Month: September 2014

The General Optical Council (GOC) has this week issued an urgent reminder to full and business registrants to renew their registration for 2009-10 by 15 March 2009, or face a ??20 penalty.

The ??20 late application charge applies to registrants who return their retention form and ??219 fee after the 15 March, but before 31 March. Registrants who have not renewed their registration by 31 March will be removed from the GOC’s registers on 1 April. A list of removed registrants will be published on the Council’s website, and copies sent to primary care organisations.

GOC chief executive and registrar, Dian Taylor said: “There are now only four weeks to go until the retention deadline, so time is running out. If registrants do not get their applications in on time they will either have to pay a ??20 penalty, or at worst, be removed from the registers and face paying a ??289 restoration fee.”

Laura Hytti, GOC registration supervisor, added: “At this stage it’s vital that you complete your retention form correctly, to avoid unnecessary delays. Make sure you check that you have: provided full insurance details; ticked the declarations box; included your practice address and a daytime telephone contact number and email.”

To date, 10,386 retention applications – over 50 per cent – are outstanding. Any registrant who has not received their retention forms should contact the GOC registration team on 020 7580 3898 (option 1) to make sure their details are up to date. Alternatively, email gocoptical. Forms can also be downloaded from optical.

General Optical Council

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been honored with eight awards in the annual R&D 100 Awards by R&D Magazine. Sometimes referred to as the “Academy Awards of Science,” the magazine selected winners for development of “one of the 100 most technologically significant new products of 2010.”

This year’s eight awards bring to 156 the total number of R&D 100 awards won by ORNL scientists.

“I want to congratulate all of this year’s winners on their awards and to thank them for their work,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. “The large number of winners from the Department of Energy’s national labs every year is a clear sign that our labs are doing some of the most innovative research in the world. This work benefits us all by enhancing America’s competitiveness, ensuring our security, providing new energy solutions, and expanding the frontiers of our knowledge. Our national labs are truly national treasures, and it is wonderful to see their work recognized once again.”

“Winning eight of these prestigious awards is a testimony to the talent and creativity of a remarkable staff. They do a tremendous job of delivering our mission of scientific discovery and innovation,” said ORNL Director Thom Mason.

ORNL researchers were recognized for the following eight inventions:

Telemedical Retinal Image Analysis and Diagnosis, or TRIAD, developed and jointly submitted by ORNL, Automated Medical Diagnostics and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The ORNL team included Kenneth Tobin, Thomas Karnowski, Luca Giancardo, Deniz Aykac and Priya Govindasamy. The team from UTHSC consisted of Edward Chaum and Yaqin Lee.

The TRIAD technology is a Web-based telemedical diagnostic system designed to conduct automated eye screenings of large patient populations for blinding diseases such as diabetic retinopathy in a primary health care setting. The real-time low-cost screening provided by TRIAD can help primary care providers offer a more efficient and economical retina screening service to prevent blindness in diabetic patients. This diagnostic tool will allow far more people to undergo screening, especially the indigent and those in areas that are medically underserved. Research funding was provided by the ORNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, the Plough Foundation, Research to Prevent Blindness, the U.S. Health Resource Services Administration and a National Institutes of Health – National Eye Institute grant.

Liquid Microjunction Surface Sampling Probe for Mass Spectrometry, developed and submitted by Gary Van Berkel and Vilmos Kertesz of ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division and Michael Ford of NextGen Services.

The ambient surface sampling system for mass spectrometry uses a sampling probe for quick, efficient liquid extraction of analytes directly from surfaces. The technology’s ability to analyze materials outside a vacuum and under real-world conditions demonstrates a clear improvement over technologies limited to surface sampling within a vacuum. The product’s simplicity, speed and cost effectiveness allow for a range of uses within the biological sciences, including applications in pharmaceutical research and drug discovery. Research was funded by the ORNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, DOE’s Office of Science, a CRADA with MDS Sciex, UT-Battelle’s Privately Funded Technology Transfer Program and ORNL royalty maturation funding.

Sulfur-Carbon Nanocomposite Cathode Material and Additives for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, developed and submitted by ORNL’s Chengdu Liang from the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, and Nancy Dudney and Jane Howe of ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division.

The technology offers a more functional sulfur-carbon nanocomposite cathode and halide additives to the electrolyte in order to solve problems inherent in existing lithium-ion battery technology. The lithium-sulfur battery system could improve the energy density of the current technology by a factor of five or more. By enabling a more reliable, safer and longer lasting battery system, this invention has the potential to aid in the harnessing, storage and use of electricity from renewable energy sources. The project was funded by ORNL seed money and DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Vehicle Technology program.

Ultrasensitive Nanomechanical Transducers Based on Nonlinear Resonance, developed and jointly submitted by Nickolay Lavrik from the ORNL Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and Panos Datskos of ORNL Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division.

The technology, based on nonlinear nanomechanical resonators, enables sensitive linear detection of force or mass that can be used in a number of important applications, including chemical and biological detection, inertial navigation and thermal imaging. It can determine the presence of extremely low levels (femtogram quantities) of chemicals in a gas or liquid with a sensitivity that is at least 1,000 times better than other comparable mass-sensitive transducers in the market. The new method used in the nonlinear resonator transducers can provide real-time monitoring in a cost-effective manner and can lower detection thresholds in both gas and liquid environments without increasing the cost and complexity of the tool. Research funding was provided through ORNL seed money as part of the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

Strontium Iodide Scintillator for Gamma Ray Spectroscopy, submitted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and developed in conjunction with ORNL, Fisk University, Radiation Monitoring Devices Inc. and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. ORNL’s participants included Lynn Boatner, Joanne Ramey and James Kolopus.

The technology allows for the efficient and precise detection of illicit sources of uranium, plutonium and other radioactive materials, which can play a critical role in protecting the country from nuclear and radiological threats. Europium-doped strontium iodide enables the highest-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy for a scintillator detector to identify radionuclides. This technology’s superior scintillator energy resolution and its cost-effective production make it valuable for a number of homeland security and other important applications. Research was funded through the DHS’ Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.

Mode-Synthesizing Atomic Force Microscope, or MSAFM, developed and submitted by Ali Passian, Thomas Thundat and Laurene Tetard from ORNL’s Bioscences Division.

MSAFM is a novel measurement system for noninvasive high-resolution surface and subsurface characterization and analysis of materials at the nanoscale. This technology can obtain a wealth of material information from both the surface and the subsurface domain, opening unlimited opportunities in nanoscience in a variety of endeavors, including human health, environmental studies, toxicology, nanofabrication, cell mechanics and energy research. Research was sponsored by ORNL’s BioEnergy Science Center, a DOE BioEnergy Research Center supported by DOE’s Office of Science.

High-Performance, High-Tc Superconducting Wires Enabled via Self-assembly of Non-superconducting Columnar Defects, developed and jointly submitted by SuperPower Inc., University of Houston including Venkat Selvamanickam, the University of Tennessee, and ORNL researchers Amit Goyal, Sung-hun Wee, Eliot Specht, Yanfei Gao, Karren More, Claudia Cantoni, Keith Leonard, Malcolm Stocks, Tolga Aytug, Mariappan Paranthaman, David Christen, Jim Thompson and Dominic Lee. Further assistance was provided by Chonbuk National University.

The 3-D self-assembly process enables the fabrication of ultra-high-performance superconducting wires. The technology is designed to create non-superconducting nanoscale columnar defects with nanoscale spacing within high-temperature superconducting wires. These defects are desirable because they can improve the performance of high-temperature superconductors by enabling large currents to flow through the materials in the presence of high applied magnetic fields. The need for high-temperature superconductors in the electric power, medical, transportation, industrial and military sectors demonstrates this product’s widespread commercial viability and usefulness. The research was funded through DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability and ORNL’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

Ztherm Modulated Thermal Analysis, developed and jointly submitted by Asylum Research Company and an ORNL research team consisting of Maxim Nikiforov, Sergei Kalinin and Stephen Jesse.

The technology provides a tool for failure analysis of devices such as electrical conductors or semi-conductors in flexible electronic devices and polymer photovoltaic devices, in which polymers play a key role. Ztherm Modulated Thermal Analysis offers highly localized heating with sensitivity to sub-zeptoliter material property change with vast improvements over other commercial systems. Ztherm is a powerful method for characterizing the mechanical properties of polymers as a function of temperature with the highest spatial resolution available today. A portion of this research was conducted at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, sponsored by the DOE Office of Science.

Source:
Bill Cabage
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Perception is unreliable because the retinal image cannot unambiguously specify 3D shape. For example, the picture of a crater is perceived as a hill if the picture is inverted.

This dramatic perceptual shift happens because, although visual systems assume that light can come from any direction, some directions are more favoured or probable.

The amount of favour assigned to each direction defines a prior probability distribution. We describe a method for obtaining a non-parametric estimated prior, and find that observers favour directions to the left of overhead.

This method could be used for priors of speed, colour, or even faces.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Proceedings B is the Royal Society’s flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of the journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

The July issue of Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, includes two studies that may influence clinical treatment of serious eye conditions. One study reports on silent cerebral infarcts (SCI) incidence and visual field loss in patients with normal-tension glaucoma; the other correlates inflammation biomarkers with corneal transplant rejection in herpes simplex patients.

Silent Cerebral Infarcts: Risk Factor for Visual Field Loss as Well as for Stroke?

Health conditions in normal tension glaucoma (NTG) patients differ from those in patients with the more common primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). For one thing, an increased incidence of silent cerebral infarct (SCI), blockage in small blood vessels in the brain, is seen in brain scans of people with NTG. Also, visual field loss is often more rapid in NTG patients than in those with POAG. Researchers at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, led by Dexter Y.L. Leung, FRCS, recently investigated whether SCI might be directly related to rate of visual field loss in patients newly diagnosed with NTG.

They found that visual field loss was 61 percent more likely in NTG patients with SCI than in those without SCI. Computed tomography (CT) brain scans performed at the beginning of the study showed that of 286 study subjects with similar NTG disease factors, 64 had SCI and 222 did not. Patients’ visual field status was assessed every four months over three years. Though this study was in newly diagnosed NTG patients and results could vary in patients who have been in treatment, the results raise important points.

“First, this study adds weight to the hypothesis that vascular factors are likely causes of NTG, along with intraocular pressure (IOP). Second, if additional studies confirm SCI as a risk factor for visual field loss, treatment to prevent SCI might slow disease progression in NTG patients. Third, brain scans of NTG patients to detect SCI might be deemed cost-effective. Since treating SCI is also known to prevent stroke, we may be talking about saving not only vision, but lives,” said Dr. Leung.

NTG is termed “normal” because the IOP, the pressure within the eye, is lower than the point at which optic nerve damage is known to occur in POAG patients. Despite this “normal” IOP, optic nerve damage does occur in NTG patients, who comprise about one-third of all people with glaucoma.

“Stealth” Herpes Simplex Inflammation Impacts Corneal Transplants

The herpes simplex virus (HSV) can infect the eye and sometimes causes so much damage that the person’s cornea must be replaced with a transplant. (The cornea is the clear covering of the front of the eye that helps focus light for vision.) Doctors knew transplants were more likely to fail in people with HSV than in patients with other disorders, such as keratoconus, an abnormal steepening of the cornea. This higher failure rate occurred even when HSV infection did not appear to be active in patients. Researchers at the Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan, theorized that such patients might have corneal inflammation that could not be detected upon clinical examination but might increase the risk of transplant rejection.

To test this theory, a study led by Victor M. Elner, MD, PhD, examined the corneal tissue, removed during surgery, of 62 Kellogg Eye Center patients (between 1990 and 2000) to identify inflammation biomarkers that might be linked to rejection of transplants. Unlike organ transplants, in corneal procedures the new tissue is placed on a bed of existing tissue. Though HSV had been inactive for six months before surgery in 81 percent of patients, microscopic evidence of inflammation was found in 74 percent, and the transplant failure rate did indeed correlate with the presence of this biomarker. Testing for inflammatory biomarkers will help Eye M.D.s (ophthalmologists) predict whether an HSV patient is likely to reject a transplant.

“It is also possible that treating inflammation intensively before corneal transplant surgery would reduce the risk of rejection,” said Dr. Roni M. Shtein, MD, MS, cornea specialist and lead author of the report.

Source:
Mary Wade

American Academy of Ophthalmology