Effect of topical loteprednol etabonate with lid hygiene on tear cytokines and meibomian gland dysfunction in prosthetic eye wearers

PurposeTo assess tear cytokine levels and clinical outcomes in meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) in the blind eye of patients wearing an ocular prosthesis after 2 months of treatment with topical loteprednol etabonate and eyelid scrubs with warm compresses.Patients and methodsThis study included patients with MGD wearing a unilateral ocular prosthesis for more than 1 year. All patients topically received 0.5% loteprednol etabonate and were instructed to scrub their eyelids with warm compresses on the prosthetic eye for 2 months. We evaluated tear cytokine levels using Multiplex Bead Immunoassays, performed biomicroscopic examination of the lid margins and meibomian gland, conducted meibography imaging, and assessed MGD-related ocular symptoms using a questionnaire for the prosthetic eye before and 2 months after treatment.ResultsThirty consecutive patients were included. There were significant reductions in the levels of interleukin (IL)-6, interferon-γ, monocyte chemotactic protein-1, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor-α, and IL-1β (P<0.001 for each cytokine). Moreover, there were improvements in ocular symptoms (P=0.001), lid margin abnormalities (P<0.001), meibomian gland expressibility (P<0.001) and meibography findings (P=0.037).ConclusionTopical loteprednol etabonate in conjunction with eyelid scrubs and warm compresses were effective in treating MGD in prosthetic eye wearers. Furthermore, tear cytokine measurements may serve as an additional approach for evaluating the efficacy of anti-inflammatory treatment for MGD in prosthetic eye wearers.

Unsupervised Learning in PET Radiomics

In this study, we investigated large scale radoimics on 116 breast cancer patients. We are particularly interested in unsupervised learning to bicluster patients and features in order to associate such biclusters with the disease characteristics. The results show that radiomics features with wavelet features have a better biclustering ability. And 172 radiomics features have shown a better classification capability.

[18F]-Sodium Fluoride PET MR-Based Localization and Quantification of Bone Turnover as a Biomarker for Facet Joint-Induced Disability

Our aim was to prospectively evaluate the relationship between low back pain-related disability and quantitative measures from [¹⁸F]-sodium fluoride ([¹⁸F]-NaF) MR imaging. Six patients with facetogenic low back pain underwent dynamic [¹⁸F]-NaF PET/MR imaging. PET metrics were correlated with clinical measures and MR imaging grading of lumbar facet arthropathy. A significant positive correlation was observed between maximum facet joint uptake rate and clinical disability (P < .05). These data suggest that dynamic [¹⁸F]-NaF PET may serve as a useful biomarker for facetogenic disability.

Test of a 32-channel Prototype ASIC for Photon Counting Application

A new low-power application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) application is being developed at BNL. As the first step, a 32-channel prototype ASIC was designed and tested recently. Each channel has a preamplifier followed by CR-RC³ shaping circuits and three independent energy bins with comparators and 16-bit counters. The ASIC was fabricated with TSMC 0.35-μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process and tested in laboratories. The power consumption is around 1 mW/ch with a 2.5-V supply. With a gain of 400 mV/fC and the peaking time of 500 ns, the equivalent noise charge (ENC) of 360 e- has been measured in room temperature while the crosstalk rate is less than 0.3%. The 10-bit DACs for global thresholds have an integral nonlinearity (INL) less than 0.56% and differential nonlinearity (DNL) less than 0.33%. In the presentation, we will report the detailed test results with this ASIC.

Extrusion Foaming Behavior of PBT Resins

An investigation of the foaming behavior of polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) resins in extrusion is performed. Commercial grades of PBT with different molecular weights and rheological characteristics are chosen. PBTs with a high temperature chemical blowing agent are extruded under different material and operational conditions (e.g., amount of blowing agent, set temperature at the die, screw RPM, etc.) to allow the understanding of the effects of those conditions on product characteristics. The foamed extrudates are analyzed for density, morphology, and crystallinity. It is shown that the foaming behavior and the foam quality of PBT are functions of the characteristic properties of the resins including rheological and crystallization behavior.

Stability of the Baseline Holder in Readout Circuits For Radiation Detectors

Baseline holder (BLH) circuits are used widely to stabilize the analog output of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for high-count-rate applications. The careful design of BLH circuits is vital to the overall stability of the analog-signal-processing chain in ASICs. Recently, we observed self-triggered fluctuations in an ASIC in which the shaping circuits have a BLH circuit in the feedback loop. In fact, further investigations showed that methods of enhancing small-signal stabilities cause an even worse situation. To resolve this problem, we used large-signal analyses to study the circuit's stability. We found that a relatively small gain for the error amplifier and a small current in the non-linear stage of the BLH are required to enhance stability in large-signal analysis, which will compromise the properties of the BLH. These findings were verified by SPICE simulations. In this paper, we present our detailed analysis of the BLH circuits, and propose an improved version of them that have only minimal self-triggered fluctuations. We summarize the design considerations both for the stability and the properties of the BLH circuits.

Photocurrent response of MoS₂ field-effect transistor by deep ultraviolet light in atmospheric and N₂ gas environments

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), which is one of the representative transition metal dichalcogenides, can be made as an atomically thin layer while preserving its semiconducting characteristics. We fabricated single-, bi-, and multilayer MoS2 field-effect transistor (FET) by the mechanical exfoliation method and studied the effect of deep ultraviolet (DUV) light illumination. The thickness of the MoS2 layers was determined using an optical microscope and further confirmed by Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. The MoS2 FETs with different number of layers were assessed for DUV-sensitive performances in various environments. The photocurrent response to DUV light becomes larger with increasing numbers of MoS2 layers and is significantly enhanced in N2 gas environment compared with that in atmospheric environment.