No abstract available.
Meibomian Glands* ; Thermodynamics*

Medicinal nature theory of Chinese medicine is the difficult and hot issue in the basic research of Chinese medicine (CM), but has not yet obtained some important breakthrough until now. The cold and heat syndromes is considered as the capital differentiation of CM in clinic; cold and hot is the primary medicinal nature of CM. Treating the cold with heat, the heat with cold is the main therapeutic principle of CM. But, whether the cold and hot of medicinal nature objectively exists? Whether/how to establish a set of objectives and feasible appraisal methodologies? How to apply the theoratical and research findings of medicinal nature in clinical practice? In recent years, a new road for ourselves to carry out a series of explorations and researches on the cold and hot nature of CM from the thermodynamic view has been opened, and the doctrine of "Thermodynamic outlook of Chinese medicinal nature" has been proposed firstly by our research group. Consequently, we have established the research model, "coming from clinic, verifying in experiment and returning to the clinic", on the medicinal nature of CM, and developed a set of appraisal methodologies of the cold and hot nature of Chinese medicine based on biothermokinetics, such as the cold/hot plate differentiating system, microcalorimetry, evidence-based medical analysis for medicinal nature of CM. Based on these methods, a systematical investigation has been done focusing the energy transfer and thermal change in the metabolism progress of organism and the intervention effects of different Chinese medicines on this progress from the experiment to the clinic, in vitro and in vivo. Our studies have essentially elucidated the objectivity of the differences between the cold and hot nature of Chinese medicine as well as the scientific connotation of "treating the cold with heat, the heat with cold", provided a novel and perspective approach for investigating the medicinal nature theory of Chinese medicine, further supplied some new technological supports for the modernization of CM.
Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; Thermodynamics

The mainly used polymeric material for the denture is PMMA because of its cost and easiness to handle. So it was widely used material among dentists for past decades. But the acrylic-based denture materials have several common weak points such as shrinkage after curing and lack of strength. In order to solve these problems, we adapted one of hybrid system using acrylic polymer and vinyloligosilsesquioxane(POSS). POSS, which is a well known expandable monomer during polymerization process, may eventually suppress volumetric shrinkage. And the hybrid system makes it possible for the polymer to be stable in various severe conditions. Eight different kinds of samples were designed and synthesized. Each samples were characterized with dynamic mechanical analyser(DMA) to confirm their thermodynamic properties, fractured to analyze the cross-sectional morphology of the samples. And elongation, flexural and impact tests were also executed to evaluate the mechanical properties of the samples. From the results, hybrid composites had well defined crosslinked network structure compared to the widely used denture materials, and the mechanical strength improved without changing any surface condition as increment with POSS ratio in hybrid system. Fractured morphology showed homogeneous surfaces in spite of mutli component system, therefore we can conclude that the adoption of the POSS brought the reinforcement of the denture resin.
Dentists ; Dentures* ; Humans ; Polymerization ; Polymers ; Polymethyl Methacrylate ; Thermodynamics

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect and prognostic factors of automated thermodynamic treatment (thermal compression therapy device [KCL 1100®]) for Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD). METHODS: Patients (48 eyes of 24 subjects) with MGD were recruited for a prospective clinical trial. Patients received 15-minute treatments twice a day using the KCL 1100®. Severity of dry eye symptoms were evaluated using the Standard Patient Evaluation for Eye Dryness (SPEED) and Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), and severity of Meibomian gland function was evaluated using the Meibomian gland expressibility (MGE), Meibomian gland secretion (MGS) score and lipid layer thickness measured by LipiView®. To evaluate ocular surface, we measured tear break-up time (BUT) and fluorescein corneal staining score (Oxford scale). Data were presented for baseline and at 2 weeks and 1 month post-treatment. RESULTS: Dry eye symptom (SPEED, OSDI), Meibomian gland function (MGE, MGS), and ocular surface index (BUT, Oxford scale) of patients were significantly improved from baseline to 2 weeks (p < 0.05) and 1 month post-treatment (p < 0.05). In addition, patients with more severe dry eye symptom and Meibomian gland index at baseline examination achieved improvement in mild to moderate MGD (p < 0.05). Improvement of Meibomian gland function (MGE) was associated with improvement of ocular surface index (BUT, Oxford scale) (p < 0.05), but not with improvement of dry eye symptom (SPEED, OSDI) (p > 0.05). There were no significant adverse events during the treatment. CONCLUSIONS: KCL 1100® automated thermodynamic treatment is an effective and safe treatment for MGD. Additionally, KCL 1100® is more effective in patients with moderate dry eye symptom and MGD.
Fluorescein ; Humans ; Meibomian Glands* ; Prospective Studies ; Tears ; Thermodynamics*

Constraint-based genome-scale metabolic network models (genome-scale metabolic models, GEMs) have been widely used to predict metabolic phenotypes. In addition to stoichiometric constraints, other constraints such as enzyme availability and thermodynamic feasibility may also limit the cellular phenotype solution space. Recently, extended GEM models considering either enzymatic or thermodynamic constraints have been developed to improve model prediction accuracy. This review summarizes the recent progresses on metabolic models with multiple constraints (MCGEMs). We presented the construction methods and various applications of MCGEMs including the simulation of gene knockout, prediction of biologically feasible pathways and identification of bottleneck steps. By integrating multiple constraints in a consistent modeling framework, MCGEMs can predict the metabolic bottlenecks and key controlling and modification targets for pathway optimization more precisely, and thus may provide more reliable design results to guide metabolic engineering of industrially important microorganisms.
Genome ; Metabolic Engineering ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics* ; Models, Biological ; Thermodynamics

AIMTo study the thermal stability, decomposition process and kinetics of such purine pharmaceuticals as aciclovir (Acv), penciclovir (Pcv), and their parent substance, guanine.

METHODSUsing infrared technique, accelerating test method and thermogravimetry to investigate the thermal decomposition processes and using Coast-Redfern method, MKN method and Ozawa method to deal with the data to get kinetic functions.

RESULTSThe decomposition process and the formed products were derived, the kinetic model function was suggested by comparison of the kinetic parameters.

CONCLUSIONPcv and Acv's degrading product for the first step is guanine. The sequences of their thermal stabilities is: Pcv > Acv. The two drugs' kinetic equation of thermal decomposition is expressed as: da/dt = Ae-Ea/RT2(1-alpha)3/2.

Acyclovir ; analogs & derivatives ; chemistry ; Drug Stability ; Guanine ; chemistry ; Hot Temperature ; Kinetics ; Thermodynamics ; Thermogravimetry

Beta-Elemene is an antitumor drug which is isolated from the traditional Chinese medicinal herb Curcumae Phaeocaulis Rhizoma, it is the main component of elemene which is extracted from the plant and delivered via blood circulation after intravenous injection. The antitumor effect of beta-elemene in vitro and in vivo was definite, and beta-elemene could improve the patient immunity and no sever side effect, drug resistance or bone marrow suppression were found during the clinical studies. And human serum albumin (HSA) is a primary extracellular protein which has a high concentration distribution in blood plasma and has many characteristic physiological functions. Therefore, the binding of beta-elemene to protein may be very important for absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination. Therefore, the study on the interaction of beta-elemene with drug-carrying protein is very important. In this work, molecular binding of beta-elemene to human serum albumin (HSA) was investigated by using spectrofluorometer. the binding constants suggested that a strong interaction and the formation of a complex between beta-elemene and HSA. This clearly implies that beta-elemene can be stored and removed by the proteins in the body. Furthermore, the fluorescence quenching results showed that the HSA fluorescence was quenched by beta-elemene through static quenching mechanism. Thermodynamic parameters showed that hydrophobic interactions play a role in the binding of beta-elemene to HSA. The negative deltaH(0) and positive deltaS(0) in case of beta-elemene therefore showed that electrostatic attraction play a role in the binding of beta-elemene to HSA.
Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Humans ; Kinetics ; Protein Binding ; Serum Albumin ; chemistry ; Sesquiterpenes ; chemistry ; Spectrometry, Fluorescence ; Thermodynamics

BACKGROUND: Inter-observer and intra-observer variation in histologic tumor grading are well documented. To determine whether histologic disorderliness in the arrangement of tumor cells may serve as an objective criterion for grading, we tested the hypothesis the degree of disorderliness is related to the degree of tumor differentiation on which tumor grading is primarily based. METHODS: Borrowing from the statistical thermodynamic definition of entropy, we defined a novel mathematical formula to compute the relative degree of histologic disorderliness of tumor cells. We then analyzed a total of 51 photomicrographs of normal colorectal mucosa and colorectal adenocarcinoma with varying degrees of differentiation using our formula. RESULTS: A one-way analysis of variance followed by post hoc pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni correction indicated that the mean disorderliness score was the lowest for the normal colorectal mucosa and increased with decreasing tumor differentiation. CONCLUSIONS: Disorderliness, a pathologic feature of malignant tumors that originate from highly organized structures is useful as an objective tumor grading proxy in the field of digital pathology.
Adenocarcinoma ; Colonic Neoplasms ; Entropy ; Humans ; Mucous Membrane ; Neoplasm Grading ; Observer Variation ; Pathology ; Proxy ; Thermodynamics

Titanium plates are becoming widely used as a craniomaxillofacial plating system since they provide rigid fixation. Fairly extensive publications have been reported about the techniques of internal fixation, the evolution of the principles, and facial fracture biomechanics. However, the influence of coating process on bone healing has not been determined yet. The coating process consists of several stages-cleansing, preparation to remove oxidative membrane, coating process by an electric arc and thermodynamic stabilization. Among these, coating process influences chemical property of titanium implants. This study was designed to compare the effect of coating process of titanium plates on the bone healing in vitro using four internationally available titanium plates. Human fetal osteoblast cell line was cultivated. Five thousand osteoblasts per well were incubated in a 96-well culture plate with either one of four titanium plates(Osteomed silver plate(r), Osteomed gold plate(r), Jeil silver plate(r), Jeil gold plate(r)) on top. The medium used in this study was Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium including 5% fetal bovine serum and the titanium plates were cut into squares with 4mm in length. On the 4th day of plating, osteoblast proliferation was determined by MTT method. To measure the production of collagen, the collagen type I carboxy-terminal propeptide enzyme immunoassay was used. Each titanium plate was tested 16 times. There were few differences among control and gold plate groups in osteoblast proliferation and collagen synthesis. However, the silver titanium groups showed less osteoblast survival and collagen synthesis than control and gold titanium groups. Between Osteomed (Addison, TX, U.S.A.) and Jeil Medical(Seoul, Korea) plates, no significant difference was seen in both silver and gold plate groups. These results demonstrated that the coating process of titanium plates could influence the bone healing, and the gold plates were superior to the silver plates on alone culture model.
Cell Line ; Collagen Type I ; Collagen* ; Humans ; Immunoenzyme Techniques ; Membranes ; Osteoblasts* ; Silver ; Thermodynamics ; Titanium*

Formaldehyde is a compound which is believed to have had a role in evolutionary processes. On the other hand, the (methyl)glyoxalase pathway is a route being present in all biological organisms whereas its function has not yet been recognized in the biochemical machinery. In this article it is raised that (methyl)glyoxalase path might have functioned as a bridge between formose and archaic reductive citric acid cycles in surface metabolists at the early stage of evolution. According to the theory, formaldehyde was essential for the mentioned system as a raw molecule. Based on thermodynamic calculations a simple way of regulation is also shown. The simplicity of the theory may be in a good agreement with and an explanation of why the (methyl)glyoxalase system is of ubiquitous nature.
Citric Acid Cycle ; Evolution, Chemical* ; Formaldehyde/metabolism* ; Lactoylglutathione Lyase/metabolism* ; Thermodynamics