Efficacy, safety, and tolerability of travoprost 0.004% BAK-free versus prior treatment with latanoprost 0.005% in Japanese patients

Michael J Miyashiro1, Samuel C Lo2, Jeanette A Stewart3, William C Stewart31Ludwig Ophthalmology Centre, Hilo, HI, USA; 2Private Practice, Honolulu, HI, USA; 3PRN Pharmaceutical Research Network, LLC, Dallas, TX, USAObjective: To examine the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of travoprost 0.004% benzalkonium chloride (BAK)-free compared with previous use of latanoprost 0.005% in Japanese patients living in the US who had primary open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension.Methods: This was an open-label, multicenter, bilateral, intraindividual, and active-controlled study in which 20 Japanese American patients with primary open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension who had been on latanoprost 0.005% monotherapy were changed to monotherapy with travoprost 0.004% BAK-free daily for 12 weeks. Patients were administered the same series of tests to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of latanoprost at the baseline visit and of travoprost BAK-free at the week 12 visit.Results: No significant difference in mean intraocular pressure (IOP) was observed between latanoprost monotherapy at baseline and travoprost BAK-free monotherapy after 12 weeks (P = 0.76), nor were significant differences noted in mean ocular hyperemia, visual acuity, corneal fluorescein staining, or overall scores from the Ocular Surface Disease Index. Patients had a significantly shorter mean tear breakup time while on latanoprost compared with travoprost BAK-free (P = 0.0094). Significantly more patients preferred travoprost BAK-free monotherapy over latanoprost monotherapy (14 versus 6; P = 0.011).Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that Japanese American patients transitioned from latanoprost 0.005% monotherapy to travoprost 0.004% BAK-free can expect similar IOP control and some improvement in anterior segment signs. This transition study showed a strong patient preference for travoprost BAK-free over latanoprost, at a ratio of more than 2:1.Keywords: glaucoma, intraocular pressure, latanoprost, prostaglandin analog, travopros

University Information Technology Services' Advanced IT Facilities: The least every researcher needs to know

This is an archived document containing instructions for using IU's advanced IT facilities ca. 2003. A version of this document updated in 2011 is available from http://hdl.handle.net/2022/13620. Further versions are forthcoming.This document is designed to be read as a printed document, and designed to permit anyone at all familiar with computers and the Internet to start at the beginning, get a general overview of UITS' advanced IT facilities and what they offer, and then read the detailed portions of the document that are of interest. In many cases, examples are provided, as well as directions on how to download sample files. And in some cases there is information that one is best off really not learning – for example the process of logging into IU's IBM supercomputer the first time involves setup steps that should be followed, keystroke by keystroke, from the directions presented herein, and then promptly forgotten. This document is intended to be a starting point, not a comprehensive guide. As such it should get any reader off to a good start, but then point the reader in the direction of consulting staff and online resources that will permit the reader to get additional help and information as needed. Most of all, this document is provided for the convenience of researchers, who may peruse this information at their leisure. Our hope and expectation is that consultants in UITS will provide extensive help and programming assistance to IU researchers who wish to make use of these excellent IT facilities.The facilities described in this document were made possible in part through funding from Indiana University, the Indiana University Office of the Vice President for Information Technology, the State of Indiana, Shared University Research Grants from IBM, Inc., the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0116050 and Grant CDA- 9601632, and from the Lilly Endowment through their support of the Indiana Genomics Initiative. The Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN) of Indiana University is supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc

INGEN's advanced IT facilities: The least you need to know

The facilities described in this document were made possible in part through funding from Indiana University, the Indiana University Office of the Vice President for Information Technology, the State of Indiana, Shared University Research Grants from IBM, Inc., and from the Lilly Endowment through their support o f the Indiana Genomics Initiative. The Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN) of Indiana University is supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc

Lysine mediation of neuroendocrine food regulation in guinea fowl

In poultry, obesity is partly influenced by food intake, and is increasingly becoming a nationwide problem. Hypothalamic food intake mechanisms are involved metabolically and neurologically via two peptide hormones, leptin and ghrelin, and the amino acid glutamate, which is enzymatically derived from lysine metabolism. We hypothesize that lysine homeostasis mediates regulation of feed intake and performance characteristics via the brain–liver axis through glutamate sensing. The objective was to examine the effects of lysine homeostasis in avian food regulation and performance through neuroendocrine signaling. One-day-old male French Guinea fowl (GF) keets (n = 270) were weighed and randomly assigned to 5 dietary treatments (0.80%, 0.86%, 0.92%, 1.10% control, and 1.22% lysine) in 3 replicates. At 4 and 8 wk of age 20% of experimental birds were randomly selected, weighed and euthanatized. The liver, pancreas, and hypothalamus were excised, snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at –80°C until use. Tissue mRNA was extracted and cDNA synthesized for qPCR assays. Lysine at 0.80 and 0.86% hindered growth, development of digestive organs, expression of brain and liver glutamate and leptin receptors, and caused high mortality in GF. The fold change for metabotropic glutamate receptor I was lower (P \u3c 0.05) in liver and higher in brain at 0.86 and 0.92% than the control (1.10%) and 1.22% lysine. The 1.22% lysine exhibited highest expression of ionotropic glutamate receptor, while brain ghrelin receptor expression was highest at 0.86 and 0.92% lysine. Therefore, dietary lysine concentration may influence signaling pathways regulating food intake in brain-liver axis via glutamate synthesis

The General Solution of Bianchi Type VIIhVII_h Vacuum Cosmology

The theory of symmetries of systems of coupled, ordinary differential equations (ODE) is used to develop a concise algorithm in order to obtain the entire space of solutions to vacuum Bianchi Einstein Field Equations (EFEs). The symmetries used are the well known automorphisms of the Lie algebra for the corresponding isometry group of each Bianchi Type, as well as the scaling and the time re-parametrization symmetry. The application of the method to Type VII_h results in (a) obtaining the general solution of Type VII_0 with the aid of the third Painlev\'{e} transcendental (b) obtaining the general solution of Type $VII_h$ with the aid of the sixth Painlev\'{e} transcendental (c) the recovery of all known solutions (six in total) without a prior assumption of any extra symmetry (d) The discovery of a new solution (the line element given in closed form) with a G_3 isometry group acting on T_3, i.e. on time-like hyper-surfaces, along with the emergence of the line element describing the flat vacuum Type VII_0 Bianchi Cosmology.Comment: latex2e source file, 27 pages, 2 tables, no fiure

Evaluating quality of life and cost implications of prophylactic radiotherapy in mesothelioma:Health economic analysis of the SMART trial

The SMART trial is a UK-based, multicentre RCT comparing prophylactic radiotherapy and symptom-based (deferred) radiotherapy in 203 patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma who had undergone large bore pleural interventions. Using costs and quality of life data collected alongside the clinical trial, we will estimate the cost-effectiveness of prophylactic radiotherapy compared to deferred radiotherapy over a 1-year period.Healthcare utilization and costs were captured during the trial. Utility weights produced by the EQ-5D questionnaire were used to determine quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) gained. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was calculated over the one-year trial period.Costs were similar in the immediate and deferred radiotherapy groups: £5480.40 (SD = £7040; n = 102) and £5461.40 (SD = £7770; n = 101) respectively. There was also no difference in QALY: 0.498 (95% CI: [0.45, 0.547]) in the prophylactic radiotherapy group versus 0.525 (95% CI: [0.471, 0.580]) in the deferred group. At a willingness to pay threshold of £30,000/QALY there was only a 24% chance that prophylactic radiotherapy was cost-effective compared to deferred radiotherapy.There was no significant effect of prophylactic radiotherapy on quality of life in the intervention group, nor was there any discernable decrease in healthcare costs. There is little evidence to suggest that prophylactic radiotherapy is a cost-effective intervention in this population.ISRCTN72767336 with ISRCTN

Toward an integrative understanding of social behavior: new models and new opportunities.

Social interactions among conspecifics are a fundamental and adaptively significant component of the biology of numerous species. Such interactions give rise to group living as well as many of the complex forms of cooperation and conflict that occur within animal groups. Although previous conceptual models have focused on the ecological causes and fitness consequences of variation in social interactions, recent developments in endocrinology, neuroscience, and molecular genetics offer exciting opportunities to develop more integrated research programs that will facilitate new insights into the physiological causes and consequences of social variation. Here, we propose an integrative framework of social behavior that emphasizes relationships between ultimate-level function and proximate-level mechanism, thereby providing a foundation for exploring the full diversity of factors that underlie variation in social interactions, and ultimately sociality. In addition to identifying new model systems for the study of human psychopathologies, this framework provides a mechanistic basis for predicting how social behavior will change in response to environmental variation. We argue that the study of non-model organisms is essential for implementing this integrative model of social behavior because such species can be studied simultaneously in the lab and field, thereby allowing integration of rigorously controlled experimental manipulations with detailed observations of the ecological contexts in which interactions among conspecifics occur

Far-ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Venus and Mars at 4 A Resolution with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope on Astro-2

Far-ultraviolet spectra of Venus and Mars in the range 820-1840 A at 4 A resolution were obtained on 13 and 12 March 1995, respectively, by the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), which was part of the Astro-2 observatory on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Longward of 1250 A, the spectra of both planets are dominated by emission of the CO Fourth Positive band system and strong OI and CI multiplets. In addition, CO Hopfield-Birge bands, B - X (0,0) at 1151 A and C - X (0,0) at 1088 A, are detected for the first time, and there is a weak indication of the E - X (0,0) band at 1076 A in the spectrum of Venus. The B - X band is blended with emission from OI 1152. Modeling the relative intensities of these bands suggests that resonance fluorescence of CO is the dominant source of the emission, as it is for the Fourth Positive system. Shortward of Lyman-alpha, other emission features detected include OII 834, OI lambda 989, HI Lyman-beta, and NI 1134 and 1200. For Venus, the derived disk brightnesses of the OI, OII, and HI features are about one-half of those reported by Hord et al. (1991) from Galileo EUV measurements made in February 1990. This result is consistent with the expected variation from solar maximum to solar minimum. The ArI 1048, 1066 doublet is detected only in the spectrum of Mars and the derived mixing ratio of Ar is of the order of 2%, consistent with previous determinations.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, July 20, 200

Constraining slow-roll inflation with WMAP and 2dF

We constrain slow-roll inflationary models using the recent WMAP data combined with data from the VSA, CBI, ACBAR and 2dF experiments. We find the slow-roll parameters to be $0 < \epsilon_1 < 0.032$ and $\epsilon_2 + 5.0 \epsilon_1 = 0.036 \pm 0.025$. For inflation models $V \propto \phi^{\alpha}$ we find that $\alpha< 3.9, 4.3$ at the 2$\sigma$ and $3\sigma$ levels, indicating that the $\lambda\phi^4$ model is under very strong pressure from observations. We define a convergence criterion to judge the necessity of introducing further power spectrum parameters such as the spectral index and running of the spectral index. This criterion is typically violated by models with large negative running that fit the data, indicating that the running cannot be reliably measured with present data.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX4 file with six figures incorporate

Indiana University's Advanced Cyberinfrastructure

This is an archived document. The most current version may be found at http://pti.iu.edu/ciThe purpose of this document is to introduce researchers to Indiana University’s cyberinfrastructure – to clarify what these facilities make possible, to discuss how to use them and the professional staff available to work with you. The resources described here are complex and varied, among the most advanced in the world. The intended audience is anyone unfamiliar with IU’s cyberinfrastructure