Studying the chronic effects of silver nanoparticles on survival, growth rate and reproductive traits of Urmia Lake Artemia (Artemia urmiana)

The application and environmental hazards of nanotechnology to aquatic species are increasingly growing. To address the issue, the present study was designed and carried out to elucidate the toxic effects of silver nanoparticles on growth, survival and reproductive traits of Artemia urmiana. The experiment consisted of five treatments, namely control group and those exposed to 0.001, 0.01, 0.1 and 1 mgl-1 silver nanoparticles, with four respective replicates. To do so, 500 newly hatched nauplii were counted and transferred to 1 liter containers exposing to various concentrations of the silver nanoparticles. Microalgae Dunaliella tertiolecta and zymogenic was used to feed Artemia. Growth and survival rates were recorded on days 8, 11, 17, 20 and 23. After sexual maturation, Artemia were transferred to a new environment free from nanoparticles and their reproductive traits were studied. Results showed that higher concentrations of silver nanoparticles led to lower survival rate and augmented growth rate of Artemia (p<0.05). Regarding reproductive traits, group exposed to 1mgl-1 silver nanoparticles showed the lowest total offspring, offspring per day, offspring per brood and life span (p<0.05). In conclusion, the discharge of silver nanoparticles even at lower concentrations would undesirably influence reproductive cycle of A. urmiana and result in lower survival and reproductive performance of the animal

Prediction of ovulation induction outcome in normogonadotropic anovulatory infertility

Anovulation is a major cause of female reproductive dysfunction and can be identified in approximately 18-25% of couples presenting with infertility (Hull et al., 1985). Oligomenorrhea (arbitrarily defined as menstrual periods occurring at intervals betvveen 35 days to 6 months) or amenorrhea (menstruation intervals longer than 6 months) are common features. Whether and ho\v frequent there occasional bleedings are associated with preceding ovulatory cycles is not known. The occurence of ovulation can be established applying basal body temperature charts, the assessment of serum progesterone levels, or through the observation by ultrasound of co !laps of the pre-ovulatory follicle. While ovulatory cycles may be observed occasionally in oligomenorrheic ·women, ovulatory cycles are unlikely events in amenorrhea. 'vVell-designed longitudinal follow-up studies concerning the incidence of spontaneous conception in oligomenorrheic patients are lacking. Follov,.·-up studies performed thus far report only on pregnancies in those women who did not conceive spontaneously and subsequently seek the physician's help. Therefore, this population may be a negative selection of patients who exhibit cycle abnormalities. Obviously, induction of ovulation is required in these anovulatory patients to achieve follicular maturation, subsequent ovulation and ultimately conception. The association between oligoamenorrhea, obesity, bilateral polycystic ovaries, and hirsutism was illustrated in 1935 by Stein and Leventhal (Stein et al., 1935). A primary ovarian defect was inferred since bilateral vvedge resection of the ovary restored the cycle abnormality unexpectedly and 2 of 7 patients conceived (Stein et al., 1967). The wide variability of clinical and histologic findings associated with anovulatory state in PCOS resulted in the inability of the investigator to distinguish clinically significant and reliable characteristics of this syndrome (Goldzieher et al., 1963). Excessive androgen production was initially attributed to abnormal adrenal function. Hyperandrogenemia clue to diminished granulosa cell aromatase activity (responsible fOr the conversion of androgens to estrogens) of the polycystic ovaries (PCO) has subsequently been demonstrated (Axelrod et al., 1962). Abnormalities in the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis resulting in inappropriate FSH secretion along with luteinizing hormone (LH) hypersecretion has also been highlighted (Yen et al., 1970). Further insight in the abnormal physiology of this disorder occurred vvhen hyperandrogenism \vas demonstrated to be LH dependent (Givens et al., 1974). A landmark discovery was the association of ovarian hyperandrogenism and various causes of insulin resistance (Kahn et al., 1976) and subsequently, an association between polycystic ovaries, hyperandrogenism and hyperinsulinemia was established (Burghen et al., 1980)

Stereoscopic Video Deblurring Transformer

Stereoscopic cameras, such as those in mobile phones and various recent intelligent systems, are becoming increasingly common. Multiple variables can impact the stereo video quality, e.g., blur distortion due to camera/object movement. Monocular image/video deblurring is a mature research field, while there is limited research on stereoscopic content deblurring. This paper introduces a new Transformer-based stereo video deblurring framework with two crucial new parts: a self-attention layer and a feed-forward layer that realizes and aligns the correlation among various video frames. The traditional fully connected (FC) self-attention layer fails to utilize data locality effectively, as it depends on linear layers for calculating attention maps The Vision Transformer, on the other hand, also has this limitation, as it takes image patches as inputs to model global spatial information. 3D convolutional neural networks (3D CNNs) process successive frames to correct motion blur in the stereo video. Besides, our method uses other stereo-viewpoint information to assist deblurring. The parallax attention module (PAM) is significantly improved to combine the stereo and cross-view information for more deblurring. An extensive ablation study validates that our method efficiently deblurs the stereo videos based on the experiments on two publicly available stereo video datasets. Experimental results of our approach demonstrate state-of-the-art performance compared to the image and video deblurring techniques by a large margin

Efficacy of fentanyl transdermal patch in the treatment of chronic soft tissue cancer pain

Background: Cancer pain may be a major problem for health care providers worldwide. According to different studies reporting the pain severity, one-third of patients reported to have moderate to severe pain. Management of cancer pain is one of the most important goals of palliative care. Recently, different research results on the efficacy of opioid analgesics in chronic pain management have played a role to implement standards in pain control by government agencies worldwide. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of fentanyl transdermal patch in the treatment of chronic soft tissue cancer pain. Patients and Methods: In a prospective descriptive study, we evaluated 86 patients with soft tissue tumors with chronic pain referred to cancer institute of Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran, during 2006-2007. For all patients, transdermal fentanyl patch (25 μg/h) was administered. The appearance of patches was the same. Pain severity was measured by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) initially and 24, 48 and 72 hours after the initiation of treatment. Results: Patients' characteristics and VAS score before the treatment were not significantly different (P > 0.05). According to our findings, the pain severity was significantly reduced after the treatment (P = 0.001). The incidence of adverse events in patients was significantly high (72). The most common adverse events were sleepiness, nausea and vomiting in 30.2 and 18.6, respectively. Conclusions: Transdermal fentanyl patch was an effective and safe method to reduce pain in patients with soft tissue tumors. Moreover, it could improve the quality of life in these patients, but adverse events occurred in approximately 72 of patients. © 2015, Iranian Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ISRAPM)

Comparing mindfulness-based group therapy with treatment as usual for opioid dependents: A pilot randomized clinical trial study protocol

Background: In response to high burden of opioid abuse in Iran, Ministry of Health has launched a large-scale opioid maintenance treatment program, delivered through a network of certified drug treatment centers. To promote opioid pharmacotherapies, there is an urgent need to develop and introduce evidence-based psychosocial interventions into the network. Patients and Methods: This is a randomized clinical trial (RCT) to investigate feasibility and effectiveness of adding mindfulness-based group therapy to opioid pharmacotherapies as compared to opioid pharmacotherapies alone. The primary outcomes were treatment retention and percentage of weekly morphine, methamphetamine, and benzodiazepine negative tests. Discussion: This is the first RCT that explores the effectiveness of mindfulness-based relapse prevention group therapy among opioid dependent clients in Iran. The feasibility of group therapy and comparison of outcomes in intervention and control groups should be discussed in the outcome article. © 2015, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences

Effectiveness of mindfulness-based group therapy compared to the usual opioid dependence treatment

Objective: This study investigated the effectiveness of mindfulness-based group therapy (MBGT) compared to the usual opioid dependence treatment (TAU).Thirty outpatients meeting the DSM-IV-TR criteria for opioid dependence from Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS) were randomly assigned into experimental (Mindfulness-Based Group Therapy) and control groups (the Usual Treatment).The experimental group undertook eight weeks of intervention, but the control group received the usual treatment according to the INCAS program. Methods: The Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Addiction Sevier Index (ASI) were administered at pre-treatment and post-treatment assessment periods. Thirteen patients from the experimental group and 15 from the control group completed post-test assessments. Results: The results of MANCOVA revealed an increase in mean scores in observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, non-reacting, and decrease in mean scores of alcohol and opium in MBGT patient group. Conclusion: The effectiveness of MBGT, compared to the usual treatment, was discussed in this paper as a selective protocol in the health care setting for substance use disorders

Age-related differences in features associated with polycystic ovary syndrome in normogonadotrophic oligo-amenorrhoeic infertile women of reproductive years

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of age on clinical, endocrine and sonographic features associated with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in normogonadotrophic anovulatory infertile women of reproductive years

Dynamic simulation of boring process

a b s t r a c t This article presents a model to simulate the dynamics of boring process. In boring operations the boring bar should be long and slender; therefore it is easily subjected to vibrations. Tool vibrations result in reduced tool life, poor surface finish and may also introduce chatter. Hence, predicting the vibrational behavior of boring process for certain cutting conditions and tool work-piece properties is of great importance. The proposed method models the cutting tool geometry by B-spline parametric curves. By using B-spline curves it is possible to simulate different tool geometries with a single approach. B-spline curves also enable the modeling of the kinematics of chip formation for different tool work-piece engagement conditions with a single formulation. The boring bar has been modeled by the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. The simulation process has been implemented with MATLAB. The algorithm consists of different computational modules that are interconnected by a main program. Experimental machining tests have been conducted to verify the validity of the proposed model. Proposed dynamic models have been able to predict the dynamic cutting force components and vibration frequencies with less than 15% deviation. The proposed model has been also able to predict the chatter onset correctly

High singleton live birth rate following classical ovulation induction in normogonadotrophic anovulatory infertility (WHO 2)

BACKGROUND: Medical induction of ovulation using clomiphene citrate (CC) as first line and exogenous gonadotrophins as second line forms the classical treatment algorithm in normogonadotrophic anovulatory infertility. Because the chances of success following classical ovulation induction are not well established, a shift in first-line therapy can be observed towards alternative treatment. The study aim was to: (i) reliably assess the probability of singleton live birth following classical induction of ovulation; and (ii) construct a prediction model, based on individual patient characteristics assessed upon standardized initial screening, to help identify patients with poor chances of success. METHODS: A total of 240 consecutive women visiting a specialist academic fertility unit with a history of infertility, oligomenorrhoea or amenorrhoea, and normal FSH and estradiol serum concentrations (WHO group 2) was prospectively followed. The women had not been previously treated with ovulation-inducing agents. All patients commenced with CC. Patients who did not ovulate within three treatment cycles of incremental daily doses up to 150 mg for 5 consecutive days or ovulatory CC patients who did not conceive within six cycles, subsequently underwent gonadotrophin induction of ovulation applying a step-down dose regimen. The main outcome measure was pregnancy resulting in singleton live birth. Cox regression was used to construct a multivariable prediction model. RESULTS: Overall, there were 134 pregnancies ending in a singleton live birth (56% of women). The cumulative pregnancy rate after 12 and 24 months of follow-up was 50% and 71% respectively. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) patients (49%), clearly non-PCOS patients (13%) and the in-between group did not differ in prognosis (P = 0.9). The multivariable Cox regression model contained the woman's age, the insulin:glucose ratio and duration of infertility. With a cut-off value of 30% for low chance, the model predicted probabilities at 12 months lower than this cut-off for 25 out of 240 patients (10.4%). CONCLUSIONS: Classical ovulation induction produces very good results in normogonadotrophic anovulatory infertility. Alternative treatment options may not be indicated as first-line therapy in these patients, except for subgroups with poor prognosis. These women can be identified by older age, longer duration of infertility and higher insulin:glucose ratio

Climate Change Perceptions and Adaptations among Smallholder Farmers in the Mountains of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The warming rates in many mountain areas are higher than the global average, negatively impacting crop systems. Little is known about the climatic changes which are already being observed in eastern Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo, due to the lack of long-term meteorological data. Local perceptions could help us to understand not only the climatic changes and impacts but also which adaptation strategies are already being used by local smallholder farmers. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to 300 smallholder Bafuliru (n = 150) and Lega (n = 150) farmers living in the Itombwe Mountains. The respondents reported climatic changes and impacts, with the Bafuliru—living on the eastern drier slopes—reporting more changes and impacts. While the Bafuliru were implementing several adaptation strategies (e.g., increased irrigation and use of inputs, more soil conservation, more income diversification), the Lega were implementing very few, due to soft limits (access to inputs, markets, and information) and culture (less interest in farming, less capacity to organize into groups). The results highlight important differences in sociocultural contexts, even for one ‘remote’ mountain, calling for a more collaborative approach to adaptation planning and action.We acknowledge funding from Ecole Régionale d’Aménagement et Gestion Intégrés des Forêts et Territoires Tropicaux (ERAIFT) and Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN)