Retinal function beyond foveal vision is not routinely examined in the clinical screening and management of diabetic retinopathy although growing evidence suggests it may precede structural changes. ...In this study we compare optical coherence tomography (OCT) based macular structure with function measured objectively with the ObjectiveFIELD Analyzer (OFA), and with Matrix perimetry. We did that longitudinally in Type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with mild Diabetic Macular Oedema (DMO) with good vision and a similar number of T2D patients without DMO, to evaluate changes in retinal function more peripherally over the natural course of retinopathy.
Both eyes of 16 T2D patients (65.0 ± 10.1, 10 females), 10 with baseline DMO, were followed for up longitudinally for 27 months providing 94 data sets. Vasculopathy was assessed by fundus photography. Retinopathy was graded using to Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) guidelines. Posterior-pole OCT quantified a 64-region/eye thickness grid. Retinal function was measured with 10-2 Matrix perimetry, and the FDA-cleared OFA. Two multifocal pupillographic objective perimetry (mfPOP) variants presented 44 stimuli/eye within either the central 30° or 60° of the visual field, providing sensitivities and delays for each test-region. OCT, Matrix and 30° OFA data were mapped to a common 44 region/eye grid allowing change over time to be compared at the same retinal regions.
In eyes that presented with DMO at baseline, mean retinal thickness reduced from 237 ± 25 μm to 234.2 ± 26.7 μm, while the initially non-DMO eyes significantly increased their mean thickness from 250.7 ± 24.4 μm to 255.7 ± 20.6 μm (both p<0.05). Eyes that reduced in retinal thickness over time recovered to more normal OFA sensitivities and delays (all p<0.021). Matrix perimetry quantified fewer regions that changed significantly over the 27 months, mostly presenting in the central 8 degrees.
Changes in retinal function measured by OFA possibly offer greater power to monitor DMO over time than Matrix perimetry data.
The Citizen's Share Blasi, Joseph R; Freeman, Richard B; Kruse, Douglas L
11/2013
eBook
The idea of workers owning the businesses where they work is not new. In America's early years, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison believed that the best economic plan for the Republic was for ...citizens to have some ownership stake in the land, which was the main form of productive capital. This book traces the development of that share idea in American history and brings its message to today's economy, where business capital has replaced land as the source of wealth creation.
Based on a ten-year study of profit sharing and employee ownership at small and large corporations, this important and insightful work makes the case that the Founders' original vision of sharing ownership and profits offers a viable path toward restoring the middle class. Blasi, Freeman, and Kruse show that an ownership stake in a corporation inspires and increases worker loyalty, productivity, and innovation. Their book offers history-, economics-, and evidence-based policy ideas at their best.
We present the analysis of five black hole candidates identified from gravitational microlensing surveys. Hubble Space Telescope astrometric data and densely sampled light curves from ground-based ...microlensing surveys are fit with a single-source, single-lens microlensing model in order to measure the mass and luminosity of each lens and determine if it is a black hole. One of the five targets (OGLE-2011-BLG-0462/MOA-2011-BLG-191 or OB110462 for short) shows a significant >1 mas coherent astrometric shift, little to no lens flux, and has an inferred lens mass of 1.6–4.4 M⨀. This makes OB110462 the first definitive discovery of a compact object through astrometric microlensing and it is most likely either a neutron star or a low-mass black hole. This compact-object lens is relatively nearby (0.70–1.92 kpc) and has a slow transverse motion of <30 kms-1. OB110462 shows significant tension between models well fit to photometry versus astrometry, making it currently difficult to distinguish between a neutron star and a black hole. Additional observations and modeling with more complex system geometries, such as binary sources, are needed to resolve the puzzling nature of this object. For the remaining four candidates, the lens masses are <2M⨀, and they are unlikely to be black holes; two of the four are likely white dwarfs or neutron stars. We compare the full sample of five candidates to theoretical expectations on the number of black holes in the Milky Way (∼108 ) and find reasonable agreement given the small sample size.
Since the late 1950s, the engineering job market in the United States has been fraught with fears of a shortage of engineering skill and talent. U.S. Engineering in a Global Economy brings clarity to ...issues of supply and demand in this important market. Following a general overview of engineering-labor market trends, the volume examines the educational pathways of undergraduate engineers and their entry into the labor market, the impact of engineers working in firms on productivity and innovation, and different dimensions of the changing engineering labor market, from licensing to changes in demand and guest worker programs.The volume provides insights on engineering education, practice, and careers that can inform educational institutions, funding agencies, and policy makers about the challenges facing the United States in developing its engineering workforce in the global economy.
We present an analysis of Galactic bulge stars from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 observations of the Stanek window (l, b = 0.25, −2.15) from two epochs approximately two years apart. ...This data set is adjacent to the provisional Wide-field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) microlensing field. Proper motions are measured for approximately 115,000 stars down to 28th mag in V band and 25th mag in I band, with accuracies of 0.5 mas yr−1 (20 km s−1) at I 21. A cut on the longitudinal proper motion l allows us to separate disk and bulge populations and produce bulge-only star counts that are corrected for photometric completeness and efficiency of the proper-motion cut. The kinematic dispersions and surface density in the field are compared to the nearby SWEEPS sight line, finding a marginally larger-than-expected gradient in stellar density. The observed bulge star counts and kinematics are further compared to the Besançon, Galaxia, and GalMod Galactic population synthesis models. We find that most of the models underpredict low-mass bulge stars by ∼33% below the main-sequence turnoff, and upwards of ∼70% at redder J and H wavebands. While considering inaccuracies in the Galactic models, we give implications for the exoplanet yield from the WFIRST microlensing mission.
To describe the distribution and occurrence of adverse events recorded during hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy from 2012 to 2015. In this analysis, events are defined as otic/sinus barotrauma, ...confinement anxiety, hypoglycemia, oxygen toxicity, pneumothorax, seizure, and shortness of breath.
The data for the analysis were drawn from a proprietary electronic health data system that contained information on 1,529,859 hyperbaric treatments administered during 53,371 treatment courses from 2012 to 2015 in outpatient wound care centers across the United States managed by Healogics, Inc, Jacksonville, Florida.
Of the 1.5 million treatments included in the analysis, 0.68% were associated with an adverse event. Barotrauma and confinement anxiety were the most frequently reported events. Medically severe events were extremely uncommon, with fewer than 0.05 instances of oxygen toxicity per 1000 treatments and only 1 confirmed case of pneumothorax.
Results indicate that the occurrence of adverse events associated with HBO therapy is infrequent and typically not serious. The findings of this study suggest that when administered according to the appropriate therapeutic protocols HBO therapy is a safe and low-risk intervention.
We report a planet in a binary that was discovered from the analysis of the microlensing event OGLE-2018-BLG-1700. We identify the triple nature of the lens from the fact that the anomaly pattern can ...be decomposed into two parts produced by two binary-lens events, in which one binary pair has a mass ratio of ∼0.01 between the lens components and the other pair has a mass ratio of ∼0.3. We find two sets of degenerate solutions, in which one solution has a projected separation between the primary and its stellar companion less than the angular Einstein radius (close solution), while the other solution has a separation greater than (wide solution). From the Bayesian analysis with the constraints of the event timescale and angular Einstein radius, we find that the planet has a mass of and the stellar binary components have masses of and , respectively, and the distance to the lens is . The planet is a circumstellar planet according to the wide solution, while it is a circumbinary planet according to the close solution.
We present the analysis of microlensing event OGLE-2006-BLG-284, which has a lens system that consists of two stars and a gas giant planet with a mass ratio of qp = (1.26 0.19) × 10−3 to the primary. ...The mass ratio of the two stars is qs = 0.289 0.011, and their projected separation is ss = 2.1 0.7 au, while the projected separation of the planet from the primary is sp = 2.2 0.8 au. For this lens system to have stable orbits, the three-dimensional separation of either the primary and secondary stars or the planet and primary star must be much larger than the projected separations. Since we do not know which is the case, the system could include either a circumbinary or a circumstellar planet. Because there is no measurement of the microlensing parallax effect or lens system brightness, we can only make a rough Bayesian estimate of the lens system masses and brightness. We find host star and planet masses of , , and , and the K-band magnitude of the combined brightness of the host stars is . The separation between the lens and source system will be ∼90 mas in mid-2020, so it should be possible to detect the host system with follow-up adaptive optics or Hubble Space Telescope observations.
A novel disposable electrochemical immunosensor for highly selective and sensitive detection of organophosphorylated butyrylcholinesterase (OP‐BChE), a specific biomarker for exposure to toxic ...organophosphorus agents, is presented. In this new approach, zirconia nanoparticles (ZrO2) were employed to selectively capture the OP moiety of OP‐BChE adducts, followed by quantum dot (QD)‐tagged anti‐BChE antibodies for amplified quantification. The captured CdSe‐QD tags can be sensitively detected by stripping voltammetry using an in situ bismuth‐plating method. The OP agent, diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP), was selected to prepare OP‐BChE adducts in various matrices. The formation of OP‐BChE adducts in plasma sample was confirmed using mass spectroscopy. The developed electrochemical immunosensor demonstrates a highly linear voltammetric response over the range of 0.1 to 30 nM OP‐BChE, with a detection limit of 0.03 nM (based on signal/noise = 3), coupled with a good reproducibility (relative standard deviation 4.5%). Moreover, the immunosensor has been validated with biomonitoring of OP‐BChE adducts in the plasma samples. This novel nanoparticle‐based electrochemical immunosensor thus provides an alternative way for designing a sensitive and cost‐effective sensing platform for on‐site screening/evaluating exposure to a variety of OP agents.
New and improved countermeasures are needed for rapid identification of victims to nerve agents. Hence, a novel nanoparticle‐based disposable electrochemical immunosensor has been developed for the on‐site evaluation of exposure to organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents utilizing phosphorylated cholinesterase (ChE) as a biomarker (OP‐ChE adducts) in blood.
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