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Objective To report the results using Micropulse® transscleral cyclophotocoagulation (Iridex) in the treatment of glaucoma. Methods Retrospective study in adult patients with glaucoma with at least 6 months of follow-up, and only one session of Micropulse®. The same surgical technique was used in all cases. The only laser parameter that could vary was the total treatment duration (in seconds). The remaining parameters were fixed at 2 Watts of power and 0.5 ms (31.3%) of active cycle. Results A total of 22 eyes of 17 patients with glaucoma of various types and stages were included (mainly congenital and pseudoexfoliation). The mean follow-up time was 7.9 months. The total treatment duration varied from 100 to 180 s. Definition of success: 5 mmHg The overall success rate was 72.7% in the first month, 54% at 4 months, 41% at 6 months, and 27.3% at final follow-up. Patients with longer treatment durations (180 s) achieved better results. The mean reduction in IOP in successful eyes was 36% (from 26.3 to 16.7 mmHg, SD 4.58, p = 0.028). No complications were reported. Conclusions In a heterogeneous population of glaucoma (mostly congenital and pseudoexfoliation types), a low success rate (27.3%) was obtained in the medium-term with a single session of Micropulse®.

For acceleration of the calculations of thermal magnetic switching, we report the use of the Voter method, recently proposed in chemical physics (also called "hyperdynamics of the infrequent events"). The method consists of modification of the magnetic potential so that the transition state remains unchanged. We have found that the method correctly describes the mean first passage time even in the case of small damping (precessional case) and for an oblique angle between the anisotropy and the field directions. Due to the costly evaluation of the lowest energy eigenvalue, the actual acceleration depends on its fast computation. In the current implementation, it is limited to intermediate time scale and to small system size.

A direct fluorometric procedure for residue determination of the fungicide Fuberidazole is described. Experimental variables and instrumental parameters that affect the analytical signal have been studied and optimized. A detection limit of 0.08 ng/ml and RSD of 2.3% are the most important analytical specifications offered by the method. We applied the method to irrigation water samples spiked with Fuberidazole in the range from 10 to 100 ng/ml. Recoveries fall within 86-102%.

The Grid is becoming a significantly important vehicle for business transactions by means of service-oriented architecture (SOA). In that direction, the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) is a prominent initiative that aims at providing a standardised set of capabilities and behaviours that address key concerns in Grid systems. However, the challenge remains in harnessing the potential of Grid trading partners to communicate in a meaningful way. In this paper, we present GIST, a grid services conversation language that fosters formal behavioural specifications, based on GECO, a fully-fledged architecture and proof-of-concept execution environment implementation.

Business process management (BPM) is the management of IT-supported business operations from a business expert's process view rather than from a technical perspective. The application of SW technologies to BPM has gained interest in both the academic and corporate sector. The most significant issue facing BPM is the integration of business processes in a dynamic environment with an IT system in order to adequately represent business operations and needs. In this paper, we describe how semantic Web technologies and business processes have been combined in order to construct an architecture for business process management, and we present a new framework for increasing exibility and adaptively of business processes, annotating semantic business process artifacts on all modeling levels, and advancing BPM towards knowledge-intensive processes.

The threshold voltage is a key parameter in the silicon MOSFET design and operation. This paper gives an overview of the existing methods for extracting the threshold voltage of MOSFETs. In addition, a new extraction method is proposed and developed. Comparisons of the results extracted from the various methods based on device simulation, circuit simulation, and measurements are also presented.

A homogeneous immunofluorimetric technique to determine dichlorprop herbicide is described. Simultaneous determinations of both free and antibody-bound fluoresceinamine-labeled dichlorprop were carried out by measuring phase-resolved fluorescence or modulation-resolved fluorescence. The difference between the recorded values of the fluorescence lifetimes of the two species quantifies selectivity. Multifrequency heterogeneity analyses of free and bound labeled dichlorprop gave 3.68 +/- 0.03 and 4.28 +/- 0.02 ns, respectively. The differences between the phase-angles of the two species (117.5 degrees and 127.2 degrees) correspond to a difference between fluorescence lifetime values of 600 ps. This lifetime difference permits the quantitative determination of the two species simultaneously. The mean relative standard deviation of the set of three calibration curves when fitted to radioimmunoassay (chi 2 5 x 10(-4)) was 6%. The practical dynamic range was 0.1 to 100 micrograms.ml-1. On the other hand, the fractional contributions of both species, free and bound, to the total lifetime measured by demodulation, permit quantitative calculation of the two components. Both methods gave similar analytical specifications.