Glucocorticoids for acute urticaria: study protocol for a double-blind non-inferiority randomised controlled trial

INTRODUCTION: This study protocol describes a trial designed to investigate whether antihistamine alone in patients with acute urticaria does not increase the 7-day Urticaria Activity Score (UAS7) in comparison with an association of antihistamine and glucocorticoids and reduces short-term relapses and chronic-induced urticaria. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This is a prospective, double-blind, parallel-group, multicentre non-inferiority randomised controlled trial. Two-hundred and forty patients with acute urticaria admitted to emergency department will be randomised in a 1:1 ratio to receive levocetirizine or an association of levocetirizine and prednisone. Randomisation will be stratified by centre. The primary outcome will be the UAS7 at day 7. The secondary outcomes will encompass recurrence of hives and/or itch at day 7; occurrence of spontaneous hives or itch for >6 weeks; patients with angioedema at day 7, and 2, 6, 12 and 24 weeks; new emergency visits for acute urticaria recurrences at days 7 and 14, and 3 months; Dermatology Life Quality Index at days 7 and 14, and 3 and 6 months; and Chronic Urticaria Quality of Life Questionnaire at 6 weeks. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The protocol has been approved by the and will be carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and Good Clinical Practice guidelines. A steering committee will oversee the progress of the study. Findings will be disseminated through national and international scientific conferences and publication in peer-reviewed journals. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03545464

Treatment of synthetic textile wastewater containing dye mixtures with microcosms

The aim was to assess the ability of microcosms (laboratory-scale shallow ponds) as a post polishing stage for the remediation of artificial textile wastewater comprising two commercial dyes (basic red 46 (BR46) and reactive blue 198 (RB198)) as a mixture. The objectives were to evaluate the impact of Lemna minor L. (common duckweed) on the water quality outflows; the elimination of dye mixtures, organic matter, and nutrients; and the impact of synthetic textile wastewater comprising dye mixtures on the L. minor plant growth. Three mixtures were prepared providing a total dye concentration of 10 mg/l. Findings showed that the planted simulated ponds possess a significant (p < 0.05) potential for improving the outflow characteristics and eliminate dyes, ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N), and nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) in all mixtures compared with the corresponding unplanted ponds. The removal of mixed dyes in planted ponds was mainly due to phyto-transformation and adsorption of BR46 with complete aromatic amine mineralisation. For ponds containing 2 mg/l of RB198 and 8 mg/l of BR46, removals were around 53%, which was significantly higher than those for other mixtures: 5 mg/l of RB198 and 5 mg/l of BR46 and 8 mg/l of RB198 and 2 mg/l of BR46 achieved only 41 and 26% removals, respectively. Dye mixtures stopped the growth of L. minor, and the presence of artificial wastewater reduced their development

Growth, Photosynthesis And Respiratory Response To Copper In Lemna minor: A Potential Use Of Duckweed In Biomonitoring

Aquatic macrophytes are known to accumulate various heavy metals in their biomass. This accumulation is often accompanied by physiological changes which can be used in biomonitoring for aquatic pollution. In this study, the impact of copper (Cu) on the growth of the duckweed Lemna minor, followed by its removal, was studied with 0.1–1.0 mg/L of Cu in a quarter Coïc and Lesaint solution at pH=6.1. In order to verify duckweed tolerance to Cu, photosynthesis was measured at the maximal concentration which caused no effect on the plant growth. The results showed that copper inhibited Lemna growth at concentrations ≥ 0.3 mg/L. At 0.2 mg/L, the final biomass was approximately four times greater than the initial biomass. Analysis of metal concentration in water showed that Lemna minor was responsible for the removal of 26% of Cu from the solution. In the presence of Cu, respiration was reduced, while photosynthesis increased considerably. Net photosynthesis approximately increased three times compared to the control. Copper was responsible for 130-290% increase in the photosynthetic activities. These results suggested that Lemna minor could be a good tool for the evaluation of copper pollution in biomonitoring programs

Effet de l'accumulation de Cu et Ni sur la croissance de Lemna gibba L. (lentilles d eau)

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Growth Response Of The Duckweed Lemna minor To Heavy Metal Pollution

To assess the tolerance and effect of heavy metals pollution on the duckweed Lemna minor , the aquatic plants were exposed to different concentrations of copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) in a quarter Coïc and Lessaint solution at pH = 6.1 (± 0.1) and under a daily regime of 16 h light (101 μmol/m2.s1). Copper at 0.2 mg/L and nickel at 0.5 mg/L promoted the growth of Lemna fronds. At higher concentrations, Cu and Ni inhibited the growth of duckweed; the EC50 (concentration causing 50% inhibition) were 0.47 mg/L for Cu and 1.29 mg/L for Ni. Cadmium and zinc decreased by 50% the growth of fronds when the medium contained respectively 0.64 and 5.64 mg/L (EC50). Duckweed tolerated Cu, Ni, Cd and Zn at concentrations of 0.4, 3.0, 0.4 and 15.0 mg/L respectively without showing any visible signs of toxicity (chlorosis, frond disconnection and necrosis). On the basis of visible symptoms and the EC50 values, the toxicity of the metals on Lemna. minor was in decreasing order of damage: Cu > Cd > Ni > Zn. It was concluded that the duckweed Lemna. minor is very sensitive to copper and cadmium pollution

Photocatalytic Reactors Dedicated to the Degradation of Hazardous Organic Pollutants: Kinetics, Mechanistic Aspects, and Design – A Review

International audienceIn recent years, heterogeneous photocatalysis has emerged as a new effective, powerful, clean, and safe decontamination technology for the treatment of organic pollutants and the transformation of hazardous chemicals into different forms. This review focuses on the recent development of various conventional technologies of reactors designated for the photodegradation of hazardous organic pollutants with their limitations. This phenomenon is strongly influenced by reaction conditions such as temperature of reaction, pH, light intensity and wavelength, pollutant concentration, photocatalyst quantity, relative humidity (RH), and other parameters. The catalyst photoactivity depends on the structural characteristics of the semiconductor, its morphology, and its particles size. This paper presents the progression of photocatalytic reactors for synthetic dyes degradation with special consideration to the use of supported photocatalyst and nanostructured titanium supported over volcanic ashes, owing to the major advantage of an easy separation of the catalyst when compared to homogenous system, namely suspended catalyst. In addition, special attention was paid to the literature dealing with the promotion of light efficiency by testing various light sources. © 2016, Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

A comprehensive theoretical comparison of proton imaging set-ups in terms of spatial resolution

International audienceWe present a comprehensive analytical comparison of four types of proton imaging set-ups and, to this end, develop a mathematical framework to calculate the width of the uncertainty envelope around the most likely proton path depending on set-up geometry, detector properties, and proton beam parameters. As a figure of merit for the spatial resolution achievable with each set-up, we use the frequency f10% at which the modular transfer function of a density step decreases below 10%. We verify the analytical results with Monte Carlo simulations. We find that set-ups which track the angle and position of individual protons in front of and behind the phantom would yield an average spatial resolution of 0.3–0.35 lp mm−1 assuming realistic geometric parameters (i.e. 30–40 cm distance between detector and phantom, 15–20 cm phantom thickness). For set-ups combining pencil beam scanning with either a position sensitive detector, e.g. an x-ray flat panel, or with a position insensitive detector, e.g. a range telescope, we find an average spatial resolution of about 0.1 lp mm−1 for an 8 mm FWHM beam spot size. The pixel information improves the spatial resolution by less than 10%. In both set-up types, performance can be significantly improved by reducing the pencil beam size down to 2 mm FWHM. In this case, the achievable spatial resolution reaches about 0.25 lp mm−1. Our results show that imaging setupscombining double scattering with a pixel detector can provide sufficient spatial resolution only under very stringent conditions and are not ideally suited for computed tomography applications. We further propose a region-of-interest method for set-ups with a pixel detector to filter out protons which have undergone nuclear reactions and discuss the impact of tracker detector uncertainties on the most likely path

Photoactivity Performance of TiO2/cellulose and ZnO/polystyrene; Intensified Effect of Oxidants on Degradation Efficiency of Acetaminophen

International audienceThe photoactivity of TiO2 nanoparticles and ZnO nanofibers deposited on cellulose and polystyrene was investigated. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by SEM, XRD and FT-IR. The X-rays diffraction pattern showed that the TiO2 materials are mainly composed of anatase phase with a small amount of rutile phase. Peaks found for ZnO are assigned to well crystallized ZnO oxides. The SEM images confirmed the dispersion of TiO2 nanoparticles and ZnO nanofibers on cellulose and polystyrene, respectively. The photoactivity of the two catalysts was tested for the degradation of acetaminophen. Results showed that for an initial drug concentration of 10 mg l(-1), the removal of the pollutant under UV light in the presence of TiO2/cellulose reached 80%. Under the same conditions, ZnO/polystyrene was inactive under UV, visible and solar radiations. The study of the effect of H2O2 and K2S2O8 as oxidants showed an intensified effect of peroxydisulfate (S2O82-) on degradation efficiency of the pollutant; in fact, in the presence of TiO2/cellulose and ZnO/polystyrene, 85.4 and 93.1% of acetaminophen were respectively removed from the contaminated solutions after adding 1 mM of S2O82-. The present findings reveal that under UV light the photocatalytic systems TiO2-K2S2O8/cellulose and ZnO-K2S2O8/polystyrene show promising results for treating effluents charged with acetaminophen

Photocatalytic performance of TiO2 impregnated polyester for the degradation of Reactive Green 12: Implications of the surface pretreatment and the microstructure

International audienceIn the present work, we investigate the degradation of recalcitrant industrial textile dye (Reactive green 12) in aqueous solution by TiO2 impregnated polyester at room temperature. The TiO2 loading on polyester was optimized using different polyester pretreatments (plasma surface activation and UV-C photons). The applied surface pretreatments led to slightly different microstructure, crystalline sizes and photocatalytic activities. Both catalyst tests showed no photocatalytic activity for Radio-Frequency plasma (from now as “RF-plasma”) pretreated polyester under visible light and a lower activity compared to UVC-pretreated-impregnated-fabrics under UV light. This was attributed to the TiO2 aggregation on the surface of RF-plasma activated polyester. However, the photocatalytic performance of UV-C activated catalyst was investigated studying the optimal reaction conditions such as pollutant initial concentration, applied light (UV or Visible), catalyst loading and the presence of hydrogen peroxide at different concentrations. Under optimized operating conditions, namely catalyst dose of 5.18 g/L and an initial dye concentration of 2 mg/L, the removal of Reactive green 12 reached 100% under UV light and 87.14% under visible light within 120 min. Moreover, the presence of hydrogen peroxide showed a positive impact on the degradation, since the time needed for total dye decreased to 80 min under UV light irradiation for a [H2O2] to [RG 12]0 ratio in the range 20–30. The kinetic results showed that the removal of this recalcitrant dye nearly followed a Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) model with a regression coefficient (R2) value of 0.926. The catalyst activity was found to be stable for more than five reuse cycles. © 2017 Elsevier B.V