Artificial quantum confinement in LAO3/STO heterostructure

Heterostructures of transition metal oxides (TMO) perovskites represent an ideal platform to explore exotic phenomena involving the complex interplay between the spin, charge, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom available in these compounds. At the interface between such materials, this interplay can lead to phenomena that are present in none of the original constituents such as the formation of the interfacial 2D electron system (2DES) discovered at the LAO3/STO3 (LAO/STO) interface. In samples prepared by growing a LAO layer onto a STO substrate, the 2DES is confined in a band bending potential well, whose width is set by the interface charge density and the STO dielectric properties, and determines the electronic band structure. Growing LAO (2 nm) /STO (x nm)/LAO (2 nm) heterostructures on STO substrates allows us to control the extension of the confining potential of the top 2DES via the thickness of the STO layer. In such samples, we explore the dependence of the electronic structure on the width of the confining potential using soft X-ray ARPES combined with ab-initio calculations. The results indicate that varying the thickness of the STO film modifies the quantization of the 3d t2g bands and, interestingly, redistributes the charge between the dxy and dxz/dyz bands

Dihedral angle-based maps of tetrahedral meshes

International audienceWe present a geometric representation of a tetrahedral mesh that is solely based on dihedral angles. We first show that the shape of a tetrahedral mesh is completely defined by its dihedral angles. This proof leads to a set of angular constraints that must be satisfied for an immersion to exist in R 3. This formulation lets us easily specify conditions to avoid inverted tetrahedra and multiply-covered vertices, thus leading to locally injective maps. We then present a constrained optimization method that modifies input angles when they do not satisfy constraints. Additionally, we develop a fast spectral reconstruction method to robustly recover positions from dihedral angles. We demonstrate the applicability of our representation with examples of volume parameterization, shape interpolation, mesh optimization, connectivity shapes, and mesh compression

Staphylococcus aureus Bloodstream Infection and Endocarditis―A Prospective Cohort Study

Equipe CHU UB (EA) Pôle MERS CT3 Hors Enjeu The VIRSTA Study Group : Clinical centres: Besançon: Catherine Chirouze, Elodie Curlier, Cécile Descottes-Genon, Bruno Hoen, Isabelle Patry, Lucie Vettoretti. Dijon: Pascal Chavanet, Jean-Christophe Eicher, Sandrine Gohier-Treuvelot, Marie-Christine Greusard, Catherine Neuwirth, André Péchinot, Lionel Piroth. Lyon: Marie Célard, Catherine Cornu, François Delahaye, Malika Hadid, Pascale Rausch. Montpellier: Audrey Coma, Florence Galtier, Philippe Géraud, Hélène Jean-Pierre, Vincent Le Moing, Catherine Sportouch, Jacques Reynes. Nancy: Nejla Aissa, Thanh Doco- Lecompte, François Goehringer, Nathalie Keil, Lorraine Letranchant, Hepher Malela, Thierry May, Christine Selton-Suty. Nîmes: Nathalie Bedos, Jean-Philippe Lavigne, Catherine Lechiche, Albert Sotto. Paris: Xavier Duval, Emila Ilic Habensus, Bernard Iung, Catherine Leport, Pascale Longuet, Raymond Ruimy. Rennes: Eric Bellissant, Pierre-Yves Donnio, Fabienne Le Gac, Christian Michelet, Matthieu Revest, Pierre Tattevin, Elise Thebault. Coordination and statistical analyses: François Alla, Pierre Braquet, Marie-Line Erpelding, Laetitia Minary, Sarah Tubiana. Centre National de Référence des staphylocoques: Michèle Bès, Jérôme Etienne, Anne Tristan, François Vandenesch. Sponsor CHU de Montpellier: Sandrine Barbas, Christine Delonca, Virginie Sussmuth, Anne Verchère. Alain Makinson reviewed the manuscript for English correctness.International audienceOBJECTIVES: To update the epidemiology of S. aureus bloodstream infection (SAB) in a high-income country and its link with infective endocarditis (IE).METHODS: All consecutive adult patients with incident SAB (n = 2008) were prospectively enrolled between 2009 and 2011 in 8 university hospitals in France. RESULTS: SAB was nosocomial in 54%, non-nosocomial healthcare related in 18% and community-acquired in 26%. Methicillin resistance was present in 19% of isolates. SAB Incidence of nosocomial SAB was 0.159/1000 patients-days of hospitalization (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.111-0.219). A deep focus of infection was detected in 37%, the two most frequent were IE (11%) and pneumonia (8%). The higher rates of IE were observed in injecting drug users (IE: 38%) and patients with prosthetic (IE: 33%) or native valve disease (IE: 20%) but 40% of IE occurred in patients without heart disease nor injecting drug use. IE was more frequent in case of community-acquired (IE: 21%, adjusted odds-ratio (aOR) = 2.9, CI = 2.0-4.3) or non-nosocomial healthcare-related SAB (IE: 12%, aOR = 2.3, CI = 1.4-3.5). S. aureus meningitis (IE: 59%), persistent bacteremia at 48 hours (IE: 25%) and C-reactive protein > 190 mg/L (IE: 15%) were also independently associated with IE. Criteria for severe sepsis or septic shock were met in 30% of SAB without IE (overall in hospital mortality rate 24%) and in 51% of IE (overall in hospital mortality rate 35%).CONCLUSION: SAB is still a severe disease, mostly related to healthcare in a high-income country. IE is the most frequent complication and occurs frequently in patients without known predisposing condition

KEu(MoO4)(2): Polymorphism, Structures, and Luminescent Properties

In this paper, with the example of two different polymorphs of KEu(MoO4)(2), the influence of the ordering of the A-cations on the luminescent properties in scheelite related compounds (A',A '') [(B',B '')O-4](m) is investigated. The polymorphs were synthesized using a solid state method. The study confirmed the existence of only two polymorphic forms at annealing temperature range 923-1203 K and ambient pressure: a low temperature anorthic alpha-phase and a monoclinic high temperature beta-phase with an incommensurately modulated structure. The structures of both polymorphs were solved using transmission electron microscopy and refined from synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction data. The monoclinic beta-KEu(MoO4)(2) has a (3+1)-dimensional incommensurately modulated structure (superspace group I2/b(alpha beta 0)00, a = 5.52645(4) angstrom, b = 5.28277(4) angstrom, c = 11.73797(8) angstrom, gamma = 91.2189(4)degrees, q = 0.56821(2)a*-0.12388(3)b*), whereas the anorthic alpha-phase is (3+1)-dimensional commensurately modulated (superspace group I (1) over bar(alpha beta gamma)0, a = 5.58727(22) angstrom, b = 5.29188(18)angstrom, c = 11.7120(4) angstrom, alpha = 90.485(3)degrees, beta = 88.074(3)degrees, gamma = 91.0270(23)degrees, q = 1/2a* + 1/2c*). In both cases the modulation arises due to Eu/K cation ordering at the A site: the formation of a 2-dimensional Eu3+ network is characteristic for the alpha-phase, while a 3-dimensional Eu3+-framework is observed for the beta-phase structure. The luminescent properties of KEu(MoO4)(2) samples prepared under different annealing conditions were measured, and the relation between their optical properties and their structures is discussed

BMC Public Health

BACKGROUND: Population health intervention research raises major conceptual and methodological issues. These require us to clarify what an intervention is and how best to address it. This paper aims to clarify the concepts of intervention and context and to propose a way to consider their interactions in evaluation studies, especially by addressing the mechanisms and using the theory-driven evaluation methodology. MAIN TEXT: This article synthesizes the notions of intervention and context. It suggests that we consider an "interventional system", defined as a set of interrelated human and non-human contextual agents within spatial and temporal boundaries generating mechanistic configurations - mechanisms - which are prerequisites for change in health. The evaluation focal point is no longer the interventional ingredients taken separately from the context, but rather mechanisms that punctuate the process of change. It encourages a move towards theorization in evaluation designs, in order to analyze the interventional system more effectively. More particularly, it promotes theory-driven evaluation, either alone or combined with experimental designs. CONCLUSION: Considering the intervention system, hybridizing paradigms in a process of theorization within evaluation designs, including different scientific disciplines, practitioners and intervention beneficiaries, may allow researchers a better understanding of what is being investigated and enable them to design the most appropriate methods and modalities for characterizing the interventional system. Evaluation methodologies should therefore be repositioned in relation to one another with regard to a new definition of "evidence", repositioning practitioners' expertise, qualitative paradigms and experimental questions in order to address the intervention system more profoundly

Staphylococcus aureus infective endocarditis versus bacteremia strains: Subtle genetic differences at stake

AbstractInfective endocarditis (IE)(1) is a severe condition complicating 10–25% of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia. Although host-related IE risk factors have been identified, the involvement of bacterial features in IE complication is still unclear. We characterized strictly defined IE and bacteremia isolates and searched for discriminant features. S. aureus isolates causing community-acquired, definite native-valve IE (n=72) and bacteremia (n=54) were collected prospectively as part of a French multicenter cohort. Phenotypic traits previously reported or hypothesized to be involved in staphylococcal IE pathogenesis were tested. In parallel, the genotypic profiles of all isolates, obtained by microarray, were analyzed by discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC)(2). No significant difference was observed between IE and bacteremia strains, regarding either phenotypic or genotypic univariate analyses. However, the multivariate statistical tool DAPC, applied on microarray data, segregated IE and bacteremia isolates: IE isolates were correctly reassigned as such in 80.6% of the cases (C-statistic 0.83, P<0.001). The performance of this model was confirmed with an independent French collection IE and bacteremia isolates (78.8% reassignment, C-statistic 0.65, P<0.01). Finally, a simple linear discriminant function based on a subset of 8 genetic markers retained valuable performance both in study collection (86.1%, P<0.001) and in the independent validation collection (81.8%, P<0.01). We here show that community-acquired IE and bacteremia S. aureus isolates are genetically distinct based on subtle combinations of genetic markers. This finding provides the proof of concept that bacterial characteristics may contribute to the occurrence of IE in patients with S. aureus bacteremia

The Role of Mobile Health Technologies in Allergy Care:an EAACI Position Paper

Mobile health (mHealth) uses mobile communication devices such as smartphones and tablet computers to support and improve health-related services, data and information flow, patient self-management, surveillance, and disease management from the moment of first diagnosis to an optimized treatment. The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology created a task force to assess the state of the art and future potential of mHealth in allergology. The task force endorsed the "Be He@lthy, Be Mobile" WHO initiative and debated the quality, usability, efficiency, advantages, limitations, and risks of mobile solutions for allergic diseases. The results are summarized in this position paper, analyzing also the regulatory background with regard to the "General Data Protection Regulation" and Medical Directives of the European Community. The task force assessed the design, user engagement, content, potential of inducing behavioral change, credibility/accountability, and privacy policies of mHealth products. The perspectives of healthcare professionals and allergic patients are discussed, underlining the need of thorough investigation for an effective design of mHealth technologies as auxiliary tools to improve quality of care. Within the context of precision medicine, these could facilitate the change in perspective from clinician- to patient-centered care. The current and future potential of mHealth is then examined for specific areas of allergology, including allergic rhinitis, aerobiology, allergen immunotherapy, asthma, dermatological diseases, food allergies, anaphylaxis, insect venom, and drug allergy. The impact of mobile technologies and associated big data sets are outlined. Facts and recommendations for future mHealth initiatives within EAACI are listed