Impact of pelvic floor ultrasound in diagnosis of postpartum pelvic floor dysfunction: A protocol of systematic review.

BACKGROUND: This study will appraise the impact of pelvic floor ultrasound (PFU) in diagnosis of postpartum pelvic floor dysfunction (PPPFD). METHODS: Studies that report the impact of PFU in diagnosis of PPPFD will be examined in Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PSYCINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, CNKI, and WANGFANG up to June 1, 2020. Grey literature sources will also be searched. All potential case-controlled studies (CCSs) exploring the impact of PFU in diagnosis of PPPFD will be considered for inclusion in this study. Data will be extracted from eligible CCSs for data pooling and meta-analysis. Whenever necessary, we will also perform summary effect size, heterogeneity across studies, study quality assessment, and reporting bias. RESULTS: The present study will estimate pooled outcome effects regarding the impact of PFU in diagnosis of PPPFD. CONCLUSION: This study may provide robust evidence to judge the impact of PFU on PPPFD SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION:: PROSPERO CRD42020187623.

Plasmonic optical trapping of nanoparticles with precise angular selectivity.

In this paper, a plasmonic trapping scheme including a polystyrene nanoparticle with gold cap and a metal tip tweezers was proposed. We numerically investigated the optical trapping behavior of the metal tip to this asymmetric particle. The results show that the metal tip can capture the particle at the position of the gold cap due to the strong plasmonic interaction, while other positions of the particle cannot be captured by metal tip. Furthermore, the trapping angle of the nanoparticle can be adjusted by changing the incident wavelength. Precisely controlling the trapping angle of the nanoparticles in our study has important potential applications of optical tweezers, such as in single molecule manipulation.

Impact of ultrasound diagnosis for chronic pelvic pain.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to assess the impact of ultrasound diagnosis in patients with chronic pelvic pain (CPP). METHODS: We will carry out a comprehensive electronic search from the databases below: PUBMED, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PSYCINFO, Web of Science, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and WANGFANG databases from inception to July 1, 2019. The case-controlled studies focusing on impact of ultrasound diagnosis for patients CPP will be included in this study. Two authors will independently conduct all study selection, data collection, and risk of bias assessment. The risk of bias assessment will be assessed using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. We will apply RevMan V.5.3 software and Stata V.12.0 software for data pooling and statistical analysis. RESULTS: This study will present pooled effect estimates regarding the impact of ultrasound diagnosis for CPP by assessing sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio of ultrasound to determine the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound diagnosis for CPP. CONCLUSION: This study will provide modest evidence for the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound in patients with CPP. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42019142799.

Reconfigurable metasurfaces that enable light polarization control by light.

Plasmonic metasurfaces have recently attracted much attention because of their novel characteristics with respect to light polarization and wave front control on deep-subwavelength scales. The development of metasurfaces with reconfigurable optical responses is opening new opportunities in high-capacity communications, real-time holograms and adaptive optics. Such tunable devices have been developed in the mid-infrared spectral range and operated in light intensity modulation schemes. Here we present a novel optically reconfigurable hybrid metasurface that enables polarization tuning at optical frequencies. The functionality of tuning is realized by switching the coupling conditions between the plasmonic modes and the binary isomeric states of an ethyl red switching layer upon light stimulation. We achieved more than 20° nonlinear changes in the transmitted polarization azimuth using just 4 mW of switching light power. Such design schemes and principles could be easily applied to dynamically adjust the functionalities of other metasurfaces.

Nanosphere-in-a-nanoegg: damping the high-order modes induced by symmetry breaking.

We study the optical properties of the nanosphere-in-a-nanoegg structure (NSNE) by the three-dimensional finite difference time domain method. We demonstrate the suppression of the high-order plasmon modes in NSNE, which is induced by the plasmon interaction between the inner nanosphere and the outer nanoegg shell. A two-layer plasmon hybridization model is presented to explain this mechanism. The results we showed for plasmon mode suppression would be important to the design of the metal plasmonic devices. In addition, due to high tunable plasmon resonances in the near-infrared region (700 to 1,300 nm) with sub-100-nm size, NSNE can serve as a good substitute for the Au-silica-Au multilayer nanoshells in biological applications. Furthermore, compared with the Au-silica-Au nanoshells, NSNE has the advantage that the strong field enhancement can be achieved at the outer surface of the Au shell.

Substrate engineering in stabilizing epitaxial MgO(1 1 1) polar ultrathin films: first-principles calculations.

Growing MgO(1 1 1) polar ultrathin films (PUFs) on heterogeneous substrates is technologically challenging. By using first-principles calculations, we show that while the O-termination of the supported PUF can be perfectly passivated by H adatoms, the compensation of the Mg-termination at the interface is the key to the stabilization. Proper charge transfer across the interface is highly required, which is dominated by the work function difference between the two surfaces that form the interface. Taking Ag(1 1 1) as an example, we propose that a thin Pt buffer layer can increase the work function of the substrate,and improve the PUF quality significantly.

[Study on the degradation of polymer light-emitting diodes by in-situ micro-Raman spectroscopy].

The authors report Raman degradation study of polymer light-emitting devices under ambient conditions. In order to investigate the chemical degradation reaction in polymer light-emitting diode (PLEDs) devices, the chemical structure of the poly (2-(4-Ethylhexyl) phenyl-1, 4-phenylene vinylene) (P-PPV) polymer was analyzed by micro-Raman spectroscopy during the lifetime of the devices. The evidence for the reduction of conjugation length is provided by Raman spectroscopy. This reduction of theconjugation length, which dramatically increases the resistance and cuts off the current density, was the main reason for the failure of lighting. These findings provide an important insight into the intrinsic degradation mechanisms of the polymer LEDs and help in the development of even more stable devices.