Light distribution in fat cell layers at physiological temperatures.

Adipose tissue (AT) optical properties for physiological temperatures and in vivo conditions are still insufficiently studied. The AT is composed mainly of packed cells close to spherical shape. It is a possible reason that AT demonstrates a very complicated spatial structure of reflected or transmitted light.

Optical clearing and testing of lung tissue using inhalation aerosols: prospects for monitoring the action of viral infections.

Optical clearing of the lung tissue aims to make it more transparent to light by minimizing light scattering, thus allowing reconstruction of the three-dimensional structure of the tissue with a much better resolution. This is of great importance for monitoring of viral infection impact on the alveolar structure of the tissue and oxygen transport. Optical clearing agents (OCAs) can provide not only lesser light scattering of tissue components but also may influence the molecular transport function of the alveolar membrane.

Immersion optical clearing of adipose tissue in rats: ex vivo and in vivo studies.

Optical clearing (OC) of adipose tissue has not been studied enough, although it can be promising in medical applications, including surgery and cosmetology, for example, to visualize blood vessels or increase the permeability of tissues to laser beams. The main objective of this work is to develop technology for OC of abdominal adipose tissue in vivo using hyperosmotic optical clearing agents (OCAs). The maximum OC effect (77%) was observed for ex vivo rat adipose tissue samples exposed to OCA on fructose basis for 90 minutes.

MENINGO-ENCEPHALITIS IN A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN HOSPITALIZED FOR COVID-19.

Objective: The aim: To pay attention of clinicians to possible lesions of the central nervous system (encephalitis) in patients with COVID-19.

Patients And Methods: Case presentation: A 44-year-old woman was admitted to our clinic because of 2-month-history of mild fever, bilateral lower lobe pneumonia, respiratory failure, generalized weakness, and some neurologic symptoms. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in nasopharyngeal swab.

Influence of Alumina Addition on the Optical Properties and the Thermal Stability of Titania Thin Films and Inverse Opals Produced by Atomic Layer Deposition.

TiO thin films deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) at low temperatures (<100 °C) are, in general, amorphous and exhibit a smaller refractive index in comparison to their crystalline counterparts. Nonetheless, low-temperature ALD is needed when the substrates or templates are based on polymeric materials, as the deposition has to be performed below their glass transition or melting temperatures. This is the case for photonic crystals generated via ALD infiltration of self-assembled polystyrene templates.

A RARE BRAINSTEM INFLAMMATORY SYNDROME, CLIPPERS, MYTH OR FACT. CASE REPORT WITH CRITICAL REVIEW.

A very rare inflammatory disease of CNS, CLIPPERS syndrome, was recently described and only a few sporadic cases are reported in the medical literature. Its etiology and pathogenesis are unknown, that together with the polymorphic and sometimes confounding neurological manifestations, and radiological findings represent a real diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for clinicians. Aim: To highlight the importance of clear and specific diagnostic assessment.

A CASE OF MRI-NEGATIVE HERPES VIRUS ENCEPHALITIS PRESENTED BY RAMSAY HUNT SYNDROME.

Ramsay Hunt syndrome (RHS) occurs due to reactivation of latent Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) infection in the geniculate ganglion of the facial nerve. Major clinical symptoms include ipsilateral facial paralysis, otic pain, and herpetic vesicles (rashes) along the nerve with accompanying ear pain. Rarely clinical findings include retrograde transaxonal spread of the virus from the ganglion into the brain parenchyma with developing the encephalitis or multiple cranial nerve involvement.

Inverse design and demonstration of high-performance wide-angle diffractive optical elements.

Diffractive optical elements are ultra-thin optical components required for constructing very compact optical 3D sensors. However, the required wide-angle diffractive 2D fan-out gratings have been elusive due to design challenges. Here, we introduce a new strategy for optimizing such high-performance and wide-angle diffractive optical elements, offering unprecedented control over the power distribution among the desired diffraction orders with only low requirements with respect to computational power.

Subacute enterovirus-associated encephalitis in a young adult coinfected with borrelia burgdorferI.

Objective: The aim: To pay attention of clinicians to sterile encephalitis in adults, which in fact may be caused by EVs.

Results: Results: A young woman was admitted to our clinic because of 3-month-history of mild fever, left-sided soft facial paralysis, and generalized weakness. MR brain imaging in T2W, FLAIR, and T1W mode showed focal hyper intensive abnormalities in various parts of the left hemisphere.

Diagnostic value of specific antibody synthesis in brain of patients with neuroinfections.

Introduction: Viral encephalitis accounts for 40-70% of all cases worldwide, central nervous system infections pose a diagnostic challenge because clinical manifestations are not typically pathognomonic for specific pathogens, and a wide range of agents can be causative. The aim: To assess the diagnostic value of intrathecal synthesis of specific antibodies in patients with inflammatory lesions of the central nervous system.

Material And Methods: Within the framework of the study, two groups of 90 people in each were formed from the patients with neuroinfections admitted to our Center.

Varicella-zoster virus cns disease clinical features in ukrainian patients. prospective study.

Objective: Introduction: Herpes zoster (HZ), or shingles, is localized disease characterized by unilateral radicular pain and a vesicular rash limited to the area of skin innervated by a single dorsal root or cranial sensory ganglion. Whereas varicella, or chickenpox, results from primary exogenous varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection, HZ is caused by reactivation of endogenous VZV that has persisted in latent form within sensory ganglia following an earlier episode of chickenpox. The aim: To explore the clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment of CNS injury caused by VZV infection in a prospective single center study from January 2014 to January 2018.

HIV/AIDS in the guise of a demyelinating disease.

Objective: Introduction: A significant part of patients with HIV / AIDS develops damage to the nervous system. There are also cases where opportunistic infections of the nervous system, especially herpes viral origin, can hide the underlying disease, making it difficult diagnosis. The aim: To show the possibility of HIV infection mimicry a neurological pathology.

Identification of human herpesvirus 7 in the cerebrospinal fluid of adult ukrainian with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. A case study.

Objective: Introduction: In this study, we investigated the possible involvement of Human herpesvirus 7 in multiple sclerosis. The aim: To contribute to clarifying the controversy on the association between Human Herpesviruses 7 (HHV-7) and multiple sclerosis (MS) studying patient with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS).

Patients And Methods: Case study: Young female admitted to adult tertiary referral, infectious diseases hospital, Kyiv, Ukraine, with signs of a focal neurological deficit.

Effect of probiotics on altered gut microflora in patients with severe systemic inflammatory response syndrome.

Objective: The aim: To estimate intestinal microbial changes and study the efficacy of probiotic preparations in systemic inflammation.

Patients And Methods: Materials and methods: The study involved 202 patients with chronic infections various sites, including 58 (28.7 %) patients with respiratory tract infections, 56 (27.

Ukrainian priorities for herpesvirus infections that affect the central nervous system.

Objective: Introduction: Herpesviruses (HVs) are ubiquitous pathogens that infect humans usually during childhood, followed by a life-long persistence in a latent state in many sites of a body including the nerve cells. After reactivation HVs can affect the Central Nervous System (CNS) becoming a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide as well as long-term neurological sequelae. Despite being an important public health problem very few population-based studies were conducted so far in the world and none in Ukraine.

Epstein-barr virus-associated encephalitis in a case-series of more than 40 patients.

Objective: Introduction: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection can present with neurologic manifestations including encephalitis, aseptic meningitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and many others. Most reported cases have been in children. Little is known about EBV encephalitis in adults.

Controlling thermal emission with refractory epsilon-near-zero metamaterials via topological transitions.

Control of thermal radiation at high temperatures is vital for waste heat recovery and for high-efficiency thermophotovoltaic (TPV) conversion. Previously, structural resonances utilizing gratings, thin film resonances, metasurfaces and photonic crystals were used to spectrally control thermal emission, often requiring lithographic structuring of the surface and causing significant angle dependence. In contrast, here, we demonstrate a refractory W-HfO2 metamaterial, which controls thermal emission through an engineered dielectric response function.

Bottom-up Fabrication of Multilayer Stacks of 3D Photonic Crystals from Titanium Dioxide.

A strategy for stacking multiple ceramic 3D photonic crystals is developed. Periodically structured porous films are produced by vertical convective self-assembly of polystyrene (PS) microspheres. After infiltration of the opaline templates by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of titania and thermal decomposition of the polystyrene matrix, a ceramic 3D photonic crystal is formed.

Tungsten band edge absorber/emitter based on a monolayer of ceramic microspheres.

We report on a band edge absorber/emitter design for high-temperature applications based on an unstructured tungsten substrate and a monolayer of ceramic microspheres. The absorber was fabricated as a monolayer of ZrO(2) microparticles on a tungsten layer with a HfO(2) nanocoating. The band edge of the absorption is based on critically coupled microsphere resonances.

Diamond photonic crystals for the IR spectral range.

2D photonic crystals formed inside monocrystalline diamond to operate in the IR spectral range are reported. The photonic structures consisting of 150-μm-long graphitized wires arranged in a square matrix with a period of 4 μm were produced by laser writing with ultrashort pulses. Transmittance spectra (λ=1-14  μm) measured for the structures with increasing thickness demonstrate the occurrence of few minima being different for TM and TE polarization modes.

Facile deposition of YSZ-inverse photonic glass films.

An alternative all-colloidal and single-step deposition method of yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ)-infiltrated polymeric photonic glass films is presented. Heterocoagulation of oppositely charged polystyrene (PS) microspheres and YSZ nanocrystals in aqueous dispersions created PS/YSZ core-shell spheres. These composite particles were deposited on glass substrates by a simple drop-coating process.

Graded photonic quasicrystals.

We introduce graded photonic quasicrystals and investigate properties of such structures on the example of a Luneburg lens based on a dodecagonal photonic quasicrystal. It is shown that the graded photonic quasicrystal lens has better focusing properties as compared with the graded photonic crystal lens in a frequency range suitable for experimental realization. The proposed graded photonic quasicrystals can be used in optical systems where compact and powerful focusing elements are required.

Nontuberculous mycobacterial infections of the skin: A retrospective study of 25 cases.

Background: Absence of a pathognomonic clinical picture and variable histologic findings often delay diagnosis of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM)-induced cutaneous infections, and antimicrobial therapy varies.

Objective: We sought to investigate the clinical, microbiologic, and pathological findings of cutaneous NTM infections and response to different treatments.

Methods: Records of patients with NTM infections of the skin confirmed by positive cultures or histologic findings were reviewed.

Nail disorders in patients with chronic renal failure and undergoing haemodialysis treatment: a case-control study.

Background: Few controlled studies have compared nail disorders in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) and haemodialysis (HD)-dependent individuals with a healthy population.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of nail disorders in patients with CRF and patients undergoing HD treatment with a healthy population, and evaluate the relationship between nail changes and various demographic, medical and laboratory parameters in these groups.

Methods: In this case-control study we recruited 73 patients affected with CRF, 77 patients undergoing regular HD and 77 healthy individuals.

Epidemiological and clinical manifestations of patients hospitalized with brown recluse spider bite.

Background: Necrotic arachnidism represents a common health problem and standard treatments are usually safe and effective.

Objective: The aim of this study was to review documented Loxosceles species spider envenomations and identify the natural history of affected patients.

Methods: A retrospective single-centre study included 52 patients with necrotic arachnidism hospitalized in the dermatology department between 1997 and 2004.