BACKGROUND Prednisone plus azathioprine is considered the mainstay of therapy in the current recommendations for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). However, it does not provide good benefits for AIH patients because of its serious side effects. Therefore, more and more AIH patients prefer to seek for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to manage their symptoms and reduce the side effects of steroids in...

• In the real world, we often observe that the underlying distribution of some Gaussian processes tends to become skewed, when some undesirable assignable cause takes place in the process. Such phenomena are common in the field of manufacturing and in chemical industries, among others, where a process deviates from a normal model and becomes a skew-normal. The Azzalini’s skew-normal (hereafter ...

The ocean moderates the Earth's climate due to its vast capacity to store and transport heat; the influence of the large-scale ocean circulation on changes in climate is considered in this chapter. The ocean experiences both buoyancy forcing (through heating/cooling and evaporation/precipitation) and wind forcing. Almost all ocean forcing occurs at the surface, but these changes are communicate...

Davenport and Fisher (1938) and Davenport (1939, 1940) have shown that there is a high concentration of carbonic anhydrase in the parietal cells and a lower concentration in the cells of the surface epithelium of the gastric mucosa of rats, cats and dogs. They expressed the belief that the enzyme is part of the mechanism which secretes hydrochloric acid. Davenport argued that carbon dioxide is ...

BACKGROUND To investigate whether cumulus cell removal after a 3 h co-incubation of gametes can affect the outcomes of in vitro fertilization. METHODS A prospective randomized sibling-oocyte study was performed in which sibling oocytes obtained from each patient were randomly assigned to either a 3 h or 20 h group (cumulus cells removed at 3 h or 20 h after insemination, respectively). Same o...

BACKGROUND Glaucoma is classified as a neurodegenerative disease. However, the biomarkers of neurodegeneration in the aqueous humour of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) eyes have not been quantitatively examined yet. In this study, levels of neurodegeneration-related cytokines in the aqueous humour of POAG eyes were measured and compared with those of non-glaucoma (senile cataract) control ey...

BACKGROUND Neovascular glaucoma is a refractive glaucoma. Recently, anti-VEGF factors have been used alone or in combination for the treatment of neovascular glaucoma. However, the medium- and long-term efficacy of such drugs remains to be evaluated. This study was to determine the efficacy of intravitreal ranibizumab combined with Ahmed glaucoma valve implantation for the treatment of neovascu...

The objective is to develop a model based on risk stratification to predict delirium among adult critically ill patients and whether early intervention could be provided for high-risk patients, which could reduce the incidence of delirium.We designed a prospective, observational, single-center study. We examined 11 factors, including age, APACHE-II score, coma, emergency operation, mechanical v...

Recent technical advances in the isolation of human lymphocytes have made it possible to obtain preparations enriched in Bor T-cells (Wybran, 1973; Pellegrino et al., 1976). This in turn facilitates studies on the comparative enzymology of Band T-lymphocytes, which may be relevant to some leukaemic states. Studies on lysosomal enzymes, including acid phosphatase, /3-glucuronidase (Meusers et al...

BACKGROUND Limb length discrepancy is one of the most common complications after hip arthroplasty. We developed a device - intraoperative limb-length measurement and osteotomy device (ILMOD), and applied it to patients who were treated with hemiarthroplasty for femoral neck fracture to improve limb length discrepancy by providing an accurate osteotomy during hemi-arthroplasty. METHODS Between...