Oral dexmedetomidine versus midazolam as anesthetic premedication in children undergoing congenital heart surgery

Background: Premedication is required for reducing anxiety and child�s struggling against mask acceptance on anesthesia in pediatric surgery for congenital heart disease. Midazolam has been widely used for this purpose, but because of its side effects, finding an effective replacement with less complication is necessary. Objectives: In the present study, we compared the efficacy of oral midazolam versus dexmedetomidine in terms of anxiolysis and mask acceptance behavior. Patients and Methods: Sixty children aged between 2 and 12 years, and scheduled for on-pump surgery due to a congenital heart disease were randomly assigned into two groups. Oral midazolam (0.5 mg/kg up to 15 mg per patient) and dexmedetomidine (2 μg/kg) were administered 45 minutes pre-anesthesia. Children�s anxiety, mask acceptance behavior, hemodynamic measures, and cardiopulmonary outcomes were recorded and compared. Results: The mean age of patients was 3.96 ± 2.04 years. Twenty-eight (46.7) patients were females. Two drugs have similar effects on cardiopulmonary outcomes and hemodynamic measures (P > 0.05). They equally relieved the children�s anxiety (mean sedation score 1.93 ± 0.63 and 2.0 ± 0.63 for midazolam and dexmedetomidine groups, respectively; P > 0.05), while dexmedetomidine showed a better effect on improving the mask acceptance behavior (mean mask acceptance score 2.58 ± 0.6 and 1.6 ± 0.67 for midazolam and dexmedetomidine, respectively; P < 0.05). Conclusions: It appears reasonable to apply oral premedication with dexmedetomidine 45 minutes before transferring the patient to the operating room when he or she is more prone to resist inhalation anesthesia induction. © 2015, Iranian Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ISRAPM)

g-C3N4/γ-Fe2O3/TiO2/Pd: a new magnetically separable photocatalyst for visible-light-driven fluoride-free Hiyama and Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reactions at room temperature

In this paper, a new visible-light harvesting photocatalyst denoted as g-C3N4/γ-Fe2O3/TiO2/Pd was successfully fabricated and fully characterized by different techniques including FT-IR, XPS, XRD, TEM, SEM, elemental mapping, VSM, DRS, and ICP analysis. The as-prepared catalyst was utilized as an efficient magnetically separable photocatalyst in the fluoride-free Hiyama and Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reactions at room temperature under visible light irradiation. By using this approach good to excellent yields of biaryls were achieved from the reaction of various aryl iodides/bromides and even chlorides as highly challenging substrates, which are more available and cheaper than aryl iodides and bromides, with triethoxyphenylsilane or phenylboronic acid. The superior photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4/γ-Fe2O3/TiO2/Pd could be attributed to the synergistic catalytic effects of Pd nanoparticles and g-C3N4/γ-Fe2O3/TiO2. Utilizing a sustainable and safe light source, no need to use any additive or heat, using an eco-friendly solvent and long-term stability and magnetic recyclability of the catalyst for at least seven successive runs are the advantages that support the current protocol towards green chemistry.Financial support of this project by the University of Birjand Research Council and the XPS facilities of the University of Alicante is appreciated

Analytical investigation of laminar flow through expanding or contracting gaps with porous walls

AbstractLaminar, isothermal, incompressible and viscous flow in a rectangular domain bounded by two moving porous walls, which enable the fluid to enter or exit during successive expansions or contractions is investigated analytically using optimal homotopy asymptotic method (OHAM). OHAM is a powerful method for solving nonlinear problems without depending to the small parameter. The concept of this method is briefly introduced, and it׳s application for this problem is studied. Then, the results are compared with numerical results and the validity of these methods is shown. After this verification, we analyze the effects of some physical applicable parameters to show the efficiency of OHAM for this type of problems. Graphical results are presented to investigate the influence of the non-dimensional wall dilation rate (α) and permeation Reynolds number (Re) on the velocity, normal pressure distribution and wall shear stress. The present problem for slowly expanding or contracting walls with weak permeability is a simple model for the transport of biological fluids through contracting or expanding vessels

Study on age-related bioaccumulation of some heavy metals in the soft tissue of rock oyster (Saccostrea cucullata) from Laft Port – Qeshm Island, Iran

Heavy metals widely enter into aquatic ecosystems, and cause various environmental problems due to bioaccumulation and biomagnification in food chains. The accumulation of heavy metals in bivalve tissues is affected by a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as physiological conditions, growth, seasonal changes, pH, salinity, temperature, genera and age. The present study investigated the effects of age of the rock oyster Saccostrea cucullata on the accumulation of Ni, Cd and Pb in the Laft Port coast located on the Qeshm Island. 200 oysters were collected and their age was determined, then they were classified into four age categories and 15 oysters from each category were selected. Samples were dry digested and the metal concentrations were measured by an ICP-OES (PerkinElmer, USA) instrument. Results revealed that the accumulation of Ni and Pb in one year old oysters (immature) was more than those in mature oysters (two, three and four year old oysters). Significant differences were observed between concentrations of Ni and Pb in mature and immature oysters. The results suggested that aging has a negative effect on bioaccumulation of Ni and Pb in S. cucullata; while it has no effect on bioaccumulation of Cd

Immobilized piperazine on the surface of graphene oxide as a heterogeneous bifunctional acid–base catalyst for the multicomponent synthesis of 2-amino-3-cyano-4H-chromenes

Immobilized piperazine on the surface of graphene oxide (piperazine-GO) is synthesized and characterized by different methods such as FT-IR, solid-state 29Si{1H} and 13C{1H} CP/MAS NMR, elemental analysis, TGA, TEM, FE-SEM, XPS, and TPD. Subsequently, it is used as a heterogeneous bifunctional acid–base catalyst for the efficient multicomponent reaction of malononitrile, different active compounds containing enolizable C–H bonds and various aryl/alkyl aldehydes in aqueous ethanol. A wide variety of 2-amino-3-cyano-4H-chromenes are synthesized in the presence of this heterogeneous catalyst in good to high yields and with short reaction times. The catalyst is easily separated and reused for at least six times without significant loss of activity. The acidic nature of GO improves the catalytic activity of the supported piperazine and also provides heterogeneity to the catalyst. Use of aqueous ethanol as a green solvent, high turnover numbers (TON), facile catalyst recovery and reuse, simple work-up and generality of the method make this protocol an environmentally benign procedure for the synthesis of the title heterocycles.Financial support for this project by the University of Birjand Research Council and access to the solid-state NMR facilities at the Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University and the XPS facilities of the University of Alicante are acknowledged

Assessing breast cancer risk among Iranian women using the gail model

Background: Breast cancer risk assessment is a helpful method for estimating development of breast cancer at the population level. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, participants consisted of a group of 3,847 volunteers (mean ± SD age: 463 ± 7.59 years) in a convenience sample of women referred to health centers affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran. The risk of breast cancer was estimated by applying the National Cancer Institute's online version of the Gail Risk Assessment Tool. Results: Some 24.9 of women reported having one first-degree female relative with breast cancer, with 8.05 of them having two or more first-degree relatives with breast cancer. The mean five-year risk of breast cancer for all participants was 1.61±0.73, and 9.36 of them had a five-year risk of breast cancer > 1.66. The mean lifetime risk of breast cancer was 11.7±3.91. Conclusions: The Gail model is useful for assessing probability of breast cancer in Iranian women. Based on the their breast cancer risk, women may decide to accept further screening services

Comparison of two classifiers; K-nearest neighbor and artificial neural network, for fault diagnosis on a main engine journal-bearing,”

Abstract. Vibration analysis is an accepted method in condition monitoring of machines, since it can provide useful and reliable information about machine working condition. This paper surveys a new scheme for fault diagnosis of main journal-bearings of internal combustion (IC) engine based on power spectral density (PSD) technique and two classifiers, namely, K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and artificial neural network (ANN). Vibration signals for three different conditions of journal-bearing; normal, with oil starvation condition and extreme wear fault were acquired from an IC engine. PSD was applied to process the vibration signals. Thirty features were extracted from the PSD values of signals as a feature source for fault diagnosis. KNN and ANN were trained by training data set and then used as diagnostic classifiers. Variable K value and hidden neuron count (N) were used in the range of 1 to 20, with a step size of 1 for KNN and ANN to gain the best classification results. The roles of PSD, KNN and ANN techniques were studied. From the results, it is shown that the performance of ANN is better than KNN. The experimental results dèmonstrate that the proposed diagnostic method can reliably separate different fault conditions in main journal-bearings of IC engine

Relationship of Internet addiction with self-esteem and depression in university students

Background. The aim of the study was to investigate the rela- tionship of self-esteem and depression with Internet addiction in university students. Methods. The present descriptive-analytic correlation study involved 408 students (150 female and 258 male) who had been selected by means of a cluster sampling method from among all the students studying in Birjand Islamic Azad University. Students were evalu- ated through the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Cooper Smith Self-Esteem Inventory (CSEI) and Internet Addiction Test (IAT). Results. The results indicated that 40.7% of the students had Internet addiction. A significant correlation emerged between depression, self-esteem and internet addiction. Regression analy- sis indicated that depression and self-esteem were able to predict the variance of Internet addiction to some extent. Conclusions. It may be important to evaluate self-esteem and depression in people with Internet addiction. These variables should be targeted for effective cognitive behavioral therapy in people with Internet addiction

Metabolic Syndrome Is Associated with Health-Related Quality of Life in Suspected Patients with Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis

Objective: This study was designed to examine the effect of metabolic syndrome (MetS) on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with suspected nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Subjects and Methods: Three hundred thirty-two patients (236 males and 96 females) with suspected NASH from the Amol cohort study were included in this study. MetS was diagnosed based on Adult Treatment Panel III criteria and HRQOL was measured using the 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) questionnaire (with 8 subscales and 2 summary components). A multivariable linear regression model was used to assess the independent effect of MetS on HRQOL. Results: The mean age of the study population was 42 ± 13 years (range 18-82). The prevalence of MetS was 43.4 (n = 144) and the mean scores on the Physical Component Summary (PCS) and the Mental Component Summary were 72.4 ± 20.86 and 42.7 ± 12.42, respectively. The multivariable linear regression model showed that MetS was negatively associated with 4 subscales of HRQOL that included: role limitations due to physical problems (RP) (B = -14.05, p = 0.004), bodily pain (BP) (B = -7.37, p = 0.02), vitality (VT) (B = -7.72, p = 0.022), and role limitations due to emotional problems (RE) (B = -12.67, p = 0.005) after adjustment for other variables. Also, MetS had a borderline association with the general health and mental health subscales and the PCS (p < 0.1). Conclusion: In this study, there was a strong association between MetS and 4 subscales (RP, BP, VT, and RE) of HRQOL in patients with suspected NASH; this could be considered as a part of health policy to improve general health. © 2018 The Author(s) Published by S. Karger AG, Basel