Corneoscleral laceration and ocular burns caused by electronic cigarette explosions

PURPOSE: To report cases of acute globe rupture and bilateral corneal burns from electronic cigarette (EC) explosions. METHODS: Case series. RESULTS: We describe a series of patients with corneal injury caused by EC explosions. Both patients suffered bilateral corneal burns and decreased visual acuity, and one patient sustained a unilateral corneoscleral laceration with prolapsed iris tissue and hyphema. A review of the scientific literature revealed no prior reported cases of ocular injury secondary to EC explosions; however, multiple media and government agency articles describe fires and explosions involving ECs, including at least 4 with ocular injuries. CONCLUSIONS: Given these cases and the number of recent media reports, ECs pose a significant public health risk. Users should be warned regarding the possibility of severe injury, including sight-threatening ocular injuries ranging from corneal burns to full-thickness corneoscleral laceration

Task-Specific Ionic Liquids for Mars Exploration (Green Chemistry for a Red Planet)

Ionic Liquids (ILs) are organic salts with low melting points that are liquid at or near room temperature. The combinations of available ions and task-specific molecular designability make them suitable for a huge variety of tasks. Because of their low flammability, low vapor pressure, and stability in harsh environments (extreme temperatures, hard vacuum) they are generally much safer and "greener" than conventional chemicals and are thus suitable for a wide range of applications that support NASA exploration goals. This presentation describes several of the ongoing applications that are being developed at MSFC

Examination of 24-hour movement behaviors in home vs. office work locations

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Photon wave mechanics and position eigenvectors

One and two photon wave functions are derived by projecting the quantum state vector onto simultaneous eigenvectors of the number operator and a recently constructed photon position operator [Phys. Rev A 59, 954 (1999)] that couples spin and orbital angular momentum. While only the Landau-Peierls wave function defines a positive definite photon density, a similarity transformation to a biorthogonal field-potential pair of positive frequency solutions of Maxwell's equations preserves eigenvalues and expectation values. We show that this real space description of photons is compatible with all of the usual rules of quantum mechanics and provides a framework for understanding the relationships amongst different forms of the photon wave function in the literature. It also gives a quantum picture of the optical angular momentum of beams that applies to both one photon and coherent states. According to the rules of qunatum mechanics, this wave function gives the probability to count a photon at any position in space.Comment: 14 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev.

On the nonlinearity interpretation of q- and f-deformation and some applications

q-oscillators are associated to the simplest non-commutative example of Hopf algebra and may be considered to be the basic building blocks for the symmetry algebras of completely integrable theories. They may also be interpreted as a special type of spectral nonlinearity, which may be generalized to a wider class of f-oscillator algebras. In the framework of this nonlinear interpretation, we discuss the structure of the stochastic process associated to q-deformation, the role of the q-oscillator as a spectrum-generating algebra for fast growing point spectrum, the deformation of fermion operators in solid-state models and the charge-dependent mass of excitations in f-deformed relativistic quantum fields.Comment: 11 pages Late

Quantum graphs where back-scattering is prohibited

We describe a new class of scattering matrices for quantum graphs in which back-scattering is prohibited. We discuss some properties of quantum graphs with these scattering matrices and explain the advantages and interest in their study. We also provide two methods to build the vertex scattering matrices needed for their construction.Comment: 15 page

Efficient implementation of selective recoupling in heteronuclear spin systems using Hadamard matrices

We present an efficient scheme which couples any designated pair of spins in heteronuclear spin systems. The scheme is based on the existence of Hadamard matrices. For a system of $n$ spins with pairwise coupling, the scheme concatenates $cn$ intervals of system evolution and uses at most $c n^2$ pulses where $c \approx 1$. Our results demonstrate that, in many systems, selective recoupling is possible with linear overhead, contrary to common speculation that exponential effort is always required.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, mypsfig2, revtex, submitted April 27, 199

Corneal perforation in ocular graft-versus-host disease

PURPOSE: Corneal perforation is a rare, vision-threatening complication of ocular graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and is not well understood. Our objective was to examine the clinical disease course and histopathologic correlation in patients who progressed to this outcome. METHODS: This study is a retrospective case series from four academic centers in the United States. All patients received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) prior to developing ocular GVHD. Variables of interest included patient demographics, time interval between HSCT and ocular events, visual acuity throughout clinical course, corticosteroid and infection prophylaxis regimens at time of corneal perforation, medical/surgical interventions, and histopathology. RESULTS: Fourteen eyes from 14 patients were analyzed. Most patients were male (86%) and Caucasian (86%), and average age at time of hematopoietic stem cell transplant was 47 years. The mean interval between hematopoietic stem cell transplant and diagnosis of ocular graft-versus-host disease was 9.5 months, and between hematopoietic stem cell transplant and corneal perforation was 37 months. Initial best-corrected visual acuity was 20/40 or better in 9 eyes, and all eyes had moderate or poor visual outcomes despite aggressive management, including corneal gluing in all patients followed by keratoplasty in 8 patients. The mean follow-up after perforation was 34 months (range 2-140 months). Oral prednisone was used prior to perforation in 11 patients (79%). On histopathology, representative specimens in the acute phase demonstrated ulcerative keratitis with perforation but minimal inflammatory cells and no microorganisms, consistent with sterile corneal melt in the setting of immunosuppression; and in the healed phase, filling in of the perforation site with fibrous scar. CONCLUSIONS: In these patients, an extended time interval was identified between the diagnosis of ocular graft-versus-host disease and corneal perforation. This represents a critical window to potentially prevent this devastating outcome. Further study is required to identify those patients at greatest risk as well as to optimize prevention strategies

Data Resource Profile: The Virtual Cardio-Oncology Research Initiative (VICORI) linking national English cancer registration and cardiovascular audits

Background: Cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) are the most common causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Improvements in treatment strategies for both CVD and cancer have resulted in significant improvements in survival and, as a result, there is an increasing population of patients who now live with both conditions.1–3 It is well known that cancer and its treatment increase the risk of CVD.4–6 Yet a detailed understanding of the underlying relationship between these two conditions and their respective treatments, including both positive and negative modulation of risk, is lacking. This is partly because few cohorts have been large enough to conduct detailed investigations. To address this, the Virtual Cardio-Oncology Research Initiative (VICORI) has linked national cardiac and cancer registries to create a resource of a larger scale and with longer follow-up than typical investigator-led studies