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The contrast ratio and the speed of a 16 x 16 electrically addressed spatial light modulator, composed of a ferroelectric liquid-crystal layer on top of a VLSI silicon backplane, are measured with different methods but consistent results. The results are presented and compared with recently reported results on a similar spatial light modulator [Appl. Opt. 33, 2775 (1994)]. Key words: Electrically addressed spatial light modulator, ferroelectric liquid crystal.

A ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator with an active silicon backplane is used to implement reconfigurable reflective phase holograms. Optical results are presented for an optimized computer-generated Fourier hologram.

This article deals with one stage of a research project which looks at the use of microcomputers in primary school classrooms. On the basis of earlier work undertaken, various prerequisites for the successful usage of a micro were identified. Software acceptability was one important point, but organizational and managerial constraints also emerged. An induction course for primary teachers was set up, and an experimental group of teachers given this initial training. These teachers then used a 16K PET for one school term. The article outlines the induction process and the results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a study which attempts to demonstrate the clinical distinction between affective psychoses and schizophrenia. A discriminant function analysis was performed on the clinical data of 146 patients with affective psychoses and 146 schizophrenics in order to determine this distinction. Results of the study showed that the distribution of the weighted scores of these patients differed from a normal distribution and that the boundary between schizophrenic and affective patients was at the of the distribution.

The article presents a study which attempts to demonstrate the clinical distinction between psychotic and neurotic depressions using discriminant function analysis. A comparison between 63 neurotic depressives and 115 psychotic depressives drawn from public mental hospitals in London, England and New York was conducted for the study. Using standardized interviewing techniques, the clinical ratings for the two groups were obtained. Prior chi-square comparisons between the two populations were used as basis for the choice of items for discriminant function analysis.

To mark the birthday of Florence Nightingale on May 12, Jharna Gourlay affirms that the lady with the lamp is still considered a leading light for nurses all over the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Our intention was to develop a meta-understanding of the 'human aspects' of providing palliative care. Integral to developing this meta-understanding was recognising the individuality of people, their varied involvements, situations, understandings, and responses, and the difficulty in stepping back to get a whole view of this while being in the midst of providing palliative care. We intended for this meta-understanding to inform reflections and sense-making conversations related to people's changing situations and diverse needs., Methods: Using collaborative inquiry, this qualitative research was undertaken 'with' clinicians rather than 'on' them. Our team ( n  = 7) was composed of palliative care clinicians and researchers from a co-located rural health service and university. We explored our personal perceptions and experiences through a series of 12 meetings over 8 months. In addition, through five focus groups, we acccessed perceptions and experiences of 13 purposively sampled participants with a range of roles as carers and/or healthcare providers. Data were dialogically and iteratively interpreted., Findings: Our meta-understanding of 'human aspects' of providing palliative care, represented diagrammatically in a model, is composed of ATTRIBUTES OF HUMANITY and ACTIONS OF CARING. ATTRIBUTES OF HUMANITY are death's inevitability, suffering's variability, compassion's dynamic nature , and hope's precariousness . ACTIONS OF CARING include recognising and responding, aligning expectations, valuing relationships , and using resources wisely . The meta-understanding is a framework to keep multiple complex concepts 'in view' as they interrelate with each other., Significance of Findings: Our meta-understanding, highlighting 'human aspects' of providing palliative care, has scope to embrace complexity, uncertainty, and the interrelatedness of people in the midst of resourcing, requiring, and engaging in palliative care. Questions are posed for this purpose. The non-linear diagrammatic representation of ATTRIBUTES OF HUMANITY and ACTIONS OF CARING facilitates multiple ways of engaging and revisiting palliative care situations or navigating changes within and across them., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s), 2022.)

Background: Advances in multi-modality treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) have resulted in low local recurrence rates, but around 30% of patients will still die from distant metastatic disease. In parallel, there is increasing recognition that with radiotherapy and systemic treatment, some patients achieve a complete response and may avoid surgical resection, including in many cases, the need for a permanent stoma. Extended neoadjuvant regimes have emerged to address these concerns. The inclusion of immunotherapy in the neoadjuvant setting has the potential to further enhance this strategy by priming the local immune microenvironment and engaging the systemic immune response., Methods: PRIME-RT is a multi-centre, open label, phase II, randomised trial for patients with newly diagnosed LARC. Eligible patients will be randomised to receive either: short course radiotherapy (25 Gray in 5 fractions over one week) with concomitant durvalumab (1500 mg administered intravenously every 4 weeks), followed by FOLFOX (85 mg/m 2 oxaliplatin, 350 mg folinic acid and 400 mg/m 2 bolus 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) given on day 1 followed by 2400 mg/m 2 5-FU infusion over 46-48 h, all administered intravenously every 2 weeks), and durvalumab, or long course chemoradiotherapy (50 Gray to primary tumour in 25 fractions over 5 weeks with concomitant oral capecitabine 825 mg/m 2 twice per day on days of radiotherapy) with durvalumab followed by FOLFOX and durvalumab. The primary endpoint is complete response rate in each arm. Secondary endpoints include treatment compliance, toxicity, safety, overall recurrence, proportion of patients with a permanent stoma, and survival. The study is translationally rich with collection of bio-specimens prior to, during, and following treatment in order to understand the molecular and immunological factors underpinning treatment response. The trial opened and the first patient was recruited in January 2021. The main trial will recruit up to 42 patients with LARC and commence after completion of a safety run-in that will recruit at least six patients with LARC or metastatic disease., Discussion: PRIME-RT will explore if adding immunotherapy to neoadjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy for patients with LARC can prime the tumour microenvironment to improve complete response rates and stoma free survival. Sequential biopsies are a key component within the trial design that will provide new knowledge on how the tumour microenvironment changes at different time-points in response to multi-modality treatment. This expectation is that the trial will provide information to test this treatment within a large phase clinical trial. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04621370 (Registered 9th Nov 2020) EudraCT number 2019-001471-36 (Registered 6th Nov 2020)., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

A recent phase I-II, open-label trial of ProSavin, a lentiviral vector delivering the key enzymes in the dopamine biosynthetic pathway to non-dopaminergic striatal neurons, demonstrated safety and improved motor function in parkinsonian patients. However, the magnitude of the effect suggested that optimal levels of dopamine replacement may not have been achieved. OXB-102, a lentiviral vector with an optimized expression cassette for dopamine biosynthesis, has been shown to achieve a significantly higher dopamine yield than ProSavin. We assessed the efficacy of OXB-102 in the MPTP macaque model of Parkinson's disease (PD). At 6 months post-vector administration, all treated animals showed significant improvements in clinical scores and spontaneous locomotor activity compared to controls, with the highest recovery observed in the OXB-102 high-dose (HD) group. Positron emission tomography quantification of 6-[ 18 F]-fluoro-L-m-tyrosine uptake showed a significant increase in amino acid decarboxylase activity for all treated animals, compared with controls, where the OXB-102 HD group showed the highest level of dopaminergic activity. A toxicology study in macaques demonstrated that the vector was safe and well tolerated, with no associated clinical or behavioral abnormalities and no immune response mounted against any transgene products. Overall, these data support the further clinical development of OXB-102 for the treatment of PD.

Our understanding of global seagrass ecosystems comes largely from regions characterized by human impacts with limited data from habitats defined as notionally pristine. Seagrass assessments also largely focus on shallow-water coastal habitats with comparatively few studies on offshore deep-water seagrasses. We satellite tracked green turtles (Chelonia mydas), which are known to forage on seagrasses, to a remote, pristine deep-water environment in the Western Indian Ocean, the Great Chagos Bank, which lies in the heart of one of the world's largest marine protected areas (MPAs). Subsequently we used in-situ SCUBA and baited video surveys to survey the day-time sites occupied by turtles and discovered extensive monospecific seagrass meadows of Thalassodendron ciliatum. At three sites that extended over 128 km, mean seagrass cover was 74% (mean range 67-88% across the 3 sites at depths to 29 m. The mean species richness of fish in seagrass meadows was 11 species per site (mean range 8-14 across the 3 sites). High fish abundance (e.g. Siganus sutor: mean MaxN.site -1  = 38.0, SD = 53.7, n = 5) and large predatory shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) (mean MaxN.site -1  = 1.5, SD = 0.4, n = 5) were recorded at all sites. Such observations of seagrass meadows with large top predators, are limited in the literature. Given that the Great Chagos Bank extends over approximately 12,500 km 2 and many other large deep submerged banks exist across the world's oceans, our results suggest that deep-water seagrass may be far more abundant than previously suspected., (Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The present study, conducted in 2003, Melbourne, Australia, examined and compared how different personal and social resources related to participants' use of both heroin and methadone, as well as their experiences of stigma and program regulation, and their evaluation of methadone treatment. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 participants (five men, five women) aged between 25 and 42. Participants who had diverse personal and social circumstances were purposefully sought. Findings showed that users with "non-addict" or "functional" self-concepts had more resources and supportive social relationships that assisted them to develop realistic treatment expectations, avoid the stigma associated with methadone, and focus on the benefits of the treatment. Conversely, "conflicted" users with limited resources, few social connections, and negative self-concept saw methadone as an addiction, and as a highly stigmatizing and disempowering intervention. Social policies that differentiate users and address ways of improving users' personal and social resources are now needed.

The concept of adaptive optics for improving the cost-performance of free-space optoelectronic interconnects is discussed. Adaptive optics as a design option for optical interconnect systems is presented and discussed. A practical demonstrator that performs low-order correction was built and tested. Slowly varying misalignments, including thermal effects, were compensated for in a 622-Mbit/s free-space optical data link.

Free-space optical interconnects have been identified as a potentially important technology for future massively parallel-computing systems. The development of optoelectronic smart pixels based on InGaAs/AlGaAs multiple-quantum-well modulators and detectors flip-chip solder-bump bonded onto complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits and the design and construction of an experimental processor in which the devices are linked by free-space optical interconnects are described. For demonstrating the capabilities of the technology, a parallel data-sorting system has been identified as an effective demonstrator. By use of Batcher's bitonic sorting algorithm and exploitation of a perfect-shuffle optical interconnection, the system has the potential to perform a full sort on 1024, 16-bit words in less than 16 mus. We describe the design, testing, and characterization of the smart-pixel devices and free-space optical components. InGaAs-CMOS smart-pixel, chip-to-chip communication has been demonstrated at 50 Mbits/s. It is shown that the initial system specifications can be met by the component technologies.

Real-time correction of an optically aberrated wave front by use of a 10 x 10 ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator as the correction device and a point-diffraction interferometer as the wave-front sensor is demonstrated. This type of interferometer requires no reference arm and so can be used, in theory, in an astronomical adaptive-optics system. We discuss some of the unusual features of the point-diffraction interferometer for wave-front sensing.

We consider the use of a ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (FLC SLM) to control the transmittance of a telescope pupil to compensate for the effects of scintillation. Our aim here is to prove the necessary and physically interesting result that it is possible to control the intensity of light by use of FLC SLM without inducing further phase aberrations. Furthermore, we show that system errors have only a small effect on the phase of the transmitted beam.

The performance of liquid-crystal-over-silicon spatial light modulators has advanced rapidly in recent years. Most progress has centered around new device designs with increased bandwidth. In this paper we report on a number of techniques to improve the optical quality; these have applications in both current and future devices.

The Hadamard transform is an example of a matrix transform that allows images to be represented in terms of orthogonal basis functions with binary-valued matrix elements. Such basis functions can be displayed on binary amplitude modulating ferroelectric-liquid-crystal-over-silicon spatial light modulators, permitting novel, real-time, and high-speed implementation of the transform on incoherently illuminated input scenes. An example of an optical Hadamard transform performed in real time by using a spatial light modulator is described. To show the validity of this optical decomposition, we electronically reconstruct the transformation data for comparison with the original input scene.

The sensitivity of a ferret peritoneal macrophage fluorescent antibody technique for assay of various strains of canine distemper virus was investigated. The macrophage system was compared with established methods of titration in canine kidney cell culture, Vero cell culture, and embryonated chicken eggs. It was found to be as sensitive as and in several instances more sensitive than the established methods.

Measles and canine distemper viruses were grown together in a Vero monkey kidney cell line. Each virus could be identified and individually titrated by using the color contrast produced by the reddish tetra-methyl rhodamine isothiocyanate-tagged antimeasles conjugate and the green fluorescein isothiocyanate-tagged antidistemper conjugate. Both blue light and green light were used for the excitation of the fluorochromes. Incident light was transmitted to the specimen by a vertical illuminator of the Ploem type.