Patient profiling for success after weight loss surgery (GO Bypass study): an interdisciplinary study protocol

Despite substantial research efforts, the mechanisms proposed to explain weight loss after gastric bypass (RYGB) and sleeve gastrectomy (SL) do not explain the large individual variation seen after these treatments. A complex set of factors are involved in the onset and development of obesity and these may also be relevant for the understanding of why success with treatments vary considerably between individuals. This calls for explanatory models that take into account not only biological determinants but also behavioral, affective and contextual factors. In this prospective study, we recruited 47 women and 8 men, aged 25–56 years old, with a BMI of 45.8 ± 7.1 kg/m2 from the waiting list for RYGB and SL at Køge hospital, Denmark. Pre-surgery and 1.5, 6 and 18 months after surgery we assessed various endpoints spanning multiple domains. Endpoints were selected on basis of previous studies and include: physiological measures: anthropometrics, vital signs, biochemical measures and appetite hormones, genetics, gut microbiota, appetite sensation, food and taste preferences, neural sensitivity, sensory perception and movement behaviors; psychological measures: general psychiatric symptom-load, depression, eating disorders, ADHD, personality disorder, impulsivity, emotion regulation, attachment pattern, general self-efficacy, alexithymia, internalization of weight bias, addiction, quality of life and trauma; and sociological and anthropological measures: sociodemographic measures, eating behavior, weight control practices and psycho-social factors. Joining these many endpoints and methodologies from different scientific disciplines and creating a multi-dimensional predictive model has not previously been attempted. Data on the primary endpoint are expected to be published in 2018

Roads to ultrathin silicon oxides

Ultrathin gate dielectrics for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices, with suitable structural and electrical properties, are crucial for the further development of silicon based microelectronics. The effective (SiO2-equivalent) thickness of 10 A or below needed in the next generations of CMOS devices has been found too low to prevent tunneling. and leakage. with current processes for SiO2 based gate insulators. Before abandoning SiO2, completely however. there are good reasons to look for improved procedures or alternative processes to grow or form ultrathin SiO2 films on silicon, and possible improvements through the controlled addition of nitrogen. The present article initially describes an attempt to grow ultrathin oxides in a furnace. but this was limited to 50-Angstrom-thick layers or above. It then unveils some particularly simple. easily controlled, low-thermal budget, low-pressure based processes for thinner oxide layers, which have not been met earlier. These later processes are all done in an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) based environment, starting from a clean and perfectly ordered Si surface. Thus we formed the thinnest possible (approximate to4 Angstrom) uniformly covering oxide layers on the Si(111) and Si(001) surfaces. They are made very simply from cycles of oxygen adsorption at room temperature and short anneals, and are self-saturating at this thickness. Following these processes we explored isothermal methods in UHV at low temperatures and pressures. Such processes, at low pressures. were found to lead to a universal, self-limiting growth of an approximately 7-Angstrom-thick oxide at a range of temperatures between 300 and 700 degreesC. Further, up to about 10 Angstrom oxides are grown in a series of steps. in each of which a layer of freshly deposited Cs on top of already grown oxide is retaining oxygen on this otherwise passivated surface. The Cs layer also catalyzes oxidation during a subsequent rapid annealing step. Higher thicknesses (up to 50 Angstrom) are obtained by using a precursor layer of Cs-oxide formed in alternating Cs and oxygen dosing processes, which is converted into SiO2, by heating. The present investigations are focused on structural properties of the systems studied with the use of electron spectroscopy, mainly photoemission with synchrotron radiation. in UHV. (C) 2005 American Vacuum Society