Only a few clinical trials have been published on the topical treatment of atopic dermatitis with herbal ointments. An ointment containing extracts from Mahonia aquifolium, Viola tricolor and ...Centella asiatica has previously been studied in open uncontrolled trials with children. However, no data exist on adult patients in a randomized controlled trial.
A total of 88 patients with mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis were enrolled in a double-blind, vehicle-controlled, randomized, half-side comparison. Patients between 18 and 65 years of age were treated for 4 weeks with an ointment containing Mahonia aquifolium, Viola tricolor and Centella asiatica. The primary endpoint was a summary score for erythema, edema/papulation, oozing/crust, excoriation and lichenification according to a 4-point scale. Secondary efficacy variables were assessment of pruritus severity (10 cm VAS) and a global assessment of effectiveness as well as tolerability.
The study ointment reduced the primary and secondary endpoints slightly more than the base cream which was used as vehicle; the differences were not statistically significant. Since the climatic conditions during the study duration varied from very mild and sunny to very cold and dry, a post-hoc subanalysis was performed with a subset of 64 patients whose treatment was at a mean outside temperature of 10 degrees C or less. Under these conditions the primary endpoint showed high statistical significance.
In this trial, an ointment containing Mahonia aquifolium, Viola tricolor and Centella asiatica could not be proven to be superior to a base cream for patients with mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis. However, a subanalysis indicated that the cream might be effective under conditions of cold and dry weather.
Rates of food insecurity (FI) from screening in the inpatient setting is often not reflective of community prevalence, indicating that screening likely misses families with FI. We aimed to determine ...the combination of FI screening questions and methods that would result in identifying a percentage of FI families that matched or exceeded our area prevalence (approximately 20%).
Research staff approached eligible English- and Spanish-speaking families across 4 inpatient units once weekly and screened for FI using a randomly selected method (face-to-face, phone, paper, and tablet). We asked questions from the 6-Item USDA Survey, Hunger Vital Sign screener, and questions utilized by our social workers.
We screened 361 families; 19.4% (N = 70) endorsed FI. Differences in rates were not significant by method. Differences in FI rates based on screening questions were: 17.7% for the 6-item USDA survey, 16.0% for Hunger Vital Sign, and 3.1% for the social work questions. When considering method and screening questions together, the 6-Item USDA on paper had the highest positivity rate of 20.9%. A higher percentage of Spanish-speaking families endorsed FI (61.1%) compared to 17.2% of English-speaking families (P < .01). Positivity also varied significantly by self-identified race (P < .01). Caregivers that identified as Hispanic or Latino were significantly more likely to endorse FI than those that did not (P < .01).
The positivity rate for FI while screening inpatient families using the 6-Item screening questions on paper matched our community prevalence of FI (approximately 20%).
Background Postoperative atrial fibrillation occurs in 20% to 40% of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and contributes to delayed recovery, increased length of stay, and ...increased hospital cost. Measures at preventing postoperative atrial fibrillation have had mixed results. We report a double-blind trial comparing oral amiodarone with placebo for the prevention of atrial fibrillation after CABG.
Methods And Results All patients undergoing CABG were considered eligible. Exclusion criteria included bradycardia (<50 beats/min), prior Atrial fibrillation, concurrent therapy with antiarrhythmic drugs, or concomitant valve surgery. Patients were given 2 g of amiodarone (73 patients) or placebo (70 patients) in divided doses 1 to 4 days before surgery and 400 mg daily for 7 days postoperatively. Atrial fibrillation occurred in 24.7% (18 of 43) of patients receiving amiodarone and 32.8% (23 of 70) of patients receiving placebo (
P = .30). Heart rate at onset of atrial fibrillation was 133.4 ± 26.6 beats/min for amiodarone compared with 152.9 ± 31.6 beats/min for placebo (
P = .04). Duration of atrial fibrillation was 10.2 ± 8.1 hours for amiodarone compared with 16.2 ± 27.5 hours for placebo (
P = .67). Patients receiving both β-blockade and amiodarone had a 16.7% incidence of atrial fibrillation compared with 31.9% in the remaining patients (
P = .10). Atrial fibrillation was associated with an increased cost of $7011 compared with those who remained in sinus rhythm ($23,869 ± $20,894 vs $16,857 ± $5401 in sinus rhythm). Hospital cost of those taking amiodarone was $18,895 ± $13,267 compared with $18,839 ± $11,537.18 for placebo (
P = .42).
Conclusion Postoperative CABG atrial fibrillation is associated with prolonged hospital stay and increased cost. Prophylactic oral amiodarone did not statistically alter the incidence or duration of atrial fibrillation after CABG, although favorable trends were noted. Hospital cost was not affected by therapy with amiodarone. (Am Heart J 1999;138:144-50.)
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IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Abstract Background and Objectives With a growing interest in screening for food insecurity (FI) during pediatric hospitalization, there is a parallel need to develop interventions. With input from ...caregivers experiencing FI, we sought to identify interventions to assist with short‐term FI after discharge and evaluate their feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness. Methods We first employed qualitative methods to identify potential interventions. Next, we conducted a pilot study of selected interventions for families experiencing FI. Seven days postdischarge, caregivers rated the intervention's feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness. We also assessed for ongoing FI. We summarized the median and proportion of “completely agree” responses to feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness questions, and we compared in‐hospital and postdischarge FI using McNemar's test. Results In the qualitative stage, 14 caregivers prioritized three interventions: grocery store gift cards, grocery delivery/pick‐up, and frozen meals. In the pilot study, 53 caregivers (25% of those screened) endorsed FI during their child's hospitalization and received one or more of the interventions. Every caregiver selected the grocery gift card option; 37 families (69.8%) also received frozen meals. Seven days after discharge, most caregivers rated the intervention as “completely” feasible (76%), acceptable (90%), and appropriate (88%). There was a significant decrease in caregivers who reported FI after discharge compared to during the hospitalization ( p < .001). Conclusions This study demonstrates the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of inpatient interventions to address FI, particularly at the time of pediatric hospital discharge and transition home. Randomized trials are needed to further evaluate the efficacy of interventions employed during hospitalization.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov detector is a gamma-ray observatory which is able to scan the sky in energy from 100 GeV to 100 TeV and will be localized at Sierra La Negra volcano at 4100 m a.s.l. ...near to Puebla, México. In 2011 an engineering array called VAMOS was installed and in 2012, it will start the deployment of HAWC first step, the HAWC-30 array, with 30 water Cherenkov detectors. In this work it is presented the results of simulations where the goal is to get Fano factor in order to simulate the HAWC-30 array sensibility to gamma-ray bursts using the single particle technique.
In this study, we define some new types of non-null ruled surfaces called slant ruled surfaces in the Minkowski 3-space $E_{1}^{3} $. We introduce some characterizations for a non-null ruled surface ...to be a slant ruled surface in $E_{1}^{3} $. Moreover, we obtain some corollaries which give the relationships between a non-null slant ruled surface and its striction line.
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a second-generation continuously operated, wide field-of-view, TeV gamma-ray observatory. The HAWC observatory and its analysis techniques ...build on experience of the Milagro experiment in using ground-based water Cherenkov detectors for gamma-ray astronomy. HAWC is located on the Sierra Negra volcano in México at an elevation of 4100 meters above sea level. The completed HAWC observatory principal detector (HAWC) consists of 300 closely spaced water Cherenkov detectors, each equipped with four photomultiplier tubes to provide timing and charge information to reconstruct the extensive air shower energy and arrival direction. The HAWC observatory has been optimized to observe transient and steady emission from sources of gamma rays within an energy range from several hundred GeV to several hundred TeV. However, most of the air showers detected are initiated by cosmic rays, allowing studies of cosmic rays also to be performed. This paper describes the characteristics of the HAWC main array and its hardware.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
► IceCube DeepCore lowers the neutrino energy threshold in IceCube to as low as 10GeV. ► The surrounding IceCube detector is an active veto against cosmic ray muons. ► IceCube DeepCore uses higher ...quantum efficiency PMTs in very clear ice. ► IceCube DeepCore has a module density 5× higher than the rest of IceCube.
The IceCube neutrino observatory in operation at the South Pole, Antarctica, comprises three distinct components: a large buried array for ultrahigh energy neutrino detection, a surface air shower array, and a new buried component called DeepCore. DeepCore was designed to lower the IceCube neutrino energy threshold by over an order of magnitude, to energies as low as about 10GeV. DeepCore is situated primarily 2100m below the surface of the icecap at the South Pole, at the bottom center of the existing IceCube array, and began taking physics data in May 2010. Its location takes advantage of the exceptionally clear ice at those depths and allows it to use the surrounding IceCube detector as a highly efficient active veto against the principal background of downward-going muons produced in cosmic-ray air showers. DeepCore has a module density roughly five times higher than that of the standard IceCube array, and uses photomultiplier tubes with a new photocathode featuring a quantum efficiency about 35% higher than standard IceCube PMTs. Taken together, these features of DeepCore will increase IceCube’s sensitivity to neutrinos from WIMP dark matter annihilations, atmospheric neutrino oscillations, galactic supernova neutrinos, and point sources of neutrinos in the northern and southern skies. In this paper we describe the design and initial performance of DeepCore.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Accurate measurement of neutrino energies is essential to many of the scientific goals of large-volume neutrino telescopes. The fundamental observable in such detectors is the Cherenkov light ...produced by the transit through a medium of charged particles created in neutrino interactions. The amount of light emitted is proportional to the deposited energy, which is approximately equal to the neutrino energy for v sub(e)e and v sub( mu ) charged-current interactions and can be used to set a lower bound on neutrino energies and to measure neutrino spectra statistically in other channels. Here we describe methods and performance of reconstructing charged-particle energies and topologies from the observed Cherenkov light yield, including techniques to measure the energies of uncontained muon tracks, achieving average uncertainties in electromagnetic-equivalent deposited energy of ~ 15% above 10 TeV.
This study was designed to examine the chemical composition and
in vitro antioxidant activity of the essential oil of
Clinopodium vulgare. GC–MS analysis of the oil resulted in the identification of ...40 compounds, representing 99.4% of the oil; thymol (38.9%), γ-terpinene (29.6%) and
p-cymene (9.1%) were the main components. The samples were subjected to a screening for their possible antioxidant activity by using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-carotene-linoleic acid assays. In the first case, IC
50 value of the
C. vulgare essential oil was determined as 63.0
±
2.71
μg/ml. IC
50 value of thymol and γ-terpinene, the major compounds of the oil, was determined as 161
±
1.3
μg/ml and 122
±
2.5
μg/ml, respectively, whereas
p-cymene did not show antioxidant activity. In β-carotene-linoleic acid system,
C. vulgare essential oil exhibited 52.3
±
1.19% inhibition against linoleic acid oxidation. In both systems, antioxidant capacities of BHT, curcumine and ascorbic acid were also determined in parallel experiments.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
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