PURPOSE To investigate the effect of desiccation on secretion of inflammatory cytokines in corneal epithelial cells and in the rat desiccation model. METHODS A human corneal epithelial cell line (CEPI) was grown in keratinocyte growth medium 2 (KGM2) to approximately 80% confluence. The medium was aspirated and dishes were left for 0 to 30 min with the cover left open to dry the cells (short-...

AIMS Resistin is an adipocyte-derived factor implicated in obesity-associated type 2 diabetes (T2DM). This study examines the association between human serum resistin, T2DM and coronary heart disease. METHODS One hundred and fourteen Saudi Arabian patients (male: female ratio 46:68; age 51.4 (mean +/- SD)11.7 years; median and range: 45.59 (11.7) years and BMI: 27.1 (mean +/- SD) 8.1 Kgm2 med...

Silicon-Dependent Strengthening of Rice Cell Wall Natsumi Kido, Ryusuke Yokoyama, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, Jun Furukawa, Hiroaki Iwai, Shinobu Satoh and Kazuhiko Nishitani* Department of Developmental Biology and Neurosciences, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8578 Japan Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki...

martingale convergence theorem (for square integrable martingales) and the optional stopping theorem are proved here, with many examples. The remaining four chapters are on more general random processes; here we have stationary processes, diffusions, renewal theory and queueing theory. My feeling is that these chapters are less successful than the earlier ones. For one thing, there are already ...

ical—i.e., that a pregnant teenager who is still growing may be competing for nutrients with the fetus, or that pregnancy within two years after menarche increases the risk of preterm delivery.4 Psychological factors may also be involved, since many adolescent pregnancies are unplanned, unwanted or discovered late;5 a pregnant teenager may lack the emotional maturity to take responsibility for ...

BACKGROUND Increased BMI may increase the body's capacity to store potent inhaled anaesthetics, more so with more soluble agents. Accordingly, we asked whether increased BMI and longer anaesthesia prolonged airway reflex recovery. METHODS We measured time from anaesthetic discontinuation until first response to command (T1); from response to command until ability to swallow (T2); and from ana...

OBJECTIVES Obesity and a reduced physical activity are global developments. Physical activity affects the external skeletal robustness which decreased in German children. It was assumed that the negative trend of decreased external skeletal robustness can be found in other countries. Therefore anthropometric data of Russian and German children from the years 2000 and 2010 were compared. METHO...

Abstract Background Biological prostheses are increasingly been used in young patients to avoid anticoagulation. The Edwards Inspiris aortic bioprosthesis is extremely promising this population, since it has shown reduced calcification of the prosthetic leaflets preclinical and early clinical studies. Little data available, however, younger than 65. This study investigates hemodynamic performan...

Neurogenesis is known to take place in the adult brain. This work identifies T lymphocytes and microglia as being important to the maintenance of hippocampal neurogenesis and spatial learning abilities in adulthood. Hippocampal neurogenesis induced by an enriched environment was associated with the recruitment of T cells and the activation of microglia. In immune-deficient mice, hippocampal neu...

Given a polygonal subdivision of the plane and some query point, we would like to know which region (or edge or vertex) contains it. In one dimension, the problem reduces to locating a query point in a subdivision of the line into intervals, and is easily solved by binary search. We will look for a method to extend the idea of binary search into two dimensions. Given a subdivision with m edges,...