Artisan and Artiflex groups, respectively (P = 0.400). In spite of early postoperative rise, the flare value returned to preoperative levels 6 months after pIOL implantation and remained stable up to 2 years. The amount of flare was not statistically different between Artisan and Artiflex groups in any postoperative follow-up (all P > 0.05). The trend in flare changes was not different between the studied groups (ANCOVA, P = 0.815). Conclusion The inflammatory response induced by implantation of either type of Artisan and Artiflex pIOLs is short-lived without statistically significant difference between the two models. © 2017 Iranian Society of Ophthalmolog

Informal Employment

The myth surrounding negative connotation of informal employment / informal economy work engagement is one that needs to be revisited as research ventures must be pursued in the direction of encouraging those engaged in it to feel quite elated about their boldness in becoming actively involved in economic development activities. Equally, sensitive approaches should be pursued in pursuance of government statutory obligations in addressing core services like expenditures connected with education and health for example, which can only be achieved through revenue raised from genuine contributions made by the workforce, be it through formal or informal work engagement

Promised Land? Immigration, Religiosity, and Space in Southern California

This article looks at how immigrants and their supporters appropriate and use religious space and other public spaces for religious and socio-political purposes in Southern California. While the everyday living conditions of many immigrants, particularly the unauthorized Latino immigrants, force unto them an embodied disciplinarity that maintains spatialities of restricted citizenship, the public appropriations of space for and through religious practices allow for them -even if only momentarily -to express an embodied transgression. This practice in public space helps realize spaces of freedom and hope, however ephemerally. Potentially, these rehearsing exercises can help revert internalized disempowering subjectivities and create social empowerment. Negative stereotypes about immigrants held by the larger public can also be challenged through these spatial practices, as the public demonstrations make visible the invisible. We focus on “Posadas Without Borders” and “the New Sanctuary Movement,” considering both the role of progressive civic and religious institutions in supporting immigrants and the agency of the immigrants themselves. The theoretical analysis builds on concepts drawn from a conversation between geography and religious and theological studies. We use a triangulated methodological approach that includes observation and participant observation, content-analysis of multimedia, interviews, and intellectual advocacy for the immigrant movement. The cases discussed here show that progressive religious groups and coalitions can be important allies to progressive planners, geographers, and policy makers in advancing social and environmental justice for the disenfranchised. They also show that the theological underpinnings of such groups share a lot in common with planning epistemologies for the just city

A qualitative investigation into the impact of domestic abuse on women’s desistance

While criminological literature, criminal justice practice, and to a lesser extent, state policy have acknowledged a link between women’s criminalisation and gendered violence (MoJ, 2018; Österman, 2018; Prison Reform Trust, 2017; Roberts, 2015), there has been much less acknowledgement of the role of historical and contemporaneous experiences of violence in the desistance scripts of criminalised women. Combining findings from two research projects exploring gender and desistance, this article argues that (i) criminalised women’s experiences of gendered violence are such that any exploration of gender and desistance which does not acknowledge this is incomplete, (ii) coercion and control can inform women’s entry into the criminal justice system, (iii) expressions of agency and resistance in abusive interpersonal relationships can also inform women’s offending, yet (iv) women’s experiences of desistance from crime can mask the harm they face in coercive, controlling, and violent relationships. Thus, the article argues for a reframing of desistance from crime as desistance from harm both theoretically and in practice, and considers what this might entail

Forgotten Plotlanders: Learning from the survival of lost informal housing in the UK.

Colin Ward’s discourses on the arcadian landscape of ‘plotlander’ housing are unique documentations of the anarchistic birth, life, and death of the last informal housing communities in the UK. Today the forgotten history of ‘plotlander’ housing documented by Ward can be re-read in the context of both the apparently never-ending ‘housing crisis’ in the UK, and the increasing awareness of the potential value of learning from comparable informal housing from the Global South. This papers observations of a previously unknown and forgotten plotlander site offers a chance to begin a new conversation regarding the positive potential of informal and alternative housing models in the UK and wider Westernised world