Placenta Therapy: Its Biological Role of Anti-Inflammation and Regeneration

Human placental extract has been used to treat fatigue, postmenopausal symptoms, wound healing, and growth retardation in Korea. Combined with acupuncture therapy, placental extract extends its therapeutic limit to pain control. Recently, we have reported acupuncture point injection (API) with placental extract modulated inflammation-involving pain symptoms in chronic pain diseases. In order to rehabilitate patients suffering from chronic pain and restricted joint mobility, placental extract was injected into acupuncture points localized on the joints, surrounding muscles acting in concert with the joints, and paravertebral muscles affecting the innervation of the joints. Here, we describe the pathology of pain syndromes including neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, knee arthritis, fibromyalgia, and complex regional pain syndrome and propose methodology of APIs with placental extract in treating these pain diseases

Nanoscale reaction vessels: Highly ordered nanocrystal arrays inside porous anodic alumina nanowells

Using an anodic alumina template as a nanoscale reaction vessel, the authors developed a simple and unique method to prepare highly ordered arrays of nanocrystals in isolated nanowells. The highly ordered arrays of nanoscale wells were fabricated by short anodization. After the nanoscale wells were filled with a precursor solution of NaCl by dewetting, the solvent of the precursor solution was evaporated, resulting in spontaneous formation of uniformly sized NaCl nanocrystals inside the nanoscale wells. The size of crystals could be easily adjusted by varying the concentration of the precursor solution and the size of nanoscale wells. This approach is simple and cost-effective, and it can fabricate nanocrystal arrays on substrates with high throughput. It can also be readily adapted to synthesize other types of high-density nanocrystal arrays on different substrates. © 2015 The Authorsopen0

Suppression of magnetic ordering in XXZ-type antiferromagnetic monolayer NiPS3

How a certain ground state of complex physical systems emerges, especially in two-dimensional materials, is a fundamental question in condensed-matter physics. A particularly interesting case is systems belonging to the class of XY Hamiltonian where the magnetic order parameter of conventional nature is unstable in two-dimensional materials leading to a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Here, we report how the XXZ-type antiferromagnetic order of a magnetic van der Waals material, NiPS3, behaves upon reducing the thickness and ultimately becomes unstable in the monolayer limit. Our experimental data are consistent with the findings based on renormalization group theory that at low temperatures a two-dimensional XXZ system behaves like a two-dimensional XY one, which cannot have a long-range order at finite temperatures. This work provides experimental examination of the XY magnetism in the atomically thin limit and opens new opportunities of exploiting these fundamental theorems of magnetism using magnetic van der Waals materials.Comment: 57 pages, 24 figures (including Supplementary Information

Age-related changes in cervical sagittal range of motion and alignment

Study Design Retrospective cohort study. Objective To compare sagittal cervical range of motion (ROM) and alignment in young versus middle-aged adults. Methods One hundred four asymptomatic adults were selected randomly out of 791 subjects who underwent lateral cervical radiographs in neutral, flexion, and extension positions. They were divided into two groups: young (age 20 to 29, 52 people) and middle-aged adults (age 50 to 59, 52 people). We determined the ROMs of upper cervical (occipital–C2 angle), midcervical (C2–C7 angle), and cervicothoracic spine (cervicosternal angle). We compared the alignment differences of the two groups by calculating the distances between C2 and C7 plumb lines, and C2 central-offset distance. Results In neutral position, there was no significant difference between young and middle-aged adults. However, in flexion, C2–C7 angle, distance between C2–C7 plumb lines, and C2 central-offset distance decreased with age. In extension, C2–C7 angle and C2 central-offset distance decreased with age. During flexion and extension, midcervical ROM and the range of C2 central-offset distance decreased in the middle-aged group. However, there was no difference between the two age groups in the ROM of the upper cervical and the cervicothoracic regions during flexion and extension. Conclusion We found that, despite of the presence of age-related cervical alignment changes, the only difference between the two groups was in the sagittal ROM of the midcervical spine during flexion and extension. Only the ROM of the midcervical spine appears to change significantly, consistent with findings that these levels are most likely to develop both symptomatic and asymptomatic degenerative changes

Nitrogen Use Efficiency of Late Fall-Applied Urea and Pig Slurry for Regrowth of Perennial Ryegrass Sward

Pig slurry is the most important organic resource in Korea, as estimated to be more than 15% of recycled animal manure. The use of pig slurry as an alternative organic fertilizer is the most viable recycling option as it is produced in large amount on pig farms that has usually less or not surface for cultivation of forage crops in Korea. Perennial grasses in grassland system regrow successively after harvests by cutting or grazing. The regrowth yield at each harvest would be a crucial determinant for the productivity of sward. During vegetative regrowth, soil mineral N and N reserves meet the N requirements for shoot regrowth. The aims of this study are to estimate the N use efficiency of urea and pig slurry applied at late fall in relation to the N availability for restoring organic reserves and constructing ultimate regrowth biomass during successive three cycle of regrowth of perennial ryegrass sward

Reconstructive challenge of dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans in the female breast

Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans is an uncommon locally aggressive malignant neoplasm that most frequently appears in the trunk, followed by the extremities, head, and neck. But occurrence in the breast is extremely rare. We present a case of a 28-year-old woman, who had a history of trauma 5 years previously and excision 1 year before presentation at our clinic. We performed wide excision, together with microscopic and immunohistochemical analysis. No postoperative oncologic treatment was used and she remains disease-free 1 year after the surgery without any tumor recurrence. Here, we report a case of dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans in the female breast and present a detailed discussion of the diagnosis and treatment with reference to available literatures

S Nutrition Is Involved in Alleviation of Damage of Photosynthetic Organelles by Salt Stress in Kentucky Bluegrass (\u3cem\u3ePoa pratensis\u3c/em\u3e L.)

Salt-stress is considered as one of the major environmental factor limiting plant growth and productivity. It has been well reported that salt stress induce the reduction of stomatal density and number leading to poor gaseous exchange which resulted in decrease of photosynthesis is associated with inhibition of several enzymes related to the Calvin cycle such as RuBisCo. In addition, salt stress decreases photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll and carotenoid which has important role in photosynthesis. Sulfur (S) is one of six macronutrients needed for proper plant growth and development. In our previous work, we found that sulfur nutrition has significant role in ameliorating the damaged in photosynthetic organelles caused by Fe-deficiency in oilseed rape (Muneer et al., 2014). In addition, application of sulfur mitigated the adverse effects of heavy metals stress by enhancing plant growth, chlorophyll content and net photosynthetic rate. Despite extensive researches attempting to elucidate the interactions between external sulfur supplies and stress tolerance, to our knowledge, the responses of the photosynthetic mechanism to combined S deficiency and salt stress have not yet been fully investigated. In this study, therefore, we hypothesized that S nutrition affects photosynthetic organs to salt stress, so that may involve in alleviating negative impact of salt stress in Kentucky bluegrass. To test this hypothesis, the responses of photosynthetic parameters, thylakoid protein complexes and ion uptake were compared for 21 days of four S and salt stress combined treatments; sulfur sufficient without salt stress (+S/non-salt, control), present of sulfur with salt stress (+S/salt), sulfur deprivation without salt stress (-S/non-salt) and sulfur deprivation and salt stress (-S/salt)

Radiographic comparison between cervical spine lateral and whole-spine lateral standing radiographs

Study Design Retrospective radiologic study. Objective The sagittal alignment of the cervical spine can be evaluated using either a lateral cervical radiograph or a whole-spine lateral view on which the cervical spine is included. To our knowledge, however, no report has compared the two. The purpose of this work is to identify the difference in radiographic parameters between the cervical spine lateral view and the whole-spine lateral view. Methods We retrospectively analyzed 59 adult patients suffering from neck pain with cervical spine lateral radiographs and whole-spine lateral radiographs from November 2007 to December 2011. The radiographs were measured using standard techniques to obtain the following parameters from the two different radiographs: occipital–C2 angle, C2–C7 angle, C7–sternal angle, sternal slope, T1 slope, C2 central offset distance, the distance between C2 and C7 plumb lines, C4 anteroposterior (AP) diameter, the ratio of C2 central off distance to C4 AP diameter, the ratio of plumb lines' distance to C4 AP diameter. Results We found that the occipital–C2 angle, sternal slope, and C4 AP diameter were similar, but the C2–C7 angle, C7–sternal angle, T1 slope, C2 central offset distance, distance between C2 and C7 plumb lines, ratio of C2 central off distance to C4 AP diameter, and ratio of plumb lines' distance to C4 AP diameter were different. However, the error of measurement was greater than the small angular and linear differences between the two views. Conclusions Most numerical values of the measured radiographic parameters appear to be different between the two views. However, the two views are comparable because the numerical differences were smaller than the errors of measurement