•Nitric oxide plays a major role in the regulation of intraocular pressure.•Nitic oxide directly acts on trabecular meshwork cells thereby increasing outflow.•Novel nitric oxide donors are an ...exciting new option in glaucoma treatment.
A reduction in intraocular pressure (IOP) is the only recognized therapy for glaucoma. Hence, drugs exhibiting ocular hypotensive effects are important targets for antiglaucomatous drug development. IOP is determined by the equilibrium of aqueous humor production and outflow through either the trabecular meshwork or the uveoscleral outflow pathway. There is increasing evidence that nitric oxide (NO) has a major role in the regulation of IOP by directly acting on the trabecular meshwork and thereby lowering IOP. Taking advantage of this mechanism, newly designed NO-donating drugs combine the IOP-lowering effect of known substances with the trabecular meshwork outflow-increasing effect of NO. Here, we review the molecular mechanism of this new entity of IOP-lowering drugs.
This paper examines the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) – that is, whether scores on the scale adequately reflect adaptive or maladaptive humor use which is causally ...related to psychosocial well-being, and considers how research on distinct groups of people defined in terms of their style profiles can clarify the nature of the styles. A number of concerns about scale content are raised, including that coverage of relevant issues and wording of some scale items are problematic; rating scales used to assess humor use require revision; the extent of influence of non-humor components of the items is unclear; and the items associated with any style do not accurately indicate its motivation. Findings concerning style profiles indicate the same style can perform different functions for different people (relationship/stimulation seeking, or self-defense) and also differ from those typically observed in studies of HSQ convergent, divergent, and criterion validity. Further research should take into account the methodological issues discussed and focus on the style profiles and humor content and structure preferences of humor users
their audiences. Reasons to view the styles as predictive of but not causally related to psychosocial well-being are also provided.
Disparagement humor is a kind of humor that denigrates, belittles an individual or a social group. In the aim to unveil the offensive side of these kinds of jokes, we have run an event-related fMRI ...study asking 30 healthy volunteers to judge the level of fun of a series of verbal stimuli that ended with a sentence that was socially inappropriate but funny (disparagement joke -DJ), socially inappropriate but not funny (SI) or neutral (N). Behavioral results showed disparagement jokes are perceived as funny and at the same time offensive. However, the level of offense in DJ is lower than that registered in SI stimuli. Functional data showed that DJ activated the insula, the SMA, the precuneus, the ACC, the dorsal striatum (the caudate nucleus), and the thalamus. These activations suggest that in DJ a feeling of mirth (and/or a desire to laugh) derived from the joke (e.g., SMA and precuneus) and the perception of the jokes’ social inappropriateness (e.g., ACC and insula) coexist. Furthermore, DJ and SI share a common network related to mentalizing and to the processing of negative feelings, namely the medial prefrontal cortex, the putamen and the right thalamus.
This qualitative study aims to investigate the competencies and effectiveness of humor use in workplace leadership. By exploring the elements underlying successful and unsuccessful humor use, this ...research offers insights into the competencies required for leaders to leverage humor effectively. Adopting a qualitative inductive approach, fifteen individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, generating a dataset of 51 critical incidents of humor use. Reflexive thematic analysis was employed to identify key themes, resulting in the identification of five central elements: Reading the context, Intention and motivation, Judgement and decision, Skillful delivery, and Understanding reactions. These elements provide a comprehensive framework for understanding humor use in the context of workplace leadership, emphasizing the importance of cognitive and emotional intelligence / competencies. The study proposes a theoretical framework based on these findings, providing the foundation of a new paradigm for understanding and measuring humor use. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the competencies and complexities involved in using humor as a leadership tool and provides practical implications for leaders aiming to enhance their leadership effectiveness through humor.
Humour et violence symbolique Dufort, Julie
Humour et violence symbolique,
2020, 20200627, 2020, 2020-05-27, 2020-06-27
eBook, Book
L’humour coïncide d’ordinaire avec les champs de significations de la gaieté, du divertissement, de la liberté et de la cohésion sociale. Sous ce vernis candide et conciliateur, l’humour est pourtant ...loin d’être une activité humaine dénuée de violence. Alors que certaines productions humoristiques (plaisanteries quotidiennes, stand-up, films, etc.) portent avec elles une violence aisément (re)connaissable, d’autres en couvent une qui se révèle être beaucoup plus subtile, qu’on peine à discerner. Le racisme, l’homophobie, le sexisme, la misogynie, la transphobie et le dédain des classes populaires sont encore largement banalisés. L’imperceptibilité de cette violence liée aux systèmes de domination est parfois telle qu’elle (pré)dispose certains groupes à en user, (re)produisant par cela les conditions de leur propre marginalisation. Ce phénomène, Pierre Bourdieu l’a nommé « violence symbolique ». En adoptant cette notion comme outil de travail, et en la revisitant, ce collectif examine les parts sombres de l’humour, sans cependant en négliger la puissance critique. Composé de réflexions théoriques et d’études de cas, cet ouvrage a pour but de rendre plus perceptibles ces liens qui unissent humour et violence, qu’on peine encore aujourd’hui à discerner.
Glaucoma is one of the major causes of blindness, affecting together with age-related macular degeneration > 70 million people worldwide. One of the therapeutic options for its management is based on ...the inhibition of the metalloenyme carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1). CA inhibitors (CAIs) diminish intraocular pressure (IOP) by reducing the rate of bicarbonate formation and thus secretion of the aqueous humor.
The main classes of clinically used antiglaucoma CAIs are the sulfonamides with systemic (acetazolamide, methazolamide, ethoxzolamide and dichlorophenamide) and topical (dorzolamide and brinzolamide) action. A patent literature review covering the period 2007 - 2013 is presented.
This review presents an overview of the patent literature in the CAI antiglaucoma drug design field during the past 6 years. Most of the patents deal with sulfonamide/sulfamide/sulfamate CAIs, sulfonamides incorporating NO-donating moieties, as well as hybrids incorporating sulfonamide and prostaglandin (PG) analogs, were also reported. There is an urgent need for new antiglaucoma CAIs/approaches to treat and diagnose this disease in the very near future, as the last drug which has been discovered in the field (latanoprost) dates back > 10 years ago.
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