Compact 20-pass thin-disk multipass amplifier stable against thermal lensing effects and delivering 330 mJ pulses with M2 < 1.17.

We report on an Yb:YAG thin-disk multipass amplifier delivering 100 ns long pulses at a central wavelength of 1030 nm with an energy of 330 mJ at a repetition rate of 100 Hz. The beam quality factor at the maximum energy was measured to be M2 < 1.17. The small signal gain is 21.7, and the gain at 330 mJ was measured to be 6.9. The 20-pass amplifier is designed as a concatenation of stable resonator segments in which the beam is alternately Fourier transformed and relay-imaged back to the disk by a 4f-imaging optical scheme stage. The Fourier transform propagation makes the output beam robust against spherical phase front distortions, while the 4f-stage is used to compensate the thermal lens of the thin-disk and to reduce the footprint of the amplifier.

Injection-seeded high-power Yb:YAG thin-disk laser stabilized by the Pound-Drever-Hall method.

We demonstrate an injection-seeded thin-disk Yb:YAG laser at 1030 nm, stabilized by the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) method. We modified the PDH scheme to obtain an error signal free from Trojan locking points, which allowed robust re-locking of the laser and reliable long-term operation. The single-frequency pulses have 50 mJ energy (limited to avoid laser-induced damage) with a beam quality of M2 < 1.1 and an adjustable length of 55-110 ns. Heterodyne measurements confirmed a spectral linewidth of 3.7 MHz. The short pulse build-up time (850 ns) makes this laser suitable for laser spectroscopy of muonic hydrogen, pursued by the CREMA collaboration.

Pound-Drever-Hall locking scheme free from Trojan operating points.

The Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) technique is a popular method for stabilizing the frequency of a laser to a stable optical resonator or, vice versa, the length of a resonator to the frequency of a stable laser. We propose a refinement of the technique yielding an "infinite" dynamic (capture) range so that a resonator is correctly locked to the seed frequency, even after large perturbations. The stable but off-resonant lock points (also called Trojan operating points), present in conventional PDH error signals, are removed by phase modulating the seed laser at a frequency corresponding to half the free spectral range of the resonator. We verify the robustness of our scheme experimentally by realizing an injection-seeded Yb:YAG thin-disk laser. We also give an analytical formulation of the PDH error signal for arbitrary modulation frequencies and discuss the parameter range for which our PDH locking scheme guarantees correct locking. Our scheme is simple as it does not require additional electronics apart from the standard PDH setup and is particularly suited to realize injection-seeded lasers and injection-seeded optical parametric oscillators.

Antidermatophytic activity of some newly synthesized arylhydrazonothiazoles conjugated with monoclonal antibody.

A new series of 5-arylhydrazonothiazole derivatives 5a-d has been synthesized, elucidated, and evaluated for their antidermatophytic activity. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) of the newly synthesized products were investigated against 18 dermatophyte fungal isolates related to Epidermophyton floccosum, Microsporum canis, and Trichophyton rubrum. The morphological alterations induced by the synthesized derivatives singly or conjugated with the monoclonal antibody were examined on spores of T. rubrum using a scanning electron microscope. The efficacy of synthesized derivative 5a applied at its respective MFC alone or conjugated with anti-dermatophyte monoclonal antibody 0014 in skin infection treatment of guinea pigs due to inoculation with one of the examined dermatophytes, in comparison with fluconazole as standard reference drug was evaluated. In an in vivo experiment, the efficiency of 5a derivative conjugated with the antibody induced 100% healing after 45 days in the case of T. rubrum and M. canis-infected guinea pigs.

Bacterial contamination and health risks of drinking water from the municipal non-government managed water treatment plants.

Water quality and bacterial contamination from 18 drinking water municipal plants in three locations at Giza governorate were investigated. The average total count of bacteria detected after four stages of treatments in the investigated plants was 32 CFU/1 mL compared to 2330 cfu/mL for raw water, with a reduction percentage of 98.6. Although there is a relatively high removal percent of bacterial contamination from the water sources, however, several bacterial pathogens were identified in the produced water prepared for drinking including Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Shigella spp. After 3 days of water incubation at 30 °C, the amount of bacterial endotoxins ranged from 77 to 137 ng/mL in the water produced from the municipal plants compared to 621-1260 ng/mL for untreated water. The main diseases reported from patients attending different clinics and hospitals during summer 2014 at the surveyed locations and assuredly due to drinking water from these plants indicated that diarrheas and gastroenteritis due to E. coli and Campylobacter jejuni constituted 65.7% of the total patients followed by bacillary dysentery or shigellosis due to Shigella spp. (7.9%) and cholera due to Vibrio cholera (7.2%). There was an increase in serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) as well as urea and creatinine values of guinea pigs consuming water produced from the non-governmental plants for 6 months indicating remarkable liver and kidney damages. Histological sections of liver and kidney from the tested animal revealed liver having ballooning degeneration of hepatocytes and distortion and fragmentation of the nuclei, while the section of the kidney showed irregularly distributed wrinkled cells, degenerated Bowman's capsule, congested blood vessels, and inflammatory cells.

Efficiency of newly prepared thiazole derivatives against some cutaneous fungi.

A series of fourteen novel synthesized arylazothiazole and arylhydrazothiazole derivatives were tested for their antifungal activity and structure-activity relationship. The activity of the compounds depends mainly on the side chains of the nucleus compound. The antifungal activity was more significant when both side chains are aromatic > one aromatic and one aliphatic and substituted aromatic with CH3 or OCH3 > non-substituted > substituted aromatic with chloro- or nitro-groups. Thiazole derivatives 7a, 7c, 7e, 7f, 7 g, 7i, 7 m, and 11a showed the most effective as antifungal compounds and were comparable with fluconazole as antifungal reference drug when investigated against Candida albicans, Microsporum gypseum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) reached 2 µg/mL in the case of C. albicans for compounds 7a, 7b, 7c and 11a and measured 4 µg/mL in the case of M. gypseum and T. mentagrophytes for the same compounds. The minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) for the same compounds was 4 µg/mL for C. albicans and ranged from 8 to 32 µg/mL for the other two fungi. The results revealed that compounds 7c and 11a were the most antifungal compounds against the test fungi regarding keratinase activity and ergosterol biosynthesis. The in vivo efficacy of synthesized thiazoles 7c and 11a applied at their respective MFC was more effective in the treatment of skin infection of guinea pigs previously inoculated with the test fungi as compared with fluconazole. The Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) software was used to analyze the docking poses and binding energies of compound 11a and keratinase. The computational studies supported the biological activity results.

Intracorporeal vicryl ligatures reduces cost in some countries.

BACKGROUND: Financial constraints and pressing priorities are major problems that delay implementation of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) in some countries. This raised the need for improvisation and innovation. Endoclips are not available in some local markets. They cost $50 for a single set of six clips to import, in contrast to 2/0 polyglacin (Vicryl-Ethicon), which is available at a rate of $1.5 for one thread. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY: To compare the safety and cost between vicryl ligature and endoclips. PATIENTS AND METHOD: To secure the cystic duct, intracorporeal vicryl ligature (IVL) was applied in 64 LCs. These were divided into 32 patients presented with cystic duct, which was too wide to controlled with endoclips (group A) and 32 patients with normal diameter of cystic duct as controls (group B). Also we describe the test we used to prove the safety of IVL in the two groups. This ligature was tested with high pressure introduced and measured into the gallbladder by sphygmomanometer. RESULTS: The gallbladder can withstand a mean (+ SD) pressure of 197 (+20.94) mmHg and 191.67 (+10.2) in group A and B respectively without statistically significant difference (P 0.1305). Total cost of vicryl was $128 compared to $3200 if endoclips were used. No complication was noted related to these ligatures in a period of two year-follow up. CONCLUSION: This method is easy, cost effective and suitable in some countries.