Stably suppressing laser relative intensity noise on a 3 × 3 coupler interferometric system.

A 3 × 3 coupler multiphase demodulation scheme is proposed to eliminate the impact of working point drifting and the laser relative intensity noise (RIN) on a 3 × 3 coupler interferometric system. An ellipse-fitting algorithm (EFA) is applied to fit the two interference signals of the 3 × 3 coupler in order, then the ATAN algorithm is applied to obtain three noise-containing signals with specific trigonometric relationships. By averaging the three signals, the demodulated phase noise induced from RIN can be effectively eliminated. The experimental results show that compared with the asymmetric demodulation scheme without intensity noise control, the noise floor of the proposed scheme decreases from 4.5 to 1 µrad/√Hz at 1 kHz and 2.7 to 0.8 µrad/√Hz at 3 kHz. At high frequencies, the average noise floor level is reduced from 10 to 0.9 µrad/√Hz, a reduction of about 21 dB. Furthermore, the variation range of the average noise floor is reduced from 5.4 to 0.17 µrad /√Hz within 100 s.

Low intensity extracorporeal shockwave therapy shifts PDE5i nonresponders to responders

ABSTRACT To evaluate the efficiency of an energy density of 0.05mj/mm2 of low intensity extracorporeal shockwave therapy (Li-ESWT) on erectile dysfunction (ED) patients.A total of 45 ED patients met the inclusion criteria, including 7 PDE5i responders and 38 nonresponders. All the patients have already been delivered 10000 shockwaves of total seven treatment points twice a week for 4 weeks. Simultaneously, questionnaires of International Index of Erectile Function-Erectile Function (IIEF-EF), Erectile Hard Score (EHS) and Minimal Clinical Important Differences (MCID) were evaluated for the efficiency and safety at 8th and 16th weeks.The changes in the IIEF-EF score by MCID suggested that Li-ESWT treatment was effective in 22 PDE5i nonresponders patients (58%) at 8th week. Then at 16th week the number of patients who were effectively treated increased to 27 (71%). Among PDE5i responders, 5 patients (71%) were effective base on MCID at 16th week. Among PDE5i nonresponders 22 patients (58%) achieved erection hard enough for vaginal penetration and increased to 27 (71%) patients at 16th week (EHS ≥3). Moreover, even 3 patients achieved EHS 4 in PDE5i nonresponders at 16th week. Among PDE5i responders, 4 of 7 patients reached EHS of 4 from EHS 3 at 16th week. Apart from this, Li-ESWT treatment was also effective in 9 patients (24%) in PDE5i nonresponders without follow-up PDE5i.Energy flux density (EFD) of 0.05 of Li-ESWT could improve the erectile function of ED patients with PDE5i response. In addition, EFD of 0.05 of Li-ESWT treatment could turn PDE5i nonresponders to responders.