Different features in Wegener's granulomatosis: Report of five cases

Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) is an autoimmune inflammatory condition. It is often a rapidly progressive and potentially fatal disease. The clinical presentation of WG can be so diverse that the list of its differential diagnosis is vast, ranging from infectious diseases to other vasculitis (e.g. Behcet's disease), as well as malignancies. The exact aetiology of WG remains unclear. The upper airway diseases including sinusitis, oral lesions and otitis media are the most common presenting features of WG. In this paper, we have described 5 WG cases. They had different presentations and chief complaints. Some of them presented with upper airways diseases, while the others mainly suffered from the manifestations of pulmonary involvement. Although all of them were finally diagnosed as WG cases, the processes of the work up for the diagnosis as well as the outcome of the disease were not the same. So, the diversities in the presentation should be mentioned in the management of the WG suspected patients

Failure strength of thin-walled cylindrical GFRP composite shell against static internal and external pressure for various volumetric fiber fraction

A study on a Circular cylindrical thin-walled shell failure made of GRP composite subjected to static internal and external pressure was carried out. The results were acquired using analytical and FEM simulation approaches for various volumetric fiber fractions. Fiber breakage, matrix breakage, interlaminate shear deformation, delamination shear deformation and micro buckling failure were investigated employing maximum failure criteria against internal and external pressure. One-ply cylindrical shell with fiber angle orientation of 0 degree was modeled in ABAQUS finite element simulation and the result was varied using analytical approaches. Moreover, the pressure fluctuations for various volumetric fiber fraction were quadratic according to plotted graphs. Meanwhile, MATLAB software was used for theoretical analysis. The comparison of two approaches was proved to be accurate. Subsequently, failure strength of various laminated GFRP cylindrical shell with different fiber angle orientations at each ply was studied for diverse volumetric fiber fraction factors. Stacking sequence, fiber angle orientations were mainly effective on failure strength

Comparing two viewpoints about rabies: TEBBE-AKBARI (Persian Medicine Book) and national guidelines for rabies control

Background and purpose: Rabies is a viral disease that is usually transferred to humans through the bites of infected animals (especially dogs). Difficult treatment and painful death in all patients makes it a major public health concern. There are some interesting points about the rabies in Traditional Medicine resources, especially in Persian Medicine. Materials and methods: In this study the book entitled Tebbe Akbari was used as an invaluable source of Persian Traditional Medicine which is a complete and practical collection about many diseases. The information about rabies was extracted from the book. Also, the latest version of National Guidelines for Rabies Control was used. Data from both sources were compared with each other including etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. Results: Almost all points about rabies in Tebbe Akbari were found similar to the national guidelines recommended for rabies control. However, recent improvements in treatment, especially vaccination and microscopic methods in diagnosis of the disease have led to stop using traditional diagnostic methods. Conclusion: Probably more knowledge and awareness about traditional medicine books and performing evidence based studies could help in finding more simple and less expensive diagnostic methods. © 2015, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Effect of lidocaine on duration of seizure and hemodynamic alterations in electroconvulsive therapy

Background and Objective: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the most common methods in treatment of different types of psychological disorder. The effectiveness of this therapy has a direct relation with the duration of convulsion. This study was conducted to assess the effect of lidocaine on duration of seizure and hemodynamic alterations in electroconvulsive therapy. Materials and Methods: This clinical trial study was conducted on 72 ASA-I, II patients with psychotic disorders in Hajar Medical Center in Shahrekord, Iran during 2010. The patients randomly divided into intervention and control group. The interventional group was received 1.5 mg/kg lidocaine and controls were received normal saline. For induction of anesthesia, all patients were received Sodium Thiopental (2mg/kg), Succinylcholine (1mg/kg) and Atropine (0.5mg) Propofol and Succinylcholine during 72 sessions of ECT. Duration of objective convulsion and hemodynamic alterations including blood pressure and heart rate were recorded (before, immediately and 3, 5 minutes after ECT). Data were analyzed using SPSS-11.5 and t-test. Results: Systolic and diastolic blood pressures and heart rate in 3rd minutes in interventional group following electroconvulsive therapy were 143.38±16 mmHg, 79.86±6.7 mmHg, 91.9±9.9 mmHg, respectively and in controls were 128.88±13.04 mmHg, 87.63±5.79 mmHg and 102.86±13 mmHg, respectively. These difference were significant (P<0.05). The above-mentioned indices for 5th minutes in intervention and controls were as follow: systolic (113.47±9.97 mmHg, 122.36±13 mmHg), diastolic (73.47±4.27 mmHg, 77.63±6.26 mmHg) heart rate (84.41±4.6 in minute, 93.19±12.53 in minute). These differences in above indices were significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study showed that lidocaine administration during electroconvulsive therapy increase the duration of convulsion and reduces heart rate and blood pressur

Effect of Laser Irradiation on Cell Cycle and Mitosis

Introduction: In this research, low-level helium-neon (He-Ne) laser irradiation effects on monkey kidney cells (Vero cell line) mitosis were studied.Methods: The experiment was carried out on a monkey kidney cell line “Vero (CCL-81)”. This is a lineage of cells used in cell cultures and can be used for efficacy and media testing. The monolayer cells were formed on coating glass in a spectral cuvette (20×20×30 mm). The samples divided into two groups. The first groups as irradiated monolayer cells were exposed by a He-Ne laser (PolyaronNPO, L’vov, Ukraine) with λ = 632.8 nm, max power density (P) = 10 mW/cm2, generating linearly polarized and the second groups as the control monolayer cells were located in a cuvette protected by a lightproof screen from the first cuvette and also from the laser exposure. Then, changing functional activity of the monolayer cells, due to the radiation influence on some physical factors were measured.Results: The results showed that low-intensity laser irradiation in the range of visible red could make meaningful changes in the cell division process (the mitosis activity). These changes depend on the power density, exposure time, the presence of a magnetic field, and the duration of time after exposure termination. The stimulatory effects on the cell division within the power density of 1-6 mW/(cm2) and exposure time in the range of 1-10 minutes was studied. It is demonstrated that the increase in these parameters (power density and exposure time) leads to destructing the cell division process.Conclusion: The results are useful to identify the molecular mechanisms caused by low-intensity laser effects on the biological activities of the cells. Thus, this study helps to optimize medical laser technology as well as achieving information on the therapeutic effects of low-intensity lasers

Isolation and identification bacteria and fungi of spoilage in kilka meal production in Guilan Province

We Collected 75 samples from fish meal factories in Guilan Province (codes: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7) based on two times per month during June to December 2001. Standard reference are used in bacterial and fungous identification. The isolated bacteria are E. coli Proteus spp., Citrobac ter spp., Shigella spp., Enterobacter Aerogens Salmonella spp., Klebsiella spp., Hafina Alvei Yersinia Enterocolitica, Edwardsiella spp., Staphylococcus spp., Bacillus spp., Pseudomonas spp., Clostridium spp., Aeromonas Hydrophila Streptococcus spp. The hightest and lowest bacterial conamination observed in E. col/ and Hafina Alvei respectively. The most important isolated fungi were Aspergillus spp., Penicillium spp., Yeasts Rizopous spp. The maximum and minimum fungi decay in samples were Penicillium spp., and Rizopus respectively. The most and the least microbial spoilage have been seen in factories 1 and 2 respectively

Database Learning: Toward a Database that Becomes Smarter Every Time

In today's databases, previous query answers rarely benefit answering future queries. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we change this paradigm in an approximate query processing (AQP) context. We make the following observation: the answer to each query reveals some degree of knowledge about the answer to another query because their answers stem from the same underlying distribution that has produced the entire dataset. Exploiting and refining this knowledge should allow us to answer queries more analytically, rather than by reading enormous amounts of raw data. Also, processing more queries should continuously enhance our knowledge of the underlying distribution, and hence lead to increasingly faster response times for future queries. We call this novel idea---learning from past query answers---Database Learning. We exploit the principle of maximum entropy to produce answers, which are in expectation guaranteed to be more accurate than existing sample-based approximations. Empowered by this idea, we build a query engine on top of Spark SQL, called Verdict. We conduct extensive experiments on real-world query traces from a large customer of a major database vendor. Our results demonstrate that Verdict supports 73.7% of these queries, speeding them up by up to 23.0x for the same accuracy level compared to existing AQP systems.Comment: This manuscript is an extended report of the work published in ACM SIGMOD conference 201

Exploring and Exploiting Tissue Engineering Through the Design of Multifunctional Therapeutic Systems

This article presents a special issue of "Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy" devoted to exploring and exploiting tissue engineering through the design of multifunctional therapeutic systems. This lead article draws from twelve contributed articles to discuss the most recent advancements in this emerging field. The common theme in the contributed articles is the emerging therapeutic strategies, and a special appeal is made for collaboration between engineers and biologists for the development of multifunctional therapeutic systems for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at [email protected]