Alternative Medicine for Hair Loss

In recent years, people have begun to give further emphasis to the external beauty, especially for their hair. Except drugs with proven effectiveness, complementary and alternative treatment options that have not yet been clarified of their effectiveness and side effect profiles have been used for centuries. Many plants or their extracts are widely used to prevent hair loss and treat alopecia (e.g., androgenetic alopecia, alopecia areata, or traction alopecia) worldwide, especially in Far Eastern countries. The mechanisms of action of these plants are still unknown. Although there are little randomized-controlled studies investigating the effectiveness in the treatment of hair loss, reported results have demonstrated that complementary and alternative medicine will become much more popular in the near future

Structural alignment using network properties

Understanding the structural means of protein function via structural comparisons have wide range of applications such as protein fold classification, protein structure modelling and design. In this thesis, a novel structural alignment algorithm based on a amino acid network model is presented. The method we present models proteins as an amino acid network, derived from contact map representation of proteins. By using this model, we obtain fast tertiary structure comparisons, and combine them with primary and secondary structure comparisons to develop an overall similarity function. The similarity function drives a dynamic programming based alignment algorithm to obtain fast and accurate structural alignments. The structural alignments obtained are used to discover functional structural subunits called domains and to discover overall structural similarity of two proteins. We compared our domain prediction results with existing domain recognition methods and saw that our method correlates well with existing methods. Our global structural alignment results are compared with CE alignments

Measuring the reproducibility and quality of Hi-C data

BACKGROUND: Hi-C is currently the most widely used assay to investigate the 3D organization of the genome and to study its role in gene regulation, DNA replication, and disease. However, Hi-C experiments are costly to perform and involve multiple complex experimental steps; thus, accurate methods for measuring the quality and reproducibility of Hi-C data are essential to determine whether the output should be used further in a study. RESULTS: Using real and simulated data, we profile the performance of several recently proposed methods for assessing reproducibility of population Hi-C data, including HiCRep, GenomeDISCO, HiC-Spector, and QuASAR-Rep. By explicitly controlling noise and sparsity through simulations, we demonstrate the deficiencies of performing simple correlation analysis on pairs of matrices, and we show that methods developed specifically for Hi-C data produce better measures of reproducibility. We also show how to use established measures, such as the ratio of intra- to interchromosomal interactions, and novel ones, such as QuASAR-QC, to identify low-quality experiments. CONCLUSIONS: In this work, we assess reproducibility and quality measures by varying sequencing depth, resolution and noise levels in Hi-C data from 13 cell lines, with two biological replicates each, as well as 176 simulated matrices. Through this extensive validation and benchmarking of Hi-C data, we describe best practices for reproducibility and quality assessment of Hi-C experiments. We make all software publicly available at http://github.com/kundajelab/3DChromatin_ReplicateQC to facilitate adoption in the community

A dystrophic calcinosis cutis case treated with CO2 laser

Calcinosis cutis is the deposition of insoluble calcium salts within cutaneous tissue. It may be divided into four major subtypes: dystrophic, metastatic, idiopathic, and iatrogenic. The most common subtype is dystrophic calcinosis cutis. It can occur as a result of local tissue injury. We herein present a child with dystrophic calcinosis cutis developed following trauma and successfully treated with CO2 laser

Comparison of Effectiveness of Electrocautery and Cryotherapy in Partial Matrixectomy After Partial Nail Extraction in the Treatment of Ingrown Nails

Objective To determine an effective mode of therapy of ingrown nail using two different methods. Methods Patients with the diagnosis of stage 2 or 3 ingrown nails were included and divided into two groups. In the first group, partial matrixectomy was performed using electrocautery after partial nail extraction; in the second group, partial matrixectomy using cryotherapy was performed after partial nail extraction. Results The study included 53 patients with ingrown nails. Patient ages ranged from 11 to 79years (median 31.8 +/- 16.9). No relapse was observed in 96.2% of the patients after a follow-up period of 312months (n=51). Matrixectomy in 71.7% (n=38) of patients was successful. Matrixectomy using electrocautery was successful in 18 of 29 patients. Matrixectomy using cryotherapy was successful in 20 of 24 patients. Conclusions Matrixectomy should be added to the treatment of ingrown nails. There was no significant difference between electrocautery and cryotherapy in terms of relapse. In patients with advanced stages of ingrown nails, partial nail extraction combined with matrixectomy using cryotherapy is an effective method of treatment

Evaluation of Effectiveness of Cryotherapy on the Treatment of Cutaneous Kaposi's Sarcoma

ObjectiveKaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a vascular tumor that affects the skin and other organs. Several therapeutic options are available, but the optimal therapy is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness and safety of cryotherapy in the treatment of KS

Inferring Diploid 3D Chromatin Structures from Hi-C Data

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Evaluation of body composition parameters in patients with psoriasis

BackgroundBody composition parameters, such as weight, body mass index (BMI), and visceral fat rating, have been found to be associated with psoriasis. However, the associations of these parameters with psoriasis have not been demonstrated clearly

Evaluation of effectiveness of erbium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser on atrophic facial acne scars with 22-MHz digital ultrasonography in a Turkish population

Scar formation due to acne is a common problem among the young population and significantly affects their quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of erbium:yttriumaluminumgarnet (Er:YAG) laser resurfacing for acne scars and to objectively demonstrate the altering of collagen density in the dermis by 22-MHz digital ultrasonography. Twenty-one patients, aged 1955 similar to years, with facial acne scars were treated with Er:YAG laser. The results of the laser resurfacing were evaluated for the degree of clinical improvement, alteration of the collagen density by 22-MHz digital ultrasonography and any adverse effects at 3 similar to months. At 3 similar to months after the treatment, good (in 12 patients) and near total (in four patients) clinical improvement was noted in most of the patients compared to baseline. Overall treatment results were 76% (both near total and good) in 16 patients. By ultrasonographic evaluation, the average density of dermal collagen (total density/number of patients) of 21 patients was 32.714 (right cheek) and 32.142 (left cheek) before laser facial resurfacing. At the third month after treatment, the average density of dermal collagen of 21 patients was 36.380 (right cheek) and 38.809 (left cheek). In conclusion, Er:YAG laser skin resurfacing was found to be a safe and effective treatment modality for treatment of atrophic facial acne scars. As public demand grows for less invasive modalities to approach clinical diagnosis and evaluation, digital ultrasonography seems to provide an easy and confidential method for collagen density evaluation