Silicon photonics-based laser Doppler vibrometer array for carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurement

Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a reference measure for aortic stiffness, itself an important biomarker of cardiovascular risk. To enable low-cost and easy-to-use PWV measurement devices that can be used in routine clinical practice, we have designed several handheld PWV sensors using miniaturized laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) arrays in a silicon photonics platform. The LDV-based PWV sensor design and the signal processing protocol to obtain pulse transit time (PTT) and carotid-femoral PWV in a feasibility study in humans, are described in this paper. Compared with a commercial reference PWV measurement system, measuring arterial pressure waveforms by applanation tonometry, LDV-based displacement signals resulted in more complex signals. However, we have shown that it is possible to identify reliable fiducial points for PTT calculation using the maximum of the 2nd derivative algorithm in LDV-based signals, comparable to those obtained by the reference technique, applanation tonometry. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreemen

Trackways Produced by Lungfish During Terrestrial Locomotion

Some primarily aquatic vertebrates make brief forays onto land, creating traces as they do. A lack of studies on aquatic trackmakers raises the possibility that such traces may be ignored or misidentified in the fossil record. Several terrestrial Actinopterygian and Sarcopterygian species have previously been proposed as possible models for ancestral tetrapod locomotion, despite extant fishes being quite distinct from Devonian fishes, both morphologically and phylogenetically. Although locomotion has been well-studied in some of these taxa, trackway production has not. We recorded terrestrial locomotion of a 35 cm African lungfish (Protopterus annectens; Dipnoi: Sarcopterygii) on compliant sediment. Terrestrial movement in the lungfish is accomplished by planting the head and then pivoting the trunk. Impressions are formed where the head impacts the substrate, while the body and fins produce few traces. The head leaves a series of alternating left-right impressions, where each impact can appear as two separate semi-circular impressions created by the upper and lower jaws, bearing some similarity to fossil traces interpreted as footprints. Further studies of trackways of extant terrestrial fishes are necessary to understand the behavioural repertoire that may be represented in the fossil track record

Kidney transplant in diabetic patients: modalities, indications and results

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diabetes is a disease of increasing worldwide prevalence and is the main cause of chronic renal failure. Type 1 diabetic patients with chronic renal failure have the following therapy options: kidney transplant from a living donor, pancreas after kidney transplant, simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant, or awaiting a deceased donor kidney transplant. For type 2 diabetic patients, only kidney transplant from deceased or living donors are recommended. Patient survival after kidney transplant has been improving for all age ranges in comparison to the dialysis therapy. The main causes of mortality after transplant are cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events, infections and neoplasias. Five-year patient survival for type 2 diabetic patients is lower than the non-diabetics' because they are older and have higher body mass index on the occasion of the transplant and both pre- and posttransplant cardiovascular diseases prevalences. The increased postransplant cardiovascular mortality in these patients is attributed to the presence of well-known risk factors, such as insulin resistance, higher triglycerides values, lower HDL-cholesterol values, abnormalities in fibrinolysis and coagulation and endothelial dysfunction. In type 1 diabetic patients, simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant is associated with lower prevalence of vascular diseases, including acute myocardial infarction, stroke and amputation in comparison to isolated kidney transplant and dialysis therapy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Type 1 and 2 diabetic patients present higher survival rates after transplant in comparison to the dialysis therapy, although the prevalence of cardiovascular events and infectious complications remain higher than in the general population.</p

Natural killer cells are crucial for the efficacy of Icon (factor VII/human IgG1 Fc) immunotherapy in human tongue cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Icon is a novel, dual neovascular- and cancer cell-targeting immunotherapeutic agent and has shown efficacy in the treatment of cancer, wet form macular degeneration and endometriosis. However, its underlying mechanism remains to be investigated. The objective of this study is to elucidate the mechanism of Icon immunotherapy in cancer using a squamous carcinoma human tongue cancer line TCA8113 <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo </it>in severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We showed that Icon, as a chimeric factor VII and human IgG1 Fc immunoconjugate, could separately induce murine natural killer (NK) cells and activate complement to kill TCA8113 cancer cells <it>in vitro </it>via antibody dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) and complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC). However, Icon-NK ADCC had a significantly stronger effect than that of Icon-CDC. Moreover, Icon could completely eradicate established human tongue tumour xenografts <it>in vivo </it>in the CB-17 strain of SCID mice that have functional NK cells at a normal level, whereas it was less effective in SCID/Beige mice that do not have functional NK cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that NK cells are crucial for the efficacy of Icon immunotherapy in the treatment of cancer. The results also suggest that impaired NK level/activity could contribute to the resistance to therapeutic antibodies that are currently under investigation in preclinical and clinical studies.</p

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

Ultralow-crosstalk, strictly non-blocking microring-based optical switch

We report on the first monolithically integrated microring-based optical switch in the switch-and-select architecture. The switch fabric delivers strictly non-blocking connectivity while completely canceling the first-order crosstalk. The 4×4 switching circuit consists of eight silicon microring-based spatial (de-)multiplexers interconnected by a Si/SiN dual-layer crossing-free central shuffle. Analysis of the on-state and off-state power transfer functions reveals the extinction ratios of individual ring resonators exceeding 25 dB, leading to switch crosstalk suppression of up to over 50 dB in the switch-and-select topology. Optical paths are assessed, showing losses as low as 0.1 dB per off-resonance ring and 0.5 dB per on-resonance ring. Photonic switching is actuated with integrated micro-heaters to give an ∼24 GHz passband. The fully packaged device is flip-chip bonded onto a printed circuit board breakout board with a UV-curved fiber array