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We investigated three-dimensional (3D) eyeball protrusion and its association with the offset between the lamina cribrosa (LC) and Bruch’s membrane opening (BMO). 3D-MRI scans were taken from 93 subjects (186 eyes). An ellipsoid was fitted along the posterior 2/3 contour of each eyeball. Eyeball asymmetry with focal bulging was determined by the existence of an adjacent outward protrusion/reciprocal inward depression pair, and the angular deviation of the outermost protruded point (OPP) was measured from the nasal side of the fovea-BMO axis. The LC/BMO offset was evaluated by measuring the central retinal vascular trunk (CRVT) location from the BMO center: (1) the angular deviation and (2) the offset index as the ratio between the CRVT-BMO center distance and the BMO radius in the same direction. Seventy-nine eyes (42%) were classified as having eyeball asymmetry, which had a more superior LC/BMO offset ( P  < 0.001) and a larger offset index ( P  = 0.002). In those eyes, the angular deviation of the OPP showed a significant correlation with that of the LC/BMO offset ( r  = -0.724, P  < 0.001), as did protrusion depth with the offset index ( r  = 0.291, P  = 0.009). The presence of eyeball asymmetry was associated with superior LC/BMO offset ( P  = 0.004) and larger offset index ( P  = 0.009). Superior LC/BMO offset was associated with older age ( P  < 0.001), shorter axial length ( P  < 0.001) and inferior location of OPP ( P  < 0.001). The location and extent of focal bulging were closely associated with those of LC/BMO offset. This indicates that focal bulging during expansion might be associated with diverse directionality of LC/BMO offset.

We compared the central retinal vascular trunk (CRVT) position, as a surrogate of lamina cribrosa (LC) offset, with the anterior scleral opening (ASCO) offset from the Bruch’s membrane opening (BMO). Based on the BMO-centered radial scans, the BMO and ASCO margins were demarcated, and each center was determined as the center of the best-fitted ellipse for each margin. The ASCO/BMO offset was defined as the offset between each center. Angular deviations and the extent of ASCO and CRVT offsets from the BMO center were compared directly. Incomplete demarcation of ASCO was found in 20%, which was associated with a larger BMO area and a larger ASCO offset from the BMO. The angular deviation of ASCO offset was associated with that of CRVT offset and that of the longest externally oblique border. The ASCO offset was smaller than the CRVT offset, and, unlike the CRVT offset, it was rarely deviated to the inferior side. The complete ASCO margin might not be demarcatable when determined on BMO-centered radial scans in the presence of an offset. Also, the ASCO, which reflects only the superficial scleral layer, might not reflect the LC position, because the LC might be shifted further from the ASCO.

This dissertation studies long-term behavior of random Riccati recursions and mathematical epidemic model. Riccati recursions are derived from Kalman filtering. The error covariance matrix of Kalman filtering satisfies Riccati recursions. Convergence condition of time-invariant Riccati recursions are well-studied by researchers. We focus on time-varying case, and assume that regressor matrix is random and identical and independently distributed according to given distribution whose probability distribution function is continuous, supported on whole space, and decaying faster than any polynomial. We study the geometric convergence of the probability distribution. We also study the global dynamics of the epidemic spread over complex networks for various models. For instance, in the discrete-time Markov chain model, each node is either healthy or infected at any given time. In this setting, the number of the state increases exponentially as the size of the network increases. The Markov chain has a unique stationary distribution where all the nodes are healthy with probability 1. Since the probability distribution of Markov chain defined on finite state converges to the stationary distribution, this Markov chain model concludes that epidemic disease dies out after long enough time. To analyze the Markov chain model, we study nonlinear epidemic model whose state at any given time is the vector obtained from the marginal probability of infection of each node in the network at that time. Convergence to the origin in the epidemic map implies the extinction of epidemics. The nonlinear model is upper-bounded by linearizing the model at the origin. As a result, the origin is the globally stable unique fixed point of the nonlinear model if the linear upper bound is stable. The nonlinear model has a second fixed point when the linear upper bound is unstable. We work on stability analysis of the second fixed point for both discrete-time and continuous-time models. Returning back to the Markov chain model, we claim that the stability of linear upper bound for nonlinear model is strongly related with the extinction time of the Markov chain. We show that stable linear upper bound is sufficient condition of fast extinction and the probability of survival is bounded by nonlinear epidemic map.

We study the spread of discrete-time epidemics over arbitrary networks for well-known propagation models, namely SIS (susceptible-infected-susceptible), SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered), SIRS (susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible) and SIV (susceptible-infected-vaccinated). Such epidemics are described by \\(2^n\\)- or \\(3^n\\)-state Markov chains. Ostensibly, because analyzing such Markov chains is too complicated, their \\(O(n)\\)-dimensional nonlinear \"mean-field\" approximation, and its linearization, are often studied instead. We provide a complete global analysis of the epidemic dynamics of the nonlinear mean-field approximation. In particular, we show that depending on the largest eigenvalue of the underlying graph adjacency matrix and the rates of infection, recovery, and vaccination, the global dynamics takes on one of two forms: either the epidemic dies out, or it converges to another unique fixed point (the so-called endemic state where a constant fraction of the nodes remain infected). A similar result has also been shown in the continuous-time case. We tie in these results with the \"true\" underlying Markov chain model by showing that the linear model is the tightest upper-bound on the true probabilities of infection that involves only marginals, and that, even though the nonlinear model is not an upper-bound on the true probabilities in general, it does provide an upper-bound on the probability of the chain not being absorbed. As a consequence, we also show that when the disease-free fixed point is globally stable for the mean-field model, the Markov chain has an \\(O(\\log n)\\) mixing time, which means the epidemic dies out quickly. We compare and summarize the results on different propagation models.

In this study, a specific monoclonal antibody against Listeria monocytogenes was screened using an SPR biosensor. Monoclonal antibodies were bound to protein L, after which the L. monocytogenes cells were subjected to an affinity assay. Protein L was immobilized on a carboxymethyl extran (CM-Dex) surface via an amine coupling method, and utilized repeatedly by regeneration. The monoclonal antibody, 'A18', was selected and employed for the high-sensitivity detection of L. monocytogenes. Under optimized conditions, $10^3 cells/mL$ or 50 cells were detected by the SPR biosensor.

BackgroundWith improved short-term surgical outcomes, laparoscopic distal gastrectomy has rapidly gained popularity. However, the safety and feasibility of laparoscopic total gastrectomy (LTG) has not yet been proven due to the difficulty of the technique. This single-arm prospective multi-center study was conducted to evaluate the use of LTG for clinical stage I gastric cancer.MethodsBetween October 2012 and January 2014, 170 patients with pathologically proven, clinical stage I gastric adenocarcinoma located at the proximal stomach were enrolled. Twenty-two experienced surgeons from 19 institutions participated in this clinical trial. The primary end point was the incidence of postoperative morbidity and mortality at postoperative 30 days. The severity of postoperative complications was categorized according to Clavien–Dindo classification, and the incidence of postoperative morbidity and mortality was compared with that in a historical control.ResultsOf the enrolled patients, 160 met criteria for inclusion in the full analysis set. Postoperative morbidity and mortality rates reached 20.6% (33/160) and 0.6% (1/160), respectively. Fifteen patients (9.4%) had grade III or higher complications, and three reoperations (1.9%) were performed. The incidence of morbidity after LTG in this trial did not significantly differ from that reported in a previous study for open total gastrectomy (18%).ConclusionsLTG performed by experienced surgeons showed acceptable postoperative morbidity and mortality for patients with clinical stage I gastric cancer.

Residual stress is generally evaluated using indentation by comparing the indentation curves of stressed and stress-free states. Here, we suggest a new method that can evaluate surface residual stress without indentation testing on stress-free specimen using stress-independent indentation parameters and an analysis of indentation contact morphology for the stress-free state. We found that several indentation parameters are independent of the stress by Vickers indentation testing on various stress states. The indentation contact morphology can be represented by indentation parameters including stress-independent ones, and by applying the stress-independent parameters obtained from the stressed state to the indentation contact depth function, we can estimate an indentation curve for stress-free state. The estimated curve matches well with the experimental stress-free indentation curve, and it was also confirmed that the applied stress values evaluated by comparing the estimated curve with the stressed indentation curve agree well with the reference values obtained from strain gauge.

We demonstrated an ultra-sensitive terahertz virus detection method combined with virus-sized gold nanogaps filled with Al . Large-area high-density 20 nm-gap rectangular loop structures, containing a resonant frequency in the terahertz range, were fabricated on a 4-inch wafer using atomic layer lithography. When target viruses with a 60 nm diameter were located on the nanogaps, we observed a significant redshift of the resonant peak already with an average number of about 100 viruses per unit loop due to the strong field confinement and enhancement near the gap. Furthermore, when the virus was tightly attached to an etched gap like a bridge connecting metals, its sensitivity is doubled compared to the unetched gap, which resulted in 400% more resonance frequency shift per single virus particle than our previous work. Full-wave simulations and theoretical calculations based on modal expansions were in good agreement with the experiments, revealing that the resonant transmission spectrum was mostly determined by the change in refractive index in a two-dimensional-like optical hotspot near the nanogap. A further step could be taken to increase sensitivity by tuning nanogap-loops to the absorption frequencies associated with the intermolecular vibrational modes of the viruses and fingerprinting them as well.

Metastable phases—kinetically favoured structures—are ubiquitous in nature 1 , 2 . Rather than forming thermodynamically stable ground-state structures, crystals grown from high-energy precursors often initially adopt metastable structures depending on the initial conditions, such as temperature, pressure or crystal size 1 , 3 , 4 . As the crystals grow further, they typically undergo a series of transformations from metastable phases to lower-energy and ultimately energetically stable phases 1 , 3 , 4 . Metastable phases sometimes exhibit superior physicochemical properties and, hence, the discovery and synthesis of new metastable phases are promising avenues for innovations in materials science 1 , 5 . However, the search for metastable materials has mainly been heuristic, performed on the basis of experiences, intuition or even speculative predictions, namely ‘rules of thumb’. This limitation necessitates the advent of a new paradigm to discover new metastable phases based on rational design. Such a design rule is embodied in the discovery of a metastable hexagonal close-packed (hcp) palladium hydride (PdH x ) synthesized in a liquid cell transmission electron microscope. The metastable hcp structure is stabilized through a unique interplay between the precursor concentrations in the solution: a sufficient supply of hydrogen (H) favours the hcp structure on the subnanometre scale, and an insufficient supply of Pd inhibits further growth and subsequent transition towards the thermodynamically stable face-centred cubic structure. These findings provide thermodynamic insights into metastability engineering strategies that can be deployed to discover new metastable phases. A metastable palladium hydride is synthesized where the unique environment in the liquid cell, namely the limited quantity of Pd precursors and the continuous supply of H, resulted in the formation of the hcp phase.

This letter introduces a 7‐bit, 700 MS/s, 2b/cycle asynchronous successive approximation register (SAR) analogue‐to‐digital converter (ADC). To relax the settling requirement, the capacitive digital‐to‐analogue converter (CDAC) is designed with non‐binary weighting to provide redundancy, implemented using a pre‐charge reduction scheme that removes next‐cycle pre‐charge activity in a 2b/cycle SAR ADC. To reduce the area of this non‐binary weighted CDAC, a partially merged capacitor switching scheme is proposed. The prototype ADC is fabricated in a 28 nm CMOS process with an active die area of 0.0077 mm2. At a 700 MS/s sampling rate, the ADC achieves a signal‐to‐noise‐and‐distortion ratio of 37.6 dB and a spurious‐free dynamic range of 49.1 dB at the Nyquist input frequency. The power consumption is 2.41 mW from a 1.0 V supply, resulting in a Walden figure of merit of 55.56 fJ/conversion step at Nyquist. This letter presents a 7‐bit asynchronous successive approximation register analogue‐to‐digital converter operating at 700 MS/s with a 2b/cycle conversion scheme, incorporating a partially merged capacitor switching (PMCS). By applying PMCS to the non‐binary weighted capacitive digital‐to‐analogue converter (CDAC), the number of unit capacitors is effectively reduced, contributing to a smaller CDAC area.