Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant. Decreased melatonin excretion has been reported to be associated with several oxidative stress-related diseases. The urinary metabolite of melatonin, 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s), has proved to be a very reliable index of melatonin production. The present study aims to evaluate the level of urinary aMT6s in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and diabetic...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Many cytokines are involved in the pathogenesis of retinal proliferative diseases, but none has been shown to be related to a specific disorder. The aim of this study was to provide a selective marker of diabetes induced proliferative retinopathies. METHODS 10 vitreous samples from 10 subjects affected by quiescent proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), 20 vitreous samples ...

BACKGROUND Pectin is an abundant component in many fruit and vegetable wastes and could therefore be an excellent resource for biorefinery, but is currently underutilized. Fungal pectinases already play a crucial role for industrial purposes, such as for foodstuff processing. However, the regulation of pectinase gene expression is still poorly understood. For an optimal utilization of plant bio...

This paper explores how inertial Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR) location systems can be improved with the use of a light sensor to measure the illumination gradients created when a person walks under ceiling-mounted unmodified indoor lights. The process of updating the inertial PDR estimates with the information provided by light detections is a new concept that we have named Light-matching (L...

AIM To detect and analyze the changes on ocular surface and tear function in type II diabetic patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), an advanced stage of diabetic retinopathy (DR), using conventional ophthalmic tests and the high-resolution laser scanning confocal microscopy. METHODS Fifty-eight patients with type II diabetes were selected. Based on the diagnostic criteria an...

AIM To investigate changes in polyp detection throughout fellowship training, and estimate colonoscopy volume required to achieve the adenoma detection rate (ADRs) and polyp detection rate (PDRs) of attending gastroenterologists. METHODS We reviewed colonoscopies from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2014. Fellows' procedural logs were used to retrieve colonoscopy procedural volumes, and these were t...

PURPOSE To evaluate the relationship between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) in vitreous body and serum in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), and investigate the role of EC-SOD in PDR by evaluating its angiostatic effect, using an in vitro angiogenesis model. To investigate the role of EC-SOD in PDR by evaluating its...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the serum levels of angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1), angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), soluble vascular endothelial tyrosine kinase receptor (Tie-2) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), in the serum of type 2 diabetic patients having non-proliferative (NPDR) or proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). METHODS One hundred patients with type 2 diabetes m...

PURPOSE Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been accepted as an alternative to laparotomy, but there is still controversy regarding the effects of pneumoperitoneum on splanchnic and hepatic perfusion. We assessed the effects of different insufflation pressures on liver functions by using indocyanine green elimination tests (ICG-PDR). METHODS We analyzed 43 patients who were scheduled for laparos...

Neotricula aperta is the only known intermediate host of Schistosoma mekongi which infects humans in Cambodia and the southern tip of Lao PDR. DNA-sequence data (partial rrnL, i.e., mitochondrial 16S large ribosomal-RNA gene) were obtained for 359 N. aperta snails sampled at 31 localities in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Thailand. A nested clade analysis was performed to detect and evaluate any geograp...