and Applied Analysis 3 2. Existence and Uniqueness In this section, the existence and uniqueness of the minimizer for the model 1.4 are proved. Some basic notations and properties concerning with the BV 2 space can be seen in 8, 13 . Motivated by 5 , we have the following existence and uniqueness result for the optimization problem 1.4 . Theorem 2.1. Assume Ω is an open, bounded Lipschitz domai...

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the molecular mechanism of anti-inflammatory effect of bee venom (BV), which has been used for the treatment of various inflammatory diseases in oriental medicine. With this aim, we examined the effects of BV on the nitric oxide (NO) production by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or sodium nitroprusside in RAW264.7 macrophages. We further investigated the effec...

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is the most commonly treated female reproductive tract affliction, characterized by the displacement of healthy lactobacilli by an overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria. BV can contribute to pathogenic inflammation, preterm birth, and susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections. As the bacteria responsible for BV pathogenicity and their interactions with host immunity...

BACKGROUND Prevalent herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection increases human immunodeficiency virus acquisition. We hypothesized that HSV-2 infection might also predispose individuals to acquire other common sexually transmitted infections (STIs). METHODS We studied the association between prevalent HSV-2 infection and STI incidence in a prospective, randomized trial of periodic STI the...

Bee venom (BV) therapy (BVT), the therapeutic application of BV, has been used in traditional medicine to treat diseases, such as arthritis, rheumatism, pain, cancerous tumors, and skin diseases. BV contains a variety of peptides, including melittin, apamin, adolapin, the mast-cell-degranulating (MCD) peptide, enzymes (i.e., phospholipase [PL] A(2)), biologically active amines (i.e., histamine ...

Purpose: Hypoxic-ischemic brain injuries influence the mechanisms of signal transduction, including mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) that regulates gene expression through transcription factor activity. Several attempts have been made to use bee venom (BV) to treat neurological diseases. However, limited data are available for brain injuries such as neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopat...

BACKGROUND Women who have sex with women (WSW) have a higher burden of bacterial vaginosis (BV) than heterosexual women; studies of risk factors specific to this population are limited. We summarised current knowledge regarding risk factors for BV among WSW by systematic review. METHODS This systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA statement. PUBMED, EMBASE, Web of Science and ...

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is the most common gynecological infection in the United States. Diagnosis based on Amsel's criteria can be challenging and can be aided by laboratory-based testing. A standard method for diagnosis in research studies is enumeration of bacterial morphotypes of a Gram-stained vaginal smear (i.e., Nugent scoring). However, this technique is subjective, requires specialize...

BACKGROUND In recent years several new fastidious bacteria have been identified that display a high specificity for BV; however no previous studies have comprehensively assessed the behavioural risk associations of these bacterial vaginosis-candidate organisms (BV-COs). METHODS We examined the associations between 8 key previously described BV-COs and BV status established by Nugent's score (...