The most widespread treatment for dry eyes in clinical practice is an instillation containing artificial tear fluid. When an instillation does not ameliorate dry eye, we use punctal plugs. The insertion of punctal plugs is an eminent curative that positively improves the corneal and conjunctival epithelial disorders and the amount of lacrimal fluid accumulated in the conjunctival sac. We shall ...

Autologous mosaicplasty has been widely used for the treatment of focal, full-thickness, articular cartilage lesions of the knee and ankle joints. Commonly, the autografts are harvested from non-weight-bearing areas of the knee joint, leading to associated donor-site morbidity and representing a considerable disadvantage. This Technical Note presents a mosaicplasty procedure for harvesting auto...

One-visit mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) apexification is gaining in popularity over the use of calcium hydroxide barriers. This study examined the sealing properties of two MTA apexification procedures using an in vitro apexification model. White MTA was introduced into instrumented single-rooted canals with standardized artificially created open apices to form 3- to 5-mm-thick orthograde ap...

High-throughput screening and optimization experiments are critical to a number of fields, including chemistry and structural and molecular biology. The separation of these two steps may introduce false negatives and a time delay between initial screening and subsequent optimization. Although a hybrid method combining both steps may address these problems, miniaturization is required to minimiz...

Background and purpose - Healing of shaft fractures is commonly described as regards external callus. We wanted to clarify the role of the bone marrow compartment in the healing of stable shaft fractures. Patients and methods - A longitudinal furrow was milled along the longitudinal axis of the femoral shaft in mice. The exposed bone marrow under the furrow was scooped out. The mice were then r...

Inflammation and angiogenesis are pivotal processes in the progression of many diseases, including malignancies. A hypoxic microenvironment often results in a milieu of proinflammatory and proangiogenic cytokines produced by infiltrating cells. We assessed the role of macrophage-derived hypoxia-associated cytokines in promoting inflammation and angiogenesis. Supernatants of macrophages, stimula...

The central microtubule cap is bound to the ends of the two central microtubules in Tetrahymena thermophila cilia by plug-shaped structures similar in appearance to the distal filament plugs attached to the ends of the A-microtubules. The caps have been separated from the microtubules and are composed of a bead, two plates, and two peg-like plugs to which the microtubules are attached. The stru...