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Purpose To study the practice patterns for the management of acute postoperative and postinjection endophthalmitis. Design Retrospective, interventional, nonrandomized, multicenter study. Participants Data on 237 eyes diagnosed with acute endophthalmitis occurring after intraocular surgery or procedures provided by 57 retina specialists from 28 countries. Main Outcome Measures Rates of pars plana vitrectomy (PPV), repeat intravitreal injection, and adjunctive therapeutic regimens (local and systemic antibiotics and steroids). Results Of 237 analyzed eyes, acute endophthalmitis secondary to cataract surgery or secondary lens implantation represented 64.6% of cases (153 eyes), whereas the remaining were secondary to intravitreal injections (35 eyes [14.8%]), PPV (29 eyes [12.2%]), and other intraocular surgeries (20 eyes [8.4%]). All eyes received intravitreal antibiotics on the same day of diagnosis. Overall, early PPV was used within the first week of presentation in 176 eyes (74.3%). There was no statistical difference in the proportion of eyes requiring a second intravitreal injection of antibiotics whether the eye was managed primarily with intravitreal antibiotics alone versus early PPV plus intravitreal antibiotics (29.5% [18 eyes] vs. 25.0% [44 eyes], respectively). Adjunctive therapies in the form of intravitreal steroids, systemic steroids, and systemic antibiotics were used in 25.3%, 21.9%, and 66.6% of eyes, respectively. The absence of disc or macular view and absence of endophthalmitis after cataract surgery were associated with an increased likelihood for early PPV (odds ratios 4.1 and 5.1, respectively). Conclusions Pars plana vitrectomy was frequently performed regardless of the presenting vision in eyes with endophthalmitis after cataract surgery and intravitreal injections. Increased vitreous opacification was associated with a higher probability for performing PPV.

Today’s requirements and challenges on production systems have led to an increasing importance of flexible assembly processes. At the same time, arising technologies in the context of Industry 4.0 offer the opportunity to tap previously unknown potentials. These provide both opportunities and risks for the most flexible and important resource in the production: the workers. Within the EU research project A4BLUE, Smart Workplaces are developed in order to raise productivity and quality, while sustaining and enhancing worker satisfaction. Enabled through both a software framework for adaptation management and contextual worker assistance as well as hardware solutions (e.g. automation mechanisms such as smart tools or co-operative robots) for physical support, the workplaces adapt to the workers’ specific characteristics considering both process and environmental variability. The presented research work provides an overview about the Frameworks’ software components and the application to a use case at the RWTH Aachen University.

At MMVR 2007 we presented NeuroVR (http://www.neurovr.org) a free virtual reality platform based on open-source software. The software allows non-expert users to adapt the content of 14 pre-designed virtual environments to the specific needs of the clinical or experimental setting. Following the feedbacks of the 2000 users who downloaded the first versions (1 and 1.5), we developed a new version--NeuroVR 2 (http://www.neurovr2.org)--that improves the possibility for the therapist to enhance the patient's feeling of familiarity and intimacy with the virtual scene, by using external sounds, photos or videos. More, when running a simulation, the system offers a set of standard features that contribute to increase the realism of the simulated scene. These include collision detection to control movements in the environment, realistic walk-style motion, advanced lighting techniques for enhanced image quality, and streaming of video textures using alpha channel for transparency.