Purpose The purpose of this study was to characterize the relation between corneal hydration and stiffening effects of the UVA/riboflavin collagen crosslinking treatment and to investigate how artificially swelling the cornea prior to this treatment procedure affects tensile property improvement. Methods Porcine corneas were collagen crosslinked in vitro at different hydration levels using a ...

Epidermal nevi are cutaneous hamartomas developing from ectoderm and one of their types is verrucous epidermal nevus. During the neonatal period, they are pink or slightly pigmented and velvety. Later, they darken and the surface become more warty. When lesions are distributed on one side of body, it is termed nevus unis lateralis. Lymphangioma is a lymphatic malformation which manifests with f...

To evaluate the influence of the skin aging critical level on the adult skin epidermal functional state, an improved analytical method based on the skin surface energetic measurement (TVS modeling) was developed. Tenskinmetric measurements were carried out non-invasively in controlled conditions by contact angle method using only a water-drop as reference standard liquid. Adult skin was monitor...

The physiological skin surface pH is just below 5. With age the skin surface pH increases up to 6. An increased pH correlates with reduced barrier integrity/cohesion. The present pilot study assesses possible normalization of an increased skin surface pH of the elderly and improvement of barrier function via application of ≈pH 4.0 skin care products. Baseline skin surface pH was determined in e...

Epidermal conductance (gmin) is water lost through the cuticle and stomata of plants when stomatal conductance is minimal. Low gmin may affect survival of perennial grasses by maintaining tissue hydration during drought. If true, populations from environments where drought is severe may exhibit reduced gmin compared to those from less arid environments. Success of invasive grasses may also be a...

The Arabidopsis thaliana accession Shahdara was identified as a rare naturally occurring mutant that does not liberate seed mucilage on imbibition. The defective locus was found to be allelic to the mum2-1 and mum2-2 mutants. Map-based cloning showed that MUCILAGE-MODIFIED2 (MUM2) encodes the putative beta-D-galactosidase BGAL6. Activity assays demonstrated that one of four major beta-D-galacto...

Linear epidermal nevi frequently follow the lines of Blaschko and may be confused with the verrucous stage of incontinentia pigmenti. Inflammatory epidermal nevus appears as a line array of pink to red papules usually on the lower limb (Buttock and hip) clinically resembling psoriasis or eczematous dermatitis. But inflammatory epidermal nevus has distinct histopathologic features. We report a c...

We have investigated Ca(2+)-involving cell signaling, plasma membrane potentials and conductances and callose formation during early stages of pollination of papillae of Brassica napus. Using fluorescence imaging of calcium green-1, we found that application of a range of pollen types and controls all rapidly produced small localized peaks in papillar cytoplasmic [Ca2+]. This response was more ...

calcium aluminates (ca) are the most important hydraulically setting cements used for preparing refractory castables, because they develop high strength at very early ages after placements.  the anhydrous phases of this kind of cements are ca, ca2 and traces of c12a7 and alpha-alumina. the major hydraulic phase in all of the ca cements including ciment fondue is ca. once hydrated, it starts to ...