Immunotherapy Using Autoclaved L. major Antigens and M. vaccae with Meglumine Antimoniate, for the Treatment of Experimental Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis

Background: To evaluate immunotherapy against canine visceral leishmaniasis, Leishmania ma­jor antigen and heat-killed Mycobacterium vaccae (SRL172) were used as stimulators of immune de­fense mechanisms and the results were compared with standard chemotherapy meglumine antimoni­ate.Methods: Nineteen mongrel dogs aging 1-3 years old were used in this experiment. Infection was carried out in 15 out of 19 dogs using L. infantum, isolated from a naturally infected poly-symptomatic dog.Results: All the cases showed positive serologic results by direct agglutination test during 30-60 days following inoculation. In the first group, which was under chemotherapy (GlucantimeR), one of the members showed recurrence of the disease despite rapid effect of the therapeutic protocol. Im­munotherapy using SRL172 caused complete cleaning of the parasite in group 2, but the speed was less than Glucantime. Immunotherapy using L. major antigen combined with M. vaccae in group 3 and combine administration of immunotherapy and chemotherapy in group 4 both were with relapsing of one case in each group. Group 5 and 6 were consisted of positive and negative con­trol dogs, respectively.Conclusion: Immunotherapy seems to be an adjuvant in treatment of canine leishmaniasis but it needs more investigation for final confirmation

Attitude and knowledge of Iranian female nurses about Human Papilomavirus infection and cervical cancer: a cross sectional survey

Background and aim. Human Papilomavirus (HPV) is one of the most widespread sexually transmitted diseases is highly related to cervical cancer in women. Cervical cancer?s crude incidence rate in Iran is 6-8 per 100,000. The HPV vaccine provides a chance to considerably decrease the transmission of most types of HPV. The aim of this study was to evaluate awareness and knowledge of HPV infection and vaccines and to assess the attitude and approach toward these vaccines among female nurses at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Materials and methods. This cross-sectional, descriptive study was performed among 380 female nurses. Data were collected using a questionnaire was consisted in demographic variables and questions on knowledge of participants about HPV infection, HPV vaccine and cervical cancer and also questions on attitude of nurses towards HPV vaccination. The validity and internal consistency of questionnaire was confirmed during experts consents and pilot testing (? = 0.79). Data analysis was performed using SPSS15 using ?2-test or Fisher?s exact test. Results. Three hundred and eighty questionnaires were dis- tributed and 357 female nurses completed and returned their questionnaires: Only one hundred and thirty-one of the nurses (36.7%) knew about HPV infection and how it can cause abnor- mal pap Smear results. about 147 (41.2%) of the nurses stated they would want to be vaccinated. About 146 (40.9%) of respond- ents supported vaccination of preadolescent girls. Conclusion. The results of this study confirm the lack of knowledge about HPV vaccine and its relation to cervical cancer and also the ways of this cancer prevention. Our study shows an urgent need to design similar studies in other regions of Iran and draw a broad esti- mation on knowledge of different target groups to make a national program to increase the knowledge of women on this matter and help to decrease the rate of cervical cancer in Iranian population

Design, Development, Implementation, and On-orbit Performance of the Dynamic Ionosphere CubeSat Experiment Mission

Funded by the NSF CubeSat and NASA ELaNa programs, the Dynamic Ionosphere CubeSat Experiment (DICE) mission consists of two 1.5U CubeSats which were launched into an eccentric low Earth orbit on October 28, 2011. Each identical spacecraft carries two Langmuir probes to measure ionospheric in-situ plasma densities, electric field probes to measure in-situ DC and AC electric fields, and a science grade magnetometer to measure in-situ DC and AC magnetic fields. Given the tight integration of these multiple sensors with the CubeSat platforms, each of the DICE spacecraft is effectively a “sensorsat” capable of comprehensive ionospheric diagnostics. The use of two identical sensor-sats at slightly different orbiting velocities in nearly identical orbits permits the de-convolution of spatial and temporal ambiguities in the observations of the ionosphere from a moving platform. In addition to demonstrating nanosat-based constellation science, the DICE mission is advancing a number of groundbreaking CubeSat technologies including miniaturized mechanisms and high-speed downlink communications

A new method for clinical assessment of medical students: Computer Adaptive Test (CAT)

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Predicting cutaneous leishmaniasis using SARIMA and Markov switching models in Isfahan, Iran: A time-series study

Objective: To determine the potential effect of environment variables on cutaneous leishmaniasis occurrence using time-series models and compare the predictive ability of seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) models and Markov switching model (MSM). Methods: This descriptive study employed yearly and monthly data of 49 364 parasitologically-confirmed cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Isfahan province, located in the center of Iran from January 2000 to December 2019. The data were provided by the leishmaniasis national surveillance system, the meteorological organization of Isfahan province, and Iranian Space Agency for vegetation information. The SARIMA and MSM models were implemented to examine the environmental factors of cutaneous leishmaniasis epidemics. Results: The minimum relative humidity, maximum relative humidity, minimum wind speed, and maximum wind speed were significantly associated with cutaneous leishmaniasis epidemics in different lags (P<0.05). Comparing SARIMA and MSM, Akaikes information criterion (AIC), and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) in MSM were much smaller than SARIMA models (MSM: AIC=0.95, MAPE=3.5; SARIMA: AIC=158.93, MAPE:11.45). Conclusions: SARIMA and MSM can be a useful tool for predicting cutaneous leishmaniasis in Isfahan province. Since cutaneous leishmaniasis falls into one of two states of epidemic and non-epidemic, the use of MSM (dynamic) is recommended, which can provide more information compared to models that use a single distribution for all observations (Box-Jenkins SARIMA model). © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved

Childhood asthma prevalence and parents’ daily cigarette smoking: a case - control study

&quot;n Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Background: Asthma prevalence has increased in developed and developing countries in several last decades. Although cigarette smoking is an identified risk factor for many diseases such as coronary Heart disease and chronic obstructive lung disease, its effect on asthma is controversial. The aim of this study was to determine the odds ratio and its confidence interval for asthma morbidity among children referred to the Immunology and Allergy department of children medical center according to their parents&apos; smoking and daily cigarette consumption.&quot;n&quot;nMethods: A case-control study was conducted during two years period on the asthmatic patients who referred to Immunology and Allergy department of children medical center. Demographic information and parents&apos; smoking and daily cigarette consumption assessed by a questionnaire. Healthy children with same age and sex were entered to the study as the control group. Statistical analysis was performed to calculate odds ratio.&quot;n&quot;nResults: Among 215 patients who entered the study 63 patients were exposed the cigarette smoke. Odds ratio for asthma morbidity among children whose parents smoke more than five cigarettes per day in comparison with whose smoke less than five or do not smoke was 2.38 (p&amp;lt;0.01).&quot;n&quot;nConclusion: Parent&apos;s cigarette smoking is a risk factor for childhood asthma and could increase the risk of asthma to 2.38 folds in children whose parents smoke more than five cigarettes. Increasing in parents&apos; knowledge level that probably relate to their education results in cigarette consumption decline

Molecular epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease virus in ruminant during 2005-2006 in Iran

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease of ruminant which causes fever and postule on mouth, hoof and teat. The main purpose of this study was to determine and charachtrize isolated FMD virus from Iran between 2005 - 2006, and to compare it with vaccine virus strains. After preparation of samples, serological test for typing of virus was performed. In order to virus isolation, the samples were inoculated to IBRS2 cell, RT-PCR and PCR were used for sequencing. Two dimentional virus neutralization test was carried out for detecting of immunological relationship (r value) between the field isolate and virus presented in vaccine. Detected strains were as follows: 241 samples of type A05IR, 125 of type A87IR, 79 of type 0, 3 of type Asia and 714 negative out of 1162 samples. Average r-values of type A, O, Asia field virus with vaccine strains were 50-92% and 97%, respectively. Phylogenic tree was designed according to the nucleic acid sequencing data. There is not strong relationship between field viruses of type A and vaccine viruses. However a strong relationship was shown for type 0 and Asia ones with vaccine virus strains.Homayoon Mahravani, Hadi Keyvanfar, Farhid Hematzadeh, Saeed Bokai, Hasan Izadi, Morteza Taghizadeh, Masoud Sotoode