Efficacy and safety of ixekizumab in patients with plaque psoriasis across different degrees of disease severity: results from UNCOVER-2 and UNCOVER-3

PURPOSE: To evaluate short- and long-term efficacy and safety of ixekizumab in patients according to psoriasis severity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were integrated from clinical trials (UNCOVER-2, UNCOVER-3). Patients received placebo, 80-mg ixekizumab every 2 weeks (IXEQ2W), every 4 weeks (IXEQ4W), or 50-mg etanercept (ETN) biweekly for 12 weeks, then open-label IXEQ4W (UNCOVER-3). Psoriasis severity was categorized by baseline Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI /=20). Efficacy was evaluated by percentage reaching PASI 75, 90, 100, and absolute PASI /=20 (vs. PASI /=20 vs. PASI <20 patients across treatments reached PASI </=5, </=2, and </=1 at Week 12. Efficacy was maintained during 156 weeks of ixekizumab treatment with no differences between groups. The IXEQ2W safety profile was similar between groups except for injection-site reactions (significantly higher in PASI <20). CONCLUSIONS: Ixekizumab demonstrated a high level of efficacy and had a consistent safety profile in patients with different baseline psoriasis severity levels

Sentiment Analysis for Swedish : The Impact of Emojis on Sentiment Analysis of Swedish Informal Texts

This study investigates the use of emojis in sentiment analysis for the Swedish language, with the objective to assess if emojis improve the performance of the model. Sentiment analysis is an NLP classification task aimed at extracting people's opinions, sentiments, and attitudes from language. Though sentiment analysis as a research area has made a lot of progress recently, there are still some challenges to overcome. In this work, two of these challenges were considered; the analysis of a non-English language and the impact of emojis. These areas were explored through creating a sentiment annotated dataset of Swedish texts containing emojis, and creating a Swedish sentiment analysis model for evaluation. The sentiment analysis model created, SweVADER, was based on the English Lexicon-based model VADER.  The best performing SweVADER model achieved an accuracy of 0.53 and an F1-score of 0.47. Furthermore, the presence of emojis improved the analysis for most models, but not by much. The results indicate that the use of emojis can improve the sentiment analysis, but there were other features affecting the results as well. The sentiment lexicon used plays a key role, and pre-processing techniques like stemming could affect the performance too. A takeaway from this study is that emojis contain important sentiment information, and should not be disregarded. Furthermore, emojis are useful when analyzing texts, if there is a lack of linguistic resources for the language in question

Sentiment Analysis for Swedish : The Impact of Emojis on Sentiment Analysis of Swedish Informal Texts

This study investigates the use of emojis in sentiment analysis for the Swedish language, with the objective to assess if emojis improve the performance of the model. Sentiment analysis is an NLP classification task aimed at extracting people's opinions, sentiments, and attitudes from language. Though sentiment analysis as a research area has made a lot of progress recently, there are still some challenges to overcome. In this work, two of these challenges were considered; the analysis of a non-English language and the impact of emojis. These areas were explored through creating a sentiment annotated dataset of Swedish texts containing emojis, and creating a Swedish sentiment analysis model for evaluation. The sentiment analysis model created, SweVADER, was based on the English Lexicon-based model VADER.  The best performing SweVADER model achieved an accuracy of 0.53 and an F1-score of 0.47. Furthermore, the presence of emojis improved the analysis for most models, but not by much. The results indicate that the use of emojis can improve the sentiment analysis, but there were other features affecting the results as well. The sentiment lexicon used plays a key role, and pre-processing techniques like stemming could affect the performance too. A takeaway from this study is that emojis contain important sentiment information, and should not be disregarded. Furthermore, emojis are useful when analyzing texts, if there is a lack of linguistic resources for the language in question

Absolute and relative psoriasis area and severity indices (PASI) for comparison of the efficacy of ixekizumab to etanercept and placebo in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis : An integrated analysis of UNCOVER-2 and UNCOVER-3 outcomes

Treatment goals defined by the absolute Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) scores offer certain advantages in the clinical setting. In order to investigate potential treatment targets, this study evaluated absolute PASI outcomes relative to other measures of response using data from two randomized clinical trials of patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis treated with ixekizumab, etanercept, or placebo (n=2,567). Response was assessed throughout 12 weeks as the proportion of patients achieving absolute PASI band cut-offs who also reached established response criteria. Most PASI band ≤2 responders also achieved PASI 90 (70.1-100%), static Physician's Global Assessment (0,1) (91.3-96.1%), Dermatology Life Quality Index (0,1) (63.0-67.7%), Patient Global Assessment of Disease Severity (0,1) (80.3-86.7%), and Itch Numeric Rating Scale improvement ≥4 (87.2-87.6%). Agreement sharply decreased for less stringent PASI criteria. These data indicate that PASI ≤2 represents significantly meaningful clinical and health-related quality of life improvements and may be a suitable treatment target for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis

Ett nytt multiplext PCR-protokoll för identifiering och detektion av Shigella och enteroinvasiv E. coli (EIEC) från livsmedel

This report is the result of a project in the course Independent Projekt in Molecular Biotechnology at Uppsala University during the spring of 2014. The foremost purpose of the course is to give students the opportunity to carry through exstensive work in a project environment. This project was formed based on a comission from the biotechnology company SweTree Technologies, and the goal has been to compose a summary of the different techniques and methods that exist in the field of mass propagation of trees through the method of somatic embryogenesis. The project group has obtained information about the area mainly throgh reading patents, trying to find key components and bottlenecks in other companies’ somatic embryogenesis technologies. This paper is divided into different sections, containing the patents of the automation of different steps in the process. This is to make it easier for readers to find information about the area they are interested in, as well as to illustrate the main parts of the process as percieved by the project group. Currently, there are several automated solutions for almost every step in the process, some of which are already in use. All the information obtained shows that the cost and labour has decreased with the development of this technology. While there is still room for significant devolopment in order to produce a complete automated process, there is no doubt that this method is becoming an ever more important asset in the area of forestry. Our hope is that this report may be a useful tool for companies or laymen to geta grasp of the field of automated mass production of trees

Post Hoc Analysis of Potential Predictors of Response to Atomoxetine for the Treatment of Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder using an Integrated Database

Background: Responses to atomoxetine vary for individual patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, we do not know whether any factors can be used to reliably predict how individuals with ADHD will respond to treatment. Objective: Our objective was to evaluate background variables that facilitate early identification of those adults with ADHD who are likely to respond to treatment with atomoxetine. Methods: We pooled data for atomoxetine-treated adults with ADHD from 12 clinical trials for a short-term (10-week) analysis, and from 11 clinical trials for a long-term (24-week) analysis. Patients not meeting a response definition [≥30 % reduction in Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scales-Investigator Rated: Screening Version (CAARS-Inv:SV) total score and Clinical Global Impressions of ADHD Severity Scale (CGI-S) score ≤3 at endpoint], or who discontinued, were defined as non-responders. Another definition of response (≥30 % reduction in CAARS-Inv:SV total score at endpoint) was also used in these analyses; only the results with the former definition are shown in this abstract, as the same conclusions were gained with both definitions. A treatment-specified subgroup detection tool (a resampling-based ensemble tree method) was used to identify predictors of response. Results: Of 1945 adults in the long-term analysis, 548 (28.2 %) were responders to atomoxetine at week 24; 65.2 % of 1397 non-responders had discontinued. Of 4524 adults in the short-term analysis, 1490 (32.9 %) were responders at week 10; 33.2 % of 1006 non-responders had discontinued. No analyzed baseline parameters (age, sex, prior stimulant use, ADHD subtype, CAARS-Inv:SV, CGI-S) were statistically significant predictors of response. Reductions in CAARS-Inv:SV total, CAARS-Inv:SV subscores, and CGI-S at week 4 in the short-term analysis, and at weeks 4 or 10 in the long-term analysis, were statistically significant predictors of response, i.e., patients with versus without these reductions early in treatment were more likely to be clinical responders at later time points. Sensitivity ranged from 28.6 to 85.9 %, and specificity ranged from 23.8 to 86.7 %. Predictors with higher sensitivity had lower specificity, and vice versa. Conclusions: Reductions in CAARS-Inv:SV and CGI-S scores at weeks 4 and 10 are statistically significant predictors of response to atomoxetine at later time points in adults with ADHD. However, the predictors identified by these analyses are not reliable enough for use in clinical practice. The only currently available method to judge whether individuals with ADHD will respond to atomoxetine is to start treatment and assess the response over an extended period, sometimes longer than 10 weeks.</p

Efficacy and safety of ixekizumab in patients with plaque psoriasis across different degrees of disease severity: results from UNCOVER-2 and UNCOVER-3

<p><b>Purpose:</b> To evaluate short- and long-term efficacy and safety of ixekizumab in patients according to psoriasis severity.</p> <p><b>Materials and methods:</b> Data were integrated from clinical trials (UNCOVER-2, UNCOVER-3). Patients received placebo, 80-mg ixekizumab every 2 weeks (IXEQ2W), every 4 weeks (IXEQ4W), or 50 mg etanercept (ETN) biweekly for 12 weeks, then open-label IXEQ4W (UNCOVER-3). Psoriasis severity was categorized by baseline Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI <20 and ≥20). Efficacy was evaluated by percentage reaching PASI 75, 90, 100, and absolute PASI ≤5, ≤2, and ≤1.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Significantly more patients with PASI ≥20 (vs. PASI <20) were male and had higher body weight. After 12 weeks, both severity groups had significantly more IXEQ2W- than ETN-treated patients reach PASI 75, 90, 100, and absolute PASI ≤5, ≤2, ≤1. Fewer PASI ≥20 vs. PASI <20 patients across treatments reached PASI ≤5, ≤2, and ≤1 at week 12. Efficacy was maintained during 156 weeks of ixekizumab treatment with no differences between groups. The IXEQ2W safety profile was similar between groups except for injection-site reactions (significantly higher in PASI <20).</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Ixekizumab demonstrated a high level of efficacy and had a consistent safety profile in patients with different baseline psoriasis severity levels.</p