High-power Yb:GGG thin-disk laser oscillator: first demonstration and power-scaling prospects

We present the first demonstration of a thin-disk laser based on the gain material Yb:GGG. This material has many desirable properties for the thin-disk geometry: a high thermal conductivity, which is nearly independent of the doping concentration, a low quantum defect, low-temperature growth, and a broadband absorption spectrum, making it a promising contender to the well-established Yb:YAG for high-power applications. In continuous wave laser operation, we demonstrate output powers above 50 W, which is an order of magnitude higher than previously achieved with this material in the bulk geometry. We compare this performance with an Yb:YAG disk under identical pumping conditions and find comparable output characteristics (with typical optical-to-optical slope efficiencies >66%). Additionally, with the help of finite-element-method simulations, we show the advantageous heat-removal capabilities of Yb:GGG compared to Yb:YAG, resulting in >50% lower thermal lensing for thin Yb:GGG disks compared to Yb:YAG disks. The equivalent optical performance of the two crystals in combination with the easy growth and the significant thermal benefits of Yb:GGG show the large potential of future high-power thin-disk amplifiers and lasers based on this material, both for industrial and scientific applications.

Continuous monitoring of intracranial pressure for prediction of postoperative complications of hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage

OBJECTIVE

This study evaluates the value of continuous dynamic monitoring of intracranial pressure (ICP) in patients with hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage to predict early postoperative complications.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Data from 80 patients treated in our hospital from February 2014 to February 2015 were analyzed. The patients all underwent decompressive craniectomies, and their ICP changes were monitored invasively and continuously for 1 to 7 days after surgery. The average blood loss during surgery for the group of patients was 65.3 ± 12.4 ml and the mean GCS score 8.7 ± 2.4. Cases were divided into three groups according to ICP values to compare early postoperative complications of the groups: a normal and mildly increased group (51 cases), a moderately increased group (19 cases) and a severely increased group (10 cases).

RESULTS

To validate the analysis we first showed that comparisons among groups based on gender, age, systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, bleeding time, blood loss, operation time, craniectomy localization, and preoperative mannitol dosage yielded no statistically significant differences. In contrast, the following comparisons produced statistically significant differences: the comparison of postoperative Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores showing that the lower intracranial pressure, the higher the GCS score; the postoperative rehemorrhage, cerebral edema and death ratios showing the higher the intracranial pressure, the higher the rehemorrhage ratio; the average ICP and the time to occurrence of rehemorrhage, cerebral edema or cerebral infarction, showing the relationship between the average ICP and the time to a complication. Patients with higher ICP averages suffered a complication of rehemorrhage within the first 9.6 ± 2.5 hours on average. Nevertheless, the comparison of GCS scores in those patients and the others showed no significant differences.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the findings, the dynamic monitoring of intracranial pressure can early and sensitively predict postoperative complications of patients with hypertensive cerebral hemorrhage, and guide the clinical intervention actively to improve the surgery outcome.

[Significance of SATB2 in the pathologic diagnosis of osteosarcoma]

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the role of SATB2 in the pathological diagnosis and differential diagnosis of osteosarcoma.

METHODS

Immunostaining of SATB2 was performed in 47 cases of osteosarcomas, 5 osteoblastomas, 4 fibrous dysplasias, 5 myositis ossificans, 10 chondroblastomas, 8 chondrosarcomas, 5 Ewing sarcomas, 5 undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcomas, 6 fibrosarcomas and 2 leiomyosarcomas.

RESULTS

All osteoblastomas (5/5) and myositis ossificans (5/5), 83.0%(39/47) of osteosarcomas and 2/10 of chondroblastomas showed nuclear immunoreactivity for SATB2. SATB2 staining was negative in all cases of fibrous dysplasia, chondrosarcomas, Ewing sarcomas and all bone primary spindle cell sarcomas(undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, fibrosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma).

CONCLUSION

SATB2 is a reliable osteoblastic marker for differential diagnosis of osteosarcoma and non-osteoid sarcoma, although with a limited role in separating osteosarcoma from non-malignant osteoblastic lesions.

Low levels of serum miR-99a is a predictor of poor prognosis in breast cancer

MicroRNA (miRNA) deregulation has been previously linked to the initiation and development of breast cancer. Although miR-99a is aberrantly expressed in many types of cancers, including breast cancer, the serum miR-99a expression level in breast cancer and its clinical significance remains unknown. Blood samples were obtained from 72 patients with breast cancer and 40 healthy volunteers, and subjected to real-time polymerase chain reaction to evaluate the level of expression of serum miR-99a in the study participants. Furthermore, we investigated the association between serum miR-99a and the clinical outcome of breast cancer. Serum miR-99a expression was significantly downregulated in patients with breast cancer, compared to that in healthy controls (P < 0.01). Moreover, the serum miR-99a was correlated with various clinical parameters of breast cancer, including lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0194), distant metastasis (P = 0.0037), Ki67 intensity (P = 0.0164), TNM stage (P = 0.0096), and histological grade (P = 0.0051) of cancer. Additionally, breast cancer patients displaying lower miR-99a levels showed poorer overall survival rates (P = 0.0411). The serum miR-99a level was also found to be an independent risk factor for breast cancer (hazard ratio = 3.176, 95% confidence interval = 1.543-7.360, P = 0.023). Our data indicated that serum miR-99a expression was downregulated in breast cancer patients; moreover, this downregulation was associated with poor prognosis, suggesting that serum miR-99a could function as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer.

Surgical management of secondary hyperparathyroidism: how to effectively reduce recurrence at the time of primary surgery

BACKGROUND

Successful parathyroidectomy (PTX) often results in a dramatic drop in the parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels, relieves the patient from clinical symptoms, and reduces mortality. Although PTX is generally a successful treatment for progressive secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) patients subjected to surgery, a significant proportion develops recurrent SHPT following PTX.

KEY MESSAGE

SHPT requiring PTX occurs more commonly in progressive chronic kidney disease and in long-term lithium therapy. Operative approaches include subtotal PTX, total PTX with or without autotransplantation, and possible thymectomy. Each approach has its proponents, advantages, and disadvantages. Although PTX offers the highest percentage cure for SHPT, compared to all other medical and surgical treatment, recurrent hyperparathyroidism can be observed in some patients dependent on follow-up time. A literature review and analysis of recent data regarding how to reduce recurrence of SHPT at the time of primary surgery was performed. The current literature and our own experience in the field have confirmed that pre-operative imaging, thymectomy, stereo magnifier, and surgical procedure may effectively reduce recurrence of SHPT at the time of primary surgery.

Focused-electron-beam-induced-deposited cobalt nanopillars for nanomagnetic logic

Nanomagnetic logic (NML) intends to alleviate problems of continued miniaturization of CMOS-based electronics, such as energy dissipation through heat, through advantages such as low power operation and non-volatile magnetic elements. In line with recent breakthroughs in NML with perpendicularly magnetized elements formed from thin films, we have fabricated NML inverter chains from Co nanopillars by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) that exhibit shape-induced perpendicular magnetization. The flexibility of FEBID allows optimization of NML structures. Simulations reveal that the choice of nanopillar dimensions is critical to obtain the correct antiferromagnetically coupled configuration. Experiments carrying the array through a clocking cycle using the Oersted field from an integrated Cu wire show that the array responds to the clocking cycle.

Effects of dietary oligosaccharide supplementation on growth performance, concentrations of the major odor-causing compounds in excreta, and the cecal microflora of broilers

This study investigated the effects of dietary supplementation with 4 types of oligosaccharides on the growth performance, concentrations of the major odor-causing compounds in excreta and cecal microflora of broilers. Three hundred 21-day-old Archer Abor broilers with an average initial live weight of 702.3 g were randomly divided into 5 dietary treatments: basal diet, basal diet + 5 g/kg of mannan-oligosaccharide (MOS), basal diet + 1.2 g/kg of inulin, basal diet + 1.5 g/kg of fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS), and basal diet +1.25 g/kg of soybean oligosaccharide (SBOS), respectively. Each diet was fed to 6 replicates of 10 birds from d 21 to 42, and body weight and feed intake were recorded. Fresh excreta were sampled from each replicate on d 40, 41, and 42 and stored at -20 °C until further analysis. On d 42, the ceca of killed birds were aseptically removed, and the cecal contents were collected into sterile containers and stored at -80 °C until further analysis. Results showed that feeding inulin, FOS, and SBOS diets resulted in an improvement in daily gain (P < 0.05). Broilers fed the SBOS diet showed lower feed:gain ratio (1.84g:g) than the other groups (P > 0.05). Broilers fed the FOS diet showed the lowest volatile basic nitrogen, pH value, and indole and skatole contents in excreta, and broilers fed the SBOS diet had higher total volatile fatty acids concentrations than control (P < 0.05). The cecal microbial community was measured using the PCR-DGGE, which indicated that the cecal microflora Shannon-wiener index and richness of SBOS-fed broilers were significantly higher than that of the control (P < 0.05). The lowest evenness was recorded in the FOS group, which was significantly lower than the other groups (P < 0.05) except the SBOS group. Based on the sequences of the corresponding 16S rDNA of the DGGE bands, in combination with the contents of the major odor-causing compounds in excreta, it is suggested that uncultured Lachnospiraceae bacterium and Bacteroides sp. were associated with the production of major odor-causing compounds in excreta.

Prevalence of human papillomavirus genotypes among women with cervical lesions in the Shaanxi Province of China

This study aimed to investigate human papilloma virus (HPV) genotypes among women with cervical lesions in Shaanxi Province, China, to obtain information regarding cervical lesion prevention and treatment. The study included 4508 HPV-positive subjects; cervical swab specimens were collected and tested for HPV infection status and HPV genotypes using polymerase chain reaction and reverse dot-blot hybridization. Women positive for HPV with cervical lesions, including chronic cervicitis, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and cervical squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), were examined; HPV-positive women with no cervical lesions were controls. Data were pooled and weighted estimates have been presented. For women with no cervical lesions and positive for one HPV genotype, HPV 52, 16, 58, 81, 33, and 56 were the most common; for multiple-HPV genotype infection, HPV 16, 52, 6, 18, 58, and 66 were the most common. Collectively, HPV 16, 58, 52, 18, 33, and 81 were the most common in women with cervical lesions. HPV 16 comprised 26.71% of single-genotype and 15.64% of multiple-genotype infections. The proportion of HPV-16-positive cases was 29.15%, which was the highest among all HPV genotypes (P < 0.01). Single-HPV genotype infection was the most common in cervical HPV infection (77.48%); infection with two HPV genotypes comprised 72.22% of multiple-genotype infections. The proportion of single-low-risk HPV genotype infections decreased with increase in cervical lesion severity; there were no single- or multiple-low-risk genotype HPV infections in cervical SCC patients. The proportion of multiple-genotype HPV infections with at least one high-risk genotype increased with cervical lesion severity.

Establishment of indirect immunofluorescence assay for rotavirus

Rotavirus infection is the most frequent cause of infantile gastroenteritis worldwide and a significant cause of death in infants and young children, following severe diarrhea and dehydration. Rotavirus vaccines are considered the most effective way to prevent rotavirus infections. In the process of developing rotavirus vaccines, it is crucial to establish a reliable and standardized method to determine vaccine titer. In this study, we developed an indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) to determine the infectious titer of Lanzhou lamb rotavirus (LLR) vaccine grown in MA104 cells. The activating concentration of trypsin was 1 µg/ml for healthy monolayers of MA104 cells at 100% confluence. After incubation for 18 hr, a rabbit anti-SA11 polyclonal antibody, diluted at 1:800 in PBS, was added to all wells, followed by an Alexa-488-conjugated secondary antibody diluted at 1:500 in PBS. Cells were examined with a fluorescence microscope. Our results show that IFA was more reproducible, more sensitive, simpler, and more rapid than the log 50% cell culture infectious dose-ELISA (lgCCID50-ELISA) in measuring the rotavirus vaccines. IFA provided a reliable basis for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of rotavirus, and the certification of rotavirus vaccine production.

Spin-orbit coupling of light in asymmetric microcavities

When spinning particles, such as electrons and photons, undergo spin-orbit coupling, they can acquire an extra phase in addition to the well-known dynamical phase. This extra phase is called the geometric phase (also known as the Berry phase), which plays an important role in a startling variety of physical contexts such as in photonics, condensed matter, high-energy and space physics. The geometric phase was originally discussed for a cyclically evolving physical system with an Abelian evolution, and was later generalized to non-cyclic and non-Abelian cases, which are the most interesting fundamental subjects in this area and indicate promising applications in various fields. Here, we enable optical spin-orbit coupling in asymmetric microcavities and experimentally observe a non-cyclic optical geometric phase acquired in a non-Abelian evolution. Our work is relevant to fundamental studies and implies promising applications by manipulating photons in on-chip quantum devices.

Association analysis of imbalanced interhemispheric functional coordination and early therapeutic efficacy in major depressive disorder: Evidence from resting state fMRI

Introduction

Emerging evidences indicate that the alteration of interhemispheric functional coordination may be involved in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder (MDD). In present study, we aim to explore the potential marker by using the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) approach, which may be contributing to predict the clinical prognosis in MDD.

Methods

Eighty-two MDD patients and 50 normal control (NC) subjects participated in this study. We divided the MDD group into unremitted and remitted group according to the reduction rate of Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) within 2 weeks.

Results

The study detected significantly decreased VMHC in bilateral precuneus (pCu), inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and increased VMHC in middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and caudate nucleus when compared remitted depression (RD) group to unremitted depression (URD) group. Meanwhile, when compared with NC group, the URD group presented reduced VMHC in bilateral cerebellum anterior lobe, thalamus and postcentral gyrus. Furthermore, the VHMC in media frontal gyrus, postcentral gyrus and precentral gyrus were significantly decreased in RD group. Correlation analysis suggested that reduced VMHC in bilateral pCu was negatively correlated with the baseline HAMD score of URD (r = −0.325, P = 0.041). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve indicated that three regional VMHC changes could identify depressed patient with poorer treatment response: ITG [area under curve (AUC) = 0.699, P = 0.002, 95% CI = 0.586–0.812], MFG (AUC = 0.692, P = 0.003, 95% CI = 0.580–0.805), pCu (AUC = 0.714, P = 0.001, 95% CI = 0.603–0.825).

Conclusion

The current study combined with previous evidence indicates that the subdued intrinsic interhemispheric functional connectivity might represents a novel neural trait involved in the pathophysiology of MDD.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Decreased interhemispheric functional coordination underlying the cognitive impairment in late-onset depression

Background

The intuitive association between cognitive dysfunction in late onset depression (LOD) and the aberrant functional activity in the brain's default-mode network (DMN) has prompted interest in exploring the role of the DMN in LOD. The altered pattern of resting state voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) in cognitive processes is not yet well understood in LOD.

Methods

The study was designed to examine the implicit coupling between the alteration of interhemispheric functional coordination and cognitive impairment in LOD. Thirty-one LOD patients and 37 matched healthy controls (HC) underwent neuropsychological tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in this study.

Results

Compared to HC group, attenuated VMHC in superior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, posterior cerebellar lobe, postcentral and precentral gyrus was observed in LOD. Neuro-behavioral relevancy approach revealed that the imbalanced interhemispheric functional coordination in bilateral cerebellum was positively correlated with the performance of trail making test in LOD (r = 0.367, P = 0.040).

Conclusion

Altered linkage pattern of intrinsic homotopic connectivity and cognition was firstly investigated in LOD, and it would provide a novel clue to reveal the neural substrates underlying the cognitive dysfunction in LOD.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

[Analysis of quality of life and emotion symptoms in adolescents with allergic rhinitis in middle area of Jiangsu Province]

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the quality of life and emotion symptoms (anxiety symptom and depressive symptom) of adolescents with allergic rhinitis (AR) in middle area of Jiangsu province.

METHODS

A case-control study on quality of life and emotion symptoms among 220 AR adolescents and 240 controls was performed. The participants were investigated by questionnaires of RQLQ, ICD, and SCARED.SPSS 13.0 software was used to analyze the data.

RESULTS

The scores of RQLQ five dimensions with AR were higher than the controlled subjects respectively(all P<0.01). The score of SCARED((24.15±4.89) vs (19.13±3.17)) but not ICD((20.78±4.4) vs (19.97±3.45)) in AR was higher than the controlled subjects(t=12.79, P<0.05; t=2.34, P>0.05). Furthermore, anxiety symptom was significantly associated with nasal symptoms, other problems and behavior problems.

CONCLUSIONS

The quality of life and emotion symptoms were significantly affected by AR. It is important to pay attention to overall health in AR adolescents.

Dosimetric and clinical toxicity comparison of critical organ preservation with three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiotherapy, and RapidArc for the treatment of locally advanced cancer of the pancreatic head

PURPOSE

We compared dosimetry and clinical toxicity for 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-crt), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (imrt), and RapidArc (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA, U.S.A.) in locally advanced pancreatic cancer (lapcc). We hypothesized that the technique with better sparing of organs at risk (oars) and better target dose distributions could lead to decreased clinical toxicity.

METHODS

The study analyzed 280 patients with lapcc who had undergone radiotherapy. The dosimetry comparison was performed using 20 of those patients. Dose-volume histograms for the target volume and the oars were compared. The clinical toxicity comparison used the 280 patients who received radiation with 3D-crt, imrt, or RapidArc.

RESULTS

Compared with 3D-crt, RapidArc and imrt both achieved a better conformal index, homogeneity index, V95%, and V110%. Compared with 3D-crt or imrt, RapidArc reduced the V10, V20, and mean dose to duodenum, the V20 of the right kidney, and the liver mean dose. Compared with 3D-crt, RapidArc reduced the V35, and V45 of duodenum, the mean dose to small bowel, and the V15 of right kidney. The incidences of grades 3 and 4 diarrhea (p = 0.037) and anorexia (p = 0.042) were lower with RapidArc than with 3D-crt, and the incidences of grades 3 and 4 diarrhea (p = 0.027) were lower with RapidArc than with imrt.

CONCLUSIONS

Compared with 3D-crt or imrt, RapidArc showed better sparing of oars, especially duodenum, small bowel, and right kidney. Also, fewer acute grades 3 and 4 gastrointestinal toxicities were seen with RapidArc than with 3D-crt or imrt. A technique with better sparing of oars and better target dose distributions could result in decreased clinical toxicities during radiation treatment for lapcc.

A silica-based gel electrolyte system for improving the cycle performance of LiFePO4 batteries in an aqueous medium

Cycling performance of LiFePO₄ electrodes in aqueous and gel electrolytes at a 0.5C rate.