Strings of group endomorphisms

Recently the strings and the string number of self-maps were used in the computation of the algebraic entropy of special group endomorphisms. We introduce two special kinds of strings, and their relative string numbers. We show that a dichotomy holds for all these three string numbers; in fact, they admit only zero and infinity as values on group endomorphisms.Comment: 17 page

Cytotoxicity of Sambucus ebulus on cancer cell lines and protective effects of vitamins C and E against its cytotoxicity on normal cell lines

Isolation and identification of potent anti-tumor compounds from medicinal plants, has motivated researchers to screen plant species for anti-tumor effects. Regarding the traditional utilization of Sambucus ebulus, Iranian native botany and its active ingredients (e.g. ebulitin and ebulin 1), cytotoxicity of ethyl acetate extract from S. ebulus (SEE) on HepG2 and CT26 cancer cell lines was investigated. Also, protective effects of vitamins C and E against SEE-induced cytotoxicity on normal cell lines were studied. Cytotoxicity of SEE on cancer (HepG2 and CT26) and normal (CHO and rat fibroblast) cell lines was evaluated by MTT assay. IC50 of SEE on the cell lines was assessed. Furthermore, IC50 of SEE on normal cell lines with exposure to vitamins C, E and C+E was studied. SEE possessed lower IC50 in cancer cell lines compared with normal cell lines. It manifested high cytotoxicity that can act as anticancer compound. Also, cytotoxicity of SEE on normal cell lines in presence of vitamins C+E, E and C decreased. The results demonstrate that SEE is an effective cytotoxic agent on liver and colon cancer cells and suggest that vitamins C and E may protect normal cells, when SEE were used in cancer therapy in future.Keywords: Sambucus ebulus, cytotoxicity, IC50, MTT assay, cell line, vitamins C and E.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(21), pp. 3360-336

Codecomposition of a Transformation Semigroup

The present paper deals with the concept of “codecomposition” of a transformation semigroup interacting with the phase semigroup. In this way, we distinguish new classes of transformation semigroups with meaningful relations, e.g., we show the class of all distal transformation semigroups ⊂, the class of all transformation semigroups decomposable into distal semigroups ⊂, and the class of all transformation semigroups (here, ⊂ is strict inclusion).Розглянуто концепцію „корозкладу" трансформаційної напівгрупи, що взаємодiє з фазовою напівгрупою. Таким чином, ми вирізняємо новий клас трансформаційних напівгруп зі змістовними співвідношеннями. Так, показано, що „клас всіх дистальних трансформаційних напівгруп ⊂, клас всіх трансформаційних напівгруп, що розкладаються в дистальні напівгрупи ⊂, клас всіх трансформаційних напівгруп" (де ⊂, позначає строге включення)

Anxiety in Physicians and Nurses Working in Intensive Care Units in Yasuj's Hospitals/Iran

AbstractIntensive care unit is one of the stressful environments for its staff, especially physicians and nurses. This study was objective to determine anxiety in physicians and nurses working in intensive care units in Yasuj,s hospitals in Iran. This research is an intervention study conducted in Yerevan city in 2009. The number of participants in this study is 150 which are randomly selected. In this study 120 nurses and 30 specialists participated as the working in the intensive care unit of Yasuj,s hospitals in Iran. In the study, a 10-question demographic questionnaire, 20-question situational anxiety, 20-question personality anxiety Berger is used. After codification, the questionnaires Results indicate that average score for the situational anxiety of the nurses has been 46.96, average score for the situational anxiety of physicians has been 39.40 and that average score for the personality anxiety of the nurses has been 40.96, average score for the personality anxiety of physicians has been 36.73. This study provides valuable insight into the actual and perceived stressful experiences of critical care nurses, thus contributing to the ongoing effort to reduce burnout in this population

Social network analysis of Iranian researchers on medical parasitology: A 41 year co-authorship survey

Background: The aim of this study was to survey the Iranian Parasitology researchers� performance, and analyse and visualize the scientific outputs of their co-authorship network. Methods: This study was conducted using scientometric method and social network analysis (SNA). The data extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) databases in July 10th 2014. Totally, 1048documents of all types in research area of Parasitology during 1972-2013 by Iranian researches retrieved. The coauthorship map was drawn utilizing NETDRAW, Coauthor.exe, and UCINET softwares and was analysed based on SNA measures. Results: The researchers� co-authorship network consisted of 78 authors and its density degree is 0.57. �Mohebali� ranked top in all of centrality measures.The most of the publications were related to 2012, �Mohebali� with about 9 of all documents was the Iranian most prolific author in Parasitology field. The Iranian researches have published mostly (266 documents) in �Iranian Journal of Parasitology�, and the most of the documents belong to �Tropical Medicine� subject field. The most of Iranian researchers� scientific cooperation was performed with England and United States. Conclusion: Bringing forth density degree (is 0.57) showed that this network has an almost medium density. Indeed, the authors have had relations in moderate level with each other in the network. The findings of this study can be identified aspects of scientific collaboration, and help policy makers of Parasitology field research. © 2016, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). All rights reserved

Epitope Mapping of Tetanus Toxin by Monoclonal Antibodies: Implication for Immunotherapy and Vaccine Design

Tetanus as a life-threatening disease is characterized by muscle spasm. The disease is caused by the neurotoxin of Clostridium tetani. Active form of tetanus neurotoxin is composed of the light chain (fragment A) and the heavy chain. Fragment A is a zinc metalloprotease, which cleaves the neuronal soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive attachment receptor (SNARE) protein, leading to the blockade of inhibitory neurotransmitter release and subsequent generalized muscular spasm. Two functional domains of the heavy chain are fragment C, which is required for neuronal cell binding of the toxin and subsequent endocytosis into the vesicles, and fragment B, which is important for fragment A translocation across the vesicular membrane into the neuronal cytosol. Currently, polyclonal immunoglobulins against tetanus neurotoxin obtained from human plasma of hyper-immunized donors are utilized for passive immunotherapy of tetanus; however, these preparations have many disadvantages including high lot-to-lot heterogeneity, possibility of transmitting microbial agents, and the adverse reactions to the other proteins in the plasma. Neutralizing anti-tetanus neurotoxin monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) lack these drawbacks and could be considered as a suitable alternative for passive immunotherapy of tetanus. In this review, we provide an overview of the literature discussing epitope mapping of the published neutralizing MAbs against tetanus toxin. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

A Survey on Routing in Anonymous Communication Protocols

The Internet has undergone dramatic changes in the past 15 years, and now forms a global communication platform that billions of users rely on for their daily activities. While this transformation has brought tremendous benefits to society, it has also created new threats to online privacy, ranging from profiling of users for monetizing personal information to nearly omnipotent governmental surveillance. As a result, public interest in systems for anonymous communication has drastically increased. Several such systems have been proposed in the literature, each of which offers anonymity guarantees in different scenarios and under different assumptions, reflecting the plurality of approaches for how messages can be anonymously routed to their destination. Understanding this space of competing approaches with their different guarantees and assumptions is vital for users to understand the consequences of different design options. In this work, we survey previous research on designing, developing, and deploying systems for anonymous communication. To this end, we provide a taxonomy for clustering all prevalently considered approaches (including Mixnets, DC-nets, onion routing, and DHT-based protocols) with respect to their unique routing characteristics, deployability, and performance. This, in particular, encompasses the topological structure of the underlying network; the routing information that has to be made available to the initiator of the conversation; the underlying communication model; and performance-related indicators such as latency and communication layer. Our taxonomy and comparative assessment provide important insights about the differences between the existing classes of anonymous communication protocols, and it also helps to clarify the relationship between the routing characteristics of these protocols, and their performance and scalability