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Purpose: To investigate the effect of anti-inflammatory therapy on selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) outcomes., Design: Randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial., Participants: Patients with primary open-angle or pseudo-exfoliation glaucoma., Methods: Patients undergoing SLT were randomized to receive placebo (artificial tears), prednisolone acetate 1%, or ketorolac tromethamine 0.5% eye drops 4 times per day for 5 days commencing immediately after SLT., Main Outcome Measures: Change in intraocular pressure (IOP) from baseline to the 1-month post-SLT visit., Results: Mean change in IOP at the 1-month primary outcome time point, as well as all other time points, was not significantly different among groups (P = 0.99). Likewise, a repeated-measures, mixed-effects model did not find significant differences in IOP outcome at the 1-month time point (P = 0.95). The IOP was reduced in all groups at the 1-month post-SLT time point and all other time points, and no significant differences were found between groups using separate unadjusted cross-sectional analyses of variance (P > 0.15 for analyses at all time points). Treatment failure rates were not different among groups (P = 0.75), and at 1 year after SLT, the percentage of patients maintaining a 20% IOP reduction ranged from 18% to 22% in the 3 study groups., Conclusions: Anti-inflammatory therapy after SLT does not seem to substantially influence the IOP-lowering effect of SLT. In this study of patients with low baseline IOP, SLT showed limited efficacy in achieving a sustained reduction in IOP., (Copyright © 2014 American Academy of Ophthalmology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The ingress of particulate material into freshwater spawning substrates is thought to be contributing to the declining success of salmonids reported over recent years for many rivers. Accordingly, the need for reliable information on the key sources of the sediment problem has progressed up the management agenda. Whilst previous work has focussed on apportioning the sources of minerogenic fine sediment degrading spawning habitats, there remains a need to develop procedures for generating corresponding information for the potentially harmful sediment-bound organic matter that represents an overlooked component of interstitial sediment. A source tracing procedure based on composite signatures combining bulk stable (13)C and (15)N isotope values with organic molecular structures detected using near infrared (NIR) reflectance spectroscopy was therefore used to assess the primary sources of sediment-bound organic matter sampled from artificial spawning redds. Composite signatures were selected using a combination of the Kruskal-Wallis H-test, principal component analysis and GA-driven discriminant function analysis. Interstitial sediment samples were collected using time-integrating basket traps which were inserted at the start of the salmonid spawning season and extracted in conjunction with critical phases of fish development (eyeing, hatch, emergence, late spawning). Over the duration of these four basket extractions, the overall relative frequency-weighted average median (±95% confidence limits) source contributions to the interstitial sediment-bound organic matter were estimated to be in the order: instream decaying vegetation (39±<1%; full range 0-77%); damaged road verges (28±<1%; full range 0-77%); septic tanks (22±<1%; full range 0-50%), and; farm yard manures/slurries (11±<1%; full range 0-61%). The reported procedure provides a promising basis for understanding the key sources of interstitial sediment-bound organic matter and can be applied alongside apportionment for the minerogenic component of fine-grained sediment ingressing the benthos. The findings suggest that human septic waste contributes to the interstitial fines ingressing salmonid spawning habitat in the study area., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of prophylactic administration of the topical nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID) ketorolac tromethamine 0.5% on acute (within 4 weeks of surgery) cystoid macular edema (CME) and total macular volume (TMV) in patients having phacoemulsification cataract surgery., Setting: Department of Ophthalmology, Queen's University, Hotel Dieu Hospital, Kingston, Ontario, Canada., Methods: This open-label nonmasked randomized (random number assignment) study comprised 106 eyes of 98 patients. Exclusion criteria included hypersensitivity to the NSAID drug class, aspirin/NSAID-induced asthma, and pregnancy in the third trimester. Ketorolac tromethamine 0.5% was administered starting 2 days before surgery and for 29 days after surgery for a total of 31 days. The outcome measure was macular swelling, which was quantified by the optical coherence tomography., Results: At 1 month, there was a statistically significant difference in TMV between the control group (0.4420 mm3) and the ketorolac group (0.2392 mm3), with the ketorolac group having 45.8% less macular swelling (P = .009). Multiple linear regression with backward selection indicated a 44.3% (P = .013) and 46.1% (P = .030) reduction in macular swelling in the ketorolac group at 1 week and 1 month, respectively., Conclusion: Used prophylactically after cataract surgery, ketorolac 0.5% was efficacious in decreasing postoperative macular edema.

The somatosensory (SI) cortex of mice displays a patterned, nonuniform distribution of neurons in layer IV called the 'barrelfield' (ref. 1). Thalamocortical afferents (TCAs) that terminate in layer IV are segregated such that each barrel, a readily visible cylindrical array of neurons surrounding a cell-sparse center, represents a distinct receptive field. TCA arbors are confined to the barrel hollow and synapse on barrel-wall neurons whose dendrites are oriented toward the center of the barrel. Mice homozygous for the barrelless (brl) mutation, which occurred spontaneously in ICR stock at Université de Lausanne (Switzerland), fail to develop this patterned distribution of neurons, but still display normal topological organization of the SI cortex. Despite the absence of barrels and the overlapping zones of TCA arborization, the size of individual whisker representations, as judged by 2-deoxyglucose uptake, is similar to that of wild-type mice. We identified adenylyl cyclase type I (Adcy1) as the gene disrupted in brl mutant mice by fine mapping of proximal chromosome 11, enzyme assay, mutation analysis and examination of mice homozygous for a targeted disruption of Adcy1. These results provide the first evidence for involvement of cAMP signalling pathways in pattern formation of the brain.

In Euglena gracilis, the cytoplasmic large subunit (LSU) rRNA is composed of 14 discrete small RNA species that must somehow interact in the functional ribosome. We have isolated native complexes of Euglena rRNA and show here that the largest of these complexes contains eight of the 14 LSU rRNA species. Several of these small rRNA species are able to associate in vitro to reform an isolated domain of LSU rRNA structure.