Bioavailability, Antipsoriatic Efficacy and Tolerability of a New Light Cream with Mometasone Furoate 0.1%

Mometasone furoate, a potent glucocorticoid (class III) with a favorable benefit/risk ratio, has emerged as a standard medication for the treatment of inflammatory skin disorders. The purpose of the investigation presented here was to determine the noninferiority of a topical mometasone formulation, a light cream (O/W 60/40 emulsion) with mometasone furoate 0.1% (water content of 33%) versus marketed comparators. Using the vasoconstrictor assay, a strong blanching effect of the new cream (called Mometasone cream) comparable to that of a mometasone comparator, a fatty cream with mometasone furoate 0.1%, could be demonstrated. Thus, the topical bioavailability of the active ingredient mometasone furoate (0.1%) was regarded to be similar for Mometasone cream and the mometasone comparator. Using the psoriasis plaque test, a strong antipsoriatic effect comparable to that of the mometasone comparator was found for Mometasone cream after 12 days of occlusive treatment. A nearly identical reduction in the mean infiltrate thickness and similar mean AUC values were noted with both formulations confirmed by clinical assessment data. The noninferiority of Mometasone cream to its active comparator with re-spect to the AUC of change to baseline in infiltrate thickness was demonstrated. Both medications were well tolerated. Overall, Mometasone cream and the mometasone comparator showed similar efficacy and tolerability. Mometasone cream, in addition to its high potency and good tolerability, provides the properties of a light cream, which might make this new medication particularly suitable for application on acutely inflamed and sensitive skin. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

Impact Analysis of OCR Quality on Research Tasks in Digital Archives

Humanities scholars increasingly rely on digital archives for their research instead of time-consuming visits to physical archives. This shift in research method has the hidden cost of working with digitally processed historical documents: how much trust can a scholar place in noisy representations of source texts? In a series of interviews with historians about their use of digital archives, we found that scholars are aware that optical character recognition (OCR) errors may bias their results. They were, however, unable to quantify this bias or to indicate what information they would need to estimate it. This, however, would be important to assess whether the results are publishable. Based on the interviews and a literature study, we provide a classification of scholarly research tasks that gives account of their susceptibility to specific OCR-induced biases and the data required for uncertainty estimations. We conducted a use case study on a national newspaper archive with example research tasks. From this we learned what data is typically available in digital archives and how it could be used to reduce and/or assess the uncertainty in result sets. We conclude that the current knowledge situation on the users’ side as well as on the tool makers’ and data providers’ side is insufficient and needs to be improved

The effect of health literacy on knowledge and receipt of colorectal cancer screening: a survey study

BACKGROUND: An estimated one-half of Americans have limited health literacy skills. Low literacy has been associated with less receipt of preventive services, but its impact on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is unclear. We sought to determine whether low literacy affects patients' knowledge or receipt of CRC screening. METHODS: Pilot survey study of patients aged 50 years and older at a large, university-affiliated internal medicine practice. We assessed patients' knowledge and receipt of CRC screening, basic sociodemographic information, and health literacy level. We defined limited literacy as reading below the ninth grade level as determined by the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine. Bivariate analyses and exact logistic regression were used to determine the association of limited health literacy with knowledge and receipt of CRC screening. RESULTS: We approached 105 patients to yield our target sample of 50 completing the survey (recruitment rate 48%). Most subjects were female (72%), African-American (58%), and had household incomes less than $25,000 (87%). Overall, 48% of patients had limited literacy skills (95% CI 35% to 61%). Limited literacy patients were less likely than adequate literacy patients to be able to name or describe any CRC screening test (50% vs. 96%, p < 0.01). In the multivariable model, limited literacy patients were 44% less likely to be knowledgeable of CRC screening (RR 0.56, p < 0.01). Self-reported screening rates were similar (54% vs. 58%, p = 0.88). CONCLUSION: Patients with limited literacy skills are less likely to be knowledgeable of CRC screening compared to adequate literacy patients. Primary care providers should ensure patients' understanding of CRC screening when discussing screening options. Further research is needed to determine if educating low literacy patients about CRC screening can increase screening rates

Fungal iron availability during deep seated candidiasis is defined by a complex interplay involving systemic and local events

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The role of a changing Arctic Ocean and climate for the biogeochemical cycling of dimethyl sulphide and carbon monoxide

Dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and carbon monoxide(CO) are climate-relevant trace gases that play key roles in the radiative budget of the Arctic atmosphere. Under global warming, Arctic sea ice retreats at an unprecedented rate, altering light penetration and biological communities, and potentially affect DMS and CO cycling in the Arctic Ocean. This could have socio-economic implications in and beyond the Arctic region. However, little is known about CO production pathways and emissions in this region and the future development of DMS and CO cycling. Here we summarize the current understanding and assess potential future changes of DMS and CO cycling in relation to changes in sea ice coverage, light penetration, bacterial and microalgal communities, pH and physical properties. We suggest that production of DMS and CO might increase with ice melting, increasing light availability and shifting phytoplankton community. Among others, policy measures should facilitate large scale process studies, coordinated long term observations and modelling efforts to improve our current understanding of the cycling and emissions of DMS and CO in the Arctic Ocean and of global consequences

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ClpP Proteases Are Co-transcribed but Exhibit Different Substrate Specificities

PMCID: PMC3613350This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Potential health impacts of heavy metals on HIV-infected population in USA.

Noninfectious comorbidities such as cardiovascular diseases have become increasingly prevalent and occur earlier in life in persons with HIV infection. Despite the emerging body of literature linking environmental exposures to chronic disease outcomes in the general population, the impacts of environmental exposures have received little attention in HIV-infected population. The aim of this study is to investigate whether individuals living with HIV have elevated prevalence of heavy metals compared to non-HIV infected individuals in United States. We used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2010 to compare exposures to heavy metals including cadmium, lead, and total mercury in HIV infected and non-HIV infected subjects. In this cross-sectional study, we found that HIV-infected individuals had higher concentrations of all heavy metals than the non-HIV infected group. In a multivariate linear regression model, HIV status was significantly associated with increased blood cadmium (p=0.03) after adjusting for age, sex, race, education, poverty income ratio, and smoking. However, HIV status was not statistically associated with lead or mercury levels after adjusting for the same covariates. Our findings suggest that HIV-infected patients might be significantly more exposed to cadmium compared to non-HIV infected individuals which could contribute to higher prevalence of chronic diseases among HIV-infected subjects. Further research is warranted to identify sources of exposure and to understand more about specific health outcomes

Sabotage in Contests: A Survey

A contest is a situation in which individuals expend irretrievable resources to win valuable prize(s). ‘Sabotage’ is a deliberate and costly act of damaging a rival’s' likelihood of winning the contest. Sabotage can be observed in, e.g., sports, war, promotion tournaments, political or marketing campaigns. In this article, we provide a model and various perspectives on such sabotage activities and review the economics literature analyzing the act of sabotage in contests. We discuss the theories and evidence highlighting the means of sabotage, why sabotage occurs, and the effects of sabotage on individual players and on overall welfare, along with possible mechanisms to reduce sabotage. We note that most sabotage activities are aimed at the ablest player, the possibility of sabotage reduces productive effort exerted by the players, and sabotage may lessen the effectiveness of public policies, such as affirmative action, or information revelation in contests. We discuss various policies that a designer may employ to counteract sabotage activities. We conclude by pointing out some areas of future research

Perspective from a Younger Generation -- The Astro-Spectroscopy of Gisbert Winnewisser

Gisbert Winnewisser's astronomical career was practically coextensive with the whole development of molecular radio astronomy. Here I would like to pick out a few of his many contributions, which I, personally, find particularly interesting and put them in the context of newer results.Comment: 14 pages. (Co)authored by members of the MPIfR (Sub)millimeter Astronomy Group. To appear in the Proceedings of the 4th Cologne-Bonn-Zermatt-Symposium "The Dense Interstellar Medium in Galaxies" eds. S. Pfalzner, C. Kramer, C. Straubmeier, & A. Heithausen (Springer: Berlin