Could polyphenols really be a good radioprotective strategy?

Currently, radiotherapy is one of the most effective strategies to treat cancer. However, deleterious toxicity against normal cells indicate for the need to selectively protect them. Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species reinforce ionizing radiation cytotoxicity, and compounds able to scavenge these species or enhance antioxidant enzymes (e.g., superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase) should be properly investigated. Antioxidant plant-derived compounds, such as phenols and polyphenols, could represent a valuable alternative to synthetic compounds to be used as radio-protective agents. In fact, their dose-dependent antioxidant/pro-oxidant efficacy could provide a high degree of protection to normal tissues, with little or no protection to tumor cells. The present review provides an update of the current scientific knowledge of polyphenols in pure forms or in plant extracts with good evidence concerning their possible radiomodulating action. Indeed, with few exceptions, to date, the fragmentary data available mostly derive from in vitro studies, which do not find comfort in preclinical and/or clinical studies. On the contrary, when preclinical studies are reported, especially regarding the bioactivity of a plant extract, its chemical composition is not taken into account, avoiding any standardization and compromising data reproducibility

Scholarship fund for Palestinian refugee women

French version available in IDRC Digital Library: Nouvel espoir pour les réfugiées palestiniennes au LibanThe project is supported by the State of Qatar, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the OPEC Fund for International Development, and the governments of Spain, the United States, and France. The fund is aimed at refugee Palestinian female students wishing to attend an accredited Lebanese university. The unemployment rate among Palestinians in Lebanon is as high as 40% and many Palestinians live in poverty. Consequently, the level of education among Palestinians has dropped considerably. The article (2003) describes the programme operation and some students’ stories

Fonds de bourses d'études pour les réfugiées palestiniennes

Version anglaise disponible dans la Bibliothèque numérique du CRDI : New hope for Palestinian refugee women in Lebano

Halotolerant Ability and α-Amylase Activity of Some Saltwater Fungal Isolates

Four halotolerant fungal isolates originating from the saltwater Lake Urmia in Iran were selected during a screening program for salt resistance and α-amylase activity. The isolates were identified based on sequencing the ITS region and a part of the β-tubulin gene, as Penicillium chrysogenum (isolate U1; CBS 132820), Fusarium incarnatum (isolate U2; CBS 132821), and Penicillium polonicum (isolate U3; CBS 132822, and isolate U4; CBS 132823). The growth of these isolates was determined by measuring the colony diameter and mycelia dry weight in Sabouraud dextrose agar and yeast nitrogen base medium supplemented with NaCl, KCl, and LiCl. Isolate U4 showed a growth up in 15% NaCl and U1 was the only isolate that could grow in 20% KCl. None of the strains grew in a media containing LiCl. The salt supplemented medium did not increase the size of colony diameter in all isolates (p > 0.05). The ability of the selected isolates for amylase production was quantitatively tested and showed that P. polonicum isolate U4 was the most potent producer of amylase with a yield of 260.9 U/L after 60 h, whereas P. polonicum isolate U3 was the lowest one with a production level of 97.9 U/L after 48 h. P. polonicum isolate U4 could be a suitable candidate for production of amylase on an industrial scale after optimization. © 2013 by School of Pharmacy

Superconducting On-chip Fourier Transform Spectrometer

The kinetic inductance effect is strongly nonlinear with applied current in NbTiN, TiN and NbN thin films. This can be utilized to realize novel devices. We present results from transmission lines made with these materials, where DC (current) control is used to modulate the phase velocity thereby enabling on-chip spectrometers. Utility of such compact spectrometers is discussed, along with their natural connection with parametric amplifiers

Artificial neural network for non-intrusive electrical energy monitoring system

This paper discusses non-intrusive electrical energy monitoring (NIEM) system in an effort to minimize electrical energy wastages. To realize the system, an energy meter is used to measure the electrical consumption by electrical appliances. The obtained data were analyzed using a method called multilayer perceptron (MLP) technique of artificial neural network (ANN). The event detection was implemented to identify the type of loads and the power consumption of the load which were identified as fan and lamp. The switching ON and OFF output events of the loads were inputted to MLP in order to test the capability of MLP in classifying the type of loads. The data were divided to 70% for training, 15% for testing, and 15% for validation. The output of the MLP is either ‘1’ for fan or ‘0’ for lamp. In conclusion, MLP with five hidden neurons results obtained the lowest average training time with 2.699 seconds, a small number of epochs with 62 iterations, a min square error of 7.3872×10-5, and a high regression coefficient of 0.99050

Epidemiological aspects of suicide lead to death in Iranian population during 2004-2008; A retrospective study

Suicide is raised in many countries around the world as one of the major problems in medical and social advocacy. The increasing incidence of suicide in the community is sensible and irreparable damage to the body of a society's human resources. Therefore the present study aimed to explore the epidemiological aspects of suicide leads to death in Iranian population during 2004-2008. In a retrospective study a census sampling method was used. All records formed of suicide death in Ilam province during 2004 to 2008 in the Office of the State Coroner were evaluated. Data was collected by a checklist including age, gender, marital status, educational level, occupation, number of families, suicide instrument location of attempted to suicide, place of death and season. SPSS software Package 14 was used to analyze the data of this project. Mean± SD, median and percentages were used to describe the data. The average percentage of suicide lead to death in Ilam province was 18.7 per 100.000 person's .Women and men have a suicide rate roughly equal (50.8 and 49.2). There was a significant relationship between month (P= 0.02), season (P= 0.03), the number of families (P= 0.001) and percentage of suicide lead to death. Self-burning was the most common method used by suicide lead to death. This study showed that suicide remains a serious problem and an increase occurred in suicide in Ilam province in comparison with previous years

Nanotrench for nano and microparticle electrical interconnects

We present a simple and versatile patterning procedure for the reliable and reproducible fabrication of high aspect ratio (10 4 ) electrical interconnects that have separation distances down to 20 nm and lengths of several hundreds of microns. The process uses standard optical lithography techniques and allows parallel processing of many junctions, making it easily scalable and industrially relevant. We demonstrate the suitability of these nanotrenches as electrical interconnects for addressing micro and nanoparticles by realizing several circuits with integrated species. Furthermore, low impedance metal-metal low contacts are shown to be obtained when trapping a single metal-coated microsphere in the gap, emphasizing the intrinsic good electrical conductivity of the interconnects, even though a wet process is used. Highly resistive magnetite-based nanoparticles networks also demonstrate the advantage of the high aspect ratio of the nanotrenches for providing access to electrical properties of highly resistive materials, with leakage current levels below 1 pA. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd

Gas bubbles investigation in contaminated water using optical tomography based on independent component analysis method

This paper presents the results of concentration profiles for gas bubble flow in a vertical pipeline containing contaminated water using an optical tomography system. The concentration profiles for the bubble flow quantities are investigated under five different flows conditions, a single bubble, double bubbles, 25% of air opening, 50% of air opening, and 100% of air opening flow rates where a valve is used to control the gas flow in the vertical pipeline. The system is aided by the independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm to reconstruct the concentration profiles of the liquid-gas flow. The behaviour of the gas bubbles was investigated in contaminated water in which the water sample was prepared by adding 25 mL of colour ingredients to 3 liters of pure water. The result shows that the application of ICA has enabled the system to detect the presence of gas bubbles in contaminated water. This information provides vital information on the flow inside the pipe and hence could be very significant in increasing the efficiency of the process industries