The results suggest that, whilst accepted causes do affect onset of melasma, a combination of these factors often triggers this disorder. These factors may provide further insights into how physicians can manage individual melasma cases, support recommendation of preventative measures and even anticipate treatment results and recurrence.

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a turbulent channel flow at low Reynolds number (Reτ=100,200,400, where Reτ is the Reynolds number based on the wall-shear velocity and channel half-width) are carried out to examine the effectiveness of using the Lorentz force to reduce skin friction. The Lorentz force is created by embedding electrodes and permanent magnets in the flat surface over which the flow passes. Both open-loop and closed-loop control schemes are examined. For open-loop control, both temporally and spatially oscillating Lorentz forces in the near-wall region are tested. It is found that skin-friction drag can be reduced by approximately 40% if a temporally oscillating spanwise Lorentz force is applied to a Reτ=100 channel flow. However, the power to generate the required Lorentz force is an order of magnitude larger than the power saved due to the reduced drag. Simulations were carried out at higher Reynolds numbers (Reτ=200,400) to determine whether efficiency, defined as the ratio of the power saved to the power used, improves with increasing Reynolds number. We found that the efficiency decreases with increasing Reynolds number. An idealized wall–normal Lorentz force is effected by detecting the near-wall turbulent events responsible for high-skin friction. It is found that the drag can be significantly reduced with a greater efficiency than that produced by the spanwise open-loop control approach. This result suggests that, when employed with a closed-loop control scheme, the Lorentz force might result in a net decrease of power required to propel objects through viscous conducting fluids.

The addition of kojic acid to a gel containing 10% glycolic acid and 2% hydroquinone further improves melasma.

Ultrastable high-spectral-purity lasers have served as the cornerstone behind optical atomic clocks, quantum measurements, precision optical microwave generation, high-resolution optical spectroscopy, and sensing. Hertz-level lasers stabilized to high-finesse Fabry-Pérot cavities are typically used for these studies, which are large and fragile and remain laboratory instruments. There is a clear demand for rugged miniaturized lasers with stabilities comparable to those of bulk lasers. Over the past decade, ultrahigh-Q optical whispering-gallery-mode resonators have served as a platform for low-noise microlasers but have not yet reached the stabilities defined by their fundamental noise. Here, we show the noise characteristics of whispering-gallery-mode resonators and demonstrate a resonator-stabilized laser at this limit by compensating the intrinsic thermal expansion, allowing a sub-25 Hz linewidth and a 32 Hz Allan deviation. We also reveal the environmental sensitivities of the resonator at the thermodynamical noise limit and long-term frequency drifts governed by random-walk-noise statistics.

A linear process in wall-bounded turbulent shear flows has been investigated through numerical experiments. It is shown that the linear coupling term, which enhances non-normality of the linearized Navier-Stokes system, plays an important role in fully turbulent-and hence, nonlinear-flows. Near-wall turbulence is shown to decay without the linear coupling term. It is also shown that near-wall turbulence structures are not formed in their proper scales without the nonlinear terms in the Navier-Stokes equations, thus indicating that the formation of the commonly observed near-wall turbulence structures are essentially nonlinear, but the maintenance relies on the linear process. Other implications of the linear process are also discussed.

The thermal stability of monolithic optical microresonators is essential for many mesoscopic photonic applications such as ultrastable laser oscillators, photonic microwave clocks, and precision navigation and sensing. Their fundamental performance is largely bounded by thermal instability. Sensitive thermal monitoring can be achieved by utilizing cross-polarized dual-mode beat frequency metrology, determined by the polarization-dependent thermorefractivity of a single-crystal microresonator, wherein the heterodyne radio-frequency beat pins down the optical mode volume temperature for precision stabilization. Here, we investigate the correlation between the dual-mode beat frequency and the resonator temperature with time and the associated spectral noise of the dual-mode beat frequency in a single-crystal ultrahigh-Q MgF2 resonator to illustrate that dual-mode frequency metrology can potentially be utilized for resonator temperature stabilization reaching the fundamental thermal noise limit in a realistic system. We show a resonator long-term temperature stability of 8.53 μK after stabilization and unveil various sources that hinder the stability from reaching sub-μK in the current system, an important step towards compact precision navigation, sensing, and frequency reference architectures.

More randomized controlled clinical studies in large numbers of PIH patients are needed to provide standardized measurable outcomes in this indication.

Advanced high-brightness beam applications such as inverse-Compton scattering (ICS) depend on achieving of ultrasmall spot sizes in high current beams. Modern injectors and compressors enable the production of high-brightness beams having needed short bunch lengths and small emittances. Along with these beam properties comes the need to produce tighter foci, using stronger, shorter focal length optics. An approach to creating such strong focusing systems using high-field, small-bore permanent-magnet quadrupoles (PMQs) is reported here. A final-focus system employing three PMQs, each composed of 16 neodymium iron boride sectors in a Halbach geometry has been installed in the PLEIADES ICS experiment. The field gradient in these PMQs is 560 T=m, the highest ever reported in a magnetic optics system. As the magnets are of a fixed field strength, the focusing system is tuned by adjusting the position of the three magnets along the beam line axis, in analogy to familiar camera optics. This paper discusses the details of the focusing system, simulation, design, fabrication, and experimental procedure in creating ultrasmall beams at PLEIADES.