Perceived hospital managerial competency in Tehran, Iran: Is there a difference between public and private hospitals?

Background Hospital managers should have enough managerial competencies to coordinate the complex environment. The underlying assumption is that there is a potential gap in management capacity between public and private hospitals in Iran. This study aims to evaluate competency level of hospital managers and to compare their competencies in public and private hospitals. Materials and methods This study was descriptive-analytic, carried out in 2015. A survey using a selfadministered questionnaire was conducted among 127 public and private hospitals managers in Tehran Province, Iran. Respondents were asked to rate their competencies in a five-key subscale that included people-related skills, health delivery, self-management, task-related skills, and strategic planning and management. Ratings were based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from very low to excellent competency level. Results Self-assessment of competencies level showed that managers in all state hospitals evaluate their competency at a low level. Managers felt most competent in healthdelivery skills (3.71), people-related skills (3.61), and strategic planning and management (3.57), relatively less competent in self-management (3.54) and taskrelated skills (3.49). While being the mean total competency levels were significantly higher among male managers, those who participated in the healthcare/hospital management training courses, and those whose primary formal qualification was management in healthcare/hospital management (P<0.05). Similarly, managers who had more experience in their current position were more likely to report higher competencies level (P<0.05). Managers in private hospitals perceived themselves to be significantly more competent than their public hospitals colleagues in most of the management facets (P<0.001). Conclusion and recommendations There is a perceived lack of management capacity by managers of both public and private hospitals and the gap between public and private hospitals is small. There is widespread need for management training to be made available in Iran. © 2016 Egyptian Public Health Association

Hip morphology influences the pattern of damage to the acetabular cartilage. Femoroacetabular impingement as a cause of early osteoarthritis of the hip

Recently, femoroacetabular impingement has been recognised as a cause of early osteoarthritis. There are two mechanisms of impingement: 1) cam impingement caused by a non-spherical head and 2) pincer impingement caused by excessive acetabular cover. We hypothesised that both mechanisms result in different patterns of articular damage. Of 302 analysed hips only 26 had an isolated cam and 16 an isolated pincer impingement. Cam impingement caused damage to the anterosuperior acetabular cartilage with separation between the labrum and cartilage. During flexion, the cartilage was sheared off the bone by the non-spherical femoral head while the labrum remained untouched. In pincer impingement, the cartilage damage was located circumferentially and included only a narrow strip. During movement the labrum is crushed between the acetabular rim and the femoral neck causing degeneration and ossification. Both cam and pincer impingement lead to osteoarthritis of the hip. Labral damage indicates ongoing impingement and rarely occurs alone. © 2005 British Editorial Society of Bone and Joint Surgery

Antitumor effect of therapeutic HPV DNA vaccines with chitosan-based nanodelivery systems

Cervical cancer is the second-most-common cause of malignancies in women worldwide, and the oncogenic activity of the human papilloma virus types (HPV) E7 protein has a crucial role in anogenital tumors. In this study, we have designed a therapeutic vaccine based on chitosan nanodelivery systems to deliver HPV-16 E7 DNA vaccine, considered as a tumor specific antigen for immunotherapy of HPV-associated cervical cancer. We have developed a Nano-chitosan (NCS) as a carrier system for intramuscular administration using a recombinant DNA vaccine expressing HPV-16 E7 (NCS-DNA E7 vaccine). NCS were characterized in vitro for their gene transfection ability. Results: The transfection of CS-pEGFP NPs was efficient in CHO cells and the expression of green fluorescent proteins was well observed. In addition, NCS-DNA E7 vaccine induced the strongest E7-specific CD8+ T cell and interferon γ responses in C57BL/6 mice. Mice vaccinated with NCS-DNA E7 vaccine were able to generate potent protective and therapeutic antitumor effects against challenge with E7-expressing tumor cell line, TC-1. Conclusions: The strong therapeutic effect induced by the Chitosan-based nanodelivery suggest that nanoparticles may be an efficient carrier to improve the immunogenicity of DNA vaccination upon intramuscular administration and the platform could be further exploited as a potential cancer vaccine candidate in humans. © 2014 Tahamtan et al

Synthesis of Some Benzimidazole-substituted Benzotriazoles

2-Alkylsubstituted benzimidazoles (3a–h) were prepared from the acid-catalyzed reaction of 4-methyl-1,2-phenylenediamine with corresponding carboxylic acids. Addition of these benzimidazoles to N-chloromethylbenzotriazole in the presence of sodium amide under reflux conditions gave the novel benzimidazole-substituted benzotriazoles (5a–f). IR and 1HNMR spectroscopy and elemental analysis were used for the identification of these compounds.Keywords: Phenylenediamine, benzimidazole, benzotriazol

Genetic constraints that determine rhizobium-root nodule formation in Parasponia andersonii

Bacteria of the genus Rhizobium play a very important role in agriculture by inducing nitrogen-fixing nodules on the roots of legumes. Root nodule symbiosis enables nitrogen‐fixing bacteria (Rhizobium) to convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form that is directly available for plant growth. This symbiosis can relieve the requirements for added nitrogenous fertilizer during the growth of leguminous crops. Research on legume-rhizobium symbioses has emphasized fitness benefits to plants but in our research, we take a different vantage point, focusing on the Parasponia-rhizobium symbiosis. Parasponia is the only non-legume plant capable of establishing mutualistic relation with rhizobia. This study will provide background knowledge for use in applied objectives as well as yielding a wealth of fundamental knowledge with wide implications from rhizobium symbiosis evolution. This thesis describes my research on genetic constrains that determine rhizobium-root nodule formation. To identify these constraints we used Parasponia anadersnii as only non-legume capable to establish nitrogen fixing rhizobium symbiosis. Our main attempt in this thesis was to find the genetic constraints using Parasponia as a key and reconstruct an auto active symbiotic signaling cascade in the non- legume plants. In line with this, a simple and efficient hairy root transformation method was established in this thesis. To determine the genetic elements that underlie the rhizobium symbiosis, we aimed to compare Parasponia with closest non nodulating specious, Trema tomentosa. To do so, we also developed an efficient genetic transformation method for Trema mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. In different attempt we implemented in a physiological study on symbiotic response of Parasponia to nitrate. This research opened a novel view on the Parasponia-rhizobium symbiosis by discovering a different mechanism that control root nodule formation in Parasponia in compare with legumes. We discovered that Parasponai-rhizbium symbiosis is not evolved to regulate the nodule number in presence of the nitrate. According to the fact that Parasponia and legumes are remotely related, it was hypothesized that, Parasponia-rhizobium symbiosis evolved independently. Therefore we put forward our attempt to determine the genes required for nodule formation in Parasponia, by extending our research on symbiotic genes which are available in non nodulating plants with different function, namely NSP1 and NSP2. We showed that NSP1 and NSP2 are involved in both nodulation and mycorrhization. This result highlight the idea that RN and AM symbiosis are conserved in part of the pathway and probably bifurcates into two branches by NSP transcription factor allowing specific activation of nodulation or mycorrhization. Aiming to know the role of hormones in symbiotic behavior, we focused on ethylene as a negative regulator of nodule formation in legumes. We found the negative effect of ethylene on root nodulation of Parasponia. For the first time we reported a hyper nodulation (20 fold nodule number in compare with control plants) phenotype in Parasponia by performing knocked down mutant of EIN2 gene. Finally, the results obtained in this study provide new insight into the fact that rhizobium symbiosis are under tight genetic constraints that guide endosymbiosis in remotely evolved host plants, legumes and Parasponia.</p

Strong spin-photon coupling in silicon

We report the strong coupling of a single electron spin and a single microwave photon. The electron spin is trapped in a silicon double quantum dot and the microwave photon is stored in an on-chip high-impedance superconducting resonator. The electric field component of the cavity photon couples directly to the charge dipole of the electron in the double dot, and indirectly to the electron spin, through a strong local magnetic field gradient from a nearby micromagnet. This result opens the way to the realization of large networks of quantum dot based spin qubit registers, removing a major roadblock to scalable quantum computing with spin qubits

Rosetta Brains: A Strategy for Molecularly-Annotated Connectomics

We propose a neural connectomics strategy called Fluorescent In-Situ Sequencing of Barcoded Individual Neuronal Connections (FISSEQ-BOINC), leveraging fluorescent in situ nucleic acid sequencing in fixed tissue (FISSEQ). FISSEQ-BOINC exhibits different properties from BOINC, which relies on bulk nucleic acid sequencing. FISSEQ-BOINC could become a scalable approach for mapping whole-mammalian-brain connectomes with rich molecular annotations

Thermal Tuning of High-Tc Superconducting Bi2Sr 2CaCu2 O8+δ Terahertz Metamaterial

Impact Statement:We report on the first demonstration of a low loss and tunable metamaterial based on high-temperature superconducting BSCCO. BSCCO with large superconducting energy gap is the building block of a compact, powerful, continuous and coherent THz source which has been found promising to close the THz gap. Our proposed metamaterial can be integrated with BSSCO THz emitters to improve their functionalities.Abstract:We introduce a class of low-loss subwavelength resonators and report the first demonstration of a high-temperature ( Tc) superconducting Bi 2Sr2 CaCu2O 8+δ (BSCCO) terahertz (THz) metamaterial. The numerical simulations and analytical calculations are performed to study the electromagnetic response of the subwavelength BSCCO split-ring resonators (SRRs) to the incident photons with energies below the superconducting gap energy. A transition of resonance strength is observed as a dip in resonance frequency for temperatures below BSCCO Tc. To interpret the transmission spectra, resonance switching, and frequency tuning of SRRs, we calculate the temperature dependent complex permittivity and surface impedance of a 200 nm thick unpatterned slightly underdoped BSCCO thin film. We compare the resonance tunability of SRRs made of the extremely disorder superconductor (BSCCO) with metamaterials made of a weakly disorder superconductor YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) and show that the resonance quality and frequency tuning are comparable for these two metamaterials. Our results may be useful for THz emitters and detectors developments, for instance, by integration of SRRs with BSCCO THz emitters and microstrip antennas, the device functionalities such as polarization, emission pattern directivity, and output power could be controlled and improved