Coeliac disease and postpartum depression: are they linked? A two-sample Mendelian randomization study.

Background: To explore the potential causal associations between coeliac disease(CD) and postpartum depression(PPD) by using two-sample Mendelian randomization(MR) analysis. Methods: The IEU OPEN GWAS project was utilized to identify genetic loci strongly associated with CD as instrumental variables (IVs), and MR analysis was performed using inverse variance weighting(IVW), weighted median, weighted model, and MR-Egger. MR analyses were used to examine whether there was a link between CD and PPD, with an OR and 95% CI. Meanwhile, the relationship between CD and depression(DP) was analyzed using MR. The sensitivity analysis was conducted using MR-Egger intercept analysis, Cochran's Q test, and leave-one-out analysis. Results: From the GWAS online database, 13 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were chosen as IVs. The IVW results showed a relationship between PPD and a genetically predicted risk of developing CD (OR = 1.022, 95% CI: 1.001-1.044, P = 0.043). However, the presence of DP was not linked with CD (OR=0.991, 95% CI: 0.978-1.003, P=0.151). Potential horizontal pleiotropy was not discovered using MR-Egger intercept analysis (PPD: P=0.725; DP: P=0.785), and Cochran's Q test for heterogeneity revealed no significant heterogeneity (PPD: P=0.486; DP: P=0.909). A leave-one-out analysis found that individual SNPs had minimal effect on overall causal estimations. Conclusion: MR research discovered a link between CD and PPD.

Light focusing at metallic annular slit structure coated with dielectric layers.

We report the focusing of a normally incident plane wave of 405 nm through a Ag/dielectric annular ring structure, using finite-difference time domain analysis. We first study the dependency of the focusing efficiency on slit width when the incident wave is transmitted through a single ring whose slit is filled with a dielectric. Then, light focusing by the multiple-ring structure is investigated as a function of the dielectric thickness. It is observed that the focusing is tunable between near-field and quasi-far-field regimes in the Ag/dielectric layered annular ring structure. Also, the focal intensities are remarkably enhanced by the addition of the dielectric layer, showing a Fabry-Perot-like resonance with respect to the thickness of the dielectric layer. The controllable near-field and far-field focusing offers more flexibility for applications of future nano-optic devices.

High efficient optical focusing of a zone plate composed of metal/dielectric multilayer.

We numerically investigate the optical field enhancement by a metal/dielectric multilayered zone plate. The optical field enhancement at the focal point of a zone plate originates not only from surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs)-assisted diffraction process along the propagation direction of incident light, but also from multiple scattering and coupling of surface plasmons (SPs) along the metal/dielectric multilayer films. By comparing multilayered zone plates to a conventional monolayered zone plate, we present the effects associated with the number of building blocks and different dielectric materials in the building block on the efficiency of the transmission.