Objective. To investigate the biomechanical characteristics of the cornea in patients with mitral valve prolapse (MVP) and the prevalence of keratoconus (KC) in MVP. Materials and Methods. Fifty-two patients with MVP, 39 patients with KC, and 45 control individuals were recruited in this study. All the participants underwent ophthalmologic examination, corneal analysis with the Sirius system (C...

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of the lungs is more sensitive than radiographs for evaluating pulmonary disease, but little has been described about HRCT interpretation during the neonatal period or shortly afterwards. The aim here was to evaluate the reliability of the interpretation of HRCT among very low birth weight premature infants (VLBWPI; < 1500 g). D...

Keratoconus (KC) is a degenerative corneal disorder for which the exact pathogenesis is not yet known. Oxidative stress is reported to be associated with this disease. The stress may damage corneal biomolecules, including DNA, and such damage is primarily removed by base excision repair (BER). Variation in genes encoding BER components may influence the effectiveness of corneal cells to cope wi...

INTRODUCTION The ketogenic diet (KD) is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that alters metabolism by increasing the level of ketone bodies in the blood. KetoCal® (KC) is a nutritionally complete, commercially available 4:1 (fat:carbohydrate+protein) ketogenic formula that is an effective non-pharmacologic treatment for the management of refractory pediatric epilepsy. Diet-induced ketosis causes ...

PURPOSE To test for the potential presence of novel mutations in the zinc finger protein (ZNF469) gene in patients with sporadic keratoconus (KC) from a Han Chinese population. METHODS Fifty-three patients with primary KC, 30 patients with high myopia (HM), and 100 unrelated population-matched healthy controls without any ocular or systemic disorders, all of Han Chinese ethnicity, were recrui...

One prime feature of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is iron accumulation in hepatic macrophages/Kupffer cells (KC) associated with enhanced NF-kappaB activation. Our recent work demonstrates a peroxynitrite-mediated transient rise in intracellular labile iron (ILI) as novel signaling for endotoxin-induced IKK and NF-kappaB activation in rodent KC. The present study investigated the mechanism of ...

Rat CD14 cDNA clones were isolated. The predicted protein sequence exhibits 82, 61.6, and 64% identity with the mouse, rabbit, and human CD14, respectively. The levels of rat CD14 mRNA expression in resident peritoneal macrophages (PM), alveolar macrophages (AM), and peripheral blood monocytes (BM) were constitutively high, whereas that in Kupffer cells (KC) was low. On intravenous injection wi...

Abuse of the hallucinogenic drug ketamine promotes the development of lower urinary tract symptoms that resemble interstitial cystitis. The pathophysiology of ketamine-induced cystitis (KC) is largely unknown and effective therapies are lacking. Here, using a KC rat model, we show the therapeutic effects of human umbilical cord-blood (UCB)-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Daily injection ...

Aeromonas infections are the most common bacterial disease of cultured fish in China. In this study, a gram-negative bacillus was isolated from the liver of diseased koi carp (Cyprinus carpio koi), and named strain KC-2. The results of morphological and biochemical tests, as well as phylogenetic analysis derived from 16S rRNA and gyrB sequences indicated that the isolated strain KC-2 was highly...

Several books and articles give glimpses into the knowledge management (KM) phenomena. However, none have identified the specific types of KM activities that can be contributors to competitiveness. The recently advanced knowledge chain (KC) model took the first steps in trying to do this. The KC model identified nine distinct and generic KM activities. The intent of this research is to further ...