Novel Technique of Transepithelial Corneal Cross-Linking Using Iontophoresis in Progressive Keratoconus

In this work, the authors presented the techniques and the preliminary results at 6 months of a randomized controlled trial (NCT02117999) comparing a novel transepithelial corneal cross-linking protocol using iontophoresis with the Dresden protocol for the treatment of progressive keratoconus. At 6months, there was a significant average improvement with an average flattening of themaximum simulated keratometry reading of 0.72\ub11.20D(P = 0.01); in addition, corrected distance visual acuity improved significantly (P = 0.08) and spherical equivalent refraction was significantly lessmyopic (P = 0.02) 6months a\u17fter transepithelial corneal cross-linkingwith iontophoresis. The novel protocol using iontophoresis showed comparable resultswith standard corneal cross-linking to halt progression of keratoconus during 6-month follow-up. Investigation of the long-term RCT outcomes are ongoing to verify the efficacy of this transepithelial corneal cross-linking protocol and to determine if it may be comparable with standard corneal cross-linking in themanagement of progressive keratoconus

Legal Determinants of the Return on Equity

Recent work documents that better legal institutions are associated with broader equity markets. We investigate whether international differences in legal institutions also help explain the international cross-section of expected stock returns. We document three main regularities. First, total stock market returns are positively correlated with overall measures of the quality of institutions, such as judicial efficiency and rule of law, but have no relationship with measures of shareholder rights, controlling for risk. Second, dividend yields and earning-price ratios also correlate positively with judicial efficiency and rule of law, but negatively with shareholder rights' protection, controlling for risk and expected earnings growth. Thirdly, the excess return on new issues is negatively associated with the quality of accounting standards. We interpret the positive effect of the overall quality of institutions on equity returns as capturing the resulting curtailment of private benefits and increase of profitability, under imperfect international integration of stock markets. The negative impact of shareholders' legal protection and of accounting standards can instead be seen as resulting from the implied reduction in shareholders' auditing and monitoring costs.law, enforcement, shareholder protection, corporate governance, return on equity

Law and Equity Markets: a Simple Model

We analyze how the law and its enforcement affect equity market equilibrium. Improvements in the legal system, while invariably associated with broader equity markets, have different effects on equity returns depending on the institutional change considered and on the degree of international stock market segmentation. The model is useful to interpret the results of recent empirical work, such as La Porta et al. (1997) and Lombardo and Pagano (1999). In particular, it can rationalize the observed cross-country pattern, whereby better institutions are associated both with broader equity markets and higher risk-adjusted returns on equity.law, enforcement, shareholder protection, corporate governance, return on equity

Investigation of adaptive optics imaging biomarkers for detecting pathological changes of the cone mosaic in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Purpose To investigate a set of adaptive optics (AO) imaging biomarkers for the assessment of changes of the cone mosaic spatial arrangement in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1). Methods 16 patients with 20/20 visual acuity and a diagnosis of DM1 in the past 8 years to 37 years and 20 age-matched healthy volunteers were recruited in this study. Cone density, cone spacing and Voronoi diagrams were calculated on 160x160 μm images of the cone mosaic acquired with an AO flood illumination retinal camera at 1.5 degrees eccentricity from the fovea along all retinal meridians. From the cone spacing measures and Voronoi diagrams, the linear dispersion index (LDi) and the heterogeneity packing index (HPi) were computed respectively. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to discriminate DM1 patients without diabetic retinopathy from controls using the cone metrics as predictors. Results Of the 16 DM1 patients, eight had no signs of diabetic retinopathy (noDR) and eight had mild nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) on fundoscopy. On average, cone density, LDi and HPi values were significantly different (P<0.05) between noDR or NPDR eyes and controls, with these differences increasing with duration of diabetes. However, each cone metric alone was not sufficiently sensitive to discriminate entirely between membership of noDR cases and controls. The complementary use of all the three cone metrics in the logistic regression model gained 100% accuracy to identify noDR cases with respect to controls. PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0151380 March 10, 2016 1 / 14 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Lombardo M, Parravano M, Serrao S, Ziccardi L, Giannini D, Lombardo G (2016) Investigation of Adaptive Optics Imaging Biomarkers for Detecting Pathological Changes of the Cone Mosaic in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0151380. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0151380 Editor: Knut Stieger, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, GERMANY Received: December 17, 2015 Accepted: February 27, 2016 Published: March 10, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Lombardo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: Research for this work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (5x1000 funding), by the National Framework Program for Research and Innovation PON (grant n. 01_00110) and by Fondazione Roma. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Vision Engineering Italy srl funder provided support in the form of salaries for author GL, but did not have any Conclusion The present set of AO imaging biomarkers identified reliably abnormalities in the spatial arrangement of the parafoveal cones in DM1 patients, even when no signs of diabetic retinopathy were seen on fundoscopy

Cross-diffusion driven instability in a predator-prey system with cross-diffusion

In this work we investigate the process of pattern formation induced by nonlinear diffusion in a reaction-diffusion system with Lotka-Volterra predator-prey kinetics. We show that the cross-diffusion term is responsible of the destabilizing mechanism that leads to the emergence of spatial patterns. Near marginal stability we perform a weakly nonlinear analysis to predict the amplitude and the form of the pattern, deriving the Stuart-Landau amplitude equations. Moreover, in a large portion of the subcritical zone, numerical simulations show the emergence of oscillating patterns, which cannot be predicted by the weakly nonlinear analysis. Finally when the pattern invades the domain as a travelling wavefront, we derive the Ginzburg-Landau amplitude equation which is able to describe the shape and the speed of the wave.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

On the intertwining between capacity scaling and TCP congestion control

Recent works advocate the possibility of improving energy efficiency of network devices by modulating switching and transmission capacity according to traffic load. However, addressing the trade-off between energy saving and Quality of Service (QoS) under these approaches is not a trivial task, specially because most of the traffic in the Internet of today is carried by TCP, and is hence adaptive to the available resources. In this paper we present a preliminary investigation of the possible intertwining between capacity scaling approaches and TCP congestion control, and we show how this interaction can affect performance in terms of both energy saving and QoS

Verkaufsförderungspolitik im Innovationsmarketing

In der Literatur gibt es viele Ansätze zur Strukturierung der Verkaufsförderung. Das erste Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht daher in der Einteilung der konsumenten- und handelsgerichteten Verkaufsförderungsmaßnahmen anhand der marketingpolitischen Instrumente in Produkt-, Konditions-, Kommunikationsorientierung sowie Service-leistungen. Als zweites Ziel sollen die Funktion und Wirkungsweise der einzelnen Maßnahmen erläutert, eventuelle weitere Zielsetzungen – die neben der Absatzförderung erreicht werden sollen – aufgezeigt, auf bestehende Risiken hingewiesen und praxisbezogene Beispiele als Ergänzung dargestellt werden. Das dritte Ziel besteht darin, die beschriebenen Verkaufsförderungsmaßnahmen gemäß ihrer Einteilung auf die Tauglichkeit für innovative Produkte zu durch-leuchten und die jeweils relevanten Methoden herauszustellen. Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit bezieht sich dabei stets auf die Produkte der Konsum-güterbranche. Zur Vollständigkeit und verständlicheren Erklärung werden im Rahmen dieser Arbeit allerdings auch praktische Beispiele der Gebrauchsgüter-industrie gegeben

Verkaufsförderungspolitik im Innovationsmarketing

In der Literatur gibt es viele Ansätze zur Strukturierung der Verkaufsförderung. Das erste Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht daher in der Einteilung der konsumenten- und handelsgerichteten Verkaufsförderungsmaßnahmen anhand der marketingpolitischen Instrumente in Produkt-, Konditions-, Kommunikationsorientierung sowie Service-leistungen. Als zweites Ziel sollen die Funktion und Wirkungsweise der einzelnen Maßnahmen erläutert, eventuelle weitere Zielsetzungen – die neben der Absatzförderung erreicht werden sollen – aufgezeigt, auf bestehende Risiken hingewiesen und praxisbezogene Beispiele als Ergänzung dargestellt werden. Das dritte Ziel besteht darin, die beschriebenen Verkaufsförderungsmaßnahmen gemäß ihrer Einteilung auf die Tauglichkeit für innovative Produkte zu durch-leuchten und die jeweils relevanten Methoden herauszustellen. Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit bezieht sich dabei stets auf die Produkte der Konsum-güterbranche. Zur Vollständigkeit und verständlicheren Erklärung werden im Rahmen dieser Arbeit allerdings auch praktische Beispiele der Gebrauchsgüter-industrie gegeben