Six months follow up of a single intravitreal injection of ocriplasmin for symptomatic vitreomacular adhesion

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and the safety of the enzymatic vitreolysis with a single intravitreal injection of ocriplasmin 125 μg across a group of patients with symptomatic vitreomacular adhesion (sVMA) during 6 months follow up. Design: A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-masked, 6-month follow up study. Participants: A total of 28 patients (12 M / 16F) (19 receiving ocriplasmin; 9 receiving placebo), mean aged 71 years old, diagnosed with sVMA, VMT, FTMH e ERM by optical coherence tomography. Methods: A single intravitreal injection of ocriplasmin 125 μg or placebo. Primary endpoint was sVMA resolution or FTMH closure. Secondary endpoint included the integrity of the external membrane and the inner and outer segments of the photoreceptor interface using OCT. The evaluation was carried out at baseline and during 6 months after intravitreal injection of ocriplasmin or placebo. Results: After a 6 months follow-up period, the rate of VMA resolution was 42.1% in the Ocriplasmin group vs the 22% in the placebo group. FTMH closure rate was 50% in the Ocriplasmin group vs 0% in the placebo group. The best results were optained within 28 days from the treatment. No case of uveitis, endophthalmitis, retinal tears, retinal detachment or bleeding during followup were reported. One patient reported floaters and transitional photopsias. Conclusions: The study confirmed the efficacy and safety of Ocriplasmin injection for patients with VMT, including when associated with full-thickness macular holes during six months follow up. Long term studies are certainly needed to confirm these results

Forbidden transitions in neutral and charged current interactions between low-energy neutrinos and Argon

Background: The study of low-energy neutrinos and their interactions with atomic nuclei is crucial to several open problems in physics, including the neutrino mass hierarchy, CP-violation, candidates of Beyond Standard Model physics and supernova dynamics. Examples of experiments include CAPTAIN at SNS as well as DUNE's planned detection program of supernova neutrinos. Purpose: We present cross section calculations for quasielastic charged current and neutral current neutrinos at low energies, with a focus on $^{40}$Ar. We also take a close look at pion decay-at-rest neutrino spectra, which are used in e.g. the SNS experiment at Oakridge. Method and results: We employ a Hartree Fock + Continuum Random Phase Approximations (HF+CRPA) framework, which allows us to model the responses and include the effects of long-range correlations. It is expected to provide a good framework to calculate forbidden transitions, whose contribution which we show to be non-negligible. Conclusions: Forbidden transitions can be expected to contribute sizeably to the reaction strength at typical low-energy kinematics, such as DAR neutrinos. Modeling and Monte Carlo simulations need to take all due care to account for the influence of their contributions.Comment: 11 pages, 16 figures; minor corrections to v

Uterine contractile activity in the mare

Endometritis is the commonest reproductive disease in the mare resulting in decreased fertility and economic losses to the equine industry. Endometritis is manifested by accumulation of intrauterine fluid and cellular debris and its therapy is mainly aimed towards enhancing uterine clearance. Impaired uterine contractile activity (UCA) in susceptible mares has been shown to contribute to defective uterine clearance.In this thesis the importance of UCA in uterine clearance was demonstrated by converting the uterus of a genitally normal mare, using clenbuterol, a (L sympathomimetic, into a susceptible uterus, after bacterial infusion. All clenbuteroltreated mares had intrauterine fluid collections 48 h after the infusion. Uterine contractile activity is mainly controlled by the action of the ecbolic hormones, oxytocin (OT) and prostaglandin F2a (PGF2a). The profiles of these two hormones were investigated in resistant and susceptible mares around artificial insemination (AI) and after OT injection. Other stimuli applied only to resistant mares included oestrous and dioestrous teasing, natural service, intrauterine saline infusion and manual manipulation of the genital tract. All stimuli caused OT release and there were no differences in OT profiles between resistant and susceptible mares. However, significantly fewer susceptible mares released PGF2a in response to endogenous OT release or exogenous OT administration.Qualitative measurement of UCA has been reported in mares using ultrasonography and its effect on ecbolic hormone release and subsequently UCA was investigated. There was no evidence to show any effect of ultrasonography on UCA. Utilizing the same technique,'differences in UCA before and after OT administration in oestrous resistant and susceptible mares were investigated. Oestrous resistant mares had higher baseline UCA and OT administration caused uterine spasm in all oestrous mares. However the repeated use of OT at short time intervals caused uterine refractoriness. Daily OT administration in the early postovulatory period significantly affected UCA up to day 3 postovulation.It was finally concluded that UCA is responsible for the clearance of uterine fluid from the uterus. Mares susceptible to endometritis have lower baseline uterine motility and UCA is restored slower after OT administration. There are no differences in the OT profiles between resistant and susceptible mares and different mechanical and psychogenic stimuli associated with reproductive events, seem to trigger OT release. However, most susceptible mares do not release PGF2a in response to endogenous OT release or exogenous OT. Oestrous resistant mares respond to OT administration with uterine spasm and PGF2a release. However in dioestrus, OT stimulates UCA only up to day 3 postovulatio

Quantum gravity and the renormalisation group: theoretical advances and applications

It is well known that quantisation of gravity within the conventional framework of quantum field theory faces challenges. An intriguing novel prospect was put forward by S. Weinberg in 1979 who suggested that the metric degrees of freedom of gravity could be quantised nonpertubatively provided that the theory becomes asymptotically safe (AS) at high energies. In this thesis we put forward a systematic search strategy to test the AS conjecture in four dimensional quantum gravity. Using modern renormalisation group (RG) methods and heat kernel techniques we derive the RG equations for gravitational actions that are formed from powers of the Ricci scalar and powers of the Ricci tensor. The non-linear fixed point equations are solved iteratively and exactly. We develop a sophisticated algorithm to express the fixed point iteratively, and to high order, in terms of its lower order couplings. We also evaluate universal scaling exponents and find that the relevancy of invariants at an asymptotically safe fixed point is governed by their classical mass dimension, providing structural support for the asymptotic safety conjecture. We also apply our findings to the physics of higher dimensional black holes. Most notably, we find that the seminal ultra-spinning Myers-Perry black holes cease to exist as soon as asymptotically safe RG corrections are taken into account. Further results and implications of our findings are discussed

Nuclear effects in electron- and neutrino-nucleus scattering within a relativistic quantum mechanical framework

We study the impact of the description of the knockout nucleon wave function on electron- and neutrino-induced quasielastic and single-pion production cross sections. We work in a fully relativistic and quantum mechanical framework, where the relativistic mean-field model is used to describe the target nucleus. The focus is on Pauli blocking and the distortion of the final nucleon, these two nuclear effects are separated and analyzed in detail. We find that a proper quantum mechanical treatment of these effects is crucial to provide the correct magnitude and shape of the inclusive cross section. Also, this seems to be key to predict the right ratio of muon- to electron-neutrino cross sections at very forward scattering angles.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figure