Stem cells conditioned medium: a new approach to skin wound healing management

Stem cell biology has gained remarkable interest in recent years, driven by the hope of finding cures for numerous diseases including skin wound healing through transplantation medicine. Initially upon transplantation, these cells home to and differentiate within the injured tissue into specialised cells. Contrariwise, it now appears that only a small percentage of transplanted cells integrate and survive in host tissues. Thus, the foremost mechanism by which stem cells participate in tissue repair seems to be related to their trophic factors. Indeed, stem cells provide the microenvironment with a wide range of growth factors, cytokines and chemokines, which can broadly defined as the stem cells secretome. In in vitro condition, these molecules can be traced from the conditioned medium or spent media harvested from cultured cells. Conditioned medium now serves as a new treatment modality in regenerative medicine and has shown a successful outcome in some diseases. With the emergence of this approach, we described the possibility of using stem cells conditioned medium as a novel and promising alternative to skin wound healing treatment. Numerous pre-clinical data have shown the possibility and efficacy of this treatment. Despite this, significant challenges need to be addressed before translating this technology to the bedside.Article Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cbin.10138/pd

Hydro- Chemical Evolution of Palk Strait Region, Bay of Bengal

Present analysis was carried out the physico- chemical parameters of two stations such as Thondi and Soliyakudi in the southeast Palk Strait region during the monsoon and post monsoon seasons (November 2008 – March 2009). High temperature (31˚C) and salinity (35%o) was recorded in the month of March (post monsoon). Dissolved oxygen content was high (5.2 O2 mg. l-1) during in the monsoonal season. Compared with other nutrients such as NO3, NO2 and SiO2, the total phosphorous concentration was high in both the stations during monsoonal season. In general concentrations of all the nutrients were high in the station I during monsoon season (November and December) which could be due to the addition of nutrients through the sewage, agricultural and land run off

Simplified Method for Estimating Future Scour Depth at Existing Bridges

Bridge scour is the term which describes the erosion of soil surrounding a bridge foundation due to water. Bridge scour can cause the reduction of the load carrying capacity of bridge foundations, excessive foundation settlements, and damage to bridge abutments. Bridges with foundations that are unstable for calculated and/or observed scour conditions are termed scour critical bridges. Approximately 25,000 bridges in the United States are classified as scour critical and about 600 of them are in Texas. This designation comes in part from the use of over-conservative methods that predict excessive scour depths in erosion resistant materials. Other methods have been developed to eliminate this over-conservatism but are uneconomical because they require site-specific erosion testing. The major contribution of this dissertation is a new method to assess a bridge for scour and erosion classification charts which categorizes the erodibility of geomaterials according to conventional engineering properties. The new method is a three level Bridge Scour Assessment (BSA) procedure which is relatively simple and economical. It does not require site-specific erosion testing and eliminates the over-conservatism in current methods. The first level, BSA 1, uses charts that extrapolate the maximum scour depth recorded during the life of the bridge to obtain the scour depth corresponding to a specified future flood event. The second level, BSA 2, determines the maximum scour depth and is carried out if BSA 1 does not conclude with a specific plan of action for the bridge. The third level, BSA 3, determines the time dependent scour depth and is carried out if BSA 2 does not conclude with a specific plan of action. The scour vulnerability depends on the comparison between the predicted and allowable scour depths. The 11 case histories used to validate the new method showed good agreement between predicted values and field measurements. BSA 1 was then applied to 16 bridges. In this process, 6 out of 10 bridges classified as scour critical by current methods were found to be stable. These results show that the new method allows for more realistic evaluation of bridges for scour while not requiring site-specific erosion testing

Harmony Search Method: Theory and Applications

The Harmony Search (HS) method is an emerging metaheuristic optimization algorithm, which has been employed to cope with numerous challenging tasks during the past decade. In this paper, the essential theory and applications of the HS algorithm are first described and reviewed. Several typical variants of the original HS are next briefly explained. As an example of case study, a modified HS method inspired by the idea of Pareto-dominance-based ranking is also presented. It is further applied to handle a practical wind generator optimal design problem

Comparison of coronally advanced versus semilunar coronally repositioned flap in the management of maxillary gingival recessions

Objectives: Maxillary gingival recessions can be managed by both semilunar coronally repositioned flap (SLCRF) and coronally advanced flap (CAF). The objective of this study was to compare SLRCF and CAF in terms of wound healing and periodontal parameters in the presence of magnification. Materials and Methods: Thirty patients with Miller’s class I gingival recession in maxillary anteriors and premolars were assigned to 2 groups including SLCRF and CAF. All procedures were performed using 2.5X magnifying loupes. Wound healing and periodontal clinical parameters were assessed at baseline and at 2nd, 4th, 8th and 12th week. Results: No significant difference was observed in wound healing and mean percentage root coverage in both the groups at 12th week (p > 0.05). However, SLCRF showed a statistically significant reduction in percentage of root coverage (PRC) at 12th week compared to 2nd week (p < 0.05). A significant gain in Clinical attachment level, width of keratinised tissue and a significant reduction in Recession Depth and Probing Depth were seen in both the groups at 12th week. Conclusion: Within the limitation of this study, both techniques resulted in similar wound healing at 12th week with the use of magnification. CAF provided more root coverage compared to SLCRF technique in the maxillary class I gingival recession defects

6-Meth­oxy-9-phenyl­sulfonyl-2-(2-thien­yl)-9H-thieno[2,3-b]carbazole

In the title compound, C25H17NO3S3, the mean planes of the thieno[2,3-b]carbazole and phenyl rings are inclined at an angle of 63.6 (1)°. The mol­ecular structure features short intra­molecular C—H⋯O contacts and the crystal packing exhibits weak inter­molecular C—H⋯S and π–π inter­actions [centroid-to-centroid distances 3.734 (2)–3.888 (2) Å]

8,9-Dimeth­oxy-5-phenyl­sulfonyl-5H-benzo[b]carbazole

In the title compound, C24H19NO4S, the benzocarbazole ring system is planar (r.m.s. deviation = 0.016 Å) and forms a dihedral angle of 78.54 (4)° with the sulfonyl-bound phenyl ring. Intra­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions are observed. A C(8) chain running along the b axis is formed via inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds. The chains are linked via weak C—H⋯ π inter­actions