The two-dimensional photonic crystal (2-D PhC) structure has been investigated as a method for lateral mode control of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). The 2-D PhC structures were designed using an equivalent index model developed for photonic crystal fibers combined with a plane wave expansion method. The etching depth dependence of the PhC structure was incorporated for the f...

INTRODUCTION Greece is striving to limit its health expenditure to essential needs. General practice and the provision of Primary Health Care (PHC) mainly take place in rural settings, where approximately 200 Primary Health Care Centres (PHCCs) have been established. In order to determine how to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of PHC services, it is important to first gain insights in...

BACKGROUND A team approach in primary care has proven benefits in achieving better outcomes, reducing health care costs, satisfying patient needs, ensuring continuity of care, increasing job satisfaction among health providers and using human health care resources more efficiently. However, some research indicates constraints in collaboration within primary health care (PHC) teams in Lithuania....

The posting and transfer of health workers and managers receives little policy and research attention in global health. In Nigeria, there is no national policy on posting and transfer in the health sector. We sought to examine how the posting and transfer of frontline primary health care (PHC) workers is conducted in four states (Lagos, Benue, Nasarawa and Kaduna) across Nigeria, where public s...

BACKGROUND Primary health care (PHC) is widely regarded as essential for preventing and treating ill health. However, the evidence on whether improved PHC reduces hospitalisations has been mixed. This study examines the relationship between PHC and hospital inpatient care in a population with high health need, high rates of hospitalisation and relatively poor PHC access. METHODS The cross-sec...

This paper presents the design, fabrication and measurement results of a nano-photonic bandgap crystal (PhC) integrated circuit device. The PhC comprises of orthogonally intersecting single line defect Bragg reflection waveguides, partially reflecting PhC mirrors and a small volume optical resonator. A PhC bandgap optical intersection with size of ~ 5 × 5 um, waveguide width of 800 nm, and oper...

We have investigated both theoretically and experimentally the spectral behavior and the transmission and reflection performance of a photonic-crystal (PhC) mode converter upon an InP substrate. This taper exhibits 70% transmission efficiency on an 80-nm bandwidth when it couples a ridge access guide to a strongly confined single-missing-row PhC guide. Such a taper design included in a PhC bend...

We demonstrate design, fabrication, and characterization of two-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides on a suspended silicon rich nitride (SRN) platform for applications at telecom wavelengths. Simulation results suggest that a 210 nm photonic band gap can be achieved in such PhC structures. We also developed a fabrication process to realize suspended PhC waveguides with a transmission ...

We present a numerical approach to extract group index in photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides using two- and three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain methods and make a quantitative study of the effects of loss on slow light propagation in PhC waveguides. PhC waveguides are simulated with varying material loss and varying PhC waveguide length. Finally, we validate our method by comparing t...

The effect of dexamethasone on cytosolic pH (pHc) in resident mouse peritoneal macrophages was investigated using the fluorescent probe 2',7'-bis(carboxyethyl)-5(6)-carboxyfluorescein tetra-acetoxymethyl ester (BCECF-AM). Dexamethasone was found to significantly lower pHc and this reduction of pHc evolved gradually with time, was near maximal at 10 nM dexamethasone, and could be prevented by th...