Biophysical Effects Of Ion Concenteration On The Affinity Between Nanopore, OmpF Lumen and Passing Nucleotide

OmpF an outer-membrane porin channel of _E. Coli_ posses beta-barrel structure, whose conductivity and gating phenomena are affected by changes in pH, salt concentration and so on. The distribution of amino acids in OmpF induces a non homologous electric potential in channel lumen. The intrinsic charge distribution caused be amino acid may be affected by lipid bilayer, extra and intra cellular ion concentration, and other physico-chemical condition of environment including, pH, temperature, polyelectrolytes etc. Nucleotides are considered as one of most important metabolite in the cell that have pass through membrane whenever necessary. The experimental study of translocation of such a molecules through channels have provided invaluable information However, due to the instrument limitation in monitoring ontime submolecular motions occurring during the translocation, theoretical studies attractive, modeling and simulation are inevitable. In this study we calculated the changes in the affinity of OmpF towards pyrimidin at molecular level within channel lumen by Delphi 4, and monitored by VMD 1.8.5. A non-linear Poisson-Boltzmann calculator with definite element integrator found to be appropriate choice to calculate the net energy of OmpF nucleotide interactions at different ion concentration. Our results indicate that upon increasing the ion concentration the OmpF affinity to pyrimidin decreases along the channel axis showing a minimum at the inner mouth of the channel. These observations shed lights to understand the selective molecular translocation means involved in the OmpF

The He\u27s Variational Iteration Method for Solving the Integro-differential Parabolic Problem with Integral Conditions

In this paper, the variational iteration method is applied for finding the solution of an Integro-differential parabolic problem with integral conditions. Convergence of the proposed method is also discussed. Finally, some numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method

The number of distinguishing colorings of a Cartesian product graph

A vertex coloring is called distinguishing if the identity is the only automorphism that can preserve it. The distinguishing threshold $\theta(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of colors $k$ required that any arbitrary $k$-coloring of $G$ is distinguishing. In this paper, we calculate the distinguishing threshold of a Cartesian product graph. Moreover, we calculate the number of non-equivalent distinguishing colorings of grids.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

The association between dietary inflammatory index and C-reactive protein in plasma and semen with semen quality: A cross-sectional study

Background: Infertility affects couples worldwide, with male factors being responsible for half of all cases. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between dietary inflammatory index (DII) and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in plasma and semen with the quality of semen in infertile males. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 88 infertile men referring to Besat hospital, Tehran, Iran from December 2021-November 2022 were enrolled. A detailed questionnaire requesting information, and a 168-item semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire, were completed by participants. A food frequency questionnaire was used to calculate the DII. Additionally, semen and blood samples were collected from each participant for semen analysis and CRP-level assessment. Statistical analyses were performed to explore the association between DII and CRP levels with sperm quality. The correlation between DII and serum/semen CRP, besides assessing nutrients in each DII quartile group, was also explored. Results: A significant difference was observed between different DII quartiles considering sperm motility (p = 0.006) and morphology (p = 0.014). Post hoc study revealed a significant difference between the 1st and 2nd quartiles and the 1st and 4th quartiles of DII regarding sperm motility (p = 0.011, and 0.017 respectively) and a significant difference between the 1st and 2nd quartiles of DII considering sperm morphology (p = 0.009). A statistically significant inverse correlation was also observed between DII and sperm motility (p = 0.017). Carbohydrates and β-carotenes were significantly different between the 4 DII quartiles (p = 0.043 and p = 0.026, respectively). Finally, no significant correlation was observed between DII and CRP levels in blood and semen (p > 0.05). Conclusion: The findings suggested a notable correlation between DII and semen quality; however, no significant association were observed between DII and CRP levels in blood and semen. Key words: Infertility, C-reactive protein, CRP, Inflammation, Sperm

1-[((E)-{2-[(2-Nitro­benz­yl)(2-{[(E)-(2-oxidonaphthalen-1-yl)methyl­idene]aza­nium­yl}eth­yl)amino]­eth­yl}aza­niumyl­idene)meth­yl]naphthalen-2-olate monohydrate

The title Schiff base compound, C33H30N4O4·H2O, adopts an E configuration with respect to each C=N double bond. In the mol­ecule, there are naphthoxide anions and the protonated imino N atoms. Intra­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds lead to the formation of approximately planar (maximum deviation 0.029 Å for H atom) six-membered rings.. In the crystal, mol­ecules are linked by O—H⋯O and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds as well as C—H⋯O contacts, leading to the formation of a three-dimensional network

Prediction model for coronary artery disease using neural networks and feature selection based on classification and regression tree

Background and aims: Risk of implementing invasive diagnostic procedures for coronary artery disease (CAD) such as angiography is considerable. On the other hand, Successful experience has been achieved in medical data mining approaches. Therefore this study has been done to produce a model based on data mining techniques of neural networks that can predict coronary artery disease. Methods: In this descriptive- analytical study, the data set includes nine risk factors of 13228 participants who were undergone angiography at Tehran Heart Center. (4059 participants were not suffering from CAD but 9169 were suffering from CAD). Producing model for predicting coronary artery disease was done based on multilayer perceptron neural networks and variable selection based on classification and regression tree (CART) using of Statistica software. For comparison and selection of best model, the ROC curve analysis was used. Results: After seven-time modeling and comparing the generated models, the final model consists of all existing risk factors obtained with the area under ROC curve of 0.754, accuracy of 74.19%, sensitivity of 92.41% and specificity of 33.25% .Also, variable selection results in producing a model consists of four risk factors with area under ROC curve of 0.737, accuracy of 74.19%, sensitivity of 93.34% and specificity of 31.17% was produced. Conclusion: The obtained model is produced based on neural networks. The model is able to identify both high risk patients and acceptable number of healthy subjects. Also, utilizing the feature selection in this study ends up in production of a model which consists of only four risk factors as: age, sex, diabetes and high blood pressure

Methyl 2-{2-[(E)-(2-hy­droxy-3-meth­oxy­benzyl­idene)amino]­ethyl­amino}­cyclo­pentene-1-carbodithio­ate

In the title Schiff base compound, C17H22N2O2S2, which adopts an E configuration with respect to the imine C=N double bond, the C=N and N—C bond distances are 1.2789 (16) and 1.4546 (16) Å, respectively. In the mol­ecule there are intra­molecular O—H⋯N and N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds, and the CH=N—C substituent is almost coplanar with the benzene ring [C—N—C—C torsion angle = −178.80 (11)°]. The crystal packing is stabilized by inter­molecular C—H⋯O and C—H⋯π inter­actions involving the aromatic ring

Dosimetry of Esophageal radiotherapy: a phantom study

    Esophageal cancer is the eighth most ordinary cancer and the sixth most common cancer between the males and ninth for females in the world; its major and effective treatment is external radiotherapy. This type of cancer can be found in different areas of esophagus including cervical, upper, middle and lower esophagus. In this treatment, healthy tissues such as the trachea, spine and sternum and even thyroid receive dose and it is important that the absorbed doses by these organs be in their tolerance dose levels. We measured the surface and depth doses in an anthropomorphic phantom using thermoluminescent dosimeters. To do so, a target volume was considered in the phantom as a primary esophageal tumor with margins of 5 cm in the distal and proximal, and 3 cm in lateral. Phantom was CT planned and treatment was performed according to patient treatment. The considered measurement locations were Eye, right and left Parotid, left and right Submandibular, left and right Thyroid, Trachea, Manubrium of Sternum and Spine. Our results show that in places located further to primary beam such as Thyroid (phase one), Trachea, Spine and Sternum, the difference between dose from TPS and TLD measurements is observed. In organs which have placed within scattered radiation, the difference is insignificant (P-value≥0.05), although some differences might cause by TLD limitations. In conclusion, the TPS calculated and TL measured doses distinguish significantly at the spine (depth), trachea (depth) and manubrium of sternum especially in phase 1 which might be due to the calculation algorithm used by the planning system which is reliable in homogeneous medium, but TL measurements were performed in the heterogeneous anthropomorphic phantom.

Evaluation of antidepressant-like effect of hydroalcoholic extract of Passiflora incarnata in animal models of depression in male mice

Introduction: Passiflora incarnata (PI) is one of the commonest herbal anti-anxiety and sedative agents. The aim of the present study was to investigate the antidepressant effect of hydroalcoholic extract of PI in forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST) in male mice. Methods: In this experimental study, 48 male mice were randomly divided into 6 groups of 8: Negative and positive control groups received normal saline (10 ml/kg), fluoxetine (20 mg/kg) and imipramine (30 mg/kg), respectively and treatment groups received extracts of PI (200, 400 and 800 mg/kg). Immobility, swimming and climbing behaviors were recorded during 6-min. Results: All doses of PI extract compared to control group significantly reduced the duration of immobility time in both of two tests (p&lt;0.001). Also, these extracts increased swimming time (p&lt;0.001) without significant change of climbing time. Conclusion: PI has considerable antidepressant-like effect in animal models of depression. However, further studies are needed to determine its exact mechanism of action.</p

The relationship between job involvement and demographic characteristics in nurses in hospitals of Tehran and Kerman in 2013

Background and aim: Nowadays, job involvement is introduced as an important factor in the effectiveness of the organization, so that the high job involvement will increase the effectiveness of the organization. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between job involvement and demographic characteristics of the nurses. Methods: In this cross - sectional descriptive-analytic study, 436 nurses from hospitals in Tehran and Kerman in 2013 were recruited by convenience sampling. The Job Involvement Questionnaire was used for data collection. The cutoff point for job involvement score was 40 and the relationship between job involvement and demographic characteristics of the nurses was evaluated. Results: Most the average age of participating nurses in the study 31-40 years. The mean score of job involvement was 36.07± 10.02. Among the demographic characteristics, in terms of gender, men had higher job involvement than women (P=0.01). Also, the job involvement of nurses in military hospitals was higher than civilian hospitals (P0.05). Conclusion: According to the low scores of job involvement, attention to the effective factors and motivation factors in environment variables to improve nurses' job involvement is recommended