The TRIUMF Ultra-Cold Advanced Neutron (TUCAN) collaboration aims at a precision neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) measurement with an uncertainty of \(10^{-27}\,e\cdot\mathrm{cm}\), which is an ...order-of-magnitude better than the current nEDM upper limit and enables us to test Supersymmetry. To achieve this precision, we are developing a new high-intensity ultracold neutron (UCN) source using super-thermal UCN production in superfluid helium (He-II) and a nEDM spectrometer. The current development status of them is reported in this article.
Terahertz near field microscopy of metamaterials Acuna, G.P.; Kuchler, F.; Kersting, R. ...
2008 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and 2008 Conference on Quantum Electronics and Laser Science
Conference Proceeding
We apply terahertz microscopy for studying metamaterials with resonances in the terahertz band. The data provide insight into the metamaterialpsilas local response on scales much smaller than the ...unit cell of the structure.
Book reviews and responses Küchler, Florian
Cambridge Review of International Affairs,
20/3/1/, Letnik:
20, Številka:
1
Book Review
Recenzirano
Books Reviewed:
Cleft countries: regional political divisions and cultures in post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova by Ivan Katchanovski
Reviving Greater Russia?: the future of Russia's borders with ...Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Ukraine by Herman Pirchner, Jr
Turkey and the EU: an awkward candidate for EU membership? by Harun Arikan
The EU and Turkey: a glittering prize or a millstone? by Michael Lake (ed)
Divided Korea: toward a culture of reconciliation by Roland Bleiker
US-China relations in the 21
st
Century: power transition and peace by Zhiqun Zhu
Objectives
With only limited information available on dimensional changes after jaw cyst surgery, postoperative cyst shrinkage remains largely unpredictable. We aimed to propose a model for ...volumetric shrinkage based on time elapsed since cyst surgery.
Material and methods
We used data from patients that underwent cyst enucleation or decompression between 2007 and 2017 and had at least three computed tomography (CT) scans per patient. We fitted one simple exponential decay model
V
(
t
) =
V
0
·
e
−
ɑt
and one model with a patient-specific decay rate
V
k
(
t
) =
V
0
·
e
−
βt
+
γkt
.
Results
Based on 108 CT scans from 36 patients (median age at surgery: 45.5 years, IQR: 32.3–55.3, 44% female), our simple exponential decay model is
V
(
t
) =
V
0
· e
−0.0035
t
where
V
(
t
) is the residual cyst volume after time
t
elapsed since surgery,
V
0
is the initial cyst volume, and
e
is the base of the natural logarithm. Considering a patient-specific decay rate, the model is
V
k
(
t
) =
V
0
· e
−0.0049
t
+
γkt
where
γ
k
is normally distributed, with expectation 0 and standard deviation 0.0041.
Conclusions
Using an exponential regression model, we were able to reliably estimate volumetric shrinkage after jaw cyst surgery. The patient-specific decay rate substantially improved the fit of the model, whereas adding specific covariates as interaction effects to model the decay rate did not provide any significant improvement.
Clinical relevance
Estimating postoperative cyst shrinkage is relevant for both treatment planning of jaw cyst surgery as well as evaluating the clinical success of the surgical approach.
Fungal infections claim an estimated 1.5 million lives each year. Mechanisms that protect from fungal infections are still elusive. Recognition of fungal pathogens relies on C-type lectin receptors ...(CLRs) and their downstream signaling kinase SYK. Here we report that the E3 ubiquitin ligase CBLB controls proximal CLR signaling in macrophages and dendritic cells. We show that CBLB associates with SYK and ubiquitinates SYK, dectin-1, and dectin-2 after fungal recognition. Functionally, CBLB deficiency results in increased inflammasome activation, enhanced reactive oxygen species production, and increased fungal killing. Genetic deletion of Cblb protects mice from morbidity caused by cutaneous infection and markedly improves survival after a lethal systemic infection with Candida albicans. On the basis of these findings, we engineered a cell-permeable CBLB inhibitory peptide that protects mice from lethal C. albicans infections. We thus describe a key role for Cblb in the regulation of innate antifungal immunity and establish a novel paradigm for the treatment of fungal sepsis.
Objectives
Buccal bone augmentation in the esthetic zone is routinely used to achieve optimal clinical outcomes. Nonetheless, long‐term data are sparse, and it is unknown how baseline buccal bone ...volume affects the retention of the augmented volume over time.
Material and methods
This is a long‐term follow‐up retrospective case series. After a preoperative computed tomography scan, implants were placed in the anterior maxilla following guided bone regeneration, autogenous block grafting, or both. At the follow‐up, patients received a computed tomography scan and a clinical examination. Buccal bone volume was the primary outcome. Buccal bone thickness, peri‐implant, and esthetic parameters were secondary outcomes.
Results
After a median follow‐up of 6.7 years (interquartile range: 4.9–9.4), 28 implants in 19 patients (median age at augmentation: 43.3 years, interquartile range: 34.4–56.7, 53% female) were followed up. Preoperative buccal bone volume at baseline (V0) showed a moderate correlation to final buccal bone volume (Vt, rs = .43) but a strong correlation to the absolute volumetric change (ΔV = Vt–V0, rs = −.80). A linear mixed model for Vt had a large intercept of 91.39 (p < .001) and a rather small slope of .11 for V0 (p = .11). Observed differences between treatments were not statistically significant in the mixed model. V0 above 105 mm3 predicted a negative volume change (ΔV < 0) with a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 96%.
Conclusions
The results suggest higher gains in sites with lower V0 and point to a cutoff V0 above which the augmented volume is not retained long‐term.
Abstract
Social capital—the strength of an individual’s social network and community—has been identified as a potential determinant of outcomes ranging from education to health
1–8
. However, efforts ...to understand what types of social capital matter for these outcomes have been hindered by a lack of social network data. Here, in the first of a pair of papers
9
, we use data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook to study social capital. We measure and analyse three types of social capital by ZIP (postal) code in the United States: (1) connectedness between different types of people, such as those with low versus high socioeconomic status (SES); (2) social cohesion, such as the extent of cliques in friendship networks; and (3) civic engagement, such as rates of volunteering. These measures vary substantially across areas, but are not highly correlated with each other. We demonstrate the importance of distinguishing these forms of social capital by analysing their associations with economic mobility across areas. The share of high-SES friends among individuals with low SES—which we term economic connectedness—is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility identified to date
10,11
. Other social capital measures are not strongly associated with economic mobility. If children with low-SES parents were to grow up in counties with economic connectedness comparable to that of the average child with high-SES parents, their incomes in adulthood would increase by 20% on average. Differences in economic connectedness can explain well-known relationships between upward income mobility and racial segregation, poverty rates, and inequality
12–14
. To support further research and policy interventions, we publicly release privacy-protected statistics on social capital by ZIP code at
https://www.socialcapital.org
.
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