Decreased endogenous progesterone and ratio of progesterone to estrogen in stroke ischemia

Progesterone and estrogen are two steroid hormones whose exposure may decrease the risk and delay the onset of ischemic stroke. The main objective of this study was to determine the plasma level of progesterone, estrogen and ratio of progesterone/estrogen in ischemic stroke patients. The plasma levels of progesterone, estrogen and ratio of  progesterone/estrogen in 30 patients (15 men and 15 women) with acute ischemic stroke was determined within 12 h of the onset of the attack as well as in 30 control subjects (15 men and 15 women) of comparable age. There were significant differences between the progesterone and ratio of progesterone/estrogen of stroke and control group (p = 0.022 and p = 0.001, respectively). Compared with control, stroke patients had lower levels of progesterone and ratio of progesterone/estrogen. There were not significant differences between levels of estradiol in stroke and control groups. The results showed ischemic stroke is accompanied by reduction ofprogesterone and ratio of progesterone/estradiol. These reductions might be involved in the decreased protection of brain to ischemic injury

Time difference of arrival estimation of sound source using cross correlation and modified maximum likelihood weighting function

The Generalized Cross Correlation (GCC) framework is one of the most widely used methods for Time Difference Of Arrival (TDOA) estimation and Sound Source Localization (SSL). TDOA estimation using cross correlation without any pre-filtering of the received signals has a large number of errors in real environments. Thus, several filters (weighting functions) have been proposed in the literature to improve the performance of TDOA estimation. These functions aim to mitigate TDOA estimation error in noisy and reverberant environments. Most of these methods consider the noise or reverberation, and as one of them increases, TDOA estimation error increases. In this paper, we propose a new weighting function. This function is a combined and modified version of Maximum Likelihood (ML) and PHAT-rho gamma functions. We named our proposed function as Modified Maximum Likelihood with Coherence (MMLC). This function has merits of both ML and PHAT-rho gamma functions and can work properly in both noisy and reverberant environments. We evaluate our proposed weighting function using real and synthesized datasets. Simulation results show that our proposed filter has better performance in terms of TDOA estimation error and anomalous estimations. (c) 2017 Sharif University of Technology. All rights reserved.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of medical science staff awareness of factors causing high blood pressure and its complications in Yasouj year 2017

Introduction: Blood pressure is the force per unit area of the blood vessel wall is entered and measured in millimeters of mercury systolic and diastolic pressure, and is therefore expressed. Various risk factors that can be a precursor to hypertension, such as poor nutrition and highcalorie foods and salty, high blood pressure, family history, gender, age, BMI is increasing. Early symptoms include high blood pressure, dizziness, redness of the face, and headache, which, if not treated promptly, can damage the kidneys, eyes, or lead to stroke and stroke and ultimately cause death. The most important factors affecting high blood pressure are age, genetic background and food. In this study, we studied the factors affecting high blood pressure and its complications among staff members of Yasouj University of Medical Sciences

Migranalytics: Entity-based analytics of migration tweets

This poster focuses on a visual analysis of the tweets related to European migration crisis. It uses TweetsKB as a starting point and then formulates a search criteria for extracting tweets by enriching semantic entities and hashtags starting from the seed word \Refugee". It combines European migration statistics with the information obtained by the tweets and provides visual analysis from different perspectives

The Enzymatic Activity and Molecular Characterization of a Secreted Subtilisin-Like Protease in Microsporum gypseum and Trichophyton vanbreuseghemii

Background: Subtilisin -like proteases are the group of proteases including keratinases found in dermatophytes which de­graded keratin. Determination of the proteases activity of Trichophyton vanbreuseghemii isolates which were obtained from soil and clinical and soil isolates of Microsporum gypseum in Iran and characterization of their genome were aim of present study.Methods: Ezymatic activity was determined by use of chromogenic substrates. The genes, which coded subtilisin-like pro­teases in above-mentioned dermatophytes, was identified and amplified by using specific primers in PCR. Results: The highest yield of enzyme production was observed in only one isolate of T. vanbreuseghemii Ir-84 whereas low enzyme activity was observed in M. gypseum isolates. Homology study of obtained nucleotide as well as amino acid sequences indicated different rates of homology with other subtilisin-like proteases genes in other pathogenic dermato­phytes. Conclusion: Intra-strain differences were observed in production of serine proteinases and molecular characterization of genes encoding such enzymes could be of great interest for studies on pathogenicity and other purposes

Scientific Report Coincidence of meibomian adenoma and squamous cell carcinoma in the upper eyelid of a sheep: histopathological and immunohistochemical studies

Summary This report is related to a female 7-year-old crossbreed sheep whose right eye had been protruded and swelling of upper eyelid was observed. Routine enucleating was performed. Histopathological evaluation of eyelid revealed coincidence of two kinds of neoplasms. The first part was composed of multiple lobules of sebocytes, which were detected as meibomian adenoma. The second section included infiltrating islands of neoplastic squamous epithelium extending through the basal lamina of the epithelium with keratin pearls and was noted as grade I squamous cell carcinoma. Immunohistochemical study of cytokeratin showed positive reaction in both kinds of neoplastic cells. This is a rare case of meibomian adenoma in sheep with squamous cell carcinoma coincidence

Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using the Extract of Lonicera Nummulariifolia and Investigating Its Antioxidant, Antimicrobial and Anticancer Effects Against Lung Cancer Cell Line A549

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Due to the increasing incidence of cancer-related deaths and the deficiencies of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in advanced forms of cancer, new approaches are needed to control cancer, and one of these techniques is the use of nanoparticles, especially silver nanoparticles. Nowadays, the use of plants for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles has attracted the attention of researchers due to their low cost. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles using the extract of lonicera nummulariifolia and to study its antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer effects against lung cancer cell line A549. METHODS: In this experimental study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized using the extract of lonicera nummulariifolia as a regenerative agent. The antioxidant effects of synthesized silver nanoparticles were evaluated by DPPH assay and finally its antimicrobial and anticancer activity were respectively evaluated by Broth Microdilution and MTT assays at concentrations of 3.125, 6.25, 12.5, 25, 50, 100 μg/ml on lung cancer cell line within 24 h. FINDINGS: The results of DPPH assay showed that the synthesized silver nanoparticles at 100 µg/ml had an antioxidant effect of 33.77±0.83. Antimicrobial test results showed that the antimicrobial effects of silver nanoparticles were greater on gram negative bacteria. MTT results also showed that cell viability was 70.33±0.21 (p>0.05), 51.66±0.24 (p<0.05) 35.75±0.35 (p<0.01), 20.66±0.28 (p<0.001), 13.5±0.31 (p<0.001), and 7.6±0.37 (p<0.001), respectively. Results of DPPH assay showed that silver nanoparticles has significant antioxidant effects (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Considering the antimicrobial and anticancer effects of synthesized silver nanoparticles, it can be used as a drug candidate

Exploration of the experience of living with chronic insomnia: A qualitative study

Background. Chronic insomnia is associated with consequential experience that may affect quality of life. Understanding such experience can be helpful in planning effective interventions for patients with chronic insomnia. Objective. The study aimed to describe and illuminate the experience of living with chronic insomnia. Method. The study was conducted using a descriptive phenomenology approach. Participants were selected purposefully from patients with chronic insomnia who had been referred to the sleep disorders research center at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in Iran in 2014. Data were gathered through in-depth unstructured interviews and analyzed according to the Colaizzi method by means of Husserlian phenomenology. Results. Two main themes were found in this study, from which five sub themes were constructed: first, an upset mind, with the subthemes of insomnia as an unpleasant experience and insomnia as a worrying experience; and second, an unwanted new lifestyle with treatment seeking behavior, a boring new daily routine and being overshadowed by depressed mood as the subthemes. Conclusion. The study identified the experience of living with chronic insomnia as a painful one with both mental and practical aspects. The experience also explains how mental engagement and practical outcomes of chronic insomnia may interfere with well-being and quality of life in sufferers. It is recommended that patients' experiences would be considered in assessment and treatment of chronic insomnia. Therefore, therapeutic interventions should pay attention to this area

Breathing as a Fundamental Rhythm of Brain Function

Ongoing fluctuations of neuronal activity have long been considered intrinsic noise that introduces unavoidable and unwanted variability into neuronal processing, which the brain eliminates by averaging across population activity (Georgopoulos et al., 1986; Lee et al., 1988; Shadlen and Newsome, 1994; Maynard et al., 1999). It is now understood, that the seemingly random fluctuations of cortical activity form highly structured patterns, including oscillations at various frequencies, that modulate evoked neuronal responses (Arieli et al., 1996; Poulet and Petersen, 2008; He, 2013) and affect sensory perception (Linkenkaer-Hansen et al., 2004; Boly et al., 2007; Sadaghiani et al., 2009; Vinnik et al., 2012; Palva et al., 2013). Ongoing cortical activity is driven by proprioceptive and interoceptive inputs. In addition, it is partially intrinsically generated in which case it may be related to mental processes (Fox and Raichle, 2007; Deco et al., 2011). Here we argue that respiration, via multiple sensory pathways, contributes a rhythmic component to the ongoing cortical activity. We suggest that this rhythmic activity modulates the temporal organization of cortical neurodynamics, thereby linking higher cortical functions to the process of breathing