WorldWideScience

Sample records for cartoons as topic

  1. Animated movies and cartoons in teaching science topics

    OpenAIRE

    Jeraj, Tina; Susman, Katarina

    2016-01-01

    Children meet cartoons in their early childhood in their home environment and afterwards also in their school environment. Cartoons and animated movies in teaching process strongly motivates and evoke good learning processes through watching, discussing and active participation in accompanying classroom activities. In this contribution, the survey about the presence of science topics and science sli-ups (errors, in contrary with reality) in selected cartoons is presented. In the research, ten...

  2. Concept cartoons for diagnosing student’s misconceptions in the topic of buffers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kusumaningrum, I. A.; Ashadi; Indriyanti, N. Y.

    2018-05-01

    Student’s misconceptions have been concerned over twenty years in the chemistry education research. It influences students to learn new knowledge and gain a correct concept. The buffer solution is found as a difficult topic due to student’s misconception. However, the research related this subject are still rare. Concept cartoon has been used as one of the effective tools to diagnose misconceptions. This study aims to identify the effectiveness of concept cartoon to diagnose them. The concept cartoon consists of three concept questions. 98 students of grade 11 as respondents of this research and followed by interview for selected students. The data obtain of the study are analyzed by using a scoring key. The detected misconceptions are about what buffers do, what buffers are, and how buffers are able to do what they do. Concept cartoon is potential as a basic tool for remedial teaching.

  3. Holocaust Cartoons as Ideographs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahdiyeh Meidani

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available The Holocaust cartoon competition of 2006 in Iran as an instance of social controversy has the potential to raise social and political arguments over various international and global issues. Through using McGee’s theory of ideograph and Edwards and Winkler’s theory of representative form, I identify the ideographs used in these cartoons and argue that the Holocaust cartoons function ideographically to portray Jews, Judaism, Palestine, Israel, Zionism, and the Holocaust. I explain how these controversial images function as representative characters and representative anecdotes and create different ideological interpretations of the Holocaust and associated issues, such as Israel–Palestine conflicts and Western freedom of speech. I argue that the cartoons suggest a connection between Nazism and Zionism, or the Nazi and Israeli regimes, by juxtaposing various elements and situations. I explain that the cartoons anecdotally refer to the Holocaust and represent it as myth or hoax used by Jews/Zionists to justify creation of the nation of Israel.

  4. Cartoons as Advance Organizers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kovalik, Cindy L.; Williams, Matthew A.

    2011-01-01

    This exploratory study investigated student reaction to the use of cartoons as advance organizers for online discussions in an online course. A convenience sample of 15 students participated in the study by contributing cartoons, participating in online discussions, and completing a survey. Overall, survey results indicated student reaction to the…

  5. Creating Cartoons to Promote Leaderships Skills and Explore Leadership Qualities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Latisha L.; Clausen, Courtney K.; Teske, Jolene K.; Ghayoorrad, Maryam; Gray, Phyllis; Al Subia, Sukainah; Atwood-Blaine, Dana; Rule, Audrey C.

    2015-01-01

    This document describes a strategy for increasing student leadership and creativity skills through the creation of cartoons. Creating cartoons engages students in divergent thinking and cognitive processes, such as perception, recall, and mental processing. When students create cartoons focused on a particular topic, they are making connections to…

  6. Audience Perception of Television Animated Cartoons as Tool for ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study investigated audience perception of television animated cartoons as tool for political communication. The specific objectives of the study were: to find out the frequency of exposure to television animated cartoons between males and females; to find out the frequency of exposure to television animated cartoons ...

  7. Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation

    CERN Document Server

    Jones, Tim; Rosson, Allan S

    2008-01-01

    One of Flash s most common uses is still animation for cartoons, games, advertising etc, and this book takes a fresh look at the topic, breaking it down pre-production, production, and post production, and looking at each section in detail, and covering topics such as storyboarding, character libraries and camera mechanics like no Flash book has before. The book is written by members of the Emmy award winning ANIMAX team, who have created work for clients such as Disney, AOL, Fox, WWE, ESPN, and Sesame workshop. This book is an opportunity for them to share their secrets, and is written to sui

  8. Modern machine learning techniques and their applications in cartoon animation research

    CERN Document Server

    Yu, Jun

    2013-01-01

    The integration of machine learning techniques and cartoon animation research is fast becoming a hot topic. This book helps readers learn the latest machine learning techniques, including patch alignment framework; spectral clustering, graph cuts, and convex relaxation; ensemble manifold learning; multiple kernel learning; multiview subspace learning; and multiview distance metric learning. It then presents the applications of these modern machine learning techniques in cartoon animation research. With these techniques, users can efficiently utilize the cartoon materials to generate animations

  9. Violence in Children's Cartoons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jarrell, Sue

    A British 12-year-old boy died while imitating the heroic leaps of the cartoon character Batman. Tragic incidents stemming from cartoon imitation such as this one occur with alarming frequency. Still, many people choose to ignore violence in children's cartoons. Even some experts don't recognize that cartoons may be harmful. Researcher Wilbur…

  10. The cartoon controversy as a case of multiculturalrecognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2007-01-01

    The paper considers what ‘recognition' might mean in theory and which policies would in practice qualify as policies of recognition in relation to multicultural conflicts such as the ‘cartoon controversy' sparked by the publication of drawings of the Prophet Mohammad in the Danish Newspaper...... Jyllands-Posten. The paper provides a general theoretical account of recognition as a strictly political concept, including distinctions between different conceptions hereof, and asks whether the cartoon controversy can be described in these terms and what the relevant meaning of recognition might then be...

  11. Component-Based Cartoon Face Generation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saman Sepehri Nejad

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we present a cartoon face generation method that stands on a component-based facial feature extraction approach. Given a frontal face image as an input, our proposed system has the following stages. First, face features are extracted using an extended Active Shape Model. Outlines of the components are locally modified using edge detection, template matching and Hermit interpolation. This modification enhances the diversity of output and accuracy of the component matching required for cartoon generation. Second, to bring cartoon-specific features such as shadows, highlights and, especially, stylish drawing, an array of various face photographs and corresponding hand-drawn cartoon faces are collected. These cartoon templates are automatically decomposed into cartoon components using our proposed method for parameterizing cartoon samples, which is fast and simple. Then, using shape matching methods, the appropriate cartoon component is selected and deformed to fit the input face. Finally, a cartoon face is rendered in a vector format using the rendering rules of the selected template. Experimental results demonstrate effectiveness of our approach in generating life-like cartoon faces.

  12. Roadrunner physics: using cartoons to challenge student preconceptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huxford, Rachael; Ridge, Mathew; Overduin, James; Selway, Jim

    The cartoon universe is governed by laws that differ radically from those in the real world, but also mirror some of our preconceptions of how the world ``should'' work. We all know that Wile E. Coyote will never be able to catch the Roadrunner with a fan attached to a sailboard, or an outboard motor submerged in a pail of water--but why, exactly? Can we attach some numbers to this knowledge? We have designed some classroom demonstrations accompanied by personal-response-type questions that use classic cartoon clips to challenge student thinking in introductory courses, prompting them to rediscover the truths of physics for themselves. We extend this idea to intermediate-level modern physics, showing that some phenomena in the cartoon universe can be reconciled with standard physics if the values of fundamental constants such as c , G and h differ radically from those in the real world. Such an approach can both heighten student interest and deepen understanding in various physics topics.

  13. Designing Cartoon as a Supplementary Material for English Structure Subject

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mina, Nurawati; Putranti, Sulistini Dwi

    2015-01-01

    Cartoon comes from an Italian word "Cartone" meaning a large paper. It is designed not only as the media to describe daily activities, but also to entertain, criticize, provoke, and even to teach people. A lot of studies have been conducted regarding the implementation of cartoon in classroom or outside classroom context. It is proven…

  14. An Inquiry-based Course Using ``Physics?'' in Cartoons and Movies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogers, Michael

    2007-01-01

    Books, cartoons, movies, and video games provide engaging opportunities to get both science and nonscience students excited about physics. An easy way to use these media in one's classroom is to have students view clips and identify unusual events, odd physics, or list things that violate our understanding of the physics that governs our universe.1,2 These activities provide a lesson or two of material, but how does one create an entire course on examining the physics in books, cartoons, movies, and video games? Other approaches attempt to reconcile events in various media with our understanding of physics3-8 or use cartoons themselves to help explain physics topics.9

  15. Governmental Use of Cartoons in Chile as a Means of Informing and Persuading Voters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schnell, Jim

    In an electoral process in 1988 and 1989, voters replaced General Augusto Pinochet as leader of Chile. The use of political cartoons by both pro- and anti-Pinochet forces is explored in this paper. Cartoons have long been recognized as a form of mass communication. In the Chilean elections cartoons played an important role in the battle for the…

  16. Developing physics learning media using 3D cartoon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wati, M.; Hartini, S.; Hikmah, N.; Mahtari, S.

    2018-03-01

    This study focuses on developing physics learning media using 3D cartoon on the static fluid topic. The purpose of this study is to describe: (1) the validity of the learning media, (2) the practicality of the learning media, and (3) the effectiveness of the learning media. This study is a research and development using ADDIE model. The subject of the implementation of media used class XI Science of SMAN 1 Pulau Laut Timur. The data were obtained from the validation sheet of the learning media, questionnaire, and the test of learning outcomes. The results showed that: (1) the validity of the media category is valid, (2) the practicality of the media category is practice, and (3) the effectiveness of the media category is effective. It is concluded that the learning using 3D cartoon on the static fluid topic is eligible to use in learning.

  17. From the energy to environmental crises: 25 years of satirical cartoons

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Borrelli, F.; Giannotta, A. (ENEA, Rome (Italy). Direzione Studi)

    1992-10-01

    Just as good natured jokes pass from mouth to mouth and create universally accepted stereotypes, good satirical cartoons pass from newspaper to newspaper and become real reference points for the international public. Within this context, this paper surveys international public opinion through a collection of noteworthy satirical cartoons reflecting alternative 'truths' regarding some key energy and environmental issues spanning the years 1967-1992. The wide ranging topics include: the early 1970's oil crisis; the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power plant accidents; radioactive waste disposal; automobile and industrial pollution; oil spills; solar energy; and the greenhouse effect.

  18. Danish Cartoon Crisis/Controversy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hervik, Peter

    2017-01-01

    The Danish Cartoon Crisis Controversy is one of several terms that refer to the turmoil that associates with the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten’s publication of 12 cartoons on 30 September 2005. “The Muhammad Cartoon Crisis” is an alternative heading used for the violent global rea...

  19. Are Aggressive Cartoons Really Funnier? A Replication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefan Stieger

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Research has found that more aggressive cartoons are perceived as funnier. The current study (N = 106; 16 cartoons examined this finding in more detail by additionally including painfulness and cleverness rankings of cartoons, and by examining possible moderating effects of different humor styles, self-esteem (explicit, implicit, and social desirability. Aggressive or painful cartoons were not perceived to be funnier, but were rated as having a cleverer punch line. Effects were only weakly correlated with participants’ humor styles, but were independent of self-esteem and social desirability. This suggests that aggressive cartoons are not in general perceived to be funnier than non-aggressive ones, and that there may be other moderators influencing this effect (e.g., the type of cartoons, definition of aggression and funniness, cultural aspects.

  20. LANGUAGE TEACHING WITH CARTOONS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    FLEMING, GERALD

    SHORT WELL-MADE CARTOONS, CAREFULLY MATCHED TO ORAL AND WRITTEN TEXTS, COMMAND THE LANGUAGE STUDENT'S ATTENTION BECAUSE OF THEIR NOVELTY AND MULTISENSORY APPEAL. THEY ARE ALSO IDEAL VEHICLES FOR THE DYNAMIC PRESENTATION OF EVERYDAY SITUATIONS WHICH CAN SERVE AS SETTINGS FOR NORMAL SPEECH PATTERNS. THESE FOUR-MINUTE CARTOONS LEND THEMSELVES TO A…

  1. Product Placement in Cartoons

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irena Oroz Štancl

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Product placement is a marketing approach for integrating products or services into selected media content. Studies have shown that the impact of advertising on children and youth are large, and that it can affect their preferences and attitudes. The aim of this article is to determine the existing level of product placement in cartoons that are broadcast on Croatian television stations. Content analysis of cartoons in a period of one month gave the following results: in 30% of cartoons product placement was found; most product placement were visual ads, in 89%, however, auditory product placement and plot connection was also found. Most ads were related to toys and it is significant that even 65% of cartoons are accompanied by a large amount of products available on the Croatian market. This is the result of two sales strategies: brand licensing (selling popular cartoon characters to toys, food or clothing companies and cartoon production based on existing line of toys with the sole aim of making their sales more effective.

  2. Cartooning in Algebra and Calculus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moseley, L. Jeneva

    2014-01-01

    This article discusses how teachers can create cartoons for undergraduate math classes, such as college algebra and basic calculus. The practice of cartooning for teaching can be helpful for communication with students and for students' conceptual understanding.

  3. Pocket Cartoons: Learning Financial Literacy with Mobile Cartoons in Malaysia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khoo, Yin Yin; Malim, Tanjung; Fitzgerald, Robert

    2017-01-01

    This study examines the impact of using cartoons shared through mobile devices to promote awareness and to aid in the development of financial literacy among Economics students in Malaysia. The study also investigates the use of these "mobile cartoons" to develop students' communication skills. The study involved a quasi-experimental…

  4. the influence of cartoons as instructional medium on secondary ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Global Journal

    This study examined the influence of cartoon strips as instructional medium on the academic performance of secondary school students in Cross River State. The instrument used was a structured. Achievement Test in Fine Arts (SATFA). The sample used consisted of 46 Junior Secondary School two students. SATFA was ...

  5. The influence of cartoons as instructional medium on secondary ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study examined the influence of cartoon strips as instructional medium on the academic performance of secondary school students in Cross River State. The instrument used was a structured Achievement Test in Fine Arts (SATFA). The sample used consisted of 46 Junior Secondary School two students. SATFA was ...

  6. Communicating the Value of Cartoon Art across University Classrooms: Experiences from the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGurk, Caitlin

    2016-01-01

    This article is an exploration of the varying applications of comics and cartoon art as primary resources and pedagogical tools within the university setting. Following some background information on cartoon art forms including early American newspaper comics, nineteenth century humor serials, political cartoons and manga, the article explores how…

  7. The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Conflict

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hervik, Peter

    The “Muhammad crisis,” the “Muhammad Cartoon Crisis,” or “The Jyllands-Posten Crisis” are three different headings used for the global, violent reactions that broke out in early 2006. The cartoon crisis was triggered by the publication of 12 cartoons in the largest Danish daily newspaper...... theme in IMER studies, which has consequences for most immigrants of non-Western countries to the Nordic countries....

  8. Cartoon Hypnotherapy: An Innovative Treatment Approach for Childhood Emotional Disturbances.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crowley, Richard J.; Mills, Joyce C.

    Cartoon research includes the areas of experimental designs carried out in school classroom environments to determine the effects of cartoon viewing on children's behavior and the medical utilization of cartoons as part of an overall treatment program. This study differs from previous research by accepting the reality of cartoon viewing and…

  9. Cartoon Violence: Is It as Detrimental to Preschoolers as We Think?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peters, Kristen M.; Blumberg, Fran C.

    2002-01-01

    Critically reviews research on effects of cartoon violence on children's moral understanding and behavior to enable early childhood educators and parents to make informed decisions about what constitutes potentially harmful television viewing. Focuses on preschoolers' limited comprehension of television content and relatively sophisticated moral…

  10. Concept-Cartoons as a Tool to Evoke and Analyze Pupils Judgments in Social Science Education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felix Fenske

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available The following contribution makes an effort to place the concept-cartoon-method into the context of social science education. Concept-cartoons (CCs enable teachers to use the everyday life experiences and individual thoughts of the pupils as a positive enrichment tool within the learning processes. In this context, CCs are very suitable to function as a method to gain information about both the existing mental conceptions and the individual political judgment strategies. Through this, it is possible to put everyday life concepts and scientific knowledge in a constructive relationship, which finally enhances new learning objectives. First the article highlights the relevance of pupils’ and teachers` concepts for judgment processes. On this basis the method of CCs is introduced and evaluated.Der folgende Artikel beschäftigt sich mit den Möglichkeiten des methodischen Einsatzes von Concept-Cartoons im Rahmen sozialwissenschaftlichen Unterrichts. Als Instrumentarium zur Diagnose von Schülervorstellungen und individuellen Urteilsstrategien, bieten Comic-Cartoons den Lehrkräften die Möglichkeit, den Unterricht entlang dieser lernrelevanten Perspektiven zu gestalten. Durch die konstruktive Verknüpfung von Alltagskonzepten und Fachkonzepten können auf diese Weise neue Chancen für nachhaltige Lehr- und Lernprozesse erschlossen werden. Innerhalb dieses Beitrags wird zunächst die Bedeutung von Schülervorstellungen und vorfachlichen Urteilsstrategien für wirksamen sozialwissenschaftlichen Unterricht geklärt. Im Anschluss erfolgt eine Einführung in die Methode „Concept-Cartoons“. Abschließend werden exemplarisch drei von den Autoren gestaltete Cartoons vorgestellt.

  11. Investigating with concept cartoons: practical suggestions for using concept cartoons to start student investigations in elementary school and beyond

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van den Berg, E.; Kruit, Patricia

    2017-01-01

    Concept cartoons can be used to diagnose misconceptions and stimulate discussion of basic concepts and phenomena. However, the teacher can also present a cartoon and then ask students to think of experiments to further investigate the phenomenon shown in the cartoon. Our experience is that students

  12. Cartoons, Cartoonists and Effective Communication in the Nigeria ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Toshiba

    ... higher productivity. Key words: cartoons, communication, print media, caricature ... publish cartoons and comic strips on social, political and economic affairs of the country .... Pulitzer's The World. Outcault had drawn a child cartoon character.

  13. Climate Comics: polar research in a cartoon form

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courville, Z.; Carbaugh, S.; Defrancis, G.; Donegan, R.; Brown, C.; Perovich, D. K.; Richter-Menge, J.

    2013-12-01

    Climate Comics is a collaborative outreach effort between the Montshire Museum of Science, in Norwich, VT, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) research staff, and freelance artist and recent graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, Sam Carbaugh. The project involves the cartoonist, the education staff from the museum, and researchers from CRREL creating a series of comic books with polar science and research themes, including sea ice monitoring, sea ice albedo, ice cores, extreme microbial activity, and stories and the process of fieldwork. The aim of the comic series is to provide meaningful science information in a comic-format that is both informative and fun, while highlighting current polar research work done at the lab. The education staff at the Montshire Museum develops and provides a series of hands-on, inquiry-based activity descriptions to complement each comic book, and CRREL researchers provide science background information and reiterative feedback about the comic books as they are being developed. Here, we present the motivation for using the comic-book medium to present polar research topics, the process involved in creating the comics, some unique features of the series, and the finished comic books themselves. Cartoon illustrating ways snow pack can be used to determine past climate information.

  14. Method for Face-Emotion Retrieval Using A Cartoon Emotional Expression Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kostov, Vlaho; Yanagisawa, Hideyoshi; Johansson, Martin; Fukuda, Shuichi

    A simple method for extracting emotion from a human face, as a form of non-verbal communication, was developed to cope with and optimize mobile communication in a globalized and diversified society. A cartoon face based model was developed and used to evaluate emotional content of real faces. After a pilot survey, basic rules were defined and student subjects were asked to express emotion using the cartoon face. Their face samples were then analyzed using principal component analysis and the Mahalanobis distance method. Feature parameters considered as having relations with emotions were extracted and new cartoon faces (based on these parameters) were generated. The subjects evaluated emotion of these cartoon faces again and we confirmed these parameters were suitable. To confirm how these parameters could be applied to real faces, we asked subjects to express the same emotions which were then captured electronically. Simple image processing techniques were also developed to extract these features from real faces and we then compared them with the cartoon face parameters. It is demonstrated via the cartoon face that we are able to express the emotions from very small amounts of information. As a result, real and cartoon faces correspond to each other. It is also shown that emotion could be extracted from still and dynamic real face images using these cartoon-based features.

  15. Sex Role Stereotyping in Saturday Morning Cartoon Shows.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayes, Sandra L.; Valentine, K. B.

    1979-01-01

    Explores the role children's cartoon programs may play in forming sex role identities in children through the presentation of sex-typed personality attributes of the cartoon characters. Fourteen dependent variables of cartoon character personality were analyzed by sex of the character and sex of the viewer. (JVP)

  16. Propaganda in Warner Brothers World War II Cartoons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Machowski, James Stanley; Brown, James William

    To examine the role of the animated cartoon in propaganda associated with World War II, 194 of 262 cartoons produced for theatrical release by Warner Brothers, Inc., from 1939 to 1946 were analyzed. Propaganda content was determined by the number and nature of symbols used and the cartoon's "attitudes" toward these symbols. An analysis…

  17. Investigating with Concept Cartoons: Practical suggestions for using concept cartoons to start student investigations in elementary school and beyond

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ed van den Berg

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Concept cartoons can be used to diagnose misconceptions and stimulate discussion of basic concepts and phenomena. However, the teacher can also present a cartoon and then ask students to think of experiments to further investigate the phenomenon shown in the cartoon. Our experience is that students from age 9–18 very quickly come with creative ideas and start investigations. That is, of course, only the beginning. The teacher will have to follow the work of the students closely and help them to develop their investigation skills and critical thinking. In the workshop you will experience how to start an investigation with the cartoon and then we will focus on how to use formative assessment to improve the work of students.

  18. Infidelity in married couples as a subject of the leading Turkish cartoon magazines between 1938-2003

    OpenAIRE

    Fişenk, Halime

    2004-01-01

    Cataloged from PDF version of article. This thesis examines the leading Turkish cartoon magazines, outlining how cartoons reflect “infidelity” in content, style and way of representation, in the light of sociology, psychology and graphic design. Fişenk, Halime M.S.

  19. A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoon of Iran Nuclear Program

    OpenAIRE

    SAFALIA, FITRIA

    2014-01-01

    Keywords: Semiotic, political cartoon, sign, icon, symbol, index, connotation In our society, information, ideas, or opinions can be delivered through news. The existence of news is very important in spreading information through the public since many events happen everyday and bring effects to the society. Nowadays, news is not only delivered through the words but also delivered through pictures and cartoons. In this study, the writer uses political cartoon as the object. The political cart...

  20. Looking at Elections through the Cartoonist's Eye. Teaching with Cartoons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heitzman, W. Ray

    2000-01-01

    Provides a taxonomy of subskills needed to interpret political cartoons. Focuses on two of the subskills (caricature and symbolism) in detail. Includes copies of political cartoons that all pertain to the electoral process, guidelines for selecting cartoons for classroom use, and a list of resources. (CMK)

  1. A new collage steganographic algorithm using cartoon design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yi, Shuang; Zhou, Yicong; Pun, Chi-Man; Chen, C. L. Philip

    2014-02-01

    Existing collage steganographic methods suffer from low payload of embedding messages. To improve the payload while providing a high level of security protection to messages, this paper introduces a new collage steganographic algorithm using cartoon design. It embeds messages into the least significant bits (LSBs) of color cartoon objects, applies different permutations to each object, and adds objects to a cartoon cover image to obtain the stego image. Computer simulations and comparisons demonstrate that the proposed algorithm shows significantly higher capacity of embedding messages compared with existing collage steganographic methods.

  2. A Semiotics of Cartoons in Two Nigerian Newspapers: The Punch ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The paper explores the semiotics of cartoons using selected samples from The punch and The Guardian, newspapers based in Nigeria. It seeks to bridge the gap between semiotics and the act of cartooning. It also attempts to show the relationship between the cartoons and the semiotic resources employed. It analyses how ...

  3. Ten Years after the Danish Muhammad Cartoon News Stories: Terror and Radicalization as Predictable Media Events

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hervik, Peter

    2018-01-01

    , radicalization as a “pre-terrorist” phase has become the lens through which the category “Muslims” has been represented in much media coverage. In this article, I argue that the dominant hegemonic understanding in Denmark that is based on a certain spatial–racial logic is not a passive production of knowledge......In the tenth year after Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons, the Muhammad Cartoons, this media event—and the hegemonic understanding behind it—continues to be a discursive reference point for new controversies around national borders and racial boundaries. Then, since late 2010....... It keeps informing news coverage of media events as terror and thereby risking describing the hegemony more than adequately understanding the events at hand....

  4. Using Cartoons to Transfer Knowledge Concerning the Principles of Work Disability Prevention Among Stakeholders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labrecque, Marie-Elise; Coutu, Marie-France; Durand, Marie-José; Fassier, Jean-Baptiste; Loisel, Patrick

    2016-06-01

    Purpose This study assesses how well two cartoons transfer knowledge of principles of work disability prevention among stakeholders, according to their level of experience. We also document stakeholders' perceptions of the usefulness of the cartoons. Method We performed a descriptive study. Two groups of stakeholders were recruited: (1) experienced (working for more than 2 years in work disability), (2) non-experienced (in training). A self-administered questionnaire with open-ended questions documented stakeholders' understanding of each cartoon box and their perception of the possible usefulness of the cartoons. We transformed qualitative responses into quantitative responses for descriptive purposes. We performed independent t tests to compare the groups' level of understanding, and content analysis for the perception of usefulness. Results Overall, 149 stakeholders (50 experienced and 99 non-experienced) participated and identified 79.4 and 61.4 % of all principles presented in each of the two cartoons respectively. Experienced stakeholders identified more principles compared to non-experienced stakeholders (p = 0.007). Both cartoons were perceived to be useful for knowledge transfer. Conclusions Principles were generally well identified in the cartoons by all participants. Cartoons can be used as an effective tool among stakeholders to achieve a common understanding in order to coordinate their actions.

  5. Demonizing in children's television cartoons and Disney animated films.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fouts, Gregory; Callan, Mitchell; Piasentin, Kelly; Lawson, Andrea

    2006-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of demonizing in the two major media that young children use (television and movies). Two content analyses were conducted using the animated feature films (n = 34) of the Walt Disney Company and after-school cartoons (n = 41). Each was coded for the modeling of the use of "evil" words when referring to a person, e.g., monster, devil, demon, wicked. Seventy-four percent of the Disney films contained "evil" references, with an average of 5.6 references per film. Forty-four percent of the after-school cartoons contained "evil" references, with an average of one per cartoon. The results are discussed within the context of children's repeated exposure to popular animated movies and cartoons and their learning to demonize people who engage in perceived "bad" behaviors.

  6. Audiovisual News, Cartoons, and Films as Sources of Authentic Language Input and Language Proficiency Enhancement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bahrani, Taher; Sim, Tam Shu

    2012-01-01

    In today's audiovisually driven world, various audiovisual programs can be incorporated as authentic sources of potential language input for second language acquisition. In line with this view, the present research aimed at discovering the effectiveness of exposure to news, cartoons, and films as three different types of authentic audiovisual…

  7. Drawing cartoon faces--a functional imaging study of the cognitive neuroscience of drawing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miall, R Chris; Gowen, Emma; Tchalenko, John

    2009-03-01

    We report a functional imaging study of drawing cartoon faces. Normal, untrained participants were scanned while viewing simple black and white cartoon line drawings of human faces, retaining them for a short memory interval, and then drawing them without vision of their hand or the paper. Specific encoding and retention of information about the faces were tested for by contrasting these two stages (with display of cartoon faces) against the exploration and retention of random dot stimuli. Drawing was contrasted between conditions in which only memory of a previously viewed face was available versus a condition in which both memory and simultaneous viewing of the cartoon were possible, and versus drawing of a new, previously unseen, face. We show that the encoding of cartoon faces powerfully activates the face-sensitive areas of the lateral occipital cortex and the fusiform gyrus, but there is no significant activation in these areas during the retention interval. Activity in both areas was also high when drawing the displayed cartoons. Drawing from memory activates areas in posterior parietal cortex and frontal areas. This activity is consistent with the encoding and retention of the spatial information about the face to be drawn as a visuo-motor action plan, either representing a series of targets for ocular fixation or as spatial targets for the drawing action.

  8. Psicopatologia nas histórias em quadrinhos e cartoons Psychopathology in newspaper cartoons and comic strips

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomás Moraes Abreu Bonomi

    2010-01-01

    psychopathology are addressed. METHOD: A sample of 1,883 cartoons and comic strips published in a six month period by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and the New York Times was collected from February first to July 31 of 2007. Thousand and twenty-two strips were by Brazilian authors, 293 by American authors published by Folha de São Paulo and 568 by the New York Times. Categories were created to classify them. RESULTS: Among Brazilian authors, 75.3% of the strips deal with health related themes. This category is divided into: physical health (12.9% and mental health (62.4%. On the other hand, the American authors seldom address the theme health. Their preference was to social customs and habits and political issues, specially related to war. When health was presented the issues were mainly related to obesity and the lack of adequate care to the war veterans. DISCUSSION: Comic books and strips show that violence, poverty and especially health are major concerns of the Brazilians comics authors, whereas the American comics and cartoons deal mainly with election politics and the war. The Brazilian stories address the topic of mental health more frequently, yet the portrayed psychopathological signs and symptoms are basically the same as Americans'. Brazilian stories also cover a greater variety of topics related to physical health. The American ones deal mostly with obesity related themes. Through humor, the comics call attention to the problems of our societies. In Brazil especially those of mental health and in United States the Iraq and Afghanistan war.

  9. Children's Cognitive and Affective Responses About a Narrative Versus a Non-Narrative Cartoon Designed for an Active Videogame.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandes Davies, Vanessa; Mafra, Rafaella; Beltran, Alicia; Baranowski, Thomas; Lu, Amy Shirong

    2016-04-01

    This article presents the results of interviews conducted with children regarding their cognitive and affective responses toward a narrative and a non-narrative cartoon. The findings will be used to further explore the role of a narrative in motivating continued active videogame play. Twenty children (8-11 years old of mixed gender) watched two cartoons (narrative and non-narrative) and were subsequently interviewed. A thematic matrix was used to analyze the interviews. The narrative cartoon (n = 11) was only slightly preferred compared with the non-narrative one (n = 9), with little difference among the participants. The theme categories identified during the analyses were plot, characters, and suggestions. The fight scenes were mentioned by the children as a likeable aspect of the narrative cartoon. In the non-narrative cartoon, the vast majority (n = 17) liked the information about physical activity that was provided. The children enjoyed the appearance and personalities of the characters in both cartoons. A discrepancy in the data about the fight scenes (narrative cartoon) and characters (both cartoons) was found among the female participants (i.e., some girls did not like the fight and thought the characters were too aggressive). However, most of the children wanted to see more action in the story, an increase in the number of fight scenes (narrative cartoon), or more information about exercise and examples of exercises they could do (non-narrative cartoon). They also suggested adding a game to the non-narrative cartoon, including more characters, and improving the animation in both cartoons. The children preferred the narrative cartoon because of the story and the fight. Some gender differences were found, which further studies should investigate.

  10. Character drawing style in cartoons on empathy induction: an eye-tracking and EEG study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Yong-Il; Choi, Yeojeong; Jeong, Jaeseung

    2017-01-01

    In its most basic form, empathy refers to the ability to understand another person's feelings and emotions, representing an essential component of human social interaction. Owing to an increase in the use of mass media, which is used to distribute high levels of empathy-inducing content, media plays a key role in individual and social empathy induction. We investigated empathy induction in cartoons using eye movement, EEG and behavioral measures to explore whether empathy factors correlate with character drawing styles. Two different types of empathy-inducing cartoons that consisted of three stages and had the same story plot were used. One had an iconic style, while the other was realistic style. Fifty participants were divided into two groups corresponding to the individual cartoon drawing styles and were presented with only one type of drawing style. We found that there were no significant differences of empathy factors between iconic and realistic style. However, the Induced Empathy Score (IES) had a close relationship with subsequent attentional processing (total fixation length for gaze duration). Furthermore, iconic style suppressed the fronto-central area more than realistic style in the gamma power band. These results suggest that iconic cartoons have the advantage of abstraction during empathy induction, because the iconic cartoons induced the same level of empathy as realistic cartoons while using the same story plot (top-down process), even though lesser time and effort were required by the cartoon artist to draw them. This also means that the top-down process (story plot) is more important than the bottom-up process (drawing style) in empathy induction when viewing cartoons.

  11. RJR Nabisco's cartoon camel promotes camel cigarettes to children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DiFranza, J R; Richards, J W; Paulman, P M; Wolf-Gillespie, N; Fletcher, C; Jaffe, R D; Murray, D

    1991-12-11

    To determine if RJR Nabisco's cartoon-theme advertising is more effective in promoting Camel cigarettes to children or to adults. To determine if children see, remember, and are influenced by cigarette advertising. Use of four standard marketing measures to compare the effects of Camel's Old Joe cartoon advertising on children and adults. High school students, grades 9 through 12, from five regions of the United States, and adults, aged 21 years and over, from Massachusetts. Recognition of Camel's Old Joe cartoon character, product and brand name recall, brand preference, appeal of advertising themes. Children were more likely to report prior exposure to the Old Joe cartoon character (97.7% vs 72.2%; P less than .0001). Children were better able to identify the type of product being advertised (97.5% vs 67.0%; P less than .0001) and the the Camel cigarette brand name (93.6% vs 57.7%; P less than .0001). Children also found the Camel cigarette advertisements more appealing (P less than .0001). Camel's share of the illegal children's cigarette market segment has increased from 0.5% to 32.8%, representing sales estimated at $476 million per year. Old Joe Camel cartoon advertisements are far more successful at marketing Camel cigarettes to children than to adults. This finding is consistent with tobacco industry documents that indicate that a major function of tobacco advertising is to promote and maintain tobacco addiction among children.

  12. Resolution of ambiguities in cartoons as an illustration of the role of pragmatics in natural language understanding by computers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mazlack, L.J.; Paz, N.M.

    1983-01-01

    Newspaper cartoons can graphically display the result of ambiguity in human speech; the result can be unexpected and funny. Likewise, computer analysis of natural language statements also needs to successfully resolve ambiguous situations. Computer techniques already developed use restricted world knowledge in resolving ambiguous language use. This paper illustrates how these techniques can be used in resolving ambiguous situations arising in cartoons. 8 references.

  13. The development of the cartoons crisis - a Danish perspective

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Jørgen Schøler

    2010-01-01

    Gives an account of the Danish cartoons crisis of 2005-6, considers comparisons with the 'Rushdie affair' and points out some underlying questions of religion, law and the public space.......Gives an account of the Danish cartoons crisis of 2005-6, considers comparisons with the 'Rushdie affair' and points out some underlying questions of religion, law and the public space....

  14. The Case of the Danish Cartoons Controversy: The Paradox of Civility

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2014-01-01

    The so-called ‘Danish cartoons controversy’ set in motion by the publication of twelve drawings under the title ‘the face of Mohammed’ by the Danish broadsheet Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 has become one of the iconic controversies surrounding Islam in Europe. But the cartoon controversy...... by interpreting it in terms of the concept of ‘civility’ as a social theoretical concept and analytical category. The introduction of this analytical perspective gives a more complete picture of what was actually at stake in the cartoons controversy. The introduction of the concept of civility makes it possible...... due to the discursive logic of civility claims. This ‘paradox of civility’ is a practical problem facing any attempt by minority groups to raise issues of civility. This discursive phenomenon might have empirical explanatory significance, since the logic of claims of civility might explain some...

  15. "Kontsert porgandipirukale" kandideerib Cartoon d'Or'i auhinnale

    Index Scriptorium Estoniae

    2004-01-01

    Heiki Ernitsa ja Janno Põldma "Kontsert porgandipirukale" valiti Santiago de Compostelas (Hispaania) üleantava animafilmi auhinna Cartoon d'Or viie nominendi hulka. Loetletud ka konkureerivad filmid

  16. The politics of humour in the public sphere: cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humour scandal

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kuipers, G.M.M.

    2011-01-01

    This article analyses the Danish ‘cartoon crisis’ as a transnational ‘humour scandal’. While most studies conceptualize this crisis as a controversy about free speech or international relations, this article addresses the question why the crisis was sparked by cartoons. First, the article discusses

  17. "Porgandipirukas" ei võitnud Cartoon d'Ori

    Index Scriptorium Estoniae

    2004-01-01

    Heiki Ernitsa ja Janno Põldma "Kontsert porgandipirukale" valiti Santiago de Compostelas (Hispaania) üleantava animafilmi auhinna Cartoon d'Or viie nominendi hulka. Auhinna sai siiski Virgil Widrichi lühifilm "Kiire film" ("Fast Film") : Austria - Luksemburg 2003

  18. Quirky quarks. A cartoon guide to the fascinating realm of physics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bahr, Benjamin; Lemmer, Boris; Piccolo, Rina

    2016-07-01

    Do you love quantum physics, cosmology, and the humor behind the popular television show The Big Bang Theory? Have you been on the lookout for a fun, non-technical explanation of the science behind things like time travel, wormholes, antimatter, and dark energy? You'll find all of that, and more, inside this fact-filled, cartoon-packed book. In Quirky Quarks: A Cartoon Guide to the Fascinating Realm of Physics you'll get: The latest science behind the mysteries of our universe explained in common everyday language. A major dose of cartoons, comics, and humor. A good grasp on the often-bizarre nature of reality. Start reading and you'll find that hard science does not have to be hard. Whether you're a teacher, a physicist, or just a lover of the curious, this is the book that delivers the facts in an engaging and entertaining cartoon world inhabited by two dogs, a cat, and some very quirky quarks which you might know from The Particle Zoo. With cutting edge science articles by physicists Boris Lemmer and Benjamin Bahr, and drawings by cartoonist Rina Piccolo, this may be the most fun science reading you're likely to find out there.

  19. Quirky quarks. A cartoon guide to the fascinating realm of physics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bahr, Benjamin; Lemmer, Boris; Piccolo, Rina

    2016-01-01

    Do you love quantum physics, cosmology, and the humor behind the popular television show The Big Bang Theory? Have you been on the lookout for a fun, non-technical explanation of the science behind things like time travel, wormholes, antimatter, and dark energy? You'll find all of that, and more, inside this fact-filled, cartoon-packed book. In Quirky Quarks: A Cartoon Guide to the Fascinating Realm of Physics you'll get: The latest science behind the mysteries of our universe explained in common everyday language. A major dose of cartoons, comics, and humor. A good grasp on the often-bizarre nature of reality. Start reading and you'll find that hard science does not have to be hard. Whether you're a teacher, a physicist, or just a lover of the curious, this is the book that delivers the facts in an engaging and entertaining cartoon world inhabited by two dogs, a cat, and some very quirky quarks which you might know from The Particle Zoo. With cutting edge science articles by physicists Boris Lemmer and Benjamin Bahr, and drawings by cartoonist Rina Piccolo, this may be the most fun science reading you're likely to find out there.

  20. He Draws Cartoons to Promote Social Justice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vahl, Rod

    1992-01-01

    Discusses the work of Bill Day, "Detroit Free Press" editorial cartoonist, who uses his cartoons to convey a political message. Recounts that Day began his career in college with the University of Florida newspaper during the Viet Nam War era. (PA)

  1. POLITENESS PRINCIPLE ANALYSIS IN CARTOON MOVIE ENTITLED STAND BY ME DORAEMON

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eko Mulyono

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This article examines the use of politeness principle in cartoon movie entitled “Stand By Me Doraemon”. It aims at giving a description on the use of politeness principle in this movie so that this is the source of data as well. The data are collected by note taking technique and then analyzed descriptively. After analyzing the data, the researcher finds the use of politeness principle in the movie script. They are utterances of the use of politeness principle covering the kinds of maxim in politeness principle. The utterances covey the use of tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim. Then, it focused also in politeness scale such as formality scale, hesitancy scale, and equality scale. The finding result showed that there are 25 politeness principle found in cartoon movie “Stand By Me Doraemon”. 1 tact maxim, 3 generosity maxim, 6 approbation maxim, 1 modesty maxim, 2 agreement maxim, 3 sympathy maxim, 2 formality scale, 4 hesitancy scale, and 3 equality scale. Approbation maxim is the maxim of the most numerous in the movie. This is because the characters in this film seek to avoid conflict and create an environment that is comfortable in communication.   Key words: politeness principle, cartoon movie, utterance, maxim, scale.

  2. A Cartoon-Based Measure of PTSD Symptomatology in Children Exposed to a Disaster

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elklit, Ask; Nielsen, Louise Hjort; Lasgaard, Mathias; Duch, Christina

    2013-01-01

    Research on childhood posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is sparse. This is partly due to the limited availability of empirically validated measures for children who are insecure readers. The present study examined the reliability and validity of a cartoon-based measure of PTSD symptoms in children exposed to a disaster. Cartoons were generated…

  3. Spanish Darwinian iconography: Darwin and evolutionism portrayed in Spanish press cartoons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domínguez, Martí; Mateu, Anna

    2013-11-01

    The theory of evolution has played a major role in the press since it was put forward by Charles Darwin in 1859. Its key role in biology and human philosophy is reflected by its presence in press cartoons, sections where the image of social reality is depicted in a more direct and satirical light. Through cartoons, artists have used their ingenuity or wit to portray one of the most controversial scientific figures of the past two centuries. This study examines the views portrayed by Spanish cartoonists about Charles Darwin and evolutionary theory in 2009, the bicentenary of the naturalist's birth and the celebration of 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. These cartoons show how the controversy between Darwinism and religion remain latent in the heart of Spanish society, and how the figure of Darwin has become one of the main icons of science.

  4. The Language of Political Cartoons in Nigeria | Ekpenyong | Lwati: A ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    We found out a preponderance of political terms and phraseologies in both standard and non-standard varieties of English in Nigeria as well as special neologistic coinages used in creating political awareness as well as castigating erring political actors. The study concludes that the language of political cartoons in Nigeria ...

  5. French Higher Education: A Cartoon Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Matthew Henry

    2012-01-01

    In this cartoon essay, the author shares his experience from a travel to Paris to see the French higher education system. From his travel, he learned that in France, "degree" inflation may be an issue, but not grade inflation. On the flight home, the author reflects how French and American academics answer one question about the state of…

  6. The Earth Education by the traces of cartoons and comics: a vision of what was published in newspapers, available online, on five continents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teixeira, Carlos; Paulo, Gallo; Nogueira, Maria Inês

    2015-04-01

    Communication's Purpose: Identify the artistic expression that uses the language of cartoons and comics for public communication, having as reference the Earth Education for a better planet sustainability. Object/Theme: Cartoons and comics published in newspapers, on five continents, made available in online version. Theoretical: This study is related to the assumption that the public communication of science by cartoons and comics constitute a textual genre, by the fact that they report scientific and complex themes presented in playful language, using humor and artistic traces accessible to the lay public. The scientific cartoons and comics aim to call public attention to scientific discoveries and science themes using illustrative chart features and short texts, both contextualized in a humorous structure. There are in the cartoons and comics, which are created to the public communication of science, an unintentionally pedagogical approach/formal, while transmitting information by unpretentious way and using graphic/artistic communication By the fact that in this specific format of communication there is knowledge being informed, the scientific cartoons and comics can contribute to the scientific empowerment of the society, in addition to being instruments that can also arouse scientific curiosity. The scientific cartoons and comics use objective language and short sentences, also employ words that may have a double meaning. It can be considered as an incentive for people's reflection. Method: It was analyzed cartoons and comics published in newspapers, made available in online version, published on five continents, in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Palavras-chave: science communication, public communication of science and technology; cartoons; comics

  7. The Effects of Concept Cartoons on Eliminating Students’ Misconceptions: Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lale Cerrah Ozsevgeç

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the study is to examine the effects of concept cartoons on eliminating students’ misconceptions about the global warming and greenhouse effect. The sample of the study is consisted of 17 students from the 7 grade of Rize Çay Primary School. Simple experimental study design was used in the study. Test and semi-structured interview were used to collect the data. The results of the study showed that the students had misconceptions about global warming and greenhouse effect. The teaching process comprising concept cartoons treated most of these misconceptions. Students indicated that the teaching process was enjoyable and it eased the students’ remembering of the given knowledge. Based on the results, it was suggested that the teachers should be informed about the usage of concept cartoon in the classroom and combination of different teaching methods which is supported by concept cartoon may be more useful for different science subjects.

  8. [Caricatures of aging in German newspapers and magazine cartoons. Historical comparison between the 1960s and the present].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polanski, F

    2014-06-01

    The focus of this study was the collective images of aging that were unconsciously used despite rationally led social discourse on aging. Hypothesized was that despite changes in aging over the last 50 years these images went unaltered and thereby negative stereotypes of previous generations were maintained. In an effort to verify this hypothesis images of aging in cartoons were empirically examined, a first in the field of German language. Using a social scientific operationalization of age stereotypes and culturally historical topoi as a basis, a content analysis was conducted on 2,546 cartoons (with 8,882 characters) from the years 1960-1964 and 2007. In general both young and old age are equally encoded with negative connotations by deficient characteristics and acknowledged stereotypes partially significantly more often in the cartoons from 2007 than from 1960-1964. The last 50 years have seen no substantial changes in the images of aging as depicted by magazine and newspaper cartoons. Humor requires more frequent analysis as it often unconsciously reveals socially unacceptable images of aging, even those embedded in science.

  9. Humor appreciation of captionless cartoons in obsessive-compulsive disorder

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background It seems that the core neural regions and cognitive processes implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) pathophysiology may overlap with those involved in humor appreciation. However, to date, there have been no studies that have explored humor appreciation in OCD. The purpose of the present work was to investigate humor appreciation in a group of patients with OCD. Methods We examined 25 patients with OCD and 25 healthy controls, matched by age, education, and gender. We administered Penn's Humor Appreciation Test (PHAT), a computerized test comprising captionless cartoons by Mordillo. Each set of stimuli consisted of two almost identical drawings, one of which was funny due to the alteration of a detail in the cartoon, whereas the other was not funny. Severity of psychopathology was evaluated with the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS). Results No significant effect for group, gender or group × gender interaction was found on the PHAT scores. In OCD patients, humor appreciation was not significantly associated with age of onset, duration of illness, and obsessions, but correlated significantly with compulsions. Conclusions Humor appreciation, based on captionless cartoons in OCD, does not seem to be deficient compared to healthy subjects but may be related to illness characteristics. PMID:22103926

  10. Pairing Animal Cartoon Characters With Produce Stimulates Selection Among Child Zoo Visitors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karpyn, Allison; Allen, Michael; Marks, Samantha; Filion, Nicole; Humphrey, Debora; Ye, Ai; May, Henry; Gardner, Meryl P

    2017-08-01

    In order to address the pervasive trend of underconsumption of fruits and vegetables among children, we examined the hypothesis that children would be more likely to select fruits (apple slices, bananas, and oranges) and vegetables (baby carrots) when paired with animal cartoon image than when available without the character image. Tested in a randomized experiment using counterbalancing, products were arranged on two tables at two separate family fun nights held at a local zoo. Animal character produce parings were manipulated by placing one of two animals (tamarin or iguana) next to two of the four fruit or vegetable selections at each table, and by changing when available without the image. In total, 755 produce selections were made. Significantly more products paired with a character were selected (62.38%) than the same products, not paired (37.62%), χ 2 = 46.32, df = 1, p < .001. The odds ratio of the treatment versus control was 1.66 (i.e., 471/284), indicating that children were 66% more likely to select a snack when paired with an animal cartoon. Study findings highlight the positive impact of animal cartoons on children's fruit and vegetable snack selections, and results suggest the potential for using animal cartoons to encourage fruit and vegetable selection for children.

  11. "A campaign won as a public issue will stay won": using cartoons and comics to fight national health care reform, 1940s and beyond.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knoblauch, Heidi Katherine

    2014-02-01

    On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. As it went through Congress, the legislation faced forceful resistance. Individuals and organizations opposing the ACA circulated propaganda that varied from photographs of fresh graves or coffins with the caption "Result of ObamaCare" to portrayals of President Obama as the Joker from the Batman movies, captioned with the single word "socialism." The arguments embedded in these images have striking parallels to cartoons circulated by physicians to their patients in earlier fights against national health care. Examining cartoons used in the formative health care reform debates of the 1940s provides a means for tracing the lineage of emotional arguments employed against health care reform.

  12. "Almost at War". The Mohammed Cartoon Crisis in Norwegian Media

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Solveig Steien

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available In January and February 2006, Norwegians witnessed the burning of their national flag in Palestine, the burning of Norwegian embassies and consulates in Syria, Lebanon and Iran; all simply because twelve Danish Mohammed cartoons from Jyllands-Posten had been reprinted in Norway; the cartoons were published in a marginal Christian conservative weekly newspaper, Magazinet, three months after their original appearance in Denmark. In February 2006 the Norwegian ISAF-forces in Afghanistan were attacked. This conflict had a surprising impact on domestic and foreign policy, and the Norwegian publication of the cartoons triggered a global escalation of the controversy; Norwegian newspapers wrote that the country was "almost at war". I have focused on how some leading Norwegian newspapers (Aften, Aftenposten, Dagbladet, Dagens Næringsliv, Dagsavisen and VG covered this unexpected crisis and studied the different discourses that became a substantial part of the media coverage. In my analysis I have used an overall approach of War versus Peace journalism. War and Peace journalism was not created as a concept for analysing media texts or photographs, but to provide practical tools for journalists in the field of conflict and war situations. Nevertheless, this approach gives an opportunity to examine the results of journalistic work and compare them with the press'es ideals and ethical codes. At the same time, the occurrence of discourses like "clash of civilisations", freedom of speech, "us" versus "them", i.e., "us" versus the Muslims, and the newspapers' choice of sources for their stories, seem to fit with a model of War and Peace journalism. The focus is on opinion materials like editorials and comments, as well as on domestic reports and reportage by correspondents. By analysing samples of articles I have tried to outline some areas where the concept of Peace versus War journalism still needs to be developed, in order to become a comprehensive or more

  13. Autonomy, Respect, and Arrogance in the Danish Cartoon Controversy

    OpenAIRE

    Rostbøll, Christian F.

    2009-01-01

    Udgivelsesdato: 2009 Autonomy is increasingly rejected as a fundamental principle by liberal political theorists, because it is regarded as incompatible with respect for diversity. This article seeks, via an analysis of the Danish cartoon controversy, to show that the relationship between autonomy and diversity is more complex than often posited. Particularly, it asks whether the autonomy defense of freedom of expression encourages disrespect for religious feelings. Autonomy leads to disre...

  14. Normative significance of transnationalism? The case of the Danish cartoons controversy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sune Lægaard

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper concerns the specific transnational aspects of the ‘cartoons controversy’ over the publication of 12 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Transnationalism denotes the relationships that are not international (between states or domestic (between states and citizens, or between groups or individuals within a state. The paper considers whether the specifically transnational aspects of the controversy are normatively significant, that is, whether transnationalism makes a difference for the applicability or strength of normative considerations concerning publications such as the Danish cartoons. It is argued that, although some of the usual arguments about free speech only or mainly apply domestically, many also apply transnationally; that standard arguments for multicultural recognition are difficult to apply transnationally; and that requirements of respect may have problematic implications if applied to transnational relationships.

  15. The Muhammad cartoon controversy and the globalization of humor

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kuipers, G.

    2008-01-01

    At the 2006 conference of the International Society for Humor Studies (Danish University of Education, Copenhagen), several panels addressed issues raised by the Muhammad cartoon story. Among these, a colloquium organized by Paul Lewis and decorously titled "Transnational Ridicule and Response"

  16. “A Campaign Won as a Public Issue Will Stay Won”: Using Cartoons and Comics to Fight National Health Care Reform, 1940s and Beyond

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knoblauch, Heidi Katherine

    2014-01-01

    On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. As it went through Congress, the legislation faced forceful resistance. Individuals and organizations opposing the ACA circulated propaganda that varied from photographs of fresh graves or coffins with the caption “Result of ObamaCare” to portrayals of President Obama as the Joker from the Batman movies, captioned with the single word “socialism.” The arguments embedded in these images have striking parallels to cartoons circulated by physicians to their patients in earlier fights against national health care. Examining cartoons used in the formative health care reform debates of the 1940s provides a means for tracing the lineage of emotional arguments employed against health care reform. PMID:24328659

  17. Inventing Citizens During World War I: Suffrage Cartoons in "The Woman Citizen."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramsey, E. Michele

    2000-01-01

    Contributes to scholarship advancing the understanding of human communication by examining the rhetorical invention strategies of suffrage rhetoric in the cultural context of World War I. Shows how the political cartoons published in the mainstream Suffrage Movement's "The Woman Citizen" constructed women as strong, competent, and…

  18. Stroke education using an animated cartoon and a manga for junior high school students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shigehatake, Yuya; Yokota, Chiaki; Amano, Tatsuo; Tomii, Yasuhiro; Inoue, Yasuteru; Hagihara, Takaaki; Toyoda, Kazunori; Minematsu, Kazuo

    2014-07-01

    We investigated whether junior high school students could be educated regarding stroke with an animated cartoon and a Manga that we produced for the purpose of dissemination of this knowledge. We produced a 10-minute animated cartoon and a Manga that provided information regarding stroke risk factors, stroke signs and symptoms, and awareness to immediately contact emergent medical service (EMS) on identification of stroke signs and symptoms. From December 2011 to March 2012, 493 students in 15 classes of the first grade (age 12-13 years) of 3 junior high schools were enrolled in the study. Each subject watched the animated cartoon and read the Manga; this was referred to as "training." Lessons about stroke were not given. Questionnaires on stroke knowledge were evaluated at baseline, immediately after the training, and 3 months after the training. The proportion of correct answers given immediately after the training was higher for all questions, except those related to arrhythmia, compared with baseline. Percentage of correct answers given at 3 months was higher than that at baseline in questions related to facial palsy (75% versus 33%), speech disturbance (91% versus 60%), hemiplegia (79% versus 52%), numbness of 1 side (58% versus 51%), calling for EMS (90% versus 85%), alcohol intake (96% versus 72%), and smoking (69% versus 54%). At 3 months after the training, 56% of students answered the FAST (facial droop, arm weakness, speech disturbance, time to call for EMS) mnemonic correctly. Stroke education using these teaching aids of the animated cartoon and the Manga improved stroke knowledge in junior high school students. Copyright © 2014 National Stroke Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. The Role of Language and Gender in "The Transformers": An Analysis of Messages in Cartoons for Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aitken, Joan E.

    New technologically-oriented cartoons have been developed in the 1980s, and they may influence the attitudes and behaviors of their viewing audiences, who are comprised primarily of male children. A study analyzed "The Transformers" television program (a new robotic cartoon consisting of a mixture of violence, technology, space travel,…

  20. Impact of Educational Cartoon on Pediatric Bowel Preparation Quality at Time of Colonoscopy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elizabeth Maxwell MD

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To evaluate if addition of educational cartoon to pediatric bowel preparation instructions improves the quality of bowel preparation and patient experience. Methods: Patients were randomized to control group receiving standard bowel preparation instructions or intervention group receiving additional educational cartoon. To objectively rate bowel preparation, a blinded endoscopist completed numeric Ottawa score (0-14, with 0 being best. The family also completed a questionnaire rating the bowel preparation process. Results: Data from 23 patients were analyzed. Mean Ottawa score in the intervention group compared with controls was not significantly different (mean scores 3.73 and 3.33, respectively; P = .384. Level of education was significantly correlated with better Ottawa score in the overall population (ρ = −.462, P = .026 and within the control group (ρ = −.658, P = .02. Both groups of patients reported positive experience with bowel preparation. Conclusion: There may be benefit to further investigation of this educational cartoon in parents with less than college level education or non-English-speaking families in larger population of patients.

  1. THE EFFECT OF CARTOONS BROADCASTED ON TELEVISION TO THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

    OpenAIRE

    Ozcan Demir; Ahmet Atan; Yucel Gelisli

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this study was to analysis the effects of cartoons telecasted on Turkish televisions on the socialization process of elementary education students. The data were collected by the “The Behavior Scale on the Evaluation of the Effects of Animated Cartoons Telecasted on Turkish Televisions to Primary Education Students’ Socialization Process”. Participants were in 18 schools, randomly selected from the elementary schools in 9 central counties in Ankara. The characteristics of the varia...

  2. [Violence and sexism in television cartoons for children. Analysis of the contents].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prieto Rodríguez, M A; March Cerdá, J C; Argente del Castillo, A

    1996-04-15

    To detect features of violence and sexism in cartoons in the children's programmes of Spanish television companies. Analysis of the content of cartoons broadcast by TV-1, TV-2, Canal Sur, Antena 3 and Tele 5 during one week. The programmes recorded were viewed by two independent observers, first separately and then together. All those scenes with violent contents or sexist messages were noted. The main findings were: a) violent contents were very common; b) roles and jobs linked to gender were found; c) advertising accompanied and was inserted within children's programming. The points identified show the need for both school and family to encourage children to develop a critical attitude to the messages they receive.

  3. The Effect of Concept Cartoon-Embedded Worksheets on Grade 9 Students' Conceptual Understanding of Newton's Laws of Motion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atasoy, Sengül; Ergin, Serap

    2017-01-01

    Background: A substantial review study of concept cartoons reports that few studies have indicated their functions. For this reason, the present study illuminates the extent to which concept cartoon-embedded worksheets (through constructivist context) accomplish these functions in conceptual learning. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to…

  4. Effect of Cartoon Illustrations on the Comprehension and Evaluation of Information Presented in the Print and Audio Mode.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sewell, Edward H., Jr.

    This study investigates the effects of cartoon illustrations on female and male college student comprehension and evaluation of information presented in several combinations of print, audio, and visual formats. Subjects were assigned to one of five treatment groups: printed text, printed text with cartoons, audiovisual presentations, audio only…

  5. Deictic Reference as a Means for Constructing the Character Image in a Dubbed Cartoon Snow Postman: Comparative Analysis of the Lithuanian, Russian and English Versions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Danguolė Satkauskaitė

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The article aims at examining how the main character Snowman’s image is constructed by applying an abundant number of deictic expressions in the Lithuanian, Russian and English versions of the cartoon Snow Postman. The research was based on M. Consten’s conception of direct and indirect reference and the model of visual-verbal cohesion proposed by N. Baumgarten. The study has revealed that in both, Russian and Lithuanian versions of the cartoon, the main character’s dialogues are loaded with deictic expressions which mark the same referents. In this way, the main character is shaped as a dull, forgetful being, unable to store and process a huge amount of information in his head. In the English version, deictic instances are sparsely used, thus the character image is quite different here: the snowman is less absent-minded and fuzzy.

  6. Edge-based compression of cartoon-like images with homogeneous diffusion

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mainberger, Markus; Bruhn, Andrés; Weickert, Joachim

    2011-01-01

    Edges provide semantically important image features. In this paper a lossy compression method for cartoon-like images is presented, which is based on edge information. Edges together with some adjacent grey/colour values are extracted and encoded using a classical edge detector, binary compressio...

  7. An educational cartoon accelerates amblyopia therapy and improves compliance, especially among children of immigrants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tjiam, Angela M; Holtslag, Gerdien; Vukovic, Elizabet; Asjes-Tydeman, Wijnanda L; Loudon, Sjoukje E; Borsboom, Gerard J J M; de Koning, Harry J; Simonsz, Huibert J

    2012-11-01

    .1% versus 30.1% (P=0.038) had completed occlusion therapy after 15 months. After implementation of the cartoon, electronically measured compliance improved, attendance improved, acuity increased more rapidly, and treatment was shorter. This may be due, in part, to additional measures such as the course on compliance. However, that these advantages were especially pronounced in children in low SES areas with a large proportion of immigrants who spoke Dutch poorly supports its use in such areas. Copyright © 2012 American Academy of Ophthalmology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. CARTOON USE FOR TEACHING TURKISH TO FOREIGNERS - YABANCILARA TÜRKÇE ÖĞRETİMİNDE ÇİZGİ FİLM KULLANIMI

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Necmi AYTAN

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the research is to determine how the use of cartoons in a functional direction impacts on students’ achievement in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. One group post-test model is designed to be used in qualitative research. The sample group of the research consists of 15 participants who study Turkish at A1-elementary level as a foreign language at TOMER in Antalya International University. In the study for the purpose of collecting data question paper which contains the questions about the cartoon named ‘Oscar in the Desserts’ was used. Participants have watched short animated film called ‘Oscar in the Desserts’ twice. From watched visual to the screen photos which are belong to place questions asked were transferred to Power Point. Participants saw photos related to each sentence with a reminder function in the Power Point screen. In the result of this study ıt has been shown that the Turkish language teaching to the foreigners right visual materials such as cartoons are found useful when used functional in accordance with the age and level. In teaching Turkish as a foreign language courses; cartoons and other visuals have been found to provide a better understanding of the class they help to have an enjoyable lesson.

  9. Demonizing in Children's Television Cartoons and Disney Animated Films

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fouts, Gregory; Callan, Mitchell; Piasentin, Kelly; Lawson, Andrea

    2006-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of demonizing in the two major media that young children use (television and movies). Two content analyses were conducted using the animated feature films (n = 34) of the Walt Disney Company and after-school cartoons (n = 41). Each was coded for the modeling of the use of "evil" words when…

  10. Political Cartoons in the EFL and American Studies Classroom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christianna Stavroudis

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Political cartoons are anything but innocent caricatures. They have been described as “a confrontational art form” (Oliphant 25, as “purposefully designed to elicit strong emotions and reactions from readers” (Long, Bunch, and Lloyd 651, and as “among the more extreme forms of expression” (Long, Bunch, and Lloyd 651. Stories abound with the harsh punishments endured by political cartoonists under oppressive regimes. One might even say that what allows liberal and conservative American cartoonists to feel any sense of solidarity with one another is their bond through the First Amendment and their belief in the democratic enterprise that is criticizing government.

  11. "Summer Schedule" and "The Fishin' Season": Cartoons by Clifford Berryman

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blackerby, Christine

    2008-01-01

    For 53 years, Clifford K. Berryman was a political cartoonist for "The Washington Post" and "The Washington Evening Star". He drew thousands of cartoons commenting on the congressional and presidential candidates, campaigns, issues, and elections of the first half of the twentieth century. Berryman was a Washington institution, and his decades of…

  12. Crossing the “Uncanny Valley”: adaptation to cartoon faces can influence perception of human faces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Haiwen; Russell, Richard; Nakayama, Ken; Livingstone, Margaret

    2013-01-01

    Adaptation can shift what individuals identify to be a prototypical or attractive face. Past work suggests that low-level shape adaptation can affect high-level face processing but is position dependent. Adaptation to distorted images of faces can also affect face processing but only within sub-categories of faces, such as gender, age, and race/ethnicity. This study assesses whether there is a representation of face that is specific to faces (as opposed to all shapes) but general to all kinds of faces (as opposed to subcategories) by testing whether adaptation to one type of face can affect perception of another. Participants were shown cartoon videos containing faces with abnormally large eyes. Using animated videos allowed us to simulate naturalistic exposure and avoid positional shape adaptation. Results suggest that adaptation to cartoon faces with large eyes shifts preferences for human faces toward larger eyes, supporting the existence of general face representations. PMID:20465173

  13. An Inquiry-Based Course Using "Physics?" in Cartoons and Movies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogers, Michael

    2007-01-01

    Books, cartoons, movies, and video games provide engaging opportunities to get both science and nonscience students excited about physics. An easy way to use these media in one's classroom is to have students view clips and identify unusual events, odd physics, or list things that violate our understanding of the physics that governs our universe.…

  14. The Satisfaction of Pretended Insight: The Iranian Crisis in Selected U.S. Editorial Cartoons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeSousa, Michael A.

    An examination of a year's worth of editorial cartoons portraying the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran indicates a surprising lack of coverage or treatment of the deposed Shah and his subsequent admission into the United States as factors precipitating the crisis. Throughout the crisis, cartoonists focused on providing readers with some insight into…

  15. Children’s identification processes with television characters: case studies about colombian children and their favorite cartoon programs.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luis Fernando Cuervo

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Through the articulation of psychoanalysis and narrative analysis this study explores the processes of identification of children audiences with their favorite cartoon television programs. In order to understand the characteristics of identification processes, this study explores the way in which both the structure of cartoons and the affective histories of children influence children’s identification with their favorite television characters. To achieve that understanding we a analyzed the narrative elements of the television programs, b explored the children’s affective history, and c examined how these narrative elements and affective histories influence the appropriation of television programs. These three scenarios were examined through case study on four Colombian children between 6 to 10 years old. The analysis showed that affective factors of children’s personal history constitute a significant source of mediation on the appropriation of cartoons. In addition, the narrative elements of the programs become an essential motivation on children’s fantasies.

  16. The influence of cartoons on attitudes to science and to being a scientist - doi: 10.4025/actascilangcult.v35i2.17551

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paula Cavalcante Monteiro

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Television is a powerful vehicle of mass communication and several cartoons, specifically made for children and adolescents, have ‘scientific’ themes. Preteens and teens devote many hours in front of TV, attracted by cartoons, some of which portray, in a caricature manner, scientists at work. Current paper investigates the effect the concepts of science transmitted by the cartoon ‘Jimmy Neutron’ have on adolescents. A group of 31 adolescents of the 9th grade of the junior school were invited to watch three episodes of the ‘Jimmy Neutron’ cartoon. After the sessions, they answered a questionnaire and were interviewed on their perceptions of Science and scientists. Their answers were analyzed by Discourse Textual Analysis. Results show that they most have misconceptions on Science and on scientists and they presume that scientists have a very solitary and uninterested life solely dedicated in investing new devises.

  17. Cartoon computation: quantum-like computing without quantum mechanics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aerts, Diederik; Czachor, Marek

    2007-01-01

    We present a computational framework based on geometric structures. No quantum mechanics is involved, and yet the algorithms perform tasks analogous to quantum computation. Tensor products and entangled states are not needed-they are replaced by sets of basic shapes. To test the formalism we solve in geometric terms the Deutsch-Jozsa problem, historically the first example that demonstrated the potential power of quantum computation. Each step of the algorithm has a clear geometric interpretation and allows for a cartoon representation. (fast track communication)

  18. The translation of idioms in children’s cartoons: A comparative analysis of English dialogues and Lithuanian subtitles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ligita Judickaitė-Pašvenskienė

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available The article is focused on the translation of English idioms in the Lithuanian subtitles of children’s cartoons. The aims of the article are to find out whether the element of meaning or the composition of meaning and form gets preference in the Lithuanian translation; to present the perception and use of the term idiom in English and Lithuanian; and to show the processes which take place during the translation of English idioms containing proper nouns. The article is a case study and refers to the analysis of five children’s cartoons.

  19. Analysis of Violence in Cartoons Broadcasted on Kids TV Channels in Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Özgür ÖZEN

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Violence is probably the most discussed effect of television. 61% of the children programs contain violence. The amount of violence in the cartoons is higher. There is a relation between the violence on television and children’s violent behavior. Previous studies show that, children learn and attempt the positive and negative behaviors they see on TV. Children look at the television from the perspective of a researcher and try to make sense of what they watch. Their interest is generally in characters, rapid change of scenes and violence. The frequent use of violent elements in cartoons, which are broadcasted on Kids TV channels in Turkey, brings serious risks to the children of our country. Children who are affected by violence in the media are afraid and worried that they may also be victims of violence. For such children, the following tendencies increase: frequency of crying, aggression tendency, sleeping disorders, decrease in self-esteem, attention focusing problems and depression

  20. Quirky quarks a cartoon guide to the fascinating realm of physics

    CERN Document Server

    Bahr, Benjamin; Piccolo, Rina

    2016-01-01

    Do you love quantum physics, cosmology, and the humor behind the popular television show The Big Bang Theory? Have you been on the lookout for a fun, non-technical explanation of the science behind things like time travel, wormholes, antimatter, and dark energy? You’ll find all of that, and more, inside this fact-filled, cartoon-packed book.

  1. Does Cartoon Violence Beget Aggressive Behavior in Real Life? An Opposing View

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blumberg, Fran C.; Bierwirth, Kristen P.; Schwartz, Allison J.

    2008-01-01

    A commonly accepted belief is that the violence depicted in television programs, particularly cartoons, has a negative impact on young children's behavior. However, young children may be less inclined to emulate violent actions seen on television than currently thought. Research indicates that young children have limited comprehension of…

  2. Dumb Dorky Girls and Wimpy Boys: Gendered Themes in Diary Cartoon Novels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taber, Nancy; Woloshyn, Vera

    2011-01-01

    In this paper, we focus on gendered themes promulgated in three books written in diary cartoon form. Although written for different audiences, each of these books constructs gender norms in similar ways. They promote heteronormative gender roles for boys and girls by endorsing traditional femininities and hegemonic masculinities through the…

  3. The Use and Abuse of "Universal Values" in the Danish Cartoon Controversy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rostbøll, Christian Fogh

    's embodiment of these values from the more abstract ideas. To avoid self-contradiction, liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable aspects of democracy but rather as subject to recursive democratic justification and revision by everyone subject to them. Newcomers should......During the Danish cartoon controversy in 2005-2006 appeals to universal liberal values were often made in ways that marginalized Muslims. An analysis of the controversy shows that referring to "universal values" can be exclusionary when dominant actors fail to distinguish their own culture...

  4. PROTAGONISM OF AMERICAN INDIANS IN WALTER LANTZ'S CARTOONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rafael Duarte Oliveira Venancio

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Condemned to a dubious media representation in early cinema through the novels of the late nineteenth century, the North American Indians never had a high profile in films of this period. However, an animator, Walter Lantz, has a high degree of characterization of Native Americans in his work. The aim of this paper is to study the role of Native Americans in these cartoons and analyze the social implications of these choices, using the concepts of apparatus and formula. Furthermore, the analysis will include a portrayal of the American media scene before and after Lantz, seeking disruptions and legacies.

  5. Celestial-themed Cartoons Captivate Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cappelli, V.; di Benedetto, C.

    2010-12-01

    Attivamente: Big discoveries with Galileo and Phineas & Ferb, an educational entertainment project for children, was a collaboration between Disney Television Italy and the Education and Public Outreach office of the INAF Astronomical Observatory of Padua, Italy. The project started during the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and came to an end in June 2010. It consisted of a cartoon series, several articles in a Disney magazine and an educational kit focused on Galileo Galilei and the Moon. The kit, called the First Astronomical Kit, was distributed to 30 000 children in Italy, and included a board game about the Moon, an observation diary and a lunar fact card. The aim of the kit was to give children some basic astronomical knowledge and to demonstrate the essential role that observation plays in understanding the heavens. This article discusses how a research institute and a major entertainment company -- each with very different working practices -- were able to work together to form a successful partnership.

  6. Autonomy, Respect, and Arrogance in the Danish Cartoon Controversy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rostbøll, Christian F.

    2009-01-01

    is understood as something we should presume everyone possesses, it provides a strong basis for equal respect among people from diverse cultures. A Kantian conception of autonomy can justify the right to freedom of expression while it at the same time requires that we in the exercise of freedom of expression......Autonomy is increasingly rejected as a fundamental principle by liberal political theorists, because it is regarded as incompatible with respect for diversity. This article seeks, via an analysis of the Danish cartoon controversy, to show that the relationship between autonomy and diversity is more...... complex than often posited. Particularly, it asks whether the autonomy defense of freedom of expression encourages disrespect for religious feelings. Autonomy leads to disrespect for diversity only when it is understood as a character ideal that must be promoted as an end in itself. If it by contrast...

  7. Women's Rights international cartoon contest and exhibition-to support women and the rise a global voice against oppression, violence and injustice of women. 2016

    OpenAIRE

    Mumberson, Stephen

    2016-01-01

    Contest had 567 cartoonists from 79 countries who submitted 1625 cartoons .Show organized by tOOns MaG -worlds first on line cartoon magazine.The work of the winners and other cartoonists to be shown in Norway and two venues in India.All work on the theme of Women's rights.

  8. The Legal Position of Migrants in Denmark: Assessing the Context around the "Cartoon Crisis"

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Adamo, Silvia

    2007-01-01

    Abstract What can we infer from the legal status of migrants living in Denmark? This article argues that understanding recent developments in Danish immigration law is essential for comprehending contemporary political tensions in this policy area, including notably the cartoon incident. The anal......Abstract What can we infer from the legal status of migrants living in Denmark? This article argues that understanding recent developments in Danish immigration law is essential for comprehending contemporary political tensions in this policy area, including notably the cartoon incident....... The analysis offered focuses on general principles and practical notions of Danish immigration and refugee law, integration policies and regulations in light of international legal obligations, rules on family reunification, and the growing importance of citizenship status and anti-terrorism measures. Keywords...... Rights of migrants - Immigration Law - Citizenship Law - Integration policies - Denmark...

  9. The political cartoon in the libertarian journal A Plebe (1947-1949

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zélia Lopes Silva

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses the meanings of imagistic representations (drawings, cartoons published in A Plebe (The Plebs, from May 1947 to May 1949, the last period of the Edgard Leuenroth’s headship. Created in 1917, the newspaper, supported by libertarian principles, set up as a public sphere suited for the proletarian world because of discussing the problems that workers were facing in their daily lives. The paper printed whipping criticisms against the country's elites and fought, without respite, the capitalist system – qualified as parasitic, violent and expropriator –, supported by mystifying and equally violent enactments from its religious arm, expressed in the actions of the Catholic Church and whose struggle against was also systematic.

  10. Bare quantifier fronting as contrastive topicalization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ion Giurgea

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available I argue that indefinites (in particular bare quantifiers such as ‘something’, ‘somebody’, etc. which are neither existentially presupposed nor in the restriction of a quantifier over situations, can undergo topicalization in a number of Romance languages (Catalan, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, but only if the sentence contains “verum” focus, i.e. focus on a high degree of certainty of the sentence. I analyze these indefinites as contrastive topics, using Büring’s (1999 theory (where the term ‘S-topic’ is used for what I call ‘contrastive topic’. I propose that the topic is evaluated in relation to a scalar set including generalized quantifiers such as {lP $x P(x, lP MANYx P(x, lP MOSTx P(x, lP “xP(x} or {lP $xP(x, lP P(a, lP P(b …}, and that the contrastive topic is the weakest generalized quantifier in this set. The verum focus, which is part of the “comment” that co-occurs with the “Topic”, introduces a set of alternatives including degrees of certainty of the assertion. The speaker asserts that his claim is certainly true or highly probable, contrasting it with stronger claims for which the degree of probability is unknown. This explains the observation that in downward entailing contexts, the fronted quantified DPs are headed by ‘all’ or ‘many’, whereas ‘some’, small numbers or ‘at least n’ appear in upward entailing contexts. Unlike other cases of non-specific topics, which are property topics, these are quantifier topics: the topic part is a generalized quantifier, the comment is a property of generalized quantifiers. This explains the narrow scope of the fronted quantified DP.

  11. The Effects of Computer-Aided Concept Cartoons and Outdoor Science Activities on Light Pollution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aydin, Güliz

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to create an awareness of light pollution on seventh grade students via computer aided concept cartoon applications and outdoor science activities and to help them develop solutions; and to determine student opinions on the practices carried out. The study was carried out at a middle school in Mugla province of Aegean…

  12. Využitie metódy concept cartoons© na hodinách prírodovedy z pohľadu učiteľov prvého stupňa ZŠ

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michaela Minárechová

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available V príspevku sa venujeme metóde concept cartoons© a jej aplikácii do vyučovania prírodovedy na I.stupni ZŠ. Okrem toho stručne opisujeme  príručku k metóde concept cartoons© pre  ZŠ, ktorú sme zostavili v rámci našej dizertačnej práce. Pre lepšie posúdenie príručky a možnosti aplikácie metódy concept cartoons© na hodinách prírodovedy sme realizovali rozhovor s tromi učiteľkami primárneho vzdelávania.   Našim cieľom bolo zistiť  ich  názory  na vyučovanie pomocou concept cartoons© a na nami zostavenú metodickú rukoväť k metóde concept cartoons© pre I. stupeň ZŠ.  Prostredníctvom analýzy odpovedí učiteliek sme zistili prevažne pozitívny názor ako na samotnú metódu concept cartoons©, tak aj na zostavenú metodickú príručku k nej.

  13. Using a Concept Cartoon© Method to Address Elementary School Students' Ideas about Natural Phenomena

    Science.gov (United States)

    Minárechová, Michaela

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated the identification and subsequent development or modification of students´ ideas about scientific phenomena by teaching by concept cartoons© method. We found out ideas of students of the fourth grade of primary school by conceptual tasks which were parts of quasi-experiment (pretest and posttest design). For triangulation…

  14. The Use and Abuse of ‘Universal Values' in the Danish Cartoon Controversy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rostbøll, Christian F.

    2010-01-01

    of law and right holders to see them as co-authors of shared legal and moral norms. A main shortcoming of the way in which dominant actors in Denmark responded to the cartoons was exactly that they failed to see the Muslim minority as capable of participating in interpreting and giving shared norms....... To avoid self-contradiction, liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable aspects of democracy but rather as subject to recursive democratic justification and revision by everyone subject to them. Newcomers ought to be able to contribute their specific perspectives...... in this process of democratically reinterpreting and perfecting the understanding of universalistic norms and thereby make them fit better to those to whom they apply as well as rendering them theirs....

  15. Analysis of Violence in Cartoons Broadcasted on Kids TV Channels in Turkey

    OpenAIRE

    Özgür ÖZEN; Faik KARTELLİ

    2017-01-01

    Violence is probably the most discussed effect of television. 61% of the children programs contain violence. The amount of violence in the cartoons is higher. There is a relation between the violence on television and children’s violent behavior. Previous studies show that, children learn and attempt the positive and negative behaviors they see on TV. Children look at the television from the perspective of a researcher and try to make sense of what they watch. Their interest is gener...

  16. Visiones Párodicas: Risas, demonios, jocosidades y caricaturas.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Beatriz González.

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available This article attempts to characterize cartoons by examining topics related to them and parody in four different moments. The frst section addresses the arrival of laughter in the Americas and the present-day territory of Colombia. The relationship between laughter and innocence and maliciousness is noted. In the second section, the demon is presented as a source of evil and as an evangelical teaching tool in the same way that the cartoon is used as a method of teaching. The third section addressses the concepts of Charge and the cartoon in the universal language. It identifes Charge as the literature of manners in New Granada during the nineteenth century The parody of customs and its relationship to Realism in European art and to cartoons is noted. The last section discusses the relationship between cartoon and power: how the myth that cartoons can topple governments becomes, during periods of fun-damentalism, a double-edged weapon for the cartoonist.

  17. Mentalization of complex emotions in borderline personality disorder: The impact of parenting and exposure to trauma on the performance in a novel cartoon-based task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brüne, Martin; Walden, Sarah; Edel, Marc-Andreas; Dimaggio, Giancarlo

    2016-01-01

    Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a range of interpersonal difficulties, which are, in part, related to adverse experiences during childhood. Unresponsive parenting and traumatization may cause functional impairment of mentalization, i.e. the ability to reflect upon own and others' mental states. However, the relationship of poor parenting, trauma and mentalization in BPD has not exhaustively been studied. Thirty patients diagnosed with BPD and 30 matched control subjects were asked to sequence a novel cartoon-based mentalization task involving complex emotions such as jealousy, shame, guilt etc. In addition, they were required to reason about cognitive and affective mental states of the cartoon characters. The quality of parental care was assessed using a self-report measure for recalled parental rearing style, and childhood trauma was measured in retrospect using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Patients with BPD performed more poorly in all aspects of the cartoon task. Mentalizing skills, particularly relating to affective mental states, were uniquely associated with the quality of recalled parental care and childhood trauma. Together, the quality of parental care and the experience of childhood trauma negatively impact on mentalization in BPD, even in an experimental "offline" task. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. THE EFFECT OF CARTOONS BROADCASTED ON TELEVISION TO THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ozcan Demir

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to analysis the effects of cartoons telecasted on Turkish televisions on the socialization process of elementary education students. The data were collected by the “The Behavior Scale on the Evaluation of the Effects of Animated Cartoons Telecasted on Turkish Televisions to Primary Education Students’ Socialization Process”. Participants were in 18 schools, randomly selected from the elementary schools in 9 central counties in Ankara. The characteristics of the variables were assessed and t-test, variance analysis (ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis H Test and Mann-Whitney U Test was conducted. There was no significant difference found in terms of socializing scale scores (p>0,05 between the television animation film watching hours. There was no significant difference in terms of socialization scale scores between the class levels of the children participating in the research (p>0,05. There was significant difference found in terms of socialization scale scores between the income groups of the families of the children participating in the research (p<0,05. It was concluded in the application process that animation productions telecasted on TV had a partial effect on the socialization process of the primary school students.

  19. Iconography and Politics in South Africa: the representation of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma in cartoons of Zapiro

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renata de Paula dos Santos

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Mandela’s victory in the 1994 elections in South Africa is a reference point for South African history and represented the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy. Since then Nelson Mandela (1994-1999, Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008 and Jacob Zuma (2009 - current, occupied the post of president of the country and led, each in its own way, the new direction of the country. During the nearly twenty years of multiracial democracy, one in particular cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, popularly known by the pseudonym Zapiro, portrayed the everyday life of this story. In this sense, the objective of this research is to analyze how Zapiro portrayed the political and social aspects, as well as the psychological characteristics of each of the three postapartheid presidents and which social representations are formed from their cartoon production. The choice of Zapiro explained by openly declared his opposition to apartheid and also for being the best known outside South African cartoonist. We elected to cartoon as an object of study because it is an iconographic object constituted by communicative humor, which adds to its constitution arguments transgression of the established order, enabling an analysis of South African history through a critical bias. As methods for the development of the work, we decided to gather historical research, the literature search and analysis of cartooon speech. Among the theoretical frameworks stand out Magnoli (1998, 2009, Jonge (1991 and Carlin (2009 in the South African question; reflections about social representations, we resort to Moscovici (2011 and Jodelet (1993, in the field the cartoon and humor, the references are Miani (2005; 2012, Romualdo (2000 and Eco (1989. With the completion of the analysis, we observed that Zapiro acts in different ways in the construction of the representation of each of the presidents in question and that the cartoonist presents Mandela as a competent leader marked by heroism and

  20. Reaction Time of Facial Affect Recognition in Asperger's Disorder for Cartoon and Real, Static and Moving Faces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miyahara, Motohide; Bray, Anne; Tsujii, Masatsugu; Fujita, Chikako; Sugiyama, Toshiro

    2007-01-01

    This study used a choice reaction-time paradigm to test the perceived impairment of facial affect recognition in Asperger's disorder. Twenty teenagers with Asperger's disorder and 20 controls were compared with respect to the latency and accuracy of response to happy or disgusted facial expressions, presented in cartoon or real images and in…

  1. Formative Assessment: Using Concept Cartoon, Pupils' Drawings, and Group Discussions to Tackle Children's Ideas about Biological Inheritance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chin, Christine; Teou, Lay-Yen

    2010-01-01

    This study was carried out in the context of formative assessment where assessment and learning were integrated to enhance both teaching and learning. The purpose of the study was to: (a) identify pupils' ideas about biological inheritance through the use of a concept cartoon, pupils' drawings and talk, and (b) devise scaffolding structures that…

  2. Using Laboratory Activities Enhanced with Concept Cartoons to Support Progression in Students' Understanding of Acid-Base Concepts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozmen, Haluk; Demircioglu, Gokhan; Burhan, Yasemin; Naseriazar, Akbar; Demircioglu, Hulya

    2012-01-01

    The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of an intervention based on a series of laboratory activities enhanced with concept cartoons. The purpose of the intervention was to enhance students' understanding of acid-base chemistry for eight grade students' from two classes in a Turkish primary school. A pretest-posttest non-equivalent…

  3. The Effects of Using Concept Cartoons in Astronomy Subjects on Critical Thinking Skills among Seventh Grade Student

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demirci, Filiz; Özyürek, Cengiz

    2017-01-01

    The objective of this study is to research the effects of using concept cartoons in the "Solar System and Beyond" unit, which is included in seventh grade science lessons, on students' critical thinking skills. The study group consisted of 58 students, selected using an appropriate sampling method, who were students in a state secondary…

  4. Influencia de Concept Cartoons en la motivación y resultados académicos de los estudiantes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Galera Tébar

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available La enseñanza de las ciencias debe ser abordada con estrategias variadas para conseguir acercarla a más niños yobtener un aprendizaje más profundo. Entre estas estrategias encontramos los Concept Cartoons, escasamenteusado en escuelas españolas. Esta investigación comprueba su influencia en la motivación y en los conocimientosconceptuales de niños de tercer curso de Educación Primaria de un colegio público de Albacete, comparada conel método tradicional basado en el libro de texto. Los niños (43, han sido divididos en dos grupos (experimentaly control, y han rellenado dos cuestionarios (motivación y conocimientos antes y después de la experiencia. Losresultados muestran que no hay diferencias en la motivación de ninguno de los grupos, sin embargo, y aunqueambos grupos puntúan mejor en el cuestionario de conocimientos tras las clases, hay diferencias estadísticamentesignificativas en las puntuaciones obtenidas, en favor de los que aprendieron mediante Concept Cartoons.

  5. Web directories as topical context

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kaptein, R.; Kamps, J.; Aly, R.; Hauff, C.; den Hamer, I.; Hiemstra, D.; Huibers, T.; de Jong, F.

    2009-01-01

    In this paper we explore whether the Open Directory (or DMOZ) can be used to classify queries into topical categories on different levels and whether we can use this topical context to improve retrieval performance. We have set up a user study to let test persons explicitly classify queries into

  6. Developing an Instructional Material Using a Concept Cartoon Adapted to the 5E Model: A Sample of Teaching Erosion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birisci, Salih; Metin, Mustafa

    2010-01-01

    Using different instructional materials adapted within the constructivist learning theory will enhance students' conceptual understanding. From this point of view, an instructional instrument using a concept cartoon adapted with 5E model has developed and introduced in this study. The study has some deficiencies in investigating students'…

  7. The Influence of Cartoon Character Advertising on Fruit and Vegetable Preferences of 9- to 11-Year-Old Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bezbaruah, Nandita; Brunt, Ardith

    2012-01-01

    Objective: The aim of the present study is to determine the influence of cartoon characters in preferences of fruit and vegetables among children. Methods: A 10-item survey was used in this cross-sectional study to determine the factors that influence a child's likelihood of eating fruits and vegetables. Seven factors influencing consumption of…

  8. Ego Involvement and Topic Controversiality as Related to Attitude Change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sledden, Elizabeth A.; Fernandez, Katherine A.

    Attitude change was measured on four different topics before and immediately after a persuasion was presented in order to compare the degree of change with the level of ego involvement as it relates to topic controversiality. Ego involvement was based on self-ratings of concern for each topic. Objective topic controversiality was based on the…

  9. Aggressive Behaviours of 48- to 66-Month-Old Children: Predictive Power of Teacher-Student Relationship, Cartoon Preferences and Mother's Attitude

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soydan, Sema Büyüktaskapu; Alakoç pirpir, Devlet; Azak, Hayriye

    2017-01-01

    The main purpose of this study is to identify the predictive power of the following variables for physical and relational aggression level of children: cartoon preferences of children, parental attitudes and teacher-student relationship. Study group consisted of 300 preschool children their mothers and 18 preschool teachers. The results showed a…

  10. Comparing the effectiveness of two distraction techniques of inflating balloon and watching cartoon in reducing the vaccination pain among school-age children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hassan Robabi

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Background: The pain caused by the invasive procedures, such as vaccination, could be associated with mental tension and tissue damage in children. Therefore, one of the priorities of the healthcare providers is to manage this pain. Regarding this, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of distraction using inflating balloons and watching cartoons on the intensity of the pain induced by diphtheria tetanus and pertussis (DPT vaccine in school-age children. Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on the school-age children, who referred to Sayyid Al-Shuhada Healthcare Center in Zahedan, Iran, in 2015. In total, 120 patients were selected through convenience sampling technique. The subjects were randomly divided into three groups of 40 cases. The participants of the first group were encouraged to inflate balloons throughout the vaccination process. On the other hand, the subjects of the second group watched a cartoon started two min before the vaccination and lasting to the end of this procedure. No intervention was carried out for the control group. The pain intensity was measured immediately after the vaccination using the Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability scale (FLACC scale. The data analysis was performed in the SPSS version 22 using the descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA test. Results: In this study, the mean pain scores were 1.87±1.30, 1.40±0.87, and 3.22±1.38 in the first, second, and control groups, respectively. The results of the ANOVA test revealed a difference between the study groups regarding the pain intensity (P<0.001; however, this difference was not significant. Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, two distraction methods of inflating balloon and watching cartoons could effectively decrease the pain induced by DPT vaccine. Therefore, the use of these techniques is recommended to manage the pain in children since they are inexpensive and have no side effects.

  11. Exploring Sensitive Subjects with Adolescents: Using Media and Technology to Teach about Genocide

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sardone, Nancy B.; Devlin-Scherer, Roberta

    2015-01-01

    This paper discusses potential strategies and sources for approaching uncomfortable topics and reviews the challenges facing teachers who choose to do so with the topic of genocide as an example. Using a variety of techniques, including graphic organizers, political cartoons, comic books and graphic novels, films, children's and young adult…

  12. Sombras literárias: a fotonovela e a produção cultural Literary shadows: the strip cartoon and cultural production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    André Luiz Joanilho

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available As fotonovelas tiveram um mercado cativo por mais de 25 anos no Brasil, e milhões de leitores consumiram ansiosamente histórias publicadas em revistas com larga circulação nacional. No entanto, foram ignoradas quase que completamente por críticos e estudiosos e consideradas um subgênero da literatura. Seus leitores foram marcados, entre outros aspectos, como de baixa formação cultural e possuidores de parcos rendimentos. Entretanto, seria possível para o historiador não reconhecer a leitura de fotonovelas como uma manifestação de práticas sociais? Poderia a cultura de massa ter criado um conjunto enorme de leitores sem face e sem gosto? Estas questões nos permitem pensar as representações sociais femininas no Brasil e as práticas de leitura das décadas de 1950 e 1960.Strip cartoons had a captive market for more than twenty years in Brazil and millions of readers eagerly consumed stories published in magazines with national circulation. Nevertheless this type of vehicle was almost completely ignored by scholars and considered a sub-genre of literature, and its reading public considered as of low cultural capacity and low income level. However, is it possible for the historian not to recognize cartoon strips as a social practice? Could mass culture have created an enormous number of readers without face and taste? These questions bring to the fore the feminist social movements in Brazil and the reading practices of the fifties and sixties.

  13. 1/f 2 Characteristics and isotropy in the fourier power spectra of visual art, cartoons, comics, mangas, and different categories of photographs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koch, Michael; Denzler, Joachim; Redies, Christoph

    2010-08-19

    Art images and natural scenes have in common that their radially averaged (1D) Fourier spectral power falls according to a power-law with increasing spatial frequency (1/f(2) characteristics), which implies that the power spectra have scale-invariant properties. In the present study, we show that other categories of man-made images, cartoons and graphic novels (comics and mangas), have similar properties. Further on, we extend our investigations to 2D power spectra. In order to determine whether the Fourier power spectra of man-made images differed from those of other categories of images (photographs of natural scenes, objects, faces and plants and scientific illustrations), we analyzed their 2D power spectra by principal component analysis. Results indicated that the first fifteen principal components allowed a partial separation of the different image categories. The differences between the image categories were studied in more detail by analyzing whether the mean power and the slope of the power gradients from low to high spatial frequencies varied across orientations in the power spectra. Mean power was generally higher in cardinal orientations both in real-world photographs and artworks, with no systematic difference between the two types of images. However, the slope of the power gradients showed a lower degree of mean variability across spectral orientations (i.e., more isotropy) in art images, cartoons and graphic novels than in photographs of comparable subject matters. Taken together, these results indicate that art images, cartoons and graphic novels possess relatively uniform 1/f(2) characteristics across all orientations. In conclusion, the man-made stimuli studied, which were presumably produced to evoke pleasant and/or enjoyable visual perception in human observers, form a subset of all images and share statistical properties in their Fourier power spectra. Whether these properties are necessary or sufficient to induce aesthetic perception remains

  14. Magnetosphere Modeling: From Cartoons to Simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gombosi, T. I.

    2017-12-01

    Over the last half a century physics-based global computer simulations became a bridge between experiment and basic theory and now it represents the "third pillar" of geospace research. Today, many of our scientific publications utilize large-scale simulations to interpret observations, test new ideas, plan campaigns, or design new instruments. Realistic simulations of the complex Sun-Earth system have been made possible by the dramatically increased power of both computing hardware and numerical algorithms. Early magnetosphere models were based on simple E&M concepts (like the Chapman-Ferraro cavity) and hydrodynamic analogies (bow shock). At the beginning of the space age current system models were developed culminating in the sophisticated Tsyganenko-type description of the magnetic configuration. The first 3D MHD simulations of the magnetosphere were published in the early 1980s. A decade later there were several competing global models that were able to reproduce many fundamental properties of the magnetosphere. The leading models included the impact of the ionosphere by using a height-integrated electric potential description. Dynamic coupling of global and regional models started in the early 2000s by integrating a ring current and a global magnetosphere model. It has been recognized for quite some time that plasma kinetic effects play an important role. Presently, global hybrid simulations of the dynamic magnetosphere are expected to be possible on exascale supercomputers, while fully kinetic simulations with realistic mass ratios are still decades away. In the 2010s several groups started to experiment with PIC simulations embedded in large-scale 3D MHD models. Presently this integrated MHD-PIC approach is at the forefront of magnetosphere simulations and this technique is expected to lead to some important advances in our understanding of magnetosheric physics. This talk will review the evolution of magnetosphere modeling from cartoons to current systems

  15. The role of topical antibiotics used as prophylaxis in surgical site infection prevention.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    McHugh, S M

    2011-04-01

    Compared with systemic antibiotic therapy, the topical or local delivery of an antibiotic has many potential advantages. However, local antibiotics at the surgical site have received very limited approval in any of the surgical prophylaxis consensus guidelines that we are aware of. A review of the literature was carried out through searches of peer-reviewed publications in PubMed in the English language over a 30 year period between January 1980 and May 2010. Both retrospective and prospective studies were included, as well as meta-analyses. With regard to defining \\'topical\\' or \\'local\\' antibiotic application, the application of an antibiotic solution to the surgical site intraoperatively or immediately post-operatively was included. A number of surgical procedures have been shown to significantly benefit from perioperative topical prophylaxis, e.g. joint arthroplasty, cataract surgery and, possibly, breast augmentation. In obese patients undergoing abdominal surgery, topical surgical prophylaxis is also proven to be beneficial. The selective use of topical antibiotics as surgical prophylaxis is justified for specific procedures, such as joint arthroplasty, cataract surgery and, possibly, breast augmentation. In selective cases, such as obese patients undergoing abdominal surgery, topical surgical prophylaxis is also proven to be beneficial. Apart from these specific indications, the evidence for use of topical antibiotics in surgery is lacking in conclusive randomized controlled trials.

  16. The role of topical antibiotics used as prophylaxis in surgical site infection prevention.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    McHugh, S M

    2012-02-01

    Compared with systemic antibiotic therapy, the topical or local delivery of an antibiotic has many potential advantages. However, local antibiotics at the surgical site have received very limited approval in any of the surgical prophylaxis consensus guidelines that we are aware of. A review of the literature was carried out through searches of peer-reviewed publications in PubMed in the English language over a 30 year period between January 1980 and May 2010. Both retrospective and prospective studies were included, as well as meta-analyses. With regard to defining \\'topical\\' or \\'local\\' antibiotic application, the application of an antibiotic solution to the surgical site intraoperatively or immediately post-operatively was included. A number of surgical procedures have been shown to significantly benefit from perioperative topical prophylaxis, e.g. joint arthroplasty, cataract surgery and, possibly, breast augmentation. In obese patients undergoing abdominal surgery, topical surgical prophylaxis is also proven to be beneficial. The selective use of topical antibiotics as surgical prophylaxis is justified for specific procedures, such as joint arthroplasty, cataract surgery and, possibly, breast augmentation. In selective cases, such as obese patients undergoing abdominal surgery, topical surgical prophylaxis is also proven to be beneficial. Apart from these specific indications, the evidence for use of topical antibiotics in surgery is lacking in conclusive randomized controlled trials.

  17. Implementation of an Educational Cartoon ("the Patchbook") and Other Compliance-Enhancing Measures by Orthoptists in Occlusion Treatment of Amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tjiam, A M; Asjes-Tydeman, W L; Holtslag, G; Vukovic, E; Sinoo, M M; Loudon, S E; Passchier, J; de Koning, H J; Simonsz, H J

    2016-09-01

    This implementation study evaluated orthoptists' use of an educational cartoon ("the Patchbook") and other measures to improve compliance with occlusion therapy for amblyopia. Participating orthoptists provided standard orthoptic care for one year, adding the Patchbook in the second year. They attended courses on compliance and intercultural communication by communication skills training. Many other compliance-enhancing measures were initiated. Orthoptists' awareness, attitude, and activities regarding noncompliance were assessed through interviews, questionnaires, and observations. Their use of the Patchbook was measured. The study was performed in low socio-economic status (SES) areas and in other areas in the Netherlands. It was attempted to integrate education on compliance into basic and continuing orthoptic training. The Patchbook was used by all 9 orthoptists who participated in low-SES areas and 17 of 23 orthoptists in other areas. Courses changed awareness and attitude about compliance, but this was not sustained. Although orthoptists estimated compliance during patching at 70%, three-quarters never suspected noncompliance during a full day of observation in any of their patients. Explanations to parents who spoke Dutch poorly were short. In the second year, explanations to children were longer. Implementation of all 7 additional compliance-enhancing measures failed. Education on compliance was not integrated into orthoptists' training. Almost all orthoptists used the Patchbook and, as another study demonstrated, it proved to be very effective, especially in low-SES areas. Duration of explanation was inversely proportional to parents' fluency in Dutch. Noncompliance was rarely suspected by orthoptists. Although 7 additional compliance-enhancing measures had been conceived and planned with the best intentions, they were not realized. These required extra, unpaid time from the orthoptists, which is especially scarce in hospitals in low-SES areas where the

  18. Apuntes alrededor de la historieta política en la transición, 1973– 1978 = Notes about the political cartoon in the Spanish Transition, 1973–1978

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Martín

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Los años de la Transición política española a la Democracia representan el gran momento de la moderna historieta política española, que de hecho nace en el tardofranquismo contra la dictadura, contra sus hombres e ideología. Esta historieta se prolonga y desarrolla tras la muerte del general Franco y los primeros años del reinado de Juan Carlos de Borbón. Los partidos políticos de izquierdas, los sindicatos de clase, las organizaciones armadas ETA y FRAP, las Asociaciones de Vecinos y toda clase de grupúsculos enfrentados con el régimen, y también desde la extrema derecha, descubrieron las posibilidades expresivas de la historieta como medio y su validez como vehículo en la guerra de propaganda y la utilizaron contra los herederos del franquismo. En este artículo se revisa y analiza una selección de toda clase de panfletos clandestinos: boletines, octavillas, hojas de propaganda y hasta auténticos tebeos políticos que se realizaron y difundieronentre 1973 y hasta 1978. Todo contextualizado en el marco de los principales acontecimientos históricos de aquel periodo. Se abre así un nuevo camino a la investigación de la historieta española desde una perspectiva que nunca se había estudiado anteriormente.Those years of the Spanish political transition to democracy represent the greatest moment of modern Spanish political cartoon, which in fact was born in the late Franco era against dictatorship, its men and its ideology. This cartoon was extended and developed after the death of General Franco and in the early years of the reign of Juan Carlos de Borbón. The left wing parties, the trade unions classes, the armed organizations like ETA and FRAP, the neighborhood associations and every kind of faction opposite to the regime, and also the extreme right wing, discovered the expressive possibilities of the cartoon, and its value like validity as a vehicle in the propaganda war and used it against the heirs of

  19. Britannia : Grandeur et infortune d’une allégorie nationale dans l’univers du cartoon britannique 1842-1999 Britannia: Greatness and Misfortune of a National Symbol in the World of British Cartoons 1842-1999

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gilbert Millat

    2009-11-01

    Full Text Available Britannia, sometimes accompanied by the emblematic British Lion, has long been personifying justice, liberty, and the British Empire on coins and stamps as well as in graphic satire. Originally of Roman origin, she became the visual representation of Britain after being revived in the sixteenth century. This article is based on the analysis of over four hundred cartoons featuring this symbol. It argues that between 1860 and the 1950s, Britannia striking a solemn pose, that of the Græco-Roman goddess created by Tenniel, exalted Victorian greatness and the early twentieth century great power twice victorious in the World Wars. On the other hand, since the inter-war years, Low and his followers had been challenging this supposedly immutable image. They turned her into a definitely helpless and obsolete symbol whose identity was sometimes usurped by such anti-heroes as Colonel Blimp. Finally, from the 1960s, in a context of continuous British decline and growing permissiveness, cartoonists increasingly followed the example of the old masters of 18th century caricature and early Punch cartoonists, even though aggressiveness and vulgarity have remained much less explicit.

  20. Topical corticosteroids as adjunctive therapy for bacterial keratitis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herretes, Samantha; Wang, Xue; Reyes, Johann MG

    2014-01-01

    Background Bacterial keratitis is a serious ocular infectious disease that can lead to severe visual disability. Risk factors for bacterial corneal infection include contact lens wear, ocular surface disease, corneal trauma, and previous ocular or eyelid surgery. Topical antibiotics constitute the mainstay of treatment in cases of bacterial keratitis, whereas the use of topical corticosteroids as an adjunctive therapy to antibiotics remains controversial. Topical corticosteroids are usually used to control inflammation using the smallest amount of the drug. Their use requires optimal timing, concomitant antibiotics, and careful follow-up. Objectives The objective of the review was to assess the effectiveness and safety of corticosteroids as adjunctive therapy for bacterial keratitis. Secondary objectives included evaluation of health economic outcomes and quality of life outcomes. Search methods We searched CENTRAL (which contains the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group Trials Register) (2014, Issue 6), Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid MEDLINE In-Process and Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE Daily, Ovid OLDMEDLINE (January 1946 to July 2014), EMBASE (January 1980 to July 2014), Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature Database (LILACS) (January 1982 to July 2014), the metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT) (www.controlled-trials.com), ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov) and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/search/en). We did not use any date or language restrictions in the electronic searches for trials. We last searched the electronic databases on 14 July 2014. We also searched the Science Citation Index to identify additional studies that had cited the only trial included in the original version of this review, reference lists of included trials, earlier reviews, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology guidelines. We also contacted experts to identify any unpublished and

  1. Influence of food companies' brand mascots and entertainment companies' cartoon media characters on children's diet and health: a systematic review and research needs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kraak, V I; Story, M

    2015-01-01

    Reducing the extent and persuasive power of marketing unhealthy foods to children worldwide are important obesity prevention goals. Research is limited to understand how brand mascots and cartoon media characters influence children's diet. We conducted a systematic review of five electronic databases (2000–2014) to identify experimental studies that measured how food companies' mascots and entertainment companies' media characters influence up to 12 diet-related cognitive, behavioural and health outcomes for children under 12 years. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies used 21 unique popular media characters, but no brand mascots. Results suggest that cartoon media character branding can positively increase children's fruit or vegetable intake compared with no character branding. However, familiar media character branding is a more powerful influence on children's food preferences, choices and intake, especially for energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods (e.g. cookies, candy or chocolate) compared with fruits or vegetables. Future research should use a theoretically grounded conceptual model and larger and more diverse samples across settings to produce stronger findings for mediating and moderating factors. Future research can be used to inform the deliberations of policymakers, practitioners and advocates regarding how media character marketing should be used to support healthy food environments for children. PMID:25516352

  2. Signes sur des pistes pedagogiques (Signs on Pedagogical Trails)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Porcher, Louis

    1978-01-01

    An overview of the topics in this issue. The place of authentic documents; their use in promoting communicative competence; new uses of visuals, such as cartoons; visuals for evaluation purposes; their cultural value; and the development of video-cassettes are discussed. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

  3. The Stereotyping of Muslims : An Analysis of The New York Times’ and The Washington Times’ Coverage of Veiling and the Muhammad Cartoon Controversy

    OpenAIRE

    Schønemann, Julie

    2013-01-01

    This thesis investigates the stereotypical portrayal of Muslims in the American media. More specifically, it explores the relative importance of stereotype theory, prejudice theory and the stereotype content model in the media’s remaking and reinforcing of common stereotypes of Muslims. This study argues that that Muslims were stereotypically portrayed in The New York Times’ and The Washington Times’ coverage of the Muhammad cartoons controversy and the tradition of veiling among Muslim women...

  4. Infection control as a topic for ward-based nursing education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gould, D; Chamberlain, A

    1994-08-01

    The link between nursing theory and practice remains a topic of ongoing debate. Related to this issue is the best place to effectively combine the two. The solution may be ward-based teaching programmes as part of formal continuing staff development, involving collaboration between college-based lecturers and acknowledged clinical experts. Using infection control as an example of a topic in need of regular and continual updating for qualified practitioners, it is argued that such programmes would be desirable because they would afford sufficient flexibility to fulfil individual learning needs and could be assessed to indicate whether nursing practice had been enhanced. Participants could be accredited for successful completion of ward-based programmes.

  5. Changing the Topic. Topic Position in Ancient Greek Word Order

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Allan, R.J.

    2014-01-01

    Ancient Greek, topics can be expressed as intra-clausal constituents but they can also precede or follow the main clause as extra-clausal constituents. Together, these various topic expressions constitute a coherent system of complementary pragmatic functions. For a comprehensive account of topic

  6. Soaps and Germicides as Adjunct Topical Antimycotic Agents on ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Objective: The study aims at evaluating the potentials of soaps and germicides / disinfectants as adjunct topical anti-vulvovaginal candidasis agents. Methods: In vitro inhibitory activities of the test agents, prepared according to the manufacturer's specification for toilet and midwifery purposes were determined using modified ...

  7. Topic Repetition in Conversations on Different Days as a Sign of Dementia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shinkawa, Kaoru; Yamada, Yasunori

    2018-01-01

    Detecting early signs of dementia in everyday situations becomes more and more important in a rapidly aging society. Language dysfunctions are recognized as the prominent signs of dementia. Previous computational studies characterized these language dysfunctions by using acoustic and linguistic features for detecting dementia. However, they mainly investigated language dysfunctions collected from patients during neuropsychological tests. Language dysfunctions observed during regular conversations in everyday situations received little attention. One of the dysfunctions associated with dementia which is frequently observed in regular conversations is the repetition of a topic on different days. In this study, we propose a feature to characterize topic repetition in conversations on different days. We used conversational data obtained from a daily monitoring service of eight elderly people, two of whom had dementia. Through the analysis of topic extraction with latent Dirichlet allocation, we found that the frequency of topic repetition was significantly higher in people with dementia than in the control group. The results suggest that our proposed feature for identifying topic repetition in regular conversations on different days might be used for detecting dementia.

  8. Influence of food companies' brand mascots and entertainment companies' cartoon media characters on children's diet and health: a systematic review and research needs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kraak, V I; Story, M

    2015-02-01

    Reducing the extent and persuasive power of marketing unhealthy foods to children worldwide are important obesity prevention goals. Research is limited to understand how brand mascots and cartoon media characters influence children's diet. We conducted a systematic review of five electronic databases (2000-2014) to identify experimental studies that measured how food companies' mascots and entertainment companies' media characters influence up to 12 diet-related cognitive, behavioural and health outcomes for children under 12 years. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies used 21 unique popular media characters, but no brand mascots. Results suggest that cartoon media character branding can positively increase children's fruit or vegetable intake compared with no character branding. However, familiar media character branding is a more powerful influence on children's food preferences, choices and intake, especially for energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods (e.g. cookies, candy or chocolate) compared with fruits or vegetables. Future research should use a theoretically grounded conceptual model and larger and more diverse samples across settings to produce stronger findings for mediating and moderating factors. Future research can be used to inform the deliberations of policymakers, practitioners and advocates regarding how media character marketing should be used to support healthy food environments for children. © 2014 The Authors. Obesity Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of World Obesity.

  9. Frozen-Ground Cartoons: An international collaboration between artists and permafrost scientists

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sjoberg, Y.; Bouchard, F.; Deshpande, B.; Fritz, M.; Malenfant-Lepage, J.; Nieuwendam, A.; Paquette, M.; Rudy, A.; Siewert, M. B.; Veillette, A.; Weege, S.; Habeck, J. O.; Harbor, J.

    2017-12-01

    Communicating science about a phenomenon found under ground and defined by its thermal properties in an easy, fun, and engaging way, can be a challenge. Two years ago, a group of young researchers from Canada and Europe united to tackle this problem by combining arts and science to produce a series of outreach comic strips about permafrost (frozen ground). Because this concerns us all. As the climate warms, permafrost thaws and becomes unstable for houses, roads and airports.The thawing also disrupts ecosystems, impacts water quality, and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, making climate change even stronger. The Frozen Ground Cartoon project aims to present and explain permafrost research, placing emphasis on field work and the rapidly changing northern environment. The target audience is kids, youth, parents and teachers, with the general goal of making permafrost science more fun and accessible to the public. The project has so far produced 22 pages of comics through an iterative process of exchanging ideas between two artists and thirteen scientists. The project artists were selected through an application call that received 49 applications from artists in 16 countries. With input from scientists, artists Noémie Ross (Canada) and Heta Nääs (Finland) have created a set of beautiful, artistic, humoristic, and pedagogic comics.. The comics are available for free download through the project web page (in English and Swedish), and printed copies have so far been handed out to school kids and general public in Europe. Prints in North America are planned for the fall of 2017. The next steps of the project are (1) to distribute the comics as wide as possible, (2) work towards translations into more languages, and (3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the science communication through the comics, in collaboration with schools and pedagogic experts.

  10. Effectiveness of brain-based learning and animated cartoons for enhancing healthy habits among school children in Khon Kaen, Thailand.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banchonhattakit, Pannee; Duangsong, Rujira; Muangsom, Niramon; Kamsong, Theppamon; Phangwan, Krittiya

    2015-03-01

    The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of brain-based learning (BBL) and animated cartoons on video compact discs (VCDs) in enhancing the healthy habits of school children. A representative sample of 1085 school children in the first through the third grades at 16 schools was selected by multistage random sampling. Knowledge of healthy habits and self-reported adoption of practices were assessed by a questionnaire. BBL and VCD, either combined or as single-intervention techniques, led to improved knowledge and practice of healthy behavior, whereas conventional teaching did not. As a single-intervention technique, BBL on its own led to a greater improvement in healthy practices than VCD, but the addition of BBL to VCD made no difference, and there was no difference between BBL and VCD in terms of improvements in knowledge. In conclusion, both BBL and VCD are effective, but VCD requires fewer resources. Recommendations are made for further research. © 2012 APJPH.

  11. Topical patches as treatments for the management of patient musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simona Mirel

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The variety and multiple dimensions of pain (acute/chronic, mild/moderate/severe, nociceptive/neuropathic requires different pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments in certain patients. A lot of topical formulation, from various therapeutic classes have been proposed in order to decrease systemic exposure and to reduce the risks of adverse events. Topical as well as transdermal drug delivery systems are proposed as medicated plasters with: anesthetics (lidocaine, analgesic or nonsteroidal anti-inflamatory drugs (NSAIDs, alone or co-formulated. Capsaicin, salicylates, menthol and camphor represent the counterirritant class of topical analgesics used as patch active compounds. These compounds produce their analgesic effect by activating and desensitizing epidermal nociceptors. The most used topical treatment in order to decrease pain is the application of cold and heat patches - by acting directly on the affected tissue. In many cases there is a limited number of studies providing insufficient information to clinicians in order to evaluate the benefits of these products. This paper reviews the use and efficacy of available self-adhesing occlusive medicated plaster (pain patches that might represent an alternative option for the management of patient pain, specially in the case of musculoskeletal and neuropathic disorders.

  12. Topical Ranibizumab as a Treatment of Corneal Neovascularization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrari, Giulio; Dastjerdi, Mohammad H.; Okanobo, Andre; Cheng, Sheng-Fu; Amparo, Francisco; Nallasamy, Nambi; Dana, Reza

    2014-01-01

    Purpose To examine the effect of topical ranibizumab on clinically stable corneal neovascularization (NV). Methods This was a prospective, open-label, monocentric, uncontrolled, non-comparative study. Ten eyes of 9 patients with corneal NV received topical ranibizumab (1%) 4 times a day for 3 weeks with a follow-up of 16 weeks. The main corneal neovascularization outcome measures were: neovascular area (NA), the area occupied by the corneal neovessels; vessel caliber (VC), the mean diameter of the corneal neovessels; and invasion area (IA), the fraction of the total cornea area covered by the vessels. This study was conducted at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA, USA. Results Statistically significant decreases in NA (55.3%, P<0.001), which lasted through 16 weeks, and VC (59%, P<0.001), which continued to improve up to week 16, were observed after treatment. No significant decrease was observed in IA (12.3%, P=0.49). There was no statistically significant change in visual acuity or intraocular pressure. No adverse events ascribed to the treatment were noted. Conclusions Topical application of ranibizumab is effective in reducing the severity of corneal NV in the context of established corneal NV, mostly through decrease in VC rather than IA. PMID:23407316

  13. Topical cyclosporin as an alternative treatment for vision threatening blepharokeratoconjunctivitis: a case report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ismail AS

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Abdul-Salim Ismail,1,2 Rohana Taharin,2 Zunaina Embong11Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, 2Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Pulau Pinang, Jalan Resindensi, Pulau Pinang, MalaysiaAbstract: Here, a case of vision threatening blepharokeratoconjunctivitis that responded well to topical cyclosporin is reported. A 9-year-old Malay girl with a history of bilateral blepharokeratoconjunctivitis was regularly treated with lid scrubbing using diluted baby shampoo, fusidic acid gel, and topical steroids as well as an intermittent course of oral doxycycline for the past year. She developed acute onset bilateral eye redness associated with poor vision in her right eye. Both eyes showed marked diffuse hyperemic conjunctiva with corneal vascularization. The presence of corneal vascularization obscured the visual axis in the right eye. The condition did not improve with regular intensive lid hygiene using diluted baby shampoo, fusidic acid gel, and topical steroids. She was started on topical cyclosporin A 0.5% every 6 hours. There was a dramatic regression of corneal vascularization after 3 days on topical cyclosporin, with marked improvement in visual acuity. This is a single case in which cyclosporin improved the status of the ocular surface. A large cohort study is required to justify its effectiveness in treating blepharokeratoconjunctivitis and to test its potential as an alternative immunosuppressive agent in comparison to conventional corticosteroids.Keywords: blepharokeratoconjunctivitis, cyclosporin

  14. What Is Going On? The Process of Generating Questions about Emotion and Social Cognition in Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia with Cartoon Situations and Faces

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bryan D. Fantie

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Regarding the notion of putative “best” practices in social neuroscience and science in general, we contend that following established procedures has advantages, but prescriptive uniformity in methodology can obscure flaws, bias thinking, stifle creativity, and restrict exploration. Generating hypotheses is at least as important as testing hypotheses. To illustrate this process, we describe the following exploratory study. Psychiatric patients have difficulties with social functioning that affect their quality of life adversely. To investigate these impediments, we compared the performances of patients with schizophrenia and those with bipolar disorder to healthy controls on a task that involved matching photographs of facial expressions to a faceless protagonist in each of a series of drawn cartoon emotion-related situations. These scenarios involved either a single character (Nonsocial or multiple characters (Social. The Social scenarios were also Congruent, with everyone in the cartoon displaying the same emotion, or Noncongruent (with everyone displaying a different emotion than the protagonist should. In this preliminary study, both patient groups produced lower scores than controls (p < 0.001, but did not perform differently from each other. All groups performed best on the social-congruent items and worst on the social-noncongruent items (p < 0.001. Performance varied inversely with illness duration, but not symptom severity. Complete emotional, social, cognitive, or perceptual inability is unlikely because these patient groups could still do this task. Nevertheless, the differences we saw could be meaningful functionally and clinically significant and deserve further exploration. Therefore, we stress the need to continue developing novel, alternative ways to explore social cognition in patients with psychiatric disorders and to clarify which elements of the multidimensional process contribute to difficulties in daily functioning.

  15. Learning Biochemistry through Manga--Helping Students Learn and Remember, and Making Lectures More Exciting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagata, Ryoichi

    1999-01-01

    Uses panels taken from manga, Japanese comics and cartoons, to supplement explanations of biochemical terms and topics in biochemistry classes. Results indicate that the use of manga helped students remember what they had learned. (Author/CCM)

  16. Polyphenols from Cymbopogon citratus leaves as topical anti-inflammatory agents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costa, Gustavo; Ferreira, João Pinto; Vitorino, Carla; Pina, Maria Eugénia; Sousa, João José; Figueiredo, Isabel Vitória; Batista, Maria Teresa

    2016-02-03

    A variety of plant polyphenols have been reported to have anti-inflammatory, frequently associated with erythema, edema, hyperplasia, skin photoaging and photocarcinogenesis. Cymbopogon citratus (DC). Stapf (Poaceae) is a worldwide known medicinal plant, used in traditional medicine in inflammation-related conditions. In this work, the anti-inflammatory potential of C. citratus infusion (CcI) and its polyphenols as topical agents was evaluated in vivo. The plant extract was prepared and its fractioning led two polyphenol-rich fractions: flavonoids fraction (CcF) and tannins fraction (CcT). An oil/water emulsion was developed with each active (CcI, CcF+CcT and diclofenac), pH and texture having been evaluated. Release tests were further performed using static Franz diffusion cells and all collected samples were monitored by HPLC-PDA. In vivo topical anti-inflammatory activity evaluation was performed by the carrageenan-induced rat paw edema model. The texture analysis revealed statistically significant differences for all tested parameters to CcF+CcT, supporting its topical application. Release experiments lead to the detection of the phenolic compounds from each sample in the receptor medium and the six major flavonoids were quantified, by HPLC-PDA: carlinoside, isoorientin, cynaroside, luteolin 7-O-neohesperidoside, kurilesin A and cassiaoccidentalin B. The CcF+CcT formulation prompted to the higher release rate for all these flavonoids. CcI4%, CcI1% and CcF+CcT exhibited an edema reduction of 43.18, 29.55 and 59.09%, respectively. Our findings highlight that CcI, containing luteolin 7-O-neohesperidoside, cassiaoccidentalin B, carlinoside, cynaroside and tannins have a potential anti-inflammatory topical activity, suggesting their promising application in the treatment of skin inflammatory pathologies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. [The white coat as a cape: doctors, superheroes and bionics].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engelberts, Connie E; Mevius, Lucas

    2013-01-01

    To study the relationship between doctors and comic books, cartoons, superheroes and bionic prosthetic organs. Descriptive survey. For this study, 341 doctors and medical students filled in a digital survey in the autumn of 2013. The questionnaire contained questions about comic books and cartoons, their superheroes, prosthetic organs and about bionic and non-bionic super powers. As a child more than half of the participants read comic books regularly or often, and most watched cartoons regularly or often. Now their childhood interest in this subject has mostly been lost. In their youth, Suske & Wiske were the favourite, and now it is Donald Duck. The number of doctors with a favourite superhero decreased as aged increased from 52% to 37%. The care givers entertain lively fantasies about having bionic superpowers. According to the participants, the idea doctor would have ultrasonic eyes and all sorts of other super senses. Ninety-one per cent thought that 'the development of prosthetic organs is not a waste of money'. If Batman and Superman come to blows, Catwoman wins.

  18. Persuasive food marketing to children: use of cartoons and competitions in Australian commercial television advertisements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Bridget; Hattersley, Libby; King, Lesley; Flood, Victoria

    2008-12-01

    While there is a recognized link between high levels of exposure to advertising of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity among children, there is little research on the extent to which these exposures include persuasive marketing techniques. This study aimed to measure children's exposure to the use of persuasive marketing within television food advertisements. Advertisements broadcast on all three commercial Australian television channels were recorded for an equivalent 1 week period in May 2006 and 2007 (714 h). Food advertisements were analysed for their use of persuasive marketing, including premium offers, such as competitions, and the use of promotional characters, including celebrities and cartoon characters. Advertised foods were categorized as core, non-core or miscellaneous foods. Commercial data were purchased to determine children's peak viewing times and popular programs. A total of 20 201 advertisements were recorded, 25.5% of which were for food. Significantly more food advertisements broadcast during children's peak viewing times, compared to non-peak times, contained promotional characters (P marketing during all viewing periods were for non-core foods. Persuasive marketing techniques are frequently used to advertise non-core foods to children, to promote children's brand recognition and preference for advertised products. Future debate relating to television advertising regulations must consider the need to restrict the use of persuasive marketing techniques to children.

  19. Topics and topic prominence in two sign languages

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kimmelman, V.

    2015-01-01

    In this paper we describe topic marking in Russian Sign Language (RSL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and discuss whether these languages should be considered topic prominent. The formal markers of topics in RSL are sentence-initial position, a prosodic break following the topic, and

  20. Human-competitive automatic topic indexing

    CERN Document Server

    Medelyan, Olena

    2009-01-01

    Topic indexing is the task of identifying the main topics covered by a document. These are useful for many purposes: as subject headings in libraries, as keywords in academic publications and as tags on the web. Knowing a document’s topics helps people judge its relevance quickly. However, assigning topics manually is labor intensive. This thesis shows how to generate them automatically in a way that competes with human performance. Three kinds of indexing are investigated: term assignment, a task commonly performed by librarians, who select topics from a controlled vocabulary; tagging, a popular activity of web users, who choose topics freely; and a new method of keyphrase extraction, where topics are equated to Wikipedia article names. A general two-stage algorithm is introduced that first selects candidate topics and then ranks them by significance based on their properties. These properties draw on statistical, semantic, domain-specific and encyclopedic knowledge. They are combined using a machine learn...

  1. Topical Drugs for Pain Relief

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anjali Srinivasan

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Topical therapy helps patients with oral and perioral pain problems such as ulcers, burning mouth syndrome, temporomandibular disorders, neuromas, neuropathies and neuralgias. Topical drugs used in the field of dentistry are topical anaesthetics, topical analgesics, topical antibiotics and topical corticosteroids. It provides symptomatic/curative effect. Topical drugs are easy to apply, avoids hepatic first pass metabolism and more sites specific. But it can only be used for medications that require low plasma concentrations to achieve a therapeutic effect.

  2. Syntacticized topics in Kurmuk

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Torben

    2015-01-01

    This article argues that Kurmuk, a little-described Western Nilotic language, is characterized by a syntacticized topic whose grammatical relation is variable. In this language, declarative clauses have as topic an obligatory preverbal NP which is either a subject, an object or an adjunct....... The grammatical relation of the topic is expressed by a voice-like inflection of the verb, here called orientation. While subject-orientation is morphologically unmarked, object-oriented and adjunct-oriented verbs are marked by a subject suffix or by a suffix indicating that the topic is not subject, and adjunct......-orientation differs from object-orientation by a marked tone pattern. Topic choice largely reflects information structure by indicating topic continuity. The topic also plays a crucial role in relative clauses and in clauses with contrastive constituent focus, in that objects and adjuncts can only be relativized...

  3. Bupivacaine Lozenge Compared with Lidocaine Spray as Topical Pharyngeal Anesthetic before Unsedated Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Salale, Nesrin; Treldal, Charlotte; Mogensen, Stine

    2014-01-01

    Unsedated upper gastrointestinal endoscopy (UGE) can induce patient discomfort, mainly due to a strong gag reflex. The aim was to assess the effect of a bupivacaine lozenge as topical pharyngeal anesthetic compared with standard treatment with a lidocaine spray before UGE. Ninety-nine adult...... with a lidocaine spray proved to be a superior option as topical pharyngeal anesthetic before an UGE....

  4. Preparation and Characterization of a Lecithin Nanoemulsion as a Topical Delivery System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Huafeng; Yue, Yang; Liu, Guanlan; Li, Yan; Zhang, Jing; Gong, Qiu; Yan, Zemin; Duan, Mingxing

    2010-01-01

    Purpose of this study was to establish a lecithin nanoemulsion (LNE) without any synthetic surfactant as a topical delivery vehicle and to evaluate its topical delivery potential by the following factors: particle size, morphology, viscosity, stability, skin hydration and skin penetration. Experimental results demonstrated that an increasing concentration of soybean lecithin and glycerol resulted in a smaller size LNE droplet and increasing viscosity, respectively. The droplet size of optimized LNE, with the glycerol concentration above 75% (w/w), changed from 92 (F10) to 58 nm (F14). Additionally, LNE, incorporated into o/w cream, improved the skin hydration capacity of the cream significantly with about 2.5-fold increase when the concentration of LNE reached 10%. LNE was also demonstrated to improve the penetrability of Nile red (NR) dye into the dermis layer, when an o/w cream, incorporated with NR-loaded LNE, applied on the abdominal skin of rat in vivo. Specifically, the arbitrary unit (ABU) of fluorescence in the dermis layer that had received the cream with a NR-loaded LNE was about 9.9-fold higher than the cream with a NR-loaded general emulsion (GE). These observations suggest that LNE could be used as a promising topical delivery vehicle for lipophilic compounds.

  5. Microemulsions as vehicles for topical administration of voriconazole: formulation and in vitro evaluation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    El-Hadidy, Gladious Naguib; Ibrahim, Howida Kamal; Mohamed, Magdi Ibrahim; El-Milligi, Mohamed Farid

    2012-01-01

    This work was undertaken to investigate microemulsion (ME) as a topical delivery system for the poorly water-soluble voriconazole. Different ME components were selected for the preparation of plain ME systems with suitable rheological properties for topical use. Two permeation enhancers were incorporated, namely sodium deoxycholate or oleic acid. Drug-loaded MEs were evaluated for their physical appearance, pH, rheological properties and in vitro permeation studies using guinea pig skin. MEs based on polyoxyethylene(10)oleyl ether (Brij 97) as the surfactant showed pseudoplastic flow with thixotropic behavior and were loaded with voriconazole. Jojoba oil-based MEs successfully prolonged voriconazole release up to 4 h. No significant changes in physical or rheological properties were recorded on storage for 12 months at ambient conditions. The presence of permeation enhancers favored transdermal rather than dermal delivery. Sodium deoxycholate was more effective than oleic acid for enhancing the voriconazole permeation. Voriconazole-loaded MEs, with and without enhancers, showed significantly better antifungal activity against Candida albicans than voriconazole supersaturated solution. In conclusion, the studied ME formulae could be promising vehicles for topical delivery of voriconazole.

  6. Effects of stroke education using an animated cartoon and a manga on elementary school children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sakamoto, Yuki; Yokota, Chiaki; Miyashita, Fumio; Amano, Tatsuo; Shigehatake, Yuya; Oyama, Satoshi; Itagaki, Naruhiko; Okumura, Kosuke; Toyoda, Kazunori; Minematsu, Kazuo

    2014-08-01

    Stroke education for the youth is expected to reduce prehospital delay by informing the bystander of appropriate action to take and providing knowledge to prevent onset of stroke in future. Previously, we developed effective teaching materials consisting of an animated cartoon and a Manga for junior high school students. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of our educational materials for stroke education taught by schoolteachers to elementary school children. Using our teaching materials, a 30-minute lesson was given by trained general schoolteachers. Questionnaires on stroke knowledge (symptoms and risk factors) and action to take on identification of suspected stroke symptoms were filled out by school children before, immediately after, and at 3 months after completion of the lesson. A total of 219 children (aged 10 or 11 years) received the stroke lesson. Stroke knowledge significantly increased immediately after the lesson compared with before (symptoms, P Manga that was previously used for junior high school students was feasible for elementary school children. However, revision of the materials is required for better retention of stroke knowledge for children. Copyright © 2014 National Stroke Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Multi-level comparison of empathy in schizophrenia: an fMRI study of a cartoon task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Seung Jae; Kang, Do Hyung; Kim, Chi-Won; Gu, Bon Mi; Park, Ji-Young; Choi, Chi-Hoon; Shin, Na Young; Lee, Jong-Min; Kwon, Jun Soo

    2010-02-28

    Empathy deficits might play a role in social dysfunction in schizophrenia. However, few studies have investigated the neuroanatomical underpinnings of the subcomponents of empathy in schizophrenia. This study investigated the hemodynamic responses to three subcomponents of empathy in patients with schizophrenia (N=15) and healthy volunteers (N=18), performing an empathy cartoon task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. The experiment used a block design with four conditions: cognitive, emotional, and inhibitory empathy, and physical causality control. Data were analyzed by comparing the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal activation between the two groups. The cognitive empathy condition activated the right temporal pole to a lesser extent in the patient group than in comparison subjects. In the emotional and inhibitory conditions, the patients showed greater activation in the left insula and in the right middle/inferior frontal cortex, respectively. These findings add to our understanding of the impaired empathy in patients with schizophrenia by identifying a multi-level cortical dysfunction that underlies a deficit in each subcomponent of empathy and highlighting the importance of the fronto-temporal cortical network in ability to empathize. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Flexibility of Gender Stereotypes: Italian Study on Comparative Gender-consistent and Gender-inconsistent Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elisabetta Sagone

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The topic of this study is flexibility in gender stereotyping linked to attribution of toys, socio-cognitive traits, and occupations in 160 Italian children aged 6 to 12 years. We used the Gender Toys Choice, the Gender Traits Choice, and the Gender Jobs Choice, a selected set of colored cards containing masculine and feminine stimuli to assign to a male or female or both male and female silhouette (the flexible-choice technique. In order to verify the change of flexibility in gender stereotyping, we made use of four cartoon stories with male and female characters with typical or atypical traits and performing gender-consistent or gender-inconsistent activities. Results indicated that the exposure to cartoon stories with gender-inconsistent information rather than cartoon stories with gender-consistent information increased flexibility in gender stereotyping, showing age differences in favor of children aged 11-12. Implications in relation to the developmental-constructivist approach were noted.

  9. Identifying Topics in Microblogs Using Wikipedia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yıldırım, Ahmet; Üsküdarlı, Suzan; Özgür, Arzucan

    2016-01-01

    Twitter is an extremely high volume platform for user generated contributions regarding any topic. The wealth of content created at real-time in massive quantities calls for automated approaches to identify the topics of the contributions. Such topics can be utilized in numerous ways, such as public opinion mining, marketing, entertainment, and disaster management. Towards this end, approaches to relate single or partial posts to knowledge base items have been proposed. However, in microblogging systems like Twitter, topics emerge from the culmination of a large number of contributions. Therefore, identifying topics based on collections of posts, where individual posts contribute to some aspect of the greater topic is necessary. Models, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), propose algorithms for relating collections of posts to sets of keywords that represent underlying topics. In these approaches, figuring out what the specific topic(s) the keyword sets represent remains as a separate task. Another issue in topic detection is the scope, which is often limited to specific domain, such as health. This work proposes an approach for identifying domain-independent specific topics related to sets of posts. In this approach, individual posts are processed and then aggregated to identify key tokens, which are then mapped to specific topics. Wikipedia article titles are selected to represent topics, since they are up to date, user-generated, sophisticated articles that span topics of human interest. This paper describes the proposed approach, a prototype implementation, and a case study based on data gathered during the heavily contributed periods corresponding to the four US election debates in 2012. The manually evaluated results (0.96 precision) and other observations from the study are discussed in detail.

  10. Identifying Topics in Microblogs Using Wikipedia.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmet Yıldırım

    Full Text Available Twitter is an extremely high volume platform for user generated contributions regarding any topic. The wealth of content created at real-time in massive quantities calls for automated approaches to identify the topics of the contributions. Such topics can be utilized in numerous ways, such as public opinion mining, marketing, entertainment, and disaster management. Towards this end, approaches to relate single or partial posts to knowledge base items have been proposed. However, in microblogging systems like Twitter, topics emerge from the culmination of a large number of contributions. Therefore, identifying topics based on collections of posts, where individual posts contribute to some aspect of the greater topic is necessary. Models, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA, propose algorithms for relating collections of posts to sets of keywords that represent underlying topics. In these approaches, figuring out what the specific topic(s the keyword sets represent remains as a separate task. Another issue in topic detection is the scope, which is often limited to specific domain, such as health. This work proposes an approach for identifying domain-independent specific topics related to sets of posts. In this approach, individual posts are processed and then aggregated to identify key tokens, which are then mapped to specific topics. Wikipedia article titles are selected to represent topics, since they are up to date, user-generated, sophisticated articles that span topics of human interest. This paper describes the proposed approach, a prototype implementation, and a case study based on data gathered during the heavily contributed periods corresponding to the four US election debates in 2012. The manually evaluated results (0.96 precision and other observations from the study are discussed in detail.

  11. Topical steroid-damaged skin

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anil Abraham

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Topical steroids, commonly used for a wide range of skin disorders, are associated with side effects both systemic and cutaneous. This article aims at bringing awareness among practitioners, about the cutaneous side effects of easily available, over the counter, topical steroids. This makes it important for us as dermatologists to weigh the usefulness of topical steroids versus their side effects, and to make an informed decision regarding their use in each individual based on other factors such as age, site involved and type of skin disorder.

  12. Topical tags vs non-topical tags : Towards a bipartite classification?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Basile, Valerio; Peroni, Silvio; Tamburini, Fabio; Vitali, Fabio

    2015-01-01

    In this paper we investigate whether it is possible to create a computational approach that allows us to distinguish topical tags (i.e. talking about the topic of a resource) and non-topical tags (i.e. describing aspects of a resource that are not related to its topic) in folksonomies, in a way that

  13. eHealth Technologies as an Intervention to Improve Adherence to Topical Antipsoriatics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Svendsen, Mathias Tiedemann; Andersen, Flemming; Andersen, Klaus Ejner

    2018-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Topical antipsoriatics are recommended first-line treatment of psoriasis, but rates of adherence are low. Patient support by use of electronic health (eHealth) services is suggested to improve medical adherence. OBJECTIVE: To review randomised controlled trials (RCTs) testing eHealth...... interventions designed to improve adherence to topical antipsoriatics and to review applications for smartphones (apps) incorporating the word psoriasis. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Literature review: Medline, Embase, Cochrane, PsycINFO, and Web of Science were searched using search terms for eHealth, psoriasis....... CONCLUSION: There is a critical need for high-quality RCTs testing if the ubiquitous eHealth technologies, e.g. some of the numerous apps, can improve psoriasis patients' rates of adherence to topical antipsoriatics....

  14. Recent advances in topical anesthesia

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Topical anesthetics act on the peripheral nerves and reduce the sensation of pain at the site of application. In dentistry, they are used to control local pain caused by needling, placement of orthodontic bands, the vomiting reflex, oral mucositis, and rubber-dam clamp placement. Traditional topical anesthetics contain lidocaine or benzocaine as active ingredients and are used in the form of solutions, creams, gels, and sprays. Eutectic mixtures of local anesthesia cream, a mixture of various topical anesthetics, has been reported to be more potent than other anesthetics. Recently, new products with modified ingredients and application methods have been introduced into the market. These products may be used for mild pain during periodontal treatment, such as scaling. Dentists should be aware that topical anesthetics, although rare, might induce allergic reactions or side effects as a result of an overdose. Topical anesthetics are useful aids during dental treatment, as they reduce dental phobia, especially in children, by mitigating discomfort and pain. PMID:28879311

  15. Topical Treatment of Degenerative Knee Osteoarthritis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meng, Zengdong; Huang, Rongzhong

    2018-01-01

    This article reviews topical management strategies for degenerative osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. A search of Pubmed, Embase and the Cochrane library using MeSH terms including "topical," "treatment," "knee" and "osteoarthritis" was carried out. Original research and review articles on the effectiveness and safety, recommendations from international published guidelines and acceptability studies of topical preparations were included. Current topical treatments included for the management of knee OA include topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, capsaicin, salicylates and physical treatments such as hot or cold therapy. Current treatment guidelines recommend topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as an alternative and even first-line therapy for OA management, especially among elderly patients. Guidelines on other topical treatments vary, from recommendations against their use, to in favor as alternative or simultaneous therapy, especially for patients with contraindications to other analgesics. Although often well-tolerated and preferred by many patients, clinical care still lags in the adoption of topical treatments. Aspects of efficacy, safety and patient quality of life data require further research. Copyright © 2018 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Safety and Feasibility of Topical Application of Limonene as a Massage Oil to the Breast.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Jessica A; Thompson, Patricia A; Hakim, Iman A; Lopez, Ana Maria; Thomson, Cynthia A; Chew, Wade; Hsu, Chiu-Hsieh; Chow, H-H Sherry

    2012-10-01

    Limonene, a major component in citrus oil, has demonstrated anti-cancer effects in preclinical mammary cancer models. However, the effective oral dose translates to a human dose that may not be feasible for chronic dosing. We proposed to evaluate topical application of limonene to the breast as an alternative dosing strategy. We conducted a mouse disposition study to determine whether limonene would be bio available in the mammary tissue after topical application. SKH-1 mice received topical or oral administration of limonene in the form of orange oil every day for 4 weeks. Plasma and mammary pads were collected 4 hrs after the final dosing. We also conducted an exploratory clinical study to evaluate the safety and feasibility of topically applied limonene in the form of orange oil to the breast. Healthy women were recruited to apply orange oil containing massage oil to their breasts daily for four weeks. Safety and feasibility were assessed by reported adverse events, clinical labs, and usage compliance. Pre and post-intervention nipple aspirate fluid (NAF) and plasma were collected for limonene concentration determination. The mouse disposition study showed that topical and oral orange oil administration resulted in similar mammary tissue disposition of limonene with no clinical signs of toxicity. In the clinical study, the topical application of limonene containing massage oil to the breast was found to be safe with high levels of usage compliance for daily application, although NAF and plasma limonene concentrations were not significantly changed after the massage oil application. Our studies showed that limonene is bio available in mammary tissue after topical orange oil application in mice and this novel route of administration to the breast is safe and feasible in healthy women.

  17. GeneTopics - interpretation of gene sets via literature-driven topic models

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Background Annotation of a set of genes is often accomplished through comparison to a library of labelled gene sets such as biological processes or canonical pathways. However, this approach might fail if the employed libraries are not up to date with the latest research, don't capture relevant biological themes or are curated at a different level of granularity than is required to appropriately analyze the input gene set. At the same time, the vast biomedical literature offers an unstructured repository of the latest research findings that can be tapped to provide thematic sub-groupings for any input gene set. Methods Our proposed method relies on a gene-specific text corpus and extracts commonalities between documents in an unsupervised manner using a topic model approach. We automatically determine the number of topics summarizing the corpus and calculate a gene relevancy score for each topic allowing us to eliminate non-specific topics. As a result we obtain a set of literature topics in which each topic is associated with a subset of the input genes providing directly interpretable keywords and corresponding documents for literature research. Results We validate our method based on labelled gene sets from the KEGG metabolic pathway collection and the genetic association database (GAD) and show that the approach is able to detect topics consistent with the labelled annotation. Furthermore, we discuss the results on three different types of experimentally derived gene sets, (1) differentially expressed genes from a cardiac hypertrophy experiment in mice, (2) altered transcript abundance in human pancreatic beta cells, and (3) genes implicated by GWA studies to be associated with metabolite levels in a healthy population. In all three cases, we are able to replicate findings from the original papers in a quick and semi-automated manner. Conclusions Our approach provides a novel way of automatically generating meaningful annotations for gene sets that are directly

  18. Topic Model for Graph Mining.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xuan, Junyu; Lu, Jie; Zhang, Guangquan; Luo, Xiangfeng

    2015-12-01

    Graph mining has been a popular research area because of its numerous application scenarios. Many unstructured and structured data can be represented as graphs, such as, documents, chemical molecular structures, and images. However, an issue in relation to current research on graphs is that they cannot adequately discover the topics hidden in graph-structured data which can be beneficial for both the unsupervised learning and supervised learning of the graphs. Although topic models have proved to be very successful in discovering latent topics, the standard topic models cannot be directly applied to graph-structured data due to the "bag-of-word" assumption. In this paper, an innovative graph topic model (GTM) is proposed to address this issue, which uses Bernoulli distributions to model the edges between nodes in a graph. It can, therefore, make the edges in a graph contribute to latent topic discovery and further improve the accuracy of the supervised and unsupervised learning of graphs. The experimental results on two different types of graph datasets show that the proposed GTM outperforms the latent Dirichlet allocation on classification by using the unveiled topics of these two models to represent graphs.

  19. Recent Advances In Topical Therapy In Dermatology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohan Thappa Devinder

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available With changing times various newer topical agents are introduced in the field of dermatology. Tacrolimus and pimecrolimus are immunisuppressants, which are effective topically and are tried in the management of atopic dermatitis as well as other disorders including allergic contact dermatitis, atrophic lichen planus, pyoderma gangrenosum. Imiquimod, an immune response modifier, is presently in use for genital warts but has potentials as anti- tumour agent and in various other dermatological conditions when used topically. Tazarotene is a newer addition to the list of topical reginoids, which is effective in psoriasis and has better effect in combination with calcipotriene, phototherapy and topical costicosteroids. Tazarotene and adapelene are also effective in inflammatory acne. Calcipotriol, a vitamin D analogue has been introduced as a topical agent in the treatment of psoriasis. Steroid components are also developed recently which will be devoid of the side effects but having adequate anti-inflammatory effect. Topical photodynamic therapy has also a wide range of use in dermatology. Newer topical agents including cidofovir, capsaicin, topical sensitizers, topical antifungal agents for onychomycosis are also of use in clinical practice. Other promising developments include skin substitutes and growth factors for wound care.

  20. Solar thermal energy as a topic in secondary mathematics classrooms

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brinkmann, A.; Brinkmann, K. [EnviPro Environmental Process Engineering Prof. Dr. Klaus Brinkmann, Iserlohn (Germany)

    2004-07-01

    One of the most effective methods to achieve a sustainable change of our momentary existing power supply system to a system mainly based on renewable energy conversion is the education of our children. For this purpose the compulsory school subject mathematics appears to be suitable. In order to promote renewable energy issues in mathematics classrooms, the authors have developed a special didactical concept to open this field for students, as well as for their teachers. The aim of this paper is to present firstly an overview of our concept and secondly examples of problems to the special topic of solar thermal energy, developed on the basis of our concept. (orig.)

  1. Analyses of Research Topics in the Field of Informetrics Based on the Method of Topic Modeling

    OpenAIRE

    Sung-Chien Lin

    2014-01-01

    In this study, we used the approach of topic modeling to uncover the possible structure of research topics in the field of Informetrics, to explore the distribution of the topics over years, and to compare the core journals. In order to infer the structure of the topics in the field, the data of the papers published in the Journal of Informetricsand Scientometrics during 2007 to 2013 are retrieved from the database of the Web of Science as input of the approach of topic modeling. The results ...

  2. The Distinction of Hot Herbal Compress, Hot Compress, and Topical Diclofenac as Myofascial Pain Syndrome Treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boonruab, Jurairat; Nimpitakpong, Netraya; Damjuti, Watchara

    2018-01-01

    This randomized controlled trial aimed to investigate the distinctness after treatment among hot herbal compress, hot compress, and topical diclofenac. The registrants were equally divided into groups and received the different treatments including hot herbal compress, hot compress, and topical diclofenac group, which served as the control group. After treatment courses, Visual Analog Scale and 36-Item Short Form Health survey were, respectively, used to establish the level of pain intensity and quality of life. In addition, cervical range of motion and pressure pain threshold were also examined to identify the motional effects. All treatments showed significantly decreased level of pain intensity and increased cervical range of motion, while the intervention groups exhibited extraordinary capability compared with the topical diclofenac group in pressure pain threshold and quality of life. In summary, hot herbal compress holds promise to be an efficacious treatment parallel to hot compress and topical diclofenac.

  3. Topical immunomodulators in dermatology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Khandpur Sujay

    2004-04-01

    Full Text Available Topical immunomodulators are agents that regulate the local immune response of the skin. They are now emerging as the therapy of choice for several immune-mediated dermatoses such as atopic dermatitis, contact allergic dermatitis, alopecia areata, psoriasis, vitiligo, connective tissue disorders such as morphea and lupus erythematosus, disorders of keratinization and several benign and malignant skin tumours, because of their comparable efficacy, ease of application and greater safety than their systemic counterparts. They can be used on a domiciliary basis for longer periods without aggressive monitoring. In this article, we have discussed the mechanism of action, common indications and side-effects of the commonly used topical immunomodulators, excluding topical steroids. Moreover, newer agents, which are still in the experimental stages, have also been described. A MEDLINE search was undertaken using the key words "topical immunomodulators, dermatology" and related articles were also searched. In addition, a manual search for many Indian articles, which are not indexed, was also carried out. Wherever possible, the full article was reviewed. If the full article could not be traced, the abstract was used.

  4. Topical treatment of psoriasis: questionnaire results on topical therapy accessibility and influence of body surface area on usage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iversen, L; Lange, M M; Bissonette, R; Carvalho, A V E; van de Kerkhof, P C; Kirby, B; Kleyn, C E; Lynde, C W; van der Walt, J M; Wu, J J

    2017-07-01

    Topical treatment of mild to moderate psoriasis is first-line treatment and exhibits varying degrees of success across patient groups. Key factors influencing treatment success are physician topical treatment choice (high efficacy, low adverse events) and strict patient adherence. Currently, no formalized, international consensus guidelines exist to direct optimal topical treatment, although many countries have national guidelines. To describe and analyse cross-regional variations in the use and access of psoriasis topical therapies. The study was conducted as an observational cross-sectional study. A survey was distributed to dermatologists from the International Psoriasis Council (IPC) to assess topical therapy accessibility in 26 countries and to understand how body surface area (BSA) categories guide clinical decisions on topical use. Variation in the availability of tars, topical retinoids, dithranol and balneotherapy was reported. The vast majority of respondents (100% and 88.4%) used topical therapy as first-line monotherapy in situations with BSA 10%, the number of respondents who prescribe topical therapy decreased considerably. In addition, combination therapy of a topical drug and a systemic drug was frequently reported when BSA measured >10%. This physician survey provides new evidence on topical access and the influence of disease severity on topical usage in an effort to improve treatment strategies on a global level. © 2017 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

  5. Comprehensive evaluation of carboxylated nanodiamond as a topical drug delivery system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Dae Gon; Kim, Ki Hyun; Kang, Eunah; Lim, Sun Hee; Ricci, Jeremy; Sung, Si Kwon; Kwon, Myoung Taek; Jeong, Seong Hoon

    2016-01-01

    The best strategy in the development of topical drug delivery systems may be to facilitate the permeation of drugs without any harmful effects, while staying on the skin surface and maintaining stability of the system. Nanodiamonds (NDs) play a key role with their excellent physicochemical properties, including high biocompatibility, physical adsorption, reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging capability, and photostabilizing activity. Z-average sizes of carboxylated ND (ND-COOH) agglutinate decreased significantly as the pH increased. Fluorescein-conjugated ND was observed only on the stratum corneum, and no sample diffused into the dermal layer even after 48 hours. Moreover, ND-COOH and ND-COOH/eugenol complex did not show significant toxic effects on murine macrophage cells. ND improved in vitro skin permeation >50% acting as a "drug reservoir" to maintain a high drug concentration in the donor chamber, which was supported by quartz crystal microbalance results. Moreover, ND-COOH could adsorb a drug amount equivalent to 80% of its own weight. A photostability study showed that ND-COOH increased the photostability ~47% with regard to rate constant of the eugenol itself. A significant decrease in ROS was observed in the ND-COOH and ND-COOH/eugenol complex compared with the negative control during intracellular ROS assay. Moreover, ROS and cupric reducing antioxidant capacity evaluation showed that ND-COOH had synergistic effects of antioxidation with eugenol. Therefore, ND-COOH could be used as an excellent topical drug delivery system with improved permeability, higher stability, and minimized safety issue.

  6. Problematic topic transitions in dysarthric conversation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bloch, Steven; Saldert, Charlotta; Ferm, Ulrika

    2015-01-01

    This study examined the nature of topic transition problems associated with acquired progressive dysarthric speech in the everyday conversation of people with motor neurone disease. Using conversation analytic methods, a video collection of five naturally occurring problematic topic transitions was identified, transcribed and analysed. These were extracted from a main collection of over 200 other-initiated repair sequences and a sub-set of 15 problematic topic transition sequences. The sequences were analysed with reference to how the participants both identified and resolved the problems. Analysis revealed that topic transition by people with dysarthria can prove problematic. Conversation partners may find transitions problematic not only because of speech intelligibility but also because of a sequential disjuncture between the dysarthric speech turn and whatever topic has come prior. In addition the treatment of problematic topic transition as a complaint reveals the potential vulnerability of people with dysarthria to judgements of competence. These findings have implications for how dysarthria is conceptualized and how specific actions in conversation, such as topic transition, might be suitable targets for clinical intervention.

  7. JST Thesaurus Headwords and Synonyms: 辞書(as Topic) [MeCab user dictionary for science technology term[Archive

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available MeCab user dictionary for science technology term 辞書(as Topic) 名詞 一般 * * * * 辞書 ジショ ジショ Thesaurus2015 200906028477984205 C BA01 UNKNOWN_2 辞書 ( a s Topic )

  8. Learning topic models by belief propagation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Jia; Cheung, William K; Liu, Jiming

    2013-05-01

    Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is an important hierarchical Bayesian model for probabilistic topic modeling, which attracts worldwide interest and touches on many important applications in text mining, computer vision and computational biology. This paper represents the collapsed LDA as a factor graph, which enables the classic loopy belief propagation (BP) algorithm for approximate inference and parameter estimation. Although two commonly used approximate inference methods, such as variational Bayes (VB) and collapsed Gibbs sampling (GS), have gained great success in learning LDA, the proposed BP is competitive in both speed and accuracy, as validated by encouraging experimental results on four large-scale document datasets. Furthermore, the BP algorithm has the potential to become a generic scheme for learning variants of LDA-based topic models in the collapsed space. To this end, we show how to learn two typical variants of LDA-based topic models, such as author-topic models (ATM) and relational topic models (RTM), using BP based on the factor graph representations.

  9. Differential Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Changyou; Buntine, Wray; Ding, Nan; Xie, Lexing; Du, Lan

    2015-02-01

    In applications we may want to compare different document collections: they could have shared content but also different and unique aspects in particular collections. This task has been called comparative text mining or cross-collection modeling. We present a differential topic model for this application that models both topic differences and similarities. For this we use hierarchical Bayesian nonparametric models. Moreover, we found it was important to properly model power-law phenomena in topic-word distributions and thus we used the full Pitman-Yor process rather than just a Dirichlet process. Furthermore, we propose the transformed Pitman-Yor process (TPYP) to incorporate prior knowledge such as vocabulary variations in different collections into the model. To deal with the non-conjugate issue between model prior and likelihood in the TPYP, we thus propose an efficient sampling algorithm using a data augmentation technique based on the multinomial theorem. Experimental results show the model discovers interesting aspects of different collections. We also show the proposed MCMC based algorithm achieves a dramatically reduced test perplexity compared to some existing topic models. Finally, we show our model outperforms the state-of-the-art for document classification/ideology prediction on a number of text collections.

  10. An Introduction to Topic Modeling as an Unsupervised Machine Learning Way to Organize Text Information

    Science.gov (United States)

    Snyder, Robin M.

    2015-01-01

    The field of topic modeling has become increasingly important over the past few years. Topic modeling is an unsupervised machine learning way to organize text (or image or DNA, etc.) information such that related pieces of text can be identified. This paper/session will present/discuss the current state of topic modeling, why it is important, and…

  11. Tracking topic birth and death in LDA.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wilson, Andrew T.; Robinson, David Gerald

    2011-09-01

    Most topic modeling algorithms that address the evolution of documents over time use the same number of topics at all times. This obscures the common occurrence in the data where new subjects arise and old ones diminish or disappear entirely. We propose an algorithm to model the birth and death of topics within an LDA-like framework. The user selects an initial number of topics, after which new topics are created and retired without further supervision. Our approach also accommodates many of the acceleration and parallelization schemes developed in recent years for standard LDA. In recent years, topic modeling algorithms such as latent semantic analysis (LSA)[17], latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)[10] and their descendants have offered a powerful way to explore and interrogate corpora far too large for any human to grasp without assistance. Using such algorithms we are able to search for similar documents, model and track the volume of topics over time, search for correlated topics or model them with a hierarchy. Most of these algorithms are intended for use with static corpora where the number of documents and the size of the vocabulary are known in advance. Moreover, almost all current topic modeling algorithms fix the number of topics as one of the input parameters and keep it fixed across the entire corpus. While this is appropriate for static corpora, it becomes a serious handicap when analyzing time-varying data sets where topics come and go as a matter of course. This is doubly true for online algorithms that may not have the option of revising earlier results in light of new data. To be sure, these algorithms will account for changing data one way or another, but without the ability to adapt to structural changes such as entirely new topics they may do so in counterintuitive ways.

  12. Freshman Health Topics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hovde, Karen

    2011-01-01

    This article examines a cluster of health topics that are frequently selected by students in lower division classes. Topics address issues relating to addictive substances, including alcohol and tobacco, eating disorders, obesity, and dieting. Analysis of the topics examines their interrelationships and organization in the reference literature.…

  13. The Cartoon quality in Internet. Clan TVE, Neox Kidz and Boing: entertainment platforms for young audiences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Inmaculada Sánchez-Labella Martín

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available With the advancement of technology, Internet it has become the primary means for audiovisual consumption while presenting a critical situation around the debate the quality of the content. With the emergence of DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television in Spain television networks, public and private, they have created new thematics channels focused on content for children. At the same time, with the rise of new electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones, they have moved such content to the network by creating of platforms whose programs are aimed childhood. The non-linearity and immediacy in consumption make the Internet becomes an active mean giving autonomy and freedom to access a multitude of content regardless of time and the device. In this situation the child consumers is the audience that worries both parents and educational institutions. Restless, therefore, that children do not find programs adjusted to their age. The quality concept harbors no concrete definition because of the multitude of factors and perspectives that influence it. This paper, and based on different measurement criteria set by countries like Argentina, Chile, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the University of Pennsylvania (USA or the ACTF (Australian Children´s Television Foundation poses as main objective to analyze the online platforms Clan RTVE, Neox Kidz and Boing of television TVE, Antena 3 and Telecinco, respectively, because they are considered spaces with audiovisual material created for children. With the intention of demonstrating that they are presented as quality environments for children who access them it will conduct a qualitative methodology. Using the content analysis technique to each of the animated titles we can say that the cartoons, as outlined above, are quality entertainment programs.

  14. Analyses of Research Topics in the Field of Informetrics Based on the Method of Topic Modeling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sung-Chien Lin

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available In this study, we used the approach of topic modeling to uncover the possible structure of research topics in the field of Informetrics, to explore the distribution of the topics over years, and to compare the core journals. In order to infer the structure of the topics in the field, the data of the papers published in the Journal of Informetricsand Scientometrics during 2007 to 2013 are retrieved from the database of the Web of Science as input of the approach of topic modeling. The results of this study show that when the number of topics was set to 10, the topic model has the smallest perplexity. Although data scopes and analysis methodsare different to previous studies, the generating topics of this study are consistent with those results produced by analyses of experts. Empirical case studies and measurements of bibliometric indicators were concerned important in every year during the whole analytic period, and the field was increasing stability. Both the two core journals broadly paid more attention to all of the topics in the field of Informetrics. The Journal of Informetricsput particular emphasis on construction and applications ofbibliometric indicators and Scientometrics focused on the evaluation and the factors of productivity of countries, institutions, domains, and journals.

  15. The Concept of the Interculture in Time: (Intercultural Topics in Textbooks of French as a Foreign Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Meta Lah

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the concept of interculturality as used in foreign language didactics. In accordance with the definition of interculturality given in the first part of the article, two categories are included in the analysis – two “levels” of culture, each of them bearing a different name in literature, namely high and popular culture. Various textbooks used for teaching French as a foreign language in Slovenia in both the past and present were chosen for the analysis of topics that cover a fairly long period of time – among them the textbooks by two Slovenian authors: Južnič (1938 and Grad (1954, as well as some generally-used French textbooks, such as Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises (1953, Le nouveau sans frontières (1988 and Nouveau rond point (2011. The article is based on the hypothesis that high culture is more likely to be present in the older textbooks, which are based on traditional methods, whereas in modern textbooks more popular, everyday topics can be found. It is also presumed that topics in modern textbooks are, compared to their more traditional counterparts, introduced in an intercultural manner which could encourage students to compare the culture of the foreign country with their own. Both hypotheses are partly confirmed. In Slovenian textbooks there are very few culture-based topics. On the other hand, they are present in all French textbooks, regardless of the methodology. It is true that Mauger introduces more high culture than the others and that the intercultural topics are presented only in the most recent textbook. In all the others, it is exclusively the culture of the target country that is introduced.

  16. [Medical topics of the Goethe period as reflected in the Goethe Dictionary].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlaps, Christiane

    2010-01-01

    This paper deals with some medical topics which were mentioned or discussed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and can thus be found in the dictionary which lists and explains all the words he used, the Goethe Dictionary. The author makes a case for the use of this primarily literary and linguistic work e. g. as source material for historians of medicine and shows some of its possible uses.

  17. Deep Unfolding for Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chien, Jen-Tzung; Lee, Chao-Hsi

    2018-02-01

    Deep unfolding provides an approach to integrate the probabilistic generative models and the deterministic neural networks. Such an approach is benefited by deep representation, easy interpretation, flexible learning and stochastic modeling. This study develops the unsupervised and supervised learning of deep unfolded topic models for document representation and classification. Conventionally, the unsupervised and supervised topic models are inferred via the variational inference algorithm where the model parameters are estimated by maximizing the lower bound of logarithm of marginal likelihood using input documents without and with class labels, respectively. The representation capability or classification accuracy is constrained by the variational lower bound and the tied model parameters across inference procedure. This paper aims to relax these constraints by directly maximizing the end performance criterion and continuously untying the parameters in learning process via deep unfolding inference (DUI). The inference procedure is treated as the layer-wise learning in a deep neural network. The end performance is iteratively improved by using the estimated topic parameters according to the exponentiated updates. Deep learning of topic models is therefore implemented through a back-propagation procedure. Experimental results show the merits of DUI with increasing number of layers compared with variational inference in unsupervised as well as supervised topic models.

  18. Mental Mechanisms for Topics Identification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Louis Massey

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Topics identification (TI is the process that consists in determining the main themes present in natural language documents. The current TI modeling paradigm aims at acquiring semantic information from statistic properties of large text datasets. We investigate the mental mechanisms responsible for the identification of topics in a single document given existing knowledge. Our main hypothesis is that topics are the result of accumulated neural activation of loosely organized information stored in long-term memory (LTM. We experimentally tested our hypothesis with a computational model that simulates LTM activation. The model assumes activation decay as an unavoidable phenomenon originating from the bioelectric nature of neural systems. Since decay should negatively affect the quality of topics, the model predicts the presence of short-term memory (STM to keep the focus of attention on a few words, with the expected outcome of restoring quality to a baseline level. Our experiments measured topics quality of over 300 documents with various decay rates and STM capacity. Our results showed that accumulated activation of loosely organized information was an effective mental computational commodity to identify topics. It was furthermore confirmed that rapid decay is detrimental to topics quality but that limited capacity STM restores quality to a baseline level, even exceeding it slightly.

  19. Topical botulinum toxin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Collins, Ashley; Nasir, Adnan

    2010-03-01

    Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing discipline that capitalizes on the unique properties of matter engineered on the nanoscale. Vehicles incorporating nanotechnology have led to great strides in drug delivery, allowing for increased active ingredient stability, bioavailability, and site-specific targeting. Botulinum toxin has historically been used for the correction of neurological and neuromuscular disorders, such as torticollis, blepharospasm, and strabismus. Recent dermatological indications have been for the management of axillary hyperhydrosis and facial rhytides. Traditional methods of botulinum toxin delivery have been needle-based. These have been associated with increased pain and cost. Newer methods of botulinum toxin formulation have yielded topical preparations that are bioactive in small pilot clinical studies. While there are some risks associated with topical delivery, the refinement and standardization of delivery systems and techniques for the topical administration of botulinum toxin using nanotechnology is anticipated in the near future.

  20. Evaluating topic models with stability

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    De Waal, A

    2008-11-01

    Full Text Available Topic models are unsupervised techniques that extract likely topics from text corpora, by creating probabilistic word-topic and topic-document associations. Evaluation of topic models is a challenge because (a) topic models are often employed...

  1. Topical report review status

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1997-08-01

    This report provides industry with procedures for submitting topical reports, guidance on how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) processes and responds to topical report submittals, and an accounting, with review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review by the NRC. This report will be published annually. Each sponsoring organization with one or more topical reports accepted for review copies

  2. WOW! Windows on the Wild: A Biodiversity Primer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Braus, Judy, Ed.; And Others

    Windows on the Wild is an environmental education program of the World Wildlife Fund. This issue of WOW! focuses on biodiversity. Topics include: an interview with one of the world's leading experts on biodiversity; the lighter side of biodiversity through comics and cartoons; a species-scape that compares the number of species on the planet;…

  3. Topical anesthesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mritunjay Kumar

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Topical anesthetics are being widely used in numerous medical and surgical sub-specialties such as anesthesia, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, dentistry, urology, and aesthetic surgery. They cause superficial loss of pain sensation after direct application. Their delivery and effectiveness can be enhanced by using free bases; by increasing the drug concentration, lowering the melting point; by using physical and chemical permeation enhancers and lipid delivery vesicles. Various topical anesthetic agents available for use are eutectic mixture of local anesthetics, ELA-max, lidocaine, epinephrine, tetracaine, bupivanor, 4% tetracaine, benzocaine, proparacaine, Betacaine-LA, topicaine, lidoderm, S-caine patch™ and local anesthetic peel. While using them, careful attention must be paid to their pharmacology, area and duration of application, age and weight of the patients and possible side-effects.

  4. Topical treatments of skin pain: a general review with a focus on hidradenitis suppurativa with topical agents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scheinfeld, Noah

    2014-07-15

    Hidradenitis Supprurativa (HS) is a painful chronic follicular disease. Few papers have addressed pain control for this debilitating condition. Possible topical agents include tricyclic antidepressants, opioids, anticonvulsants, NSAIDs, NMDA receptor antagonists, local anesthetics and other agents. The first line agents for the topical treatment of the cutaneous pain of HS are diclonefac gel 1% and liposomal xylocaine 4% and 5% cream or 5% ointment. The chief advantage of topical xylocaine is that is quick acting i.e. immediate however with a limited duration of effect 1-2 hours. The use of topical ketamine, which blocks n-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in a non-competitive fashion, might be a useful tool for the treatment of HS pain. Topical doxepin, which available in a 5% commercially preparation (Zonalon®) , makes patients drowsy and is not useful for controlling the pain of HS . Doxepin is available in a 3% or 3.3% concentration (which causes less drowsiness) from compounding pharmacies and can be used in compounded analgesic preparations with positive effect. Topical doxepin is preferred over use of topical amitriptyline because topical doxepin is more effective. Nevertheless, topical amitriptyline increase of the tactile and mechanical nociceptive thresholds and can be used for topical pain control in compound mixture of analgesics . Gabapentin and pregablin can also be used compounded with other agents in topical analgesic preparations with positive topical anesthetic effect. Capsaicin is not useful for topical treatment of the pain of HS. Sometimes compounded of anesthetics medications such as ketamine 10%, bupivacaine 1%, diclofenac 3%, doxepin 3% or 3.3%, and gabapentin 6% can extend the duration of effect so that medication only needs to be used 2 or 3 times a day. Still in my experience the easiest to get and most patient requested agent is topical diclonefac 1% gel.

  5. El discurso infantil sobre valores y emociones a partir tres muertes clave en los relatos audiovisuales / Children's discourse about values and emotions through three examples of deaths in the cartoon movies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leticia PORTO PEDROSA

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Este artículo pretende acercarse a la comprensión de la audiencia infantil ante determinados contenidos audiovisuales que transmiten valores y emociones vinculadas al sufrimiento y al dolor. Se trata de un trabajo que realiza un recorrido por las clásicas películas de dibujos animados y los modernos largometrajes de animación que han formado parte del entretenimiento de distintas generaciones. En este repaso, nos centramos en tres momentos clave que consideramos que han marcado un punto de inflexión en este tipo de cine: la muerte de la madre en la película Bambi (1942; el asesinato del padre de Simba, en El Rey León (1994 y, el tercero, la despedida de Ellie, en Up (2009. Para profundizar en la comprensión de los niños sobre esta clase de contenidos emocionales presentes en estas historias, se lleva a cabo una investigación cualitativa realizada a través de grupos de discusión con menores. This article discusses about the understanding of children as viewers of audiovisual content that broadcast values and emotions related to suffering and pain. This research reviews of the classic cartoons movies and modern animation films that have been part of the entertainment of different generations. In this paper, we focus on three key moments that we believe could be a turning point for this kind of cartoon movies: the death of the mother of Bambi (1942, the murder of the Simba's father in The Lion King (1994 and Ellie's death in Up (2009. In orden to know the understanding of children on these emotional content present in these stories, it develop a qualitative research through focus groups with children.

  6. Link-topic model for biomedical abbreviation disambiguation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Seonho; Yoon, Juntae

    2015-02-01

    The ambiguity of biomedical abbreviations is one of the challenges in biomedical text mining systems. In particular, the handling of term variants and abbreviations without nearby definitions is a critical issue. In this study, we adopt the concepts of topic of document and word link to disambiguate biomedical abbreviations. We newly suggest the link topic model inspired by the latent Dirichlet allocation model, in which each document is perceived as a random mixture of topics, where each topic is characterized by a distribution over words. Thus, the most probable expansions with respect to abbreviations of a given abstract are determined by word-topic, document-topic, and word-link distributions estimated from a document collection through the link topic model. The model allows two distinct modes of word generation to incorporate semantic dependencies among words, particularly long form words of abbreviations and their sentential co-occurring words; a word can be generated either dependently on the long form of the abbreviation or independently. The semantic dependency between two words is defined as a link and a new random parameter for the link is assigned to each word as well as a topic parameter. Because the link status indicates whether the word constitutes a link with a given specific long form, it has the effect of determining whether a word forms a unigram or a skipping/consecutive bigram with respect to the long form. Furthermore, we place a constraint on the model so that a word has the same topic as a specific long form if it is generated in reference to the long form. Consequently, documents are generated from the two hidden parameters, i.e. topic and link, and the most probable expansion of a specific abbreviation is estimated from the parameters. Our model relaxes the bag-of-words assumption of the standard topic model in which the word order is neglected, and it captures a richer structure of text than does the standard topic model by considering

  7. Functional Evaluation of Modified T Pouch as Ileal Neo bladder Ortho topic Reservoir

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hammouda, H.M.

    2004-01-01

    We report on the functional results of ortho topic modified T pouch ileal neo bladder, incorporating serous- lined extra mural ileal anti reflux technique for urinary diversion after radical cystectomy. Material and Methods: From September 1998 through November 2001,42 patients of mean age 49 years (range 45-54) having invasive bladder carcinoma underwent radical cystectomy and ortho topic ileal neo bladder urinary diversion, the modified T pouch. Thirty-three patients were males while the remaining 9 were females. The mean follow up was 24 months (range 18-42). Preoperative unior bilateral ureteral dilatation was noted in 13/42 (30.9%) patients). Follow up included clinical examination, laboratory, radiological and uro dynamic investigations. Early postoperative complications were recorded in 3 cases, that were managed conservatively. Day and night continence were achieved in 34/42 (81 %) and 29/42 (69%) patients, night enuresis in 2 (4.8%),while satisfactory day and night continence were noted, respectively. Upper urinary tract (UUT) remained unchanged or improved in all cases. No need for clean intermittent catherization (CIC). No evidence of reflux was detected. Pressure at maximum capacity (average 17 cm H 2 O at 600 ml). Mean flow rate was 17.6 ml/sec (range 15-24). Pelvic cancer recurrence was recorded in 5 patients at mean 24 months, respectively. Modified T pouch has an excellent functional criteria as an ortho topic ileal neo bladder reservoir. It is absolutely indicated in short and/or massively dilated ureter

  8. Chitosan-solid lipid nanoparticles as carriers for topical delivery of tretinoin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ridolfi, Daniela M; Marcato, Priscyla D; Justo, Giselle Z; Cordi, Lívia; Machado, Daisy; Durán, Nelson

    2012-05-01

    Tretinoin (TRE) or all-trans retinoic acid is employed in the topical treatment of various skin diseases including acne and psoriasis. However, its use is strongly limited by side effects and high chemical instability. TRE encapsulation in nanostructured systems reduces these problems. Chitosan is a biopolymer that exhibits a number of interesting properties such as bioadhesion and antibacterial activity. The aim of this work was to prepare and characterize solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) containing TRE, with and without addition of chitosan, to assess their in vitro cytotoxicity in keratinocytes and to evaluate their antibacterial activity against bacteria related to acne. SLN without (SLN-TRE) and with (SLN-chitosan-TRE) chitosan were prepared by hot high pressure homogenization. The hydrodynamic mean diameter and zeta potential were 162.7±1.4 nm and -31.9±2.0 mV for SLN-TRE, and 284.8±15.0 nm and 55.9±3.1 mV for SLN-chitosan-TRE. The SLN-chitosan-TRE exhibited high encapsulation efficiency, high physical stability in the tested period (one year), were not cytotoxic to keratinocytes and showed high antibacterial activity against P. acnes and S. aureus. Therefore chitosan-SLN can be good candidates to encapsulate TRE and to increase its therapeutic efficacy in the topical treatment of acne. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. The influence of violent TV cartoons watched by school children in Turkey Influencia de los dibujos animados violentos vistos en la televisión por escolares de Turquia Influência dos desenhos animados violentos assistidos na televisão por escolares da Turquia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sibel Ergün

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to demonstrate the gender-specific impact of violence-oriented television cartoons on children, and to identify the behaviors demonstrating this influence. METHODS: The research was conducted on a total of 300 students chosen by a simple, random method applying a stratified weight in each school. A 20-question instrument was used for data collection, using face-to-face interviews with the students which occurred during visits to primary schools. RESULTS: A significant gender difference was noted between students' favourite cartoon shows, the type of influence those shows exerted, and the ways in which students imitated the behaviors of the cartoon characters (pOBJETIVO: Demostrar la influencia de la violencia en los dibujos animados de la TV sobre los niños de acuerdo al género y al tipo de comportamientos que les es sugerido. MÉTODOS: La investigación se llevó a cabo en Turquia occidental, que abarcó una muestra aleatoria simple de 300 alumnos con base en el peso muestral estratificado de 18 escuelas primarias. Los cuestionarios fueron aplicados por medio de entrevistas presenciales con los estudiantes de las escuelas del 1º grado que fueron visitadas y que aceptaron participar en este estudio. RESULTADOS: El nivel de significancia fue determinado según el género, con base en el tipo de dibujos animados que los niños preferían las condiciones con que eran influenciadas y la capacidad de imitar a los personajes de los dibujos animados (pOBJETIVO: Demonstrar a influência da violência nos desenhos animados da TV sobre as crianças de acordo com o gênero e o tipo de comportamentos que nelas é incutido. MÉTODOS: A investigação foi levada a cabo na Turquia ocidental, abrangendo amostra aleatória simples de 300 alunos com base no peso amostral estratificado de 18 escolas primárias. Os questionários foram aplicados por meio de entrevistas presenciais com os estudantes das escolas do 1º grau visitadas

  10. Resources for Topics in Architecture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Noate, Judith, Comp.

    This guide for conducting library research on topics in architecture or on the work of a particular architect presents suggestions for utilizing four categories of resources: books, dictionaries and encyclopedias, indexes, and a periodicals and series list (PASL). Two topics are researched as examples: the contemporary architect Richard Meier, and…

  11. Anesthesia: A Topic for Interdisciplinary Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labianca, Dominick A.; Reeves, William J.

    1977-01-01

    Describes an interdisciplinary approach for teaching the topic of anesthesia as one aspect of a chemistry-oriented course for nonscience majors which focuses on timely topics such as the energy crisis and drugs. Historical treatment with the examination of literature is emphasized in teaching. (HM)

  12. OS SUPER-HERÓIS EM AÇÃO. PODEM OS DESENHOS ANIMADOS SUGERIREM UMA ORIENTAÇÃO ESTÉTICA LÚDICO-AGRESSIVA? SUPERHEROES IN ACTION: THE AESTHETIC ORIENTATION OF CARTOONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raquel Firmino Magalhães Barbosa

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Partindo do ponto que o homem é considerado um ser simbólico e influenciado diretamente pelos aspectos sociais e culturais, o seu imaginário é totalmente estimulado por tudo e todos que estão a sua volta, principalmente na contemporaneidade, quando o que está em voga é a infância, a TV e suas brincadeiras. Este estudo objetivou conhecer a dinâmica brincante entre os heróis de alguns desenhos animados (Power Rangers, Ben 10, Homem Aranha e Homem de Ferro e a orientação estética desta teia de relações, a partir das metáforas e construções teóricas de Ariès, Brougère, Jones, Huizinga, Morin, Sutton-Smith, dentre outros. Partindo do pressuposto que a criança utiliza a sua imaginação para brincar com o que está ao seu redor e que os objetos que compõem este meio também podem influenciá-la, foram formuladas as seguintes indagações: como o processo de identificação com o desenho animado age para suscitar a imaginação das crianças? Como a agressividade permeia suas brincadeiras? Foram realizadas entrevistas com sete crianças de cinco anos de idade da Educação Infantil de uma Escola Municipal de Cuiabá/MT. O texto apresentou a importância de ter uma percepção sensível sobre a relação que a criança faz com seus heróis midiáticos: a escolha da brincadeira, a preferência do personagem e os comportamentos lúdico-agressivos presentes neste momento. Isso possibilitou uma experiência estética, de mostrar a linguagem lúdica da criança ao interpretar à sua maneira o conteúdo dos desenhos animados.Starting from the point of view that the man is considered to be a symbolic being and directly influenced by social and cultural aspects, his imagination is fully stimulated by everything and everyone that is around him, especially when what is in vogue in contemporaneity is childhood, TV and playing. This study aimed to understand the playful dynamics between cartoon heroes (Power Rangers, Ben 10, Spider-man and

  13. Topic modelling in the information warfare domain

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    De Waal, A

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available for interesting and relevant topics. The objectives of this paper is to describe topic modelling, put it in context as a useful IW technique and illustrate its use with two examples. They discuss several applications of topic modelling in the safety and security...

  14. Topical report review status

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1982-08-01

    A Topical Report Review Status is scheduled to be published semi-annually. The primary purpose of this document is to provide periodic progress reports of on-going topical report reviews, to identify those topical reports for which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff review has been completed and, to the extent practicable, to provide NRC management with sufficient information regarding the conduct of the topical report program to permit taking whatever actions deemed necessary or appropriate. This document is also intended to be a source of information to NRC Licensing Project Managers and other NRC personnel regarding the status of topical reports which may be referenced in applications for which they have responsibility. This status report is published primarily for internal NRC use in managing the topical report program, but is also used by NRC to advise the industry of report review status

  15. Topical report review status

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1983-01-01

    A Topical Report Review Status is scheduled to be published semi-annually. The primary purpose of this document is to provide periodic progress reports of on-going topical report reviews, to identify those topical reports for which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff review has been completed and, to the extent practicable, to provide NRC management with sufficient information regarding the conduct of the topical report program to permit taking whatever actions deemed necessary or appropriate. This document is also intended to be a source of information to NRC Licensing Project Managers and other NRC personnel regarding the status of topical reports which may be referenced in applications for which they have responsibility. This status report is published primarily for internal NRC use in managing the topical report program, but is also used by NRC to advise the industry of report review status

  16. The human heart and the circulatory system as an interesting interdisciplinary topic in lessons of physics and biology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Volná, M; Látal, F; Kubínek, R; Richterek, L

    2014-01-01

    Many topics which are closely related can be found in the national curriculum of the Czech Republic for physics and biology. One of them is the heart and the circulatory system in the human body. This topic was examined cross curriculum, a teaching module was created and the topic was chosen for our research. The task was to determine if the students of bachelor study are aware of connections between physics and biology within this topic and whether we can help them effectively to describe the corresponding physics phenomena in the human body connected, for example, with a heart attack or with the measurement of blood pressure. In this paper, the heart and the circulatory system are presented as suitable topics for an interdisciplinary teaching module which includes both theoretical and experimental parts. The module was evaluated by a group of first-year undergraduate students of physics at the Faculty of Science, Palacký University. The acquired knowledge was compared with another control group through a test. The highest efficiency of the module was evaluated on the basis of questions that covered the calculation problems. (paper)

  17. 75 FR 26647 - Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-05-12

    .... FDA-2010-N-0002] Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution... are treated with a topical solution of ivermectin. DATES: This rule is effective May 12, 2010. FOR... ANADA 200-340 for PRIVERMECTIN (ivermectin), a topical solution used on cattle to control infestations...

  18. Women's Health Topics

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Information by Audience For Women Women's Health Topics Women's Health Topics Share Tweet Linkedin Pin it More sharing options Linkedin Pin it Email Print National Women's Health Week May 13 - 19, 2018 Join us ...

  19. Interdiction of images: the construction of the other in Mohammed’s cartoons A interdição das imagens: a construção do outro pelas charges de Maomé

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Luisa Hoffmann

    2009-08-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyses the building of Islam as an inverted image of western culture, as a result of the publication of cartoons representing prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in September of 2005. The association of the prophet to terrorism in images is discussed in light of the contributions of semiotics of culture and authors such as Vilém Flusser and Norval Baitello Jr. Este artigo analisa a construção do islã como imagem invertida do ocidente através da publicação das Charges de Maomé em um jornal dinamarquês em setembro de 2005. A associação do profeta islâmico com o terrorismo em imagens é discutida à luz de pressupostos teóricos da semiótica da cultura e de autores como Vilém Flusser e Norval Baitello Júnior.

  20. Topical application of hemostatic paste

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Mizanur Rahman

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available As a measure to control minor surgical bleeding, surgeons usually depend on a number of hemostatic aids. Topical use of bovine thrombin is a widely used procedure to arrest such minor bleeding. A 35 year old male sergeant of Bangladesh Air Force presented with repeated development of hematoma in his left thigh without any history of trauma or previous history of bleeding. Critical analysis of the patient’s history, routine and sophisticated hematological investigations revealed that the patient developed anti-thrombin antibody following the application of hemostatic paste in the tooth socket five years back during minor dental procedure to stop ignorable bleeding episodes. Therefore, topical use of hemostatic glue/paste or bovine thrombin should be avoided to desist minor bleeding as recombinant human thrombin is now available for topical use.

  1. The emergence and institutional co-determination of sustainability as a teaching topic in interdisciplinary science teacher education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rasmussen, Klaus

    2016-01-01

    This paper takes an institutional perspective on the topic of sustainability in order to analyse how this ‘idea’ enters science teacher education through an interdisciplinary approach. It shows how the development and implementation of a course for Danish pre-service teachers was conditioned......, conceptualised through a new reference model that separates the analysis from the usual sustainability dimensions. The findings reveal how sustainability as a teaching topic can be a unifying idea in an interdisciplinary setting. Disciplinary differences evidently impact course planning and implementation...

  2. Adherence to oral and topical medication in 445 patients with tinea pedis as assessed by the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsunemi, Yuichiro; Abe, Shinya; Kobayashi, Miwa; Kitami, Yuki; Onozuka, Daisuke; Hagihara, Akihito; Takeuchi, Satoshi; Murota, Hiroyuki; Sugaya, Makoto; Masuda, Koji; Hiragun, Takaaki; Kaneko, Sakae; Saeki, Hidehisa; Shintani, Yoichi; Tanioka, Miki; Imafuku, Shinichi; Abe, Masatoshi; Inomata, Naoko; Morisky, Donald E; Furue, Masutaka; Katoh, Norito

    2015-01-01

    Adherence is defined as the extent to which a person's behavior corresponds with recommendations from health care providers. Adherence to treatment is an important factor for a good therapeutic outcome. This study aimed to examine the adherence of patients with tinea pedis and to clarify the factors related to it. We assessed medication adherence for oral and topical drugs using a translated version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) together with other background factors in 445 Japanese patients with tinea pedis, using a questionnaire in a web-based monitoring system. Overall, high, medium and low adherence rates as assessed by MMAS-8 were 8.7%, 31.7% and 59.6% for oral medication, and 8.6%, 17.4% and 74.0% for topical medication, respectively. The adherence level was significantly higher for oral medication than for topical medication. Subgroup analyses showed that the adherence level for topical medication was significantly higher when topical and oral medications were used in combination than when topical medication was used alone. A low adherence level was shown in employed patients, those for whom their oral medication had not been effective and those with topical medication who had visited their hospital less often than once every six months. Patient adherence to therapy can be effectively improved by selecting highly effective medication while considering the prescription of topical and oral antifungal medications concomitantly, by carefully selecting a therapy plan for employed patients and by encouraging patients to visit their doctor regularly.

  3. Tactile Models and Games as Learning Tools for Topics of Molecular and Cell Biology

    OpenAIRE

    Nelma Regina Segnini Bossolan

    2017-01-01

    The cell structure and the dynamics of its functioning are basic topics for the understanding of phenomena on a larger scale in living organisms and for which research in science teaching has suggested several strategies based on the use of images, games, computational simulations and tactile models, among other types of external representations. Our science education research group, over the last 17 years, has developed and evaluated educational materials for teaching these topics, aimed at ...

  4. Learning about Teaching the Extracurricular Topic of Nanotechnology as a Vehicle for Achieving a Sustainable Change in Science Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blonder, Ron; Mamlok-Naaman, Rachel

    2016-01-01

    This study focused on teachers' transfer of a variety of teaching methods from a teaching module on nanotechnology, which is an example of a topic outside the science curriculum, to teaching topics that are part of the chemistry curriculum. Nanotechnology is outside the science curriculum, but it was used in this study as a means to carry out a…

  5. Topic Visualization and Survival Analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Ping Jr

    2017-01-01

    Latent semantic structure in a text collection is called a topic. In this thesis, we aim to visualize topics in the scientific literature and detect active or inactive research areas based on their lifetime. Topics were extracted from over 1 million abstracts from the arXiv.org database using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Hellinger distance measures similarity between two topics. Topics are determined to be relevant if their pairwise distances are smaller than the threshold of Hellinger ...

  6. Topical therapy of atopic dermatitis: controversies from Hippocrates to topical immunomodulators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tilles, Gérard; Wallach, Daniel; Taïeb, Alain

    2007-02-01

    Although atopic dermatitis can be treated efficiently, there is still much controversy about the risk/benefit ratio of both topical corticosteroids and topical immunomodulators. Conflicting data may be found about the usefulness of bathing, diet regulation, and other therapeutic interventions. These controversies result in part from the persistence of Hippocratic doctrines in modern medical thinking. Humoralist and diathetic doctrines, as they pertain to eczema, are reviewed. The paradoxical worsening of oozing and the deadly hazards of hospitalization before the era of antibiotics are brought to mind. We hope that this historical review will improve the understanding of current controversies and help dermatologists to manage patients with atopic dermatitis and other chronic skin diseases.

  7. Misselling as a New Topic of Financial Education? A Didactic Analysis of Investment Advise after the Financial Crisis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dirk Loerwald

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available Personal financial investments are, as a matter of course, a topic of economic education because they are a life situation which is inherently economical. In contrast, faulty advising in banks which has become focussed upon due to the extent it has played a part in the recent financial crisis is mentioned neither in curricula nor in educational text books. Numerous private funds have been exposed as unprofitable investments. One reason for this problem is to be found in the marketing staff of the banks who did not invest their customer’s funds securely enough – and the customers did not notice it. What conclusions can be drawn from this for general financial education after the financial crisis? The economic education has failed to address the topic of “faulty advising in banks” as well. On the basis of categorical economic didactics the following contribution will analyse whether one has an exemplary case here upon which students can win generalized, transferable insights. In this context, the topic of personal financial investments will be classified in an efficient manner and the risk of opportunism in advising situations will be analysed with the help of the positive principal-agent theory. The results of this analysis of informational asymmetries within financial markets give direction to the development and revision of curricula in the didactics of economic education. With the following article a sustainable theoretical fundament will be created to underscore the obligatory inclusion of this topic in curricula as well as its realisation for target groups in school text books.

  8. Antimicrobial topical agents used in the vagina.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frey Tirri, Brigitte

    2011-01-01

    Vaginally applied antimicrobial agents are widely used in the vagina in women with lower genital tract infections. An 'antimicrobial' is a general term that refers to a group of drugs that are effective against bacteria, fungi, viruses and protozoa. Topical treatments can be prescribed for a wide variety of vaginal infections. Many bacterial infections, such as bacterial vaginosis, desquamative inflammatory vaginitis or, as some European authors call it, aerobic vaginitis as well as infection with Staphylococcus aureus or group A streptococci, may be treated in this way. Candida vulvovaginitis is a fungal infection that is very amenable to topical treatment. The most common viral infections which can be treated with topical medications are condylomata acuminata and herpes simplex. The most often encountered protozoal vaginitis, which is caused by Trichomonas vaginalis, may be susceptible to topical medications, although this infection is treated systemically. This chapter covers the wide variety of commonly used topical antimicrobial agents for these diseases and focuses on the individual therapeutic agents and their clinical efficacy. In addition, potential difficulties that can occur in practice, as well as the usage of these medications in the special setting of pregnancy, are described in this chapter. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  9. Topics in millimeter wave technology

    CERN Document Server

    Button, Kenneth

    1988-01-01

    Topics in Millimeter Wave Technology, Volume 1 presents topics related to millimeter wave technology, including fin-lines and passive components realized in fin-lines, suspended striplines, suspended substrate microstrips, and modal power exchange in multimode fibers. A miniaturized monopulse assembly constructed in planar waveguide with multimode scalar horn feeds is also described. This volume is comprised of five chapters; the first of which deals with the analysis and synthesis techniques for fin-lines as well as the various passive components realized in fin-line. Tapers, discontinuities,

  10. Efficacy, tolerability and consumer acceptability of terbinafine topical spray versus terbinafine topical solution: a phase IIa, randomised, observer-blind, comparative study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Marc; Evans, Charles; Muddle, Andrew; Turner, Rob; Lim, Sian; Reed, Jessica; Traynor, Matt

    2013-10-01

    Tinea pedis is one of the world's most prevalent dermatophyte infections. MedSpray™ tinea pedis 1 % w/w (topical spray) is a novel, easy-to-use propellant-based spray formulation containing 1 % w/w terbinafine, requiring no manipulation at the site of infection. This is in contrast to the only formulation currently approved in Europe for single application (none are approved in the USA for single use), which is Lamisil(®) Once 1 % w/w (topical solution), containing 1 % w/w terbinafine hydrochloride, which requires manipulation on the affected area. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy, tolerability and consumer acceptability of a topical spray versus a topical solution in the treatment of tinea pedis. This study is a phase IIa, randomised, observer-blind, non-inferiority comparative study of the topical spray compared with the topical solution over a 12-week study period. The study was conducted at Bioskin GmbH, Hamburg and Berlin. Patients (n = 120) who presented with the presence of interdigital tinea pedis caused by dermatophytes on one or both feet were enrolled in the study. Patients were randomly assigned between the two treatment groups. Either the topical spray or the topical solution was administered by the study nurse and consisted of a single application (equivalent to 20 mg of terbinafine per foot) on day 1 of the study. No further applications were made for the duration of the study. The hypothesis formulated before commencement of the study was that the topical spray would prove to be non-inferior to the topical solution. Efficacy assessments, including clinical signs and symptoms, mycology and microscopy were performed at baseline and 1, 6 and 12 weeks after treatment. The rate of mycological cure at week 1 was statistically equivalent for both treatments. There was a significant reduction in the overall clinical score as assessed by the Physician's Global Assessment of signs and symptoms for both treatment groups. The topical

  11. topicmodels: An R Package for Fitting Topic Models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bettina Grun

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Topic models allow the probabilistic modeling of term frequency occurrences in documents. The fitted model can be used to estimate the similarity between documents as well as between a set of specified keywords using an additional layer of latent variables which are referred to as topics. The R package topicmodels provides basic infrastructure for fitting topic models based on data structures from the text mining package tm. The package includes interfaces to two algorithms for fitting topic models: the variational expectation-maximization algorithm provided by David M. Blei and co-authors and an algorithm using Gibbs sampling by Xuan-Hieu Phan and co-authors.

  12. Comprehensive evaluation of carboxylated nanodiamond as a topical drug delivery system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lim DG

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Dae Gon Lim,1,* Ki Hyun Kim,1,* Eunah Kang,2 Sun Hee Lim,3 Jeremy Ricci,3 Si Kwon Sung,3 Myoung Taek Kwon,3 Seong Hoon Jeong1 1College of Pharmacy, Dongguk University-Seoul, Gyeonggi, 2School of Chemical Engineering and Material Science, Chung-Ang University, 3NanoResource Co. Ltd., Seoul, Republic of Korea *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: The best strategy in the development of topical drug delivery systems may be to facilitate the permeation of drugs without any harmful effects, while staying on the skin surface and maintaining stability of the system. Nanodiamonds (NDs play a key role with their excellent physicochemical properties, including high biocompatibility, physical adsorption, reactive oxygen species (ROS scavenging capability, and photostabilizing activity. Z-average sizes of carboxylated ND (ND–COOH agglutinate decreased significantly as the pH increased. Fluorescein-conjugated ND was observed only on the stratum corneum, and no sample diffused into the dermal layer even after 48 hours. Moreover, ND–COOH and ND–COOH/eugenol complex did not show significant toxic effects on murine macrophage cells. ND improved in vitro skin permeation >50% acting as a “drug reservoir” to maintain a high drug concentration in the donor chamber, which was supported by quartz crystal microbalance results. Moreover, ND–COOH could adsorb a drug amount equivalent to 80% of its own weight. A photostability study showed that ND–COOH increased the photostability ~47% with regard to rate constant of the eugenol itself. A significant decrease in ROS was observed in the ND–COOH and ND–COOH/eugenol complex compared with the negative control during intracellular ROS assay. Moreover, ROS and cupric reducing antioxidant capacity evaluation showed that ND–COOH had synergistic effects of antioxidation with eugenol. Therefore, ND–COOH could be used as an excellent topical drug delivery system with improved permeability

  13. JAK3 as an Emerging Target for Topical Treatment of Inflammatory Skin Diseases.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Karina Alves de Medeiros

    Full Text Available The recent interest and elucidation of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway created new targets for the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases (ISDs. JAK inhibitors in oral and topical formulations have shown beneficial results in psoriasis and alopecia areata. Patients suffering from other ISDs might also benefit from JAK inhibition. Given the development of specific JAK inhibitors, the expression patterns of JAKs in different ISDs needs to be clarified. We aimed to analyze the expression of JAK/STAT family members in a set of prevalent ISDs: psoriasis, lichen planus (LP, cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE, atopic dermatitis (AD, pyoderma gangrenosum (PG and alopecia areata (AA versus healthy controls for (pJAK1, (pJAK2, (pJAK3, (pTYK2, pSTAT1, pSTAT2 and pSTAT3. The epidermis carried in all ISDs, except for CLE, a strong JAK3 signature. The dermal infiltrate showed a more diverse expression pattern. JAK1, JAK2 and JAK3 were significantly overexpressed in PG and AD suggesting the need for pan-JAK inhibitors. In contrast, psoriasis and LP showed only JAK1 and JAK3 upregulation, while AA and CLE were characterized by a single dermal JAK signal (pJAK3 and pJAK1, respectively. This indicates that the latter diseases may benefit from more targeted JAK inhibitors. Our in vitro keratinocyte psoriasis model displayed reversal of the psoriatic JAK profile following tofacitinib treatment. This direct interaction with keratinocytes may decrease the need for deep skin penetration of topical JAK inhibitors in order to exert its effects on dermal immune cells. In conclusion, these results point to the important contribution of the JAK/STAT pathway in several ISDs. Considering the epidermal JAK3 expression levels, great interest should go to the investigation of topical JAK3 inhibitors as therapeutic option of ISDs.

  14. Complementary Therapies for Idiopathic Hirsutism: Topical Licorice as Promising Option

    Science.gov (United States)

    Faghihi, Gita; Iraji, Fariba; Abtahi-Naeini, Bahareh; Saffar, Bahar; Saffaei, Ali; Pourazizi, Mohsen; Aslani, Abolfazl; Nilforoushzadeh, Mohammad Ali

    2015-01-01

    Hirsutism is one of the most prevalent health problems in women. The aim of the study was to compare the effect of 755 nm alexandrite hair removal laser with that of alexandrite laser plus topical licorice on the improvement of idiopathic hirsutism. A double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled study was performed on 90 female subjects. The patients were divided into two groups: alexandrite laser plus 15% licorice gel (group A) and placebo (group B). Each subject received one of both products over one side of the face, twice daily for 24 weeks on the hirsute locations. Each group underwent five sessions of alexandrite laser at 6-week intervals. To minimize the effects of confounding variables, the test was performed on two separate zones of patients' skin. The mean ± SD numbers of terminal hairs in group A were 7.05 ± 4.55 for zone 1 and 6.06 ± 3.70 for zone 2. In group B, they were 3.18 ± 1.75 for zone 1 and 2.49 ± 1.63 for zone 2. The difference in the mean number of terminal hairs was statistically significant between the two groups (p < 0.001), and there were no serious adverse reactions. The treatment of idiopathic hirsutism with 755 nm alexandrite laser plus topical licorice is more effective than alexandrite laser only. PMID:26273313

  15. [Topical haemotherapy as treatment for necrotic angiodermatitis: a pilot study].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courivaud, D; Ségard, M; Darras, S; Carpentier, O; Thomas, P

    2005-03-01

    Necrotic angiodermatitis is a variety of leg ulcer, characterized by very painful and rapidly spreading lesions. Healing takes time, a mean of 4 to 11 months. Current treatment is difficult and rarely satisfactory. Only early skin grafts lead to rapid sedation of pain and stop the lesion from extending. However, this technique, performed during a progressive phase, enhances the risk of losing a certain number of grafts. We wanted to confirm the efficacy of local auto-haemo-therapy proposed in 2 non-controlled studies. Eleven patients with necrotic angiodermatitis were included in our non-controlled prospective study. The topical hemotherapy was applied three times a week for one month, with initial hospitalization for 15 days. The criteria of assessment were: evolution of pain, surface of the ulcer, colorimetric scale and the date of disappearance of the purple halo. Ten patients were relieved by the treatment, with progressive withdrawal of the analgesics. The progression of the lesion had stopped and the purple halo had disappeared in general by D6 (range: 2 to 21 days). The percentage of granulation tissue with regard to the surface of the ulcer was of 45.4 p. 100 on D0, 80 p. 100 on D14 and 85 p. 100 on D28. Topical hemotherapy applied during the initial phase of treatment would reduce the pain and prepare the lesion for a secondary skin graft.

  16. Topical Session on Materials Management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    At its second meeting, in Paris, 5-7 December 2001, the WPDD held two topical sessions on the D and D Safety Case and on the Management of Materials from D and D, respectively. This report documents the topical session on the management of materials. Presentations during the topical session covered key aspects of the management of materials and meant to provide an exchange of information and experience, including: Experience and lessons learnt from VLLW and non-radioactive material management in Spain and Germany with special attention to recycling (How specific solutions came about? Are there 'generic' examples for wider adoption?); Risk assessment of recycling and non-recycling: a CPD study; Waste acceptance issues within different national contexts (What constraints are there on the waste receiving body and what flexibility can the latter have? What constraints does this impose on D and D implementers? What about wastes are without current solution? What needs to be done? What about large items and 'difficult' waste in general?); Radiological characterisation of materials during decommissioning, particularly difficult situations - large volumes, large items,.. wastes, heterogeneous streams (What examples of established practice? What are the approaches or aspects that set the regulatory requirements? How can the flow rates be large but the answers acceptable? How much is needed to be known for later action, e. g., disposal, release, protection of worker, etc.); Radiological characterisation of buildings as they stand, in order to allow conventional demolition (What are strategies for optimisation of characterisation? How much needs to be known to take action later? e.g. for storage, disposal, release, cost estimation and ALARA? What needs to be done in advance and after decommissioning/dismantling?). At the end of each presentation time was allotted for discussion of the paper. Integral to the Topical Session was a facilitated plenary discussion on the topical

  17. Social Networks as Anti-revolutionary Forces: Facebook and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    social media is cultivating political apathy among Zimbabwean youth. There are little ..... links and occasionally sharing cartoons, videos and visual mash-ups with political ..... technological needs let alone their adolescent children's. Access to ...

  18. Topics in current aerosol research

    CERN Document Server

    Hidy, G M

    1971-01-01

    Topics in Current Aerosol Research deals with the fundamental aspects of aerosol science, with emphasis on experiment and theory describing highly dispersed aerosols (HDAs) as well as the dynamics of charged suspensions. Topics covered range from the basic properties of HDAs to their formation and methods of generation; sources of electric charges; interactions between fluid and aerosol particles; and one-dimensional motion of charged cloud of particles. This volume is comprised of 13 chapters and begins with an introduction to the basic properties of HDAs, followed by a discussion on the form

  19. Incorporating Topic Assignment Constraint and Topic Correlation Limitation into Clinical Goal Discovering for Clinical Pathway Mining

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiao Xu

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Clinical pathways are widely used around the world for providing quality medical treatment and controlling healthcare cost. However, the expert-designed clinical pathways can hardly deal with the variances among hospitals and patients. It calls for more dynamic and adaptive process, which is derived from various clinical data. Topic-based clinical pathway mining is an effective approach to discover a concise process model. Through this approach, the latent topics found by latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA represent the clinical goals. And process mining methods are used to extract the temporal relations between these topics. However, the topic quality is usually not desirable due to the low performance of the LDA in clinical data. In this paper, we incorporate topic assignment constraint and topic correlation limitation into the LDA to enhance the ability of discovering high-quality topics. Two real-world datasets are used to evaluate the proposed method. The results show that the topics discovered by our method are with higher coherence, informativeness, and coverage than the original LDA. These quality topics are suitable to represent the clinical goals. Also, we illustrate that our method is effective in generating a comprehensive topic-based clinical pathway model.

  20. Health Topic XML File Description

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... this page: https://medlineplus.gov/xmldescription.html Health Topic XML File Description: MedlinePlus To use the sharing ... information categories assigned. Example of a Full Health Topic Record A record for a MedlinePlus health topic ...

  1. Topics on continua

    CERN Document Server

    Macias, Sergio

    2005-01-01

    Specialized as it might be, continuum theory is one of the most intriguing areas in mathematics. However, despite being popular journal fare, few books have thoroughly explored this interesting aspect of topology. In Topics on Continua, Sergio Macías, one of the field's leading scholars, presents four of his favorite continuum topics: inverse limits, Jones's set function T, homogenous continua, and n-fold hyperspaces, and in doing so, presents the most complete set of theorems and proofs ever contained in a single topology volume. Many of the results presented have previously appeared only in research papers, and some appear here for the first time. After building the requisite background and exploring the inverse limits of continua, the discussions focus on Professor Jones''s set function T and continua for which T is continuous. An introduction to topological groups and group actions lead to a proof of Effros''s Theorem, followed by a presentation of two decomposition theorems. The author then offers an...

  2. Updates of Topical and Local Anesthesia Agents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boyce, Ricardo A; Kirpalani, Tarun; Mohan, Naveen

    2016-04-01

    As described in this article, there are many advances in topical and local anesthesia. Topical and local anesthetics have played a great role in dentistry in alleviating the fears of patients, eliminating pain, and providing pain control. Many invasive procedures would not be performed without the use and advances of topical/local anesthetics. The modern-day dentist has the responsibility of knowing the variety of products on the market and should have at least references to access before, during, and after treatment. This practice ensures proper care with topical and local anesthetics for the masses of patients entering dental offices worldwide. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. JST Thesaurus Headwords and Synonyms: 面接調査(as Topic) [MeCab user dictionary for science technology term[Archive

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available MeCab user dictionary for science technology term 面接調査(as Topic) 名詞 一般 * * * * 面接調査... メンセツチョウサ メンセツチョーサ Thesaurus2015 200906087132308300 C ID01 UNKNOWN_2 面接 調査 ( a s Topic )

  4. Extracting Hot spots of Topics from Time Stamped Documents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Wei; Chundi, Parvathi

    2011-01-01

    Identifying time periods with a burst of activities related to a topic has been an important problem in analyzing time-stamped documents. In this paper, we propose an approach to extract a hot spot of a given topic in a time-stamped document set. Topics can be basic, containing a simple list of keywords, or complex. Logical relationships such as and, or, and not are used to build complex topics from basic topics. A concept of presence measure of a topic based on fuzzy set theory is introduced to compute the amount of information related to the topic in the document set. Each interval in the time period of the document set is associated with a numeric value which we call the discrepancy score. A high discrepancy score indicates that the documents in the time interval are more focused on the topic than those outside of the time interval. A hot spot of a given topic is defined as a time interval with the highest discrepancy score. We first describe a naive implementation for extracting hot spots. We then construct an algorithm called EHE (Efficient Hot Spot Extraction) using several efficient strategies to improve performance. We also introduce the notion of a topic DAG to facilitate an efficient computation of presence measures of complex topics. The proposed approach is illustrated by several experiments on a subset of the TDT-Pilot Corpus and DBLP conference data set. The experiments show that the proposed EHE algorithm significantly outperforms the naive one, and the extracted hot spots of given topics are meaningful. PMID:21765568

  5. Analyzing the history of Cognition using Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen Priva, Uriel; Austerweil, Joseph L

    2015-02-01

    Very few articles have analyzed how cognitive science as a field has changed over the last six decades. We explore how Cognition changed over the last four decades using Topic Models. Topic Models assume that every word in every document is generated by one of a limited number of topics. Words that are likely to co-occur are likely to be generated by a single topic. We find a number of significant historical trends: the rise of moral cognition, eyetracking methods, and action, the fall of sentence processing, and the stability of development. We introduce the notion of framing topics, which frame content, rather than present the content itself. These framing topics suggest that over time Cognition turned from abstract theorizing to more experimental approaches. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Regulatory Information By Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    EPA develops and enforces regulations that span many environmental topics, from acid rain reduction to wetlands restoration. Each topic listed below may include related laws and regulations, compliance enforcement information, policies guidance

  7. Topical steroid addiction in atopic dermatitis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fukaya M

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Mototsugu Fukaya,1 Kenji Sato,2 Mitsuko Sato,3 Hajime Kimata,4 Shigeki Fujisawa,5 Haruhiko Dozono,6 Jun Yoshizawa,7 Satoko Minaguchi8 1Tsurumai Kouen Clinic, Nagoya, 2Department of Dermatology, Hannan Chuo Hospital, Osaka, 3Sato Pediatric Clinic, Osaka, 4Kimata Hajime Clinic, Osaka, 5Fujisawa Dermatology Clinic, Tokyo, 6Dozono Medical House, Kagoshima, 7Yoshizawa Dermatology Clinic, Yokohama, 8Department of Dermatology, Kounosu Kyousei Hospital, Saitama, Japan Abstract: The American Academy of Dermatology published a new guideline regarding topical therapy in atopic dermatitis in May 2014. Although topical steroid addiction or red burning skin syndrome had been mentioned as possible side effects of topical steroids in a 2006 review article in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, no statement was made regarding this illness in the new guidelines. This suggests that there are still controversies regarding this illness. Here, we describe the clinical features of topical steroid addiction or red burning skin syndrome, based on the treatment of many cases of the illness. Because there have been few articles in the medical literature regarding this illness, the description in this article will be of some benefit to better understand the illness and to spur discussion regarding topical steroid addiction or red burning skin syndrome. Keywords: topical steroid addiction, atopic dermatitis, red burning skin syndrome, rebound, corticosteroid, eczema

  8. Topics in Finance Part VII--Dividend Policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laux, Judy

    2011-01-01

    This series inspects the major topics in finance, reviewing the roles of stockholder wealth maximization, the risk-return tradeoff, and agency conflicts. The current article, devoted to dividend policy, also reviews the topic as presented in textbooks and the literature.

  9. eHealth Technologies as an intervention to improve adherence to topical antipsoriatics: a systematic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Svendsen, Mathias Tiedemann; Andersen, Flemming; Andersen, Klaus Ejner

    2018-03-01

    Topical antipsoriatics are recommended first-line treatment of psoriasis, but rates of adherence are low. Patient support by use of electronic health (eHealth) services is suggested to improve medical adherence. To review randomised controlled trials (RCTs) testing eHealth interventions designed to improve adherence to topical antipsoriatics and to review applications for smartphones (apps) incorporating the word psoriasis. Literature review: Medline, Embase, Cochrane, PsycINFO and Web of Science were searched using search terms for eHealth, psoriasis and topical antipsoriatics. General analysis of apps: The operating systems (OS) for smartphones, iOS, Google Play, Microsoft Store, Symbian OS and Blackberry OS were searched for apps containing the word psoriasis. Literature review: Only one RCT was included, reporting on psoriasis patients' Internet reporting their status of psoriasis over a 12-month period. The rate of adherence was measured by Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS ® ). An improvement in medical adherence and reduction of severity of psoriasis were reported. General analysis of apps: A total 184 apps contained the word psoriasis. There is a critical need for high-quality RCTs testing if the ubiquitous eHealth technologies, for example, some of the numerous apps, can improve psoriasis patients' rates of adherence to topical antipsoriatics.

  10. SETI: A good introductory physics topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hobson, Art

    1997-04-01

    If America is to achieve the science literacy that is essential to industrialized democracy, all students must study such topics as scientific methodology, pseudoscience, ozone depletion, and global warming. My large-enrollment liberal-arts physics course covers the great principles of physics along with several such philosophical and societal topics. It is easy to include the interdisciplinary context of physics in courses for non-scientists, because these courses are flexible, conceptual, and taught to students whose interests span a broad range. Students find these topics relevant and fascinating, leading to large enrollments by non-scientists even in courses labeled ''physics.'' I will discuss my approach to teaching the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), a topic with lots of good physics and with connections to scientific methodology and pseudoscience. A textbook for this kind of course has been published, Physics: Concepts and Connections (Prentice-Hall, 1995).

  11. Topical antibiotic monotherapy prescribing practices in acne vulgaris.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoover, William D; Davis, Scott A; Fleischer, Alan B; Feldman, Steven R

    2014-04-01

    The aim of this study is to evaluate the frequency of dosing topical antibiotics as monotherapy in the treatment of acne vulgaris, and physician specialty prescribing these medications. This study is a retrospective review of all visits with a sole diagnosis of acne vulgaris (ICD-9-CM code 706.1) found on the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) in 1993-2010. We recorded the number of visits surveyed where acne vulgaris was the sole diagnosis, number of visits where topical antibiotics were the only treatment prescribed, and the specialty of physician in each encounter. Topical erythromycin or clindamycin were the sole medication prescribed in 0.81% of the visits recorded, with 60% of these prescriptions arising from dermatologists and 40% from non-dermatologists. The trend of prescribing topical antibiotic monotherapy is declining (p acnes to topical antibiotic regimens has led to the need to re-evaluate the use of topical antibiotics in the treatment of acne vulgaris. While the rate of topical antibiotic monotherapy is declining, their use should be reserved for situations where the direct need for antibiotics arises. If a clinician feels that antibiotics are a necessary component to acne therapy, they should be used as part of a combination regimen.

  12. Diclofenac Topical (actinic keratosis)

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... topical gel (Solaraze) is used to treat actinic keratosis (flat, scaly growths on the skin caused by ... The way diclofenac gel works to treat actinic keratosis is not known.Diclofenac is also available as ...

  13. Reclaiming Race as a Topic of the U.S. Biology Textbook Curriculum

    Science.gov (United States)

    Donovan, Brian M.

    2015-01-01

    Even though human racial difference has been a longstanding topic of the school biology curriculum, there is little evidence that contemporary biology textbooks challenge stereotypical racial beliefs that are based in biological thinking. Rather, the modern biology curriculum may be a place where such beliefs about race are perpetuated…

  14. EvoRiver: Visual Analysis of Topic Coopetition on Social Media.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Guodao; Wu, Yingcai; Liu, Shixia; Peng, Tai-Quan; Zhu, Jonathan J H; Liang, Ronghua

    2014-12-01

    Cooperation and competition (jointly called "coopetition") are two modes of interactions among a set of concurrent topics on social media. How do topics cooperate or compete with each other to gain public attention? Which topics tend to cooperate or compete with one another? Who plays the key role in coopetition-related interactions? We answer these intricate questions by proposing a visual analytics system that facilitates the in-depth analysis of topic coopetition on social media. We model the complex interactions among topics as a combination of carry-over, coopetition recruitment, and coopetition distraction effects. This model provides a close functional approximation of the coopetition process by depicting how different groups of influential users (i.e., "topic leaders") affect coopetition. We also design EvoRiver, a time-based visualization, that allows users to explore coopetition-related interactions and to detect dynamically evolving patterns, as well as their major causes. We test our model and demonstrate the usefulness of our system based on two Twitter data sets (social topics data and business topics data).

  15. Topical administration of Esculetin as a potential therapy for experimental dry eye syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, D; Liu, X; Hu, J

    2017-12-01

    PurposeIn this study, we investigated the therapeutic effects of topical Esculetin for dry eye rabbits through the ocular tests, inflammatory factor levels and specific phosphorylated protein expressions of ERK1/2 singnal pathway.Patients and methodsThirty-two healthy adult male New Zealand white rabbits were chosen for the study. DES models were established after removing of the main lacrimal gland, Harderian gland and nictitating membrane in the left eyes and randomly divided into group DES control, group CsA, group Esculetin and group Esculetin combined with CsA (C&E), meanwhile the right eyes served as group Normal control. Schirmer's I tests, fluorescein scores, goblet cell densities, inflammatory cytokines IL-1α,IL-1β,TNF-αlevels were observed by slit-lamp microscope, conjunctival impression cytology and ELISA essay at week 0, 1, 2, 4, 8. Phosphorylated-ERK1/2 expressions were detected in Western blot analysis at week 8.ResultsAfter induction of DES, aqueous tear production and goblet cell density were decreased, FL score was much higher in group DES control throughout the study (P<0.05). Both topical Esculetin and Esculetin combing CsA increased the SIT values (10±1 mm, 14±3 mm, P<0.05) and goblet cell densities (77±12/HP, 92±12/HP, P<0.05), decreased FL scores (7.48±0.33, 5.09±0.24, P<0.05) at week 8. Alternations of IL-1α,IL-1β,TNF-αlevels had similar trend. In Western blot analysis, downregulations of p-ERK1/2 were observed in therapy groups when compared with group DES control and the most decreasing was found in group C&E (P<0.05).ConclusionTopical Esculetin improved DES symptoms, downregulated the inflammatory cytokine expressions, suppressed the ERK1/2 pathway and enhanced the therapeutic effect of CsA.

  16. Topical or oral administration with an extract of Polypodium leucotomos prevents acute sunburn and psoralen-induced phototoxic reactions as well as depletion of Langerhans cells in human skin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gonzalez, S.; Pathak, M.A.; Fitzpatrick, T.B.; Cuevas, J.; Villarrubia, V.G.

    1997-01-01

    Sunburn, immune suppression, photo-aging, and skin cancers result from uncontrolled overexposure of human skin to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR). Preventive measures, including photo-protection, are helpful and can be achieved by topical sun-screening agents. Polypodium leucotomos (PL) has been used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and has shown some in vitro and in vivo immunomodulating properties. Its beneficial photo-protective effects in the treatment of vitiligo and its antioxidant properties encouraged us to evaluate in vivo the potentially useful photo-protective property of natural extract of PL after topical application or oral ingestion. Twenty-one healthy volunteers [either untreated or treated with oral psoralens (8-MOP or 5-MOP)] were enrolled in this study and exposed to solar radiation for evaluation of the following clinical parameters: immediate pigment darkening (IPD), minimal erythema dose (MED), minimal melanogenic dose (MMD), and minimal phototoxic dose (MPD) before and after topical or oral administration of PL. Immunohistochemical assessment of CD1a-expressing epidermal cells were also performed. PL was found to be photo-protective after topical application as well as oral administration. PL increased UV dose required for IPD (P<0.01), MED (P<0.001) and MPD (P<0.001). After oral administration of PL, MED increased 2.,8±0.59 times and MPD increased 2.75±0.5 and 6.8±1.3 times depending upon the type of psoralen used. Immunohistochemical study revealed photo-protection of Langherhans cells by oral as well as topical PL. The observed photo-protective activities of oral or topical PL reveal a new avenue in examining the potentially useful field of systemic photo-protection and suggests that PL can be used as adjunct treatment and can make photochemotherapy and phototherapy possibly safe and effective when the control of cutaneous phototoxicity to PUVA or UVB is a limiting factor in such photo-therapies. (au)

  17. Topical or oral administration with an extract of Polypodium leucotomos prevents acute sunburn and psoralen-induced phototoxic reactions as well as depletion of Langerhans cells in human skin

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gonzalez, S.; Pathak, M.A.; Fitzpatrick, T.B. [Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Dermatology, Boston, MA (United States); Cuevas, J. [Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Dept. of Pathology, Guadalajara (Spain); Villarrubia, V.G. [I.F. Cantabria SA, Medical Dept., Immunology Sect., Madrid (Spain)

    1997-12-31

    Sunburn, immune suppression, photo-aging, and skin cancers result from uncontrolled overexposure of human skin to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR). Preventive measures, including photo-protection, are helpful and can be achieved by topical sun-screening agents. Polypodium leucotomos (PL) has been used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and has shown some in vitro and in vivo immunomodulating properties. Its beneficial photo-protective effects in the treatment of vitiligo and its antioxidant properties encouraged us to evaluate in vivo the potentially useful photo-protective property of natural extract of PL after topical application or oral ingestion. Twenty-one healthy volunteers [either untreated or treated with oral psoralens (8-MOP or 5-MOP)] were enrolled in this study and exposed to solar radiation for evaluation of the following clinical parameters: immediate pigment darkening (IPD), minimal erythema dose (MED), minimal melanogenic dose (MMD), and minimal phototoxic dose (MPD) before and after topical or oral administration of PL. Immunohistochemical assessment of CD1a-expressing epidermal cells were also performed. PL was found to be photo-protective after topical application as well as oral administration. PL increased UV dose required for IPD (P<0.01), MED (P<0.001) and MPD (P<0.001). After oral administration of PL, MED increased 2.,8{+-}0.59 times and MPD increased 2.75{+-}0.5 and 6.8{+-}1.3 times depending upon the type of psoralen used. Immunohistochemical study revealed photo-protection of Langherhans cells by oral as well as topical PL. The observed photo-protective activities of oral or topical PL reveal a new avenue in examining the potentially useful field of systemic photo-protection and suggests that PL can be used as adjunct treatment and can make photochemotherapy and phototherapy possibly safe and effective when the control of cutaneous phototoxicity to PUVA or UVB is a limiting factor in such photo-therapies. (au). 50 refs.

  18. Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection following Topical Hormone Replacement Therapy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander L. Pan

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Spontaneous coronary artery dissection is a rare condition, usually presenting as an acute coronary syndrome, and is often seen in states associated with high systemic estrogen levels such as pregnancy or oral contraceptive use. While topical hormonal replacement therapy may result in increased estrogen levels similar to those documented with oral contraceptive use, there are no reported cases of spontaneous coronary dissection with topical hormonal replacement therapy. We describe a 53-year-old female who developed two spontaneous coronary dissections while on topical hormonal replacement therapy. The patient had no other risk factors for coronary dissection. After withdrawal from topical hormonal therapy, our patient has done well and has not had recurrent coronary artery dissections over a one-year follow-up period. The potential contributory role of topical hormonal therapy as a cause of spontaneous coronary dissection should be recognized.

  19. Topical melatonin for treatment of androgenetic alopecia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fischer, Tobias W; Trüeb, Ralph M; Hänggi, Gabriella; Innocenti, Marcello; Elsner, Peter

    2012-10-01

    In the search for alternative agents to oral finasteride and topical minoxidil for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia (AGA), melatonin, a potent antioxidant and growth modulator, was identified as a promising candidate based on in vitro and in vivo studies. One pharmacodynamic study on topical application of melatonin and four clinical pre-post studies were performed in patients with androgenetic alopecia or general hair loss and evaluated by standardised questionnaires, TrichoScan, 60-second hair count test and hair pull test. FIVE CLINICAL STUDIES SHOWED POSITIVE EFFECTS OF A TOPICAL MELATONIN SOLUTION IN THE TREATMENT OF AGA IN MEN AND WOMEN WHILE SHOWING GOOD TOLERABILITY: (1) Pharmacodynamics under once-daily topical application in the evening showed no significant influence on endogenous serum melatonin levels. (2) An observational study involving 30 men and women showed a significant reduction in the degree of severity of alopecia after 30 and 90 days (P melatonin solution can be considered as a treatment option in androgenetic alopecia.

  20. Ototoxicity associated with topical administration of diclofenac sodium as an otic drop: An experimental animal study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Acioglu, Engin; Yigit, Ozgur; Onur, Firat; Atas, Ahmet; Server, Ela Araz; Kara, Eyup

    2017-07-01

    The aim of the study is to evaluate the ototoxicity of topical diclofenac sodium in comparison to positive and negative controls prior to the investigation of analgesic and anti-inflammatory efficacy of the agent in otic administration. Twenty four ears of 12 guinea pigs were included in the study. Wide myringotomy was performed on all tympanic membranes under general anesthesia and auditory brainstem responses (ABR) were evaluated. The subjects were separated into four groups, two groups received diclofenac sodium at low and high doses, positive controls received gentamicin and negative controls received isotonic sodium chloride topically for 14 days and ABRs were reevaluated. No significant difference were observed between the pre and post-treatment click response, 1 kHz and 8 kHz response threshold levels after isotonic sodium chloride administration. All threshold levels were elevated in the positive control group. In the low and high dose diclofenac sodium groups, click response, 1 kHz and 8 kHz response threshold levels were significantly higher compared to the baseline values. Pre and post-treatment mean threshold level changes were not significantly different between the low and high dose diclofenac sodium groups. Pre and post-treatment mean threshold level changes in the gentamicin group were not significantly different from low or high dose diclofenac sodium groups. Diclofenac sodium, considered as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory otic preparation, is shown to be as ototoxic as gentamicin in chronic use which may lead to loss of hearing especially when used topically in chronic otitis cases with tympanic membrane damage. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Correlated Topic Vector for Scene Classification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Pengxu; Qin, Fei; Wan, Fang; Zhu, Yi; Jiao, Jianbin; Ye, Qixiang

    2017-07-01

    Scene images usually involve semantic correlations, particularly when considering large-scale image data sets. This paper proposes a novel generative image representation, correlated topic vector, to model such semantic correlations. Oriented from the correlated topic model, correlated topic vector intends to naturally utilize the correlations among topics, which are seldom considered in the conventional feature encoding, e.g., Fisher vector, but do exist in scene images. It is expected that the involvement of correlations can increase the discriminative capability of the learned generative model and consequently improve the recognition accuracy. Incorporated with the Fisher kernel method, correlated topic vector inherits the advantages of Fisher vector. The contributions to the topics of visual words have been further employed by incorporating the Fisher kernel framework to indicate the differences among scenes. Combined with the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) features and Gibbs sampling solution, correlated topic vector shows great potential when processing large-scale and complex scene image data sets. Experiments on two scene image data sets demonstrate that correlated topic vector improves significantly the deep CNN features, and outperforms existing Fisher kernel-based features.

  2. Efficacy of topical permethrin as repellent against Aedes aegypti's bites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miot, Hélio Amante; Ferreira, Daniela Pinho; Mendes, Fabiana Guandalini; Carrenho, Flávia Roberta Hernandes; de Oliveira Amui, Isabela; Carneiro, Carlos Augusto Sá; Madeira, Newton Goulart

    2008-07-15

    Mosquitoes are the most important vectors of infectious diseases and their bites are related to several adverse skin reactions. Permethrin impregnated clothes are an efficient strategy against arthropods' bites; however, its topical efficacy as a repellent has not been well established. We studied the response to permethrin lotion 5 percent and N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) spray 50 percent applied to the unprotected forearms of 10 volunteers. Each arm was exposed to 20 female mosquitoes of Aedes aegypti. We performed 71 bilateral comparative measurements evaluating the timing for the first bites. The average times for the arm without the product, with permethrin 5 percent, and with DEET 50 percent were: 7.9 seconds, 336.2 seconds and 7512.1 seconds. The results showed a significant difference between repellency times between either product and unprotected controls. In addition, there was a significant difference in time to first bite between permethrin and DEET treated arms (pAedes aegypti bites in this experimental setting. However, permethrin's profile of repellency was significantly inferior to that of DEET.

  3. Selected topics in magnetism

    CERN Document Server

    Gupta, L C

    1993-01-01

    Part of the ""Frontiers in Solid State Sciences"" series, this volume presents essays on such topics as spin fluctuations in Heisenberg magnets, quenching of spin fluctuations by high magnetic fields, and kondo effect and heavy fermions in rare earths amongst others.

  4. Spectral Learning for Supervised Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ren, Yong; Wang, Yining; Zhu, Jun

    2018-03-01

    Supervised topic models simultaneously model the latent topic structure of large collections of documents and a response variable associated with each document. Existing inference methods are based on variational approximation or Monte Carlo sampling, which often suffers from the local minimum defect. Spectral methods have been applied to learn unsupervised topic models, such as latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), with provable guarantees. This paper investigates the possibility of applying spectral methods to recover the parameters of supervised LDA (sLDA). We first present a two-stage spectral method, which recovers the parameters of LDA followed by a power update method to recover the regression model parameters. Then, we further present a single-phase spectral algorithm to jointly recover the topic distribution matrix as well as the regression weights. Our spectral algorithms are provably correct and computationally efficient. We prove a sample complexity bound for each algorithm and subsequently derive a sufficient condition for the identifiability of sLDA. Thorough experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets verify the theory and demonstrate the practical effectiveness of the spectral algorithms. In fact, our results on a large-scale review rating dataset demonstrate that our single-phase spectral algorithm alone gets comparable or even better performance than state-of-the-art methods, while previous work on spectral methods has rarely reported such promising performance.

  5. A Data-Based Approach to Discovering Multi-Topic Influential Leaders.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xing Tang

    Full Text Available Recently, increasing numbers of users have adopted microblogging services as their main information source. However, most of them find themselves drowning in the millions of posts produced by other users every day. To cope with this, identifying a set of the most influential people is paramount. Moreover, finding a set of related influential users to expand the coverage of one particular topic is required in real world scenarios. Most of the existing algorithms in this area focus on topology-related methods such as PageRank. These methods mine link structures to find the expected influential rank of users. However, because they ignore the interaction data, these methods turn out to be less effective in social networks. In reality, a variety of topics exist within the information diffusing through the network. Because they have different interests, users play different roles in the diffusion of information related to different topics. As a result, distinguishing influential leaders according to different topics is also worthy of research. In this paper, we propose a multi-topic influence diffusion model (MTID based on traces acquired from historic information. We decompose the influential scores of users into two parts: the direct influence determined by information propagation along the link structure and indirect influence that extends beyond the restrictions of direct follower relationships. To model the network from a multi-topical viewpoint, we introduce topic pools, each of which represents a particular topic information source. Then, we extract the topic distributions from the traces of tweets, determining the influence propagation probability and content generation probability. In the network, we adopt multiple ground nodes representing topic pools to connect every user through bidirectional links. Based on this multi-topical view of the network, we further introduce the topic-dependent rank (TD-Rank algorithm to identify the multi-topic

  6. A Data-Based Approach to Discovering Multi-Topic Influential Leaders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tang, Xing; Miao, Qiguang; Yu, Shangshang; Quan, Yining

    2016-01-01

    Recently, increasing numbers of users have adopted microblogging services as their main information source. However, most of them find themselves drowning in the millions of posts produced by other users every day. To cope with this, identifying a set of the most influential people is paramount. Moreover, finding a set of related influential users to expand the coverage of one particular topic is required in real world scenarios. Most of the existing algorithms in this area focus on topology-related methods such as PageRank. These methods mine link structures to find the expected influential rank of users. However, because they ignore the interaction data, these methods turn out to be less effective in social networks. In reality, a variety of topics exist within the information diffusing through the network. Because they have different interests, users play different roles in the diffusion of information related to different topics. As a result, distinguishing influential leaders according to different topics is also worthy of research. In this paper, we propose a multi-topic influence diffusion model (MTID) based on traces acquired from historic information. We decompose the influential scores of users into two parts: the direct influence determined by information propagation along the link structure and indirect influence that extends beyond the restrictions of direct follower relationships. To model the network from a multi-topical viewpoint, we introduce topic pools, each of which represents a particular topic information source. Then, we extract the topic distributions from the traces of tweets, determining the influence propagation probability and content generation probability. In the network, we adopt multiple ground nodes representing topic pools to connect every user through bidirectional links. Based on this multi-topical view of the network, we further introduce the topic-dependent rank (TD-Rank) algorithm to identify the multi-topic influential users

  7. Topics in Finance Part VI--Capital Budgeting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laux, Judy

    2011-01-01

    This series on the theory of financial management offers insight into the roles of stockholder wealth maximization, the risk-return tradeoff, and agency conflicts as they apply to major topics in finance. The current article investigates capital budgeting. Much literature addresses this topic, with a number of articles challenging mainstream…

  8. Risk assessment of topically applied products

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Søborg, Tue; Basse, Line Hollesen; Halling-Sørensen, Bent

    2007-01-01

    The human risk of harmful substances in semisolid topical dosage forms applied topically to normal skin and broken skin, respectively, was assessed. Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BADGE) and three derivatives of BADGE previously quantified in aqueous cream and the UV filters 3-BC and 4-MBC were used...... as model compounds. Tolerable daily intake (TDI) values have been established for BADGE and derivatives. Endocrine disruption was chosen as endpoint for 3-BC and 4-MBC. Skin permeation of the model compounds was investigated in vitro using pig skin membranes. Tape stripping was applied to simulate broken...... parameters for estimating the risk. The immediate human risk of BADGE and derivatives in topical dosage forms was found to be low. However, local treatment of broken skin may lead to higher exposure of BADGE and derivatives compared to application to normal skin. 3-BC permeated skin at higher flux than 4-MBC...

  9. Topical methotrexate pretreatment enhances the therapeutic effect of topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy on hamster buccal pouch precancers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Deng-Fu; Lee, Jeng-Woei; Chen, Hsin-Ming; Hsu, Yih-Chih

    2014-09-01

    Topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is effective for treatment of human oral precancerous lesions. This animal study aimed to assess whether topical methotrexate (MTX) pretreatment could enhance the therapeutic effect of topical ALA-PDT on hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions. Twenty hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions were treated with either topical ALA-PDT with topical MTX pretreatment (topical MTX-ALA-PDT group, n = 10) or topical ALA-PDT alone (topical ALA-PDT group, n = 10). The intracellular protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) level in another 12 precancerous lesions (n = 6 for either the topical MTX-ALA or topical ALA group) was monitored by fluorescence spectroscopy. The intracellular PpIX reached its peak level in precancerous lesions 6.5 hours and 2.5 hours after topical ALA application for the topical MTX-ALA group (5.63-fold higher in the lesion than in the normal mucosa) and topical ALA group (2.42-fold higher in the lesion than in the normal mucosa), respectively. The complete response rate of precancerous lesions was 80% for the topical MTX-ALA-PDT group and 70% for the topical ALA-PDT group. In addition, the topical MTX-ALA-PDT group required a significantly lower mean treatment number (2.1 ± 0.6) to achieve complete response than the topical ALA-PDT group (4.4 ± 1.3, p topical MTX-ALA-PDT group had a lower recurrence rate (12.5%) than the topical ALA-PDT group (28.6%). We conclude that topical MTX-pretreatment can increase intracellular PpIX production in hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions and significantly improves the outcomes of the precancerous lesions treated with topical ALA-PDT. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  10. Honey as a topical treatment for wounds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jull, Andrew B; Cullum, Nicky; Dumville, Jo C; Westby, Maggie J; Deshpande, Sohan; Walker, Natalie

    2015-03-06

    Honey is a viscous, supersaturated sugar solution derived from nectar gathered and modified by the honeybee, Apis mellifera. Honey has been used since ancient times as a remedy in wound care. Evidence from animal studies and some trials has suggested that honey may accelerate wound healing. The objective of this review was to assess the effects of honey compared with alternative wound dressings and topical treatments on the of healing of acute (e.g. burns, lacerations) and/or chronic (e.g. venous ulcers) wounds. For this update of the review we searched the Cochrane Wounds Group Specialised Register (searched 15 October 2014); The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2014, Issue 9); Ovid MEDLINE (1946 to October Week 1 2014); Ovid MEDLINE (In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations 13 October 2014); Ovid EMBASE (1974 to 13 October 2014); and EBSCO CINAHL (1982 to 15 October 2014). Randomised and quasi-randomised trials that evaluated honey as a treatment for any sort of acute or chronic wound were sought. There was no restriction in terms of source, date of publication or language. Wound healing was the primary endpoint. Data from eligible trials were extracted and summarised by one review author, using a data extraction sheet, and independently verified by a second review author. All data have been subsequently checked by two more authors. We identified 26 eligible trials (total of 3011 participants). Three trials evaluated the effects of honey in minor acute wounds, 11 trials evaluated honey in burns, 10 trials recruited people with different chronic wounds including two in people with venous leg ulcers, two trials in people with diabetic foot ulcers and single trials in infected post-operative wounds, pressure injuries, cutaneous Leishmaniasis and Fournier's gangrene. Two trials recruited a mixed population of people with acute and chronic wounds. The quality of the evidence varied between different comparisons and

  11. Digital Social Network Mining for Topic Discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moradianzadeh, Pooya; Mohi, Maryam; Sadighi Moshkenani, Mohsen

    Networked computers are expanding more and more around the world, and digital social networks becoming of great importance for many people's work and leisure. This paper mainly focused on discovering the topic of exchanging information in digital social network. In brief, our method is to use a hierarchical dictionary of related topics and words that mapped to a graph. Then, with comparing the extracted keywords from the context of social network with graph nodes, probability of relation between context and desired topics will be computed. This model can be used in many applications such as advertising, viral marketing and high-risk group detection.

  12. Full Text or Abstract? : Examining Topic Coherence Scores Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Syed, S.; Spruit, M.

    2017-01-01

    This paper assesses topic coherence and human topic ranking of uncovered latent topics from scientific publications when utilizing the topic model latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) on abstract and full-text data. The coherence of a topic, used as a proxy for topic quality, is based on the

  13. Discriminative Relational Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ning; Zhu, Jun; Xia, Fei; Zhang, Bo

    2015-05-01

    Relational topic models (RTMs) provide a probabilistic generative process to describe both the link structure and document contents for document networks, and they have shown promise on predicting network structures and discovering latent topic representations. However, existing RTMs have limitations in both the restricted model expressiveness and incapability of dealing with imbalanced network data. To expand the scope and improve the inference accuracy of RTMs, this paper presents three extensions: 1) unlike the common link likelihood with a diagonal weight matrix that allows the-same-topic interactions only, we generalize it to use a full weight matrix that captures all pairwise topic interactions and is applicable to asymmetric networks; 2) instead of doing standard Bayesian inference, we perform regularized Bayesian inference (RegBayes) with a regularization parameter to deal with the imbalanced link structure issue in real networks and improve the discriminative ability of learned latent representations; and 3) instead of doing variational approximation with strict mean-field assumptions, we present collapsed Gibbs sampling algorithms for the generalized relational topic models by exploring data augmentation without making restricting assumptions. Under the generic RegBayes framework, we carefully investigate two popular discriminative loss functions, namely, the logistic log-loss and the max-margin hinge loss. Experimental results on several real network datasets demonstrate the significance of these extensions on improving prediction performance.

  14. Knowledge-Based Topic Model for Unsupervised Object Discovery and Localization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niu, Zhenxing; Hua, Gang; Wang, Le; Gao, Xinbo

    Unsupervised object discovery and localization is to discover some dominant object classes and localize all of object instances from a given image collection without any supervision. Previous work has attempted to tackle this problem with vanilla topic models, such as latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). However, in those methods no prior knowledge for the given image collection is exploited to facilitate object discovery. On the other hand, the topic models used in those methods suffer from the topic coherence issue-some inferred topics do not have clear meaning, which limits the final performance of object discovery. In this paper, prior knowledge in terms of the so-called must-links are exploited from Web images on the Internet. Furthermore, a novel knowledge-based topic model, called LDA with mixture of Dirichlet trees, is proposed to incorporate the must-links into topic modeling for object discovery. In particular, to better deal with the polysemy phenomenon of visual words, the must-link is re-defined as that one must-link only constrains one or some topic(s) instead of all topics, which leads to significantly improved topic coherence. Moreover, the must-links are built and grouped with respect to specific object classes, thus the must-links in our approach are semantic-specific , which allows to more efficiently exploit discriminative prior knowledge from Web images. Extensive experiments validated the efficiency of our proposed approach on several data sets. It is shown that our method significantly improves topic coherence and outperforms the unsupervised methods for object discovery and localization. In addition, compared with discriminative methods, the naturally existing object classes in the given image collection can be subtly discovered, which makes our approach well suited for realistic applications of unsupervised object discovery.Unsupervised object discovery and localization is to discover some dominant object classes and localize all of object

  15. Final Technical Report summarizing Purdue research activities as part of the DOE JET Topical Collaboration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Molnar, Denes

    2015-01-01

    This report summarizes research activities at Purdue University done as part of the DOE JET Topical Collaboration. These mainly involve calculation of covariant radiative energy loss in the (Djordjevic-)Gyulassy-Levai-Vitev ((D)GLV) framework for relativistic A+A reactions at RHIC and LHC energies using realistic bulk medium evolution with both transverse and longitudinal expansion. The single PDF file provided also includes a report from the entire JET Collaboration.

  16. Final Technical Report summarizing Purdue research activities as part of the DOE JET Topical Collaboration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Molnar, Denes [Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy

    2015-09-01

    This report summarizes research activities at Purdue University done as part of the DOE JET Topical Collaboration. These mainly involve calculation of covariant radiative energy loss in the (Djordjevic-)Gyulassy-Levai-Vitev ((D)GLV) framework for relativistic A+A reactions at RHIC and LHC energies using realistic bulk medium evolution with both transverse and longitudinal expansion. The single PDF file provided also includes a report from the entire JET Collaboration.

  17. An overview of topic modeling and its current applications in bioinformatics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Lin; Tang, Lin; Dong, Wen; Yao, Shaowen; Zhou, Wei

    2016-01-01

    With the rapid accumulation of biological datasets, machine learning methods designed to automate data analysis are urgently needed. In recent years, so-called topic models that originated from the field of natural language processing have been receiving much attention in bioinformatics because of their interpretability. Our aim was to review the application and development of topic models for bioinformatics. This paper starts with the description of a topic model, with a focus on the understanding of topic modeling. A general outline is provided on how to build an application in a topic model and how to develop a topic model. Meanwhile, the literature on application of topic models to biological data was searched and analyzed in depth. According to the types of models and the analogy between the concept of document-topic-word and a biological object (as well as the tasks of a topic model), we categorized the related studies and provided an outlook on the use of topic models for the development of bioinformatics applications. Topic modeling is a useful method (in contrast to the traditional means of data reduction in bioinformatics) and enhances researchers' ability to interpret biological information. Nevertheless, due to the lack of topic models optimized for specific biological data, the studies on topic modeling in biological data still have a long and challenging road ahead. We believe that topic models are a promising method for various applications in bioinformatics research.

  18. Topical cyclosporine for atopic keratoconjunctivitis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    González-López, Julio J; López-Alcalde, Jesús; Morcillo Laiz, Rafael; Fernández Buenaga, Roberto; Rebolleda Fernández, Gema

    2012-09-12

    Atopic keratoconjunctivitis (AKC) is a chronic ocular surface non-infectious inflammatory condition that atopic dermatitis patients may suffer at any time point in the course of their dermatologic disease and is independent of its degree of severity. AKC is usually not self resolving and it poses a higher risk of corneal injuries and severe sequelae. Management of AKC should prevent or treat corneal damage. Although topical corticosteroids remain the standard treatment for patients with AKC, prolonged use may lead to complications. Topical cyclosporine A (CsA) may improve AKC signs and symptoms, and be used as a corticosteroid sparing agent. To determine the efficacy and gather evidence on safety from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of topical CsA in patients with AKC. We searched CENTRAL (which contains the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group Trials Register) (The Cochrane Library 2012, Issue 6), MEDLINE (January 1946 to July 2012), EMBASE (January 1980 to July 2012), Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS) (January 1982 to July 2012), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) (January 1937 to July 2012), OpenGrey (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe) (www.opengrey.eu/), the metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT) (www.controlled-trials.com), ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov), the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/search/en), the IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal (http://clinicaltrials.ifpma.org/no_cache/en/myportal/index.htm) and Web of Science Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Science (CPCI-S). We did not use any date or language restrictions in the electronic searches for trials. The electronic databases were last searched on 9 July 2012. We also handsearched the following conference proceedings: American Academy of Ophthalmology, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, International Council of Opthalmology and Societas

  19. 76 FR 81806 - Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-12-29

    .... FDA-2011-N-0003] Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution... solution of ivermectin. DATES: This rule is effective December 29, 2011. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT... ANADA 200-318 for [[Page 81807

  20. Topical methotrexate pretreatment enhances the therapeutic effect of topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy on hamster buccal pouch precancers

    OpenAIRE

    Deng-Fu Yang; Jeng-Woei Lee; Hsin-Ming Chen; Yih-Chih Hsu

    2014-01-01

    Topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is effective for treatment of human oral precancerous lesions. This animal study aimed to assess whether topical methotrexate (MTX) pretreatment could enhance the therapeutic effect of topical ALA-PDT on hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions. Methods: Twenty hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions were treated with either topical ALA-PDT with topical MTX pretreatment (topical MTX-ALA-PDT group, n = 10) or topical A...

  1. Topical anti-infective sinonasal irrigations: update and literature review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jivianne T; Chiu, Alexander G

    2014-01-01

    Sinonasal anti-infective irrigations have emerged as a promising therapeutic modality in the comprehensive management of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), particularly in the context of recalcitrant disease. The purpose of this article was to delineate the current spectrum of topical anti-infective therapies available and evaluate their role in the treatment of CRS. A systematic literature review was performed on all studies investigating the use of topical antimicrobial solutions in the medical therapy of CRS. Anti-infective irrigations were stratified into topical antibacterial, antifungal, and additive preparations according to their composition and respective microbicidal properties. The use of topical antibiotic irrigations has been supported by low-level studies in the treatment of refractory CRS, with optimal results achieved in patients who have undergone prior functional endoscopic sinus surgery and received culture-directed therapy. Multiple evidence-based reviews have not established any clinical benefit with the administration of topical antifungals, and their use is not currently recommended in the management of routine CRS. Topical additives including surfactants may be beneficial as adjunctive treatment for recalcitrant CRS, but additional research is needed to investigate their efficacy in comparison with other agents and establish safety profiles. Topical anti-infective solutions are not recommended as first-line therapy for routine CRS but may be considered as a potential option for patients with refractory CRS who have failed traditional medical and surgical intervention. Additional research is necessary to determine which patient populations would derive the most benefit from each respective irrigation regimen and identify potential toxicities associated with prolonged use.

  2. Efficacy of adding topical simvastatin to topical calcipotriol on improvement of cutaneous plaque psoriasis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fariba Iraji

    2014-01-01

    Conclusion: This study indicates that topical simvastatin is not associated with significant impacts in the treatment of psoriasis as compared to oral form. This study indicates that psoriasis is a systemic disorder with variable skin manifestations.

  3. Comparative Study between topical applications liposomally entrapped DNA repair enzymes and thymidine dinucleotide as radioprotectors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shabon, M.H.; El-Bedewi, A.F.

    2005-01-01

    The delivery of active agents to the skin by liposome carriers received great interest during the last three decades. This is based on their potential to enclose various types of biological materials and to deliver them to diverse cell types. Recent work suggests that liposomes as vehicles for topical drug delivery may be superior to conventional preparations. Also, topical application of DNA repair enzymes to irradiated skin increases the rate of repair of DNA potentially damaged cells. Moreover, thymidine dinucleotide is a new skin photo-protective agent against non-ionizing radiation through induction of DNA repair. Gamma irradiation can produce DNA damage in human skin. DNA mutations have an important role in the development of skin cancer and precancerous skin lesions. Albino rats were irradiated with Cobalt-60 gamma radiation with different doses (0.5, 1.5, 3 Gy), and were treated by either thymidine dinucleotide or liposomally entrapped DNA repair enzymes topically 24 hours before irradiation. Evaluation was done histopathologically by H and E stain. Computerized image analyzer using Masson's trichrome stain was also done. Gamma radiation produced epidermal thinning and dermal inflammatory cells together with collagen fragmentation and clumping in a dose-dependent manner. Comparing between both thymidine dinucleotide and liposomally entrapped DNA repair enzymes pretreated and irradiated rats. Low dose irradiation (0.5 Gy) together with previous drugs showed preservation of epidermis with no inflammatory cells and also it maintained the normal architecture of collagen bundles. However, they were ineffective with higher doses. In conclusion our results may suggest that the effects of gamma radiation on the skin at low dose could be minimized by the use of these drugs before exposure

  4. Evaluation of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides as Topical Anti-Infectives with Broad Spectrum Activity Against Combat-Related Bacterial and Fungal Wound Infections

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-10-01

    Inc. Vallejo, CA 94592 REPORT DATE: October 2016 TYPE OF REPORT: Annual PREPARED FOR: U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Fort...2016 2. REPORT TYPE Annual 3. DATES COVERED 30 Sep 2015 - 29 Sep 2016 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Evaluation of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides as Topical...antibiotics and early debridement has been associated with a large reduction in burn wound infections. Current topical antibiotics include

  5. Topical minoxidil: cardiac effects in bald man.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leenen, F H; Smith, D L; Unger, W P

    1988-01-01

    Systemic cardiovascular effects during chronic treatment with topical minoxidil vs placebo were evaluated using a double-blind, randomized design for two parallel groups (n = 20 for minoxidil, n = 15 for placebo). During 6 months of follow-up, blood pressure did not change, whereas minoxidil increased heart rate by 3-5 beats min-1. Compared with placebo, topical minoxidil caused significant increases in LV end-diastolic volume, in cardiac output (by 0.751 min-1) and in LV mass (by 5 g m-2). We conclude that in healthy subjects short-term use of topical minoxidil is likely not to be detrimental. However, safety needs to be established regarding ischaemic symptoms in patients with coronary artery disease as well as for the possible development of LV hypertrophy in healthy subjects during years of therapy. PMID:3191000

  6. Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of pain due to soft tissue injury: diclofenac epolamine topical patch

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David R Lionberger

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available David R Lionberger1, Michael J Brennan21Southwest Orthopedic Group, Houston, TX, USA; 2Department of Medicine, Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, CT, USAAbstract: The objective of this article is to review published clinical data on diclofenac epolamine topical patch 1.3% (DETP in the treatment of acute soft tissue injuries, such as strains, sprains, and contusions. Review of published literature on topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, diclofenac, and DETP in patients with acute soft tissue injuries was included. Relevant literature was identified on MEDLINE using the search terms topical NSAIDs, diclofenac, diclofenac epolamine, acute pain, sports injury, soft tissue injury, strain, sprain, and contusion, and from citations in retrieved articles covering the years 1978–2008. Review of published, randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses shows that topical NSAIDs are significantly more effective than placebo in relieving acute pain; the pooled average relative benefit was 1.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.5–1.9. In a limited number of comparisons, topical and oral NSAIDs provided comparable pain relief, but the use of topical agents produced lower plasma drug concentrations and fewer systemic adverse events (AEs. The physical–chemical properties of diclofenac epolamine make it well suited for topical use. In patients with acute soft tissue injuries treated with DETP, clinical data report an analgesic benefit within hours of the first application, and significant pain relief relative to placebo within 3 days. Moreover, DETP displayed tolerability comparable with placebo; the most common AEs were pruritus and other application site reactions. Review of published literature suggests that DETP is generally safe and well tolerated, clinically efficacious, and a rational treatment option for patients experiencing acute pain associated with strains, sprains, and contusions, and other localized painful conditions

  7. Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of pain due to soft tissue injury: diclofenac epolamine topical patch.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lionberger, David R; Brennan, Michael J

    2010-11-10

    The objective of this article is to review published clinical data on diclofenac epolamine topical patch 1.3% (DETP) in the treatment of acute soft tissue injuries, such as strains, sprains, and contusions. Review of published literature on topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), diclofenac, and DETP in patients with acute soft tissue injuries was included. Relevant literature was identified on MEDLINE using the search terms topical NSAIDs, diclofenac, diclofenac epolamine, acute pain, sports injury, soft tissue injury, strain, sprain, and contusion, and from citations in retrieved articles covering the years 1978-2008. Review of published, randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses shows that topical NSAIDs are significantly more effective than placebo in relieving acute pain; the pooled average relative benefit was 1.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.5-1.9). In a limited number of comparisons, topical and oral NSAIDs provided comparable pain relief, but the use of topical agents produced lower plasma drug concentrations and fewer systemic adverse events (AEs). The physical-chemical properties of diclofenac epolamine make it well suited for topical use. In patients with acute soft tissue injuries treated with DETP, clinical data report an analgesic benefit within hours of the first application, and significant pain relief relative to placebo within 3 days. Moreover, DETP displayed tolerability comparable with placebo; the most common AEs were pruritus and other application site reactions. Review of published literature suggests that DETP is generally safe and well tolerated, clinically efficacious, and a rational treatment option for patients experiencing acute pain associated with strains, sprains, and contusions, and other localized painful conditions.

  8. Control of pain with topical plant medicines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James David Adams Jr.

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Pain is normally treated with oral nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents and opioids. These drugs are dangerous and are responsible for many hospitalizations and deaths. It is much safer to use topical preparations made from plants to treat pain, even severe pain. Topical preparations must contain compounds that penetrate the skin, inhibit pain receptors such as transient receptor potential cation channels and cyclooxygenase-2, to relieve pain. Inhibition of pain in the skin disrupts the pain cycle and avoids exposure of internal organs to large amounts of toxic compounds. Use of topical pain relievers has the potential to save many lives, decrease medical costs and improve therapy.

  9. Topic Modeling of Hierarchical Corpora /

    OpenAIRE

    Kim, Do-kyum

    2014-01-01

    The sizes of modern digital libraries have grown beyond our capacity to comprehend manually. Thus we need new tools to help us in organizing and browsing large corpora of text that do not require manually examining each document. To this end, machine learning researchers have developed topic models, statistical learning algorithms for automatic comprehension of large collections of text. Topic models provide both global and local views of a corpus; they discover topics that run through the co...

  10. Development and Evaluation of Topical Gabapentin Formulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alcock, Natalie; Hiom, Sarah; Birchall, James C.

    2017-01-01

    Topical delivery of gabapentin is desirable to treat peripheral neuropathic pain conditions whilst avoiding systemic side effects. To date, reports of topical gabapentin delivery in vitro have been variable and dependent on the skin model employed, primarily involving rodent and porcine models. In this study a variety of topical gabapentin formulations were investigated, including Carbopol® hydrogels containing various permeation enhancers, and a range of proprietary bases including a compounded Lipoderm® formulation; furthermore microneedle facilitated delivery was used as a positive control. Critically, permeation of gabapentin across a human epidermal membrane in vitro was assessed using Franz-type diffusion cells. Subsequently this data was contextualised within the wider scope of the literature. Although reports of topical gabapentin delivery have been shown to vary, largely dependent upon the skin model used, this study demonstrated that 6% (w/w) gabapentin 0.75% (w/w) Carbopol® hydrogels containing 5% (w/w) DMSO or 70% (w/w) ethanol and a compounded 10% (w/w) gabapentin Lipoderm® formulation were able to facilitate permeation of the molecule across human skin. Further pre-clinical and clinical studies are required to investigate the topical delivery performance and pharmacodynamic actions of prospective formulations. PMID:28867811

  11. Testosterone Topical

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... not apply any testosterone topical products to your penis or scrotum or to skin that has sores, ... are severe or do not go away: breast enlargement and/or pain decreased sexual desire acne depression ...

  12. Credibility improves topical blog post retrieval

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Weerkamp, W.; de Rijke, M.

    2008-01-01

    Topical blog post retrieval is the task of ranking blog posts with respect to their relevance for a given topic. To improve topical blog post retrieval we incorporate textual credibility indicators in the retrieval process. We consider two groups of indicators: post level (determined using

  13. Topic prominence in Chinese EFL learners’ interlanguage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shaopeng Li

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The present study aims to investigate the general characteristics of topicprominent typological interlanguage development of Chinese learners of English in terms of acquiring subject-prominent English structures from a discourse perspective. Topic structures mainly appear in Chinese discourse in the form of topic chains (Wang, 2002; 2004. The research target are the topic chain, which is the main topic-prominent structure in Chinese discourse, and zero anaphora, which is the most common topic anaphora in the topic chain. Two important findings emerged from the present study. First, the characteristics of Chinese topic chains are transferrable to the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners, thus resulting in overgeneralization of the zero anaphora. Second, the interlanguage discourse of Chinese EFL learners reflects a change of the second language acquisition process from topic-prominence to subject-prominence, thus lending support to the discourse transfer hypothesis.

  14. Using Epistemic Network Analysis to understand core topics as planned learning objectives

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Allsopp, Benjamin Brink; Dreyøe, Jonas; Misfeldt, Morten

    Epistemic Network Analysis is a tool developed by the epistemic games group at the University of Wisconsin Madison for tracking the relations between concepts in students discourse (Shaffer 2017). In our current work we are applying this tool to learning objectives in teachers digital preparation....... The danish mathematics curriculum is organised in six competencies and three topics. In the recently implemented learning platforms teacher choose which of the mathematical competencies that serves as objective for a specific lesson or teaching sequence. Hence learning objectives for lessons and teaching...... sequences are defining a network of competencies, where two competencies are closely related of they often are part of the same learning objective or teaching sequence. We are currently using Epistemic Network Analysis to study these networks. In the poster we will include examples of different networks...

  15. Building bridges across electronic health record systems through inferred phenotypic topics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, You; Ghosh, Joydeep; Bejan, Cosmin Adrian; Gunter, Carl A; Gupta, Siddharth; Kho, Abel; Liebovitz, David; Sun, Jimeng; Denny, Joshua; Malin, Bradley

    2015-06-01

    Data in electronic health records (EHRs) is being increasingly leveraged for secondary uses, ranging from biomedical association studies to comparative effectiveness. To perform studies at scale and transfer knowledge from one institution to another in a meaningful way, we need to harmonize the phenotypes in such systems. Traditionally, this has been accomplished through expert specification of phenotypes via standardized terminologies, such as billing codes. However, this approach may be biased by the experience and expectations of the experts, as well as the vocabulary used to describe such patients. The goal of this work is to develop a data-driven strategy to (1) infer phenotypic topics within patient populations and (2) assess the degree to which such topics facilitate a mapping across populations in disparate healthcare systems. We adapt a generative topic modeling strategy, based on latent Dirichlet allocation, to infer phenotypic topics. We utilize a variance analysis to assess the projection of a patient population from one healthcare system onto the topics learned from another system. The consistency of learned phenotypic topics was evaluated using (1) the similarity of topics, (2) the stability of a patient population across topics, and (3) the transferability of a topic across sites. We evaluated our approaches using four months of inpatient data from two geographically distinct healthcare systems: (1) Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) and (2) Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). The method learned 25 phenotypic topics from each healthcare system. The average cosine similarity between matched topics across the two sites was 0.39, a remarkably high value given the very high dimensionality of the feature space. The average stability of VUMC and NMH patients across the topics of two sites was 0.988 and 0.812, respectively, as measured by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Also the VUMC and NMH topics have smaller variance of characterizing

  16. JST Thesaurus Headwords and Synonyms: データベース(as Topic) [MeCab user dictionary for science technology term[Archive

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available MeCab user dictionary for science technology term データベース(as Topic) 名詞 一般 * * * * データベース データベース データベース... Thesaurus2015 200906054074603733 C EG01 UNKNOWN_2 データベース ( a s Topic )

  17. Tactile Models and Games as Learning Tools for Topics of Molecular and Cell Biology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nelma Regina Segnini Bossolan

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The cell structure and the dynamics of its functioning are basic topics for the understanding of phenomena on a larger scale in living organisms and for which research in science teaching has suggested several strategies based on the use of images, games, computational simulations and tactile models, among other types of external representations. Our science education research group, over the last 17 years, has developed and evaluated educational materials for teaching these topics, aimed at all levels of school. Among these materials, we highlight the tactile models for the assembly of nucleic acid, amino acids and proteins molecules, as well as a board game that deals with the process of protein synthesis. These materials were evaluated with students from the final grades of elementary and high school, in the context of the Natural Sciences Curriculum of the State of São Paulo, as well as students from two higher level courses, one of them Licentiate’s program in Exact Sciences. Activities were planned with a problem-solving approach and carried out in small groups. Tactile models of nucleic acid aided elementary students in understanding the role of these molecules in the transmission of hereditary traits. The game of protein synthesis, which depicts this process in a schematic eukaryotic cell where the participants aim to synthesize a particular protein, promoted the development of skills such as “decision making” and “making anticipations” among high school students, in addition of expanding their knowledge about the biological functions of these molecules. The tactile models of amino acids and proteins used by students of higher education promoted their spatial perception of these molecules, allowing the prediction of intra- and intermolecular interactions. It is important to emphasize the importance of these educational resources in the construction of more functional mental models of cells and of intracellular processes.

  18. Topical report review status: Volume 10

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1996-03-01

    This report provides industry with procedures for submitting topical reports, guidance on how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) processes and responds to topical report submittals, and an accounting, with review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review by the NRC. This report is published annually

  19. 1 Theatre and Cultural Education as Panacea for Nigeria's Fractured ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This was because the phrase 'ejikwam ogu o'! (I am innocent) can only ... extraction with cartoons of American and Chinese myths leaving the African child ... they are custodians of the community's culture and hold the key to its history, when ...

  20. Generative Topic Modeling in Image Data Mining and Bioinformatics Studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Xin

    2012-01-01

    Probabilistic topic models have been developed for applications in various domains such as text mining, information retrieval and computer vision and bioinformatics domain. In this thesis, we focus on developing novel probabilistic topic models for image mining and bioinformatics studies. Specifically, a probabilistic topic-connection (PTC) model…

  1. Cel vinyls: materials and methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harrison, S J

    1983-12-01

    Many commercial uses of media are applicable to medical/scientific media production and illustration, not the least of which are techniques pioneered in the commercial cartooning field. Whether or not the illustrative effort culminates in a "cartoon," the production techniques of the cartooning industry cannot be overlooked by the illustrator faced with providing projection graphics, whether animated or still, for slides, motion pictures, television or even print media. When Walt Disney introduced Mickey Mouse as "Steamboat Willie" in 1928, his technology opened the door for exploration of cartooning media by all artists. Only in comparatively recent years have these tools been used by the scientific illustrator. In this article cel vinyl acrylics or cartoon colors will be discussed: the rationale for the use of this medium, materials and methods, and considerations related to the photography of this art form.

  2. Chiropractic: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... for back pain (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Chiropractic updates by ... ENCYCLOPEDIA Chiropractic care for back pain Related Health Topics Back Pain Complementary and Integrative Medicine National Institutes ...

  3. Diets: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Mediterranean diet (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Diets updates by ... foods Diet-busting foods Mediterranean diet Related Health Topics Child Nutrition DASH Eating Plan Diabetic Diet Nutrition ...

  4. Colonoscopy: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Virtual colonoscopy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Colonoscopy updates by ... Colonoscopy Colonoscopy discharge Sigmoidoscopy Virtual colonoscopy Related Health Topics Colonic Diseases Colonic Polyps Colorectal Cancer National Institutes ...

  5. Dialysis: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... access for hemodialysis (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Dialysis updates by ... for hemodialysis Show More Show Less Related Health Topics Creatinine Kidney Cysts Kidney Failure Peritoneal Disorders National ...

  6. Menopause: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish What is Menopause? (National Institute on Aging) Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Menopause updates by ... test Menopause Types of hormone therapy Related Health Topics Hormone Replacement Therapy Menstruation Premature Ovarian Failure National ...

  7. Vaginitis: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Vulvovaginitis - overview (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Vaginitis updates by ... Vaginitis test - wet mount Vulvovaginitis - overview Related Health Topics Trichomoniasis Vaginal Diseases Yeast Infections Other Languages Find ...

  8. Osmolarity as a contributing factor in topical drug delivery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Funke, Claire; Szeri, Andrew J.

    2017-11-01

    Gels and dissolvable solids are drug delivery platforms being evaluated for application of active pharmaceutical ingredients, termed microbicides, which act topically against infection by sexually transmitted HIV. In previous work, we have investigated how dilution by naturally produced fluid from the vaginal mucosa affects drug transport into the vaginal wall. We expand on this work by no longer assuming a constant flux and instead developing a relation for fluid transport based on osmolarity - thus allowing fluid to pass both into and out of epithelial cells. This relation shows that varying the osmolarity of the applied solution can have a significant effect on the amount of drug delivered to its target while holding the applied amount constant. This effect is modulated by a dimensionless group that relates the rates of solute and solvent transport. Ultimately, our goal is to develop a tool to understand better how to manipulate solution osmolarity in order to improve drug delivery within safety parameters for mucosal tissue.

  9. A Summary of Information on the Behavior of the Yakima Fold Belt as a Structural Entity -- Topical Report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Last, George V.; Winsor, Kelsey; Unwin, Stephen D.

    2012-08-01

    This document is one in a series of topical reports compiled by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to summarize technical information on selected topics important to the performance of a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) of the Hanford Site. The purpose of this report is to summarize available data and analyses relevant to the Yakima Fold Belt (YFB) that may bear on the question of whether or not the YFB behaves as a single seismotectonic province in which activity along one fold structure is representative of behavior along all other fold structures. This topic has met with a fairly high level of contention in the expert community and has the potential to result in significant impacts on an evaluation of seismic hazard at the Hanford Site. This report defines the relevant alternative conceptual models relevant to this technical issue and the arguments and data that support those models. It provides a brief description of the technical issue and principal uncertainties; a general overview on the nature of the technical issue, along with alternative conceptual models, supporting arguments and information, and uncertainties; and finally, it suggests some possible approaches for reducing uncertainties regarding this issue.

  10. Topical Acne Treatments and Pregnancy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Topical Acne Treatments In every pregnancy, a woman starts out with a 3-5% chance of having a baby ... This sheet talks about whether exposure to topical acne treatments may increase the risk for birth defects ...

  11. Symbiosis: Rich, Exciting, Neglected Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rowland, Jane Thomas

    1974-01-01

    Argues that the topic of symbiosis has been greatly neglected and underemphasized in general-biology textbooks. Discusses many types and examples of symbiosis, and provides an extensive bibliography of the literature related to this topic. (JR)

  12. Tactile friction of topical formulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skedung, L; Buraczewska-Norin, I; Dawood, N; Rutland, M W; Ringstad, L

    2016-02-01

    The tactile perception is essential for all types of topical formulations (cosmetic, pharmaceutical, medical device) and the possibility to predict the sensorial response by using instrumental methods instead of sensory testing would save time and cost at an early stage product development. Here, we report on an instrumental evaluation method using tactile friction measurements to estimate perceptual attributes of topical formulations. Friction was measured between an index finger and an artificial skin substrate after application of formulations using a force sensor. Both model formulations of liquid crystalline phase structures with significantly different tactile properties, as well as commercial pharmaceutical moisturizing creams being more tactile-similar, were investigated. Friction coefficients were calculated as the ratio of the friction force to the applied load. The structures of the model formulations and phase transitions as a result of water evaporation were identified using optical microscopy. The friction device could distinguish friction coefficients between the phase structures, as well as the commercial creams after spreading and absorption into the substrate. In addition, phase transitions resulting in alterations in the feel of the formulations could be detected. A correlation was established between skin hydration and friction coefficient, where hydrated skin gave rise to higher friction. Also a link between skin smoothening and finger friction was established for the commercial moisturizing creams, although further investigations are needed to analyse this and correlations with other sensorial attributes in more detail. The present investigation shows that tactile friction measurements have potential as an alternative or complement in the evaluation of perception of topical formulations. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  13. Recent topics in NMR imaging and MRI

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Watanabe, Tokuko

    2002-01-01

    NMR and NMR imaging (MRI) are finding increasing use not only in the clinical and medical fields, but also in material, physicochemical, biological, geological, industrial and environmental applications. This short review is limited to two topics: new techniques and pulse sequences and their application to non-clinical fields that may have clinical application; and new trends in MR contrast agents. The former topic addresses pulse sequence and data analysis; dynamics such as diffusion, flow, velocity and velocimetry; chemometrics; pharmacological agents; and chemotherapy; the latter topic addresses contrast agents (CA) sensitive to biochemical activity; CA based on water exchange; molecular interactions and stability of CA; characteristics of emerging CA; superparamagnetic CA; and macromolecular CA. (author)

  14. Prediabetes:MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... in Spanish Prediabetes (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Prediabetes updates by ... Glucose tolerance test - non-pregnant Prediabetes Related Health Topics A1C Diabetes Diabetes in Children and Teens Diabetes ...

  15. Diabetes: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... High blood sugar (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Diabetes updates by ... ketones test Show More Show Less Related Health Topics A1C Blood Sugar Diabetes and Pregnancy Diabetes Complications ...

  16. Analyzing the field of bioinformatics with the multi-faceted topic modeling technique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heo, Go Eun; Kang, Keun Young; Song, Min; Lee, Jeong-Hoon

    2017-05-31

    Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of molecular biology and computing technology. To characterize the field as convergent domain, researchers have used bibliometrics, augmented with text-mining techniques for content analysis. In previous studies, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) was the most representative topic modeling technique for identifying topic structure of subject areas. However, as opposed to revealing the topic structure in relation to metadata such as authors, publication date, and journals, LDA only displays the simple topic structure. In this paper, we adopt the Tang et al.'s Author-Conference-Topic (ACT) model to study the field of bioinformatics from the perspective of keyphrases, authors, and journals. The ACT model is capable of incorporating the paper, author, and conference into the topic distribution simultaneously. To obtain more meaningful results, we use journals and keyphrases instead of conferences and bag-of-words.. For analysis, we use PubMed to collected forty-six bioinformatics journals from the MEDLINE database. We conducted time series topic analysis over four periods from 1996 to 2015 to further examine the interdisciplinary nature of bioinformatics. We analyze the ACT Model results in each period. Additionally, for further integrated analysis, we conduct a time series analysis among the top-ranked keyphrases, journals, and authors according to their frequency. We also examine the patterns in the top journals by simultaneously identifying the topical probability in each period, as well as the top authors and keyphrases. The results indicate that in recent years diversified topics have become more prevalent and convergent topics have become more clearly represented. The results of our analysis implies that overtime the field of bioinformatics becomes more interdisciplinary where there is a steady increase in peripheral fields such as conceptual, mathematical, and system biology. These results are

  17. JST Thesaurus Headwords and Synonyms: レビュー文献(as Topic) [MeCab user dictionary for science technology term[Archive

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available MeCab user dictionary for science technology term レビュー文献(as Topic) 名詞 一般 * * * * 文献...展望 ブンケンテンボウ ブンケンテンボー Thesaurus2015 200906096212141961 C BA01 UNKNOWN_2 レビュー 文献 ( a s Topic )

  18. A Discourse Perspective of Topic-prominence in Chinese EFL Learners’ Interlanguage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shaopeng Li

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available The present study aims to investigate the general characteristics of topic-prominent typological interlanguage development of Chinese learners of English in terms of acquiring subject-prominent English structures from the discourse perspective. We have selected as the research target “topic chain” which is the main topic-prominent structure in Chinese discourse and “zero anaphora” which is the most common topic anaphor of topic chain. Topic structures mainly appear in Chinese discourse in the form of “topic chain” (Wang, 2002; 2004. Actually, in the event of a topic chain, research on topic structures should go into the typical range of discourse. Two important findings were yielded by the present study. First, the characteristics of Chinese topic chain are transferrable to the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners, thus resulting in overgeneralization of zero anaphora; second, interlanguage discourse of Chinese EFL learners reflects the characteristics of a second language acquisition process from topic-prominence to subject-prominence, thus lending support to the discourse transfer hypothesis.

  19. Topics in lightwave transmission systems

    CERN Document Server

    Li, Tingye

    1991-01-01

    Topics in Lightwave Transmission Systems is a second volume of a treatise on optical fiber communications that is devoted to the science, engineering, and application of information transmission via optical fibers. The first volume, published in 1985, dealt exclusively with fiber fabrication. The present volume contains topics that pertain to subsystems and systems. The book contains five chapters and begins with discussions of transmitters and receivers, which are basic to systems now operating in the field. Subsequent chapters cover topics relating to coherent systems: frequency and phase m

  20. Development and Evaluation of Topical Gabapentin Formulations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christopher J. Martin

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Topical delivery of gabapentin is desirable to treat peripheral neuropathic pain conditions whilst avoiding systemic side effects. To date, reports of topical gabapentin delivery in vitro have been variable and dependent on the skin model employed, primarily involving rodent and porcine models. In this study a variety of topical gabapentin formulations were investigated, including Carbopol® hydrogels containing various permeation enhancers, and a range of proprietary bases including a compounded Lipoderm® formulation; furthermore microneedle facilitated delivery was used as a positive control. Critically, permeation of gabapentin across a human epidermal membrane in vitro was assessed using Franz-type diffusion cells. Subsequently this data was contextualised within the wider scope of the literature. Although reports of topical gabapentin delivery have been shown to vary, largely dependent upon the skin model used, this study demonstrated that 6% (w/w gabapentin 0.75% (w/w Carbopol® hydrogels containing 5% (w/w DMSO or 70% (w/w ethanol and a compounded 10% (w/w gabapentin Lipoderm® formulation were able to facilitate permeation of the molecule across human skin. Further pre-clinical and clinical studies are required to investigate the topical delivery performance and pharmacodynamic actions of prospective formulations.

  1. Topical use of dexpanthenol: a 70th anniversary article.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Proksch, Ehrhardt; de Bony, Raymond; Trapp, Sonja; Boudon, Stéphanie

    2017-12-01

    Approximately 70 years ago, the first topical dexpanthenol-containing formulation (Bepanthen™ Ointment) has been developed. Nowadays, various topical dexpanthenol preparations exist, tailored according to individual requirements. Topical dexpanthenol has emerged as frequently used formulation in the field of dermatology and skin care. Various studies confirmed dexpanthenol's moisturizing and skin barrier enhancing potential. It prevents skin irritation, stimulates skin regeneration and promotes wound healing. Two main directions in the use of topical dexpanthenol-containing formulations have therefore been pursued: as skin moisturizer/skin barrier restorer and as facilitator of wound healing. This 70th anniversary paper reviews studies with topical dexpanthenol in skin conditions where it is most frequently used. Although discovered decades ago, the exact mechanisms of action of dexpanthenol have not been fully elucidated yet. With the adoption of new technologies, new light has been shed on dexpanthenol's mode of action at the molecular level. It appears that dexpanthenol increases the mobility of stratum corneum molecular components which are important for barrier function and modulates the expression of genes important for wound healing. This review will update readers on recent advances in this field.

  2. Humor, laughter, and the cerebellum: insights from patients with acute cerebellar stroke.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frank, B; Andrzejewski, K; Göricke, S; Wondzinski, E; Siebler, M; Wild, B; Timmann, D

    2013-12-01

    Extent of cerebellar involvement in cognition and emotion is still a topic of ongoing research. In particular, the cerebellar role in humor processing and control of laughter is not well known. A hypermetric dysregulation of affective behavior has been assumed in cerebellar damage. Thus, we aimed at investigating humor comprehension and appreciation as well as the expression of laughter in 21 patients in the acute or subacute state after stroke restricted to the cerebellum, and in the same number of matched healthy control subjects. Patients with acute and subacute cerebellar damage showed preserved comprehension and appreciation of humor using a validated humor test evaluating comprehension, funniness and aversiveness of cartoons ("3WD Humor Test"). Additionally, there was no difference when compared to healthy controls in the number and intensity of facial reactions and laughter while observing jokes, humorous cartoons, or video sketches measured by the Facial Action Coding System. However, as depression scores were significantly increased in patients with cerebellar stroke, a concealing effect of accompanying depression cannot be excluded. Current findings add to descriptions in the literature that cognitive or affective disorders in patients with lesions restricted to the cerebellum, even in the acute state after damage, are frequently mild and might only be present in more sensitive or specific tests.

  3. #Healthy Selfies: Exploration of Health Topics on Instagram.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muralidhara, Sachin; Paul, Michael J

    2018-06-29

    Social media provides a complementary source of information for public health surveillance. The dominate data source for this type of monitoring is the microblogging platform Twitter, which is convenient due to the free availability of public data. Less is known about the utility of other social media platforms, despite their popularity. This work aims to characterize the health topics that are prominently discussed in the image-sharing platform Instagram, as a step toward understanding how this data might be used for public health research. The study uses a topic modeling approach to discover topics in a dataset of 96,426 Instagram posts containing hashtags related to health. We use a polylingual topic model, initially developed for datasets in different natural languages, to model different modalities of data: hashtags, caption words, and image tags automatically extracted using a computer vision tool. We identified 47 health-related topics in the data (kappa=.77), covering ten broad categories: acute illness, alternative medicine, chronic illness and pain, diet, exercise, health care & medicine, mental health, musculoskeletal health and dermatology, sleep, and substance use. The most prevalent topics were related to diet (8,293/96,426; 8.6% of posts) and exercise (7,328/96,426; 7.6% of posts). A large and diverse set of health topics are discussed in Instagram. The extracted image tags were generally too coarse and noisy to be used for identifying posts but were in some cases accurate for identifying images relevant to studying diet and substance use. Instagram shows potential as a source of public health information, though limitations in data collection and metadata availability may limit its use in comparison to platforms like Twitter. ©Sachin Muralidhara, Michael J. Paul. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 29.06.2018.

  4. Topics in computational linear optimization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hultberg, Tim Helge

    2000-01-01

    Linear optimization has been an active area of research ever since the pioneering work of G. Dantzig more than 50 years ago. This research has produced a long sequence of practical as well as theoretical improvements of the solution techniques avilable for solving linear optimization problems...... of high quality solvers and the use of algebraic modelling systems to handle the communication between the modeller and the solver. This dissertation features four topics in computational linear optimization: A) automatic reformulation of mixed 0/1 linear programs, B) direct solution of sparse unsymmetric...... systems of linear equations, C) reduction of linear programs and D) integration of algebraic modelling of linear optimization problems in C++. Each of these topics is treated in a separate paper included in this dissertation. The efficiency of solving mixed 0-1 linear programs by linear programming based...

  5. Preferred Writing Topics of Urban and Rural Middle School Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shippen, Margaret E.; Houchins, David E.; Puckett, DaShaunda; Ramsey, Michelle

    2007-01-01

    This study compared the preferred writing topics of urban and rural middle school students. Eighth graders (n = 205) responded to a brief survey of preferred writing topics in the descriptive writing genres of real or imagined stories, reports, and opinions. While some preferred writing topics were divergent such as society, crime, and violence,…

  6. Characterizing interdisciplinarity of researchers and research topics using web search engines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sayama, Hiroki; Akaishi, Jin

    2012-01-01

    Researchers' networks have been subject to active modeling and analysis. Earlier literature mostly focused on citation or co-authorship networks reconstructed from annotated scientific publication databases, which have several limitations. Recently, general-purpose web search engines have also been utilized to collect information about social networks. Here we reconstructed, using web search engines, a network representing the relatedness of researchers to their peers as well as to various research topics. Relatedness between researchers and research topics was characterized by visibility boost-increase of a researcher's visibility by focusing on a particular topic. It was observed that researchers who had high visibility boosts by the same research topic tended to be close to each other in their network. We calculated correlations between visibility boosts by research topics and researchers' interdisciplinarity at the individual level (diversity of topics related to the researcher) and at the social level (his/her centrality in the researchers' network). We found that visibility boosts by certain research topics were positively correlated with researchers' individual-level interdisciplinarity despite their negative correlations with the general popularity of researchers. It was also found that visibility boosts by network-related topics had positive correlations with researchers' social-level interdisciplinarity. Research topics' correlations with researchers' individual- and social-level interdisciplinarities were found to be nearly independent from each other. These findings suggest that the notion of "interdisciplinarity" of a researcher should be understood as a multi-dimensional concept that should be evaluated using multiple assessment means.

  7. Oral Versus Topical Diclofenac Sodium in the Treatment of Osteoarthritis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tieppo Francio, Vinicius; Davani, Saeid; Towery, Chris; Brown, Tony L

    2017-06-01

    Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common causes of joint pain in the United States and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), such as Diclofenac sodium, which is currently available in two main routes of administration; oral and topical distribution have been established as one of the standard treatments for OA. Generally, oral NSAIDs are well tolerated; however our narrative review suggests that the topical solution had a better tolerability property than oral Diclofenac sodium, especially due to side effects of gastrointestinal bleeding with the utilization of the oral format. In addition, the topical route may be considered a reasonable selection by clinicians for management of musculoskeletal pain in those patients with a history of potential risk and adverse side effects. Most studies reviewed comparing oral versus topical solution of Diclofenac sodium revealed comparable efficacy, with minimal side effects utilizing the topical route. The key point of this narrative review is to help clinicians that currently must decide between very inexpensive diclofenac oral presentations and expensive topical presentations especially in the elderly population and the pros and cons of such decision-making process.

  8. Preliminary stop of the TOPical Imiquimod treatment of high-grade Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (TOPIC) trial

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Koeneman, M. M.; Kruse, Arnold-Jan; Kooreman, L. F. S.; zur Hausen, Axel; Hopman, Anton H N; Sep, S. J. S.; Van Gorp, T.; Slangen, B. F. M.; van Beekhuizen, H. J.; de Sande, Michiel A. J. van; Gerestein, Cornelis G.; Nijman, H. W.; Kruitwagen, R. F. M. P.

    2017-01-01

    The "TOPical Imiquimod treatment of high-grade Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia" (TOPIC) trial was stopped preliminary, due to lagging inclusions. This study aimed to evaluate the treatment efficacy and clinical applicability of imiquimod 5% cream in high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia

  9. The in vitro and in vivo evaluation of ddC as a topical antiviral for ocular adenovirus infections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Romanowski, Eric G; Yates, Kathleen A; Gordon, Y Jerold

    2009-11-01

    To evaluate the antiviral activity of 2', 3'-dideoxycytidine (ddC) in vitro against a panel of ocular adenovirus serotypes and in vivo in the ocular Ad5/NZW rabbit replication model. In vitro, the 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC(50)) of ddC and cidofovir were determined using standard plaque-reduction assays. In vivo, 40 rabbits were topically inoculated in both eyes with Ad5 after corneal scarification. On day 1, the rabbits were equally divided into four topical treatment groups: 3% ddC; 2% ddC; 0.5% cidofovir; and saline. ddC and saline eyes were treated four times daily for 7 days, and cidofovir-treated eyes were treated twice daily for 7 days. Eyes were cultured for virus a multiple times over 2 weeks. The in vitro IC(50) for ddC ranged from 0.18 to 1.85 microg/mL, whereas those for cidofovir ranged from 0.018 to 5.47 microg/mL. ddC was more potent than cidofovir for seven of nine serotypes. In vivo, 3% ddC, 2% ddC, and 0.5% cidofovir significantly reduced the number of Ad5-positive cultures per total (days 1-14), mean Ad5 ocular titer (days 1-5), and duration of shedding (among other outcome measures) compared with the saline control. The 3% and 2% ddC treatments were significantly more efficacious than the 0.5% cidofovir treatment in the parameters listed above. ddC demonstrated potent antiadenovirus activity in vitro and in vivo. Systemic safety studies after topical ocular administration are needed to evaluate ddC as a topical antiviral treatment for adenoviral ocular infections in the target population.

  10. Evaluation of a polyherbal topical aerosol spray as a supportive therapy for clinical mastitis in dairy cows

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ramasamy Selvam

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The present study was designed to evaluate the polyherbal topical aerosol spray Wisprec and reg; Advanced (M/S. Natural Remedies Private Limited, India as a supportive therapy for clinical mastitis in dairy cows. A total of 41 dairy cows suffering from clinical mastitis were selected, and Wisprec and reg; Advanced was sprayed on mastitis affected quarters of udder two times a day along with a parenteral antibiotic till complete recovery. The rectal temperature, pain on palpation of udder, swelling of udder, consistency of milk, recovery period and product satisfaction score were assessed to evaluate the efficacy of Wisprec and reg; Spray. Topical application of Wisprec and reg; Advanced Spray have shown a significant improvement (p<0.001 in alleviation of rectal temperature, pain on palpation of udder and swelling of udder, and the consistency of milk was restored to normal after 3 to 4 days of treatment. The results demonstrate that the Wisprec and reg; Advanced spray could be considered as an alternative to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs as a supportive therapy for clinical mastitis of dairy cows. [J Adv Vet Anim Res 2015; 2(3.000: 285-290

  11. Topical minoxidil in the treatment of alopecia areata.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fenton, D A; Wilkinson, J D

    1983-01-01

    A modified double blind crossover study was performed to assess the effect of 1% topical minoxidil as compared with placebo in 30 patients with alopecia areata and alopecia totalis. The active preparation produced a highly significant incidence of hair regrowth. A cosmetically acceptable response was noted in 16 patients. No side effects were seen. The study confirmed that topical minoxidil will induce new hair growth in alopecia areata but that it is less likely to do so in more severe and extensive disease. Furthermore, patients with alopecia universalis and totalis may not respond at all. Nevertheless, as compared with other drugs minoxidil applied topically is relatively non-toxic, is easy to use, and has no systemic or local side effects. Images p1016-a PMID:6412929

  12. Topical Melatonin for Treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia

    OpenAIRE

    Fischer, Tobias W; Tr?eb, Ralph M; H?nggi, Gabriella; Innocenti, Marcello; Elsner, Peter

    2012-01-01

    Background: In the search for alternative agents to oral finasteride and topical minoxidil for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia (AGA), melatonin, a potent antioxidant and growth modulator, was identified as a promising candidate based on in vitro and in vivo studies. Materials and Methods: One pharmacodynamic study on topical application of melatonin and four clinical pre-post studies were performed in patients with androgenetic alopecia or general hair loss and evaluated by standardise...

  13. New guidelines for topical NSAIDs in the osteoarthritis treatment paradigm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Altman, Roy D

    2010-12-01

    Osteoarthritis (OA), the most common form of arthritis, often affects hands, hips, and knees and involves an estimated 26.9 million US adults. Women have a higher prevalence of OA, and the risk of developing OA increases with age, obesity, and joint malalignment. OA typically presents with pain and reduced function. Therapeutic programs are often multimodal and must take into account pharmaceutical toxicities and patient comorbidities. For example, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and renal adverse events. Topical NSAIDs offer efficacy with reduced systemic drug exposure. This is a review of current guideline recommendations regarding the use of topical NSAIDs in OA of the hand and knee. Articles were identified by PubMed search (January 1, 2000 to May 21, 2010). Several current guidelines for management of OA recommend topical NSAIDs, indicating them as a safe and effective treatment. One guideline recommends that topical NSAIDs be considered as first-line pharmacologic therapy. A US guideline for knee OA recommends topical NSAIDs in older patients and in patients with increased gastrointestinal risk. The consensus across US and European OA guidelines is that topical NSAIDs are a safe and effective treatment for OA. Because the research base on topical NSAIDs for OA is small, guidelines will continue to evolve.

  14. Bimatoprost Topical

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... not use a cotton swab or any other brush or applicator to apply topical bimatoprost.To use the solution, follow these steps: Wash your hands and face thoroughly with soap and water. Be sure that all makeup is removed. Do not let the tip of ...

  15. Nanocrystal: a novel approach to overcome skin barriers for improved topical drug delivery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patel, Viral; Sharma, Om Prakash; Mehta, Tejal

    2018-04-01

    Skin is an important route of drug delivery for the treatment of various dermatological conditions. The advent of nanotechnology is paving the roadmaps for topical drug delivery by providing sustained release as well as maintaining a localized effect, outweighing the toxicity concern. Area covered: This review highlighted the morphology of skin, its barrier nature as well as drug penetration pathways after topical application of formulations. The existing methods to improve topical drug delivery, by infringing or permeating the skin barriers, are discussed. This context concretes the foundation to accentuate the need for the development of nanocrystal-based topical formulation. The mechanism of drug release, immediate as well as sustained release, after topical administration of drug nanocrystals is also elaborated. The special emphasis is given on the breakthrough achieved, in topical drug delivery using drug nanocrystals, so far in the plethora of literature, patents, and products, under clinical trial as well as in the market. Expert opinion: The current research on nanocrystals for topical drug delivery is highlighting the breakthroughs achieved so far. The output of these research envisages that topical nanocrystals based formulations can be a novel strategy for the drugs which are facing solubility, bioavailability and toxicity concerns.

  16. Topics in quantum field theory

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dams, C.J.F.

    2006-01-01

    In this PhD-thesis some topics in quantum field theory are considered. The first chapter gives a background to these topics. The second chapter discusses renormalization. In particular it is shown how loop calculations can be performed when using the axial gauge fixing. Fermion creation and

  17. Evaluation of a cartoon-based knowledge dissemination intervention on scientific and ethical challenges raised by nutrigenomics/nutrigenetics research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lafrenière, Darquise; Hurlimann, Thierry; Menuz, Vincent; Godard, Béatrice

    2014-10-01

    The push for knowledge translation on the part of health research funding agencies is significant in Canada, and many strategies have been adopted to promote the conversion of knowledge into action. In recent years, an increasing number of health researchers have been studying arts-based interventions to transform knowledge into action. This article reports on the results of an online questionnaire aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a knowledge dissemination intervention (KDI) conveying findings from a study on the scientific and ethical challenges raised by nutrigenomics-nutrigenetics (NGx) research. The KDI was based on the use of four Web pages combining original, interactive cartoon-like illustrations accompanied by text to disseminate findings to Canadian Research Ethics Boards members, as well as to NGx researchers and researchers in ethics worldwide. Between May and October 2012, the links to the Web pages were sent in a personal email to target audience members, one thematic Web page at a time. On each thematic Web page, members of the target audience were invited to answer nine evaluation questions assessing the effectiveness of the KDI on four criteria, (i) acquisition of knowledge; (ii) change in initial understanding; (iii) generation of questions from the findings; and (iv) intent to change own practice. Response rate was low; results indicate that: (i) content of the four Web pages did not bring new knowledge to a majority of the respondents, (ii) initial understanding of the findings did not change for a majority of NGx researchers and a minority of ethics respondents, (iii) although the KDI did raise questions for respondents, it did not move them to change their practice. While target end-users may not feel that they actually learned from the KDI, it seems that the findings conveyed encouraged reflection and raised useful and valuable questions for them. Moreover, the evaluation of the KDI proved to be useful to gain knowledge about our

  18. Topic Modeling of NASA Space System Problem Reports: Research in Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Layman, Lucas; Nikora, Allen P.; Meek, Joshua; Menzies, Tim

    2016-01-01

    Problem reports at NASA are similar to bug reports: they capture defects found during test, post-launch operational anomalies, and document the investigation and corrective action of the issue. These artifacts are a rich source of lessons learned for NASA, but are expensive to analyze since problem reports are comprised primarily of natural language text. We apply topic modeling to a corpus of NASA problem reports to extract trends in testing and operational failures. We collected 16,669 problem reports from six NASA space flight missions and applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling to the document corpus. We analyze the most popular topics within and across missions, and how popular topics changed over the lifetime of a mission. We find that hardware material and flight software issues are common during the integration and testing phase, while ground station software and equipment issues are more common during the operations phase. We identify a number of challenges in topic modeling for trend analysis: 1) that the process of selecting the topic modeling parameters lacks definitive guidance, 2) defining semantically-meaningful topic labels requires nontrivial effort and domain expertise, 3) topic models derived from the combined corpus of the six missions were biased toward the larger missions, and 4) topics must be semantically distinct as well as cohesive to be useful. Nonetheless,topic modeling can identify problem themes within missions and across mission lifetimes, providing useful feedback to engineers and project managers.

  19. Hot Topics in Science Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ediger, Marlow

    2018-01-01

    There are vital topics in science teaching and learning which are mentioned frequently in the literature. Specialists advocate their importance in the curriculum as well as science teachers stress their saliency. Inservice education might well assist new and veteran teachers in knowledge and skills. The very best science lessons and units of…

  20. Film forming systems for topical and transdermal drug delivery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kashmira Kathe

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Skin is considered as an important route of administration of drugs for both local and systemic effects. The effectiveness of topical therapy depends on the physicochemical properties of the drug and adherence of the patient to the treatment regimen as well as the system's ability to adhere to skin during the therapy so as to promote drug penetration through the skin barrier. Conventional formulations for topical and dermatological administration of drugs have certain limitations like poor adherence to skin, poor permeability and compromised patient compliance. For the treatment of diseases of body tissues and wounds, the drug has to be maintained at the site of treatment for an effective period of time. Topical film forming systems are such developing drug delivery systems meant for topical application to the skin, which adhere to the body, forming a thin transparent film and provide delivery of the active ingredients to the body tissue. These are intended for skin application as emollient or protective and for local action or transdermal penetration of medicament for systemic action. The transparency is an appreciable feature of this polymeric system which greatly influences the patient acceptance. In the current discussion, the film forming systems are described as a promising choice for topical and transdermal drug delivery. Further the various types of film forming systems (sprays/solutions, gels and emulsions along with their evaluation parameters have also been reviewed.

  1. Teaching vocabulary to elementary level students learning Russian as a foreign language: topic "My family and I"

    OpenAIRE

    Vesnina, L. E.

    2017-01-01

    The article describes a lesson "My Family and I" for elementary level students learning Russian as a foreign language. This topic is the first in the academic subject Russian Vocabulary. The article sums up the experience of teaching this subject to Chinese students learning Russian at the Ural State Pedagogical University. The content and the aims of the lesson "My Family and I", as well as the subject Russian Vocabulary, are based on the communicative approach to teaching Russian as a forei...

  2. Detecting Hotspot Information Using Multi-Attribute Based Topic Model.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing Wang

    Full Text Available Microblogging as a kind of social network has become more and more important in our daily lives. Enormous amounts of information are produced and shared on a daily basis. Detecting hot topics in the mountains of information can help people get to the essential information more quickly. However, due to short and sparse features, a large number of meaningless tweets and other characteristics of microblogs, traditional topic detection methods are often ineffective in detecting hot topics. In this paper, we propose a new topic model named multi-attribute latent dirichlet allocation (MA-LDA, in which the time and hashtag attributes of microblogs are incorporated into LDA model. By introducing time attribute, MA-LDA model can decide whether a word should appear in hot topics or not. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional LDA model, applying hashtag attribute in MA-LDA model gives the core words an artificially high ranking in results meaning the expressiveness of outcomes can be improved. Empirical evaluations on real data sets demonstrate that our method is able to detect hot topics more accurately and efficiently compared with several baselines. Our method provides strong evidence of the importance of the temporal factor in extracting hot topics.

  3. Detecting Hotspot Information Using Multi-Attribute Based Topic Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jing; Li, Li; Tan, Feng; Zhu, Ying; Feng, Weisi

    2015-01-01

    Microblogging as a kind of social network has become more and more important in our daily lives. Enormous amounts of information are produced and shared on a daily basis. Detecting hot topics in the mountains of information can help people get to the essential information more quickly. However, due to short and sparse features, a large number of meaningless tweets and other characteristics of microblogs, traditional topic detection methods are often ineffective in detecting hot topics. In this paper, we propose a new topic model named multi-attribute latent dirichlet allocation (MA-LDA), in which the time and hashtag attributes of microblogs are incorporated into LDA model. By introducing time attribute, MA-LDA model can decide whether a word should appear in hot topics or not. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional LDA model, applying hashtag attribute in MA-LDA model gives the core words an artificially high ranking in results meaning the expressiveness of outcomes can be improved. Empirical evaluations on real data sets demonstrate that our method is able to detect hot topics more accurately and efficiently compared with several baselines. Our method provides strong evidence of the importance of the temporal factor in extracting hot topics. PMID:26496635

  4. Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of pain due to soft tissue injury: diclofenac epolamine topical patch

    OpenAIRE

    Lionberger, David

    2010-01-01

    David R Lionberger1, Michael J Brennan21Southwest Orthopedic Group, Houston, TX, USA; 2Department of Medicine, Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, CT, USAAbstract: The objective of this article is to review published clinical data on diclofenac epolamine topical patch 1.3% (DETP) in the treatment of acute soft tissue injuries, such as strains, sprains, and contusions. Review of published literature on topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), diclofenac, and DETP in patients with ac...

  5. Evaluation of topical nalbuphine or oral tramadol as analgesics for corneal pain in dogs: a pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, Jason S; Bentley, Ellison; Smith, Lesley J

    2011-11-01

    To evaluate the effectiveness of topical nalbuphine or oral tramadol in the treatment of corneal pain in dogs. Fourteen male Beagle dogs. Dogs were divided into three treatment groups and sedated with dexmedetomidine (5 μ/kg IV). A 4 mm corneal epithelial wound was created in the right eye (OD) of all dogs. Sedation was reversed with atipamazole IM. All dogs received pre/post ophthalmic examinations. Post operatively, Group NB (n = 5) received topical 1% preservative-free nalbuphine OD q8 h and an oral placebo PO q8 h. Group TR (n = 5) received tramadol (4 mg/kg) PO q8 h and topical sterile saline OD q8 h. Group CNTRL (n = 4) received topical sterile saline OD q8 h and an oral placebo q8 h. All dogs received topical 0.3% gentamicin OD TID until healed. Dogs were pain scored using a pain scoring system modified from the University of Melbourne pain scale at 0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 h, then every 6 h by observers masked to treatment, until corneal wounds were healed. Treatment failure was recorded if cumulative pain scores were above a minimum threshold of acceptable pain and rescue analgesia of morphine (1.0 mg/kg IM) was administered subsequently. Four dogs in Group NB, one dog in Group TR, and two dogs in Group CNTRL required rescue analgesia. There was no significant difference in the incidence of treatment failure between groups (P = 0.184). Mean time to rescue was 9.16 h. All corneal wounds were healed by 84 h. The results of this study suggest tramadol rather than nalbuphine should be further investigated for the treatment of corneal pain. © 2011 American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists.

  6. Real-time topic-aware influence maximization using preprocessing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Wei; Lin, Tian; Yang, Cheng

    2016-01-01

    Influence maximization is the task of finding a set of seed nodes in a social network such that the influence spread of these seed nodes based on certain influence diffusion model is maximized. Topic-aware influence diffusion models have been recently proposed to address the issue that influence between a pair of users are often topic-dependent and information, ideas, innovations etc. being propagated in networks are typically mixtures of topics. In this paper, we focus on the topic-aware influence maximization task. In particular, we study preprocessing methods to avoid redoing influence maximization for each mixture from scratch. We explore two preprocessing algorithms with theoretical justifications. Our empirical results on data obtained in a couple of existing studies demonstrate that one of our algorithms stands out as a strong candidate providing microsecond online response time and competitive influence spread, with reasonable preprocessing effort.

  7. Topical Session on the Decommissioning and Dismantling Safety Case

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    Set up by the Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC), the WPDD brings together senior representatives of national organisations who have a broad overview of Decommissioning and Dismantling (D and D) issues through their work as regulators, implementers, R and D experts or policy makers. These include representatives from regulatory authorities, industrial decommissioners from the NEA Cooperative Programme on Exchange of Scientific and Technical Information on Nuclear Installation Decommissioning Projects (CPD), and cross-representation from the NEA Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities, the Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health, and the RWMC. The EC is a member of the WPDD and the IAEA also participates. This ensures co-ordination amongst activities in these international programmes. Participation from civil society organisations is considered on a case by case basis, and has already taken place through the active involvement of the Group of Municipalities with Nuclear Installations at the first meeting of the WPDD At its second meeting, in Paris, 5-7 December 2001, the WPDD held two topical sessions on the D and D Safety Case and on the Management of Materials from D and D, respectively. This report documents the topical session on the safety case. The topical session was meant to provide an exchange of information and experience on the following issues: What topics should be included in a safety case? Of what should it consist? Is there sufficient and complete guidance nationally and internationally? How do practices differ internationally? Main boundary condition to this session was that it would deal with plants where spent fuel has been removed. Also the topical sessions was kept at a level that makes the most of the varied constituency of the WPDD. Namely, interface issues are important, and issue-identification and discussion was the immediate goal. There was less interest in examining areas where variability amongst national

  8. The effectiveness of humor in persuasion: the case of business ethics training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lyttle, J

    2001-04-01

    In this study, persuasion theory was used to develop the following predictions about use of humor in persuasive messages for business ethics training: (a) cartoon drawings will enhance persuasion by creating liking for the source, (b) ironic wisecracks will enhance persuasion by serving as a distraction from counterarguments, and (c) self-effacing humor will enhance persuasion by improving source credibility. Canadian business students (N = 148) participated in 1 of 4 versions of "The Ethics Challenge," a training exercise used by the Lockheed Martin Corporation. Three versions were modified by adding or removing cartoon drawings (of cartoon characters Dilbert and Dogbert) and humorous responses (Dogbert's wisecracks). Removing the cartoon drawings had little effect on persuasiveness. Removing ironic wisecracks had more effect, and interfering with the self-effacing combination of cartoons and wisecracks had the strongest effect. The results suggest that researchers should ground their predictions in existing theory and that practitioners should differentiate among humor types.

  9. Unsupervised topic discovery by anomaly detection

    OpenAIRE

    Cheng, Leon

    2013-01-01

    Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited With the vast amount of information and public comment available online, it is of increasing interest to understand what is being said and what topics are trending online. Government agencies, for example, want to know what policies concern the public without having to look through thousands of comments manually. Topic detection provides automatic identification of topics in documents based on the information content and enhances many ...

  10. 21 CFR 868.5170 - Laryngotracheal topical anesthesia applicator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Laryngotracheal topical anesthesia applicator. 868... topical anesthesia applicator. (a) Identification. A laryngotracheal topical anesthesia applicator is a device used to apply topical anesthetics to a patient's laryngotracheal area. (b) Classification. Class...

  11. Learning From Short Text Streams With Topic Drifts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Peipei; He, Lu; Wang, Haiyan; Hu, Xuegang; Zhang, Yuhong; Li, Lei; Wu, Xindong

    2017-09-18

    Short text streams such as search snippets and micro blogs have been popular on the Web with the emergence of social media. Unlike traditional normal text streams, these data present the characteristics of short length, weak signal, high volume, high velocity, topic drift, etc. Short text stream classification is hence a very challenging and significant task. However, this challenge has received little attention from the research community. Therefore, a new feature extension approach is proposed for short text stream classification with the help of a large-scale semantic network obtained from a Web corpus. It is built on an incremental ensemble classification model for efficiency. First, more semantic contexts based on the senses of terms in short texts are introduced to make up of the data sparsity using the open semantic network, in which all terms are disambiguated by their semantics to reduce the noise impact. Second, a concept cluster-based topic drifting detection method is proposed to effectively track hidden topic drifts. Finally, extensive studies demonstrate that as compared to several well-known concept drifting detection methods in data stream, our approach can detect topic drifts effectively, and it enables handling short text streams effectively while maintaining the efficiency as compared to several state-of-the-art short text classification approaches.

  12. Section 608 Technician Certification Test Topics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Identifies some of the topics covered on Section 608 Technician Certification tests such as ozone depletion, the Clean Air Act and Montreal Protocol, Substitute Refrigerants and oils, Refrigeration and Recovery Techniques.

  13. Early addition of topical corticosteroids in the treatment of bacterial keratitis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ray, Kathryn J; Srinivasan, Muthiah; Mascarenhas, Jeena; Rajaraman, Revathi; Ravindran, Meenakshi; Glidden, David V; Oldenburg, Catherine E; Sun, Catherine Q; Zegans, Michael E; McLeod, Stephen D; Acharya, Nisha R; Lietman, Thomas M

    2014-06-01

    Scarring from bacterial keratitis remains a leading cause of visual loss. To determine whether topical corticosteroids are beneficial as an adjunctive therapy for bacterial keratitis if given early in the course of infection. The Steroids for Corneal Ulcers Trial (SCUT) was a randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial that overall found no effect of adding topical corticosteroids to topical moxifloxacin hydrochloride in bacterial keratitis. Here, we assess the timing of administration of corticosteroids in a subgroup analysis of the SCUT. We define earlier administration of corticosteroids (vs placebo) as addition after 2 to 3 days of topical antibiotics and later as addition after 4 or more days of topical antibiotics. We assess the effect of topical corticosteroids (vs placebo) on 3-month best spectacle-corrected visual acuity in patients who received corticosteroids or placebo earlier vs later. Further analyses were performed for subgroups of patients with non-Nocardia keratitis and those with no topical antibiotic use before enrollment. Patients treated with topical corticosteroids as adjunctive therapy within 2 to 3 days of antibiotic therapy had approximately 1-line better visual acuity at 3 months than did those given placebo (-0.11 logMAR; 95% CI, -0.20 to -0.02 logMAR; P = .01). In patients who had 4 or more days of antibiotic therapy before corticosteroid treatment, the effect was not significant; patients given corticosteroids had 1-line worse visual acuity at 3 months compared with those in the placebo group (0.10 logMAR; 95% CI, -0.02 to 0.23 logMAR; P = .14). Patients with non-Nocardia keratitis and those having no topical antibiotic use before the SCUT enrollment showed significant improvement in best spectacle-corrected visual acuity at 3 months if corticosteroids were administered earlier rather than later. There may be a benefit with adjunctive topical corticosteroids if application occurs earlier in the course of bacterial

  14. Analyzing research trends on drug safety using topic modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zou, Chen

    2018-04-06

    Published drug safety data has evolved in the past decade due to scientific and technological advances in the relevant research fields. Considering that a vast amount of scientific literature has been published in this area, it is not easy to identify the key information. Topic modeling has emerged as a powerful tool to extract meaningful information from a large volume of unstructured texts. Areas covered: We analyzed the titles and abstracts of 4347 articles in four journals dedicated to drug safety from 2007 to 2016. We applied Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model to extract 50 main topics, and conducted trend analysis to explore the temporal popularity of these topics over years. Expert Opinion/Commentary: We found that 'benefit-risk assessment and communication', 'diabetes' and 'biologic therapy for autoimmune diseases' are the top 3 most published topics. The topics relevant to the use of electronic health records/observational data for safety surveillance are becoming increasingly popular over time. Meanwhile, there is a slight decrease in research on signal detection based on spontaneous reporting, although spontaneous reporting still plays an important role in benefit-risk assessment. The topics related to medical conditions and treatment showed highly dynamic patterns over time.

  15. Effect of a topical glucocorticoid, budesonide, on nasal mucosal blood flow as measured with 133Xe wash-out technique

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bende, M.; Lindqvist, N.; Pipkorn, U.

    1983-01-01

    The ''vasoconstrictor'' effect of dermally applicated steroids is a widely used parameter when determining the potency of glucocorticoids. A similar effect on the nasal mucosa has been suggested as providing an explanation for the clinical effect of topically administered glucocorticoids in the treatment of nasal disorders such as allergic and vasomotor rhinitis. The recently described 133 Xe wash-out method was used for the purpose of blood flow determination in 11 healthy subjects. In a randomized double-blind cross-over study, the effect of topically administered budesonide, a non-halogenated glucocorticoid, for 1 week was compared with that of placebo. No difference was found to occur in the mucosal blood flow after the administration of budesonide, as compared with placebo. It seems likely that a more complex activity than vasoconstriction is responsible for the clinical effect in the treatment of nasal disorders, and further research is required in order to clarify this issue. (author)

  16. Topic Time Series Analysis of Microblogs

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-10-01

    may be distributed more globally. Tweets on a specific topic that cluster spatially, temporally or both might be of interest to analysts, marketers ...of $ and @, with the latter only in the case that it is the only character in the token (the @ symbol is significant in its usage by Instagram in...is generated by Instagram . Topic 80, Distance: 143.2101 Top words: 1. rawr 2. ˆ0ˆ 3. kill 4. jurassic 5. dinosaur Analysis: This topic is quite

  17. Task-Driven Comparison of Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alexander, Eric; Gleicher, Michael

    2016-01-01

    Topic modeling, a method of statistically extracting thematic content from a large collection of texts, is used for a wide variety of tasks within text analysis. Though there are a growing number of tools and techniques for exploring single models, comparisons between models are generally reduced to a small set of numerical metrics. These metrics may or may not reflect a model's performance on the analyst's intended task, and can therefore be insufficient to diagnose what causes differences between models. In this paper, we explore task-centric topic model comparison, considering how we can both provide detail for a more nuanced understanding of differences and address the wealth of tasks for which topic models are used. We derive comparison tasks from single-model uses of topic models, which predominantly fall into the categories of understanding topics, understanding similarity, and understanding change. Finally, we provide several visualization techniques that facilitate these tasks, including buddy plots, which combine color and position encodings to allow analysts to readily view changes in document similarity.

  18. The “animalized humans” – the reformulated body

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buhl, Mie

    This contribution will discuss the phenomenon of the so-called Japanese Cat Girls who practice the behavior of cats as a contradiction to Disney's cartoon where animals have a human character. From Disney cartoons we experience how animals are being humanized and are representing human character...... to a degree where it becomes difficult to see them as animals. This is just one example of how animals are attributed with a human character. A trend among keepers of humanizing their pets has emerged, which sometimes goes beyond the interests of the animals’ welfare – as animals. The pets are equipped...... with props that appear to satisfy the owner's need instead of the needs of animal itself and make the animal look like a cartoon character. Pictures of animals represent a large variation of representation forms and genres where Disney represents an example of a cartoon culture of humanized animals...

  19. Eye Wear: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... When You Exercise (National Institute on Aging) - PDF Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Eye Wear updates by email What's this? GO Related Health Topics Refractive Errors National Institutes of Health The primary ...

  20. 21 CFR 524.1193 - Ivermectin topical solution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 6 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Ivermectin topical solution. 524.1193 Section 524...) ANIMAL DRUGS, FEEDS, AND RELATED PRODUCTS OPHTHALMIC AND TOPICAL DOSAGE FORM NEW ANIMAL DRUGS § 524.1193 Ivermectin topical solution. (a) Specifications. Each milliliter (mL) of solution contains 5 milligrams of...

  1. Analysis and application of opinion model with multiple topic interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiong, Fei; Liu, Yun; Wang, Liang; Wang, Ximeng

    2017-08-01

    To reveal heterogeneous behaviors of opinion evolution in different scenarios, we propose an opinion model with topic interactions. Individual opinions and topic features are represented by a multidimensional vector. We measure an agent's action towards a specific topic by the product of opinion and topic feature. When pairs of agents interact for a topic, their actions are introduced to opinion updates with bounded confidence. Simulation results show that a transition from a disordered state to a consensus state occurs at a critical point of the tolerance threshold, which depends on the opinion dimension. The critical point increases as the dimension of opinions increases. Multiple topics promote opinion interactions and lead to the formation of macroscopic opinion clusters. In addition, more topics accelerate the evolutionary process and weaken the effect of network topology. We use two sets of large-scale real data to evaluate the model, and the results prove its effectiveness in characterizing a real evolutionary process. Our model achieves high performance in individual action prediction and even outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Meanwhile, our model has much smaller computational complexity. This paper provides a demonstration for possible practical applications of theoretical opinion dynamics.

  2. Eosinophilic Esophagitis: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Esophagitis (EoE) (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology) Also in Spanish Latest News Eosinophilic Esophagitis May ... Pediatric and Adolescent Patients (American College of Gastroenterology) Topic Image Related Health Topics Eosinophilic Disorders Esophagus Disorders ...

  3. Female Infertility: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Prolactin blood test (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Female Infertility updates ... Serum progesterone Show More Show Less Related Health Topics Assisted Reproductive Technology Infertility Male Infertility National Institutes ...

  4. Mobility Aids: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Mobility Problems (AGS Foundation for Health in Aging) Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Mobility Aids updates ... standing and walking Using a cane Related Health Topics Assistive Devices Other Languages Find health information in ...

  5. Genetic Testing: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Your Family's Health (National Institutes of Health) - PDF Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Genetic Testing updates ... testing and your cancer risk Karyotyping Related Health Topics Birth Defects Genetic Counseling Genetic Disorders Newborn Screening ...

  6. Folic Acid: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... acid in diet (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Folic Acid updates ... acid - test Folic acid in diet Related Health Topics Vitamins National Institutes of Health The primary NIH ...

  7. Pneumococcal Infections: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Prevention, Immunization Action Coalition) - PDF Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Pneumococcal Infections updates ... ray Meningitis - pneumococcal Sputum gram stain Related Health Topics Meningitis Pneumonia Sepsis Sinusitis Streptococcal Infections National Institutes ...

  8. Wilms' Tumor: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Wilms tumor (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Wilms Tumor updates ... ENCYCLOPEDIA After chemotherapy - discharge Wilms tumor Related Health Topics Kidney Cancer National Institutes of Health The primary ...

  9. Child Safety: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... injuries in children (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Child Safety updates ... safety Preventing head injuries in children Related Health Topics Infant and Newborn Care Internet Safety Motor Vehicle ...

  10. Pneumocystis Infections: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Pneumocystis Infections updates ... GO MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia Related Health Topics HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS and Infections Pneumonia National ...

  11. Collapsed Lung: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Pneumothorax - infants (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Collapsed Lung updates ... Lung surgery Pneumothorax - slideshow Pneumothorax - infants Related Health Topics Chest Injuries and Disorders Lung Diseases Pleural Disorders ...

  12. Male Infertility: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Testicular biopsy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Male Infertility updates ... analysis Sperm release pathway Testicular biopsy Related Health Topics Assisted Reproductive Technology Female Infertility Infertility National Institutes ...

  13. Healthy Aging: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Aging National Institute on Aging Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Healthy Aging updates ... 65 Health screening - women - over 65 Related Health Topics Exercise for Seniors Nutrition for Seniors Seniors' Health ...

  14. Psoriatic Arthritis: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Handouts Psoriatic arthritis (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Psoriatic Arthritis updates ... this? GO MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Psoriatic arthritis Related Health Topics Arthritis Psoriasis National Institutes of Health The primary ...

  15. Hip Replacement: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... invasive hip replacement (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Hip Replacement updates ... replacement - precautions Minimally invasive hip replacement Related Health Topics Hip Injuries and Disorders National Institutes of Health ...

  16. Platelet Disorders: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Thromobocytopenia - drug-induced (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Platelet Disorders updates ... Willebrand disease Show More Show Less Related Health Topics Bleeding Disorders Blood Clots Blood Count Tests Blood ...

  17. Cardiac Rehabilitation: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... in Spanish Electrocardiogram (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Cardiac Rehabilitation updates ... How to take your pulse Pulse Related Health Topics Heart Attack Heart Diseases How to Prevent Heart ...

  18. Cardiac Arrest: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Handouts Cardiac arrest (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Cardiac Arrest updates ... this? GO MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Cardiac arrest Related Health Topics Arrhythmia CPR Pacemakers and Implantable Defibrillators National Institutes ...

  19. Kawasaki Disease: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Kawasaki disease (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Kawasaki Disease updates ... GO MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Electrocardiogram Kawasaki disease Related Health Topics Vasculitis National Institutes of Health The primary NIH ...

  20. Diabetic Diet: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Sweeteners - sugar substitutes (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Diabetic Diet updates ... you have diabetes Sweeteners - sugar substitutes Related Health Topics Blood Sugar Diabetes Diabetes in Children and Teens ...

  1. Infection Control: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Staph infections - hospital (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Infection Control updates ... infections when visiting Staph infections - hospital Related Health Topics Hepatitis HIV/AIDS MRSA National Institutes of Health ...

  2. Hearing Aids: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... for hearing loss (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Hearing Aids updates ... MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Devices for hearing loss Related Health Topics Cochlear Implants Hearing Disorders and Deafness National Institutes ...

  3. Kidney Tests: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Total protein (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Kidney Tests updates ... hour volume Show More Show Less Related Health Topics Kidney Cancer Kidney Diseases National Institutes of Health ...

  4. Ischemic Stroke: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish Thrombolytic therapy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Ischemic Stroke updates ... cardiogenic embolism Stroke - slideshow Thrombolytic therapy Related Health Topics Hemorrhagic Stroke Stroke Stroke Rehabilitation National Institutes of ...

  5. Pulmonary Rehabilitation: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Handouts Postural drainage (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Pulmonary Rehabilitation updates ... this? GO MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Postural drainage Related Health Topics Lung Diseases National Institutes of Health The primary ...

  6. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TOPICAL MOMETASONE FUROATE 0.1%, TOPICAL 0.03% TACROLIMUS, TOPICAL BASIC FIBROBLAST GROWTH FACTOR (bFGF IN CHILDHOOD VITILIGO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kavitha S. B

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND Vitiligo, the commonest of all pigmentary disorders, is an idiopathic, acquired cutaneous achromia, characterised by circumscribed, chalky white macules. It may also involve the pigment epithelium of the eyes, the inner ear and the leptomeninges. Although, vitiligo can begin at any age, it develops before the age of 20 years in 50% of the patients and before the age of 10 years in 25% of patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was conducted for a period of one year with 6 months active intervention. A group of 60 consecutive children attending the outpatient Department of Dermatology were included in this study. The same patients were acting as controls. RESULTS Grade 4 response was seen in 12 cases (60% who were on mometasone (VV-20%, focal-30%, segmental-10%, in 10 cases (50% on tacrolimus (VV-20%, focal-30% and in 4 cases (20% on bFGF (focal. Lesions on the face and neck showed grade 4 response in 16 cases (mometasone-8, tacrolimus-6 and bFGF-2, extremities in 6 cases. On the whole grade, 4 response was observed more with mometasone (60% followed by tacrolimus (50%. Grade 3 response was observed with bFGF (30%. CONCLUSION Topical mometasone was very effective among the 3 drugs used in childhood vitiligo showing grade 4 repigmentation in all types of vitiligo except mucosal vitiligo. Tacrolimus proved almost as effective as mometasone to restore skin colour in lesions of vitiligo in children. Because it does not produce atrophy or other adverse effects, tacrolimus may be very useful for younger patients, and for sensitive areas of the skin such as eyelids, it should be considered in other skin disorders currently treated with topical steroids for prolonged periods. Topical basic fibroblast growth factor though less effective than mometasone and tacrolimus, but can be tried as initial therapy in resistant cases such as segmental vitiligo as initial therapy of small vitiligo patches when physicians may not like to initiate high risk

  7. Vaccine Hesitancy in Discussion Forums: Computer-Assisted Argument Mining with Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skeppstedt, Maria; Kerren, Andreas; Stede, Manfred

    2018-01-01

    Arguments used when vaccination is debated on Internet discussion forums might give us valuable insights into reasons behind vaccine hesitancy. In this study, we applied automatic topic modelling on a collection of 943 discussion posts in which vaccine was debated, and six distinct discussion topics were detected by the algorithm. When manually coding the posts ranked as most typical for these six topics, a set of semantically coherent arguments were identified for each extracted topic. This indicates that topic modelling is a useful method for automatically identifying vaccine-related discussion topics and for identifying debate posts where these topics are discussed. This functionality could facilitate manual coding of salient arguments, and thereby form an important component in a system for computer-assisted coding of vaccine-related discussions.

  8. Task Irrelevant External Cues Can Influence Language Selection in Voluntary Object Naming: Evidence from Hindi-English Bilinguals.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Divya Bhatia

    Full Text Available We examined if external cues such as other agents' actions can influence the choice of language during voluntary and cued object naming in bilinguals in three experiments. Hindi-English bilinguals first saw a cartoon waving at a color patch. They were then asked to either name a picture in the language of their choice (voluntary block or to name in the instructed language (cued block. The colors waved at by the cartoon were also the colors used as language cues (Hindi or English. We compared the influence of the cartoon's choice of color on naming when speakers had to indicate their choice explicitly before naming (Experiment 1 as opposed to when they named directly on seeing the pictures (Experiment 2 and 3. Results showed that participants chose the language indicated by the cartoon greater number of times (Experiment 1 and 3. Speakers also switched significantly to the language primed by the cartoon greater number of times (Experiment 1 and 2. These results suggest that choices leading to voluntary action, as in the case of object naming can be influenced significantly by external non-linguistic cues. Importantly, these symbolic influences can work even when other agents are merely indicating their choices and are not interlocutors in bilingual communication.

  9. JST Thesaurus Headwords and Synonyms: プログラム学習(as Topic) [MeCab user dictionary for science technology term[Archive

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available MeCab user dictionary for science technology term プログラム学習(as Topic) 名詞 一般 * * * * プログラム学習... プログラムガクシュウ プログラムガクシュー Thesaurus2015 200906029207719115 C BJ01 UNKNOWN_2 プログラム 学習 ( a s Topic )

  10. Antibiotic Resistance: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... GO GO About MedlinePlus Site Map FAQs Customer Support Health Topics Drugs & Supplements Videos & Tools Español You Are Here: Home → Health Topics → Antibiotic Resistance URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/antibioticresistance. ...

  11. Periorbital muscle atrophy associated with topical bimatoprost therapy

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Priscilla Xinhui; Koh, Victor Teck Chang; Cheng, Jin Fong

    2014-01-01

    Priscilla Xinhui Wang, Victor Teck Chang Koh, Jin Fong ChengDepartment of Ophthalmology, National University Health System, SingaporeAbstract: Topical Bimatoprost is a common and popular prostaglandin analog used as an ocular hypotensive agent in the treatment of glaucoma. Side effects include ocular hyperaemia, ocular pruritus, and periocular and iris pigmentary changes. Perioribital lipodystrophy is another well-documented outcome associated with chronic use of topical bimatoprost, which re...

  12. Topical phenytoin for treating pressure ulcers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hao, Xiang Yong; Li, Hong Ling; Su, He; Cai, Hui; Guo, Tian Kang; Liu, Ruifeng; Jiang, Lei; Shen, Yan Fei

    2017-02-22

    Pressure ulcers are common in clinical practice and pose a significant health problem worldwide. Apart from causing suffering to patients, they also result in longer hospital stays and increase the cost of health care. A variety of methods are used for treating pressure ulcers, including pressure relief, patient repositioning, biophysical strategies, nutritional supplementation, debridement, topical negative pressure, and local treatments including dressings, ointments and creams such as bacitracin, silver sulphadiazine, neomycin, and phenytoin. Phenytoin is a drug more commonly used in the treatment of epilepsy, but may play an important role in accelerating ulcer healing. To assess the effects of topical phenytoin on the rate of healing of pressure ulcers of any grade, in any care setting. In September 2016, we searched the following electronic databases to identify relevant randomized clinical trials: the Cochrane Wounds Specialised Register; the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; the Cochrane Library); Ovid MEDLINE; Ovid Embase; and EBSCO CINAHL Plus. We handsearched conference proceedings from the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, European Wound Management Association and the Tissue Viability Society for all available years. We searched the references of the retrieved trials to identify further relevant trials. We also searched clinical trials registries to identify ongoing and unpublished studies. There were no restrictions with respect to language, date of publication or study setting. We included all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) addressing the effects (both benefits and harms) of topical phenytoin on the healing of pressure ulcers of any grade compared with placebo or alternative treatments or no therapy, irrespective of blinding, language, and publication status. Two review authors independently selected studies, extracted information on participants, interventions, methods and results and assessed risk of bias using

  13. Topical diclofenac in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Niklas Schuelert

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available Niklas Schuelert, Fiona A Russell, Jason J McDougallDepartment of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CanadaAbstract: Osteoarthritis (OA is a common disease that affects millions of people worldwide. As there is no cure for OA, drug treatment to relieve symptoms is the main form of management. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs such as diclofenac are the most commonly used drugs to treat knee OA pain. Unfortunately, these agents are associated with gastrointestinal and cardiovascular risks, which limit their chronic use. Topical NSAIDs are emerging as a viable alternative for managing OA pain. Because a pharmacologically effective dose can be restricted to the site of pain, there is superfluous systemic absorption, and the risk of related adverse effects is minimized. This article reviews the currently available preclinical and clinical information on topical diclofenac for the treatment of OA pain, including data from recently published randomized controlled trials regarding the efficacy and safety of topical diclofenac. Most studies confirm topical diclofenac to be as effective as oral diclofenac with significantly reduced side effects; however, the efficacy of NSAIDs is far from optimal, and more research needs to be done to investigate the underlying mechanisms of OA in order to improve treatment options, especially for patients with NSAID-resistant OA pain.Keywords: osteoarthritis, topical diclofenac, NSAID, joint pain 

  14. "Koko et les lunettes magiques": An educational entertainment tool to prevent parasitic worms and diarrheal diseases in Côte d'Ivoire.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Clémence Essé

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Integrated control programs, emphasizing preventive chemotherapy along with health education, can reduce the incidence of soil-transmitted helminthiasis and schistosomiasis. The aim of this study was to develop an educational animated cartoon to improve school children's awareness regarding soil-transmitted helminthiasis, diarrheal diseases, and related hygiene practices in Côte d'Ivoire. The key messages included in the cartoon were identified through prior formative research to specifically address local knowledge gaps.In a first step, preliminary research was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and beliefs of school-aged children regarding parasitic worm infections and hygiene, to identify key health messages to be included in an animated cartoon. Second, an animated cartoon was produced, which included the drafting of the script and story board, and the production of the cartoon's initial version. Finally, the animated cartoon was pilot tested in eight selected schools and further fine-tuned.According to the questionnaire results, children believed that the consumption of sweet food, eating without washing their hands, sitting on the floor, and eating spoiled food were the main causes of parasitic worm infections. Abdominal pain, diarrhea, lack of appetite, failure to grow, and general fatigue were mentioned as symptoms of parasitic worm infections. Most of the children knew that they should go to the hospital for treatment if they experienced symptoms of parasitic worm diseases. The animated cartoon titled "Koko et les lunettes magiques" was produced by Afrika Toon, in collaboration with a scientific team composed of epidemiologists, civil engineers, and social scientists, and the local school children and teachers. Pilot testing of the animated cartoon revealed that, in the short term, children grasped and kept key messages. Most of the children who were shown the cartoon reported to like it. Acceptance of the

  15. "Koko et les lunettes magiques": An educational entertainment tool to prevent parasitic worms and diarrheal diseases in Côte d'Ivoire.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Essé, Clémence; Koffi, Véronique A; Kouamé, Abel; Dongo, Kouassi; Yapi, Richard B; Moro, Honorine M; Kouakou, Christiane A; Palmeirim, Marta S; Bonfoh, Bassirou; N'Goran, Eliézer K; Utzinger, Jürg; Raso, Giovanna

    2017-09-01

    Integrated control programs, emphasizing preventive chemotherapy along with health education, can reduce the incidence of soil-transmitted helminthiasis and schistosomiasis. The aim of this study was to develop an educational animated cartoon to improve school children's awareness regarding soil-transmitted helminthiasis, diarrheal diseases, and related hygiene practices in Côte d'Ivoire. The key messages included in the cartoon were identified through prior formative research to specifically address local knowledge gaps. In a first step, preliminary research was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and beliefs of school-aged children regarding parasitic worm infections and hygiene, to identify key health messages to be included in an animated cartoon. Second, an animated cartoon was produced, which included the drafting of the script and story board, and the production of the cartoon's initial version. Finally, the animated cartoon was pilot tested in eight selected schools and further fine-tuned. According to the questionnaire results, children believed that the consumption of sweet food, eating without washing their hands, sitting on the floor, and eating spoiled food were the main causes of parasitic worm infections. Abdominal pain, diarrhea, lack of appetite, failure to grow, and general fatigue were mentioned as symptoms of parasitic worm infections. Most of the children knew that they should go to the hospital for treatment if they experienced symptoms of parasitic worm diseases. The animated cartoon titled "Koko et les lunettes magiques" was produced by Afrika Toon, in collaboration with a scientific team composed of epidemiologists, civil engineers, and social scientists, and the local school children and teachers. Pilot testing of the animated cartoon revealed that, in the short term, children grasped and kept key messages. Most of the children who were shown the cartoon reported to like it. Acceptance of the animated cartoon was high

  16. Visões de ciência em desenhos animados: uma alternativa para o debate sobre a construção do conhecimento científico em sala de aula Scientific views in cartoons: an alternative for debating about the construction of scientific knowledge in the classroom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nyuara Araújo da Silva Mesquita

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Dada a grande influência da televisão na vida dos jovens, a presente pesquisa investigou um dos gêneros televisivos que se destina ao público infanto-juvenil: os desenhos animados. Esta investigação consiste em uma análise documental com base em alguns episódios dos desenhos Jimmy Nêutron e O Laboratório de Dexter, com a intenção de detectar quais visões de ciência são veiculadas por meio destes episódios. Tal análise realiza-se sob a ótica das idéias de alguns pensadores representativos da Filosofia das Ciências, por serem estas idéias importantes para a compreensão de como se desenvolveu e tem se desenvolvido o pensamento científico em nossa sociedade. O presente artigo sugere o uso de desenhos animados como alternativa para motivar debates que privilegiem a construção do conhecimento científico com base em um universo familiar ao estudante.Because of the big influence of TV in youngsters' lives, this research seeks to investigate one kind of TV program for children and teenagers. This investigation consists of a documentary analysis of some episodes of Jimmy Neutron and The Dexter Lab cartoons with the purpose of detecting which science views are broadcast in these episodes. The analysis is made from the point of view of some representative thinkers in the philosophy of science. These ideas are important in understanding how science thinking has developed in our society. This present article shows the use of cartoons as an alternative to motivate debates which will drive the construction of scientific knowledge using an environment familiar to the student.

  17. Topic Modeling as a Strategy of Inquiry in Organizational Research: A Tutorial With an Application Example on Organizational Culture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schmiedel, Theresa; Müller, Oliver; vom Brocke, Jan

    2018-01-01

    of large textual data sets and increased computational power, text mining has become an attractive method that has the potential to mitigate some of these limitations. Thus, we suggest applying topic modeling, a specific text mining technique, as a new and complementary strategy of inquiry to study...

  18. Immigration, Cultural-Linguistic Diversity, and Topics in Language Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Li-Rong Lilly

    2010-01-01

    This article summarizes 4 topics contributed by the author over the last 30 years of "Topics in Language Disorders" that address the issues of immigration, migration, and refugees. The focus is on the historical perspectives on evolution of terminologies from limited English proficient to English language learner and English as a new language.…

  19. Topics in Bioethics: A Development of Student Perspectives

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Keith A. Johnson

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Exposing students to current biotechnological and medical issues is eye-opening for many students in a way that is not always achieved through lecture-based learning. Lecture or investigative teaching styles provide a tremendous knowledge base for the students, but sometimes these teaching styles do not allow the student to fully develop, especially personal attitudes to issues in bioethics. Through online videos, Hollywood movies, guided readings and classroom discussions, students in this course are informed of some bioethical topics, encouraged to learn about other topics, and use this gained knowledge to develop personal positions regarding the value and/or risk of the issues. This course has been well-received by previous students as a favorite in terms of both topics covered and style.

  20. Large-Scale Topic Detection and Language Model Adaptation

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Seymore, Kristie

    1997-01-01

    .... We have developed a language model adaptation scheme that takes apiece of text, chooses the most similar topic clusters from a set of over 5000 elemental topics, and uses topic specific language...

  1. Quantum mechanics II advanced topics

    CERN Document Server

    Rajasekar, S

    2015-01-01

    Quantum Mechanics II: Advanced Topics uses more than a decade of research and the authors’ own teaching experience to expound on some of the more advanced topics and current research in quantum mechanics. A follow-up to the authors introductory book Quantum Mechanics I: The Fundamentals, this book begins with a chapter on quantum field theory, and goes on to present basic principles, key features, and applications. It outlines recent quantum technologies and phenomena, and introduces growing topics of interest in quantum mechanics. The authors describe promising applications that include ghost imaging, detection of weak amplitude objects, entangled two-photon microscopy, detection of small displacements, lithography, metrology, and teleportation of optical images. They also present worked-out examples and provide numerous problems at the end of each chapter.

  2. Transdermal and Topical Drug Administration in the Treatment of Pain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wojciech Leppert

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The comprehensive treatment of pain is multidimodal, with pharmacotherapy playing a key role. An effective therapy for pain depends on the intensity and type of pain, the patients’ age, comorbidities, and appropriate choice of analgesic, its dose and route of administration. This review is aimed at presenting current knowledge on analgesics administered by transdermal and topical routes for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals dealing with patients suffering from pain. Analgesics administered transdermally or topically act through different mechanisms. Opioids administered transdermally are absorbed into vessels located in subcutaneous tissue and, subsequently, are conveyed in the blood to opioid receptors localized in the central and peripheral nervous system. Non–steroidal anti–inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs applied topically render analgesia mainly through a high concentration in the structures of the joint and a provision of local anti–inflammatory effects. Topically administered drugs such as lidocaine and capsaicin in patches, capsaicin in cream, EMLA cream, and creams containing antidepressants (i.e., doxepin, amitriptyline act mainly locally in tissues through receptors and/or ion channels. Transdermal and topical routes offer some advantages over systemic analgesic administration. Analgesics administered topically have a much better profile for adverse effects as they relieve local pain with minimal systemic effects. The transdermal route apart from the above-mentioned advantages and provision of long period of analgesia may be more convenient, especially for patients who are unable to take drugs orally. Topically and transdermally administered opioids are characterised by a lower risk of addiction compared to oral and parenteral routes.

  3. Nanoemulsion as a carrier to improve the topical anti-inflammatory activity of stem bark extract of Rapanea ferruginea

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dal Mas J

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Juarana Dal Mas,1 Tailyn Zermiani,1 Liliani C Thiesen,1 Joana LM Silveira,2 Kathryn ABS da Silva,1 Márcia M de Souza,1 Angela Malheiros,1 Tania MB Bresolin,1 Ruth M Lucinda-Silva1 1NIQFAR, Graduate Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Vale do Itajaí, Itajaí, Santa Catarina, Brazil; 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil Abstract: The aim of this study was to develop nanoemulsion containing soft extract of stem bark of Rapanea ferruginea to improve the topical delivery and anti-inflammatory activity. The extract of R. ferruginea stem bark was incorporated into the oily phase of the nanoemulsion by the method of phase inversion at low energy. The developed nanoemulsion had an average droplet size of 47.88±8.20 nm and a polydispersibility index of 0.228. Uniformity of size, spherical shape of droplet, and absence of clusters were confirmed by transmission electronic microscopy. The zeta potential was -34.7±1.15 mV. The nanoemulsion showed a moderate degree of skin irritation in the agarose overlay assay in vitro. The content of the extract markers, myrsinoic acids A and B, was 54.10±0.08 and 53.03 µg/g in the formulation, respectively. The formulation demonstrated pseudoplastic and thixotropic rheological behavior. In vitro release of chemical markers was controlled by diffusion mechanism. An extract-loaded nanoemulsion showed a topical anti-inflammatory activity in a croton oil-induced edema ear model, with a decrease in tumor necrosis factor release and myeloperoxidase activity. The nanoemulsion was 160% more efficient than the conventional cream containing 0.13% of the extract. The nanoemulsion showed suitable properties as a carrier for topical use of R. ferruginea extract and the approach for improving the topical anti-inflammatory activity. Keywords: nanotechnology, nanoemulsion, Rapanea ferruginea, anti-inflammatory, phytomedicine

  4. Aerodynamics of wind turbines emerging topics

    CERN Document Server

    Amano, R S

    2014-01-01

    Focusing on Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines with topics ranging from Fundamental to Application of horizontal axis wind turbines, this book presents advanced topics including: Basic Theory for Wind turbine Blade Aerodynamics, Computational Methods, and Special Structural Reinforcement Technique for Wind Turbine Blades.

  5. An open randomized comparative study to test the efficacy and safety of oral terbinafine pulse as a monotherapy and in combination with topical ciclopirox olamine 8% or topical amorolfine hydrochloride 5% in the treatment of onychomycosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaiswal Amit

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Onychomycosis is a fungal infection of nails caused by dermatophytes, yeasts and molds. Aims: To study the efficacy and safety of oral terbinafine pulse as a monotherapy and in combination with topical ciclopirox olamine 8% or topical amorolfine hydrochloride 5% in onychomycosis. Methods: A clinical comparative study was undertaken on 96 Patients of onychomycosis during the period between August 2005 to July 2006. Forty-eight patients were randomly assigned in group A to receive oral terbinafine 250 mg, one tablet twice daily for seven days every month (pulse therapy; 24 patients in group B to receive oral terbinafine pulse therapy plus topical ciclopirox olamine 8% to be applied once daily at night on all affected nails; and 24 patients in group C to receive oral terbinafine pulse therapy plus topical amorolfine hydrochloride 5% to be applied once weekly at night on all the affected nails. The treatment was continued for four months. The patients were evaluated at four weekly intervals till sixteen weeks and then at 24 and 36 weeks. Results: We observed clinical cure in 71.73, 82.60 and 73.91% patients in groups A, B and C, respectively; Mycological cure rates against dematophytes were 88.9, 88.9 and 85.7 in groups A, B and C, respectively. The yeast mycological cure rates were 66.7, 100 and 50 in groups A, B and C, respectively. In the case of nondermatophytes, the overall response was poor: one out of two cases (50% responded in group A, while one case each in group B and group C did not respond at all. Conclusion: Terbinafine pulse therapy is effective and safe alternative in treatment of onychomycosis due to dermatophytes; and combination therapy with topical ciclopirox or amorolfine do not show any significant difference in efficacy in comparison to monotherapy with oral terbinafine.

  6. Affinity between information retrieval system and search topic

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ebinuma, Yukio

    1979-01-01

    Ten search profiles are tested on the INIS system at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. The results are plotted on recall-precision chart ranging from 100% recall to 100% precision. The curves are not purely systems-dependent nor search-dependent, and are determined substantially by the ''affinity'' between the system and the search topic. The curves are named ''Affinity curves of search topics with information retrieval systems'', and hence retrieval affinity factors are derived. They are obtained not only for individual search topics but also for averages in the system. By such a quantitative examination, the difference of affinity among search topics in a given system, that of the same search topic among various systems, and that of systems to the same group of search topics can be compared reasonably. (author)

  7. Topics of Bioengineering in Wikipedia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vassia Atanassova

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available The present report aims to give a snapshot of how topics from the field of bioengineering (bioinformatics, bioprocess systems, biomedical engineering, biotechnology, etc. are currently covered in the free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia. It also offers insights and information about what Wikipedia is, how it functions, how and when to cite Wikipedian articles, if necessary. Several external wikis, devoted to topics of bioengineering, are also listed and reviewed.

  8. Influence of Cartoon Media Characters on Children's Attention to and Preference for Food and Beverage Products.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ogle, Andrew D; Graham, Dan J; Lucas-Thompson, Rachel G; Roberto, Christina A

    2017-02-01

    Over-consuming unhealthful foods and beverages contributes to pediatric obesity and associated diseases. Food marketing influences children's food preferences, choices, and intake. To examine whether adding licensed media characters to healthful food/beverage packages increases children's attention to and preference for these products. We hypothesized that children prefer less- (vs more-) healthful foods, and pay greater attention to and preferentially select products with (vs without) media characters regardless of nutritional quality. We also hypothesized that children prefer more-healthful products when characters are present over less-healthful products without characters. On a computer, participants viewed food/beverage pairs of more-healthful and less-healthful versions of similar products. The same products were shown with and without licensed characters on the packaging. An eye-tracking camera monitored participant gaze, and participants chose which product they preferred from each of 60 pairs. Six- to 9-year-old children (n=149; mean age=7.36, standard deviation=1.12) recruited from the Twin Cities, MN, area in 2012-2013. Visual attention and product choice. Attention to products was compared using paired-samples t tests, and product choice was analyzed with single-sample t tests. Analyses of variance were conducted to test for interaction effects of specific characters and child sex and age. Children paid more attention to products with characters and preferred less-healthful products. Contrary to our prediction, children chose products without characters approximately 62% of the time. Children's choices significantly differed based on age, sex, and the specific cartoon character displayed, with characters in this study being preferred by younger boys. Results suggest that putting licensed media characters on more-healthful food/beverage products might not encourage all children to make healthier food choices, but could increase selection of healthy foods

  9. Topical macrolide immunomodulators: a role in the treatment of vitiligo?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tjioe, M.; Vissers, W.H.P.M.; Gerritsen, M.J.P.

    2006-01-01

    Recently, topical macrolide immunomodulators have been successfully introduced in the treatment of atopic dermatitis. With the growing interest in this new line of topical immunosuppressants, research into the efficacy of these medicines in other T-cell-mediated skin diseases, such as psoriasis,

  10. Formulation of microemulsion propolis fluoride (PF) as varnish topical agent to stop activity of teeth caries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sahlan, Muhamad; Prakoso, Chandra Dwi; Darwita, Risqa Rina; Hermansyah, Heri

    2017-02-01

    Topical fluoride is proven to have higher efficacy in preventing dental caries with low production cost and easy to apply. The objective of this research is to formulate alternative agent topical fluoride NH4F 5% mixed with extract ethanol propolis (EEP) in the micro-emulsion system that has high stability, antimicrobial activity, and remineralization capability to arrest teeth caries activity. By using total plate count (TPC) analysis, formulation 2.7% EEP; 6,3% surfactant; and 90,9% NH4F shows good perform to inhibit cariogenic bacteria development around 78-80%. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX) result also showed that sample successfully remineralized enamel surface. In addition, sample showed good pH, flavonoid, and polyphenol stability for 40 days.

  11. The “animalized humans” – the reformulated body

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buhl, Mie

    2018-01-01

    From Disney cartoons we experience animals being humanized and representing a human character to a degree in which it becomes difficult to see them as animals. This is just one example of how animals are attributed with a human character. The impetus for this contribution, however, is a discussion...... of another cartoon culture of humanized animals: Japanese Manga. Here the animals are not only represented in a humanized way, but Manga culture goes one step further, engaging in the remediation of the cartoon animal to people depicting animals. Female Japanese dress like cats and act like cats....... They are called Catgirls. The paper will discuss the phenomenon of Japanese Catgirls who practice cat behavior as a counterpart to Disney's cartoon in which animals have a human character. Furthermore, the role of this Japanese phenomenon in a Danish pedagogical context is addressed. The discussion's theoretical...

  12. LDA-Based Unified Topic Modeling for Similar TV User Grouping and TV Program Recommendation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pyo, Shinjee; Kim, Eunhui; Kim, Munchurl

    2015-08-01

    Social TV is a social media service via TV and social networks through which TV users exchange their experiences about TV programs that they are viewing. For social TV service, two technical aspects are envisioned: grouping of similar TV users to create social TV communities and recommending TV programs based on group and personal interests for personalizing TV. In this paper, we propose a unified topic model based on grouping of similar TV users and recommending TV programs as a social TV service. The proposed unified topic model employs two latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) models. One is a topic model of TV users, and the other is a topic model of the description words for viewed TV programs. The two LDA models are then integrated via a topic proportion parameter for TV programs, which enforces the grouping of similar TV users and associated description words for watched TV programs at the same time in a unified topic modeling framework. The unified model identifies the semantic relation between TV user groups and TV program description word groups so that more meaningful TV program recommendations can be made. The unified topic model also overcomes an item ramp-up problem such that new TV programs can be reliably recommended to TV users. Furthermore, from the topic model of TV users, TV users with similar tastes can be grouped as topics, which can then be recommended as social TV communities. To verify our proposed method of unified topic-modeling-based TV user grouping and TV program recommendation for social TV services, in our experiments, we used real TV viewing history data and electronic program guide data from a seven-month period collected by a TV poll agency. The experimental results show that the proposed unified topic model yields an average 81.4% precision for 50 topics in TV program recommendation and its performance is an average of 6.5% higher than that of the topic model of TV users only. For TV user prediction with new TV programs, the average

  13. Advanced topics in the arithmetic of elliptic curves

    CERN Document Server

    Silverman, Joseph H

    1994-01-01

    In the introduction to the first volume of The Arithmetic of Elliptic Curves (Springer-Verlag, 1986), I observed that "the theory of elliptic curves is rich, varied, and amazingly vast," and as a consequence, "many important topics had to be omitted." I included a brief introduction to ten additional topics as an appendix to the first volume, with the tacit understanding that eventually there might be a second volume containing the details. You are now holding that second volume. it turned out that even those ten topics would not fit Unfortunately, into a single book, so I was forced to make some choices. The following material is covered in this book: I. Elliptic and modular functions for the full modular group. II. Elliptic curves with complex multiplication. III. Elliptic surfaces and specialization theorems. IV. Neron models, Kodaira-Neron classification of special fibers, Tate's algorithm, and Ogg's conductor-discriminant formula. V. Tate's theory of q-curves over p-adic fields. VI. Neron's theory of can...

  14. Comprehensive review on additives of topical dosage forms for drug delivery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garg, Tarun; Rath, Goutam; Goyal, Amit K

    2015-12-01

    Skin is the largest organ of the human body and plays the most important role in protecting against pathogen and foreign matter. Three important modes such as topical, regional and transdermal are widely used for delivery of various dosage forms. Among these modes, the topical dosage forms are preferred because it provides local therapeutic activity when applied to the skin or mucous membranes. Additives or pharmaceutical excipients (non-drug component of dosage form) are used as inactive ingredients in dosage form or tools for structuring dosage forms. The main use of topical dosage form additives are controling the extent of absorption, maintaining the viscosity, improving the stability as well as organoleptic property and increasing the bulk of the formulation. The overall goal of this article is to provide the clinician with information related to the topical dosage form additives and their current major applications against various diseases.

  15. Tracking Multiple Topics for Finding Interesting Articles

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pon, R K; Cardenas, A F; Buttler, D J; Critchlow, T J

    2008-01-03

    We introduce multiple topic tracking (MTT) for iScore to better recommend news articles for users with multiple interests and to address changes in user interests over time. As an extension of the basic Rocchio algorithm, traditional topic detection and tracking, and single-pass clustering, MTT maintains multiple interest profiles to identify interesting articles for a specific user given user-feedback. Focusing on only interesting topics enables iScore to discard useless profiles to address changes in user interests and to achieve a balance between resource consumption and classification accuracy. iScore is able to achieve higher quality results than traditional methods such as the Rocchio algorithm. We identify several operating parameters that work well for MTT. Using the same parameters, we show that MTT alone yields high quality results for recommending interesting articles from several corpora. The inclusion of MTT improves iScore's performance by 25% in recommending news articles from the Yahoo! News RSS feeds and the TREC11 adaptive filter article collection. And through a small user study, we show that iScore can still perform well when only provided with little user feedback.

  16. Topics in field theory

    CERN Document Server

    Karpilovsky, G

    1989-01-01

    This monograph gives a systematic account of certain important topics pertaining to field theory, including the central ideas, basic results and fundamental methods.Avoiding excessive technical detail, the book is intended for the student who has completed the equivalent of a standard first-year graduate algebra course. Thus it is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic ring-theoretic and group-theoretic concepts. A chapter on algebraic preliminaries is included, as well as a fairly large bibliography of works which are either directly relevant to the text or offer supplementary material of interest.

  17. Topics in Operator Theory

    CERN Document Server

    Ball, Joseph A; Helton, JWilliam; Rodman, Leiba; Spitkovsky, Iiya

    2010-01-01

    This is the first volume of a collection of original and review articles on recent advances and new directions in a multifaceted and interconnected area of mathematics and its applications. It encompasses many topics in theoretical developments in operator theory and its diverse applications in applied mathematics, physics, engineering, and other disciplines. The purpose is to bring in one volume many important original results of cutting edge research as well as authoritative review of recent achievements, challenges, and future directions in the area of operator theory and its applications.

  18. Toxic keratopathy due to abuse of topical anesthetic drugs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeniad, Baris; Canturk, Serife; Esin Ozdemir, Fatma; Alparslan, Nilufer; Akarcay, Koray

    2010-06-01

    To describe 8 cases of toxic keratopathy due to abuse of topical anesthetic drugs. Clinical findings from patients with toxic keratopathy were investigated retrospectively. Two patients had toxic keratopathy bilaterally. Five of 8 patients had an ocular history of a corneal foreign body, 1 had basal membrane dystrophy, 1 had ultraviolet radiation, and 1 had chemical burn. All patients had undergone psychiatric consultation. Four patients had anxiety disorder and 1 had bipolar disease. Clinical signs were improved in all patients with discontinuation of topical anesthetic drug use along with adjunctive psychiatric treatment. Penetrating keratoplasty was performed in 2 patients. Toxic keratopathy due to topical anesthetic abuse is a curable disease. Early diagnosis and prevention of topical anesthetic drug use are the most important steps in the treatment of this condition. As these patients commonly exhibit psychiatric disorders, adjunctive psychiatric treatment may help to break the chemical addiction.

  19. Topical thrombin-related corneal calcification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiratli, Hayyam; Irkeç, Murat; Alaçal, Sibel; Söylemezoğlu, Figen

    2006-09-01

    To report a highly unusual case of corneal calcification after brief intraoperative use of topical thrombin. A 44-year-old man underwent sclerouvectomy for ciliochoroidal leiomyoma, during which 35 UNIH/mL lyophilized bovine thrombin mixed with 9 mL of diluent containing 1500 mmol/mL calcium chloride was used. From the first postoperative day, corneal and anterior lenticular capsule calcifications developed, and corneal involvement slightly enlarged thereafter. A year later, 2 corneal punch biopsies confirmed calcification mainly in the Bowman layer. Topical treatment with 1.5% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid significantly restored corneal clarity. Six months later, a standard extracapsular cataract extraction with intraocular lens placement improved visual acuity to 20/60. This case suggests that topical thrombin drops with elevated calcium concentrations may cause acute corneal calcification in Bowman layer and on the anterior lens capsule.

  20. Selected topics in nuclear structure

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stachura, Z.

    1984-09-01

    19. winter school in Zakopane was devoted to selected topics in nuclear structure such as: production of spin resonances, heavy ions reactions and their applications to the investigation of high spin states, octupole deformations, excited states and production of new elements etc. The experimental data are ofen compared with theoretical predictions. Report contains 28 papers. (M.F.W.)

  1. Topical tranexamic acid as a novel treatment for bleeding peptic ulcer: A randomised controlled trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mandana Rafeey

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Peptic ulcers are among the most common causes of upper gastrointestinal (GI bleeding in children. The standard care for GI bleeding is endoscopy for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. We aimed to assess the effect of topical tranexamic acid (TXA via endoscopic procedures in children with GI bleeding caused by bleeding ulcers. Procedure: In this randomised controlled trial, 120 children were evaluated by diagnostic procedures for GI bleeding, of which 63 (30 girls, 33 boys aged 1-month to 15 years were recruited. The patients were randomly divided into case and control groups. In the case group, TXA was administered directly under endoscopic therapy. In the control group, epinephrine (1/10,000 was submucosally injected to the four quadrants of ulcer margins as the routine endoscopic therapy. In both groups, the patients received supportive medical therapy with intravenous fluids and proton pump inhibitor drugs. Results: The mean ± standard deviation age of the children was 5 ± 2.03 years. Rebleeding occurred in 15 (11.4% and 21 (9.8% patients in the case and control groups, respectively (P = 0.50. The frequency of blood transfusion episodes (P = 0.06 and duration of hospital stay (P = 0.07 were not statistically different between the groups. Conclusion: Using topical TXA via endoscopic procedures may be effective in cases of GI bleedings caused by active bleeding ulcers. In order to establish this therapeutic effect, a large number of clinical studies are needed.

  2. Topical ganciclovir in the treatment of acute herpetic keratitis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tabbara, Khalid F; Al Balushi, Noorjehan

    2010-08-19

    Herpetic keratitis is caused by herpes simplex virus (HSV) and is a common cause of corneal blindness. Following a primary ocular herpetic infection, latency of the virus occurs, followed by subsequent recurrences of herpetic keratitis. Such recurrences may lead to structural damage of the cornea. Recurrent herpetic keratitis is a common indication for corneal transplantation. Recurrences of herpetic keratitis in the corneal graft may lead to corneal graft rejection. Several antiviral agents for HSV are available, including the thymidine analogs. Prolonged use of thymidine analogs may lead to toxicity of the ocular surface, including epithelial keratitis, corneal ulcers, follicular conjunctivitis, and punctal occlusions. Availability of topical antiviral agents that are safe and effective in the treatment and prophylaxis of herpetic keratitis is highly desirable. Ganciclovir is a potent inhibitor of members of the herpes virus family. The drug has been used systemically for the treatment of cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis. Its hematologic toxicity secondary to systemic administration led to its limited use in herpetic infections. On the other hand, topical ganciclovir has been shown to be as safe and effective as acyclovir in the treatment of herpetic epithelial keratitis. Furthermore, topical ganciclovir can reach therapeutic levels in the cornea and aqueous humor following topical application. Several clinical trials have shown that topical ganciclovir 0.15% ophthalmic gel is safe and effective in the treatment and prophylaxis of herpetic epithelial disease. Long-term use of ganciclovir ophthalmic gel in patients with penetrating keratoplasty following herpetic keratitis has prevented recurrences of the disease. Topical ganciclovir ophthalmic gel is well tolerated, does not cause toxic effects on the ocular surface, and does not cause hematologic abnormalities. Clinical studies have underscored the potential role of ganciclovir ophthalmic gel in the treatment and

  3. Cryotherapy and Topical Minocycline as Adjunctive Measures to Control Pain After Third Molar Surgery: An Exploratory Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gelesko, Savannah; Long, Leann; Faulk, Jan; Phillips, Ceib; Dicus, Carolyn; White, Raymond P.

    2013-01-01

    Purpose To assess the impact of cryotherapy or topical minocycline on patients’ perceptions of recovery from pain after third molar surgery in an exploratory comparative-effectiveness study. Patients and Methods Subjects aged at least 14 years who were having all 4 third molars removed were enrolled in 3 separate institutional review board–approved studies. Study groups included subjects treated with a passively applied cold wrap for 24 hours postoperatively, subjects treated with topical minocycline during surgery, and subjects enrolled in a nonconcurrent comparison group who had received neither topical minocycline nor directed cryotherapy. Third molar surgery was performed in all cases by trained surgeons using the same protocol. An exact Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the distributions of the worst and average pain scores and a Fisher exact test to compare verbal responses from Gracely pain scales among the 3 groups for postsurgical days (PSDs) 1 to 3. Results This study comprised 51 cryotherapy subjects (2005–2009), 63 minocycline subjects (2003–2004), and 92 comparison-group subjects (2002–2006) who were treated at academic centers and in community practices across the United States (N = 206). Demographic descriptors were similar among all groups. For PSDs 1 through 3 (unadjusted), the highest scores for worst pain (6–7 [out of 7] on Likert-type scale) were reported less frequently in each of the study groups than in subjects in the comparison group, although the numbers of subjects reporting the highest scores were few. The distribution of pain outcomes was significantly different among the 3 groups for worst pain and affective words on PSD 1 (P = .04 for both). However, the small number of subjects who reported the highest pain scores precluded adequate multivariate statistical analyses for all outcomes on PSD 1 to 3. Conclusions Data from this exploratory study suggest that adjunctive therapy to decrease postoperative pain

  4. Topics in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1963-2015.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, JungSu; Stewart, Alan E; Phelps, Rosemary E

    2017-11-01

    Historical trends in a scientific field should be apparent in the changing content of journal articles over time. Using a topic modeling approach, a statistical method for quantifying the thematic content of text, 70 topics were extracted from the abstracts of 3,603 articles published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology from 1963 to 2015. After examining interpretability of 70 topics derived from the model, 64 meaningful topics and their trends were named. In addition, the authors also classified some of the related topics into 4 categories-counseling process and outcome, multiculturalism, research methodology, and vocational psychology. Counseling process and outcome related topics have decreased recently, while topics relating to multiculturalism and diversity have shown increasing trends. The authors also discussed trends that were observed and tried to account for the changing frequencies of some important research topics within these categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  5. Influence of number of topics, topic duration, and curricular focus on biology achievement of Population 3 TIMSS countries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hodges, Eddie Louis

    The purposes of this study were to determine if a relationship exists between biology achievement and (1) number of topics, (2) topic duration, (3) curricular focus, and (4) science achievement using TIMSS data from Population 3---the final year of secondary school. Students included in this study were subsets of the 55,675 students from 22 countries who participated in the science literacy portion of TIMSS at the Population 3 level (IEA, 1997). The sample included in this study for the four research questions were comprised of between (1) 17,769 and 37,794 students from 15 countries, (2) 17,769 and 37,794 students from 15 countries, (3) 21,715 and 46,458 students from 18 countries, and (4) 19,518 and 46,458 students from 18 countries, respectively. A Pearson's product moment correlation was used to determine whether a relationship exists between the number of biology topics addressed by intended national science curricula and mean student achievement on selected items by country. No statistically significant correlation was found by country between biology achievement and number of topics. To determine whether a relationship exists between the topic duration of biology topics addressed by released, biology-oriented, Population 3 Science Literacy items and student achievement on those items, a Pearson's product moment correlation was also used. A statistically significant correlation between biology achievement and topic duration for only one topic (Interdependence of Life) was found at the .05 level of significance. A possible relationship between the degree of curricular focus of Population 3 TIMSS countries and student achievement on selected items by country was evaluated using a Pearson's product moment correlation. No statistically significant correlation by country between biology achievement and degree of curricular focus was found. A Pearson's product moment correlation was used to determine whether a relationship exists between science literacy

  6. CAREER Educational Outreach: Inquiry-based Atmospheric Science Lessons for K-12 students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courville, Z.; Carbaugh, S.; Defrancis, G.; Donegan, R.; Brown, C.; Perovich, D. K.; Richter-Menge, J.

    2011-12-01

    Climate Comics is a collaborative outreach effort between the Montshire Museum of Science, in Norwich, VT, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) research staff, and freelance artist and recent graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, Sam Carbaugh. The project involves the cartoonist, the education staff from the museum, and researchers from CRREL creating a series of comic books with polar science and research themes, including sea ice monitoring, sea ice albedo, ice cores, extreme microbial activity, and stories and the process of fieldwork. The aim of the comic series is to provide meaningful science information in a comic-format that is both informative and fun, while highlighting current polar research work done at the lab. The education staff at the Montshire Museum develops and provides a series of hands-on, inquiry-based activity descriptions to complement each comic book, and CRREL researchers provide science background information and reiterative feedback about the comic books as they are being developed. Here, we present the motivation for using the comic-book medium to present polar research topics, the process involved in creating the comics, some unique features of the series, and the finished comic books themselves. Cartoon illustrating ways snow pack can be used to determine past climate information.

  7. Synergistic activity profile of carbosilane dendrimer G2-STE16 in combination with other dendrimers and antiretrovirals as topical anti-HIV-1 microbicide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sepúlveda-Crespo, Daniel; Lorente, Raquel; Leal, Manuel; Gómez, Rafael; De la Mata, Francisco J; Jiménez, José Luis; Muñoz-Fernández, M Ángeles

    2014-04-01

    Polyanionic carbosilane dendrimers represent opportunities to develop new anti-HIV microbicides. Dendrimers and antiretrovirals (ARVs) acting at different stages of HIV replication have been proposed as compounds to decrease new HIV infections. Thus, we determined the potential use of our G2-STE16 carbosilane dendrimer in combination with other carbosilane dendrimers and ARVs for the use as topical microbicide against HIV-1. We showed that these combinations obtained 100% inhibition and displayed a synergistic profile against different HIV-1 isolates in our model of TZM.bl cells. Our results also showed their potent activity in the presence of an acidic vaginal or seminal fluid environment and did not activate an inflammatory response. This study is the first step toward exploring the use of different anionic carbosilane dendrimers in combination and toward making a safe microbicide. Therefore, our results support further studies on dendrimer/dendrimer or dendrimer/ARV combinations as topical anti-HIV-1 microbicide. This paper describes the first steps toward the use of anionic carbosilane dendrimers in combination with antivirals to address HIV-1, paving the way to further studies on dendrimer/dendrimer or dendrimer/ARV combinations as topical anti-HIV-1 microbicides. © 2014.

  8. From Antagonism to Cooperation: Pop-Culture as Reflected in Protestant Theology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga Mikhelson

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The author examines how theologians, especially Protestants, have changed their attitude to pop-culture. A veritable evolution has taken place. At one time, Protestant theologians refused to even acknowledge the existence of the phenomenon, while today some of these theologians employ examples drawn from pop-culture even in their lessons of theology. The author studies this contemporary development and offers some reasons for why it has come about. One ofthese theologians, a certain Gordon Lynch, has become a convinced apologist for pop-culture and analyses it on the basis of his threefold theory of the levels of the functionality of religion: sociological, existential (hermeneutic, and transcendental. In Lynch’s opinion, pop-culture has taken over the role of religion in many cases. He cites the popular cartoon The Simpsons as one prominent example. Religion plays an important part in this cartoon series and Protestant theologians have begun to take notice an opposite change of attitude towards religion in pop-culture, viewing the development in a positive way. Though pop-cultural products may be used in pastoral ministry and are also being evaluated by theologians, this analysis cannot be called scientific in the strictest sense, since generally it remains within the scope of only theological approach.

  9. Current and Emerging Topical Antibacterials and Antiseptics: Agents, Action, and Resistance Patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williamson, Deborah A; Carter, Glen P; Howden, Benjamin P

    2017-07-01

    Bacterial skin infections represent some of the most common infectious diseases globally. Prevention and treatment of skin infections can involve application of a topical antimicrobial, which may be an antibiotic (such as mupirocin or fusidic acid) or an antiseptic (such as chlorhexidine or alcohol). However, there is limited evidence to support the widespread prophylactic or therapeutic use of topical agents. Challenges involved in the use of topical antimicrobials include increasing rates of bacterial resistance, local hypersensitivity reactions (particularly to older agents, such as bacitracin), and concerns about the indiscriminate use of antiseptics potentially coselecting for antibiotic resistance. We review the evidence for the major clinical uses of topical antibiotics and antiseptics. In addition, we review the mechanisms of action of common topical agents and define the clinical and molecular epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance in these agents. Moreover, we review the potential use of newer and emerging agents, such as retapamulin and ebselen, and discuss the role of antiseptic agents in preventing bacterial skin infections. A comprehensive understanding of the clinical efficacy and drivers of resistance to topical agents will inform the optimal use of these agents to preserve their activity in the future. Copyright © 2017 American Society for Microbiology.

  10. Towards Interactive Construction of Topical Hierarchy: A Recursive Tensor Decomposition Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Chi; Liu, Xueqing; Song, Yanglei; Han, Jiawei

    2015-08-01

    Automatic construction of user-desired topical hierarchies over large volumes of text data is a highly desirable but challenging task. This study proposes to give users freedom to construct topical hierarchies via interactive operations such as expanding a branch and merging several branches. Existing hierarchical topic modeling techniques are inadequate for this purpose because (1) they cannot consistently preserve the topics when the hierarchy structure is modified; and (2) the slow inference prevents swift response to user requests. In this study, we propose a novel method, called STROD, that allows efficient and consistent modification of topic hierarchies, based on a recursive generative model and a scalable tensor decomposition inference algorithm with theoretical performance guarantee. Empirical evaluation shows that STROD reduces the runtime of construction by several orders of magnitude, while generating consistent and quality hierarchies.

  11. Topics in supergravity and string theory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eastaugh, A.G.

    1987-01-01

    The first topic covered in this dissertation concerns the harmonic expansion technique and its application to the dimensional compactification of higher dimensional supergravity. A simple example is given to explain the method and then the method is applied to the problem of obtaining the mass spectrum of the squashed seven-sphere compactification of eleven dimensional supergravity. The second topic concerns the application of Fujikawa's method of anomaly calculation to the calculation of the critical dimension of various string models. The third topic is a study and explicit calculation of the Fock space representation of the vertex in Witten's formulation of the interacting open bosonic string field theory

  12. Topics in gravitation and gauge fields

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leen, T.K.

    1982-01-01

    The theoretical studies presented here address three distinct topics. The first deals with quantum-mechanical effects of classical gravitational radiation. Specifically, the use of the interstellar medium itself as a remote quantum-mechanical detector of gravitational waves is investigated. This study is motivated by the presumed existence of atomic hydrogen in the vicinity of astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation. Space-time curvature produces uniquely identifiable shifts in atomic hydrogen energy levels. The oscillating level shifts induced by a passing gravitational wave could conceivably be detected spectroscopically. Accordingly the level shifts for both low-lying and highly excited states of single electron atoms immersed in gravitational radiation have been studied. The second two topics deal with the theory of quantized fields on curved space-times. In the first of these studies, a naive model of cosmological baryon synthesis is examined. The model incorporates a hard CP violation as well as a baryon (and lepton) non-conserving interaction and is thus capable of generating an excess of matter over antimatter. The time dependent background geometry of the early universe drives the interaction producing net excess of baryon/lepton pairs. In the final topic, the question of renormalizability of non-Abelian gauge fields theories in a general curved space-time is addressed. All modern theories of elementary particle physics are gauge theories and one would like to know if their perturbative expansions continue to be well defined (i.e. renormalizable) on curved backgrounds. In general, one is interested in knowing if field theories renormalizable in Minkowski space remain so in a general curved space-time

  13. The first clinical experience on efficacy of topical flutamide on melasma compared with topical hydroquinone: a randomized clinical trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adalatkhah H

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Hassan Adalatkhah,1 Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani2,3 1Department of Dermatology, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran; 2Road Traffic Injury Research Center, Department of Statistics and Epidemiology, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 3Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden Background: Treatment of melasma is unsatisfactory most of the times. Hormonal role is shown to exist in pathogenesis of the melasma, and sex-hormone related drugs may have an effect on melasma.Aim: To investigate efficacy of 1% flutamide cream versus 4% hydroquinone cream on melasma.Methods: In a parallel randomized clinical trial, 74 women with melasma were allocated to receive a sunscreen along with 4% hydroquinone cream or 1% flutamide cream. Melasma Area and Severity Index (MASI, mexameter melanin assay, and patient satisfaction were investigated.Results: Mean age of the participants was 33.8 years. Mean length of time suffering from Melasma was 96.3 months. The subjects reported in average 1.1 hours per day of exposure to sunlight. Mean standardized total patient satisfaction score was 28.8 (standard deviation [SD] 17.2 in flutamide group patients versus 18 (SD 15.5 in control group (P<0.01. Regardless of treatment group, the skin darkness assessed upon MASI scales was reduced over the treatment course (P<0.001. Using mixed effects, longitudinal modeling showed better treatment efficacy based on MASI scale for flutamide group compared to the hydroquinone group (P<0.05. However, longitudinal analysis of mexameter scores did not reveal any significant difference in melanin measurements between flutamide and hydroquinone.Conclusion: Topical flutamide appeared as effective as topical hydroquinone in treating melasma using mexameter assessment but with a better MASI improvement trend and higher patient satisfaction in flutamide treatment versus topical hydroquinone. As the present study is possibly the

  14. Sixth meeting of the ITPA Topical Group on Diagnostics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Donne, A.J.H.; Costley, A.E.

    2004-01-01

    The Sixth Meeting of the International Tokamak Physics Activities (ITPA) Topical Group (TG) on Diagnostics was held at JAERI, Naka from 19-21 February 2004. This meeting was combined with a Progress Meeting on ITER/BPX (burning plasma experiment) relevant diagnostic developments on-going in Japan. For the first time, ITPA members from China, as well as observers from South Korea, attended. In addition, an associated sub-meeting was held at General Atomics, San Diego, 23-24 April, immediately after the 15th Topical Conference on High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics. At the sub-meeting a special one-day session was devoted to issues related to beam-aided spectroscopy. In total more than 50 participants attended the meetings and all ITER partners were represented. The key topics reviewed and discussed at the TG meeting were: (i) the overall status of diagnostics developments for ITER, (ii) the progress in the research on the designated high priority topics, (iii) the progress with some key ITER/BPX-relevant diagnostic developments ongoing in the ITPA participant laboratories, (iv) the progress and plans for the work of the specialist working groups, (v) the status and plans for the International Diagnostic Database

  15. Topics in modern differential geometry

    CERN Document Server

    Verstraelen, Leopold

    2017-01-01

    A variety of introductory articles is provided on a wide range of topics, including variational problems on curves and surfaces with anisotropic curvature. Experts in the fields of Riemannian, Lorentzian and contact geometry present state-of-the-art reviews of their topics. The contributions are written on a graduate level and contain extended bibliographies. The ten chapters are the result of various doctoral courses which were held in 2009 and 2010 at universities in Leuven, Serbia, Romania and Spain.

  16. Key Topics in Sports Medicine

    OpenAIRE

    2006-01-01

    Key Topics in Sports Medicine is a single quick reference source for sports and exercise medicine. It presents the essential information from across relevant topic areas, and includes both the core and emerging issues in this rapidly developing field. It covers: 1) Sports injuries, rehabilitation and injury prevention, 2) Exercise physiology, fitness testing and training, 3) Drugs in sport, 4) Exercise and health promotion, 5) Sport and exercise for special and clinical populations, 6) The ps...

  17. Get a grip on physics

    CERN Document Server

    Gribbin, John

    2011-01-01

    What do Newton's falling apple and the moon's orbit have in common? How does relativity theory apply to everyday life, what's a quantum leap, and why is Schrödinger's cat inside that box? The answers lie within your grasp! John Gribbin, a physicist and author of bestselling popular-science books, offers down-to-earth discussions of technical topics. Playful engravings and cartoons illustrate his imaginative accounts of the workings of string theory, black holes, superfluidity, and other cosmic oddities. Readers of all ages will appreciate these memorable explanations of the laws of physics and

  18. Recent advances and perspectives in topical oral anesthesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Franz-Montan, Michelle; Ribeiro, Lígia Nunes de Morais; Volpato, Maria Cristina; Cereda, Cintia Maria Saia; Groppo, Francisco Carlos; Tofoli, Giovana Randomille; de Araújo, Daniele Ribeiro; Santi, Patrizia; Padula, Cristina; de Paula, Eneida

    2017-05-01

    Topical anesthesia is widely used in dentistry to reduce pain caused by needle insertion and injection of the anesthetic. However, successful anesthesia is not always achieved using the formulations that are currently commercially available. As a result, local anesthesia is still one of the procedures that is most feared by dental patients. Drug delivery systems (DDSs) provide ways of improving the efficacy of topical agents. Areas covered: An overview of the structure and permeability of oral mucosa is given, followed by a review of DDSs designed for dental topical anesthesia and their related clinical trials. Chemical approaches to enhance permeation and anesthesia efficacy, or to promote superficial anesthesia, include nanostructured carriers (liposomes, cyclodextrins, polymeric nanoparticle systems, solid lipid nanoparticles, and nanostructured lipid carriers) and different pharmaceutical dosage forms (patches, bio- and mucoadhesive systems, and hydrogels). Physical methods include pre-cooling, vibration, iontophoresis, and microneedle arrays. Expert opinion: The combination of different chemical and physical methods is an attractive option for effective topical anesthesia in oral mucosa. This comprehensive review should provide the readers with the most relevant options currently available to assist pain-free dental anesthesia. The findings should be considered for future clinical trials.

  19. Topic shift impairs pronoun resolution during sentence comprehension: Evidence from event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Xiaodong; Zhou, Xiaolin

    2016-02-01

    This study investigated how topic shift and topic continuation influence pronoun interpretation in Chinese. ERPs recorded on pronouns in topic structure showed stronger and earlier late positive responses (P600) for the topic-shift than for the topic-continuation conditions. However, in nontopic structure where the subject (denoting only subjecthood), rather than the topic (denoting both topichood and subjecthood), acted as the antecedent of the pronoun, almost indistinguishable P600 responses were obtained on the pronoun regardless of whether it was referring to the subject (i.e., subject continuation) or the object (i.e., subject shift). Moreover, stronger and earlier P600 responses were elicited by pronouns in the topic-shift than in the subject-shift conditions, although there was no difference between the topic-continuation and the subject-continuation conditions. These findings suggest that topic shift results in greater difficulty in the resolution stage of referential processing, although the bonding process is not sensitive to the manipulation of topic status, and that topic has a privileged cognitive status relative to other nontopic entities (e.g., subject) in real-time language processing. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

  20. Educating the People as a Digital Photographer and Camera Operator via Open Education System Studies from Turkey: Anadolu University Open Education Faculty Case

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eryilmaz, Huseyin

    2010-01-01

    Today, photography and visual arts are very important in our modern life. Especially for the mass communication, the visual images and visual arts have very big importance. In modern societies, people must have knowledge about the visual things, such as photographs, cartoons, drawings, typography, etc. Briefly, the people need education on visual…

  1. Salicylic Acid Topical

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... the package label for more information.Apply a small amount of the salicylic acid product to one or two small areas you want to treat for 3 days ... know that children and teenagers who have chicken pox or the flu should not use topical salicylic ...

  2. Selected Topics in MicroNano-robotics for Biomedical Applications

    CERN Document Server

    2013-01-01

    Selected Topics in Micro/Nano-robotics for Biomedical Applications features a system approach and incorporates modern methodologies in autonomous mobile robots for programmable and controllable micro/nano-robots aiming at biomedical applications. The book provides chapters of instructional materials and cutting-edge research results in micro/nanorobotics for biomedical applications. The book presents new sensing technology on nanofibers, new power supply techniques including miniature fuel cells and energy harvesting devices, and manipulation techniques including AFM-based nano-robotic manipulation, robot-aided optical tweezers, and robot-assisted catheter surgery systems. It also contains case studies on using micro/nano-robots in biomedical environments and in biomedicine, as well as a design example to conceptually develop a Vitamin-pill sized robot to enter human’s gastrointestinal tract. Each chapter covers a different topic of the highly interdisciplinary area. Bring together the selected topics into ...

  3. Salvador Quevedo y Zubieta y la primera Psicología social en México (1906-1935 ¿rigor científico vs. licencia poética?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rodríguez Preciado, Salvador Ivan

    2003-05-01

    Full Text Available The thesis presented affirms that Social Psychology appears in Mexico as the result of aixture between a genuine cultural product and a new element on the academic horizon of the last twenty years of the XIX century. The place where the mixture is done features the public _expression forms: press, literature, political cartoon, etc. in a time when all this gaps were full of disputes about the important social topics. In this context the project of Salvador Quevedo y Zubieta appears as an example of genuine Mexican Social Psychology in early 1906. The thesis concludes with a few doubts that question the paradigmatic form of Social Psychology, as this has been in practice in Mexico for a bit more than a century.

  4. Topical report review status. Volume 9, No. 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1995-02-01

    This report provides industry with procedures for submitting topical reports, guidance on how the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) processes and responds to topical report submittals, and an accounting, with review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review by the NRC. This report is published semiannually

  5. Topical medication instillation techniques for glaucoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Li; Wang, Xuemei; Wu, Meijing

    2017-02-20

    Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide and the second most common cause of blindness after cataracts. The primary treatment for glaucoma aims to lower intraocular pressure (IOP) with the use of topical medicines. Topical medication instillation techniques, such as eyelid closure and nasolacrimal occlusion when instilling drops, have been proposed as potential methods to increase ocular absorption and decrease systemic absorption of the drops. To investigate the effectiveness of topical medication instillation techniques compared with usual care or another method of instillation of topical medication in the management of glaucoma or ocular hypertension. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (which contains the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Trials Register) (2016, Issue 12), MEDLINE Ovid (1946 to 8 December 2016), Embase Ovid (1947 to 8 December 2016), PubMed (1948 to 8 December 2016), LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature Database) (1982 to 8 December 2016), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts Database (1970 to 8 December 2016), the metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT) (www.controlled-trials.com) (last searched 13 May 2013), ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov) (searched 8 December 2016) and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/search/en) (searched 8 December 2016). We did not use any date or language restrictions in the electronic searches for trials. We included randomized controlled trials which had compared any topical medication instillation technique with usual care or a different method of instillation of topical medication. Two review authors independently screened records from the searches for eligibility, assessed the risk of bias, and extracted data. We followed methods recommended by Cochrane. We identified two trials (122 eyes of 61 participants) that had evaluated a topical medication instillation technique. We

  6. The Effectiveness of Topical Pimecrolimus in the Treatment of Oral Lichen Planus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehmet Kamil Mülayim

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: Oral lichen planus (OLP is a chronic inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology that affects the skin and the mucosa, especially the oral mucosa. Several therapeutic agents have been investigated for the treatment of OLP. All agents used in the OLP therapy are palliative. Potent topical steroids are used as the conventional therapy for OLP. Since side-effects or steroid resistance may be encountered, alternative treatments may be necessary. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the topical pimecrolimus in the treatment of OLP. Methods: Seventeen patients with OLP were recruited into this study. Topical pimecrolimus 1% cream was applied twice a day to the affected areas. Patients were followed up for 3-6 months. Photographs of the lesions were taken and analyzed for areas of ulceration, erythema, and reticulation in every clinical examination. Results: We found that topical pimecrolimus 1% cream was an effective treatment for OLP. Two patients could not complete the treatment protocol because of the side effects such as local irritation and nausea. Conclusion: Topical pimecrolimus may be a valuable second treatment choice for patients with steroid-related side-effects or steroid-resistant OLP. However further randomized controlled studies have to be conducted to compare conventional treatment of topical corticosteroid with topical pimecrolimus.

  7. The role of preventive topical antibiotic treatment prior to intravitreal injection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena Vladimirovna Ageeva

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD requires frequent intravitreal injections of anti-VEGF agents, sometimes on monthly basis during a long period of time. Endophthalmitis is a rare but extremely severe complication of intravitreal injections. As it has been proven before, the flora from the conjunctival surface is the main source for endophthalmitis. Using Povidone-iodine solution (Betadine10 % Povidone-iodine, EGIS PHARMACEUTICALS is the only way to prevent endophthalmitis. The efficacy of it was proven by numerous studies. No evidence exists that topical antibiotiotics prior and after injections could be effective for prevention of endophthalmitis. Purpose: To study the advisability of topical antibiotic application before intravitreal injection. Materials and methods: Under investigation, there were 25 eyes of 25 patients with wet AMD treated by anti-VEGF intravitreal injections. All patients used topical antibiotics 3 days before injection. Conjunctival culture from injection eye was collected three times: before topical antibiotic use; after topical antibiotic use, and after Betadine 5 % application. Results: The rates of Staphylococcus epidermidis before and after topical antibiotic use were approximately equal. However there was no Staphylococcus epidermidis found after Betadine 5 % application. Conclusion: Our study showed the effectiveness of Betadine 5 % solution in conjunctival flora reduction. Use of topical antibiotics 3 days prior intravitreal injections is not effective. Key words: age-related macular degeneration; endophthalmitis; intravitreal injection; topical antibiotics; endophthalmitis prevention.

  8. Topical treatment of psoriasis: questionnaire results on topical therapy accessibility and influence of body surface area on usage

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Iversen, L.; Lange, M.M. De; Bissonette, R.; Carvalho, A.V.E.; Kerkhof, P.C.M. van de; Kirby, B.; Kleyn, C.E.; Lynde, C.W.; Walt, J.M. van der; Wu, J.J.

    2017-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Topical treatment of mild to moderate psoriasis is first-line treatment and exhibits varying degrees of success across patient groups. Key factors influencing treatment success are physician topical treatment choice (high efficacy, low adverse events) and strict patient adherence.

  9. Hot topics: Signal processing in acoustics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaumond, Charles F.

    2005-09-01

    Signal processing in acoustics is a multidisciplinary group of people that work in many areas of acoustics. We have chosen two areas that have shown exciting new applications of signal processing to acoustics or have shown exciting and important results from the use of signal processing. In this session, two hot topics are shown: the use of noiselike acoustic fields to determine sound propagation structure and the use of localization to determine animal behaviors. The first topic shows the application of correlation on geo-acoustic fields to determine the Greens function for propagation through the Earth. These results can then be further used to solve geo-acoustic inverse problems. The first topic also shows the application of correlation using oceanic noise fields to determine the Greens function through the ocean. These results also have utility for oceanic inverse problems. The second topic shows exciting results from the detection, localization, and tracking of marine mammals by two different groups. Results from detection and localization of bullfrogs are shown, too. Each of these studies contributed to the knowledge of animal behavior. [Work supported by ONR.

  10. Topical Valproate Solution for Hair Growth

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anil Kakunje

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Valproate is used regularly in the treatment of various seizure disorders, bipolar disorder, migraine prophylaxis and off label in many other conditions. Alopecia or hair loss is cosmetic side effect of oral valproate administration. Hair loss with valproate is diffused, non-scarring and dose related. A large number of drugs may interfere with the hair cycle and produce hair loss. We have only a few drugs like Minoxidil, Finasteride used for hair regeneration and both have its own side effects and limitations. In contrast to oral ingestions of valproate causing hair loss, early experiments with topical Valproic acid cream showed hair regeneration. Valproic acid cream is currently unavailable in the market, alternatively, we do have valproate and divalproex solutions available in various strengths which have a potential to be used topically for hair regeneration. The side effects and cost of topical valproate solution could be much less than the available options in the market. Valproate solution topically has the potential to be used for hair growth.

  11. Topical colloidal silver as an anti-biofilm agent in a Staphylococcus aureus chronic rhinosinusitis sheep model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rajiv, Sukanya; Drilling, Amanda; Bassiouni, Ahmed; James, Craig; Vreugde, Sarah; Wormald, Peter-John

    2015-04-01

    Treatment of recalcitrant chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a challenge with increasing antibiotic resistance, leading to re-emergence of topical therapies. The aim of this study was to assess safety and efficacy of topical colloidal silver solution for the treatment of Staphylococcus aureus biofilms in a sheep model. In the safety study, normal saline (control) and 30-ppm colloidal silver solution (test) was used to flush the frontal sinuses for 14 days in 8 sheep (4 sheep each). In the efficacy study, following frontal sinus infection with Staphylococcus aureus, sheep were treated with either control saline or topical silver solution of varying concentrations (30 ppm/20 ppm/10 ppm/5 ppm) for 5 days, with 4 sheep in each group. Blood silver level, full blood counts, and biochemical parameters were analyzed in both safety and efficacy studies. Sinus tissue was harvested for histological examination and ciliary structure analysis in safety and for biofilm biomass quantification by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique and COMSTAT 2 software in the efficacy study. Results were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests. Sheep treated with silver showed a significant decrease in biofilm biomass (0.004, 0.004, 0.004, and 0.007, in the 4 silver-treated groups, respectively) compared to saline control (0.175), p silver levels were higher in the treated groups compared to controls (p colloidal silver solution has effective antibiofilm activity in Staphylococcus aureus CRS in a sheep model and appears safe. © 2015 ARS-AAOA, LLC.

  12. IT0: Discrete Math and Programming Logic Topics as a Hybrid Alternative to CS0

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, Nancy L.

    2015-01-01

    This paper describes the development of a hybrid introductory course for students in their first or second year of an information systems technologies degree program at a large Midwestern university. The course combines topics from discrete mathematics and programming logic and design, a unique twist on most introductory courses. The objective of…

  13. Microemulsion-Based Topical Hydrogels of Tenoxicam for Treatment of Arthritis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goindi, Shishu; Narula, Manleen; Kalra, Atin

    2016-06-01

    Tenoxicam (TNX) is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, backache and pain. However, prolonged oral use of this drug is associated with gastrointestinal adverse events like peptic ulceration, thus necessitating its development as topical formulation that could obviate the adverse effects and improve patient compliance. The present study was aimed at development of microemulsion-based formulations of TNX for topical delivery at the affected site. The pseudoternary phase diagrams were developed and microemulsion formulations were prepared using Captex 300/oleic acid as oil, Tween 80 as surfactant and n-butanol/ethanol as co-surfactant. Optimized microemulsions were characterized for drug content, droplet size, viscosity, pH and zeta potential. The ex vivo permeation studies through Laca mice skin were performed using Franz diffusion cell assembly, and the permeation profile of the microemulsion formulation was compared with aqueous suspension of drug and drug incorporated in conventional cream. Microemulsion formulations of TNX showed significantly higher (p Microemulsion formulations were found to be superior in controlling inflammation as compared to conventional topical dosage forms and showed efficacy equivalent to oral formulation. Results suggest that the developed microemulsion formulations may be used for effective topical delivery of TNX to treat various inflammatory conditions.

  14. Topical review of the Finnish forest sector 1996

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kuuluvainen, K.

    1996-01-01

    The present report is e review of the Finnish forest sector, made by several authors. The topics reviewed are: Economic trends of forest sector; The operational conditions of the forest sector; Development of the forest sector; Conjuncture reviews; Special topics including the certification of the forests, the forest reserves in Finland, the financial support forest economy, export prices of sawn timber and cellulose, raw-wood markets, forests and forest industry shares as targets for investments, recreational use of the state owned areas. (8 refs.)

  15. Evaluating topic model interpretability from a primary care physician perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arnold, Corey W; Oh, Andrea; Chen, Shawn; Speier, William

    2016-02-01

    Probabilistic topic models provide an unsupervised method for analyzing unstructured text. These models discover semantically coherent combinations of words (topics) that could be integrated in a clinical automatic summarization system for primary care physicians performing chart review. However, the human interpretability of topics discovered from clinical reports is unknown. Our objective is to assess the coherence of topics and their ability to represent the contents of clinical reports from a primary care physician's point of view. Three latent Dirichlet allocation models (50 topics, 100 topics, and 150 topics) were fit to a large collection of clinical reports. Topics were manually evaluated by primary care physicians and graduate students. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests for Paired Samples were used to evaluate differences between different topic models, while differences in performance between students and primary care physicians (PCPs) were tested using Mann-Whitney U tests for each of the tasks. While the 150-topic model produced the best log likelihood, participants were most accurate at identifying words that did not belong in topics learned by the 100-topic model, suggesting that 100 topics provides better relative granularity of discovered semantic themes for the data set used in this study. Models were comparable in their ability to represent the contents of documents. Primary care physicians significantly outperformed students in both tasks. This work establishes a baseline of interpretability for topic models trained with clinical reports, and provides insights on the appropriateness of using topic models for informatics applications. Our results indicate that PCPs find discovered topics more coherent and representative of clinical reports relative to students, warranting further research into their use for automatic summarization. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Topical Yunnan Baiyao administration as an adjunctive therapy for bleeding complications in adolescents with advanced cancer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ladas, E J; Karlik, J B; Rooney, D; Taromina, K; Ndao, D H; Granowetter, L; Kelly, K M

    2012-12-01

    Yunnan Baiyao (White Medicine from Yunnan, YNB) is a Chinese herbal medicinal powder used to stop bleeding and improve circulation in traumatic injuries. We describe the use of YNB in adolescents with cancer as an adjunct to uncontrolled bleeding in the palliative care setting. Through a retrospective chart review of all patients receiving integrative medicine consultations at the Integrative Therapies Program at Columbia University from January 1, 2007 to January 31, 2012, we describe the outcome of patients treated with YNB for management of uncontrolled bleeding. Four patients were identified who received topical YNB for uncontrolled bleeding; patients included two males and two females with diagnoses of solid tumors (n = 3) and Burkitt's lymphoma (n = 1). Mean age was 15.5 years (range 15-17). Fifty percent had life-threatening bleeding from the tumor site and 50 % experienced uncontrollable epistaxis. All patients received preceding therapy with packed red blood cells and platelet transfusions, topical thrombin, and oral aminocaproic acid. Two patients used YNB in the inpatient setting, and all four patients used YNB as outpatients. In all patients, bleeding control improved with the addition of YNB to conventional hemostatic interventions. Two patients using YNB in their home reported control of bleeding episodes. There were no adverse events reported. YNB may be an efficacious agent for uncontrolled bleeding in conjunction with conventional hemostatic agents in adolescents with advanced cancer. It is well accepted by patients. YNB may be especially valuable in the outpatient setting to prevent the recurrence of hemorrhage.

  17. Severe hyperkalemia as a complication of timolol, a topically applied beta-adrenergic antagonist

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Swenson, E.R.

    1986-01-01

    Severe hyperkalemia occurred in a patient with radiation pneumonitis and glaucoma shortly after beginning prednisone therapy. There was no evidence of renal failure, diabetes, acidosis, increased potassium intake, or significant tissue trauma. Medications having adverse effects on potassium metabolism were considered, and the patient's use of timolol maleate eyedrops was discontinued. His serum potassium level normalized despite continuation of the prednisone therapy. He became hyperkalemic on rechallenge with timolol and normokalemic following its withdrawal. This case indicates that the potential for beta-blocker-induced hyperkalemia exists even with topical appreciation

  18. TOPICAL CASUAL TALKS AS RESPONSIVE LISTENING AND SPEAKING PERFORMANCES OF BEGINNERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Taranindya Zulhi Amalia

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Global communication concern brings human to be familiar with English as early as possible. Nowadays beginner students started English orally in elementary school even kindergarten. At this moment, they dealth with listening and speaking skills and put them into practice. When they came down to English, some beginners feel uncomfortable in their learning because of facing formal situation. The beginners who were typically keen on playing and having fun comfortably could not be treated in teaching-learning that was usually presented to intermediate level or adult. Teachers had to create informal situation so that they were more relaxed and got chemistry one another. Dealing with comfortable zone put into informal situation in listening and speaking practices for the beginners, this study focused on topical casual talks. It set up a relaxed spot in order to explore effective communication related to their subject matters. The teachers/tutors could apply one of classroom listening and speaking performance types, responsive. This study used qualitative approach. While it refered to library research. The primary source was Elementary School Silabus. Whereas the secondary data sources were English teaching-learning books. This issue discussed about listening and speaking skills for beginners. The beginners classified into age 6-8. In listening section, the students processed teacher talk instantly. Afterwards in speaking, suitable direct short response answered the teacher talk. This action could be assessed by subjective test in the form of wh-questions and short answers test. Ultimately, the next comparable studies may converse different competences and performances for beginners or any levels.

  19. Effect of Topical Tacrolimus on Vitiligo in Children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammed Ziaur Rahman Bhuiyan

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Considering safe treatment modalities for children with vitiligo, search for newer therapeutic agents continues. Hence, new immunomodulatory agents such as calcineurinantagonists, frequently referred to as topical immunomodulators (TIMs have recently been introduced as new promising tools to treat acquired hypopigmentary disorders. Tacrolimus is safe in treating children due to lack of skin atrophy and less data are available on effect of topical tacrolimus on vitiligo. Objective: To see the effect of topical tacrolimus on vitiligo in children. Materials and Methods: This prospective study was done in outpatient department of Dermatology and Venereology, Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH, Bangladesh. Clinically diagnosed vitiligo patients of up to 12 years age visiting Skin & VD OPD, CMCH during study period were the study population (total 30. The study was carried out from November 2007 to April 2008. Results: A total of 30 patients, 13 (43.33% males and 17 (56.66% females with focal, segmental or generalized vitiligo were studied. Seventy percent of study subjects were from 7–12 years of age. Topical tacrolimus 0.03% ointment was administered twice daily for 12 weeks to each patient. Repigmentation was complete (>75% in 43.33% cases (13/30, was moderate (50–75% in 33.33% (10/30, mild (<50% in 13.33% (4/30. Clinical adverse effects were noted in 6.67% (2/30 of cases where pruritus was in 3.33% (1/30 and burning in 3.33% (1/30. None of the reactions was severe, all were mild and well-tolerated and most occurred within the first month of initiation of treatment and resolved with continued use of drug and completely cured after the treatment completed. Nobody had to discontinue the therapy for side effects. Conclusion: In conclusion, tacrolimus ointment may be a rapidly efficacious and safe option for the treatment of vitiligo in children. The ease of topical self-administration with minimal side effects makes this novel

  20. Topics from the theory of numbers

    CERN Document Server

    Grosswald, Emil

    1984-01-01

    Many of the important and creative developments in modern mathematics resulted from attempts to solve questions that originate in number theory. The publication of Emil Grosswald’s classic text presents an illuminating introduction to number theory. Combining the historical developments with the analytical approach, Topics from the Theory of Numbers offers the reader a diverse range of subjects to investigate, including: * divisibility * congruences * the Riemann zeta function * Diophantine equations and Fermat’s conjecture * the theory of partitions Comprehensive in nature, Topics from the Theory of Numbers is an ideal text for advanced undergraduates and graduate students alike. "In my opinion it is excellent. It is carefully written and represents clearly a work of a scholar who loves and understands his subject. One can only wish more authors would take such pains and would be as good and honest expositors as Grosswald." — Marc Kac "This book is designed for use in a first course in number theory at...

  1. Skin permeation and antioxidant efficacy of topically applied resveratrol.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alonso, Cristina; Martí, M; Barba, C; Carrer, V; Rubio, L; Coderch, L

    2017-08-01

    The permeation of resveratrol was assessed by in vitro and in vivo experiments 24 h after topical administration. The in vitro profile of resveratrol was assessed by Raman spectroscopy. Human skin permeation was analysed in vivo by the tape stripping method with the progressive removal of the stratum corneum layers using adhesive tape strips. Moreover, the free radical scavenging activity of resveratrol after its topical application was determined using the DPPH assay. The Raman spectra indicated that the topically applied resveratrol penetrates deep into the skin. The results showed high amounts of resveratrol in the different stratum corneum layers close to the surface and a constant lower amount in the upper layers of the viable epidermis. The concentration of resveratrol present in the outermost stratum corneum layers was obtained by tape stripping after in vivo application. The results demonstrated that resveratrol mainly remained in the human stratum corneum layers. After topical application, resveratrol maintained its antiradical activity. The antioxidant efficacy of the compound was higher in the inner layers of the stratum corneum. As these results have demonstrated, topically applied resveratrol reinforces the antioxidant system of the stratum corneum and provides an efficient means of increasing the tissue levels of antioxidants in the human epidermis.

  2. Misuse of topical corticosteroids: A clinical study of adverse effects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vivek Kumar Dey

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Misuse of topical corticosteroids is a widespread phenomenon among young people in India, especially women. The practice is associated with significant adverse effects and poor awareness of these effects among the general public. Aim: This study was conducted to examine the misuse and adverse effects of topical corticosteroids among the people in Bastar region in Chhattisgarh state of India. Materials and Methods: Data collected from patients presenting with at least one of the adverse effects of topical corticosteroids as the chief complaint, from November 2010 to October 2011. Results: Out of the 6723 new patients, 379 (5.63% had presented with misuse and adverse effects of topical corticosteroids, of whom 78.89% were females. More than 65% of the patients were in the age group 10-29 years. The main reason for using the topical corticosteroids was to lighten skin colour and treat melasma and suntan. Acne (37.99% and telangiectasia (18.99% were the most common adverse effects noted. Conclusions: Misuse of topical corticosteroids has a huge impact on dermatological practice, leading to a significant proportion of visits to the dermatologist. This hydra-headed problem needs multi-dimensional interventions, involving educational, legal and managerial approaches with cooperation from different sectors of society.

  3. Topical cholesterol in clofazimine induced ichthyosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pandey S

    1994-01-01

    Full Text Available Topical application of 10% cholesterol in petrolatum significantly (P< 0.05 controlled the development of ichthyosis in 62 patients taking 100 mg clofazimine daily for a period of 3 months. However, topical cholesterol application did not affect the lowering of serum cholesterol induced by oral clofazimine. Probable mechanism of action is being discussed.

  4. Probabilistic analysis and related topics

    CERN Document Server

    Bharucha-Reid, A T

    1979-01-01

    Probabilistic Analysis and Related Topics, Volume 2 focuses on the integrability, continuity, and differentiability of random functions, as well as functional analysis, measure theory, operator theory, and numerical analysis.The selection first offers information on the optimal control of stochastic systems and Gleason measures. Discussions focus on convergence of Gleason measures, random Gleason measures, orthogonally scattered Gleason measures, existence of optimal controls without feedback, random necessary conditions, and Gleason measures in tensor products. The text then elaborates on an

  5. The Application of Hermeneutical Analysis to Research on the Cold War in Soviet Animation Media Texts from the Second Half of the 1940s

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fedorov, A. V.

    2015-01-01

    The Cold War era, which spawned a mutual ideological confrontation between communist and capitalist countries, left its mark on all categories of media texts, including cartoons and animations. Cartoons were used by the authorities as tools for delivering the necessary confrontational ideological content in an attractive folkloric, fairy-tale…

  6. Lack of Acceptance of Reciprocity Norms in Preschool Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berndt, Thomas J.

    1979-01-01

    Two studies investigated preschool children's acceptance of the reciprocity norms that allow retaliation and that require returning favors. Children viewed cartoons that portrayed animal puppets involved in reciprocal or nonreciprocal aggressive and prosocial behavior. They were then asked to evaluate the actor in each cartoon as "good"…

  7. Baby Health Checkup: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Know (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) - PDF Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Baby Health Checkup ... GO MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Well-child visits Related Health Topics Childhood Immunization Common Infant and Newborn Problems Infant ...

  8. Laser Eye Surgery: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... corneal surgery - discharge (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Laser Eye Surgery ... surgery - what to ask your doctor Related Health Topics Refractive Errors National Institutes of Health The primary ...

  9. Child Mental Health: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... events and children (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Child Mental Health ... in childhood Traumatic events and children Related Health Topics Bullying Child Behavior Disorders Mental Disorders Mental Health ...

  10. Bone Marrow Transplantation: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... marrow transplant - discharge (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Bone Marrow Transplantation ... transplant - slideshow Graft-versus-host disease Related Health Topics Bone Marrow Diseases Stem Cells National Institutes of ...

  11. Nutrition for Seniors: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... America) National Institute on Aging Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Nutrition for Seniors updates by email What's this? GO Related Health Topics Nutrition Seniors' Health National Institutes of Health The ...

  12. Blood Count Tests: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spanish WBC count (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Blood Count Tests ... WBC count Show More Show Less Related Health Topics Bleeding Disorders Blood Laboratory Tests National Institutes of ...

  13. Hormone Replacement Therapy: MedlinePlus Health Topic

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... of hormone therapy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Hormone Replacement Therapy ... Estrogen overdose Types of hormone therapy Related Health Topics Menopause National Institutes of Health The primary NIH ...

  14. “Koko et les lunettes magiques”: An educational entertainment tool to prevent parasitic worms and diarrheal diseases in Côte d’Ivoire

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kouamé, Abel; Dongo, Kouassi; Yapi, Richard B.; Moro, Honorine M.; Kouakou, Christiane A.; Palmeirim, Marta S.; Bonfoh, Bassirou; N’Goran, Eliézer K.; Utzinger, Jürg

    2017-01-01

    Background Integrated control programs, emphasizing preventive chemotherapy along with health education, can reduce the incidence of soil-transmitted helminthiasis and schistosomiasis. The aim of this study was to develop an educational animated cartoon to improve school children’s awareness regarding soil-transmitted helminthiasis, diarrheal diseases, and related hygiene practices in Côte d’Ivoire. The key messages included in the cartoon were identified through prior formative research to specifically address local knowledge gaps. Methodology In a first step, preliminary research was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and beliefs of school-aged children regarding parasitic worm infections and hygiene, to identify key health messages to be included in an animated cartoon. Second, an animated cartoon was produced, which included the drafting of the script and story board, and the production of the cartoon’s initial version. Finally, the animated cartoon was pilot tested in eight selected schools and further fine-tuned. Principal findings According to the questionnaire results, children believed that the consumption of sweet food, eating without washing their hands, sitting on the floor, and eating spoiled food were the main causes of parasitic worm infections. Abdominal pain, diarrhea, lack of appetite, failure to grow, and general fatigue were mentioned as symptoms of parasitic worm infections. Most of the children knew that they should go to the hospital for treatment if they experienced symptoms of parasitic worm diseases. The animated cartoon titled “Koko et les lunettes magiques” was produced by Afrika Toon, in collaboration with a scientific team composed of epidemiologists, civil engineers, and social scientists, and the local school children and teachers. Pilot testing of the animated cartoon revealed that, in the short term, children grasped and kept key messages. Most of the children who were shown the cartoon reported to

  15. [Endoscopic endonasal detection of cerebrospinal fluid leakage with topical fluorescein].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sato, Taku; Kishida, Yugo; Watanabe, Tadashi; Tani, Akiko; Tada, Yasuhiro; Tamura, Takamitsu; Ichikawa, Masahiro; Sakuma, Jun; Omori, Koichi; Saito, Kiyoshi

    2013-08-01

    We evaluated the effectiveness of intraoperative topical application of fluorescein to detect the leakage point of cerebrospinal fluid(CSF)rhinorrhea. Three patients with CSF rhinorrhea were treated with an endoscopic endonasal technique. Ten percent fluorescein was topically used for intraoperative localization of the leak site. A change of the fluorescein color from brown to green due to dilation of CSF were recognized as evidence of CSF rhinorrhea. We repeated the procedure to detect any small defects. All CSF rhinorrheas were successfully repaired by this endoscopic endonasal approach. Topical application of fluorescein is simple and sensitive for identifying intraoperative CSF rhinorrhea.

  16. Reactions to Humorous Sexual Stimuli as a Function of Sexual Activeness and Satisfaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prerost, Frank J.

    1984-01-01

    Assessed male (N=60) and female (N=60) responses to pictorial humorous sexual material in relationship to degree of sexual expression and personal satisfaction with sexual behavior. Results showed persons with active and satisfying sexual expression enjoyed sexually explicit cartoons and showed less preference for aggressive themes. (LLL)

  17. Topic modeling for cluster analysis of large biological and medical datasets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Weizhong; Zou, Wen; Chen, James J

    2014-01-01

    The big data moniker is nowhere better deserved than to describe the ever-increasing prodigiousness and complexity of biological and medical datasets. New methods are needed to generate and test hypotheses, foster biological interpretation, and build validated predictors. Although multivariate techniques such as cluster analysis may allow researchers to identify groups, or clusters, of related variables, the accuracies and effectiveness of traditional clustering methods diminish for large and hyper dimensional datasets. Topic modeling is an active research field in machine learning and has been mainly used as an analytical tool to structure large textual corpora for data mining. Its ability to reduce high dimensionality to a small number of latent variables makes it suitable as a means for clustering or overcoming clustering difficulties in large biological and medical datasets. In this study, three topic model-derived clustering methods, highest probable topic assignment, feature selection and feature extraction, are proposed and tested on the cluster analysis of three large datasets: Salmonella pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) dataset, lung cancer dataset, and breast cancer dataset, which represent various types of large biological or medical datasets. All three various methods are shown to improve the efficacy/effectiveness of clustering results on the three datasets in comparison to traditional methods. A preferable cluster analysis method emerged for each of the three datasets on the basis of replicating known biological truths. Topic modeling could be advantageously applied to the large datasets of biological or medical research. The three proposed topic model-derived clustering methods, highest probable topic assignment, feature selection and feature extraction, yield clustering improvements for the three different data types. Clusters more efficaciously represent truthful groupings and subgroupings in the data than traditional methods, suggesting

  18. 30 September 2015

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vinding, Niels Valdemar

    2016-01-01

    , the debate continues in Denmark and it focuses on three things; firstly, what is the state of freedom of expression today in Denmark especially when it comes to religion, and in relation, secondly, should editors re-run the cartoons on the occasion of the 10 year anniversary, and thirdly should teachers......Today, 30 September 2015, we observe the 10 year anniversary of the publications of 12 editorial cartoons in Jyllands-Posten. The cartoons were originally commissioned as an attempt to contribute to the debate about legitimate criticism of Islam, freedom of speech and self-censorship. Today...

  19. Draft statement by the Watt Committee on Safety and related topics as respects nuclear power

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1982-03-01

    The following topics are examined, with particular reference to nuclear power: the nature of risk; waste disposal to the environment (ecological damage and radiation damage due to nuclear plants and fossil-fuel plants); the benefits of nuclear power (including discussion of the following matters: need to conserve fossil fuels; safety; and possibility of diversion to nuclear weapons).

  20. Topical report review status. Volume 7, No. 2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1984-11-01

    Purpose of this document is to provide periodic progress reports of on-going topical report reviews, to identify those topical reports for which the NRC staff review has been completed and those which are under review and to provide NRC management with sufficient information regarding the conduct of the topical report program to permit taking whatever actions are deemed necessary or appropriate. This document is also intended to be a source of information to NRC Licensing Project Managers and other NRC personnel regarding the status of topical reports which may be referenced in applications for which they have responsibility

  1. Selected topics in nuclear structure

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Solov` ev, V G; Gromov, K Ya; Malov, L A; Shilov, V M

    1994-12-31

    The Fourth International Conference on selected topics in nuclear structure was held at Dubna in July 1994 on recent experimental and theoretical investigations in nuclear structure. Topics discussed were the following: nuclear structure at low-energy excitations (collective quasiparticle phenomena, proton-neutron interactions, microscopic and phenomenological theories of nuclear structure; nuclear structure studies with charged particles). heavy ions, neutrons and photons; nuclei at high angular momenta and superdeformation, structure and decay properties of giant resonances, charge-exchange resonances and {beta}-decay; semiclassical approach of large amplitude collective motion and structure of hot nuclei.

  2. Selected topics in nuclear structure

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Solov'ev, V.G.; Gromov, K.Ya.; Malov, L.A.; Shilov, V.M.

    1994-01-01

    The Fourth International Conference on selected topics in nuclear structure was held at Dubna in July 1994 on recent experimental and theoretical investigations in nuclear structure. Topics discussed were the following: nuclear structure at low-energy excitations (collective quasiparticle phenomena, proton-neutron interactions, microscopic and phenomenological theories of nuclear structure; nuclear structure studies with charged particles. heavy ions, neutrons and photons; nuclei at high angular momenta and superdeformation, structure and decay properties of giant resonances, charge-exchange resonances and β-decay; semiclassical approach of large amplitude collective motion and structure of hot nuclei

  3. Topical Antibacterials and Global Challenges on Resistance ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    skin infections can be easily treated with topical antibacterial medication that is available over the counter or by ... infection in minor cut or burn, eyes and ear infection [5]. .... Sensitive/dry skin ... includes both oral and topical antibiotics, but.

  4. Modern topics in electron scattering

    CERN Document Server

    Frois, Bernard

    1991-01-01

    This book summarizes the considerable progress recently achieved in the understanding of nucleon and nuclear structure by using high energy electrons as a probe. A collection of papers discusses in detail the new frontiers of this field. Experimental and theoretical articles cover topics such as the structure of the nucleon, nucleon distributions, many-body correlations, non-nucleonic degrees of freedom and few-body systems. This book is an up-to-date introduction to the research planned with continuous beam electron accelerators.

  5. Ring Keratitis Associated With Topical Abuse of a Dilute Anesthetic After Refractive Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu-Chih Hou

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available Anesthetic toxic keratitis is rare and presents as a ring keratitis, which is often misdiagnosed as Acanthamoeba keratitis. Here, we report an unusual case of toxic keratitis caused by topical abuse of a dilute anesthetic. A 26-year-old woman presented with bilateral corneal edema, ring infiltrates, pigmented keratic precipitate, Descemet's membrane folding, and strong anterior chamber reactions 2 weeks after laser subepithelial keratomileusis surgery. Tracing back her medical history, topical dilute 0.1% proparacaine was prescribed and frequently used for 1 month. Toxic keratitis was suspected. After discontinuation of the topical anesthetic and initiation of treatment with topical 20% autologous serum, complete corneal epithelialization was achieved within 1 week. Corneal infiltrates and anterior chamber reaction gradually subsided. Vision improved from finger counting to 20/20 in the right eye and 20/25 in the left eye, but confocal microscopy showed decreased corneal endothelial cells. Topical abuse of a dilute topical anesthetic can cause severe toxic keratitis and endothelial cell loss. The physician must be aware of the signs of topical anesthetic abuse and should not prescribe even a dilute anesthetic for long-term use. Autologous serum can help in the recovery of toxic keratitis.

  6. Peringkasan Tweet Berdasarkan Trending Topic Twitter Dengan Pembobotan TF-IDF dan Single Linkage AngglomerativeHierarchical Clustering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Annisa Annisa

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Trending topic is a feature provided by twitter that informs something widely discussed by users in a particular time. The form of a trending topic is a hashtag and can be selected by clicking. However, the number of tweets for each trending topics can be very large, so it will be difficult if we want to know all the contents. So, in order to make easy when reading the topic, a small number of tweets can be selected as the main idea of the topic. In this study, we applied the Agglomerative Single Linkage Hierarchical Clustering by calculating the TF-IDF value for each word in advance. We used 100 trending topics, where each topic consists of 50 tweets in Indonesian. For testing, we provided 30 trending topics which consist of 2 until 9 sub-topics. The result is that each trending topics can be summarized into shorter text contains 2 until 9 tweets. We were able to summarize 1 trending topics exactly same as the topic summarized by human expert. However, the rest of topics corresponded partially with human expert.

  7. Current status of topical antiretroviral chemoprophylaxis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Damme, Lut; Szpir, Michael

    2012-11-01

    Recent studies suggest that the vaginal delivery of antiretroviral (ARV) agents - such as tenofovir, dapivirine and UC781 - may be a promising way to reduce the high rates of HIV infection among women in developing countries. This review examines these developments. The Microbicide Trials Network 003 study, a large phase IIb trial, was unable to show that daily dosing with 1% tenofovir vaginal gel was effective for HIV prevention. Nevertheless, preclinical and early-phase clinical trials suggest that ARV drugs - formulated in vaginal gels, rings, films, tablets and diaphragms - could be effective for HIV chemoprophylaxis. Investigations of topical chemoprophylaxis methods have seen mixed results in the past 12-18 months. Product adherence may prove to be one of the field's greatest challenges. Phase II and III trials continue to explore different dosing strategies for topical products that contain one or more ARV agents.

  8. Nanoparticles and nanofibers for topical drug delivery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goyal, Ritu; Macri, Lauren K.; Kaplan, Hilton M.; Kohn, Joachim

    2016-01-01

    This review provides the first comprehensive overview of the use of both nanoparticles and nanofibers for topical drug delivery. Researchers have explored the use of nanotechnology, specifically nanoparticles and nanofibers, as drug delivery systems for topical and transdermal applications. This approach employs increased drug concentration in the carrier, in order to increase drug flux into and through the skin. Both nanoparticles and nanofibers can be used to deliver hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs and are capable of controlled release for a prolonged period of time. The examples presented provide significant evidence that this area of research has—and will continue to have — a profound impact on both clinical outcomes and the development of new products. PMID:26518723

  9. Topical rapamycin as a treatment for fibrofolliculomas in Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome: a double-blind placebo-controlled randomized split-face trial.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lieke M C Gijezen

    Full Text Available Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome (BHD is a rare autosomal dominant disorder characterised by the occurrence of benign, mostly facial, skin tumours called fibrofolliculomas, multiple lung cysts, spontaneous pneumothorax and an increased renal cancer risk. Current treatments for fibrofolliculomas have high rates of recurrence and carry a risk of complications. It would be desirable to have a treatment that could prevent fibrofolliculomas from growing. Animal models of BHD have previously shown deregulation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR. Topical use of the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin is an effective treatment for the skin tumours (angiofibromas in tuberous sclerosis complex, which is also characterised by mTOR deregulation. In this study we aimed to determine if topical rapamycin is also an effective treatment for fibrofolliculomas in BHD.We performed a double blinded, randomised, facial left-right controlled trial of topical rapamycin 0.1% versus placebo in 19 BHD patients. Trial duration was 6 months. The primary outcome was cosmetic improvement as measured by doctors and patients. Changes in fibrofolliculoma number and size were also measured, as was occurrence of side effects.No change in cosmetic status of fibrofolliculomas was reported in the majority of cases for the rapamycin treated (79% by doctors, 53% by patients as well as the placebo treated facial sides (both 74%. No significant differences between rapamycin and placebo treated facial halves were observed (p = 1.000 for doctors opinion, p = 0.344 for patients opinion. No significant difference in fibrofolliculoma number or change in size of the fibrofolliculomas was seen after 6 months. Side effects occurred more often after rapamycin treatment (68% of patients than after placebo (58% of patients; p = 0.625. A burning sensation, erythema, itching and dryness were most frequently reported.This study provides no evidence that treatment of fibrofolliculomas with topical

  10. Topics in Nuclear Astrophysics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chung, K.C.

    1982-01-01

    Some topics in nuclear astrophysics are discussed, e.g.: highly evolved stellar cores, stellar evolution (through the temperature analysis of stellar surface), nucleosynthesis and finally the solar neutrino problem. (L.C.) [pt

  11. Agriculture 2008. The critical agrarian report. Main topic 2008: Agriculture as an energy producer; Landwirtschaft 2008. Der kritische Agrarbericht. Schwerpunkt 2008: Landwirtschaft als Energieerzeuger

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schneider, M.; Fink-Kessler, A.; Stodieck, F. (comps.)

    2008-01-15

    The focus of the critical agrarian report in this year is the topic 'agriculture as an energy producer'. In 44 contributions, the agrarian events of the year 2007 are analyzed and the setting the points for the future are discussed. The topics of this report are: Agricultural policy and social situation, world trade and nutrition, ecological agriculture, production and market, regional market, regional development, nature and environment, forest, animal protection and animal husbandry, genetic engineering, agrarian culture, consumer and nourishing culture.

  12. Etodolac Containing Topical Niosomal Gel: Formulation Development and Evaluation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gyati Shilakari Asthana

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The present study aimed to investigate the delivery potential of Etodolac (ETD containing topical niosomal gel. Niosomal formulations were prepared by thin film hydration method at various ratios of cholesterol and Span 60 and were evaluated with respect to particle size, shape, entrapment efficiency, and in vitro characteristics. Dicetyl phosphate (DCP was also added in the niosomal formulation. Mean particle size of niosomal formulation was found to be in the range of 2 μm to 4 μm. Niosomal formulation N2 (1 : 1 ratio of cholesterol and surfactant displayed good entrapment efficiency (96.72%. TEM analyses showed that niosomal formulation was spherical in shape. Niosomal formulation (N2 displayed high percentage of drug release after 24 h (94.91 at (1 : 1 ratio of cholesterol : surfactant. Further selected niosomal formulation was used to formulate topical gel and was characterized with respect to its various parameters such as pH, viscosity, spreadability, ex vivo study, and in vivo potential permeation. Ex vivo study showed that niosomal gel possessed better skin permeation study than the plain topical gel. Further in vivo study revealed good inhibition of inflammation in case of topical niosomal gel than plain gel and niosomal formulation. The present study suggested that topical niosomal gel formulations provide sustained and prolonged delivery of drug.

  13. Case Of Iatrogenic Cushing's Syndrome By Topical Triamcinolone.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zil-E-Ali, Ahsan; Janjua, Omer Hanif; Latif, Aiza; Aadil, Muhammad

    2018-01-01

    Cushing's syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms due to hypercortisolism. Prolong use of topical steroid may cause this syndrome and suppression of hypothalamic and pituitary function, however such events are more common with oral and parenteral route. There are very few cases of Cushing's syndrome with a topical application amongst which triamcinolone is the rarest drug. We report a case of 11-year-old boy is presented who developed Cushing's disease by topical application. The child had body rashes for which the caregiver consulted a local quack, a topical cream of triamcinolone was prescribed. After application for three months, the patient became obese and developed a moon-like face. A thorough biochemical workup and diagnostic test for Cushing's disease was done to confirm. The following case report a dramatic example of development of the syndrome from chronic topical application of the least potent corticosteroid.

  14. Interpretable Topic Features for Post-ICU Mortality Prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luo, Yen-Fu; Rumshisky, Anna

    2016-01-01

    Electronic health records provide valuable resources for understanding the correlation between various diseases and mortality. The analysis of post-discharge mortality is critical for healthcare professionals to follow up potential causes of death after a patient is discharged from the hospital and give prompt treatment. Moreover, it may reduce the cost derived from readmissions and improve the quality of healthcare. Our work focused on post-discharge ICU mortality prediction. In addition to features derived from physiological measurements, we incorporated ICD-9-CM hierarchy into Bayesian topic model learning and extracted topic features from medical notes. We achieved highest AUCs of 0.835 and 0.829 for 30-day and 6-month post-discharge mortality prediction using baseline and topic proportions derived from Labeled-LDA. Moreover, our work emphasized the interpretability of topic features derived from topic model which may facilitates the understanding and investigation of the complexity between mortality and diseases.

  15. Exploring Topic Structure: Coherence, Diversity and Relatedness

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    J. He (Jiyin)

    2011-01-01

    htmlabstractThe use of topical information has long been studied in the context of information retrieval. For example, grouping search results into topical categories enables more effective information presentation to users, while grouping documents in a collection can lead to efficient information

  16. Contact dermatitis as an adverse reaction to some topically used European herbal medicinal products - part 2: Echinacea purpurea-Lavandula angustifolia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gangemi, Sebastiano; Minciullo, Paola L; Miroddi, Marco; Chinou, Ioanna; Calapai, Gioacchino; Schmidt, Richard J

    2015-04-01

    This review focuses on contact dermatitis as an adverse effect of a selection of topically used herbal medicinal products for which the European Medicines Agency has completed an evaluation up to the end of November 2013 and for which a Community herbal monograph has been produced. Part 2: Echinacea purpurea Moench-Lavandula angustifolia Mill. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  17. Shaping children's healthy eating habits with food placements? Food placements of high and low nutritional value in cartoons, Children's BMI, food-related parental mediation strategies, and food choice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naderer, Brigitte; Matthes, Jörg; Binder, Alice; Marquart, Franziska; Mayrhofer, Mira; Obereder, Agnes; Spielvogel, Ines

    2018-01-01

    Research on media induced food choices of children has not sufficiently investigated whether food placements of snacks high in nutritional value can strengthen children's healthy eating behavior. Furthermore, we lack knowledge about the moderating role of children's individual characteristics such as parental food-related mediation or BMI. The current study combines data from an experiment involving children with a survey of their parents. We exposed children to a cartoon either containing no food placements, placements of mandarins (i.e., snack high in nutritional value), or placements of fruit gums (i.e., snack low in nutritional value). Afterwards, food consumption was measured by giving children the option to choose between fruit gums or mandarins. Children in both snack placement conditions showed stronger preference for the snack low in nutritional value (i.e., fruit gum) compared to the control group. Interestingly, neither restrictive nor active food-related mediation prevented the effects of the placements on children's choice of snacks low in nutritional value. Compared to children with a low BMI, children with high BMI levels had a stronger disposition to choose the fruit gums if a snack high in nutritional value (i.e., mandarin) was presented. Thus, making snacks high in nutritional attractive for children through media presentation might need stronger persuasive cues. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Topical Research: Africa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lynn, Karen

    This lesson plan can be used in social studies, language arts, or library research. The instructional objective is for students to select a topic of study relating to Africa, write a thesis statement, collect information from media sources, and develop a conclusion. The teacher may assign the lesson for written or oral evaluation. The teacher…

  19. Comparison of topical tretinoin and betamethasone in oral lichen planus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kar H

    1996-01-01

    Full Text Available Thirty-one patients of oral lichen planus were enrolled in this study and two groups were made. Group 1 consisting of 16 patients who applied topical tretinoin 0.05% and Group 2 comprising of 15 patients who were given topical betamethasone dipropionate 0.05%. The patients applying tretinoin showed statistically significant improvement as compared to patients applying betamethasone.

  20. Topic structure affects semantic integration: evidence from event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Xiaohong; Chen, Xuhai; Chen, Shuang; Xu, Xiaoying; Yang, Yufang

    2013-01-01

    This study investigated whether semantic integration in discourse context could be influenced by topic structure using event-related brain potentials. Participants read discourses in which the last sentence contained a critical word that was either congruent or incongruent with the topic established in the first sentence. The intervening sentences between the first and the last sentence of the discourse either maintained or shifted the original topic. Results showed that incongruent words in topic-maintained discourses elicited an N400 effect that was broadly distributed over the scalp while those in topic-shifted discourses elicited an N400 effect that was lateralized to the right hemisphere and localized over central and posterior areas. Moreover, a late positivity effect was only elicited by incongruent words in topic-shifted discourses, but not in topic-maintained discourses. This suggests an important role for discourse structure in semantic integration, such that compared with topic-maintained discourses, the complexity of discourse structure in topic-shifted condition reduces the initial stage of semantic integration and enhances the later stage in which a mental representation is updated.