Biologics for the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps : state of the art

Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is a complex upper airway disease affecting up to 11% of the population of Western Europe. In these western countries, 85% of the CRSwNP disease reveals a type 2 inflammatory pattern. In the last 15 years, several randomized double-blind studies on monoclonal antibodies in CRSwNP were performed. These studies demonstrated for the first time that biologics targeting type 2 immune reactions might be successful in nasal polyps. The target proteins, interleukin (IL)-4, IL-5, IL-13, and IgE were previously identified as key mediators in studies using nasal polyp tissues to measure and to interact in ex-vivo settings. No biomarkers have been identified to predict response to a specific biologic or to monitor treatment success. These studies were characterized by small numbers of patients and heterogeneous populations. They did, however, pave the way for currently performed and analyzed phase 3 studies, which will possibly lead to the registration of the first biologic drug with the indication CRSwNP. The studies already provide indications on the effects to be expected from those biologics; the results of phase-3 studies in larger populations will be decisive for the indications, patient selection, and finally the stopping rules for those drugs in subjects with severe nasal polyps, in whom the current standard of care including topical and oral glucocorticosteroids, antibiotics and surgical procedures failed to control the disease. We may expect that those biologics will open new perspectives for those patients with severe polyposis with, but also independent of asthma, allowing to avoid the possible adverse events resulting from systemic glucocorticosteroids and surgery

Tuning Co valence state in cobalt oxyhydrate superconductor by post reduction

We report a successful tuning of Co valence state in cobalt oxyhydrate superconductor via a facile post reduction using NaOH as reducing agent. The change in Co valence was precisely determined by measuring the volume of the released oxygen. The possible hydronium-incorporation was greatly suppressed in concentrated NaOH solution, making the absolute Co valence determinable. As a result, an updated superconducting phase diagram was obtained, which shows that the superconducting transition temperature increases monotonically with increasing Co valence in a narrow range from +3.58 to +3.65.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures and 1 table. Chem. Mat. in pres

The 3-D vision system integrated dexterous hand

Most multifingered hands use a tendon mechanism to minimize the size and weight of the hand. Such tendon mechanisms suffer from the problems of striction and friction of the tendons resulting in a reduction of control accuracy. A design for a 3-D vision system integrated dexterous hand with motor control is described which overcomes these problems. The proposed hand is composed of three three-jointed grasping fingers with tactile sensors on their tips, a two-jointed eye finger with a cross-shaped laser beam emitting diode in its distal part. The two non-grasping fingers allow 3-D vision capability and can rotate around the hand to see and measure the sides of grasped objects and the task environment. An algorithm that determines the range and local orientation of the contact surface using a cross-shaped laser beam is introduced along with some potential applications. An efficient method for finger force calculation is presented which uses the measured contact surface normals of an object