Effect of defocus combined with rotation on the optical performance of trifocal toric IOLs

Purpose: To objectively analyze the optical quality of the FineVision Toric intraocular lens (IOL) with two cylinder powers when different combinations of rotations and residual refractive errors are induced. Methods: This study assessed the FineVision Toric IOL with two different cylinder powers: 1.5 and 3.0 diopters (D). Three different rotation positions were considered: centered, 5° and 10° rotated. An optical bench (PMTF) was used for optical analysis. The optical quality of the IOLs was calculated by the modulation transfer function (MTF) at five different focal points (0.0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 D). Results: The MTF averaged value of the reference situation was 38.58 and 37.74 for 1.5 and 3.0 D of cylinder, respectively. For the 1.5 D cylinder, the combination of 5° of rotation with a defocus of 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.0 D induced a decrease on the MTF of 12.39, 19.94, 23.43, 24.23 units, respectively. When induced rotation was 10°, the MTF decrease was 17.26, 23.40, 24.33, 24.48 units, respectively. For the 3.0 D cylinder, the combination of 5° with 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.0 D of defocus, induced a decrease on the MTF of 12.51, 18.97, 22.36, 22.48 units, respectively. When induced rotation was 10°, the MTF decrease was: 18.42, 21.57, 23.08, and 23.61 units, respectively. Conclusion: For both FineVision Toric IOLs there is a certain optical tolerance to rotations up to 5° or residual refractive errors up to 0.25 D. Situations over these limits and their combination would affect the visual quality of patients implanted with these trifocal toric IOLs.

Transformation of the media reception of the presidency institute in Ukraine (based on the materials of European newspapers)

The research is dedicated to the study of the process of transformation of media reception of the Institute of the Presidency of Ukraine based on the articles published by the European newspapers on their websites during the year 2019. Particular attention was paid to the key substantive concepts that underpinned the media discourse of the British, French and German press during the election and post-election periods.In the process of study, the method of conceptual analysis, which allowed to reveal the core and peripheral meanings of the concepts under study as well as point to key concept compounds and capture the phenomenon of concept separation under conditions of changing reference situation was used. The phenomenon of content homogenization, which is now the characteristic of Western media discourse was also considered. We have confirmed its manifestations by almost complete convergence of conceptual representations presented in the media systems of Britain, Germany and France. In the article the concept of presidency in Ukraine, represented by the name of V. Zelensky, is under exploration. Carrying out the conceptual analysis, we first identified the reference situation that caused the actualization of the concept, and paid attention to the extra-linguistic factors of its change in the media discourse. In the process of study, the following frequently used concepts to denote President Zelensky, which represented the atypical character of the Ukrainian incumbent presidency, were found: “political newcomer,” “newcomer to politics who came from show business,” “politician newcomer,” “television clown,” “Ukrainian television comedian,” “cabaret artist,” “joker,” etc.We have also stated the process of transformation from personal, negatively connotated to institutional concepts with a neutral core sense. We particularly pointed to the separation of stereotypical conceptual connections of “president-comedian,” first by introducing the predicate “former” and actualization of the combination “president-former comedian” and later by approving new semantic connections. We also pointed to the negative role of the Ukrainegate concept, which manifested Ukraine’s minor role on the international arena.

Space and demonstratives: an experiment with Estonian exophoric demonstratives

In recent years, the study of exophoric demonstratives has increased in Indo- European languages, but has received fairly little research attention in Estonian. The aim of the study is to verify by the means of a production experiment whether distance has an effect on the choice of Estonian exophoric demonstratives. Binomial mixed effects logistic regression analysis suggests that distance is the best predictor for the choice between demonstrative adverbs, but it has no effect on the choice between the demonstrative pronoun see ‘this’ and other referential devices, which can be explained by the lack of usage of the demonstrative pronoun too ‘that’. However, there also occurs unexpected usage of demonstrative adverbs that is best explained by other attributes of the referent and reference situation rather than simple spatial opposition. Thus, although the best predictor in demonstrative adverb choice proves to be distance, other attributes may play a fairly important role.

Full-scale phosphorus recovery from digested waste water sludge in Belgium – part I: technical achievements and challenges

To date, phosphorus recovery as struvite in wastewater treatment plants has been mainly implemented on water phases resulting from dewatering processes of the sludge line. However, it is possible to recover struvite directly from sludge phases. Besides minimising the return loads of phosphorus from the sludge line to the water line, placing such a process within the sludge line is claimed to offer advantages such as a higher recovery potential, enhanced dewaterability of the treated sludge, and reduced speed of scaling in pipes and dewatering devices. In the wastewater treatment plant at Leuven (Belgium), a full-scale struvite recovery process from digested sludge has been tested for 1 year. Several monitoring campaigns and experiments provided indications of the efficiency of the process for recovery. The load of phosphorus from the sludge line returning to the water line as centrate accounted for 15% of the P-load of the plant in the reference situation. Data indicated that the process divides this phosphorus load by two. An improved dewaterability of 1.5% of dry solids content was achieved, provided a proper tuning of the installation. Quality analyses showed that the formed struvite was quite pure.

Absence of haemodynamic refractory effects in patients with migraine without aura – an interictal fMRI study

Background: In healthy controls, haemodynamic refractory effects are observed with blood-oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) functional MRI (fMRI): the haemodynamic response function (HRF) to the second stimulus in a pair of stimuli with short interstimulus interval (ISI) shows a decreased amplitude and an increased time-to-peak. We hypothesize that there may be interictal haemodynamic abnormalities in migraineurs. Methods: An event-related fMRI design with paired face stimuli and varying ISIs was used to measure interictal HRFs in the face recognition area of patients with migraine without aura (MwoA) and controls. Net responses to the second stimulus in a pair were calculated and averaged per participant. Several characterizing parameters of the net responses were quantified and examined within each group. Results: Refractory effects were not observed in our patient group. There are no changes in the net responses compared with the reference situation in patients, irrespective of the ISI, whereas in controls all HRF parameters are decreased or delayed for an ISI of 1 second. Conclusion: This is the first fMRI study investigating the haemodynamic refractory effects in MwoA patients. Unlike in controls, these effects are not observed in migraineurs. Although currently unclear, it is tempting to speculate that this observation reflects the neurovascular correlate of lack of habituation measured with evoked potentials in migraineurs.