Chromatic changes in vision with diffractive ophthalmic optics.

Diffractive optics is a valuable technique for designing presbyopia-correcting lenses, but its effectiveness is wavelength-dependent. This study investigates the spatio-chromatic alterations in visual resolution associated with diffractive multifocal lenses by using non-invasive, removable diffractive bifocal contact lenses. The study combines theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and clinical intra-observer experiments to assess visual acuity under various lighting conditions. Results demonstrate the introduction of spatio-chromatic asymmetry and a change in visual acuity under red and blue lights, depending on the operating diffraction order employed in the lens design. The energy distribution of the diffractive contact lens studied favors resolution under red illumination at far distances and under blue illumination at near distances. These findings are consistent with computational simulations and provide insights into the visual changes induced by diffractive ophthalmic lenses.

Linear fitting of biconic surfaces for corneal modeling.

This paper presents a method for reconstructing the corneal surface. The proposed method was tested in 56 healthy and 15 post-orthokeratology corneas. The Medmont E300 Corneal Topographer was used to measure the anterior corneal elevation, and custom MATLAB scripts were employed for data analysis, fitting, and other computational processes. The results obtained were compared with the fitting to an ellipsoid and to a biconic, using an alternative method, showing similarities among the different approaches. Additionally, the advantages of this method and the biconic's generality over the ellipsoid were also demonstrated. In conclusion, the method proposed offers an approach with potential applications in the field of visual and ophthalmic optics related with modeling of the cornea and other optical surfaces.

Optical characterization and through-focus performance of two advanced monofocal intraocular lenses.

PURPOSE: To compare the refractive power profile, subjective depth-of-field and objective optical quality of two advanced monofocal intraocular lenses (IOLs) designed to improve intermediate vision. METHODS: This prospective study evaluated forty-six eyes of twenty-three patients, aged 54-68 years, binocularly implanted with two monofocal enhanced intraocular lenses (IOLs), the Tecnis Eyhance and the Physiol Isopure. Subjective through-focus visual acuity curves were obtained by placing trial lenses in front of the eye while wearing its best spherical-cylindrical correction for distance. Objective optical quality was defined as the area under the modulation transfer function, calculated from the wavefront maps measured with a high-resolution aberrometer. The optical design of both lenses was compared based on their refractive power profiles measured with the lenses immersed in saline solution. RESULTS: Both lenses have progressive aspherical geometries, in which the sagittal power decreases rapidly from the center to the edge of the optical zone. Mean monocular through-focus curves show a best corrected distance visual acuity of - 0.02 logMAR with both lenses. Through-focus visual acuity was marginally higher for the Eyhance, with a difference of 1 letter at the defocus position of - 0.5D and 3 letters between - 1.0D and - 2.0D. Objective assessment of optical quality revealed only a difference of about 2 points in MTF area at distance. CONCLUSION: Both IOLs use a similar approach to improve intermediate vision. The Eyhance showed marginally better subjective performance than the Isopure at the target vergences between - 1.00D and - 2.00D, although these results did not reach statistical significance and were not replicated by the objective findings.

Overview of the distinctive characteristics of strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry in berries, berry wines, and berry spirits.

Red berries have gained popularity as functional and nutritious food due to their health benefits, leading to increased consumer demand and higher production, totaling over 11,000 ktons for strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries combined in 2021. Nutritionally, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries present high levels of vitamin C (9.7-58.8 mg/100 g dry weight [dw]), folates (6-24 µg/100 g dw), and minerals (96-228 mg/100 g dw). Due to their perishable nature, producers have utilized alcoholic fermentation to extend their shelf life, not only increasing the lifespan of red berries but also attracting consumers through the production of novel beverages. Strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry wines possess low alcohol (5.5-11.1% v/v), high acidity (3.2-17.6 g/L), and interesting bioactive molecules such as phenolic compounds, carotenoids, polysaccharides, and melatonin. Distillation holds tremendous potential for reducing food waste by creating red berry spirits of exceptional quality. Although research on red berry spirits is still in the early stages, future studies should focus on their production and characterization. By incorporating these factors, the production chain would become more sustainable, profitable, and efficient by reducing food waste, capitalizing on consumer acceptance, and leveraging the natural health-promoting characteristics of these products. Therefore, this review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of strawberry, blueberry, and red raspberry in berries, wines, and spirits, with a focus on their chemical composition and production methods.

Incidence of symptomatic gallstones after bariatric surgery: the impact of expectant management.

BACKGROUND: Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for sustained weight reduction and obesity-related comorbidities. The development of gallstones as a result of rapid weight loss is a well-known consequence of bariatric procedures. It remains unclear, if there is an increased risk of these gallstones becoming symptomatic. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 505 consecutive patients submitted to either Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass or Sleeve Gastrectomy between January and December 2019 was performed. The aim of our study was to determine the incidence of symptomatic cholelithiasis in asymptomatic patients with their gallbladder in situ after bariatric surgery and to identify potential risk factors for its development. RESULTS: Of the 505 patients included, 79 (15.6%) underwent either previous cholecystectomy. (n = 67, 84.8%) or concomitant cholecystectomy during bariatric surgery (n = 12, 15.2%). Among the remaining 426 (84.4%) patients, only 8 (1.9%) became symptomatic during the 12-month follow-up period. When compared with patients who remained asymptomatic, they had a higher median preoperative BMI (47.0 vs. 42.8, p = 0.046) and prevalence of cholelithiasis on preoperative ultrasound (62.5% vs. 10.7%, p = 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed preoperative BMI and cholelithiasis on preoperative ultrasound as independent risk factors for symptomatic biliary disease (OR 1.187, 95%CI 1.025-1.376, p = 0.022 and OR 10.720, 95%CI 1.613-71.246, p = 0.014, respectively). CONCLUSION: Considering a low incidence of symptomatic gallstones after bariatric surgery, concomitant cholecystectomy should only be performed in symptomatic patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Preoperative factors, such as a higher BMI and positive ultrasound for cholelithiasis, may be related to the development of symptomatic gallstones.

Short-term delay in neural response with multifocal contact lens might start at the retinal level.

INTRODUCTION: Multifocal simultaneous imaging challenges the visual system to process the multiple overlaps of focused and defocused images. Retinal image processing may be an important step in neuroadaptation to multifocal optical images. Our aims are, firstly to evaluate the short-term effect of different multifocal contact lenses (MF) on retinal activity in young healthy subjects (Experiment#1) and secondly, to evaluate any changes in retinal activity in presbyopic patients fitted with MF over a 15-day period (Experiment#2). METHODS: In Experiment-#1, 10 emmetropic healthy young subjects were included to evaluate the short-term effect of different MFs designs. In Experiment #2, 4 presbyopic subjects were included to wear MF for 15 days. Following the ISCEV Standards, multifocal electroretinograms (mfERGs) were recorded to evaluate different retinal regions under different conditions: with single vision contact lens (SVCL) and with center-distance and center-near MF. RESULTS: In Exp#1 the peak time of N1, P1 and N2 were found to be delayed with the MF (p ≤ 0.040). There was a significant reduction for N1 amplitude in all retinal regions (p < 0.001), while for P1 and N2 amplitudes this reduction was more significant in the peripheral regions (p < 0.005, ring 5 to 6). With center-near MF the mean response density (nV/deg2) showed a significant decrease in all wave components of the mfERGs response, particularly from Ring 3 to Ring 6 (p < 0.001, all Rings). In Exp#2, the mean mfERG response is similar between SVCL and center-distance MF, while center-near MF showed an increase in implicit time N1 and P1 on day 1 that tends to recover to baseline values after 15 days of MF wear. CONCLUSIONS: significant changes in the mfERGs responses were found with the MF lens, being most noticeable with the center-near MF lens design. The present results suggest that the observed delay in cortical response described during the adaptation to multifocality may partially begin at the retina level.

Short-term tear film stability, optical quality and visual performance in two dual-focus contact lenses for myopia control with different optical designs.

PURPOSE: To assess and compare short-term visual and optical quality and tear film stability between two dual-focus (DF) prototype myopia control contact lenses (CLs) having different inner zone diameters. METHODS: Twenty-eight myopic subjects were included in this randomised, double-masked crossover study. Refraction, best-corrected visual acuity (VA) and tear film stability were measured at baseline (i.e., when uncorrected). Subjects were then binocularly fitted with the DF CLs, with only the sensorial dominant eye being assessed. Lenses were of the same material and had inner zone diameters of either 2.1 mm (S design) or 4.0 mm (M design). Visual and physical short-term lens comfort, over-refraction, best-corrected VA, stereopsis at 40 cm, best-corrected photopic and mesopic contrast sensitivity (CS), size and shape of light disturbance (LD), wavefront aberrations, subjective quality of vision (QoV Questionnaire) and tear film stability were measured for each lens. RESULTS: Both CL designs decreased tear film stability compared with baseline (p < 0.05). VA and photopic CS were within normal values for the subjects' age with each CL. When comparing lenses, the M design promoted better photopic CS for the 18 cycles per degree spatial frequency (p < 0.001) and better LD (p < 0.02). However, higher-order aberrations were improved with the S design (p = 0.02). No significant difference between the two CLs was found for QoV scores and tear film stability. CONCLUSIONS: Both DF CLs provided acceptable visual performance under photopic conditions. The 4.0 mm inner zone gave better contrast sensitivity at high frequencies and lower light disturbance, while the 2.1 mm central diameter induced fewer higher-order aberrations for a 5 mm pupil diameter. Both CLs produced the same subjective visual short-term lens comfort.

Real-Time Ship Segmentation in Maritime Surveillance Videos Using Automatically Annotated Synthetic Datasets.

This work proposes a new system capable of real-time ship instance segmentation during maritime surveillance missions by unmanned aerial vehicles using an onboard standard RGB camera. The implementation requires two stages: an instance segmentation network able to produce fast and reliable preliminary segmentation results and a post-processing 3D fully connected Conditional Random Field, which significantly improves segmentation results by exploring temporal correlations between nearby frames in video sequences. Moreover, due to the absence of maritime datasets consisting of properly labeled video sequences, we create a new dataset comprising synthetic video sequences of maritime surveillance scenarios (MarSyn). The main advantages of this approach are the possibility of generating a vast set of images and videos, being able to represent real-world scenarios without the necessity of deploying the real vehicle, and automatic labels, which eliminate human labeling errors. We train the system with the MarSyn dataset and with aerial footage from publicly available annotated maritime datasets to validate the proposed approach. We present some experimental results and compare them to other approaches, and we also illustrate the temporal stability provided by the second stage in missing frames and wrong segmentation scenarios.

Passive Wi-Fi monitoring in the wild: a long-term study across multiple location typologies.

In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of large-scale human mobility patterns obtained from a passive Wi-Fi tracking system, deployed across different location typologies. We have deployed a system to cover urban areas served by public transportation systems as well as very isolated and rural areas. Over 4 years, we collected 572 million data points from a total of 82 routers covering an area of 2.8 km2. In this paper we provide a systematic analysis of the data and discuss how our low-cost approach can be used to help communities and policymakers to make decisions to improve people's mobility at high temporal and spatial resolution by inferring presence characteristics against several sources of ground truth. Also, we present an automatic classification technique that can identify location types based on collected data.

Advances in quantification and analysis of the celiac-related immunogenic potential of gluten.

Gluten-free products have emerged in response to the increasing prevalence of gluten-related disorders, namely celiac disease. Therefore, the quantification of gluten in products intended for consumption by individuals who may suffer from these pathologies must be accurate and reproducible, in a way that allows their proper labeling and protects the health of consumers. Immunochemical methods have been the methods of choice for quantifying gluten, and several kits are commercially available. Nevertheless, they still face problems such as the initial extraction of gluten in complex matrices or the use of a standardized reference material to validate the results. Lately, other methodologies relying mostly on mass spectrometry-based techniques have been explored, and that may allow, in addition to quantitative analysis, the characterizationof gluten proteins. On the other hand, although the level of 20 mg/kg of gluten detected by these methods is sufficient for a product to be considered gluten-free, its immunogenic potential for celiac patients has not been clinically validated. In this sense, in vitro and in vivo models, such as the organoid technology applied in gut-on-chip devices and the transgenic humanized mouse models, respectively, are being developed for investigating both the gluten-induced pathogenesis and the treatment of celiac disease. Due to the ubiquitous nature of gluten in the food industry, as well as the increased prevalence of gluten-related disorders, here we intend to summarize the available methods for gluten quantification in food matrices and for the evaluation of its immunogenic potential concerning the development of novel therapies for celiac disease to highlight active research and discuss knowledge gaps and current challenges in this field.

Optical Quality and Visual Performance for One Year in a Sample of Scleral Lens Wearers.

SIGNIFICANCE: This study shows the optical and visual quality behavior of modern scleral lenses (SLs) in the medium and long term in patients with irregular cornea (IC) and regular cornea (RC). PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the 12-month optical quality outcomes with SL in patients with IC and RC. METHODS: Sixty-nine patients completed the 12 months of follow-up (99 eyes with IC and 27 with RC). LogMAR high- and low-contrast visual acuity, whole eye aberrometry, and the size (Light Disturbance Index, %) and shape (BFCIrregSD, mm) of night vision disturbances were measured at baseline with habitual correction (HC), best spectacle correction (BSC), and SL at all the follow-up visits (1, 3, 6, and 12 months). Subjective visual quality was measured with the Quality of Vision (QoV) questionnaire. RESULTS: After SL fitting, high-contrast visual acuity improved significantly compared with HC and BSC in the IC group (average improvement of +0.35 ± 0.32 and +0.29 ± 0.26 to +0.08 ± 0.14, P < .001) and RC group (+0.17 ± 0.23 and +0.12 ± 0.23 to +0.10 ± 0.23, P < .05). Light Disturbance Index decreased significantly with SL compared with HC and BSC from 13.85 ± 13.99% and 15.89 ± 13.38% to 5.75 ± 4.51% in the IC group (P < .001) and 6.16 ± 5.38 and 5.98 ± 5.39 to 3.99 ± 3.05 in the RC group (P < .05). BFCIrregSD also decreased significantly, namely, in the IC group (-51%). All subscales of the QoV questionnaire had a statistically significant decrease (improvement) with SL (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Scleral lenses promote a better subjective and objective visual quality, mainly in patients with IC. Additional measurements such as night vision disturbances, aberrometry, and subjective perceptions should be considered to characterize the visual enhancement promoted by SL in RC and IC patients.

Multifocal contact lenses: towards customisation?

PURPOSE: Firstly, to determine if eyes with spherical aberration (SA) that deviates significantly from the average level underperform when fitted with a simultaneous-imaging contact lens (CL) with a power profile calculated for an 'average eye'. Secondly, to determine if CL customisation can improve image quality in these eyes after fitting with a bifocal CL. METHODS: A statistical model of the wavefront aberration function of normal eyes was used to generate a vector of Zernike fourth-order SA coefficients from 100 synthetic eyes. Four bifocal power profiles were modelled: centre-near (CN) or centre-distance (CD), and two-zone or four-zone. All designs had 0.1-mm-wide transition zones. Different levels of distance and add powers were modelled, using well-established computational wave-optics methods. Zone widths were optimised to obtain maximal multifocal efficiency (MFE), a metric based on the visual Strehl that synthesises the through-focus curve in one number. The MFE was calculated for each synthetic eye coupled with each bifocal power profile. RESULTS: For an 'average eye', the mean MFE values were 0.33 vs 0.25 and 0.32 vs 0.29, for CN vs CD and two vs four zone designs, respectively. When the four power profiles were assessed in eyes with non-average levels of ocular SA, the MFE decreased with higher levels of SA (eye and CL combined) for all designs. Some of this reduction in MFE could be prevented by adjusting the nominal distance and add power of the bifocal profiles to compensate for the increased or decreased level of combined SA. The four-zone CN profile showed better tolerance for different levels of ocular SA than the two-zone designs, but this was not true for the four-zone CD design. CONCLUSION: Eyes with SA levels differing significantly from the average level underperform when fitted with simultaneous-imaging CLs with power profiles calculated for average eyes. Our findings suggest that visual performance at distance and near when wearing bifocal CLs can be improved by using a semi-customised approach.

Foveal vision power errors induced by spectacle lenses designed to correct peripheral refractive errors.

PURPOSE: Radial Refractive Gradient (RRG) spectacles are lenses specifically designed to minimize peripheral hyperopic defocus typically found in conventional spectacles. Our goals were: (1) to demonstrate a method to design such lenses; and (2) to quantify the exact foveal vision power errors induced by them. METHODS: The design procedure was based on a point-by-point sequential surface construction algorithm that designs a front aspheric surface (back surface is spherical) to achieve a given overall tangential focal length of the lens. A peripheral refraction model was built based on average peripheral refractive errors from a set of eyes. We designed four negative lenses with optical powers: -2.5, -5.0, -7.5 and -10.0 D, so that the tangential focal length of the lens matches the retinal conjugate surface. RESULTS: The lenses induce very small sagittal power errors in a wide range of off-axis field angles (30°), solving the problem of peripheral hyperopic defocus. However, such designs introduce non-negligible mean power errors (above 0.25 D from 7°, 6.8°, 7.1° and 7.8° for the -2.5, -5.0, -7.5 and -10.0 D lenses, respectively) for foveal vision in a rotating eye. CONCLUSION: Our results show the unavoidable errors introduced by RRG spectacles when used for dynamic foveal vision. The described method offers valuable information towards determining the best trade-off between controlling power errors for peripheral and foveal vision.

Predicted accommodative response from image quality in young eyes fitted with different dual-focus designs.

PURPOSE: To investigate the separated and combined influences of inner zone (IZ) diameter and effective add power of dual-focus contact lenses (CL) in the image quality at distance and near viewing, in a functional accommodating model eye. METHODS: Computational wave-optics methods were used to define zonal bifocal pupil functions, representing the optic zones of nine dual-focus centre-distance CLs. The dual-focus pupil functions were defined having IZ diameters of 2.10 mm, 3.36 mm and 4.00 mm, with add powers of 1.5 D, 2.0 D and 2.5 D (dioptres), for each design, that resulted in a ratio of 64%/36% between the distance and treatment zone areas, bounded by a 6 mm entrance pupil. A through-focus routine was implemented in MATLAB to simulate the changes in image quality, calculated from the Visual Strehl ratio, as the eye with the dual-focus accommodates, from 0 to -3.00 D target vergences. Accommodative responses were defined as the changes in the defocus coefficient, combined with a change in fourth and sixth order spherical aberration, which produced a peak in image quality at each target vergence. RESULTS: Distance viewing image quality was marginally affected by IZ diameter but not by add power. Near image quality obtained when focussing the image formed by the near optics was only higher by a small amount compared to the other two IZ diameters. The mean ± standard deviation values obtained with the three adds were 0.28 ± 0.02, 0.23 ± 0.02 and 0.22 ± 0.02, for the small, medium and larger IZ diameters, respectively. On the other hand, near image quality predicted by focussing the image formed by the distance optics was considerably lower relatively to the other two IZ diameters. The mean ± standard deviation values obtained with the three adds were 0.15 ± 0.01, 0.38 ± 0.00 and 0.54 ± 0.01, for the small, medium and larger IZ diameters, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: During near viewing through dual-focus CLs, image quality depends on the diameter of the most inner zone of the CL, while add power only affects the range of clear focus when focussing the image formed by the CL near optics. When only image quality gain is taken into consideration, medium and large IZ diameters designs are most likely to promote normal accommodative responses driven by the CL distance optics, while a smaller IZ diameter design is most likely to promote a reduced accommodative response driven by the dual-focus CL near optics.

The monoheme cytochrome c subunit of Alternative Complex III is a direct electron donor to caa3 oxygen reductase in Rhodothermus marinus.

Alternative Complex III (ACIII) is an example of the robustness and flexibility of prokaryotic respiratory chains. It performs quinol:cytochrome c oxidoreductase activity, being functionally equivalent to the bc1 complex but structurally unrelated. In this work we further explored ACIII investigating the role of its monoheme cytochrome c subunit (ActE). We expressed and characterized the individually isolated ActE, which allowed us to suggest that ActE is a lipoprotein and to show its function as a direct electron donor to the caa3 oxygen reductase.

Effect of Pupil Size on Wavefront Refraction during Orthokeratology.

PURPOSE: It has been hypothesized that central and peripheral refraction, in eyes treated with myopic overnight orthokeratology, might vary with changes in pupil diameter. The aim of this work was to evaluate the axial and peripheral refraction and optical quality after orthokeratology, using ray tracing software for different pupil sizes. METHODS: Zemax-EE was used to generate a series of 29 semi-customized model eyes based on the corneal topography changes from 29 patients who had undergone myopic orthokeratology. Wavefront refraction in the central 80 degrees of the visual field was calculated using three different quality metrics criteria: Paraxial curvature matching, minimum root mean square error (minRMS), and the Through Focus Visual Strehl of the Modulation Transfer Function (VSMTF), for 3- and 6-mm pupil diameters. RESULTS: The three metrics predicted significantly different values for foveal and peripheral refractions. Compared with the Paraxial criteria, the other two metrics predicted more myopic refractions on- and off-axis. Interestingly, the VSMTF predicts only a marginal myopic shift in the axial refraction as the pupil changes from 3 to 6 mm. For peripheral refraction, minRMS and VSMTF metric criteria predicted a higher exposure to peripheral defocus as the pupil increases from 3 to 6 mm. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the supposed effect of myopic control produced by ortho-k treatments might be dependent on pupil size. Although the foveal refractive error does not seem to change appreciably with the increase in pupil diameter (VSMTF criteria), the high levels of positive spherical aberration will lead to a degradation of lower spatial frequencies, that is more significant under low illumination levels.

Changes in Peripheral Refraction, Higher-Order Aberrations, and Accommodative Lag With a Radial Refractive Gradient Contact Lens in Young Myopes.

PURPOSE: To evaluate changes in the peripheral refraction (PR), visual quality, and accommodative lag with a novel soft radial refractive gradient (SRRG) experimental contact lens that produces peripheral myopic defocus. METHODS: 59 myopic right eyes were fitted with the lens. The PR was measured up to 30° in the nasal and temporal horizontal visual fields and compared with values obtained without the lens. The accommodative lag was measured monocularly using the distance-induced condition method at 40 cm, and the higher-order aberrations (HOAs) of the entire eye were obtained for 3- and 5-mm pupils by aberrometry. Visual performance was assessed through contrast sensitivity function (CSF). RESULTS: With the lens, the relative PR became significantly less hyperopic from 30° to 15° temporally and 30° nasally in the M and J0 refractive components (P<0.05). Cylinder foci showed significant myopization from 30° to 15° temporally and 30° to 25° nasally (P<0.05). The HOAs increased significantly, the CSF decreased slightly but reached statistical significance for 6 and 12 cycles per degree (P<0.05), and the accommodative lag decreased significantly with the SRRG lens (P=0.0001). There was a moderate correlation between HOAs and CSF at medium and high spatial frequencies. CONCLUSION: The SRRG lens induced a significant change in PR, particularly in the temporal retina. Tangential and sagittal foci changed significantly in the peripheral nasal and temporal retina. The decreased accommodative lag and increased HOAs particularly in coma-like aberration may positively affect myopia control. A longitudinal study is needed to confirm this potential.

Strategies to Regulate Myopia Progression With Contact Lenses: A Review.

PURPOSE: Higher myopic refractive errors are associated with serious ocular complications that can put visual function at risk. There is respective interest in slowing and if possible stopping myopia progression before it reaches a level associated with increased risk of secondary pathology. The purpose of this report was to review our understanding of the rationale(s) and success of contact lenses (CLs) used to reduce myopia progression. METHODS: A review commenced by searching the PubMed database. The inclusion criteria stipulated publications of clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of CLs in regulating myopia progression based on the primary endpoint of changes in axial length measurements and published in peer-reviewed journals. Other publications from conference proceedings or patents were exceptionally considered when no peer-review articles were available. RESULTS: The mechanisms that presently support myopia regulation with CLs are based on the change of relative peripheral defocus and changing the foveal image quality signal to potentially interfere with the accommodative system. Ten clinical trials addressing myopia regulation with CLs were reviewed, including corneal refractive therapy (orthokeratology), peripheral gradient lenses, and bifocal (dual-focus) and multifocal lenses. CONCLUSIONS: CLs were reported to be well accepted, consistent, and safe methods to address myopia regulation in children. Corneal refractive therapy (orthokeratology) is so far the method with the largest demonstrated efficacy in myopia regulation across different ethnic groups. However, factors such as patient convenience, the degree of initial myopia, and non-CL treatments may also be considered. The combination of different strategies (i.e., central defocus, peripheral defocus, spectral filters, pharmaceutical delivery, and active lens-borne illumination) in a single device will present further testable hypotheses exploring how different mechanisms can reinforce or compete with each other to improve or reduce myopia regulation with CLs.

Efficacy of a gas permeable contact lens to induce peripheral myopic defocus.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this work was to evaluate the potential of a novel custom-designed rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lens to modify the relative peripheral refractive error in a sample of myopic patients. METHODS: Fifty-two right eyes of 52 myopic patients (mean [±SD] age, 21 [±2] years) with spherical refractive errors ranging from -0.75 to -8.00 diopters (D) and refractive astigmatism of 1.00 D or less were fitted with a novel experimental RGP (ExpRGP) lens designed to create myopic defocus in the peripheral retina. A standard RGP (StdRGP) lens was used as a control in the same eye. The relative peripheral refractive error was measured without the lens and with each of two lenses (StdRGP and ExpRGP) using an open-field autorefractometer from 30 degrees nasal to 30 degrees temporal, in 5-degree steps. The effectiveness of the lens design was evaluated as the amount of relative peripheral refractive error difference induced by the ExpRGP compared with no lens and with StdRGP conditions at 30 degrees in the nasal and temporal (averaged) peripheral visual fields. RESULTS: Experimental RGP lens induced a significant change in relative peripheral refractive error compared with the no-lens condition (baseline), beyond the 10 degrees of eccentricity to the nasal and temporal side of the visual field (p < 0.05). The maximum effect was achieved at 30 degrees. Wearing the ExpRGP lens, 60% of the eyes had peripheral myopia exceeding -1.00 D, whereas none of the eyes presented with this feature at baseline. There was no significant correlation (r = 0.04; p = 0.756) between the degree of myopia induced at 30 degrees of eccentricity of the visual field with the ExpRGP lens and the baseline refractive error. CONCLUSIONS: Custom-designed RGP contact lenses can generate a significant degree of relative peripheral myopia in myopic patients regardless of their baseline spherical equivalent refractive error.

Structural composition of alternative complex III: variations on the same theme.

Alternative complex III forms a recently identified family of enzymes with quinol:electron acceptor oxidoreductase activity. First biochemical and genomic analyses showed that ACIII is composed of six to eight subunits, most of which homologous to different proteins or domains already observed in other known enzymatic complexes. The increasing number of completely sequenced genomes led us to perform a new search for the genes coding for the different ACIII subunits. We have identified a larger number of gene clusters coding for ACIII, still confined to the bacterial domain, but extended to classes in which it was not observed before. We also found an unanticipated diversity in gene clusters, both in terms of its constitution and organization. The several unexpected gene arrangements brought new perspectives to the role of the different subunits of ACIII, namely in quinone binding and in proton translocation. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Respiratory complex III and related bc complexes.