PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to characterize the morphology of the mucinous layer on rabbit, bovine, owl, and human corneal endothelial cells. METHODS: Corneoscleral buttons were fixed using cetylpyridinium chloride to stabilize "mucus" and the tissue was prepared for transmission electron microscopy. Photomicrographs were measured to determine the thickness of the endothelial and epithelial mucinous layer in the central cornea. RESULTS: The endothelial mucinous layer was seen as a nearly uniform electrodense region on the apical aspect of the endothelium. It was found to be 0.9 microm, 0.9 microm, 0.9 microm, and 0.5 microm thick in rabbit, bovine, owl, and human, respectively. The owl endothelium had an additional less electrodense layer with a granular appearance and a thickness of about 200 microm. The mucinous layer on the epithelium was similar in appearance to that on the endothelium and across species. CONCLUSIONS: The morphologic similarity of the endothelial and epithelial mucinous layers is a serendipitous finding that should prove valuable in experimental design. Ultimately, it is hoped that studies of the posterior corneal surface will deepen our knowledge of endothelial protection.
Adult ; Animal ; Cytokines/pharmacology ; Endothelium, Corneal/ultrastructure ; Endothelium, Corneal/metabolism* ; Endothelium, Corneal/cytology ; Human ; Microscopy, Electron ; Mucins/ultrastructure ; Mucins/metabolism* ; Owls ; Rabbits ; Staining and Labeling

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop the web-interface creator, which automatically changes the Case Report Form(CRF) web page when the protocol developer in any clinical study revises the ontology of CRF. METHODS: This study established the conceptual model of CRF on oriental and western medicine, and developed ontologies. A program was developed to produce online-based a input form through the parser that generates automatically HTML script from OWL. RESULTS: The CRF applied in this study is a draft through consensus of experts for stroke research at the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine. The ontology of CRF consisted of Label, ControlType and Value classes and hasControl, hasValue and hasSymptoms properties. The Label is the class of question items groups, so it could have CRF questionnaire instances. The ControlType is the class that expresses controls such as checkbox, text, etc in the HTML script. The Value class represents selections for each items. Finally, the HTML script was created by XSL transformation from the OWL script. CONCLUSION: Online-based automatic interface creation, which enables immediate coping with the continuous change in the medical knowledge system, assures reduced time requirement.
Consensus ; Korea ; Medicine, East Asian Traditional* ; Strigiformes ; Stroke

OBJECTIVE: This paper proposes an ontology plan for oriental-medical service in ubiquitous computing environment. With popularization of ubiquitous computing technology, recently oriental medicine field becomes interested in oriental medicine knowledge management system and needs more systematic-scientific knowledge management and information communication. But oriental medical scientists have various standards which classify a pulse, so the information about pulse is massive. METHOD: In this paper, for more systematic-scientific knowledge management and information communication, we designed and implemented ontology using the pulse which is used as diagnosis basis in oriental medicine. by using the pulse which is classified into twenty eight division we implemented ontology based on characteristic of each pulse. We represented the pulse with OWL language and used Racer as inference engine to check errors of implemented ontology. RESULT / CONCLUSION: Given the information of the pulse-diagnosis ontology, systematic-scientific knowledge management and information communication become possible so that oriental doctors are able to provide faster and effective medical service. Furthermore, self-diagnosis and medical service will be possible at anytime and anywhere regardless of time and place. In the future research, we will implement an integrated ontology with the whole of diagnosis basis in oriental medicine based on pulse ontology implemented in this paper.
Hypogonadism ; Knowledge Management ; Medicine, East Asian Traditional ; Mitochondrial Diseases ; Ophthalmoplegia ; Strigiformes

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) rarely manifests as cutaneous lesions in immunocompromised patients. Only 25 cases have been reported since 1991. It causes latent infection among exposed individuals but reactivation may occur in immunocompromised patients causing encephalitis, pneumonitis, colitis, retinitis and congenital fetal infection. Cutaneous manifestations of CMV infection usually present with various skin lesions such as ulcers, erosions, erythematous morbilliform rash, vesicles and bullae. We report a case of cutaneous CMV infection in an HIV-AIDS patient presenting as a persistent ulcerated plaque on the nose. The lesion slowly evolved into a plaque which partially destroyed the right alar rim. Skin punch biopsy showed perivascular giant cells with large eosinophilic inclusions resembling an owl's eye consistent with CMV infection. He was subsequently diagnosed with CMV retinitis because of blurring of vision and findings of retinal necrosis on fundoscopy. Oral valganciclovir 1800mg/day was given for 21 days. Significant thinning and drying of the plaque with no further progression of ulceration of the alar rim were noted.

Human ; Male ; Adult ; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ; Blister ; Colitis ; Cytomegalovirus ; Cytomegalovirus Retinitis ; Encephalitis ; Exanthema ; Ganciclovir ; Immunocompromised Host ; Pneumonia ; Strigiformes ; Succinates ; Ulcer

People called night owls habitually have late bedtimes and late times of arising, sometimes suffering a heritable circadian disturbance called delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS). Those with DSPS, those with more severe progressively-late non-24-hour sleep-wake cycles, and those with bipolar disorder may share genetic tendencies for slowed or delayed circadian cycles. We searched for polymorphisms associated with DSPS in a case-control study of DSPS research participants and a separate study of Sleep Center patients undergoing polysomnography. In 45 participants, we resequenced portions of 15 circadian genes to identify unknown polymorphisms that might be associated with DSPS, non-24-hour rhythms, or bipolar comorbidities. We then genotyped single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in both larger samples, using Illumina Golden Gate assays. Associations of SNPs with the DSPS phenotype and with the morningness-eveningness parametric phenotype were computed for both samples, then combined for meta-analyses. Delayed sleep and "eveningness" were inversely associated with loci in circadian genes NFIL3 (rs2482705) and RORC (rs3828057). A group of haplotypes overlapping BHLHE40 was associated with non-24-hour sleep-wake cycles, and less robustly, with delayed sleep and bipolar disorder (e.g., rs34883305, rs34870629, rs74439275, and rs3750275 were associated with n=37, p=4.58E-09, Bonferroni p=2.95E-06). Bright light and melatonin can palliate circadian disorders, and genetics may clarify the underlying circadian photoperiodic mechanisms. After further replication and identification of the causal polymorphisms, these findings may point to future treatments for DSPS, non-24-hour rhythms, and possibly bipolar disorder or depression.
Bipolar Disorder ; Case-Control Studies ; Comorbidity ; Depression ; Genetics ; Haplotypes ; Humans ; Melatonin ; Phenotype ; Photoperiod ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Polysomnography ; Sleep Wake Disorders, Circadian Rhythm ; Strigiformes*

The barn owl (BO) and the collared scops owl (CSO) are common nocturnal raptors throughout Thailand. Blood samples from 23 adult BOs and 14 CSOs were collected and processed for complete blood cell counts and parasite morphological examinations. Two Haemoproteus-positive samples were processed for ultrastructural observation. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis for a partial cytochrome b gene (cytb) from Haemoproteus was performed in all samples. Haemoproteus presence detected by light microscopy was lower than that detected by PCR (30.4% and 34.8%, respectively, in BO; and 50.0% and 78.6%, respectively, in CSO). Comparative hematology revealed that Haemoproteus-positive BOs had higher mean cell hemoglobin concentration, total leukocyte, absolute heterophil, basophil, and monocyte counts than Haemoproteus-negative BOs, but no significant differences between Haemoproteus-negative and
Adult ; Animals ; Basophils ; Blood Cell Count ; Cytochromes b ; Erythrocyte Indices ; Hematology ; Humans ; Leukocytes ; Malaria, Avian ; Microscopy ; Monocytes ; Parasites ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Raptors ; Strigiformes ; Thailand