Delay in diabetic retinopathy screening increases the rate of detection of referable diabetic retinopathy

Aims - To assess whether there is a relationship between delay in retinopathy screening after diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes and level of retinopathy detected. Methods - Patients were referred from 88 primary care practices to an English National Health Service diabetic eye screening programme. Data for screened patients were extracted from the primary care databases using semi-automated data collection algorithms supplemented by validation processes. The programme uses two-field mydriatic digital photographs graded by a quality assured team. Results - Data were available for 8183 screened patients with diabetes newly diagnosed in 2005, 2006 or 2007. Only 163 with Type 1 diabetes were identified and were insufficient for analysis. Data were available for 8020 with newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes. Of these, 3569 were screened within 6 months, 2361 between 6 and 11 months, 1058 between 12 and 17 months, 366 between 18 and 23 months, 428 between 24 and 35 months, and 238 at 3 years or more after diagnosis. There were 5416 (67.5%) graded with no retinopathy, 1629 (20.3%) with background retinopathy in one eye, 753 (9.4%) with background retinopathy in both eyes and 222 (2.8%) had referable diabetic retinopathy. There was a significant trend (P = 0.0004) relating time from diagnosis to screening detecting worsening retinopathy. Of those screened within 6 months of diagnosis, 2.3% had referable retinopathy and, 3 years or more after diagnosis, 4.2% had referable retinopathy. Conclusions - The rate of detection of referable diabetic retinopathy is elevated in those who were not screened promptly after diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes

Why and when the Minkowski's stress tensor can be used in the problem of Casimir force acting on bodies embedded in media

It is shown that the criticism by Raabe and Welsch of the Dzyaloshinskii-Lifshitz-Pitaevskii theory of the van der Waals-Casimir forces inside a medium is based on misunderstandings. It is explained why and at which conditions one can use the ''Minkowski-like '' stress tensor for calculations of the forces. The reason, why approach of Raabe and Welsch is incorrect, is discussed.Comment: Comment, 2 pages. 2 misprints were correcte

Comment on "Effects of spatial dispersion on electromagnetic surface modes and on modes associated with a gap between two half spaces"

Recently Bo E. Sernelius [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 71}, 235114 (2005)] investigated the effects of spatial dispersion on the thermal Casimir force between two metal half spaces. He claims that incorporating spatial dispersion results in a negligible contribution from the transverse electric mode at zero frequency as compared to the transverse magnetic mode. We demonstrate that this conclusion is not reliable because, when applied to the Casimir effect, the approximate description of spatial dispersion used is unjustified.Comment: 9 pages, minor corrections in accordance with the journal publication have been mad

On the Possibility of Measuring the Abraham Force using Whispering Gallery Modes

Critical experimental tests of the time-dependent Abraham force in phenomenological electrodynamics are scarce. In this paper we analyze the possibility of making use of intensity-modulated whispering gallery modes in a microresonator for this purpose. Systems of this kind appear attractive, as the strong concentration of electromagnetic fields near the rim of the resonator serves to enhance the Abraham torque exerted by the field. We analyze mainly spherical resonators, although as an introductory step we consider also the cylinder geometry. The order of magnitude of the Abraham torques are estimated by inserting reasonable values for the various input parameters. As expected, the predicted torques turn out to be very small, although probably not beyond any reach experimentally. Our main idea is essentially a generalization of the method used by G. B. Walker et al. [Can. J. Phys. 53, 2577] for low-frequency fields, to the optical case.Comment: 6 pages, no figures. Minor typos corrected, acknowledgment added. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Pinning and transport of cyclotron/Landau orbits by electromagnetic vortices

Electromagnetic waves with phase defects in the form of vortex lines combined with a constant magnetic field are shown to pin down cyclotron orbits (Landau orbits in the quantum mechanical setting) of charged particles at the location of the vortex. This effect manifests itself in classical theory as a trapping of trajectories and in quantum theory as a Gaussian shape of the localized wave functions. Analytic solutions of the Lorentz equation in the classical case and of the Schr\"odinger or Dirac equations in the quantum case are exhibited that give precise criteria for the localization of the orbits. There is a range of parameters where the localization is destroyed by the parametric resonance. Pinning of orbits allows for their controlled positioning -- they can be transported by the motion of the vortex lines.Comment: This version differs from the printed paper in having the full titles of all referenced pape

Electromagnetic modes of Maxwell fisheye lens

We provide an analysis of the radial structure of TE and TM modes of the Maxwell fisheye lens, by means of Maxwell equations as applied to the fisheye case. Choosing a lens of size R = 1 cm, we plot some of the modes in the infrared range.Comment: 2+6 pages in Latex, 3 figures to be found in the published referenc

Efficient nonlinear room-temperature spin injection from ferromagnets into semiconductors through a modified Schottky barrier

We suggest a consistent microscopic theory of spin injection from a ferromagnet (FM) into a semiconductor (S). It describes tunneling and emission of electrons through modified FM-S Schottky barrier with an ultrathin heavily doped interfacial S layer . We calculate nonlinear spin-selective properties of such a reverse-biased FM-S junction, its nonlinear I-V characteristic, current saturation, and spin accumulation in S. We show that the spin polarization of current, spin density, and penetration length increase with the total current until saturation. We find conditions for most efficient spin injection, which are opposite to the results of previous works, since the present theory suggests using a lightly doped resistive semiconductor. It is shown that the maximal spin polarizations of current and electrons (spin accumulation) can approach 100% at room temperatures and low current density in a nondegenerate high-resistance semiconductor.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures; provides detailed comparison with earlier works on spin injectio

Integral Equations for Heat Kernel in Compound Media

By making use of the potentials of the heat conduction equation the integral equations are derived which determine the heat kernel for the Laplace operator $-a^2\Delta$ in the case of compound media. In each of the media the parameter $a^2$ acquires a certain constant value. At the interface of the media the conditions are imposed which demand the continuity of the `temperature' and the `heat flows'. The integration in the equations is spread out only over the interface of the media. As a result the dimension of the initial problem is reduced by 1. The perturbation series for the integral equations derived are nothing else as the multiple scattering expansions for the relevant heat kernels. Thus a rigorous derivation of these expansions is given. In the one dimensional case the integral equations at hand are solved explicitly (Abel equations) and the exact expressions for the regarding heat kernels are obtained for diverse matching conditions. Derivation of the asymptotic expansion of the integrated heat kernel for a compound media is considered by making use of the perturbation series for the integral equations obtained. The method proposed is also applicable to the configurations when the same medium is divided, by a smooth compact surface, into internal and external regions, or when only the region inside (or outside) this surface is considered with appropriate boundary conditions.Comment: 26 pages, no figures, no tables, REVTeX4; two items are added into the Reference List; a new section is added, a version that will be published in J. Math. Phy

Trkalian fields: ray transforms and mini-twistors

We study X-ray and Divergent beam transforms of Trkalian fields and their relation with Radon transform. We make use of four basic mathematical methods of tomography due to Grangeat, Smith, Tuy and Gelfand-Goncharov for an integral geometric view on them. We also make use of direct approaches which provide a faster but restricted view of the geometry of these transforms. These reduce to well known geometric integral transforms on a sphere of the Radon or the spherical Curl transform in Moses eigenbasis, which are members of an analytic family of integral operators. We also discuss their inversion. The X-ray (also Divergent beam) transform of a Trkalian field is Trkalian. Also the Trkalian subclass of X-ray transforms yields Trkalian fields in the physical space. The Riesz potential of a Trkalian field is proportional to the field. Hence, the spherical mean of the X-ray (also Divergent beam) transform of a Trkalian field over all lines passing through a point yields the field at this point. The pivotal point is the simplification of an intricate quantity: Hilbert transform of the derivative of Radon transform for a Trkalian field in the Moses basis. We also define the X-ray transform of the Riesz potential (of order 2) and Biot-Savart integrals. Then, we discuss a mini-twistor respresentation, presenting a mini-twistor solution for the Trkalian fields equation. This is based on a time-harmonic reduction of wave equation to Helmholtz equation. A Trkalian field is given in terms of a null vector in C3 with an arbitrary function and an exponential factor resulting from this reduction.Comment: 37 pages, http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.482610

Preanalytical, Analytical, and Computational Factors Affect Homeostasis Model Assessment Estimates

OBJECTIVE—We investigated how β-cell function and insulin sensitivity or resistance are affected by the type of blood sample collected or choice of insulin assay and homeostatis model assessment (HOMA) calculator (http://www.dtu.ox.ac.uk)