Numerical modelling of functionally graded coatings

Peer reviewedPostprin

Adiponectin and chronic kidney disease; a review on recent findings.

Adiponectin is a multifunctional cytokine that has a role in regulating inflammation. In patients without chronic renal failure (CRF) and type 2 diabetics, decreased adiponectin levels are associated with insulin resistance. Lower serum plasma adiponectin values are link to larger tumor size and metastasis in clear-cell carcinoma of the kidney too. However, in patients with established chronic kidney disease (CKD), adiponectin levels are elevated and positively predict progression of disease. In addition, increased levels of serum adiponectin of hemodialysis patients were associated with decrease in bone mineral density in hemodialysis patients. Thus, depending on type of renal failure should be adjusted the adiponectin levels in patients. In CKD patients without diabetic, decreasing adiponectin levels by ARB drugs may be appropriate for inhibition of disease progression

Correlation of serum parathyroid hormone with pulmonary artery pressure in non-diabetic regular hemodialysis patients

Abstract Introduction: Pulmonary artery hypertension in end-stage renal disease is associated by significantly increased morbidity and mortality. Serum parathormone may increase among patients on hemodialysis and influence various organs. Objectives: This study sought to find the association of serum parathormone level and pulmonary artery pressure in a group of non-diabetic patients on regular hemodialysis. Materials and Methods: This prospective investigation was conducted in the hemodialysis section of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Doppler echocardiography were used to assess pulmonary artery pressure. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is defined as systolic PAP≥35 mm Hg at rest. Serum parathormone was measured by ECL method. Results: Sixty-five, non-diabetic hemodialysis patients were studied. Mean (±SD) of age of the patients was 56.35±20.41 years. Mean (±SD) of iPTH was 251.55±97.27 pg/ml. In this study, a significant positive association of serum iPTH with pulmonary artery pressure in patients was seen (r=0.27, p=0.029). Conclusion: In the present study, we detected a significant positive association of serum parathyroid hormone with pulmonary artery pressure of hemodialysis patients however, our observations, warranting further investigations to evaluate the clinical aspect of the association of serum PTH with pulmonary artery pressure. Keywords: End-stage renal disease, Hemodialysis, Pulmonary hypertension, Parathormone Please cite this paper as: Heidari M, Mardani S, Baradaran A. Correlation of serum parathyroid hormone with pulmonary artery pressure in non-diabetic regular hemodialysis patients. J Parathyr Dis 2014; 2(2): 78-80. Copyright © 2014 The Author(s); Published by Nickan Research Institute. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Renin-angiotensin system blockage for reduction of plasma adiponectin level in maintenance hemodialysis patients: A randomized controlled trial

Introduction. Plasma adiponectin level is markedly increased among patients on hemodialysis. This investigation aimed to evaluate the relationship between renin-angiotensin system blockade and serum adiponectin concentration in nondiabetic patients on hemodialysis. Materials and Methods. This randomized double-blind controlled trial was conducted on a group of nondiabetic patients on regular hemodialysis. The first group received losartan, 12.5 mg twice per day for the 1st week, 25 mg twice per day during the 2nd week, and 75 mg/d from the 3rd week to the end of the 16th week. Patients of the control group received placebo. Blood samples from all of the patients were collected at the beginning and at the end of the study to measure serum adiponectin. Results. Seventy-three hemodialysis patients were divided randomly into the losartan group (40 patients) and the control group (33 patients). The mean adiponectin level in all of the patients was 10.6 ± 3.9 μg/mL. A significant decrease of serum adiponectin level was observed after 4 months of treatment with losartan (8.86 ± 3.43 μg/mL for losartan group versus 10.71 ± 3.94 μg/mL for the control group; P = .04). None of the patients had a serum potassium value greater than 5 mg/dL or hypotension during the intervention. There was no significant difference in serum potassium levels between the two groups. Conclusions. The decrease in serum adiponectin level in nondiabetic patients on regular hemodialysis by losartan might offer a potential protective approach in these patients. Mechanisms responsible for this reduction remain to be investigated. © 2016, Iranian Society of Nephrology. All rights reserved

VALUE CO-CREATION IN THE IT SERVICE ECOSYSTEM

Despite the intense efforts to substantiate the value co-creation capability of IT service, current approaches only partially address the complex and dynamic nature of the IT value-creation process. Popular IT service frameworks such as ITIL and COBIT mainly focus on discrete customer-centric practices and processes and overlook the importance of a holistic and systematic approach to understanding value co-creation. The research follows an interpretive approach to building a framework based on a case study and grounded theory technique in a higher educational institution. The initial findings reveal the micro, meso and macro levels of value co-creation in the IT service ecosystem. This research contributes to research on value creation in the context of IT service by providing the holistic approach of the service ecosystem to value creation, which has been barely investigated. This research is in progress and presents the initial analysis of this qualitative study

Evaluation of Pluripotency Gene Expression in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cell Cultured on the Human Feeder Layer

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are derived from the pluripotent inner cell mass (ICN) cells of blastocysts with the potential to maintain an undifferentiated state indefinitely. The derivation process involves plating of the blastocysts on mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) and expansion of the outgrowth in to established ES cell line. ES cell are capable of unlimited self-renewal by symmetric division and differentiated cells to all primitive embryonic germ layers. The capacity of ES cells to differentiate in to almost all the cell types of human body highlights their potential to play a promising role in cell replacement therapies for treatment of human diseases. In this study, MEFs have been replaced with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). C4 mES cell (mouse embryonic stem cell line) colonies are cultured on inactivated hMSCs amplified ≥ 600-folds during the 30 days of continuous culture. The longest continuous expansion of C4 mES cells on hMSC was 30 passages. In this study the gene expression for Oct-4, Nanog, Rex1, Brachyury, LIF, LIFR, TERT, B2M, Stat3, Sox2, Fgf4 in mES cells using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and in which genes expression for Stat3, Sox2, Fgf4 genes was negative whilst the  gene expansion for Oct-4, Nanog, Rex1, Brachyury, LIF, LIFR, TERT, B2M  genes was  positive. There was also a karyotype analysis for ES which showed normal result. The immunocytochemical analysis of Oct4 transcriptional factor for ES cells was made which showed positive result for this factor. These genes may be novel candidates to play critical roles in the regulation of ES Cell pluripotency and self-renewal

Diseases Treated With Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy; a Literature Review

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) is defined as the inhalation of 100% oxygen inside a hyperbaric chamber that is pressurized to greater than 1 atmosphere (Atm). Typical HBO regimens use 1.5 to 2.5 Atm pressure for durations of 30 to 90 minutes, repeated multiple times. The time between and the total number of repeat sessions varies widely. The effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for treatment of some diseases such as intravascular emboli, decompression sickness, anaerobic infections, CO poisoning was confirmed. For some diseases, such as traumatic brain injuries, the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy as described by investigators is controversial. Chinese authors have reported many articles regarding treatment of neonatal hypoxia with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, but in other points of the world, this depth of experience does not exist. Recently, some other diseases, such as purpura fulminans, and pancreatitis, have been treated by hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In conclusion, if equipment for hyperbaric oxygen therapy is available, many patients will benefit by this method of treatment

A unit-based symbolic execution method for detecting memory corruption vulnerabilities in executable codes

Memory corruption is a serious class of software vulnerabilities, which requires careful attention to be detected and removed from applications before getting exploited and harming the system users. Symbolic execution is a well-known method for analyzing programs and detecting various vulnerabilities, e.g., memory corruption. Although this method is sound and complete in theory, it faces some challenges, such as path explosion, when applied to real-world complex programs. In this paper, we present a method for improving the efficiency of symbolic execution and detecting four classes of memory corruption vulnerabilities in executable codes, i.e., heap-based buffer overflow, stack-based buffer overflow, use-after-free, and double-free. We perform symbolic execution only on test units rather than the whole program to avoid path explosion. In our method, test units are considered parts of the program's code, which might contain vulnerable statements and are statically identified based on the specifications of memory corruption vulnerabilities. Then, each test unit is symbolically executed to calculate path and vulnerability constraints of each statement of the unit, which determine the conditions on unit input data for executing that statement or activating vulnerabilities in it, respectively. Solving these constraints gives us input values for the test unit, which execute the desired statements and reveal vulnerabilities in them. Finally, we use machine learning to approximate the correlation between system and unit input data. Thereby, we generate system inputs that enter the program, reach vulnerable instructions in the desired test unit, and reveal vulnerabilities in them. This method is implemented as a plugin for angr framework and evaluated using a group of benchmark programs. The experiments show its superiority over similar tools in accuracy and performance