Crystal growth, characterization and electronic band structure of TiSeS

Layered semimetallic van der Waals materials TiSe2 has attracted a lot of attention because of interplay of a charge density wave (CDW) state and superconductivity. Its sister compound TiS2, being isovalent to TiSe2 and having the same crystal structure, shows a semiconducting behavior. The natural rises what happens at the transition point in TiSe2-xSx, which is expected for x close to 1. Here we report the growth and characterization of TiSeS single crystals and the study of the electronic structure using density functional theory (DFT) and angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES). We show that TiSeS single crystals have the same morphology as TiSe2. Transport measurements reveal a metallic state, no evidence of CDW was found. DFT calculations suggest that the electronic band structure in TiSeS is similar to that of TiSe2, but the electron and hole pockets in TiSeS are much smaller. The ARPES results are in good agreement with the calculations.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure

Effect of Cetirizine on the concentration of testosterone, FSH, LH and histological changes of testes in adult male rat

Background : Cetirizine is an antihistaminic drug and inhibits nitric oxide production which itself inhibits steroidogenesis. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of cetirizine on the concentration of steroidal hormones testosterone, FSH and LH and spermatogenesis. Materials and Methods: Fifty adult male Wistar rats were divided into five groups of ten. All the groups were kept under daily dark and light cycle conditions. These groups included control group (receiving water and food), sham group (receiving distilled water as drug solvent) and three experimental groups (receiving 20, 40, 80 mg/kg/B.W of cetirizine orally). After 28 days, blood samples were taken from the rats to measure the serum concentrations of testosterone, FSH, and LH hormones using RIA method. In addition, tissue sections of the rats' testes were stained to find out histological changes during the experiment. Statistical analysis of the data was carried out using ANOVA and DUNCAN tests. Results : The results obtained from this study indicated that the concentration of testosterone in the blood of the experimental rats increased relatively (p ≤ 0.05), but no significant changes have been observed in the concentrations of LH and FSH hormones during the experiment. Conclusion: It can be concluded that cetirizine probably increases the concentration of testosterone due to increasing LH receptor in leydig cells. On the other hand, the results obtained from the histological studies showed that cetirizine has affected neither sertoli nor leydig cells and spermatogenesis

Spatial patterns and temporal variations of traffic-related air pollutants and estimating its health effects in Isfahan city, Iran

Isfahan as an important industrial city has faced with air pollution recently. Thus, we assessed the spatial and temporal trends of ambient PM2.5, CO, SO2, and O3 and for estimating their health effect on Isfahan citizens between March 2018 and March 2019 through the AirQ+ software. Our results showed that citizens of Isfahan in almost 240, 167, and 134 of the days in the year has exposure to PM2.5, SO2, and O3 higher than the WHO daily guideline, respectively. Daily variations of PM2.5, CO, and SO2 concentration showed the increasing trend of pollutants in the morning to evening. The maximum concentrations of O3 were observed in the noonday. Also, the concentrations of these pollutants on Friday due to the holiday effect were higher than the weekdays. Except for O3, the PM2.5, CO, and SO2 concentrations in the cold months and cold seasons was higher compared with the hot months and hot seasons. The total number of deaths because of lung cancer, natural mortality, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke associated with ambient PM2.5 with the attributable proportion (AP) 11.43, 11.63, 15.96, 15.15, and 13.1 (95 CI) were 683, 19, 2, 202, and 55 cases, respectively. Therefore, the present study provides additional data for the provincial managers and politicians useful in planning proper strategies of air pollution control to decrease exposure and attributable mortalities. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Automated Atrial Fibrillation Diagnosis by Echocardiography without ECG: Accuracy and Applications of a New Deep Learning Approach

Background: Automated rhythm detection on echocardiography through artificial intelligence (AI) has yet to be fully realized. We propose an AI model trained to identify atrial fibrillation (AF) using apical 4-chamber (AP4) cines without requiring electrocardiogram (ECG) data. Methods: Transthoracic echocardiography studies of consecutive patients ≥ 18 years old at our tertiary care centre were retrospectively reviewed for AF and sinus rhythm. The study was first interpreted by level III-trained echocardiography cardiologists as the gold standard for rhythm diagnosis based on ECG rhythm strip and imaging assessment, which was also verified with a 12-lead ECG around the time of the study. AP4 cines with three cardiac cycles were then extracted from these studies with the rhythm strip and Doppler information removed and introduced to the deep learning model ResNet(2+1)D with an 80:10:10 training–validation–test split ratio. Results: 634 patient studies (1205 cines) were included. After training, the AI model achieved high accuracy on validation for detection of both AF and sinus rhythm (mean F1-score = 0.92; AUROC = 0.95). Performance was consistent on the test dataset (mean F1-score = 0.94, AUROC = 0.98) when using the cardiologist’s assessment of the ECG rhythm strip as the gold standard, who had access to the full study and external ECG data, while the AI model did not. Conclusions: AF detection by AI on echocardiography without ECG appears accurate when compared to an echocardiography cardiologist’s assessment of the ECG rhythm strip as the gold standard. This has potential clinical implications in point-of-care ultrasound and stroke risk stratification