Successful Treatment of Cutaneous Lesions of Dermatomyositis with Topical Pimecrolimus

Dermatomyositis (DM) is an idiopathic inflammatory process characterized by proximal muscle weakness and cutaneous lesions, such as the Gottron's sign, heliotrope rash, and erythematous photosensitive rash. Administration of systemic agents for the treatment of underlying systemic diseases leads to remission of the cutaneous lesions in many cases. However, cutaneous lesions may remain refractory to treatment. Pimecrolimus is a calcineurin inhibitor with combined anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activity. It has high affinity to the skin and low permeation potential, even in patients with acute skin inflammation and in those undergoing post-topical corticosteroid therapy. We herein report two DM patients whose cutaneous lesions were refractory to conventional treatment but showed dramatic response to topical pimecrolimus. The clinical outcomes suggest that topical pimecrolimus may be a good therapeutic alternative for the management of the cutaneous lesions of DM

Antiosteoporosis Activity of New Oriental Medicine Preparation (Kyungokgo Mixed with Water Extract of Hovenia dulcis

Protective effect of new oriental medicine (Kyungokgo mixed with water extract of Hovenia dulcis, KOGHD) was assessed on the bone loss induced mice by ovariectomy. In the in vivo experiments, antiosteoporosis effect of KOGHD was investigated using ovariectomized osteoporosis mice model. After 6 weeks of treatment, the mice were euthanized, and the effect of Kyungokgo (KOG) and KOGHD on body weight, spleen weigh, thymus weight, uterine weight, serum biochemical indicators, bone weight and length, immune cell population, bone morphometric parameters, and histological stains was observed. Our results showed that KOGHD prevented the deterioration of trabecular microarchitecture caused by ovariectomy, which were accompanied by the lower levels of bone turnover markers and immune cell population as evidenced by the inhibition of RANKL-mediated osteoclast differentiation without cytotoxic effect on bone marrow derived macrophages (BMMs). Therefore, these results suggest that the Hovenia dulcis (HD) supplementation in the KOG may also prevent and treat bone loss

Epigenetic inactivation of the NORE1 gene correlates with malignant progression of colorectal tumors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>NORE1 (RASSF5) is a newly described member of the RASSF family with Ras effector function. <it>NORE1 </it>expression is frequently inactivated by aberrant promoter hypermethylation in many human cancers, suggesting that NORE1 might be a putative tumor suppressor. However, expression and mutation status of <it>NORE1 </it>and its implication in colorectal tumorigenesis has not been evaluated.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Expression, mutation, and methylation status of <it>NORE1A </it>and <it>NORE1B </it>in 10 cancer cell lines and 80 primary tumors were characterized by quantitative PCR, SSCP, and bisulfite DNA sequencing analyses. Effect of NORE1A and NORE1B expression on tumor cell growth was evaluated using cell number counting, flow cytometry, and colony formation assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expression of <it>NORE1A </it>and <it>NORE1B </it>transcript was easily detectable in all normal colonic epithelial tissues, but substantially decreased in 7 (70%) and 4 (40%) of 10 cancer cell lines and 31 (38.8%) and 25 (31.3%) of 80 primary carcinoma tissues, respectively. Moreover, 46 (57.6%) and 38 (47.5%) of 80 matched tissue sets exhibited tumor-specific reduction of <it>NORE1A </it>and <it>NORE1B</it>, respectively. Abnormal reduction of <it>NORE1 </it>was more commonly observed in advanced stage and high grade tumors compared to early and low grade tumors. While somatic mutations of the gene were not identified, its expression was re-activated in all low expressor cells after treatment with the demethylating agent 5-aza-dC. Bisulfite DNA sequencing analysis of 31 CpG sites within the promoter region demonstrated that abnormal reduction of <it>NORE1A </it>is tightly associated with promoter CpG sites hypermethylation. Moreover, transient expression and siRNA-mediated knockdown assays revealed that both NORE1A and NORE1B decrease cellular growth and colony forming ability of tumor cells and enhance tumor cell response to apoptotic stress.</p> <p><b>Conclusion</b></p> <p>Our data indicate that epigenetic inactivation of <it>NORE1 </it>due to aberrant promoter hypermethylation is a frequent event in colorectal tumorigenesis and might be implicated in the malignant progression of colorectal tumors.</p

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass

Search for anomalous production of events with three or more leptons in pp collisions at √s = 8TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.A search for physics beyond the standard model in events with at least three leptons is presented. The data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.5fb-1 of proton-proton collisions with center-of-mass energy s=8TeV, was collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC during 2012. The data are divided into exclusive categories based on the number of leptons and their flavor, the presence or absence of an opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pair (OSSF), the invariant mass of the OSSF pair, the presence or absence of a tagged bottom-quark jet, the number of identified hadronically decaying τ leptons, and the magnitude of the missing transverse energy and of the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta. The numbers of observed events are found to be consistent with the expected numbers from standard model processes, and limits are placed on new-physics scenarios that yield multilepton final states. In particular, scenarios that predict Higgs boson production in the context of supersymmetric decay chains are examined. We also place a 95% confidence level upper limit of 1.3% on the branching fraction for the decay of a top quark to a charm quark and a Higgs boson (t→cH), which translates to a bound on the left- and right-handed top-charm flavor-violating Higgs Yukawa couplings, λtcH and λctH, respectively, of |λtcH|2+|λctH|2<0.21

Measurement of associated W plus charm production in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

Peer reviewe

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació