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Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease. The treatment plays an important role in influencing the patients’ quality of life. The basic management consists of appropriate skin cleansing, including bathing and eventually using bathing additives. Recommendations regarding frequency and duration of bathing, water temperature and usefulness of bathing additives are widely different, often leading to confusion among patients. This review aims to give insights into the best bathing practices and the use of bathing additives in atopic dermatitis in children. Several bathing additives, including bleach baths, commercial baby cleansers, bath baby oils and bath salt, appear to be promising adjunctive therapies for atopic dermatitis due to their anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-pruritus and skin barrier repair properties through different mechanisms of action. However, their efficacy and safety are not fully understood in some cases. The usefulness of other bath additives, such as acidic and more natural substances (green tea extracts, pine tar, sodium bicarbonate), is still under investigation. Further studies are needed to determine their optimal use to achieve clinical benefit safely.

The current consensus on the pathophysiology of atopic dermatitis (AD) involves Th2/Th22 inflammation, genetic predisposition such as filaggrin mutations, and skin barrier dysfunction. Meanwhile, AD has been hypothesized to be primarily caused by the defective formation of the commensal microbial community with insufficient skin regeneration as a secondary aggravating factor. AD presents with itchy, red, swollen, and cracked skin. Conventional treatments include emollients, topical corticosteroids, calcineurin inhibitors, and newer biologics. In Japan, moist wound healing techniques that promote autologous tissue regeneration have shown promising results, which have led to the development of novel, surfactant-free moisturizers designed to combat skin dryness. Based on these findings, this perspective proposes a new etiology of AD and considers suitable countermeasures. Recommendations include limiting newborn bathing to three times per week, discontinuing soap and shampoo applications, and using bathing additives containing petroleum jelly to neutralize the residual chlorine in tap water. Cognitive behavioral therapy strategies that substitute scratching with moisturizer application are also recommended. Additional measures, including smoking cessation by both patients and family members, and stress management, may reduce disease severity. This perspective article outlines hypotheses rather than established evidence. Some suggestions (eg, bathing frequency) are based on clinical experience or emerging findings that require further study.

The issue of trapped powder within a part made using powder bed fusion additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the ‘dirty secrets’ of AM, yet it has not received significant attention by the research community. Trapped powders limit the application of AM for complex geometries, including heat exchangers and dies with conformal cooling channels. Being able to detect and remove trapped powder from the build is a necessary step to avoid downstream processing and performance challenges. In this work, ‘powder challenge geometries’ with complex internal features were fabricated via laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) and electron beam selective melting (EBSM) and were used to assess the effectiveness of several powder removal and inspection methods. Hand-held ultrasonic polishing was explored as a powder removal technique and was shown to effectively clear extremely elongated channels that grit-blasting (the current industry standard) cannot clear. X-ray computed tomography (XCT) and weighing were used to inspect and quantitatively assess the effectiveness of powder removal techniques on the challenge geometries. Using the lesser known ‘vacuum boiling’ powder removal process and the more common ultrasonic bathing process, trapped L-PBF powder was easily removed from the deep channels. Conversely, trapped EBSM powder was difficult to remove using ultrasonic polishing as the powder was sintered inside the channels. It was shown that the powder recovered by the ultrasonic polishing process had size distributions, surface chemistry, morphology and porosity similar to the virgin powder. It is suggested, on these bases, that the recovered powder could likely be recycled without detrimental effects on the process operation.

Preventing bites from undetected ticks through bathing practices would benefit public health, but the effects of these practices have been researched minimally. We immersed nymphal and adult hard ticks of species common in the eastern United States in tap water, using temperatures and durations that are realistic for human hot bathing. The effect of (a) different skin-equivalent surfaces (silicone and pig skin), and (b) water temperature was tested on Amblyomma americanum , Dermacentor variabilis and Ixodes scapularis nymphs. Overall, the type of surface had a much larger effect on the nymphs’ tendency to stay in contact with the surface than water temperature did. Most nymphs that separated from the surface did so within the first 10 s of immersion, with the majority losing contact due to the formation of an air bubble between their ventral side and the test surface. In addition, adult Ixodes scapularis were tested for the effect of immersion time, temperature, and soap on tick responsiveness. Some individual adults moved abnormally or stopped moving as a result of longer or hotter immersion, but soap had little effect on responsiveness. Taken together, our results suggest that the surface plays a role in ticks’ tendency to stay in contact; the use of different bath additives warrants further research. While water temperature did not have a significant short-term effect on tick separation, ticks that have not attached by their mouth parts may be rendered unresponsive and eventually lose contact with a person’s skin in a hot bath. It should be noted that our research did not consider potential temperature effects on the pathogens themselves, as previous research suggests that some tickborne pathogens may become less hazardous even if the tick harboring them survives hot-water exposures and later bites the bather after remaining undetected.

This article focuses on the effect of mercapto additives on electroless pure copper thin film deposition. The copper deposits produced by the autocatalytic bath comprising xylitol, glyoxylic acid, and potassium hydroxide as complexing agents, reducing agents, and pH adjusters, respectively, were of superior grade. pH 13.0 ± 0.25 and 45°C were ideal bathing conditions. In order to improve the thermal stability and the good take hold off with copper, a trace quantity of methanesulphonic acid was used. Nitrogen and sulphur containing heterocyclic compounds such as 2-mercaptopyridine and 2-mercaptopyrimidine were used as the bath stabilizers. 1 ppm of the mercapto stabilizers stabilizes the bath conditions and their inhibiting potential was studied. The influence of the fundamental bath parameters on autocatalytic pure copper deposition have been investigated in our study. Physical properties and stability were characterized by the gravimetric method. The diffraction method was used to examine the structural characteristics of the copper deposits.

This study presents a comparative analysis of the synthesis of laundry and bathing soaps from palm-kernel oil (PKO) via the cold process. The primary objectives were to enhance the yield and quality of household soap, determine the percentage yield of the soap products, and ascertain the saponification value of the soaps. Two separate experiments were conducted using similar materials and procedures, with slight variations in additives and colorants. The synthesized laundry soap exhibited a firm, green texture, while the bathing soap was softer and yellow, indicating distinct physical characteristics suitable for their intended uses. The percentage yield was optimized through careful control of reactant quantities and stirring times, demonstrating the effectiveness of the cold process. The saponification values confirmed the successful conversion of fatty acids into soap, with variations reflecting differences in soap formulations. The addition of borax in the bathing soap contributed to improved skin-friendly properties, making it suitable for personal hygiene. This comparative study highlights the potential of PKO as a versatile and sustainable raw material in soap production and provides insights into optimizing cold process for improved soap quality.

To assist in the dissemination of water quality information to lay-people in particular, four suitability-for-use water quality indexes have been developed. The water uses are: General, Bathing, Supply, and Fish Spawning although in the Bathing and Supply Indexes protection of aquatic life is also considered. To ensure that they tell us something useful and do not ‘hide' important information as current indexing systems tend to do, the Minimum Operator has been employed as the sub-index aggregation mechanism. This is a robust, sensible, and flexible method and seems more appropriate for this type of index than the more commonly used techniques (e.g. additive and multiplicative). Index development has been keyed into proposed New Zealand water legislation although this is not a pre-requisite for their use.