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

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*

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

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

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

PCR is a rapid and sensitive method for detection of viruses from clinical samples and good primers are essential for successful PCR. However, high mutation rate of viral genomes often results in failure in detecting viruses, and there have been attempts to develop primers from multiple viral sequences. Thus, we developed a program called Universal Primers Score Ranking (UPSR) which generates primers from multiple sequences and ranks the quality of primers automatically. The feasibility of the UPSR program was tested using hepatitis B viruses (HBV) isolated from Korean patients. UPSR generated primer candidates with quality score ranks according to two T(m) values. We found that T(m2) values calculated based on the thermodynamics of nearest neighboring bases were better correlated with actual detection rate of HBV from patients' sera. The primer with number 1 rank by T(m2) values detected more samples than any other primers designed by UPSR, commercial primer, or other reference primers suggested by previous literatures. Thus, UPSR proved to be easy and useful to design primers from multiples sequences in detecting viruses.
Collodion ; Genome, Viral ; Hepatitis B virus ; Humans ; Mutation Rate ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; 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*

The inclusion compound of amylose and salicylic acid (SA) was prepared by a sealed temperature control method, and the formation of the inclusion compound was confirmed by IR spectrum and powder X-ray diffraction. The kinetic parameters of dissociation of amylose/SA compound were studied by the nonisothermal method which was defined as a relationship between the dissociation ratio and time. The values of activation energy (Ea) and frequency factors (InA) were calculated by a nonlinear least-square method. In this study, the formation of the inclusion compound of amylose/SA was confirmed by IR spectrum powder X-ray diffraction. SA existed in a molecule form in the spiral stouction of amylose. The dissociation of amylose/SA compound was attributed to first order reaction. The values of Ea calculated by the nor-isothermal method were 21.71 and 22.41 kJ x mol(-1) at heating rate 5 and 10 degrees C x h(-1), respectively. The corresponding isothermal method value of Ea was 22.17 kJ x mol(-1); the calculated InA values were 9.32 and 10.08 at heating rate 5 and 10 degrees C x h(-1), respectively. The corresponding isothermal method lnA value was 9.26. The results were in good agreement with Ea values and lnA values by isothermal method. These results indicated that the non-isothermal method described in this study could be adequately used for the stability study of inclusion compound and was a rapid and accurate method for the determination of kinetic parameters.
Amylose ; chemistry ; Drug Stability ; Hot Temperature ; Kinetics ; Powder Diffraction ; Salicylic Acid ; chemistry ; Spectrophotometry, Infrared ; Thermodynamics

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to evaluate the mechanical properties (MP) and degree of the phase transformation (PT) of martensitic (M-NiTi), austenitic (A-NiTi) and thermodynamic nickel-titanium wire (T-NiTi). METHODS: The samples consisted of 0.016 x 0.022 inch M-NiTi (Nitinol Classic, NC), A-NiTi (Optimalloy, OPTI) and T-NiTi (Neo-Sentalloy, NEO). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), three-point bending test, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and microstructure examination were used. Statistical evaluation was undertaken using ANOVA test. RESULTS: In DSC analysis, OPTI and NEO showed two peaks in the heating curves and one peak in the cooling curves. However, NC revealed one single broad and weak peak in the heating and cooling curves. Austenite finishing (Af) temperatures were 19.7degrees C for OPTI, 24.6degrees C for NEO and 52.4degrees C for NC. In the three-point bending test, residual deflection was observed for NC, OPTI and NEO. The load ranges of NC and OPTI were broader and higher than NEO. XRD and microstructure analyses showed that OPTI and NEO had a mixture of martensite and austenite at temperatures below Martensite finishing (Mf). NEO and OPTI showed improved MP and PT behavior than NC. CONCLUSIONS: The mechanical and thermal behaviors of NiTi wire cannot be completely explained by the expected degree of PT because of complicated martensite variants and independent PT induced by heat and stress.
Calorimetry, Differential Scanning ; Dental Alloys ; Heating ; Hot Temperature ; Thermodynamics ; Transition Temperature ; X-Ray Diffraction