Miniature standoff Raman probe for neurosurgical applications

Removal of intrinsic brain tumors is a delicate process, where a high degree of specificity is required to remove all of the tumor tissue without damaging healthy brain. The accuracy of this process can be greatly enhanced by intraoperative guidance. Optical biopsies using Raman spectroscopy are a minimally invasive and lower-cost alternative to current guidance methods. A miniature Raman probe for performing optical biopsies of human brain tissue is presented. The probe allows sampling inside a conventional stereotactic brain biopsy system: a needle of length 200 mm and inner diameter of 1.8 mm. By employing a miniature stand-off Raman design, the probe removes the need for any additional components to be inserted into the brain. Additionally, the probe achieves a very low internal silica background while maintaining good collection of Raman signal. To illustrate this, the probe is compared with a Raman probe that uses a pair of optical fibers for collection. The miniature stand-off Raman probe is shown to collect a comparable number of Raman scattered photons, but the Raman signal to background ratio is improved by a factor of five at Raman shifts below ∼500  cm−1. The probe’s suitability for use on tissue is demonstrated by discriminating between different types of healthy porcine brain tissue

Isotopic analysis of faunal material from South Uist, Western Isles, Scotland

This paper reports on the results from stable isotope analysis of faunal bone collagen from a number of Iron Age and later sites on the island of South Uist, in the Western Isles, Scotland. This preliminary investigation into the isotopic signatures of the fauna is part of a larger project to model the interaction between humans, animals, and the broader environment in the Western Isles. The results demonstrate that the island fauna data fall within the range of expected results for the UK, with the terrestrial herbivorous diets of cattle and sheep confi rmed. The isotopic composition for pigs suggests that some of these animals had an omnivorous diet, whilst a single red deer value might be suggestive of the consumption of marine foods, such as by grazing on seaweed. However, further analysis is needed in order to verify this anomalous isotopic ratio

Using Analysts’ Forecasts to Measure Properties of Analysts’ Information Environment

This paper presents a model that relates properties of the analysts\u27 information environment to the properties of their forecasts. First, we express forecast dispersion and error in the mean forecast in terms of analyst uncertainty and consensus (that is, the degree to which analysts share a common belief). Second, we reverse the relations to show how uncertainty and consensus can be measured by combining forecast dispersion, error in the mean forecast, and the number of forecasts. Third, we show that the quality of common and private information available to analysts can be measured using these same observable variables. The relations we present are intuitive and easily applied in empirical studies

Developing fibre optic Raman probes for applications in clinical spectroscopy

Raman spectroscopy has been shown by various groups over the last two decades to have significant capability in discriminating disease states in bodily fluids, cells and tissues. Recent development in instrumentation, optics and manufacturing approaches has facilitated the design and demonstration of various novel in vivo probes, which have applicability for myriad of applications. This review focusses on key considerations and recommendations for application specific clinical Raman probe design and construction. Raman probes can be utilised as clinical tools able to provide rapid, non-invasive, real-time molecular analysis of disease specific changes in tissues. Clearly the target tissue location, the significance of spectral changes with disease and the possible access routes to the region of interest will vary for each clinical application considered. This review provides insight into design and construction considerations, including suitable probe designs and manufacturing materials compatible with Raman spectroscopy

Association between hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and later risk of cardiovascular outcomes

Funder: Homerton College, University of Cambridge (GB)BACKGROUND: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are common pregnancy complications that are associated with greater cardiovascular disease risk for mothers. However, risk of cardiovascular disease subtypes associated with gestational hypertension or pre-eclampsia is unclear. The present study aims to compare the risk of cardiovascular disease outcomes for women with and without a history of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia using national hospital admissions data. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of national medical records from all national health service hospitals in England. Women who had one or more singleton live births in England between 1997 and 2015 were included in the analysis. Risk of total cardiovascular disease and 19 pre-specified cardiovascular disease subtypes, including stroke, coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy and peripheral arterial disease was calculated separately for women with a history of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia compared to normotensive pregnancies. RESULTS: Amongst 2,359,386 first live births there were 85,277 and 74,542 hospital admissions with a diagnosis of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia, respectively. During 18 years (16,309,386 person-years) of follow-up, the number and incidence of total CVD for normotensive women, women with prior gestational hypertension and women with prior pre-eclampsia were: n=8668, 57.1 (95% CI:55.9-58.3) per 100,000 person-years; n=521, 85.8 (78.6-93.5) per 100,000 person-years and n=518, 99.3 (90.9-108.2) per 100,000 person-years, respectively. Adjusted HRs (aHR) for total CVD were: aHR (95% CI) = 1.45 (1.33-1.59) for women with prior gestational hypertension and, aHR=1.62 (1.48-1.78) for women with prior pre-eclampsia. Gestational hypertension was strongly associated with dilated cardiomyopathy, aHR=2.85 (1.67-4.86), and unstable angina, aHR=1.92 (1.33-2.77). Pre-eclampsia was strongly associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, aHR=3.27 (1.49-7.19), and acute myocardial infarction, aHR=2.46 (1.72-3.53). Associations were broadly homogenous across cardiovascular disease subtypes and increased with a greater number of affected pregnancies. CONCLUSIONS: Women with either previous gestational hypertension or pre-eclampsia are at greater risk of a range of cardiovascular outcomes. These women may benefit from clinical risk assessment or early interventions to mitigate their greater risk of various cardiovascular outcomes.Cambridge BHF Centre of Research Excellence (RE/13/6/30180

ISPIDER Central: an integrated database web-server for proteomics

Despite the growing volumes of proteomic data, integration of the underlying results remains problematic owing to differences in formats, data captured, protein accessions and services available from the individual repositories. To address this, we present the ISPIDER Central Proteomic Database search (http://www.ispider.manchester.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ProteomicSearch.pl), an integration service offering novel search capabilities over leading, mature, proteomic repositories including PRoteomics IDEntifications database (PRIDE), PepSeeker, PeptideAtlas and the Global Proteome Machine. It enables users to search for proteins and peptides that have been characterised in mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiments from different groups, stored in different databases, and view the collated results with specialist viewers/clients. In order to overcome limitations imposed by the great variability in protein accessions used by individual laboratories, the European Bioinformatics Institute's Protein Identifier Cross-Reference (PICR) service is used to resolve accessions from different sequence repositories. Custom-built clients allow users to view peptide/protein identifications in different contexts from multiple experiments and repositories, as well as integration with the Dasty2 client supporting any annotations available from Distributed Annotation System servers. Further information on the protein hits may also be added via external web services able to take a protein as input. This web server offers the first truly integrated access to proteomics repositories and provides a unique service to biologists interested in mass spectrometry-based proteomics