The Efficacy of Topical Hydrolyzed Psoralea corylifolia Extract in Treating Postinflammatory Hyperpigmentation

Background: Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) is common following resolution of acne. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the treatment efficacy of Topical Hydrolyzed Psoralea Corylifolia extract (HPCE) on acne-induced PIH and TCA-induced PIH using a previously validated model.1Methods: A prospective, single-blinded, non-randomized study was conducted on 20 subjects with acne-induced PIH. Three acne-induced PIH areas on the face and three 35% TCA-induced PIH areas on the buttocks were analyzed. Subjects received topical HPCE [Unigen] and vehicle cream with instructions on twice daily application on two separate facial and gluteal lesions for 28 days; the third lesion served as a control. Clinical photography and Investigator Global Assessment (IGA) scores for hyperpigmentation were performed on days 0, 28, 35, 42, and 56 for all sites. Degree of improvement was defined as the change in the IGA score for hyperpigmentation between the first and last day of treatment. Results: For facial acne sites, one-way repeated measures ANOVA for degree of improvement as assessed by IGA analysis demonstrated a greater degree of improvement for product sites when compared to vehicle (1.9 times) and control (1.5 times); however, statistical significance was not reached. For TCA-induced PIH sites, there was a statistically significant degree of improvement for product treated sites compared to vehicle (9 times) and control (9 times). For both acne and TCA-induced PIH sites, Pearson correlation coefficient between time and IGA score for hyperpigmentation showed a strong and statistically significant (phttps://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/merf2019clinres/1010/thumbnail.jp

Increasing health worker capacity through distance learning: a comprehensive review of programmes in Tanzania

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tanzania, like many developing countries, faces a crisis in human resources for health. The government has looked for ways to increase the number and skills of health workers, including using distance learning in their training. In 2008, the authors reviewed and assessed the country's current distance learning programmes for health care workers, as well as those in countries with similar human resource challenges, to determine the feasibility of distance learning to meet the need of an increased and more skilled health workforce.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected from 25 distance learning programmes at health training institutions, universities, and non-governmental organizations throughout the country from May to August 2008. Methods included internet research; desk review; telephone, email and mail-in surveys; on-site observations; interviews with programme managers, instructors, students, information technology specialists, preceptors, health care workers and Ministry of Health and Social Welfare representatives; and a focus group with national HIV/AIDS care and treatment organizations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Challenges include lack of guidelines for administrators, instructors and preceptors of distance learning programmes regarding roles and responsibilities; absence of competencies for clinical components of curricula; and technological constraints such as lack of access to computers and to the internet. Insufficient funding resulted in personnel shortages, lack of appropriate training for personnel, and lack of materials for students.</p> <p>Nonetheless, current and prospective students expressed overwhelming enthusiasm for scale-up of distance learning because of the unique financial and social benefits offered by these programs. Participants were retained as employees in their health care facilities, and remained in their communities and supported their families while advancing their careers. Space in health training institutions was freed up for new students entering in-residence pre-service training.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A blended print-based distance learning model is most feasible at the national level due to current resource and infrastructure constraints. With an increase in staffing; improvement of infrastructure, coordination and curricula; and decentralization to the zonal or district level, distance learning can be an effective method to increase both the skills and the numbers of qualified health care workers capable of meeting the health care needs of the Tanzanian population.</p

UNLV Information Science Research Institute quarterly progress report

This report presents research on information systems, information retrieval, and optical character recognition. (CBS

Analysis and and Character Character Recognition Recognition

We describe a computer database being developed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to support experiments in the recognition and analysis of information from printed documents. The history and economic significance of the database are discussed. It is a page-oriented database of mostly technical documents. Approximately 9300 pages are currently on-line. Methods of access are described. A set of software tools has been developed which automate much of the drudgery of performing experiments with optical character recognition (OCR) systems. UNLV plans to encourage each succeeding researcher to add value to the database. The authors believe that GT1 will become an increasingly valuable standard for evaluating systems and an important tool for research in document analysis. At the same time, the experimental tools described can be utilized to automate experiments with new ground-truth databases as they are added

One- and Two-Stage Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Cucumber Waste and Sewage Sludge

The demand for uniformly sized and shaped produce that are aesthetically pleasing results in significant food waste throughout the world. Cucumber waste is a major agricultural waste product in a number of countries, especially areas with high pickle production. Opportunity exists for wastewater treatment plants containing anaerobic digesters to utilize cucumber agricultural and industrial waste for biogas production. The biomethane potential of cucumber waste as a substrate for co-digestion with sewage sludge was assessed. The impact of long-term co-digestion of cucumber was then evaluated using mesophilic continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTRs), in both single- and two-stage anaerobic co-digestion with sewage sludge. Ground cucumber waste was added to sewage sludge at 8% of the volume (4.5–4.6% of the organic load) and CSTRs were maintained for five hydraulic retention times (HRTs). One-stage co-digestion of cucumber waste produced comparable gas levels as CSTRs without cucumbers (averaging 219 and 221 m3/kgVS/h, respectively) after two HRTs. The two-stage cucumber co-digestion CSTR averaged 64% higher specific gas than the control and single-stage digester, although the volumetric gas produced was lower (averaging 152 m3/kgVS/h) likely due to gas loss in the first stage resulting in a lower organic load rate. After four HRTs, relative methanogen content showed dramatic differences in levels of hydrogenotrophic methanogens for the two-stage digester, while the one-stage digester containing cucumber waste showed minor differences relative to the control. Cucumber waste co-digestion with sewage sludge is effective although numerous conditions could be utilized to optimize gas production

OCR correction based on document level knowledge

For over 10 years, the Information Science Research Institute (ISRI) at UNLV has worked on problems associated with the electronic conversion of archival document collections. Such collections typically have a large fraction of poor quality images and present a special challenge to OCR systems. Frequently, because of the size of the collection, manual correction of the output is not affordable. Because the output text is used only to build the index for an information retrieval (IR) system, the accuracy of non-stopwords is the most important measure of output quality. For these reasons, ISRI has focused on using document level knowledge as the best means of providing automatic correction of nonstopwords in OCR output. In 1998, we developed the MANICURE [1] post-processing system that combined several document level corrections. Because of the high cost of obtaining accurate ground-truth text at the document level, we have never been able to quantify the accuracy improvement achievable using document level knowledge. In this report, we describe an experiment to measure the actual number (and percentage) of non-stopwords corrected by the MANICURE system. We believe this to be the first quantitative measure of OCR conversion improvement that is possible using document level knowledge

The impact of positive antinuclear antibody on narrowband ultraviolet B phototherapy in patients with vitiligo: a retrospective chart review

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Screening antinuclear antibody (ANA) is not recommended prior to initiating narrowband ultraviolet B (NBUVB) phototherapy in vitiligo patients, unless concern for photosensitivity exists. Guidelines on prescribing NBUVB phototherapy in vitiligo patients with positive ANA are unavailable, prompting this study to uncover trends. METHODS: This retrospective chart review investigated patients 12 years of age or older with a diagnosis of vitiligo between January 2015 and September 2017, positive serum ANA, and NBUVB phototherapy. Demographic information, vitiligo type, ANA titer/pattern, starting dose, peak dose without phototoxicity, phototherapy frequency, total number of phototoxic events and treatments, coexisting photosensitizing disorders, and concomitant photosensitizing medications were collected. RESULTS: Seven (two males, five females) of 1485 charts met inclusion criteria. One Caucasian, two African-Americans, one Asian, and three Hispanic/Latinos patients were represented. Six of seven patients had generalized vitiligo and one had focal vitiligo. ANA titer/patterns and phototherapy frequencies were evaluated. Peak doses of NBUVB without phototoxic event were available in six of seven patients: 274, 290, 532, 618, 700, and 734 mJ/cm CONCLUSION: With regard to phototoxicity, meaningful trends were not identified that may guide prescription of phototherapy in vitiligo patients with positive ANA, suggesting ANA may not be exclusionary criteria when prescribing NBUVB

Novel Biosensor Based on Electrospun Nanofiber and Magnetic Nanoparticles for the Detection of E. coli O157:H7

A lateral-flow immunobiosensor is developed based on electrospun nanofibers and conductive magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) for rapid detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacteria. The magnetic nanoparticles are bioconjugated with antibody specific to E. coli O157:H7 to act as immunomagnetic separator to extract and purify the target from the sample solution. The cellulose nitrate nanofibers are synthesized using electrospinning technique to form unwoven biocompatible membrane with optimized nanoporous structure and excellent capillary properties. The nanofibrous membrane is biochemically functionalized with E. coli antibody to act as biosensor capture pad. Due to high surface area and unique nanostructure, the conductive pathogen/nanoparticle complex in the purified solution is effectively captured on the nanofiber membrane by antibody-antigen binding. The unbound nanoparticles and impurities are absorbed in the following cellulose membrane by capillary action. When the flow equilibrium is achieved, the resistance signal of the electrospun membrane is measured by a portable sensing platform, which indicates the pathogen concentration in the sample solution. This novel biosensor was capable to detect E. coli O157:H7 bacteria as low as 67 CFU/mL in a total detection time of 8 min. The test results demonstrate linear sensing response range of 10 1 -10 4 CFU/mL, which is higher than that using nitrocellulose porous membrane under the same analytical conditions. This sensitive and low-cost biosensor fabricated using electrospun technology is fast and reliable, which can be used for on-field biodefense and food and water safety applications