Resonantly enhanced Raman scattering in dielectric nanostructures has been recently proven to be an efficient tool for developing nanothermometry and experimental determination of their modecomposition. In this paper, we develop a rigorous analytical theory based on the Green's function approach to calculate the Raman emission from crystalline high-index dielectric nanoparticles. As an example, we consider silicon nanoparticles which have a strong Raman response due to active optical phonon modes. We relate enhancement of Raman signal emission to Purcell effect due to the excitation of Mie modes inside the nanoparticles. We also employ the numerical approach to the calculation of inelastic Raman emission in more sophisticated geometries, which do not allow a straightforward analytical form of the Green's function description. The Raman response from a silicon nanodisk has been analyzed within the proposed method, and the contribution of the various Mie modes has been revealed.

Metrics for evaluating interruptive prescribing alerts have many limitations. Additional methods are needed to identify opportunities to improve alerting systems and prevent alert fatigue. In this study, the authors determined whether alert dwell time-the time elapsed from when an interruptive alert is generated to when it is dismissed-could be calculated by using historical alert data from log files. Drug-drug interaction (DDI) alerts from 3 years of electronic health record data were queried. Alert dwell time was calculated for 25,965 alerts, including 777 unique DDIs. The median alert dwell time was 8 s (range, 1-4913 s). Resident physicians had longer median alert dwell times than other prescribers (P < 001). The 10 most frequent DDI alerts (n = 8759 alerts) had shorter median dwell times than alerts that only occurred once (P < 001). This metric can be used in future research to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of interruptive prescribing alerts.

BackgroundThis retrospective study evaluated the impact of disease progression and of specific sites of metastasis on patient reported outcomes (PROs) that assess symptom burden and health related quality of life (HRQoL) in women with metastatic breast cancer (mBC).MethodsHER-2 negative mBC patients (n = 102) were enrolled from 7 U.S. community oncology practices. Demographic, disease and treatment characteristics were abstracted from electronic medical records and linked to archived Patient Care Monitor (PCM) assessments. The PCM is a self-report measure of symptom burden and HRQoL administered as part of routine care in participating practices. Linear mixed models were used to examine change in PCM scores over time.ResultsMean age was 57 years, with 72% of patients Caucasian, and 25% African American. Median time from mBC diagnosis to first disease progression was 8.8 months. Metastasis to bone (60%), lung (28%) and liver (26%) predominated at initial metastatic diagnosis. Results showed that PCM items assessing fatigue, physical pain and trouble sleeping were sensitive to either general effects of disease progression or to effects associated with specific sites of metastasis. Progression of disease was also associated with modest but significant worsening of General Physical Symptoms, Treatment Side Effects, Acute Distress and Impaired Performance index scores. In addition, there were marked detrimental effects of liver metastasis on Treatment Side Effects, and of brain metastasis on Acute Distress.ConclusionsDisease progression has a detrimental impact on cancer-related symptoms. Delaying disease progression may have a positive impact on patients' HRQoL.

We outline here how strong light-matter interaction can be used to induce quantum phase transition between normal and topological phases in two-dimensional topological insulators. We consider the case of a HgTe quantum well, in which band inversion occurs above a critical value of the well thickness, and demonstrate that coupling between electron states and the E field from an off-resonant linearly polarized laser provides a powerful tool to control topological transitions, even for a thickness of the quantum well that is below the critical value. We also show that topological phase properties of the edge states, including their group velocity, can be tuned in a controllable way by changing the intensity of the laser field. These findings open up the possibility for new experimental means with which to investigate topological insulators and shed new light on topological-insulator-based technologies that are under active discussion.