Bragg Gratings Inscription in TS-Doped PMMA POF by Using 248-nm KrF Pulses

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.[EN] We demonstrate the Bragg gratings inscription in the 850-nm spectral region by using trans-4-stilbenemethanol-doped poly methyl methacrylate step-index optical fiber and a 248-nm krypton fluoride (KrF) excimer laser system. The gratings inscription only takes 0.4 s. A detailed study of the grating fabrication process using different pulse repetition rates is also reported. In addition, temperature, humidity, and strain sensitivities are measured to demonstrate the potentiality of these components for different sensing applications.The research leading to these results has received funding from the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT)/MEC national funds and when applicable co-funded by FEDER-PT2020 Partnership Agreement under Project UID/EEA/50008/2013. This work was also supported in part by the Research Excellence Award Programme GVA Prometeo 2017/103 Future Microwave Photonics Technologies and Applications, and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Heilongjiang Provincial Universities under Grant KJCXZD201703. The work of C. Marques was supported by FCT through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/109458/2015.Min, R.; Ortega Tamarit, B.; Hu, X.; Broadway, C.; Caucheteur, C.; Pun, CJ.; Tam, H.... (2018). Bragg Gratings Inscription in TS-Doped PMMA POF by Using 248-nm KrF Pulses. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters. 30(18):1609-1612. https://doi.org/10.1109/LPT.2018.2863741S16091612301

Bird pollination of Canary Island endemic plants

The Canary Islands are home to a guild of endemic, threatened bird pollinated plants. Previous work has suggested that these plants evolved floral traits as adaptations to pollination by flower specialist sunbirds, but subsequently they appear to be have co-opted passerine birds as sub-optimal pollinators. To test this idea we carried out a quantitative study of the pollination biology of three of the bird pollinated plants, Canarina canariensis (Campanulaceae), Isoplexis canariensis (Veronicaceae) and Lotus berthelotii (Fabaceae), on the island of Tenerife. Using colour vision models, we predicted the detectability of flowers to bird and bee pollinators. We measured pollinator visitation rates, nectar standing crops, as well as seed set and pollen removal and deposition. These data showed that the plants are effectively pollinated by non-flower specialist passerine birds that only occasionally visit flowers. The large nectar standing crops and extended flower longevities (>10days) of Canarina and Isoplexis suggests that they have evolved bird pollination system that effectively exploits these low frequency non-specialist pollen vectors and is in no way suboptimal. Seed set in two of the three species was high, and was significantly reduced or zero in flowers where pollinator access was restricted. In L. berthelotii, however, no fruit set was observed, probably because the plants were self incompatible horticultural clones of a single genet. We also show that, while all three species are easily detectable for birds, the orange Canarina and the red Lotus (but less so the yellow-orange Isoplexis) should be difficult to detect for insect pollinators without specialised red receptors, such as bumblebees. Contrary to expectations if we accept that the flowers are primarily adapted to sunbird pollination, the chiffchaff (Phylloscopus canariensis) was an effective pollinator of these species

Triplet lifetime in gaseous argon

MiniCLEAN is a single-phase liquid argon dark matter experiment. During the initial cooling phase, impurities within the cold gas ($<$140 K) were monitored by measuring the scintillation light triplet lifetime, and ultimately a triplet lifetime of 3.480 $\pm$ 0.001 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.064 (sys.) $\mu$s was obtained, indicating ultra-pure argon. This is the longest argon triplet time constant ever reported. The effect of quenching of separate components of the scintillation light is also investigated

Whither Magnetic Hyperthermia? A Tentative Roadmap

The scientific community has made great efforts in advancing magnetic hyperthermia for the last two decades after going through a sizeable research lapse from its establishment. All the progress made in various topics ranging from nanoparticle synthesis to biocompatibilization and in vivo testing have been seeking to push the forefront towards some new clinical trials. As many, they did not go at the expected pace. Today, fruitful international cooperation and the wisdom gain after a careful analysis of the lessons learned from seminal clinical trials allow us to have a future with better guarantees for a more definitive takeoff of this genuine nanotherapy against cancer. Deliberately giving prominence to a number of critical aspects, this opinion review offers a blend of state-of-the-art hints and glimpses into the future of the therapy, considering the expected evolution of science and technology behind magnetic hyperthermia.This work was supported by the NoCanTher project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 685795. The authors acknowledge support from the COST Association through the COST actions "RADIOMAG" (TD1402) and "MyWAVE" (CA17115). D.O., A.S.-O. and I.R.-R. acknowledge financial support from the Community of Madrid under Contracts No. PEJD-2017-PRE/IND-3663 and PEJ-2018-AI/IND-11069, from the Spanish Ministry of Science through the Ramon y Cajal grant RYC2018-025253-I and Research Networks RED2018-102626-T, as well as the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the grants MAT2017-85617-R, MAT2017-88148R and the "Severo Ochoa" Program for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2016-0686). M.B. and N.T.K.T. would like to thank EPSRC for funding (grant EP/K038656/1 and EP/M015157/1) and AOARD (FA2386-171-4042) award. This work was additionally supported by the EMPIR program co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, grant no. 16NRM04 "MagNaStand". The work was further supported by the DFG grant CRC "Matrix in Vision" (SFB 1340/1 2018, no 372486779, project A02)

Genomewide association study of acute anterior uveitis identifies new susceptibility loci

Acknowledgments The authors thank all participating subjects with AS and healthy individuals who provided the DNA and clinical information necessary for this study. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Anna Deminger, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, and Urban Hellman, Umeå University, for their assistance in case recruitment and assessment and handling biological samples Funding Information: The survey was conducted by NatCen and the genomewide scan data were analyzed and deposited by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Information on how to access the data can be found on the Understanding Society website https: www. understandingsociety.ac.uk/ . We acknowledge and thank the TCRA AS Group for their support in recruiting patients for the study. M.A.B. is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) Senior Principal Research Fellowship, and support for this study was received from a National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) program Grant (566938) and project Grant (569829), and from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation and Rebecca Cooper Medical Research Foundation. We are also very grateful for the invaluable support received from the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society (UK) and Spondyloarthritis Association of America in case recruitment. Additional financial and technical support for patient recruitment was provided by the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit and NIHR Thames Valley Comprehensive Local Research and an unrestricted educational grant from Abbott Laboratories. The authors acknowledge the sharing of data and samples by the BSRBR-AS Register in Aberdeen. Chief Investigator, Prof Gary Macfarlane and Dr Gareth Jones, Deputy Chief Investigator, created the BSRBR-AS study, which was commissioned by the British Society for Rheumatology, funded in part by Abbvie, Pfizer, and UCB. We are grateful to every patient, past and present staff of the BSRBR-AS register team, and to all clinical staff who recruited patients, followed them up and entered data – details here: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/iahs/research/ epidemiology/spondyloarthritis.php#panel1011. Funding was also received from the Swedish Research Council and The Swedish state under the agreement between the Swedish government and the county councils, the ALF agreement. The Irish data was derived from participants in ASRI – The Ankylosing Spondylitis Registry of Ireland, which is funded by unrestricted grants from Abbvie and Pfizer. Funding bodies involved played no role in the study design, performance, or preparation of this manuscript. Funding Information: X.F.H. was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31771390). The TASC study was funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) grants P01-052915, R01-AR046208. Funding was also received from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston CTSA grant UL1RR02418, Cedars-Sinai GCRC grant MO1-RR00425, Intramural Research Program, NIAMS/NIH, and Rebecca Cooper Foundation (Australia). This study was funded, in part, by Arthritis Research UK (Grants 19536 and 18797), by the Wellcome Trust (Grant number 076113), and by the Oxford Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre ankylosing spondylitis chronic disease cohort (Theme Code: A91202). The New Zealand data was derived from participants in the Spondyloarthritis Genetics and the Environment Study (SAGE) and was funded by The Health Research Council, New Zealand. H.X. was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 81020108029 and 30872339. French sample collection was performed by the Groupe Française d’Etude Génétique des Spondylarthrites, coordinated by Professor Maxime Breban, and funded by the Agence Nationale de Recherche GEMISA grant reference ANR-10-MIDI-0002. We acknowledge the Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. This is led by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Inc.. All rights reserved.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Pooled analysis of iron-related genes in Parkinson's disease: Association with transferrin

Pathologic features of Parkinson's disease (PD) include death of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, presence of α-synuclein containing Lewy bodies, and iron accumulation in PD-related brain regions. The observed iron accumulation may be contributing to PD etiology but it also may be a byproduct of cell death or cellular dysfunction. To elucidate the possible role of iron accumulation in PD, we investigated genetic variation in 16 genes related to iron homeostasis in three case-control studies from the United States, Australia, and France. After screening 90 haplotype tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the genes of interest in the US study population, we investigated the five most promising gene regions in two additional independent case-control studies. For the pooled data set (1289 cases, 1391 controls) we observed a protective association (OR. = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.71-0.96) between PD and a haplotype composed of the A allele at rs1880669 and the T allele at rs1049296 in transferrin (TF; GeneID: 7018). Additionally, we observed a suggestive protective association (OR. = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.74-1.02) between PD and a haplotype composed of the G allele at rs10247962 and the A allele at rs4434553 in transferrin receptor 2 (TFR2; GeneID: 7036). We observed no associations in our pooled sample for haplotypes in SLC40A1, CYB561, or HFE. Taken together with previous findings in model systems, our results suggest that TF or a TF- TFR2 complex may have a role in the etiology of PD, possibly through iron misregulation or mitochondrial dysfunction within dopaminergic neurons

Roadmap on Photovoltaic Absorber Materials for Sustainable Energy Conversion

Photovoltaics (PVs) are a critical technology for curbing growing levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and meeting increases in future demand for low-carbon electricity. In order to fulfil ambitions for net-zero carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) emissions worldwide, the global cumulative capacity of solar PVs must increase by an order of magnitude from 0.9 TWp in 2021 to 8.5 TWp by 2050 according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, which is considered to be a highly conservative estimate. In 2020, the Henry Royce Institute brought together the UK PV community to discuss the critical technological and infrastructure challenges that need to be overcome to address the vast challenges in accelerating PV deployment. Herein, we examine the key developments in the global community, especially the progress made in the field since this earlier roadmap, bringing together experts primarily from the UK across the breadth of the photovoltaics community. The focus is both on the challenges in improving the efficiency, stability and levelized cost of electricity of current technologies for utility-scale PVs, as well as the fundamental questions in novel technologies that can have a significant impact on emerging markets, such as indoor PVs, space PVs, and agrivoltaics. We discuss challenges in advanced metrology and computational tools, as well as the growing synergies between PVs and solar fuels, and offer a perspective on the environmental sustainability of the PV industry. Through this roadmap, we emphasize promising pathways forward in both the short- and long-term, and for communities working on technologies across a range of maturity levels to learn from each other.Comment: 160 pages, 21 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good