OBJECTIVETo study on visible display of Meridian on the dummy human body.

METHODSTube model-building method and computer technique were used, and data came from Voxel-Man dummy human body development platform.

RESULTSThe visual effect of re-building Meridian is very good and it can display the different layers of anatomic structures on the Meridian lines.

CONCLUSIONThe visible display of Meridian on the dummy human body is preliminary realized, which provides data carriers for establishing the platform of Meridian study.

Human Body ; Humans

PURPOSE: A parallel imaging method provides us to improve temporal resolution to obtain three-dimensional (3D) MR images. The objective of this study was to optimize three 3D MRI techniques by adjusting 2D SESNE factors of the parallel imaging method in phantom and human brain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: With a 3 Tesla MRI system and an 8-channel phase-array sensitivity-encoding (SENSE) coil, three 3D MRI techniques of 3D T1-weighted imaging (3D T1WI), 3D T2-weighted imaging (3D T2WI) and 3D fluid attenuated inversion recovery (3D FLAIR) imaging were optimized with adjusting SESNE factors in a water phantom and three human brains. The 2D SENSE factor was applied on the phase-encoding and the slice-encoding directions. Signal-to-noise ratio(SNR), percent signal reduction rate(%R), and contrast-to-noise ratio(CNR) were calculated by using signal intensities obtained in specific regions-of-interest (ROI). RESULTS: In the phantom study, SENSE factor=3 was provided in 0.2% reduction of signals against without using SENSE with imaging within 5 minutes for 3D T1WI. SENSE factor=2 was provided in 0.98% signal reduction against without using SENSE with imaging within 5 minutes for 3D T2WI. SENSE factor=4 was provided in 0.2% signal reduction against without using SENSE with imaging around 6 minutes for 3D FLAIR. In the human brain study, SNR and CNR were higher with SENSE factors=3 than 4 for all three imaging techniques. CONCLUSION: This study was performed to optimize 2D SENSE factors in the three 3D MRI techniques that can be scanned in clinical time limitations with minimizing SNR reductions. Without compromising SNR and CNR, the optimum 2D SENSE factors were 3 and 4, yielding the scan time of about 5 to 6 minutes. Further studies are necessary to optimize 3D MRI techniques in other areas in human body.
Brain ; Human Body ; Humans ; Water

It is reported that amniotic membrane easily obtained from human body was effective to treat ocular surface disease. Authors treated pterygium, which is known to high recurrect rate, with amniotic membrane transplantation, and evaluated its effect. From June 1997 to March 1998, 28eyes(18 eyes of primary pterygium, 10 eyes of recurrent pterygium)were treated with amniotic membrane transplantation. As the results shows higher recurrent rate(4 eyes of 18 eyes(22%) in primary pteygium, 3 eyes of 10 eyes(30%)in recurrent pterygium), so amniotic membrane transplantation was less effective method to treat primary and recurrent pterygium than other method like conjunctival autograft.
Amnion* ; Autografts ; Human Body ; Pterygium*

No abstract available.
Adult* ; Human Body* ; Humans* ; Male*

A stem cell interacts with the neighboring cells in its environment. To maintain a living organism's metabolism, either cell-cell or cell-environment interactions may be significant. Usually, these cells communicate with each other through biological signaling by interactive behaviors of primary proteins or complementary chemicals. The signaling intermediates offer the stem cell's functionality on its metabolism. With the rapid advent of omics technologies, various specific markers by which stem cells cooperate with their surroundings have been discovered and established. In this article, we review several stem cell markers used to communicate with either cancer or immune cells in the human body.
Human Body ; Metabolism ; Stem Cells*

BACKGROUND: Clomiphene citrate is used as the first line drug for anovulatory infertility treatment. When a woman fails to ovulate using clomiphene at maximum dose, letrozole is used as a second line drug.

OBJECTIVE: To determine association between a patient's age and body mass index (BMI) and their response to clomiphene citrate or letrozole in the treatment of anovulation-related infertility.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The authors reviewed 147 patient records from January 2011 to August 2016 and investigated the age, BMI and response of patients when given clomiphene or letrozole for ovulation induction.

RESULTS: Ninety-nine (99) patients received clomiphene citrate while the other 118 patients received letrozole. Those who responded positively to clomiphene were at least 35 years old (72.2%) or had above normal BMI (61.5%). Patients who responded positively to letrozole were at least 35 years old (95%) and were categorized with above normal BMI (82.9%). The authors found that patients who are older than 35 years of age are more likely to respond to letrozole compared to younger patients.

CONCLUSION: This study found no significant association between BMI and response to either Letrozole or Clomiphene. Patients who are more than 35 years old are more likely to respond to letrozole, compared to younger patients. 

Forensic Medicine ; Human Body ; Humans

Vibrio vulnificus, a gram-negative halophilic marine bacterium and opportunistic human pathogen, must withstand various environmental changes, especially simultaneous changes in temperature and salinity, from 25degrees C/2.5% to 37degrees C/0.9% (SCTS) upon entering the human body. In our previous study, SCTS stimulated vvpE expression even in the background of a mutation in luxS encoding LuxS enzyme for the biosynthesis of quorum-sensing (QS) signal molecule autoinducer-2 (AI-2), suggesting that the A1-2-mediated QS system is partially involved in the SCTS-mediated change of vvpE expression. In this study, we examined the effects of the QS master regulator SmcR on SCTS-mediated changes in vvpE expression and extracellular VvpE production. SCTS stimulated V. vulnificus growth, but with no increase in maximal growth levels. The SCTS-mediated prolongation of the stationary growth phase resulted in a significant increase in growth phase-dependent smcR and vvpE expressions. A mutation in smcR seriously repressed vvpE expression, but had no significant effect on V. vulnificus growth. However, the smcR mutation only partially attenuates SCTS-mediated changes in vvpE expression. These results indicate that SCTS stimulates the expressions of smcR and vvpE by stimulating V. vulnificus growth, and that SmcR is only partially involved in SCTS-mediated changes in vvpE expression.
Human Body ; Humans ; Salinity ; Vibrio ; Vibrio vulnificus

Recently, medical image processing systems which take advantages of computer information technology have been used usefully in the hospitals. In particular, the 3D volume rendering technique with a sets of 2D medical images can visualize the organs of human body into 3D image virtually and such systems have started to be used widely to find diseases and to build up the plan of treatment. In this paper, we introduce a medical image processing system which uses a public graphic library VTK so that the system can be developed in the low price with the same power compared to other commercial systems. The system supports 2D and 3D image processing such as image editing, filtering, 3D image reconstruction and etc. by accepting multiple 2D original medical images.
Human Body ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted