Survival and growth response of mesic and dry-site sources of loblolly pine seedlings to cyclic soil moisture deficit

A growth chamber study compared height, biomass, and mortality rate of 4 to 12 old pine L.) seedlings of mesic and dry-site seed sources to 7 cyclic soil moisture stress levels, averaging between -0.3 to -2.4 Soil moisture stress was monitored gravimetrically throughout each dry-down cycle until a predetermined soil moisture potential was reached; soil was then rewatered. Shoot height was measured at two-month interval, from 4 to 12 months after the emergence of the seedlings. The oven dry weight of the seedlings and their roots were used for biomass determination. Mortality was recorded every 2 months throughout the experiment. Dry-site seedlings outgrew mesic seedlings in every soil moisture stress levels. Height growth declined with increasing moisture stress for both seed sources. The most abrupt reduction in height growth occurred between the nonstressed (-0.3 seedlings and those that grew under -0.6 Dry-site source produced more shoot biomass in all soil moisture stress levels

Evaluation of post operative analgesic efficacy of intramuscular pethidine, compared to indometacin and diclofenac Na suppositories in unilateral inguinal hernioplasty patients

We compared analgesic effects of intramuscular pethidine to diclofenac sodium and indometacin suppositories. This study is a semiexperimental clinical trial study over 55 patients of 17 to 60 years old who had undergone unilateral inguinal hernioplasty. These patients divided into 3 groups incidentally the first group including 17 patients who received 100 mg indometacin suppository every 8 h to relief postoperative pain. The second group of 18 patients who received 100 mg Diclofenac Na suppository every 8 h and the third group including 20 patients who received 0.5 mg kg-1 body weight pethidine intramuscularly every 8 h and the first dose of each drug started 2 h after termination of operation. The severity of pain was checked by Visual Analogue Scale (VSA) method every 2 h for 24 h. Mean pain severity checked and compared in 6 h intervals. Mean pain severity and standard deviation in the first 24 h were 23±12 for indometacin and 27±12 for pethidine and 31±9 for diclofenac Na groups respectively. There is no meaningful difference in pain relief during the first post op day. We concluded that Indometacin and diclofenac Na suppositories are good substitutes of intramuscular pethidine to relief post op pain during the first post op day

Status of Total Antioxidant Capacity and Malondialdehyde Level in Methamphetamine Addicts: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Methamphetamine (MA) is an illegal amphetamine-like which stimulate the central nervous system. In recent years, MA has been widely abused worldwide. Previous studies have suggested that oxidative stress (OS) plays an important role in MA-induced toxicity. From this view, antioxidant therapy could be considered as a potential drug therapy in MA abusers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate OS status in MA abusers.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on 21 MA abusers who referred to Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies and Congress 60 Humane Revivification Society, and 15 healthy males as a control group. The demographic data and peripheral blood sampling was obtained from both groups. The serum malondialdehyde (MDA) level as a marker of plasma lipid peroxidation and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of plasma were analyzed.Results: Significant decrease in plasma TAC in case group was observed (101.85±12.5 vs. 130.7±16.12 mmol/L). No significant increase in MDA serum level was detected in case group in comparison with control (27.35±2.6 vs. 26.67±2.22 µmol/L, respectively). Neither the serum MDA levels nor the plasma TAC were significantly correlated with the duration and amount of MA abuse.Conclusion: It seems that, MA abuse is associated with prooxidant-antioxidant imbalance, which suggests evaluation the role of antioxidants administration for the prevention and treatment of MA-induced toxicity

TableButler – a Windows based tool for processing large data tables generated with high-throughput methods

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>High-throughput "omics" based data analysis play emerging roles in life sciences and molecular diagnostics. This emphasizes the urgent need for user-friendly windows-based software interfaces that could process the diversity of large tab-delimited raw data files generated by these methods. Depending on the study, dozens to hundreds of these data tables are generated. Before the actual statistical or cluster analysis, these data tables have to be combined and merged to expression matrices (e.g., in case of gene expression analysis). Gene annotations as well as information concerning the samples analyzed may be appended, renewed or extended. Often additional data values shall be computed or certain features must be filtered out.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In order to perform these tasks, we have developed a Microsoft Windows based application, "<b><it>TableButler</it></b>", which allows biologists or clinicians without substantial bioinformatics background to perform a plethora of data processing tasks required to analyze the large-scale data.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p><b><it>TableButler </it></b>is a monolithic Windows application. It is implemented to handle, join and preprocess large tab delimited ASCII data files. The intuitive user interface enables scientists (e.g. biologists, clinicians or others) to setup workflows for their specific problems by simple drag-and drop like operations.</p> <p>For more details about <b><it>TableButler</it></b>, visit <url>http://www.OncoExpress.org/software/tablebutler</url>.</p

Analyzing Free Vibration of a Cantilever Microbeam Submerged in Fluid with Free Boundary Approach

This paper aims to present a detailed analysis of the free vibration of a cantilever microbeam submerged in an incompressible and frictionless fluid cavity with free boundary condition approach. In other words, in addition to the kinematic compatibility on the boundary between microbeam and its surrounding fluid, equations of the potential functions are modeled assuming the free boundaries. Galerkin’s method is used for simulations. The results of the proposed model are validated by comparing with the early analytical and numerical studies of pertinent literature. Finally, it is inferred that by involving the free boundary conditions, which is closer to the physical reality, the natural frequencies of the system have instability, especially in higher modes. In addition, the values obtained for natural frequencies are smaller than what were calculated by fixed bounary approach

Evaluation of the role of conventional and tissue doppler imaging echocardiography in detection of acute cardiac allograft rejection in heart transplant recipients

Background: Endomyocardial Biopsy (EMB) is the gold standard test for diagnosis of acute allograft cardiac rejection. Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the role of echocardiographic parameters in discriminating patients with and without evidence of acute cardiac allograft rejection. Materials and Methods: In the present cross-sectional study, using convenience sampling, 63 EMB specimens were collected from the patients who had undergone biatrial orthotropic cardiac transplantation. The mean age of the recipients and donors was 30.46 ± 9.49 and 24.55 ± 7.64 years, respectively. There were 51(81) male recipients and 39(62) male donors. Echocardiographic examination was performed within the 24 hours of EMB. The data were entered into the SPSS statistical software, version 19 and were analyzed by chi-square test, student�s t-test, and one-way ANOVA as appropriated. All the data were two-tailed and P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Among the 63 EMB specimens evaluated in the present study, mild and moderate acute rejections were seen in 19(30) and 5(8) cases, respectively. On Doppler examination, the three groups (without rejection, with mild rejection, and with moderate acute rejection) were significantly different only regarding trans-tricuspid E wave (P = 0.040). Pulsed-wave Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) also revealed a significant difference between the patients with and without allograft rejection regarding early diastolic tricuspid and mitral annular motion velocities (P = 0.005 and P = 0.02, respectively). Conclusions: It seems that echocardiographic parameters, including TDI, might be adjunct to, rather than substitution for, EMB findings for early diagnosis of acute allograft rejection. © 2016, Iranian Cardiovascular Research Journal. All right reserved

Differentiation of irradiation and cetuximab induced skin reactions in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer undergoing radioimmunotherapy: the HICARE protocol (Head and neck cancer: ImmunoChemo and Radiotherapy with Erbitux) – a multicenter phase IV trial

BACKGROUND: In order to improve the clinical outcome of patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (LASCCHN) not being capable to receive platinum-based chemoradiation, radiotherapy can be intensified by addition of cetuximab, a monoclonal antibody that blocks the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The radioimmunotherapy with cetuximab is a feasible treatment option showing a favourable toxicity profile. The most frequent side effect of radiotherapy is radiation dermatitis, the most common side effect of treatment with cetuximab is acneiform rash. Incidence and severity of these frequent, often overlapping and sometimes limiting skin reactions, however, are not well explored. A clinical and molecular differentiation between radiogenic skin reactions and skin reactions caused by cetuximab which may correlate with outcome, have never been described before. METHODS/DESIGN: The HICARE study is a national, multicenter, prospective phase IV study exploring the different types of skin reactions that occur in patients with LASCCHN undergoing radioimmun(chemo)therapy with the EGFR inhibitor cetuximab. 500 patients with LASCCHN will be enrolled in 40 participating sites in Germany. Primary endpoint is the rate of radiation dermatitis NCI CTCAE grade 3 and 4 (v. 4.02). Radioimmunotherapy will be applied according to SmPC, i.e. cetuximab will be administered as loading dose and then weekly during the radiotherapy. Irradiation will be applied as intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) or 3D-dimensional radiation therapy. DISCUSSION: The HICARE trial is expected to be one of the largest trials ever conducted in head and neck cancer patients. The goal of the HICARE trial is to differentiate skin reactions caused by radiation from those caused by the monoclonal antibody cetuximab, to evaluate the incidence and severity of these skin reactions and to correlate them with outcome parameters. Besides, the translational research program will help to identify and confirm novel peripheral blood based molecular predictors and surrogates for treatment response and resistance. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical Trial Identifier, NCT01553032 (clinicaltrials.gov) EudraCT number: 2010-019748-3

Study of the Cosmic Rays and Interstellar Medium in Local HI Clouds using Fermi-LAT Gamma-Ray Observations

An accurate estimate of the interstellar gas density distribution is crucial to understanding the interstellar medium (ISM) and Galactic cosmic rays (CRs). To comprehend the ISM and CRs in a local environment, a study of the diffuse $\gamma$-ray emission in a mid-latitude region of the third quadrant was performed. The $\gamma$-ray data in the 0.1--25.6~GeV energy range of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and other interstellar gas tracers such as the HI4PI survey data and the Planck dust thermal emission model were used, and the northern and southern regions were analyzed separately. The variation of the dust emission Dem with the total neutral gas column density NH was studied in high dust-temperature areas, and the NH/Dem ratio was calibrated using $\gamma$-ray data under the assumption of a uniform CR intensity in the studied regions. The measured integrated $\gamma$-ray emissivities above 100~MeV are (1.58\pm0.04)\times10^{-26}~\mathrm{photons~s^{-1}~sr^{-1}~H\mbox{-}atom^{-1}} and (1.59\pm0.02)\times10^{-26}~\mathrm{photons~s^{-1}~sr^{-1}~H\mbox{-}atom^{-1}} in the northern and southern regions, respectively, supporting the existence of a uniform CR intensity in the vicinity of the solar system. While most of the gas can be interpreted to be HI with a spin temperature of $T_\mathrm{S} = 125~\mathrm{K}$ or higher, an area dominated by optically thick HI with $T_\mathrm{S} \sim 40~\mathrm{K}$ was identified.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap

TransONet: Automatic Segmentation of Vasculature in Computed Tomographic Angiograms Using Deep Learning

Pathological alterations in the human vascular system underlie many chronic diseases, such as atherosclerosis and aneurysms. However, manually analyzing diagnostic images of the vascular system, such as computed tomographic angiograms (CTAs) is a time-consuming and tedious process. To address this issue, we propose a deep learning model to segment the vascular system in CTA images of patients undergoing surgery for peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Our study focused on accurately segmenting the vascular system (1) from the descending thoracic aorta to the iliac bifurcation and (2) from the descending thoracic aorta to the knees in CTA images using deep learning techniques. Our approach achieved average Dice accuracies of 93.5% and 80.64% in test dataset for (1) and (2), respectively, highlighting its high accuracy and potential clinical utility. These findings demonstrate the use of deep learning techniques as a valuable tool for medical professionals to analyze the health of the vascular system efficiently and accurately. Please visit the GitHub page for this paper at https://github.com/pip-alireza/TransOnet.Comment: Accepted for the 2023 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, US