Tunable liquid crystal asymmetric dual-core photonic crystal fiber mode converter.

In this study, a compact mode converter based on an asymmetric dual-core photonic crystal fiber (ADC-PCF) infiltrated with nematic liquid crystal (NLC) is reported. The full vectorial finite difference method is used to compute the modal characteristics of the studied transverse magnetic (TM) mode. In this investigation, the geometrical and material parameters of the proposed mode converter are studied to achieve high wavelength selectivity with a compact device length. The proposed mode converter has a compact device length of 403.6 µm at λ=1.3µm. In addition, the reported device is simulated under different temperature levels from 15°C to 45°C to show the thermal tunability. Therefore, the proposed design can be used efficiently in integrated photonic circuits.

Higher Activities of Hepatic Versus Splenic CD8+ T Cells in Responses to Adoptive T Cell Therapy and Vaccination of B6 Mice with MHC Class-1 Binding Antigen.

The liver has unique microenvironment which is known to induce tolerance of cytolytic CD8+ T cells to hepatic and extra hepatic antigens, resulting in persistence of infection of the liver by the hepatitis B and C viruses. However, under some conditions, functional immune responses can be elicited in the liver in particular to show preferential retention of activated CD8+ T cells. It is not clear whether this retention depends on the type of the exogenous immunostimulatory or the endogenous innate immune cells. The T cell receptor (TCR) transgenic OT-1 (CD8+) mouse model was used in which OT-1 cells were harvested from the spleen of the donor and transferred into recipient mice followed by immunization with OVA peptide followed by injection of GM-CSF, CCL21 chemokine, or cytokines (IL-2, IL-12, or IL-15), or the toll-like receptor 3 agonist poly(I:C). Co-administration of any of these immunostimulatory agents relatively augmented the retention of CD8+ T cells with different levels of effects. Compared to spleen, the Ag-specific CD8+ T cells in the liver showed higher activities including expansion, proliferation, apoptosis and memory responses as well as cytolytic function. While depletion of natural killer cells significantly decreased the hepatic retention of the antigen-specific T cells, depletion of Kupffer cells showed opposite effect. Taken together, the antigen reactive T cells in the liver have higher activities than their counterparts in the peripheral tissues such as spleen. These data have important clinical implications for designing immunotherapeutic protocols toward the liver diseases.

Improving the accuracy of electronic prescribing in West Bay Health Center in Qatar.

Primary healthcare in Qatar uses electronic prescribing to reduce the risk of medication errors. Electronic prescribing is supported by computerized Physician Order Entry systems through Cerner (electronic medical record system). There are still prescription errors, despite electronic prescribing being in place for one year at West Bay Health Center. West Bay Health Center is a famous primary healthcare center in Qatar. It is a training center for the family medicine residency program, which is accredited by the accreditation council of general medical education international (ACGME-I). It serves a population of about 98,000 in Qatar with 35 physicians and 12 pharmacists. The aim of this project was to decrease medication errors by 30% from baseline measurement (according to type of error) from October 2015 to March 2016. It was found that there was a discrepancy between the pharmacy medication list and the list within Cerner. A master drug index was created to eliminate the discrepancy. Training on the use of this index was provided through lectures and one to one education, with material also sent through email. We found that there was some resistance from the physician side and therefore introduced a second intervention. We sent out a survey to find out more about these difficulties and provided more training and education. Our results showed an decrease in the proportion of wrong dose errors from 11.8% to 10.6%, wrong name from 6.9% to 6.2%, wrong duration from 11.7% to 10.3%, and non-formulary drug errors from 2.6% to 1.6%.