Prevalence of Cryptosporidium spp. infection in renal transplant and hemodialysis patients

Transplanted and hemodialysis patients are frequently affected by parasitic diseases such as cryptosporidiosis. Cryptosporidium is a parasite causing self-limited diarrhea and enteritis in healthy individuals. The presence of Cryptosporidium infection was studied in three groups including 87 renal transplant patients, 103 hemodialysis patients, and 60 healthy individuals as the control group. Two stool specimens were obtained from each case. The specimens were concentrated by the formalin-ether method and two smears were prepared from each. The smears were stained by modified acid-fast method and were observed under a light microscope. Ten (11.5) renal transplant and 4 (3.88) hemodialysis patients were positive for Cryptosporidium infection. No positive results were obtained in the control group. The results showed a statistically significant difference between renal transplant and control groups (P=0.02), but the difference between hemodialysis and control groups was not significant (P=0.2). The results also showed that the rate of Cryptosporidium infection in renal transplant patients was much higher than hemodialysis patients. The susceptibility of renal transplant patients to Cryptosporidium infection is much more than other studied groups and this could be due to immunosuppressive therapy in these patients

Diversity of hydrolytic enzymes in haloarchaeal strains isolated from salt lake

Production of ten hydrolytic enzymes was qualitatively studied on the haloarchaeal strains isolated from Aran-Bidgol hypersaline lake in the central desert area of Iran. A total of 293 haloarchea strains were selected among 300 extremely halophilic isolated prokaryotes. Accordingly, 142, 141, 128, 64, 38, 16, 7, 3 and 1 archaeal isolates were able to produce DNase, amylase, lipase, inulinase, pullulanase, protease, cellulase, chitinase and xylanase, respectively. None was able to produce pectinase activity. Combined hydrolytic activity was also detected in many strains. A total of 0.3 % of the strains showed 6 hydrolytic activities, 0.3 % of the strains had 5 hydrolytic activities, 5.4 % of the strains presented 4 hydrolytic activities, 25 % of the strains presented 3 hydrolytic activities, 28 % of the strains presented 2 hydrolytic activities and 18 % of the strains presented 1 hydrolytic activity. According to their phenotypic characteristics and comparative partial 16 S rRNA sequence analysis, the halophilic strains were all identified as members of family Halobacteriaceae within 12 different taxa from the following genera: Halorubrum, Haloarcula, Natrinema, Halovivax and Natronomonas. Most enzymes production rate was observed in the genera Halorubrum, Haloarculaand Natrinema whereas; there was not any detectable amount of enzyme production in the genera Halovivax and Natronomonas. The most hydrolytic isolate with 6 combinatorial enzyme production belonged to the genus Natrinema. This investigation showed that the extreme halophilic archaea from Aran-Bidgol lake are a potential source of hydrolytic enzyme under stress conditions and may have possess commercial value

Investigating and copmaring the most effective methods to improve post-fire performance of steel short columns with vertical and horizontal defects

In this paper, the performance of box steel columns with corrosion is investigated. Thus the steel columns are made with different defect locations (6 modes) and are subjected to temperatures of 20 °C and 700 °C. Then, two retrofitted methods (CFRP composites and steel plates) are used in the defect area in order to improve the performance of columns. Afterwards, bearing capacity of all column specimens (38 specimens) has been obtained. The results indicate a decrease in the bearing capacity of the columns and weakness in their performance due to the two factors of defect and heat so that the greatest decrease in the column compression strength is about 32% and 35% due to defect and high temperature, respectively. Also, the comparison of retrofitting methods indicates that the use of composite is more effective in improving the performance of steel columns. Finally, For further investigation, 5 specimens are modeled in ABAQUS finite element software and the results are compared with similar experimental results

Upper critical magnetic field in NbRe and NbReN micrometric strips

Non-centrosymmetric superconductors have recently received significant interest due to their intriguing physical properties such as multigap and nodal superconductivity, helical vortex states, as well as non-trivial topological effects. Moreover, large values of the upper critical magnetic field have been reported in these materials. Here, we focus on the study of the temperature dependence of the perpendicular magnetic field of NbRe and NbReN films patterned in micrometric strips. The experimental data are studied within the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg theory, which considers both orbital and Zeeman pair breaking. The analysis of the results shows different behavior for the two materials with a Pauli contribution relevant only in the case of NbReN

Demonstration of High-Impedance Superconducting NbRe Dayem Bridges

Here, we demonstrate superconducting Dayem-bridge weak-links made of different stoichiometric compositions of NbRe. Our devices possess a relatively high critical temperature, normal-state resistance, and kinetic inductance. In particular, the high kinetic inductance makes this material a good alternative to more conventional niobium-based superconductors (e.g., NbN or NbTiN) for the realization of superinductors and high-quality factor resonators, whereas the high normal-state resistance yields a large output voltage in superconducting switches and logic elements realized upon this compound. Moreover, out-of-plane critical magnetic fields exceeding 2 T ensure that possible applications requiring high magnetic fields can also be envisaged. Altogether, these features make this material appealing for a number of applications in the framework of quantum technologies