ACCUTANE: POST-APPROVAL DRUG REGULATION IN A RISK MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

The acne drug Accutane lies at the center of a movement to expand post-approval controls on drug regulation in an effort to effectively manage drug risks. Accutane’s regulatory history tracks a trend towards the increasing emphasis in drug regulatory policy on post-marketing risk management. The Accutane experience illustrates the fundamental regulatory problems of drug safety, drug availability and individual autonomy driving this shift. Recent reform of Accutane regulation through the S.M.A.R.T. program both exemplifies the trend and suggests its limitations

EMISSIONS REDUCTION FROM PELLET STOVESTHROUGH BURNER POT MODIFICATIONS

In this study, results of an extensive set of experiments onfive wood pellet stoves (8-11 kW nominal power) have been per-formed to verify whether carbon monoxide (CO), particulatematter (PM) and nitrogen monoxide (NO) emissions can be re-duced upon modification of burner pot geometry, depth and airinlet positions. A modification of “traditional” burner pot geom-etry brings CO emission close to zero. Also PM emissions arereduced but not as much as those of CO. It is verified that increas-ing the burner pot’s depth, PM emissions can be further reducedcompared to the less deep burner pot. Finally, since plots of in-stantaneous emissions versus O2content exhibit significant scat-tering and do not show a clear correlation, plots of mean valueof emissions, over narrow intervals of O2, versus O2are intro-duced. These plots show an optimal interval of O2content thatminimizes emissions

The Use of Social Media by Alleged Members of Mexican Cartels and Affiliated Drug Trafficking Organizations

Focusing on Mexican cartels and affiliated drug trafficking organizations, this article examines how self-proclaimed cartel members use social media to further the criminal activities of their organizations. Employing an opensource, intelligence-driven methodology, the authors identified, followed, and mapped the connections between and among 75 alleged cartel members over a period of 4 months. Results indicated that cartel members actively use Facebook to plan, organize, and communicate in real-time. These findings provide tentative validation to the utility of using open-source social media platforms to study the social structure and operations of Mexican drug cartels. Implications for law enforcement, homeland security, and the intelligence enterprise are discussed

Cuticular hydrocarbons as cues of sex and health condition in Polistes dominula wasps

International audienceIn the paper wasp Polistes dominula, cuticular hydrocarbons play a critical role 14 to acquire information regarding conspecific individuals. However, the relationship 15 between cuticular hydrocarbons, health status and male sexually selected traits is poorly 16 investigated. In this study, we characterized the cuticular hydrocarbon profile of adult 17 male and female wasps, infected or not by the strepsipteran endoparasite Xenos 18 vesparum, to assess whether the chemical signature provides information about sex and 19 health status (parasite infection). Moreover, we tested whether the chemical profile 20 reflects male quality as measured via morphological and behavioural (sexually 21 selected) traits at leks. Our results showed that males and females had similar total 22 amount of CHCs, quantitatively different profiles and, to a lesser extent, sex specific 23 chemical compounds. Cuticular profiles were influenced by the strepsipteran infection

Analysis of health care and actual needs of patients with psoriasis: a survey on the Italian population

Background: Over recent years the public health system has shown increasing interest in patients' views for use as guideline criteria in evaluating the quality of assistance above all for those patients with chronic diseases. Hence the interest in psoriasis, which is a chronic disease frequently associated with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. The aims of our study were to describe clinic characteristics of patients with psoriasis, the quality of the assistance perceived by patients arrived at outpatients clinics and the information received, in order to identify areas in Italy requiring improvement. Methods: 1954 patients, aged between 18 and 85 years, were consecutively enrolled at outpatients clinics across 21 Italian provinces over the period December 2004 - January 2006. A standardized questionnaire was developed in collaboration with an Italian Association of Psoriatic Patients ( A. DI. PSO) and tested in a pilot study. The questionnaire was divided into three sections: the first section included social, demographic and individual variables; the second concerned the quality of the assistance perceived by the patients at public dermatologic clinics and the third focused on the need of information requirements of patients with psoriasis. The chi(2) test was used to estimate the association between the categorical variables under study. Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to the interval and ordinal variables. Results: The presence of psoriatic arthritis was reported in 26.0% of patients. Associated chronic diseases included depression (15.4%), hypertension (13.3%), obesity (8.9%) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (7.3%). The study highlighted the need of improvements of health care services at public dermatologic clinics especially in overcoming architectonic barriers and reducing appointment wait-times, particularly in South Italy. However, patients reported a positive relationship with Health System employers due to the confidentiality. This positive impression was confirmed by the observation that dermatologists were considered the best source of information about therapies on psoriasis. Conclusion: Our study allowed to identify critical aspects which could be tackled through initiatives with the aim of improving these emerged needs

Long-term data prove useful to keep track of non-indigenous seaweed fate

The Mar Piccolo of Taranto (southern Italy, Mediterranean Sea), a site of the European LTER network, is a transitional water system, where a century-old intensive mussel farming activity has been carried out, together with an intense import-export business of bivalve mollusks. Previous studies showed that this basinisthirdforNISseaweedintroductionintheMediterraneanSea,aftertheThau LagoonandtheVeniceLagoon.Thepresentpaperdealswiththeresultsof11-year monitoring activity on non-indigenous species (NIS) of seaweeds, which was performed in the Mar Piccolo. In the studied period (2011–2021), two different time frames (i.e., 2011–2015 and 2016–2021) were considered, since they were based on a different number of sampling sites. To investigate spatial and temporal differences in the seaweed assemblage, a multivariate analysis was performed considering the NIS and the most important native species in terms of temporal occurrence. Fourteen NIS were recorded in total in the Mar Piccolo of Taranto duringthisperiod,withvariableabundancesamongsitesandyears:ninespeciesin the firsttimeperiod,andthirteenspeciesinthesecondone.Caulerpacylindracea, recorded with negligible biomass in the first period, was absent in the secondperiod samplings. Molecular analyses confirmed the taxonomy of three species (i.e., Grateloupia minima, Neopyropia koreana, and Polysiphonia morrowii), previously identified only through morphological features. The most abundant specieswasHypneacorona,whichalmostdoubleditsbiomassinthesecondtime period compared to the first one. Three species (i.e., Caulacanthus okamurae, G. minima, and P. morrowii) increased their biomass by an order of magnitude in the second time period. No significant differences were found over years. Site 1 resulted in significant differences among the sites and different seasonal pattern occurred among the investigated sites. No significant long-term changes occurred in the seaweed assemblages, suggesting the absence of strong disturbances due to the settlement of NIS

Merging the cryptic genera radicilingua and calonitophyllum (Delesseriaceae, rhodophyta): Molecular phylogeny and taxonomic revision

Radicilingua Papenfuss and Calonitophyllum Aregood are two small genera of the family Delesseriaceae that consist of only three and one taxonomically accepted species, respectively. The type species of these genera, Radicilingua thy-sanorhizans from England and Calonitophyllum medium from the Americas, are morphologically very similar, with the only recognized differences being vein size and procarp development. To date, only other two species were recognized inside the genus Radicilingua: R. adriatica and R. reptans. In this study, we analysed specimens of Radicilingua collected in the Adriatic and Ionian Sea (Mediterranean), including a syntype locality of R. adriatica (Trieste, northern Adriatic Sea), alongside material from near the type locality of R. thysanorhizans (Torpoint, Cornwall, UK). The sequences of the rbcL-5P gene fragment here produced represent the first molecular data available for the genus Radicilingua. Phylogenetic reconstruction showed that the specimens from the Adriatic and Ionian Seas were genetically distinct from the Atlantic R. thysanorhizans, even if morphologically overlapping with this species. A detailed morphological descrip-tion of the Mediterranean specimens, together with an accurate literature search, suggested that they were distinct also from R. adriatica and R. reptans. For these reasons, a new species was here described to encompass the Mediterranean specimens investigated in this study: R. mediterranea Wolf, Sciuto & Sfriso. Moreover, in the rbcL-5P tree, sequences of the genera Radicilingua and Calonitophyllum grouped in a well-supported clade, distinct from the other genera of the subfamily Nitophylloideae, leading us to propose that Calonitophyllum medium should be transferred to Radicilingua

Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and microbial-modulating activities of essential oils: Implications in colonic pathophysiology

Essential oils (EOs) are a complex mixture of hydrophobic and volatile compounds synthesized from aromatic plants, most of them commonly used in the human diet. In recent years, many studies have analyzed their antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and anticancer properties in vitro and on experimentally induced animal models of colitis and colorectal cancer. However, there are still few clinical studies aimed to understand their role in the modulation of the intestinal pathophysiology. Many EOs and some of their molecules have demonstrated their efficacy in inhibiting bacterial, fungi and virus replication and in modulating the inflammatory and oxidative processes that take place in experimental colitis. In addition to this, their antitumor activity against colorectal cancer models makes them extremely interesting compounds for the modulation of the pathophysiology of the large bowel. The characterization of these EOs is made difficult by their complexity and by the different compositions present in the same oil having different geographical origins. This review tries to shift the focus from the EOs to their individual compounds, to expand their possible applications in modulating colon pathophysiology