Transformation of vector beams with radial and azimuthal polarizations in biaxial crystals

We present both experimentally and theoretically the transformation of radially and azimuthally polarized vector beams when they propagate through a biaxial crystal and are transformed by the conical refraction phenomenon. We show that, at the focal plane, the transverse pattern is formed by a ring-like light structure with an azimuthal node, this node being found at diametrically opposite points of the ring for radial/azimuthal polarizations. We also prove that the state of polarization of the transformed beams is conical refraction-like, i.e., that every two diametrically opposite points of the light ring are linearly orthogonally polarized.

Polarization tailored novel vector beams based on conical refraction

Coherent vector beams with involved states of polarization (SOP) are widespread in the literature, having applications in laser processing, super-resolution imaging and particle trapping. We report novel vector beams obtained by transforming a Gaussian beam passing through a biaxial crystal, by means of the conical refraction phenomenon. We analyze both experimentally and theoretically the SOP of the different vector beams generated and demonstrate that the SOP of the input beam can be used to control both the shape and the SOP of the transformed beam. We also identify polarization singularities of such beams for the first time and demonstrate their control by the SOP of the input beam.

Synthesis of new heteroscorpionate iridium(i) and iridium(iii) complexes

The reactivity of different heteroscorpionate ligands based on bis(pyrazol-1-yl)methane, with different iridium-(i) and -(iii) precursors is reported.

Global color estimation of special-effect coatings from measurements by commercially available portable multiangle spectrophotometers

Colors of special-effect coatings have strong dependence on illumination/viewing geometry and an appealing appearance. An open question is to ask about the minimum number of measurement geometries required to completely characterize their observed color shift. A recently published principal components analysis (PCA)-based procedure to estimate the color of special-effect coatings at any geometry from measurements at a reduced set of geometries was tested in this work by using the measurement geometries of commercial portable multiangle spectrophotometers X-Rite MA98, Datacolor FX10, and BYK-mac as reduced sets. The performance of the proposed PCA procedure for the color-shift estimation for these commercial geometries has been examined for 15 special-effect coatings. Our results suggest that for rendering the color appearance of 3D objects covered with special-effect coatings, the color accuracy obtained with this procedure may be sufficient. This is the case especially if geometries of X-Rite MA98 or Datacolor FX10 are used.

Substantia nigra neuromelanin magnetic resonance imaging in de novo Parkinson's disease patients

BACKGROUND

Depigmentation of the substantia nigra (SN) and locus coeruleus (LC) is a conspicuous pathological feature of Parkinson's disease (PD) and is related to the loss of neuromelanin, whose paramagnetic properties result in high signal on specific T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recent studies have suggested that neuromelanin decrease in the SN and LC of PD patients may emerge as a possible diagnostic biomarker. The SN neuromelanin signal in de novo and early stage PD patients was studied to assess its diagnostic accuracy. This is the first study based on a semi-automated MRI analysis of the neuromelanin signal in de novo PD patients.

METHODS

The inclusion criteria were untreated de novo PD and a 2-5 year disease duration; in addition, age matched healthy controls were enrolled. These were studied with a high-resolution T1-weighted MRI sequence at 3 T to visualize neuromelanin. The primary outcome was SN high signal area, length and neuromelanin/midbrain ratio obtained with semi-automated methods.

RESULTS

A total of 12 de novo PD patients and 10 PD patients with a 2-5 year disease duration were evaluated. The area, length of the SN T1 high signal and the SN neuromelanin/midbrain ratio were markedly decreased in the PD groups compared with age-matched controls, with a substantial overlap between the two PD groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Neuromelanin-sensitive MRI techniques can discriminate PD patients from healthy individuals with high sensitivity and specificity. Our findings are consistent with recent findings showing that PD neuromelanin changes remain stable during the course of the disease.

Can Anaplasma ovis in small ruminants be neglected any longer?

Anaplasma species are obligate intracellular rickettsial pathogens transmitted by ticks with an impact on human and animal health. Anaplasma ovis infects sheep and goats in many regions of the world, and it can be diagnosed by different methods like Giemsa staining, PCR or competitive ELISA. In this study, a PCR based on the gene coding for major surface protein 4 (MSP-4) was used to examine field samples collected from sheep in different countries. Altogether, 1161 blood samples from Turkey (n = 830), Iraq (n = 195), Sudan (n = 96) and Portugal (n = 40) were examined, of which 31.4%, 66.6% 41.6% and 82.5%, respectively, were positive. This indicates high prevalence of A. ovis in the countries under investigation, and it can be assumed that the situation in other areas of the world might be similar. Thus, A. ovis should be considered as an important constraint of livestock production, and further efforts are needed to better understand the epidemiology and to implement suitable control measures.

[Premacular hemorrhage treatment with Nd:YAG laser: a clinical case]

INTRODUCTION

To report a case of premacular hemorrhage treated with Neodymium (Nd):YAG laser puncture.

CASE REPORT

A 54 year-old Caucasian female was seen in the emergency department with complaints of sudden loss of vision in her right eye (RE), detected on the previous day. The best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the RE was reduced to light perception, and fundoscopy evidenced a large and dense premacular hemorrhage. An Nd:YAG laser puncture was performed that day to drain the hemorrhage into the vitreous cavity. The intravitreal hemorrhage cleared in about 1 month, and the BCVA of the RE was 20/25 after 3 months.

Intense foreshocks and a slow slip event preceded the 2014 Iquique Mw 8.1 earthquake

The subduction zone in northern Chile is a well-identified seismic gap that last ruptured in 1877. The moment magnitude (Mw) 8.1 Iquique earthquake of 1 April 2014 broke a highly coupled portion of this gap. To understand the seismicity preceding this event, we studied the location and mechanisms of the foreshocks and computed Global Positioning System (GPS) time series at stations located on shore. Seismicity off the coast of Iquique started to increase in January 2014. After 16 March, several Mw > 6 events occurred near the low-coupled zone. These events migrated northward for ~50 kilometers until the 1 April earthquake occurred. On 16 March, on-shore continuous GPS stations detected a westward motion that we model as a slow slip event situated in the same area where the mainshock occurred.

Design of clone-specific probes from genome sequences for rapid PCR-typing of outbreak pathogens

The genome sequence of one OXA-48-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae belonging to sequence type (ST) 405, and three belonging to ST11, were used to design and test ST-specific PCR assays for typing OXA-48-producing K. pneumoniae. The approach proved to be useful for in-house development of rapid PCR typing assays for local outbreak surveillance.

Color representation and interpretation of special effect coatings

A representation of the color gamut of special effect coatings is proposed and shown for six different samples, whose colors were calculated from spectral bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurements at different geometries. The most important characteristic of the proposed representation is that it allows a straightforward understanding of the color shift to be done both in terms of conventional irradiation and viewing angles and in terms of flake-based parameters. A different line was proposed to assess the color shift of special effect coatings on a*,b*-diagrams: the absorption line. Similar to interference and aspecular lines (constant aspecular and irradiation angles, respectively), an absorption line is the locus of calculated color coordinates from measurement geometries with a fixed bistatic angle. The advantages of using the absorption lines to characterize the contributions to the spectral BRDF of the scattering at the absorption pigments and the reflection at interference pigments for different geometries are shown.

Update on anesthetic complications of robotic thoracic surgery

In the last decade, there has been increasing use of the da Vinci® robot surgical system to perform minimally invasive thoracic surgery. The robotic technology can be applied for surgery of the lungs, mediastinum, and esophagus. A number of case reports have been shown steep learning curve, and promising surgical outcome with this new technology. However, anesthesia management of the robotic thoracic surgery can be complex and requires further education. For example, most of the cases require sufficient lung collapse in order to provide adequate surgical field. In addition, a unique operative setting, such as patient positioning and capnothorax can make anesthesia management further challenging. Hence, anesthesiologists should have better awareness of adverse events or complications related to the robotic surgery to accomplish successful anesthesia management. This review will focus on the potential complications of robotic thoracic surgery involving the lungs, mediastinum and esophagus.

Abstract P4-04-16: Highly variably expressed exons (HVEE) of cancer genes and survival disparity in human breast cancer

Background: RNA-Seq is a powerful technology for accurately quantifying the transcriptome of human cancers. The human breast cancer section of the TCGA has generated RNA-Seq data for over 950 samples from primary tumors and adjacent normal tissues. Analysis of these data has provided insights into transcript isoforms and gene fusions related to the etiology of breast cancer. These rich data no doubt contain other insights into the expression of cancer genes and how it relates to cancer clinical outcomes.

Methods: TCGA RNA-Seq data were downloaded from TCGA data portal. A total of 712 samples were available when this project started, including data from 607 primary breast tumors of which 108 were Basal-like, 316 Luminal A, 139 Luminal B, and 54 HER2-enriched. Data from 65 adjacent normal tissues were also included to be used as controls. We examined the exon-level expression for a group of 137 strongly cancer related genes that can be grouped into 12 pathways (Vogelstein et al. 2013). We focused on exons that display a significant (p <0.05) difference in their expression variation, compared to the other exons of the same gene (> 2 fold changes in terms of standard deviation based on bootstrap resampling). We refer to these exons as HVEEs (Highly variably expressed exons). Using both unsupervised and supervised algorithms (e.g. non-negative matrix factorization), we classified the samples from various subtypes based on the expression patterns of the HVEEs and looked for patterns that associate with clinical outcomes.

Results: For many cancer genes, such as BRCA2 and PTEN, the distribution of within-gene exon expression is similar across all tumor samples and the control group. Subtype-specific amplification of oncogenes (e.g. ERBB2 in the HER2 subtype) and lower expression of cancer genes (e.g. AR in the basal subtype) have also been observed. We observed that exon expression across genes and across samples has in general small variations. Out of the 2,153 exons from the 137 cancer genes, we identified only 41 genes with HVEEs. Most of these genes have only one HVEE but a small number of them have multiple HVEEs (48 in total). Interestingly, HVEEs in 31 of these genes are consistent across the four breast cancer subtypes, as well as the normal group. However, the medians of such HVEE expression across the normal samples are in general significantly lower than those across the tumor samples in any tumor subtypes. Further, using the exon expression data of only the HVEEs, we identified distinct clusters for the basal-like subtype. The 108 basal-like subtype samples can be classified into two clusters with 41 and 67 samples, respectively, based on the expression level of the HVEEs from the above mentioned 31 genes. Overall survival for patients in these two clusters trends toward significance (log-rank test p = 0.058).

Discussion: The consistency of HVEEs across breast cancer and the normal samples and the ability of the HVEE expression level to stratify basal-like breast cancer in a clinically meaningful way is intriguing. We are extending the study to a larger dataset for validation.

The views expressed in this abstract are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy of the Department of Defense, or US Government.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P4-04-16.

A single analytical model for sparkle and graininess patterns in texture of effect coatings

Flakes in effect coatings, which are responsible for its color shift, are not perfectly horizontally oriented, producing a non uniform texture when observed from a distance of around one meter or less. If the coating is illuminated by a diffuse source, a granular appearance is observed, called graininess. But when the coating is illuminated by unidirectional light, some luminous spots on a dark background appear, effect that is known as sparkle. The characterization of these two textures is getting more important for automotive industry because of the high percentage of cars with effect coatings and because improvements in imaging technology allows this effect to be measured by, for instance, commercial instruments as BYK-mac. A single analytical model to understand and radiometrically characterize both sparkle and graininess in effect coatings is presented and studied in this work. It allows both patterns to be explained and, despite its simplicity, includes variables related to the optical system (Point Spread Function (PSF) and size of the entrance pupil), its distance to the coating, the diffusion grade of the illumination, the illumination and observation directions, and coating parameters.

Endometrial inflammatory markers of the early immune response in mares susceptible or resistant to persistent breeding-induced endometritis

Transient endometritis after breeding is necessary for clearance of bacteria and spermatozoa; however, in a subpopulation of mares, the inflammation fails to resolve in a timely fashion. The objective of this study was to describe the uterine inflammatory response in mares susceptible or resistant to persistent breeding-induced endometritis (PBIE) during the first 24 h after induction of uterine inflammation.Twelve mares were classified as susceptible (nZ6) or resistant (nZ6) to PBIE. Mares were inseminated over five estrous cycles and endometrial biopsies were collected at one time point per cycle before (0) and 2, 6, 12, and 24 h after insemination. qPCR analysis for IL1B, IL6, IL8, IFNG, TNF (TNFA), IL10, and IL1RN was performed, and endometrial inflammatory cells were counted for each sample. Relative quantification values reported fold changes in mRNA expression from 0 h values. A general pattern of expression post insemination was observed in both groups of mares. Cytokine mRNA increased at 2 h, peaked between 2 and 12 h, and then decreased.Differences were detected between groups of mares 6 h after challenge; resistant mares had higher mRNA expression of IL6, IL1RN,and IL10 than susceptible mares. Susceptible mares had an increased number of polymorphonuclear neutrophils in the endometrium 2 and 12 h after breeding when compared with resistant mares. These findings describe an inherent difference in the initial immune response to insemination and may help explain the transient nature of inflammation in resistant mares, whereas susceptible mares develop a persistent inflammation.

Consideraciones acerca del brebaje ayahuasca y perspectivas terapéuticas

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