Nasal IL-13 production identifies patients with late phase allergic responses

BACKGROUND: There is limited knowledge on how local cytokine secretion patterns after nasal allergen challenge correlate with clinical symptoms especially with regards to the "late allergic response" (LAR) which occurs in approximately 40-50% of allergic patients. OBJECTIVE: In this study we aimed to characterise the immunological and clinical nasal responses to birch pollen allergen challenge with a special focus on the LAR. METHODS: In this randomised double-blinded placebo-control trial, birch pollen allergic participants were challenged with pollen extract (n=20) or placebo (n=10) on three consecutive days. On days one and three nasal secretions were collected at selected time points over a 24h time course for the measurement of 33 inflammatory mediators. Clinical responses were determined through subjective symptom scores and objective nasal airflow measurements. RESULTS: Provoked participants had significantly greater clinical responses and showed significant increases in tryptase and sST2 within minutes compared to placebo. Eight out of 20 provoked participants displayed high IL-13 levels 2-8 hours after allergen provocation. This group also showed significant changes in clinical parameters, with a secondary drop in nasal airflow measured by peak nasal inspiratory flow and increased symptoms of nasal obstruction which significantly differed from IL-13 non responders at 6 hours. CONCLUSION: IL-13 response status correlates with cytokine and clinical responses in the late phase after allergen provocation

How is the economic crisis socially assessed?

Based on the Social Representation Theory, the purpose of this article is to explore how lay-people consider both the economic crisis and risk, and to link these social representations to behavior. The article offers an original approach with the articulation of two studies about the social construction of risk and crises. It also contributes to the development of research methods for studying the connections between representations and practical implications. Based on this, the impact of the social representation of the crisis on the perceived ability to act is approached. The first study focuses on free-association tasks, with two distinct target terms: ‘risk’ and ‘crisis’. The structural approach, with a prototypical analysis, allowed the identification of two different representations: (1) for risk, ‘danger’ is the central element; (2) for crisis, ‘economy’ and ‘money’ constitute the main components of the representation. The second study investigates the links between the two previously detected structures and their relations with the perceived ability to act in a financial crisis context. Some aspects of social knowledge were found to have an impact on perceived ability to act