Prednisolone versus placebo addition in the treatment of patients with recent-onset psychotic disorder: a trial design

BACKGROUND: The symptom severity of a substantial group of schizophrenia patients (30-40%) does not improve through pharmacotherapy with antipsychotic medication, indicating a clear need for new treatment options to improve schizophrenia outcome. Meta-analyses, genetic studies, randomized controlled trials, and post-mortem studies suggest that immune dysregulation plays a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Some anti-inflammatory drugs have shown beneficial effects on the symptom severity of schizophrenia patients. Corticosteroids are effective in various chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. Prednisolone, a potent glucocorticosteroid, has minor mineral-corticosteroid potencies and can adequately pass the blood-brain barrier

The failure of national parliaments?

National parliaments are commonly held to have 'failed' in their dealings with European institutions and in their impact upon the Community's legislative process. This article provides a 'revisionist' analysis to challenge this 'orthodoxy'. First, national parliaments have provided the legitimating frame within which the development of the European Community has been able to take place. Second, there has been no absolute, inexorable decline in the influence exerted by national parliaments in the EC policy process. If anything, events since the signing of the Treaty on European Union in December 1991 suggest that national parliaments have bargained increased powers of scrutiny over EC legislation. Third, it needs to be noted that there is a 'dual democratic deficit' within the European Union. The problem of the 'democratic deficit' is evident not solely in the accretion of decision-making power at the European level, but also in the fact that national parliaments within their own states exert limited control over their own national executives

Experimental context modulates warning signal effects

Previous studies have shown that saccadic eye responses but not manual responses were sensitive to the kind of warning signal used, with visual onsets producing longer saccadic latencies compared to visual offsets. The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of distinct warning signals on manual latencies and to test the premise that the onset interference, in fact, does not occur for manual responses. A second objective was to determine if the magnitude of the warning effects could be modulated by contextual procedures. Three experimental conditions based on the kind of warning signal used (visual onset, visual offset and auditory warning) were run in two different contexts (blocked and non-blocked). Eighteen participants were asked to respond to the imperative stimulus that would occur some milliseconds (0, 250, 500 or 750 ms) after the warning signal. The experiment consisted in three experimental sessions of 240 trials, where all the variables were counterbalanced. The data showed that visual onsets produced longer manual latencies than visual offsets in the non-blocked context (275 vs 261 ms; P < 0.001). This interference was obtained, however, only for short intervals between the warning and the stimulus, and was abolished when the blocked context was used (256 vs 255 ms; P = 0.789). These results are discussed in terms of bottom-up and top-down interactions, mainly those related to the role of attentional processing in canceling out competitive interactions and suppressive influences of a distractor on the relevant stimulus

The Effect of Superstar Software on Hardware Sales in System Markets

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