IMI : global trends in myopia management attitudes and strategies in clinical practice : 2022 update

PURPOSE. Surveys in 2015 and 2019 identified a high level of eye care practitioner concern/activity about myopia, but the majority still prescribed single vision interventions to young myopes. This research aimed to provide updated information. METHODS. A self-administered, internet-based questionnaire was distributed in 13 languages, through professional bodies to eye care practitioners globally. The questions examined awareness of increasing myopia prevalence, perceived efficacy and adoption of available strategies, and reasons for not adopting specific strategies. RESULTS. Of the 3195 respondents, practitioners’ concern about the increasing frequency of pediatric myopia in their practices differed between continents (P < 0.001), being significantly higher in Asia (9.0 ± 1.5 of 10) than other continents (range 7.7–8.2; P ≤ 0.001). Overall, combination therapy was perceived by practitioners to be the most effective method of myopia control, followed by orthokeratology and pharmaceutical approaches. The least effective perceived methods were single vision distance undercorrection, spectacles and contact lenses, as well as bifocal spectacles. Practitioners rated their activity in myopia control between (6.6 ± 2.9 in South America to 7.9 ± 1.2/2.2 in Australasia and Asia). Single-vision spectacles are still the most prescribed option for progressing young myopia (32.2%), but this has decreased since 2019, and myopia control spectacles (15.2%), myopia control contact lenses (8.7%) and combination therapy (4.0%) are growing in popularity. CONCLUSIONS. More practitioners across the globe are practicing myopia control, but there are still significant differences between and within continents. Practitioners reported that embracing myopia control enhanced patient loyalty, increasing practice revenue and improving job satisfaction

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M&gt;70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0&lt;e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM