NUTRITIONAL AND THERAPEUTIC VALUES OF Musa paradisíaca - A REVIEW

ABSTRACT: The different parts of Musa paradisiaca (Family: Musaceae) are widely used for nutritional and therapeutic purposes.  Phytochemical analysis showed that Musa paradisiaca contained carbohydrates, reducing sugar, tannins, saponins, alkaloids, glycosides, steroids, phytosterols, phenols, flavonoids, terpenoids and many other secondary metabolites. The recent pharmacological reviews revealed that Musa paradisiaca possessed hypolipidemic, antidiabetic, hypotensive, antioxidant, antiulcerogenic, antidiarrhoeal, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, wound healing, anticancer, anti-angiogenic, hepato and nephroprotective, reproductive, antiallergic, antiasthmatic, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antiurolithiatic, galactagogue, and thrombolytic effects. The current review discussed the traditional uses, ingredients, pharmacological and toxicological effects of Musa paradisiaca. Keywords: banana; constituents; pharmacology.   Valores nutricionais e terapêuticos da Musa paradisíaca - Uma revisão  ABSTRACT: As diferentes partes de Musa paradisiaca (Família: Musaceae) são amplamente utilizadas para fins nutricionais e terapêuticos. A análise fitoquímica mostrou que Musa paradisiaca continha carboidratos, açúcares redutores, taninos, saponinas, alcalóides, glicosídeos, esteróides, fitoesteróis, fenóis, flavonóides, terpenóides e muitos outros metabólitos secundários. As recentes revisões farmacológicas revelaram que Musa paradisiaca possuía propriedades hipolipidêmicas, antidiabéticas, hipotensoras, antioxidantes, antiulcerogênicas, antidiarreicas, antimicrobianas, antiparasitárias, cicatrizantes, anticancerígenas, antiangiogênicas, hepato e nefroprotetoras, reprodutivas, antialérgicas, antiasmáticas, antiinflamatórias, analgésicas, efeitos antiurolitiáticos, galactagogos e trombolíticos. A presente revisão discutiu os usos tradicionais, ingredientes, efeitos farmacológicos e toxicológicos da Musa paradisiaca. Palavras-chave: banana; constituintes; farmacologia.ABSTRACT: The different parts of Musa paradisiaca (Family: Musaceae) are widely used for nutritional and therapeutic purposes.  Phytochemical analysis showed that Musa paradisiaca contained carbohydrates, reducing sugar, tannins, saponins, alkaloids, glycosides, steroids, phytosterols, phenols, flavonoids, terpenoids and many other secondary metabolites. The recent pharmacological reviews revealed that Musa paradisiaca possessed hypolipidemic, antidiabetic, hypotensive, antioxidant, antiulcerogenic, antidiarrhoeal, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, wound healing, anticancer, anti-angiogenic, hepato and nephroprotective, reproductive, antiallergic, antiasthmatic, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antiurolithiatic, galactagogue, and thrombolytic effects. The current review discussed the traditional uses, ingredients, pharmacological and toxicological effects of Musa paradisiaca. Keywords: banana; constituents; pharmacology.   Valores nutricionais e terapêuticos da Musa paradisíaca - Uma revisão  ABSTRACT: As diferentes partes de Musa paradisiaca (Família: Musaceae) são amplamente utilizadas para fins nutricionais e terapêuticos. A análise fitoquímica mostrou que Musa paradisiaca continha carboidratos, açúcares redutores, taninos, saponinas, alcalóides, glicosídeos, esteróides, fitoesteróis, fenóis, flavonóides, terpenóides e muitos outros metabólitos secundários. As recentes revisões farmacológicas revelaram que Musa paradisiaca possuía propriedades hipolipidêmicas, antidiabéticas, hipotensoras, antioxidantes, antiulcerogênicas, antidiarreicas, antimicrobianas, antiparasitárias, cicatrizantes, anticancerígenas, antiangiogênicas, hepato e nefroprotetoras, reprodutivas, antialérgicas, antiasmáticas, antiinflamatórias, analgésicas, efeitos antiurolitiáticos, galactagogos e trombolíticos. A presente revisão discutiu os usos tradicionais, ingredientes, efeitos farmacológicos e toxicológicos da Musa paradisiaca. Palavras-chave: banana; constituintes; farmacologia

Assessment of the Prevalence of Diabetic Gastroparesis and Validation of Gastric Emptying Scintigraphy for Diagnosis.

OBJECTIVE: Gastroparesis is defined as delayed gastric emptying and is a common medical condition in diabetic patients. Scintigraphy is commonly used as a standard diagnostic procedure for the quantitative assessment of gastroparesis. The aims of this study were to determine an optimum imaging time for the diagnosis of gastroparesis, to assess the prevalence of gastroparesis, to evaluate the correlation between endoscopy and scintigraphy findings as well as the correlation between gastric emptying with patient genders, blood glucose concentration, and functional dyspepsia. METHODS: Gastric emptying was assessed in 50 diabetic patients with a mean age of 50.16 years. For evaluation of gastric emptying, a test meal containing 2 pieces of toast, 120 cc non-labeled water and fried egg labeled with 1 mCi of 99mTc was given to each patient. The scintigraphy was performed immediately after ingestion and was repeated at 1, 1.5, 2 and 4 hours after ingestion. In some patients, an additional 90-minute dynamic scan was also acquired. RESULTS: The prevalence of gastroparesis in this study population was determined as 64%. Also, the results of this study revealed that a 4-hour scan after ingestion is more relevant than a 90-minute dynamic scan for the evaluation of delayed gastric emptying. There was no statistically significant difference between 1-hour and 2-hour scans, 1-hour and 90-minute scans, 2-hour and 90-minute scans, 2-hour and 4-hour scans. Likewise there was no significant correlation between blood glucose levels, gender and calculated values of gastric emptying time in all groups. CONCLUSION: According to our findings, it can be suggested that the prevalence of gastroparesis is higher than that mentioned in some previous studies. Also, this study indicates that a gastric emptying scintigraphy at 2 and 4 hours after meal ingestion might provide the anticipated clinical information in diabetic patients with dyspepsia without other evident reasons

Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy Using 177Lu-DOTATATE in Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs) in a Limited-Resource Environment

Background This study was conducted to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) using 177Lu-DOTA0-Tyr3-octreotate (DOTATATE) in patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). Methods Sixteen patients with pathologically verified NETs including eight females and eight males were enrolled in this study. Before PRRT, the patients underwent 68Ga-DOTATATE positron emission tomography/computed tomography or 99mTc-octreotide scintigraphy for evaluation of somatostatin receptor expression. Response to treatment was assessed according to the Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors (RECIST) classified as complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD), and progressive disease (PD). In addition, for evaluation of toxicity, monthly blood analysis was performed including hematology, renal function (creatinine) test, and liver function test. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) status performance was applied to estimate the patients' general condition in a scale of 0 (fully active) to 5 (dead). In addition, overall survival (OS) was calculated as the time interval from the start of PRRT to death from any reason. Results Sixteen patients including eight females and eight males with a median age of 60.5 years (range: 24–74) were enrolled in this study. The patients underwent PRRT with a median cycle of 3.5 (range: 1–7) and a median dose of 20.35 (range: 7.4–49.95 GBq). At the end of data collection, PR, CR, SD, and PD were seen in 11, 2, 1, and 2 patients according to the RECIST, respectively. Three patients expired during or after the PRRT period. The median ECOG and Karnofsky Performance Scale was 1.5 and 75 before PRRT, which improved significantly to 1 and 80 after PRRT, respectively (p < 0.05). According to the Kaplan–Meier test, the median OS was 23 months (95% confidence interval: 7.90–38.09). According to the National Cancer Institute's Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events, three patients showed grade I and three patients showed grade II leucopenia. Furthermore, three and seven patients had grade II and grade I anemia, respectively. Conclusion Since PRRT using 177Lu-DOTATATE has a favorable response rate and few adverse effects and improves the quality of life in NETs, it can be used as an effective therapeutic option, especially in nonoperative, metastatic, and progressive NETs

Differential privacy preserved federated transfer learning for multi-institutional 68Ga-PET image artefact detection and disentanglement.

PURPOSE Image artefacts continue to pose challenges in clinical molecular imaging, resulting in misdiagnoses, additional radiation doses to patients and financial costs. Mismatch and halo artefacts occur frequently in gallium-68 (68Ga)-labelled compounds whole-body PET/CT imaging. Correcting for these artefacts is not straightforward and requires algorithmic developments, given that conventional techniques have failed to address them adequately. In the current study, we employed differential privacy-preserving federated transfer learning (FTL) to manage clinical data sharing and tackle privacy issues for building centre-specific models that detect and correct artefacts present in PET images. METHODS Altogether, 1413 patients with 68Ga prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)/DOTA-TATE (TOC) PET/CT scans from 3 countries, including 8 different centres, were enrolled in this study. CT-based attenuation and scatter correction (CT-ASC) was used in all centres for quantitative PET reconstruction. Prior to model training, an experienced nuclear medicine physician reviewed all images to ensure the use of high-quality, artefact-free PET images (421 patients' images). A deep neural network (modified U2Net) was trained on 80% of the artefact-free PET images to utilize centre-based (CeBa), centralized (CeZe) and the proposed differential privacy FTL frameworks. Quantitative analysis was performed in 20% of the clean data (with no artefacts) in each centre. A panel of two nuclear medicine physicians conducted qualitative assessment of image quality, diagnostic confidence and image artefacts in 128 patients with artefacts (256 images for CT-ASC and FTL-ASC). RESULTS The three approaches investigated in this study for 68Ga-PET imaging (CeBa, CeZe and FTL) resulted in a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.42 ± 0.21 (CI 95%: 0.38 to 0.47), 0.32 ± 0.23 (CI 95%: 0.27 to 0.37) and 0.28 ± 0.15 (CI 95%: 0.25 to 0.31), respectively. Statistical analysis using the Wilcoxon test revealed significant differences between the three approaches, with FTL outperforming CeBa and CeZe (p-value < 0.05) in the clean test set. The qualitative assessment demonstrated that FTL-ASC significantly improved image quality and diagnostic confidence and decreased image artefacts, compared to CT-ASC in 68Ga-PET imaging. In addition, mismatch and halo artefacts were successfully detected and disentangled in the chest, abdomen and pelvic regions in 68Ga-PET imaging. CONCLUSION The proposed approach benefits from using large datasets from multiple centres while preserving patient privacy. Qualitative assessment by nuclear medicine physicians showed that the proposed model correctly addressed two main challenging artefacts in 68Ga-PET imaging. This technique could be integrated in the clinic for 68Ga-PET imaging artefact detection and disentanglement using multicentric heterogeneous datasets

Wind Turbine Rotor Simulation via CFD Based Actuator Disc Technique Compared to Detailed Measurement

In this paper, a generalized Actuator Disc (AD) is used to model the wind turbine rotor of the MEXICO experiment, a collaborative European wind turbine project. The AD model as a combination of CFD technique and User Defined Functions codes (UDF), so-called UDF/AD model is used to simulate loads and performance of the rotor in three different wind speed tests. Distributed force on the blade, thrust and power production of the rotor as important designing parameters of wind turbine rotors are focused to model. A developed Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory as a code based numerical technique as well as a full rotor simulation both from the literature are included into the results to compare and discuss. The output of all techniques is compared to detailed measurements for validation, which led us to final conclusions.</p

Structural Model of Competence and Self-Efficacy Related to Classroom Management and Classroom Management Attitude in the Faculty Members

Background and Objective: Classroom management is key factor in achieving to effective teaching-learning process. There are several factors involved in the management of the classroom by faculty members. The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural model of competence, self-efficacy related to classroom management, and classroom management attitudes in the faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Science at 2013- 2014 academic years. Materials and Methods: This research was descriptive-correlational and the subjects consisted of 92 faculty members. Instruments were Perceived Self-Efficacy in Classroom Management scale (Emmer and Hickman ,1991), Teacher Competency Scale (Seker et al, 2004), and the Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control (ABCC) Inventory (Martin et al., 1998) that distributed among faculty members through proportional stratified sampling. Data were analyzed by correlation, regression analysis and structural equation modeling using SPSS 22 and Amos 22 software. Results: Results showed a significant correlation between competence, self-efficacy of classroom management, the attitudes and beliefs on classroom control, and demographic factors (teaching experience and degree) with together (p<0/01). The finding of analysis of regression also showed competency scale can predict attitudes and beliefs on classroom control (P<0.01). Moreover based on structural model, the predicted rate of classroom management attitude through competency was 0.56 (Gamma =0.56). Conclusion: Faculty members of the university can improve and strengthen the management and administration of their classroom by developing their competence in teaching and improving their managerial self-efficacy

Artificial intelligence-based PET image acquisition and reconstruction

This review aims to investigate the available evidence of PET image reconstruction using conventional and AI-based approaches. Materials and methods The electronic literature search was conducted in the PubMed and Scopus database for English articles published up to November 30, 2021. Results Positron emission tomography (PET) is a nuclear imaging modality that uses radioactive material to measure metabolic activity. An influencing and important factor for PET images is the image reconstruction algorithm. Image reconstruction approaches use the raw data to produce an accurate and meaningful activity distribution. In recent years, many efforts have been done to produce high-quality PET images by using analytical reconstruction algorithms, the combination of computed tomography (CT) or multimodal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and AI-based architecture. In this paper, we first review the conventional and AI-based PET image reconstruction approaches. Next, some criteria for assessment of the quality of PET images are introduced. Finally, different AI-based PET image reconstruction approaches are compared. Conclusion If the training dataset is too small or not representative, the resulting model will be compromised. Based on the obtained results of research about PET image reconstruction, using big and more representative datasets, the AI-based approaches can go beyond conventional PET image reconstruction algorithms. But the main problem of AI-based algorithms is that clinical validation and adoption of these tools face many challenges. Also, the acquisition of a task-based dataset can be promising for improving the performance of AI-based PET image reconstruction

Investigation of Respiratory Exposure to Flour Dust in Workers of Different Bakeries in Urmia, Iran, 2021

Background and Objective: Occupational exposure of bakers to flour dust beyond the standard level leads to lung problems and allergies. The present study aimed to determine and compare the flour dust concentration in various bakeries in Urmia, Iran, in 2021. Materials and Methods: In this study, three types of bakeries (Lavash, Barbari, and Sangak) with two baking methods (traditional and machine) were selected. The breathing air of 160 bakery workers was collected according to the MDHS 4/14 method by an IOM sampler at a flow rate of 2 liters per minute, and the flour dust was determined by the gravimetric method. Descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance were used to present and analyze data using SPSS statistical software (version 22). Results: The mean (±SD) for age and working experience of the bakers were 40.39 ± 10.17 and 15.13 ± 9.49, respectively. The concentration of flour dust in the air of all types of bakeries was higher than the occupational exposure limit (0.5 mg/m3). Traditional Lavash and machine Sangak bakeries had the highest (8.61 mg/m3) and the lowest (1.35 mg/m3) flour dust concentrations in the air, respectively. The traditional baking method produces more air pollution than the machine. The average concentration of flour dust in all types of bakeries showed a statistically significant difference (P<0.05). Conclusion: The workers of different bakeries in Urmia are exposed to flour dust higher than the occupational exposure limit. Due to less contamination, baking bread with a machine is preferable to the traditional method. Lavash, Berberi, and Sangak bakeries are respectively the priority of occupational health control interventions. Educating workers regarding the effects of flour dust on health and proper working practices, application of general and local ventilation and health surveillance are suggested for all types of bakeries with the mentioned priority

Effect of pulsed electromagnetic field on mandibular fracture healing: A randomized control trial

Introduction: Currently, the pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) method is utilized for the treatment of nonunion long bone fractures. Considering the established effect of the PEMF on the acceleration of the bone healing process, we conducted this study to evaluate the effect of PEMF on the healing process in mandibular bone fractures. Material and methods:: This research was a randomized control trial (RCT) study. The sample consisted of patients with a mandibular fracture who were hospitalized in order to receive closed reduction treatment. The participants were randomly selected and then sequentially divided into two groups of 16 participants each (controls = 16, cases = 16). The patients in the control group received conventional therapy without any extra treatment, while the patients in the case group received PEMF therapy in addition to conventional therapy. For the PEMF therapy, patients in the case group received immediate post-surgery PEMF therapy for 6 h. Next, they received 3 h of exposure for the next 6 d, and finally, the same process was repeated for 1.5 h for post-surgery days 8–13. The maxillomandibular fixation (MMF) device was removed at post-surgery week 4. The patients in the control group, however, did not receive any extra treatment. The efficiency of the treatment modalities was evaluated clinically and radiographically. For the radiographical assessment, we employed a direct digital panoramic machine to calculate the computerized density of the bone, and those measurements were used for comparison of the results between the control group and the study patients. Results: There was no significant difference in the mean bone density values between the two groups (P > 0.05). However, the percentage of changes in bone density of the two groups revealed that the case group had insignificant decreases at post-surgery day 14 and a significant increase at post-surgery day 28 compared with the control group (P < 0.05). After releasing the MMF, a bimanual mobility test of the fractured segments showed the stability of the segments in all patients. In the case group, the mouth opening was significantly more stable than that of the control group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: PEMF therapy postoperatively leads to increased bone density, faster recovery, increased formation of new bone, a further opening of the mouth, and decreased pai