Scalable High-Order UWB Pulse Generation Employing an FBG-Based Photonic Superstructure

In this letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a compact, flexible, and scalable ultrawideband (UWB) generator based on the merge of phase-to-intensity conversion and pulse shaping employing an fiber Bragg Grating-based superstructure. Our approach offers the capacity for generating high-order UWB pulses by means of the combination of various low-order derivatives. Moreover, the scheme permits the implementation of binary and multilevel modulation formats. Experimental measurements of the generated UWB pulses, in both time and frequency domain, are presented revealing efficiency and a proper fit in terms of Federal Communications Commission settled standards.This work was supported in part by the National Project under Grant TEC2010-21303-C04-02, Grant TEC2011-26642, and Grant TEC2014-58048-C2-2-P through the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and in part by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional under Project UPVOV08-3E-008.Moreno, V.; Mora Almerich, J.; Muriel, M.; Capmany Francoy, J. (2015). Scalable High-Order UWB Pulse Generation Employing an FBG-Based Photonic Superstructure. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters. 27(20):2146-2149. doi:10.1109/LPT.2015.2454952S21462149272

Measurement of transmitted power in untapered multifibre unions oscillatory spectral behaviour

Shows a new structure, the untapered multifibre union, with similar oscillation behaviour to that of tapered single-mode fibres. As a consequences conical regions are not relevant to the final results. This oscillatory behaviour opens the way to low-cost all-fibre devices such as optical filter

Evaluation of personalized treatment goals on engagement of SMI patients with an mHealth app

Mobile health (mhealth) tools are regularly used in a wide range of mental health domains to assess and monitor patients, potentially increasing patient engagement. Recent studies demonstrated that tailored approaches provide better results than generic approaches.However, the effectiveness of tailoring has not yet been investigated empirically for patients with severe mental illnesses (SMIs). It also remains unclear how personalized goals, which are critical from a treatment point of view, impact engagement. Therefore, we designed a novel mHealth tool to increase SMI patient engagement with their personal goals which we evaluated empirically. We designed a two-period, two-arm within-subject crossover study in which 4 participants were exposed to personalized and non-personalized behavioral goals. Contrary to expectations, personalized behavioral goals did not have a significant impact on engagement levels. When considering our participant feedback and also in the context of flow theory, we rationalized that our goal personalization strategy was too static for SMI patients. Therefore, in our future work, we will investigate dynamic strategies that adapt goal difficulty over time

Maternal cardiovascular adaptation to twin pregnancy: A population-based prospective cohort study

Background: In women with singleton pregnancies, maternal adaptation is considered a stress test for later life cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to assess maternal adaptation in women with twin pregnancies compared to women carrying singletons during and after pregnancy. Methods: This was a population based prospective cohort study of 91 women with twin pregnancies and 8107 women carrying singletons. The association of twin pregnancy and maternal adaptation was examined using regression analyses. In pregnancy, we measured soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFLT-1), placental growth (PGF) factor, systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and the occurrence of pre-eclampsia (PE). After pregnancy, measurements were obtained on SBP and DBP, cardiac function, retinal calibres, intima media thickness and distensibility of the common carotid artery. Results: sFLT-1 and PGF concentrations were higher in early (13.4 weeks) and mid-pregnancy (20.4 weeks) in women with twin pregnancies compared to women with singleton pregnancies. Women with twin pregnancies had a different DBP pattern in pregnancy. Women with twin pregnancies were more likely to have PE (odds ratio 3.63; 95% CI [1.76 to 7.48]). Six and ten years after pregnancy, no differences in maternal adaptation were observed. Conclusions: Women with twin pregnancies show an altered adaptation during pregnancy compared to women with singleton pregnancies. This is associated with a substantially increased incidence of PE, but does not lead to persistent altered maternal adaptation years after pregnancy

UWB Doublet Generation Employing Cross-Phase Modulation in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Mach Zehnder Interferometer

In this paper, a novel method to generate ultrawideband (UWB) doublets is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, which is based on exploiting the cross-phase modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The key component is an integrated SOA Mach-Zehnder interferometer pumped with an optical carrier modulated by a Gaussian pulse. The transfer function of the nonlinear conversion process leads to the generation of UWB doublet pulses by tuning the SOA currents to different values.This work was supported in part by national projects TEC2010-21303-C04-02 and TEC2011-26642 under the responsibility of the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, by projects FEDER UPVOV08-3E-008 and UPVOV10-3E-492, and by the Generalitat Valenciana under the Research Excellency Award Program GVA PROMETEO 2013/012 Next Generation Microwave Photonic technologies. Corresponding author: J. Mora (e-mail: [email protected]).Moreno, V.; Rius Mercado, M.; Mora Almerich, J.; Muriel, M.; Capmany Francoy, J. (2013). UWB Doublet Generation Employing Cross-Phase Modulation in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Mach Zehnder Interferometer. IEEE Photonics Journal. 5(6):7101106-7101106. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOT.2013.2288295S710110671011065

Design and overview of the Origins of Alzheimer’s Disease Across the Life course (ORACLE) study

Brain development and deterioration across the lifespan are integral to the etiology of late-life neurodegenerative disease. Factors that influence the health of the adult brain remain to be elucidated and include risk factors, protective factors, and factors related to cognitive and brain reserve. To address this knowledge gap we designed a life-course study on brain health, which received funding through the EU ERC Programme under the name Origins of Alzheimer’s Disease Across the Life course (ORACLE) Study. The ORACLE Study is embedded within Generation R, a prospective population-based cohort study of children and their parents, and links this with the Rotterdam Study, a population-based study in middle-aged and elderly persons. The studies are based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Generation R focuses on child health from fetal life until adolescence with repeated in-person examinations, but has also included data collection on the children’s parents. The ORACLE Study aims to extend the parental data collection in nearly 2000 parents with extensive measures on brain health, including neuroimaging, cognitive testing and motor testing. Additionally, questionnaires on migraine, depressive symptoms, sleep, and neurological family history were completed. These data allow for the investigation of longitudinal influences on adult brain health as well as intergenerational designs involving children and parents. As a secondary focus, the sampling is enriched by mothers (n = 356) that suffered from hypertensive disorders during pregnancy in order to study brain health in this high-risk population. This article provides an overview of the rationale and the design of the ORACLE Study

Appraisal of non-destructive in situ techniques to determine moisture- and salt crystallization-induced damage in dolostones

The characterisation of both surface and subsurface pathologies (position, depth, width, …) that affects the porous materials used in building constructions, once in service, is important to establish the most suitable intervention strategy. In this sense, the use of non-destructive techniques allows the analysis of different properties without affecting the material. The present study shows the accuracy of different non-destructive in situ techniques, such as: electrical conductivity and capacitance, infrared thermography, ultrasonic pulse velocity, sound absorption, and electrical resistivity tomography, applied on dolostone ashlar stones outer façade of a sixteenth-century belltower, affected by moisture and salt induced decay. The joint analysis of the results obtained with different techniques substantially improves the interpretation and characterisation of the detected pathologies, as they complement each other perfectly. Electrical resistivity tomography, which delivers resistivity cross-sections, yields very good results in detecting subsurface pathologies, and sound absorption is particularly useful for stone surfaces. In both cases, the frequency of the electric field and that of the acoustic emission to detect the extent of damage must be established in advance. The joint study of electrical conductivity and capacitance determines the degree of moisture/salts, both at the surface and subsurface, in the materials tested, one of the main causes of scaling and flaking in stony materials. However, the petrological characteristics of the materials used and the identification of the saline phases present must be known in advance to make a correct interpretation of the results

Fetal sex and maternal pregnancy outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Since the placenta also has a sex, fetal sex-specific differences in the occurrence of placenta-mediated complications could exist. OBJECTIVE: To determine the association of fetal sex with multiple maternal pregnancy complications. SEARCH STRATEGY: Six electronic databases Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central, Web-of-Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar were systematically searched to identify eligible studies. Reference lists of the included studies and contact with experts were also used for identification of studies. SELECTION CRITERIA: Observational studies that assessed fetal sex and the presence of maternal pregnancy complications within singleton pregnancies. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSES: Data were extracted by 2 independent reviewers using a predesigned data collection form. MAIN RESULTS: From 6522 original references, 74 studies were selected, including over 12,5 million women. Male fetal sex was associated with term pre-eclampsia (pooled OR 1.07 [95%CI 1.06 to 1.09]) and gestational diabetes (pooled OR 1.04 [1.02 to 1.07]). All other pregnancy complications (i.e., gestational hypertension, total pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, placental abruption, and post-partum hemorrhage) tended to be associated with male fetal sex, except for preterm pre-eclampsia, which was more associated with female fetal sex. Overall quality of the included studies was good. Between-study heterogeneity was high due to differences in study population and outcome definition. CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis suggests that the occurrence of pregnancy complications differ according to fetal sex with a higher cardiovascular an

Outcome of ovarian cancer after breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Background:It is unknown whether a history of breast cancer (BC) affects the outcome of BRCA1/2-associated epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). This was investigated in the current analysis.Methods:We included 386 BRCA1/2-associated EOC patients diagnosed between 1980 and 2015. Progression-free survival (PFS), progression-free interval (PFI), overall survival (OS) and ovarian cancer-specific survival (OCSS) were compared between EOC patients with and without previous BC.Results:BRCA-associated EOC patients with, vs without, a BC history had a significantly worse PFS and PFI (multivariate hazard ratio (HR mult) 1.47; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03-2.08 and HR mult 1.43; 95% CI 1.01-2.03), and a non-significantly worse OS (HR mult 1.15; 95% CI 0.84-1.57) and OCSS (HR mult 1.18; 95% CI 0.85-1.62). Ovarian cancer-specific survival was significantly worse for the subgroup treated with adjuvant chemotherapy for BC (HR mult 1.99; 95% CI 1.21-3.31).Conclusions:Our results suggest that BRCA1/2-associated EOC patients with a previous BC have a worse outcome than EOC patients without BC, especially when treated with adjuvant chemotherapy

Determinants of the current and future distribution of the West Nile virus mosquito vector Culex pipiens in Spain

Changes in environmental conditions, whether related or not to human activities, are continuously modifying the geographic distribution of vectors, which in turn affects the dynamics and distribution of vector-borne infectious diseases. Determining the main ecological drivers of vector distribution and how predicted changes in these drivers may alter their future distributions is therefore of major importance. However, the drivers of vector populations are largely specific to each vector species and region. Here, we identify the most important human-activity-related and bioclimatic predictors affecting the current distribution and habitat suitability of the mosquito Culex pipiens and potential future changes in its distribution in Spain. We determined the niche of occurrence (NOO) of the species, which considers only those areas lying within the range of suitable environmental conditions using presence data. Although almost ubiquitous, the distribution of Cx. pipiens is mostly explained by elevation and the degree of urbanization but also, to a lesser extent, by mean temperatures during the wettest season and temperature seasonality. The combination of these predictors highlights the existence of a heterogeneous pattern of habitat suitability, with most suitable areas located in the southern and northeastern coastal areas of Spain, and unsuitable areas located at higher altitude and in colder regions. Future climatic predictions indicate a net decrease in distribution of up to 29.55%, probably due to warming and greater temperature oscillations. Despite these predicted changes in vector distribution, their effects on the incidence of infectious diseases are, however, difficult to forecast since different processes such as local adaptation to temperature, vector-pathogen interactions, and human-derived changes in landscape may play important roles in shaping the future dynamics of pathogen transmission.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio