Electroconvulsive therapy in single manic episodes: a case series

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy in the treatment of Bipolar I Disorder patients with a single manic episode. Method: In a retrospective study, we reviewed medical records of inpatients who had been admitted to treat a single manic episode of Bipolar I Disorder at Noor University Hospital, Isfahan, Iran between September 2004 and December 2008. Results: Out of a total of 275 single episode manic patients, 39 underwent ECT. Male/ female ratios were 19/20 (48.7% vs. 51.3%) for the ECT series and 137/99 (58% vs. 42%) for the exclusive pharmacological treatment series (p>0.05). Mean age of patients in the ECT series (23.64 ± 8.00) was significantly lower than the pharmacological treatment series (27.65± 11.30, p= 0.008). The mean length of stay (LOSs) for the ECT series (20.0± 7.90) was significantly higher than the other group (14.63± 9.84, p =0.001). The mean time to first administered ECT (tECT) was 4.35 ± 3.79. There was no significant difference between the mean LOSs of the pharmacologic treatment series and the mean “LOSs minus tECT“(LOS-tECT) variable (16.57±8.43) in the ECT series (p>0.05). The mean duration from the onset of the symptoms to time of admission was 19.22± 3.53 for the ECT series. Catatonia was the indication for application of ECT in one patient (2.6%), while 25 (64.10%) received ECT because of aggressive behavior. The proportion of patients administered chemical and physical restraints before ECT (77%) significantly dropped (7.7%) after ECT administration (

Thermal Dissipation and Variability in Electrical Breakdown of Carbon Nanotube Devices

We study high-field electrical breakdown and heat dissipation from carbon nanotube (CNT) devices on SiO2 substrates. The thermal "footprint" of a CNT caused by van der Waals interactions with the substrate is revealed through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Experiments and modeling find the CNT-substrate thermal coupling scales proportionally to CNT diameter and inversely with SiO2 surface roughness (~d/{\Delta}). Comparison of diffuse mismatch modeling (DMM) and data reveals the upper limit of thermal coupling ~0.4 W/K/m per unit length at room temperature, and ~0.7 W/K/m at 600 C for the largest diameter (3-4 nm) CNTs. We also find semiconducting CNTs can break down prematurely, and display more breakdown variability due to dynamic shifts in threshold voltage, which metallic CNTs are immune to; this poses a fundamental challenge for selective electrical breakdowns in CNT electronics

Potential Therapeutic Uses of Thalidomide for Pulmonary Fibrosis

Thalidomide was widely used to avoid morning sickness in pregnant women, but was recalled due to its teratogenic effects and malformations in thousands of children. However, potential beneficial effects such as anti-inflammatory, system regulatory activities and the anti-angiogenic effect of thalidomide have been reported. As the studies about thalidomide continued, its new effects and applications made researchers more interested in it and became a promising agent in the treatment of a variety of clinical situations where standard treatments have failed. To make this purpose more achievable, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and PubMed were searched. After obtaining and reviewing articles related to thalidomide and its indications, different therapeutic uses of thalidomide for pulmonary diseases are classified on mechanisms. In recent years, thalidomide has been an effective agent in treating cough associated with pulmonary fibrosis and the main suggested mechanism refers to regulation production of inflammatory mediators, including cytokines and chemokines, which trigger Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). The mechanism of EMT is related to the inhibition of Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β1)-mediated signaling pathways, Smad2 (Suppressor of Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 2) / 3, Akt / Glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3β), and Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). Thalidomide is also involved in paraquat-induced and bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis. Also, Thalidomide gained attention as a suitable agent for the treatment of cough associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and for severe pulmonary damage cause by severe acute respiratory syndrome, coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), responsible for the global pandemic in 2020, due to its anti-inflammatory-anti-angiogenesis and pro-apoptotic properties

The real space finite element Hartree-Fock method and the thermo-mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes

This thesis consists of two parts. The first part aims to explore the application of the popular method of the finite element method (FEM) in the electronic structure theory. The finite element method is a very general numerical technique in mathematics for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) and it has been widely applied in computational mechanics and engineering in general, but it has not been extensively used in science for electronic structure calculations. Currently most electronic structure calculations rely on well-established and fast basis-set alternatives. However, there are serious shortcomings with the standard global basis-set methods such as basis saturation and ill-conditioning of the matrices as the basis-set size is increased. In this dissertation we exploit new strategies that rely on the divide-and-conquer (DC) as well as the enriched/generalized FEM (GFEM) and face-based smoothed FEM (FS-FEM) methods to solve the electronic structure problems. The linear-scaling DC partitioning scheme has been used to scale up the method for larger systems with facile parallelization among many processors utilizing locality assumptions. GFEM and FS-FEM techniques have been proposed to deal with the inner core singularity and to improve the quality of the solutions without considerable added computational cost. While these results are highly encouraging, still more research needs to be conducted in order to be able to decisively determine the best method of tackling the numerical solution of the electronic structure of atoms and molecules. Based on these preliminary results, it is anticipated that yet more elegant hybrid techniques may exist. In the second part of the thesis, special attention has been paid to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and their thermo-electro-mechanical properties. Application of CNTs and other carbon-based materials such as graphene in science and technology has been constantly on the rise in the past two decades for example as wires, switches, transistors or other nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) and nanostructures. Here, several of the more fundamental mechanical, chemical, heat transport and thermal properties of the CNTs for these applications and for microscopy purposes (in particular, atomic force microscopy or AFM) have been computationally as well as experimentally studied. Properties such as stability and collapse propagation in CNTs, dispersibility and thermal coupling to the substrate have been the focus of attention. The origins of the difficulty of the dispersion of CNT solutions have been explained and quantitative suggestions have been made to solve this problem. The thermal footprint of CNTs on SiO2 substrate has been extracted to predict the thermal conductance from CNT to SiO2. AFM tip-CNT interactions have been thoroughly investigated and recommendations for the correct interpretation of AFM images of individual CNTs have been given. Energetics of collapse and inflation of CNTs on SiO2 have been studied and upper-bound estimates for the collapse/inflation propagation speeds have been obtained. These studies provide some computational tools and rather in-depth theoretical insight into the mechanisms at play at the nano-scale and should lead to a better understanding for the design and analysis of future carbon-based nanodevices and nanostructures

Robust control of miniaturized optical image stabilizers for mobile phone cameras

Cameras in mobile phones are the most popular due to their availability and portability; however, image blur caused by involuntary hand-shakes of the photographer degrades their image quality as mobile phones become lighter, smaller, and high-resolution. The optical image stabilizer (OIS) is a hardware-based alternative to conventional software-based de-bluring algorithms that offer superior de-blur; however, they are set back for mobile phone applications by cost, size, and power limitations. The magnetically-actuated lens-tilting OIS is a novel miniaturizable and low-power conceptual design which is suitable for low-cost micro manufacturing methods; however, significant product variabilities caused by these methods, along with the strict performance requirements to outperform software-based algorithms, and the limited controller implementation capabilities of mobile phone devices pose a challenging control problem that is solved by the modeling and controller design method proposed in this thesis. To solve the problem, practical manufacturing tolerances are simulated through computer-aided design and analyzed by finite-element methods to obtain the structure of the dynamics of OIS and uncertainties in dynamics. A dynamic uncertainty model is developed based on the analysis results and the robust H∞ control theory is applied to guarantee the closed-loop stability and optimize the closed-loop performance against uncertainties with constrained controller order. The proposed method is demonstrated in two steps. First, it is applied to a set of large-scale OIS prototypes to demonstrate its feasibility in an experimental setting and its capability to deal with physical product variabilities. Then, it is applied to a set of small-scale OIS prototypes containing mass-produced parts to verify its applicability to real OISs. In both cases, the experimental results suggest that the robust H∞ controller outperforms the conventional nominal controllers and the μ-synthesis controller. By dealing with control challenges of the magnetically-actuated lens-tilting OIS, the application of this conceptual design to mobile phone cameras is expanded. Substitution of the conventional post-processing algorithms in mobile phone cameras with OIS has significant impact on their image quality.Applied Science, Faculty ofMechanical Engineering, Department ofGraduat

Social media adoption among DMOs : a systematic review of academic research

This chapter reviews academic research on the adoption of social media among destination management/marketing organizations (DMOs). We aim to synthesize challenges faced by DMOs when adopting social media, recommendations proposed in literature, and measurement of DMOs’ efforts on social media. A systematic approach was followed to search and assess articles within 84 leading tourism journals. Based on in-depth review of 71 key studies, main challenges are found to be lack of strategy, knowledge and resources; the recommendations are framed into a seven-level hierarchy, starting from basic management’s conception of social media presence to more strategic utilization of user-generated content and positive communication till the most sophisticated destination brand co-creation and relationship management. Practical measurement of DMOs’ social media activities is absent and needs to be developed to incorporate into KPIs. This chapter presents a panorama of up-to-date insights for practitioners and researchers, who wish to bring innovation in destination management

Minimal inhibitory concentration of microorganisms causing surgical site infection in referral hospitals in North of Iran, 2011-2012

Abstract Background: A surgical site infection (SSI) is the most common nosocomial infection after surgery and is the third most common infection in hospitalized patients. The aim of this study was to asses minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the causing agents of SSI and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done in three referral hospitals in North of Iran during 2011-2012. The samples were taken one month after orthopedic, abdominal, cesarean section surgery and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) in patients with scores compatible to SSIs criteria. The sample was sent for bacteriologic culture and MIC determination for positive cases by broth microdilution method. The data were collected and analyzed. Results: From 103 positive cases S. aureus, E.coli and coagulase negative staphylococci were the most common isolated agents as 29.12%, 23.3% and 21.3%, respectively. S. aureus was sensitive to vancomycin (70%), amikacin (70%) and teicoplanin (76.6%) and cogulase negative staphylococci was sensitive to vancomycin (68.1%) and teicoplanin (72.6%) and E.coli to amikacin (95.83%) and imipenem and meropenem (66.66%). P.aeroginosa showed no sensitivity to cefepime and was sensitive to imipenem (93.75%) and meropenem (81.25%). Conclusion: The most important point is worrisome problem of the increased MIC of S. aureus to vancomycin that causes difficult use in the treatment of staphylococcal SSIs. In spite of resistance of micro-organisms to cephalosporins, gram negative organisms had low MIC to carbapenemes especially P.aeroginosa although the rate of its MIC is increasing

Antiparasitic and cytotoxicity effects of 7-hydroxy-4′- methoxy isoflavone against Leishmania major

Introduction: Leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania spp. is observed in most parts of the world. Although, glucantime, a pentavalent antimony compound, and other synthetic drugs are broadly applied for leishmaniasis therapy; however, the use of these synthetic agents has some limitations. Hence, this study was designed to assess the inhibiting effects of 7-hydroxy4′-methoxyisoflavone (7HMI) against promastigote and amastigote stages of Leishmania major in vitro. Methods: The MTT assay was applied to study the antileishmanial activity of 7HMI against promastigotes and its cytotoxicity effects on macrophage cells. The nitric oxide (NO) produced by the treated macrophage cells with 7HMI was also assessed. Results: 7HMI considerably (P<0.05) inhibited the growth rate of promastigotes and amastigotes stages. The 50% inhibitory concentrations of 7HMI and glucantim were 11.3 and 15.4 µg/mL for promastigote and amastigote, respectively. 7HMI, especially at 1/3 IC50 and 1/2 IC50 concentrations, considerably triggered the NO release. Conclusion: The current research findings reported the favorable antileishmanial effects of 7HMI against L. major with possible mechanisms such as reducing the infectivity rate of macrophage cells and provoking NO creation. Nevertheless, more research must be performed to clear its efficacy in animal model and then in human