Acne vulgaris, probiotics and the gut-brain-skin axis - back to the future?

Over 70 years have passed since dermatologists John H. Stokes and Donald M. Pillsbury first proposed a gastrointestinal mechanism for the overlap between depression, anxiety and skin conditions such as acne. Stokes and Pillsbury hypothesized that emotional states might alter the normal intestinal microflora, increase intestinal permeability and contribute to systemic inflammation. Among the remedies advocated by Stokes and Pillsbury were Lactobacillus acidophilus cultures. Many aspects of this gut-brain-skin unifying theory have recently been validated. The ability of the gut microbiota and oral probiotics to influence systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, glycemic control, tissue lipid content and even mood itself, may have important implications in acne. The intestinal microflora may also provide a twist to the developing diet and acne research. Here we provide a historical perspective to the contemporary investigations and clinical implications of the gut-brain-skin connection in acne

Clinical implications of lipid peroxidation in acne vulgaris: old wine in new bottles

Acne vulgaris is a common dermatological disorder, one that is frequently associated with depression, anxiety and other psychological sequelae. In recent years there has been an increasing focus on the extent to which oxidative stress is involved in the pathophysiology of acne. Emerging studies have shown that patients with acne are under increased cutaneous and systemic oxidative stress. Indeed, there are indications that lipid peroxidation itself is a match that lights an inflammatory cascade in acne. The notion that lipid peroxidation is a 'starter gun' in acne is not a new one; here we review the nearly 50-year-old lipid peroxidation theory and provide a historical perspective to the contemporary investigations and clinical implications

Mediation, translation and local ecologies: understanding the impact of policy levers on FE colleges

This article reports the views of managers and tutors on the role of policy ‘levers’ on teaching, learning, and inclusion in colleges of Further Education (FE) in our research project, ‘The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the Learning and Skills Sector (LSS)’.i Using data from five research visits conducted over two years in eight FE learning sites, we explore the processes by which colleges ‘mediate’ and ‘translate’ national policy levers and how this affects their ability to respond to local need. The paper tentatively develops three related concepts/metaphors to explain the complexity of the policy/college interface – ‘the process of mediation’, ‘acts of translation’ and ‘local ecologies’. We found that policy levers interacted with a complex set of national, local and institutional factors as colleges responded to pressures from the external environment and turned these into internal plans, systems and practices. We conclude by suggesting that national policy-makers, who design national policy levers, may not be fully aware of these complexities and we make the case for the benefits of greater local control over policy levers, where these interactions are better understood

Cadmium Impairs p53 Activity in HepG2 Cells

Cadmium and cadmium compounds are contaminants of the environment, food, and drinking water and are important constituents of cigarette smoke. Cd exposure has also been associated with airborne particulate CdO and with Cd-containing quantum dots in medical therapy. Adverse cadmium effects reported in the literature have stimulated during recent years an ongoing discussion to better elucidate cadmium outcomes at cell and molecular level. The present work is designed to gain an insight into the mechanism of p53 impairment at gene and protein level to understand Cd-induced resistance to apoptosis. We used a hepatoma cell line (HepG2) derived from liver, known to be metal responsive. At genotoxic cadmium concentrations no cell cycle arrest was observed. The p53 at gene and protein level was not regulated. Fluorescence images showed that p53 was correctly translocated into the nucleus but that the , a downstream protein of p53 network involved in cell cycle regulation, was not activated at the highest cadmium concentrations used. The miRNAs analysis revealed an upregulation of mir-372, an miRNA able to affect expression and promote cell cycle progression and proliferation. The role of metallothioneins and possible conformational changes of p53 are discussed

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

A Web-based Adaptive and Intelligent Tutor by Expert Systems

Todays, Intelligent and web-based E-learning is one of regarded topics. So researchers are trying to optimize and expand its application in the field of education. The aim of this paper is developing of E-learning software which is customizable, dynamic, intelligent and adaptive with Pedagogy view for learners in intelligent schools. This system is an integration of adaptive web-based E-learning with expert systems as well. Learning process in this system is as follows. First intelligent tutor determines learning style and characteristics of learner by a questionnaire and then makes his model. After that the expert system simulator plans a pre-test and then calculates his score. If the learner gets the required score, the concept will be trained. Finally the learner will be evaluated by a post-test. The proposed system can improves the education efficiency highly as well as de-creases the costs and problems of an expert tutor. As a result, every time and eve-rywhere (ETEW) learning would be provided via web in this system. Moreover the learners can enjoy a cheap remote learning even at home in a virtual simulated physical class. So they can learn thousands courses very simple and fast.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, The Second International Conference on Advances in Computing and Information Technology (ACITY 2012). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1304.404

Polarization Correlation Measurements of Electron Impact Excitation of Hs2pd at 54.4 eV

First direct measurements are reported of the linear reduced Stokes parameters P1,P2 for H(2p) excited by electron impact at the benchmark energy of 54.4 eV. The results differ significantly from previous values deduced from angular correlation measurements which are in serious conflict with all sophisticated theoretical approaches. Our results support the trend of theoretical predictions for P2 and confirm that its value is negative at electron scattering angles above 100±, as predicted by theory

Polarization Correlation Measurements of Electron Impact Excitation of Hs2pd at 54.4 eV

First direct measurements are reported of the linear reduced Stokes parameters P1,P2 for H(2p) excited by electron impact at the benchmark energy of 54.4 eV. The results differ significantly from previous values deduced from angular correlation measurements which are in serious conflict with all sophisticated theoretical approaches. Our results support the trend of theoretical predictions for P2 and confirm that its value is negative at electron scattering angles above 100±, as predicted by theory

Instability Heating of Sympathetically-Cooled Ions in a Linear Paul Trap

Sympathetic laser cooling of ions stored within a linear-geometry, radio frequency, electric-quadrupole trap has been investigated using computational and theoretical techniques. The simulation, which allows 5 sample ions to interact with 35 laser-cooled atomic ions, revealed an instability heating mechanism, which can prevent ions below a certain critical mass from being sympathetically cooled. This critical mass can however be varied by changing the trapping field parameters thus allowing ions with a very large range of masses to be sympathetically cooled using a single ion species. A theoretical explanation of this instability heating mechanism is presented which predicts that the cooling-heating boundary in trapping parameter space is a line of constant $q_u$ (ion trap stability coefficient), a result supported by the computational results. The threshold value of $q_u$ depends on the masses of the interacting ions. A functional form of this dependence is given