Dream Lucidity Induction And Control

My most important qualification for presenting this paper is an extensive direct experience of lucid dreams. I have had hundreds of lucid dreams in which I have done an experiment or made some observation. In sleep-laboratory work I have had 50 signal-verified lucid dreams. A primary concern of mine is with the philosophy and phenomenology of dreaming and altered states of consciousness and with what they can tell us abut normal consciousness

T cell polarisation by dendritic cells: a role for Notch ligands?

The intention of the work described in this thesis was to identify whether the Notch signalling pathway is utilized by antigen presenting cells in order to influence CD4+ adaptive immune responses. The notion that Notch proteins may be involved in polarising CD4+ T cells is relatively recent and most of the work that had been done in this area so far has concentrated on the consequences of Notch signalling within T cells. In contrast, the work that I have done has focussed on Notch ligand expression by antigen presenting cells and addresses the question whether Notch signalling is a redundant, necessary or irrelevant tool in the arsenal of antigen presentation

Managing Cardiovascular Risk of Macrolides: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

INTRODUCTION: It was postulated that antibiotics including macrolides could be used for the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease but recent studies showed that macrolides increase the cardiovascular risk. We aimed to review the evidence of cardiovascular risk associated with macrolides regarding duration of effect and risk factors; and to explore the potential effect of statins for the prevention of cardiovascular events as a result of macrolide use. METHODS: Several electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane library) were searched to identify eligible studies. Observational studies and randomized controlled trials that investigated the association between macrolides and cardiovascular events in adults aged ≥18 years were included. A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the short- and long-term risks of cardiovascular mortality, myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, and stroke. Methodological quality was assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa scale and the Cochrane Collaboration's tool. The body of evidence was evaluated by the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation guidelines. RESULTS: Observational studies were found to have a short-term risk of cardiovascular outcomes including cardiovascular mortality, myocardial infarction, and arrhythmia associated with macrolides but no risk was found in randomized controlled trials. However, no association for long-term risk (ranging from >30 days to >3 years) was observed in observational studies or randomized controlled trials. LIMITATIONS: The included studies reported different units of denominators for absolute risk and used different outcome definitions, which might increase the heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: More studies are required to investigate the short-term cardiovascular outcomes associated with different types of macrolides. Future studies are warranted to evaluate the effect of statins for preventing excess acute cardiovascular events associated with clarithromycin or other macrolides