Bibliography of Secondary Sources on the History of Dermatology II. Obituaries and Biographies in English Supplemented through 2015

Introduction A bibliographic record on the history of dermatology has been a project that started over 4 decades ago. It is a collection of all forms of history, ranging from dermatologic conditions, to famous dermatologists and physicians who have advanced the field of both dermatology and medicine, to the different countries that promoted the development of scientists, researchers and physicians alike. It was decided that the bibliographic record would encompass journals, books and a compilation of obituaries. A pertinent question is whether a manually created bibliographic project is still warranted in the 21st century. In short, yes. While Index Medicus has expanded the number of journals that are indexed, the number of dermatology publications currently included by Index Medicus exceeds 164; however, not all are in English or easily accessible. Although most of the papers of dermatologic interest are included in these journals, some contributions are also located in non-indexed publications. In addition, many documents of an historical interest or of a biographical nature are not necessarily selected for indexing in Index Medicus. The amalgamation of these historical publications from 2010-2015 will be divided into 3 separate contributions: journals, obituaries and books, with only those in English being recorded. Not only will this bibliographic record serve as a formal collection on the history of dermatology, it will also provide a reference to those wishing to enrich their knowledge on the expansion of the different fields of dermatology over time. It will also serve as a reminder of the achievements of our dermatology forefathers, from whom we have still so much to learn

Bibliography of Secondary Sources on the History of Dermatology

Introduction A bibliographic record on the history of dermatology has been a project that started over 4 decades ago. It is a collection of all forms of history, ranging from dermatologic conditions, to famous dermatologists and physicians who have advanced the field of both dermatology and medicine, to the different countries that promoted the development of scientists, researchers and physicians alike. It was decided that the bibliographic record would encompass journals, books and a compilation of obituaries. A pertinent question is whether a manually created bibliographic project is still warranted in the 21st century. In short, yes. While Index Medicus has expanded the number of journals that are indexed, the number of dermatology publications currently included by Index Medicus exceeds 164; however, not all are in English or easily accessible. Although most of the papers of dermatologic interest are included in these journals, some contributions are also located in non-indexed publications. In addition, many documents of an historical interest or of a biographical nature are not necessarily selected for indexing in Index Medicus. The amalgamation of these historical publications from 2010-2015 will be divided into 3 separate contributions: journals, obituaries and books, with only those in English being recorded. Not only will this bibliographic record serve as a formal collection on the history of dermatology, it will also provide a reference to those wishing to enrich their knowledge on the expansion of the different fields of dermatology over time. It will also serve as a reminder of the achievements of our dermatology forefathers, from whom we have still so much to learn

Impact of a Formal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Curriculum: A Prospective, Controlled Trial

Objective To assess the impact of implementing a dedicated Patient Safety and Quality Improvement (PSQI) curriculum for otolaryngology residents. Methods Residents in two otolaryngology residency programs were recruited to participate in the study. Residents at institution A (intervention group) participated in a formal, newly developed, year-long PSQI curriculum. Residents at institution B (control group) participated in traditional, morbidity, and mortality conference-based PSQI education, with no formal curriculum in place. Curriculum participants completed anonymous surveys to assess learner satisfaction. Validated instruments were administered to assess for changes in resident confidence in the ability to develop PSQI projects, their attitudes toward patient safety, and PSQI-related knowledge. The number and quality of PSQI-related resident projects were also assessed. Results Survey responses demonstrated excellent learner satisfaction with the curriculum. Based on validated instrument-based responses, both programs demonstrated similar confidence scores (P = 0.05), safety attitudes (P = 0.82), and PSQI knowledge (P = 0.29) at the beginning of the year. The residents of institution A demonstrated significant improvement in confidence (P = 0.00009) and knowledge (P = 0.0006) after completing the curriculum, with no improvement noted for residents at institution B in either confidence (P = 0.06) or knowledge (P = 0.79). Neither program demonstrated improvement in attitudes toward patient safety at the end of the year-long curriculum. Conclusion Implementing a formal curriculum dedicated to PSQI led to an improvement in PSQI-related project development confidence and PSQI knowledge. Attitudes toward safety did not improve over the course of a year. Longer-term studies involving multiple institutions and other interventions are needed to evaluate the impact and duration of changes that occur. Level of Evidence 1b Laryngoscope, 129:1100–1106, 201

Bibliography of Secondary Sources on the History of Dermatology III. Books, Monographs, and Chapters in English Supplemented through 2015

Introduction A bibliographic record on the history of dermatology has been a project that started over 4 decades ago. It is a collection of all forms of history, ranging from dermatologic conditions, to famous dermatologists and physicians who have advanced the field of both dermatology and medicine, to the different countries that promoted the development of scientists, researchers and physicians alike. It was decided that the bibliographic record would encompass journals, books and a compilation of obituaries. A pertinent question is whether a manually created bibliographic project is still warranted in the 21st century. In short, yes. While Index Medicus has expanded the number of journals that are indexed, the number of dermatology publications currently included by Index Medicus exceeds 164; however, not all are in English or easily accessible. Although most of the papers of dermatologic interest are included in these journals, some contributions are also located in non-indexed publications. In addition, many documents of an historical interest or of a biographical nature are not necessarily selected for indexing in Index Medicus. The amalgamation of these historical publications from 2010-2015 will be divided into 3 separate contributions: journals, obituaries and books, with only those in English being recorded. Not only will this bibliographic record serve as a formal collection on the history of dermatology, it will also provide a reference to those wishing to enrich their knowledge on the expansion of the different fields of dermatology over time. It will also serve as a reminder of the achievements of our dermatology forefathers, from whom we have still so much to learn

Error estimates for the discretization of the velocity tracking problem

In this paper we are continuing our work (Casas and Chrysafinos, SIAM J Numer Anal 50(5):2281–2306, 2012), concerning a priori error estimates for the velocity tracking of two-dimensional evolutionary Navier–Stokes flows. The controls are of distributed type, and subject to point-wise control constraints. The discretization scheme of the state and adjoint equations is based on a discontinuous time-stepping scheme (in time) combined with conforming finite elements (in space) for the velocity and pressure. Provided that the time and space discretization parameters, t and h respectively, satisfy t = Ch2, error estimates of order O(h2) and O(h 3/2 – 2/p ) with p > 3 depending on the regularity of the target and the initial velocity, are proved for the difference between the locally optimal controls and their discrete approximations, when the controls are discretized by the variational discretization approach and by using piecewise-linear functions in space respectively. Both results are based on new duality arguments for the evolutionary Navier–Stokes equations

Borrelia recurrentis employs a novel multifunctional surface protein with anti-complement, anti-opsonic and invasive potential to escape innate immunity

Borrelia recurrentis, the etiologic agent of louse-borne relapsing fever in humans, has evolved strategies, including antigenic variation, to evade immune defence, thereby causing severe diseases with high mortality rates. Here we identify for the first time a multifunctional surface lipoprotein of B. recurrentis, termed HcpA, and demonstrate that it binds human complement regulators, Factor H, CFHR-1, and simultaneously, the host protease plasminogen. Cell surface bound factor H was found to retain its activity and to confer resistance to complement attack. Moreover, ectopic expression of HcpA in a B. burgdorferi B313 strain, deficient in Factor H binding proteins, protected the transformed spirochetes from complement-mediated killing. Furthermore, HcpA-bound plasminogen/plasmin endows B. recurrentis with the potential to resist opsonization and to degrade extracellular matrix components. Together, the present study underscores the high virulence potential of B. recurrentis. The elucidation of the molecular basis underlying the versatile strategies of B. recurrentis to escape innate immunity and to persist in human tissues, including the brain, may help to understand the pathological processes underlying louse-borne relapsing fever

Mesoscopic organization reveals the constraints governing C. elegans nervous system

One of the biggest challenges in biology is to understand how activity at the cellular level of neurons, as a result of their mutual interactions, leads to the observed behavior of an organism responding to a variety of environmental stimuli. Investigating the intermediate or mesoscopic level of organization in the nervous system is a vital step towards understanding how the integration of micro-level dynamics results in macro-level functioning. In this paper, we have considered the somatic nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, for which the entire neuronal connectivity diagram is known. We focus on the organization of the system into modules, i.e., neuronal groups having relatively higher connection density compared to that of the overall network. We show that this mesoscopic feature cannot be explained exclusively in terms of considerations, such as optimizing for resource constraints (viz., total wiring cost) and communication efficiency (i.e., network path length). Comparison with other complex networks designed for efficient transport (of signals or resources) implies that neuronal networks form a distinct class. This suggests that the principal function of the network, viz., processing of sensory information resulting in appropriate motor response, may be playing a vital role in determining the connection topology. Using modular spectral analysis, we make explicit the intimate relation between function and structure in the nervous system. This is further brought out by identifying functionally critical neurons purely on the basis of patterns of intra- and inter-modular connections. Our study reveals how the design of the nervous system reflects several constraints, including its key functional role as a processor of information.Comment: Published version, Minor modifications, 16 pages, 9 figure