Effects of dietary Bacillus subtilis on growth performance and immune responses, in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum, 1792)

Four hundred and eighty five rainbow trout (76 ± 6.44 g mean weight) were acclimated to laboratory conditions and then randomly divided into four groups of tanks in triplicate. The first group (Group 1) was fed on a commercial diet (control) without Bacillus subtilis supplementation. The second, third and fourth groups (Group 2, Group 3 and Group 4, respectively) were given a diet supplemented with 1, 5 and 10 g probiotic powder (containing 8×10^7 CFU g^-1 Bacillus subtilis) per kg commercial feed. Growth performance, immune responses and glucose levels were analyzed on days 0, 22 and 44. The results showed that dietary Bacillus subtilis supplementation significantly (p0.05) was observed in weight gain rate (WGR) between the control and group 2. On the effect of dietary Bacillus subtilis on serum lysozyme, it was observed that group 3 and group 4 did not show any significant differences in serum lysozyme activity and serum total antibody on day 44. Results of alternative complement activity, showed significant increase during the experimental days (p<0.05). Results on glucose assay showed that group 3 had the lowest glucose level (13.71 mg/dL) which was not significantly different than that in other groups on day 44. Fish diet supplementation with 5 g probiotic powder (Group 3) is preferable for immune system responses; however, high dose of Bacillus subtilis may be helpful to improve growth performance in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum, 1792)

Cancer and Aging; Preparing for Silver Tsunami

Abstract Growing number of older adults is one the most significant sociodemographic changes in the United States in the next few decades. Advancing age is associated with increased incidence of cancer and other age-related health conditions. It is common that older cancer patients have concurrent conditions and comorbidities that may affect treatment decisions, prognosis and overall survival. Assessment and care for older cancer patient is more complex than caring for younger patient. Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is a useful method for assessing older patients with cancer. CGA is a multidisciplinary evaluation designed to assess and manage elderly patient&apos;s medical, psychosocial, and functional capabilities. In this paper we will review domains of CGA and their impact on older cancer patient&apos;s outcome

Using geophysical techniques to characterize tillage effect on soil properties

Tillage practices influence physical, chemical, and biological soil properties, which also affect soil quality and consequently plant growth. In this study, the main objective was to evaluate the effect of different tillage systems on soil physical properties by using geophysical methods, namely, ground-penetrating radar (far-field and near-field GPR), capacitance probes (ThetaProbe and 5TE), electromagnetic induction (EMI) (Profiler and EM38), soil sampling, and by soil penetrometer. Since 2005, three contrasting tillage systems were applied on different plots of an agricultural field: i) conventional tillage (CT) with mouldboard ploughing to 27 cm depth, ii) deep loosening tillage (DL) with a heavy tine cultivator to 30 cm depth, and iii) reduced tillage (RT) with a spring tine cultivator to 10 cm depth. The geophysical and soil strength measurements were performed in April 2010. We observed that tillage influences the soil resistance (deeper tillage decreases soil resistance), which could be partly seen in the radar data. Soil water content reference measurements (capacitance probes and soil sampling) were in a relatively good agreement with the water content estimates from far-field GPR. We also observed that the tillage influences surface water content. Mean surface water content was significantly lower for CT than for DL and RT, which was partly explained by lower macropore connectivity between the topsoil and the deeper layers after conventional tillage. This study confirms the potential of GPR and EMI sensors for soil physical properties determination at the field scale and for the characterization of agricultural management practices

Prophylactic chemotherapy with methotrexate leucovorin in high-risk hydatidiform mole

Aim: Gestational Trophoblastic Neoplasia (GTN) is used to describe a group of malignant gestational tumors originating from the placenta. The chance of having malignant GTN is high in a high-risk molar pregnancy. The main aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using prophylactic chemotherapy in high-risk molar pregnancy to prevent malignant GTN. Method: In this case-control retrospective study, all patients with high-risk mole referred to Firoozgar and Akbarabadi Hospitals affiliated with Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) from 2003 to 2013 were divided into two groups of recipient and non-recipient of methotrexate prophylactic chemotherapy.Demographic information including age, parity, weight, serum �HCG before and after the intervention, level of liver function tests (LFT) and GTN were analyzed. Results: There were 102 patients with a mean age of 27.13 years (SD= 0.37), and 51 patients (50 ) received prophylactic Methotrexate (MTX), and others were the non-receivers. Finally, 23 patients (22.5) were inflicted with GTN, and 79 (77.5 ) did not. The average time of �HCG spontaneous remission between the groups were 2.5 (SD=1.33) and 3.2 (SD=1.21), for the recipient and non-recipient, respectively, which showed a significant difference (p). Conclusion: This study concludes that prophylactic chemotherapy with MTX and leucovorin may be capable of reducing GTN, which supports the prescription of MTX in high-risk mole, especially in countries with limited resources. The toxicity of methotrexate can be reduced with the addition of leucovorin. © 2020 Asian Pacific Organization for Cancer Prevention

Pulmonary embolism in pregnancy with COVID-19 infection: A case report

Pregnant women in the third trimester are at the highest risk. Contracting COVID-19 increases the complications. Hence, it is critical for pregnant women, especially during the third trimester, with slightest COVID-19 symptoms to visit as soon as possible. Early diagnosis considerably contributes to saving both the mother and the fetus. © 2020 The Authors. Clinical Case Reports published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

An analytical approach to converting vibration signal to combustion characteristics of homogeneous charge compression ignition engines

Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is a promising low-temperature combustion technique for low-emission internal combustion engines. Unlike conventional engines, HCCI lacks a direct ignition control mechanism, necessitating closed-loop combustion control. This study proposes a phenomenological-based, cost-effective, and non-intrusive approach using vibration data analysis to determine essential combustion parameters. Experiments were conducted on a single-cylinder research engine with an accelerometer attached to the engine head. The engine operation envelope covered the whole engine’s operating area in naturally aspirated HCCI mode. Wavelet analysis revealed that combustion-related frequencies centered around 500 Hz, independent of operating conditions. The correlation-seeking analysis included peak acceleration amplitude and its crank angle with peak heat release rate (HRR) data. The peak HRR location was accurately identified within one degree when vibration amplitude exceeded the 100 m/s2 threshold. This encompassed 98.5% of the analyzed combustion cycles. The peak HRR prediction accuracy had a maximum error below 21% and was suitable to monitor reaction rates, especially in incomplete combustion and high ringing cycles.© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Awareness and practice of cervical cancer and Pap smear testing in a teaching hospital in Tehran

Background: Cervical cancer is known to be preventable because of long period of pre-invasive stage, availability of screening tools, and effective treatments for early invasive cervical lesions. Screening is main measures to prevent the disease and Pap smear is a screening strategy for cervical cancer. Current paper aimed to evaluate levels of awareness and practice regarding Pap smear screening among women aged between 20 to 65 years in Tehran (Iran). Methods: This was a descriptive-analytical study conducted in Tehran City of Iran in 2015 at Firoozgar Hospital. The research population included all married, widowed and divorced women aged 20-65 years. Data analysis was performed using the Pearson correlation and Student�s t-tests in SPSS, ver. 23 (Chicago, IL, USA). Results: Among 90 individuals who have fill questionnaire completely, 66.6 subjects had Pap smear tests. 40 of the individuals aged between 30 to 39 and the education level is distributed equally between Intermediate, Diploma and graduate and only 3 percent of them, continue their education to higher level. There was a significant relationship between the awareness of Pap smear and educational level (of both wives and husbands). The people who have graduate degree, have the best awareness. Working women revealed higher level of awareness about Pap smear. Shame and fear of taking the cancer were the most common reasons which lead to avoidance in doing the test by the women, while the most encouraging factors for performing the test were the information mostly provided by physicians and after that, the information provided by friends. Conclusion: The awareness of Pap smear test which was measured by weighting different questions in the questionnaire by experts, prove that the women aged above 39, have an average level of awareness of Pap smear test. Due to high prevalence of cervical cancer and prolonged pre invasive course, role of Pap smear for early diagnosis necessitate the use of proper and inexpensive instructional methods to increase awareness in women about cervical cancer and preventive strategies. © 2016, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

A COVID-19 pregnant patient with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura: a case report

Background: Pregnancy seems to increase the risk of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) relapses and make the TTP more severe in any of the pregnancy trimesters, or even during the postpartum period. Case presentation: This study highlights details of treating a COVID-19 pregnant patient who survived. This 21-year addicted White woman was admitted at her 29th week and delivered a stillbirth. She was transferred to another hospital after showing signs of TTP, which was caused by a viral infection. Conclusion: This viral infection caused fever and dyspnea, and the patient was tested positive for COVID-19 infection. A chest computed tomography scan showed diffuse multiple bilateral consolidations and interlobar septal thickening. She stayed at the Intensive Care Unit for 20 days and treated with plasmapheresis. As far as we know, this is the first report of a TTP pregnant patient with COVID-19 infection. © 2021, The Author(s)

Learners’ frequent pattern discovering in a dynamic collaborative learning environment designed based on game theory

Background and Objectives:In any educational system, the optimal output of educational approach is of particular importance. Therefore, considering the personality characters of individuals and providing educational services in accordance with their characteristics are effective factors in learning and educational efficiency improvement. Analyzing the data related to learner’s behavior in an educational environment and implicitly discovering the learner’s personality based on their behavior is a well-noticed study in recent years. Over the last few years, using learners’ information such as number of friends, the level of activities in educational forum, writing style of learner, study duration, the difficulty of solved problem, the difficulty of presented example by learners, number of clicks, number of signs in sentences, the time spent doing homework are items that has been used to personal characteristic identification. This study is aimed at using teammates’ changing / not changing data in order to learners’ personality identification. For this purpose the teammates’ changing/ not changing data extracted from a dynamic collaborative learning environment that allows leaners to change their teammate during the different sessions of learning, are used. The design and implementation of mentioned dynamic collaborative learning environment is based on game theory. Game theory provides mathematical models of conflict and collaboration between intelligent rational decision-makers. Methods: In this paper, we collect teammates’ changing/not changing information of 119 randomly selected computer engineering students from a game theoretical dynamic collaborative learning environment. At the next step, using frequent pattern mining, as a tools of data mining, some aspects of the neo big 5 personality traits of learners are identified. In this survey, in order to evaluate the results, the extracted patterns from frequent pattern mining are compared with the neo big 5 personality questionnaire that have been filled by learners. In another part of research, using the Laplace’s rule of succession, valuable predictions were made about the probability of teammate’s changing of learners during the learning process. Findings: In this study, using frequent pattern mining in learners’ behaviour, we identified some neo big 5 personality traits such as those in the first (neuroticism), second (extraversion), and third (openness to experience) dimensions, with an acceptable support value. The results of this part of research can be used in any adaptive learning environment that adapt learning process for individual learners with different personality. At the next step of our study, we predicted the probability of the teammate changing in the sessions after. At this step, we had a prediction accuracy of up to 67.44%. Using the results of this part, teammate suggestion can be made to learner based on likelihood of their teammates’ changing. That is, higher teammate changing probability, more appropriate teammate suggestion to learner. Conclusion: The results of the present study can be used in any adaptive system that requires predicting group change behaviour or identifying personality dimensions based on behaviour.   ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS  ©2020 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.  ====================================================================================

Expression and characterization of a novel recombinant cytotoxin II from Naja naja oxiana venom: A potential treatment for breast cancer

Breast cancer (BC) is among the leading causes of mortality from cancer in women. Many of the available anticancer drugs have various side effects. Therefore, researchers are seeking novel anticancer agents particularly from natural compounds and in this regard, snake venom is still one of the main sources of drug discovery. Previous studies showed potential anticancer effects of Cytotoxin II (CTII) from Naja naja oxiana against the different types of cancers. In this study, a pET-SUMO-CTII vector was transformed into SHuffle® T7 Express, an Escherichia coli strain, for recombinant protein expression (rCTII) and the cytotoxic effects of this protein was assessed in MCF-7 cells. The flow cytometry assay was applied to measure the apoptosis and cell cycle. Also, mRNA levels of the Bax, Bcl2, P53, caspase-3, caspase-8, caspase-9, caspase-10, matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-3, and MMP-9 were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR to determine the underlying cellular pathways affected by rCTII. The results of this study showed that treatment with 4 μg mL−1 of rCTII enhanced apoptosis through the intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. Also, the increase of the cells' proportion in the sub-G1 phase as well as a reduction in S phase was observed. In addition, the expression of MMP-3 and MMP-9 was decreased in the treated group in comparison to the control group that may contribute to the reduced migratory ability of tumor cells. These experimental results indicate that rCTII has anti-proliferative potential, and so this protein could be a potential drug for BC therapy in combination with other drugs