Juvenile Aeolian Deposits at Badra Area - Eastern Iraq

Badra area represents one of those desertified areas, in which the preliminary stage of aeolian activity is very evident. Nabkha dunes and sand sheets are the major wind formed deposits in the area. Nabkhas or more precisely micronabkhas represent the major dune type which imposes a clear indication of the desertification vitality in the area. Such an area may represent an ideal example of how desertification is acting, whereby a well-vegetated area some three decades ago is turning now to a barren land.These vegetation dunes were studied from the morphological, mineralogical and textural aspects. The special dimensions of these dunes are usually small not exceeding a meter in height and a few meters in length indicating a mild wind action with a predominant NW direction. Ripple marks, and adhesion structures are also noticed.The dune sand samples are mainly formed of silty sand with an average median of 2.56Ø (fine sand), average mean 2.55Ø (fine sand), average standard deviation or sorting 0.55Ø (well to moderately well sorted), and negatively skewed. These parameters reveals a fluvial influence besides the dominant dune action.The light mineral fraction of Badra dune samples composed of quartz, calcite, feldspar, and evaporites as major constituents, while the heavy minerals fraction is dominated by the opaques, chlorites, epidote, garnet, mica, amphiboles, and pyroxenes. Probable sediment sources is greatly controlled by the eastern dune belt that extends from Baiji dunes in the northeast to Chailat dunes in the southeast. The sediments of the nearby alluvial deposits of Tigris river may also have their influence.One of the  most  effective  and  sure remedies  for  the  Badra  area  will  be  the efficient  use  of  the  existing  water  resources, in  which  rain  water harvesting and ground  water  resources  are maintained and used to develop more effective ways of irrigation so that the area can be rejuvenated. Keywords: Nabkha Dune, Desertification, Heavy Minerals, Statistical Parameters.

Co-infection of Malaria and Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever

Southeast of Iran is an endemic area for Malaria and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). In 1999, we faced with an outbreak of CCHF in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, in the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The most cases of Malaria in Iran are also reported from this area. This article presents a 17-year- old woman who admitted to our hospital because of acute fever, headache, epistaxis, hemorrhagic lesions on the skin and vaginal bleeding. Finally, she was recognized as a case that was co –infected with CCHF and malaria

Tunable Non-Hermitian Acoustic Filter

We propose, design, and experimentally test a non-Hermitian acoustic superlattice that acts as a tunable precise filter. The superlattice is composed of two concatenated sublattices. The first sublattice is Hermitian, while the other can be adjusted to be Hermitian or non-Hermitian. The existence of non-Hermiticity, in terms of an induced loss in the second sublattice, results in the generation of absorption resonances that appear in the reflected spectrum. This provides us with a powerful knob to absorb or reflect several frequencies at will with high accuracy. The number of filtered frequencies can be controlled by designing the resonances in the first sublattice. Our proposed tunable acoustic filter can be extended to higher-frequency ranges, such as ultrasound, and other areas, such as photonics

To Learn or Not to Learn Features for Deformable Registration?

Feature-based registration has been popular with a variety of features ranging from voxel intensity to Self-Similarity Context (SSC). In this paper, we examine the question on how features learnt using various Deep Learning (DL) frameworks can be used for deformable registration and whether this feature learning is necessary or not. We investigate the use of features learned by different DL methods in the current state-of-the-art discrete registration framework and analyze its performance on 2 publicly available datasets. We draw insights into the type of DL framework useful for feature learning and the impact, if any, of the complexity of different DL models and brain parcellation methods on the performance of discrete registration. Our results indicate that the registration performance with DL features and SSC are comparable and stable across datasets whereas this does not hold for low level features.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Comparison and process optimisation of PLGA, chitosan and silica nanoparticles for potential oral vaccine delivery

Aims: The study compared performance of nanoparticles from synthetic organic, natural organic and inorganic materials as vaccine delivery platforms. Methods: Various formulation (concentration, polymer/silica: surfactant ratio, solvent) and process parameters (homogenization speed and time, ultra-sonication) affecting functional performance characteristics of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), chitosan and silica based nanoparticles containing bovine serum albumin were investigated. Nanoparticles were characterised using dynamic light scattering, X-ray diffraction, scanning/transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and in vitro protein release. Results: Critical formulation parameters were surfactant concentration (PLGA, silica) and polymer concentration (chitosan). Optimised nanoparticles were spherical in shape with narrow size distribution and size ranges of 100-300 nm (blank) and 150-400 nm (protein loaded). Protein encapsulation efficiency was 26-75% and released within 48 hours in a sustained manner. Conclusion: Critical formulation and process parameters affected size of PLGA, chitosan and silica nanoparticles and protein encapsulation, whilst silica produced the smallest and most stable nanoparticles

Anticonvulsant treatments of dysphoric mania: a trial of gabapentin, lamotrigine and carbamazepine in Iran

The treatment of dysphoric mania is challenging given the need to treat symptoms of both depression and mania simultaneously without provoking any clinical exacerbation. The newer antiepileptic drugs such as gabapentin, lamotrogine, and carbamazepine are often used as adjuncts to either lithium or valproic acid in the treatment of bipolar disorder. We decided to undertake a monotherapy trial because previous evidence suggested mixed states may be more responsive to anticonvulsants than more traditional antimanic agents. 51 patients with a DSM IV diagnosis of dysphoric mania were randomized to three groups comprising gapbapentin, lamotrogine or carbamazepine and followed for 8 weeks. Psychiatric diagnosis was verified by the structural clinical interview for the DSM-IV (SCID). The MMPI-2 in full was used to assess symptoms at baseline and 8 weeks. All three groups showed significant changes in MMPI-2 scores for depression and mania subscales. Gabapentin showed the greatest change in depression symptom improvement relative to lamotrogine and carbamazepine, respectively. Although manic symptoms improved overall, here were no differences between groups in the degree of manic symptom improvement