Acid fast staining in formalin-fixed tissue specimen of patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis

Diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) is difficult owing to low number of bacilli in the specimens, lack of adequate sample and non-uniform distribution of bacteria in tissues. The aim of this study was to investigate the utility of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) staining in biopsy specimens with typical granulomatous inflammation in patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis and some related predictors.This study included 226 tissue biopsies of patients with EPTB showing typical granulomatous inflammation. Ziehl-Neelsen staining was performed for acid fast bacilli on paraffin embedded sections of tissue blocks. The most common site of involvement was pleura followed by vertebral and lymph nodes. Past history of pulmonary tuberculosis was positive in 46% of patients. The overall AFB positivity in specimens was 26.1%. The most positivity was in pleural TB (35.2%) and the least was in bone and joints TB (4.8%). There was significant association between site of involvement and AFB positivity (p=0.042). In multivariate logistic regression model, previous history of pulmonary tuberculosis was strongly associated with AFB positivity. Our study showed somewhat higher rate of smear positivity for acid fast bacilli in tissue specimen with typical pathology in some types of EPTB especially in patients with history of pulmonary tuberculosis. Despite low sensitivity, this method should be performed in patients suspected to EPTB especially in developing counties where new modality is not routinely available

Comparative (computational) analysis of the DNA methylation status of trinucleotide repeat expansion diseases

Copyright © 2013 Mohammadmersad Ghorbani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Previous studies have examined DNA methylation in different trinucleotide repeat diseases. We have combined this data and used a pattern searching algorithm to identify motifs in the DNA surrounding aberrantly methylated CpGs found in the DNA of patients with one of the three trinucleotide repeat (TNR) expansion diseases: fragile X syndrome (FRAXA), myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1), or Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA). We examined sequences surrounding both the variably methylated (VM) CpGs, which are hypermethylated in patients compared with unaffected controls, and the nonvariably methylated CpGs which remain either always methylated (AM) or never methylated (NM) in both patients and controls. Using the J48 algorithm of WEKA analysis, we identified that two patterns are all that is necessary to classify our three regions CCGG* which is found in VM and not in AM regions and AATT* which distinguished between NM and VM + AM using proportional frequency. Furthermore, comparing our software with MEME software, we have demonstrated that our software identifies more patterns than MEME in these short DNA sequences. Thus, we present evidence that the DNA sequence surrounding CpG can influence its susceptibility to be de novo methylated in a disease state associated with a trinucleotide repeat.European Union Seventh Framework Programme and The Brunel University Graduate Program

Tendency to Hookah among Adolescents in Kurdkoy City

Background and Objective: Nowadays, smoking is a widespread health problem in the world. Hookah smoking is common in many countries, especially in the Middle East and Africa. This study aimed to investigate the causes of hookah smoking in adolescents in Kurdkoy, 2013. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 266 teenagers selected via multi stage sampling. The questionnaires were distributed among the people who were present at the Coffeehouses and the results were reported by descriptive statistics. Results: The results showed that 51.5% of the participants said they use Hookah every day. The reasons were pastime (56.4), unemployment (41.7), Pleasant feeling (33.8), being with friends (33.5), fatigue reduction (33.5) and the availability of hookah (32.3). Conclusion: To minimize the tendency to Hookah smoking, we recommend planning some activities for leisure time, "learning to say no" and training how to reduce anxiety and fatigue

Optimization of Anthocyanin Extraction from Saffron Petals with Response Surface Methodology

Optimum extraction conditions of anthocyanins from petals of saffron (Crocus sativus) using acidified ethanol as the solvent were revealed. The investigated factors were solvent to sample ratio (20:1–80:1), ethanol concentration (%), extraction temperature (25–45 °C), and time (8–24 h). Response surface methodology with Box–Behnken design was applied to determine optimum processing conditions leading to maximum extraction efficiency (mg cyanindin-3-glucoside/l). Obtained coefficients of variance showed that the linear effect of temperature was more pronounced for extraction yield than three other variables at 5 % level. Optimum extraction conditions that maximize the extracted anthocyanins were found to be a ratio of solvents to sample 20 ml/g, ethanol concentration of 25.02 %, temperature 25.8 °C, and extraction time 24 h which gave 1609.11 mg/l anthocyanins. A quadratic regression equation describing the effects of independent process variables on anthocyanin extraction from saffron petals can be used for finding optimum conditions to achieve desired extraction yield in similar conditions. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York

Effects of organic fertilisers and compost extracts on organic tomato production

The effects of various fertilizers and different compost extracts on crop health and tomato yield were studied in the field in 2004–2005 in two locations in Iran. Treatments included different fertilizers (cattle, sheep and chicken manures, green waste and household composts and chemical fertilizers) and five aqueous extracts (from cattle manure, chicken manure, green-waste and house-hold composts and water as control). The effect of fertilizer type on tomato yield was significant in both locations (P < 0.05). Organic fertilizer use did not obtain higher yields compared to using chemical fertiliser. Generally, chicken manure and green-waste compost led to the highest and lowest tomato yield among different organic fertilizers, respectively. The effect of aqueous extracts was not significant on either crop health or tomato yield with these results were being very limited and inconsistent. Improved efficacy of acceptable alternatives to agrochemicals, especially in organic farming, is required

Storage stability of encapsulated barberry's anthocyanin and its application in jelly formulation

The barberry (Berberis vulgaris) extract which is a rich source of anthocyanin was used for encapsulation with three different wall materials i.e., combination of gum Arabic and maltodextrin (GA+MD), combination of maltodextrin and gelatin (MD+GE) and maltodextrin (MD) by spray drying process. In this context, the storage stability of encapsulated pigments was investigated under four storage temperatures (4, 25, 35 and 42 °C), four relative humidities (20, 30, 40 and 50%) and light illumination until 90 days. All wall materials largely increased the half-life of the encapsulated pigments during storage compared with non-encapsulated anthocyanins. MD+GA showed the highest encapsulation efficiency, lower degradation rate in all temperatures and was found as the most effective wall material in stabilizing the pigments. The encapsulated pigments were utilized in coloring jelly powder as an alternative of synthetic color. Sensory evaluation were run to identify best encapsulated natural color concentration in jelly powder formulation according to acceptability by consumers. A jelly with added 7% encapsulated color had higher scores than the commercial jelly containing synthetic color for all the sensory attributes evaluated. Physicochemical properties of produced jelly including moisture content, hygroscopicity, acidity, ash content and texture were not significantly different with control sample while, syneresis and solubility of the samples prepared with encapsulated color was significantly reduced. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

Application of the Cloude-Pottier decomposition to weather radar signatures

In this paper we apply the Cloude-Pottier decomposition to Weather Radar Signatures. First, we present the results of a simulation carried out at the Chemnitz University of Technology and give the expected H-α values for different rain intensities. A comparison with standard radarmeteorological variables is also given. Then, first ever images of Entropy and Anisotropy are presented for clouds and precipitation. Experimental Data are from the POLDIRAD Weather Facility in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany