Malnutrition and medical nutrition therapy in hospitalized children: a case study of using national malnutrition screening tools in northeastern Iran

Background: Nationwide studies have focused only on prevalence of malnutrition in hospitalized children, while medical nu- trition therapies and assessing nutritional interventions is neglected.Methods: This research was conducted in tertiary level children hospitals in the NorthEastern region of Iran for 1 year from 2016 to 2017. Five questions were included in the initial assessment form and, if there was even one positive response, nutrition- al interventions were prescribed for the patients.Results: A total of 65 children aged ≥ 5 years and hospitalized for ≥ two days were included. 24.6% of patients had 2 >BMI Z-score>-2 at time of admission. At the beginning of the study, weight loss more than 10%, and appetite loss or decreased food intake was observed in 10.8% and 20% of the study population, respectively. Median BMI percentile of patients with nutritional intervention was 8.9 (0.1-98.7) at the beginning of the study and 12.7 (0.1-98.4) at discharge time which shows a significant difference (P=0.01).Conclusion: Medical nutrition therapy employed in this study prevented deterioration of nutritional status of children during hospitalization and was effective in stabilizing indices of nutritional status.Keywords: Body mass index, hospitalized children, malnutrition

Comparing the viability and in vitro maturation of cumulus germinal vesicle break down (GVBD) oocyte complexes using two vitrification techniques in mice

Background: Vitrification is assumed to be a promising method to cryopreserve human oocytes but still needs optimizing. Objective: The aim of this study was to improve the single step and step-wise vitrification effects on maturing mouse GVBD oocytes by ethylene glycol (EG) in conventional straws. Materials and Methods: Oocytes with compact cumulus cells were cultured for 3hr in TCM199 supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) in 5% CO2 in air. GVBD oocytes were randomly allocated into three groups. (1) Control (non-vitrified group), (2) exposed to single-step vitrification (contained of EG 20%+0.5M sucrose), (3) exposed to step-wise vitrification (2%, 5%, 10%, 20%EG +0.5M sucrose). In vitrification groups,oocytes were thawed and underwent additional 21 hr maturation. Viability of oocytes and maturation to MII stage were analyzed using inverted microscope and additionally by staining of propidium iodide and Hoechst 33342. Results: All non-vitrified oocytes were viable after 24 hr; however, viability of vitrified samples in single-step group was significantly lower than that of the step-wise and control Groups. Also, the maturation rate in the step-wise group was significantly higher (p < 0.05) compared to single-step. Conclusion: These results suggest that step-wise vitrification of GVBD oocytes as compared to single step vitrification was better in the rate of survival and in vitro maturation of oocytes

Modeling and measuring dielectric constants for very thin materials using a coaxial probe

This paper is focused on the non-destructive measurement of the dielectric constants (relative permittivities) of thin dielectric material (0.1-0.5 mm) using an open-ended coaxial probe with an outer diameter of 4.1 mm. Normalized de-embedding and network error calibration procedures were applied to the coaxial probe. The measured reflection coefficients for the thin samples were taken with a vector network analyzer up to 7 GHz, and the calibrated reflection coefficients were converted to relative dielectric constants using an empirical reflection coefficient model. The empirical model was created using the regression method and expressed as a polynomial model, and the coefficients of the model were obtained by fitting the data using the Finite Element Method (FEM)

Measurement of Arginase Activity in Sera of Iraqi Acromegaly Patients with Diabetes

The goal of this study was to measure arginase enzyme activity in diabetic acromegaly Iraqi patients and compare it to a control group. This study included 80 participants, whose ages ranged from 25 to 65, and was conducted on forty diabetic acromegaly Iraqi patients attending the national diabetes center of Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad and forty healthy individuals (as a control group). The results showed a highly significant reduction in arginase activity and High-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), Urea levels were reduced not significantly, whereas a highly significant increase in levels of Growth Hormone (GH), Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1), Fasting Serum glucose (FSG), Total Cholesterol (TC), Triglycerides (TG), Low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), and Very low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (VLDL-C)) compared to control. A significant positive correlation was revealed between arginase activity and FSG levels in diabetic acromegaly patients. In conclusion, diabetic acromegaly patients had a significant decreased in serum arginase activity with no significant decrease urea levels, which indicates that their bodies store more nitrogen compounds to be utilized in constructing processes.

Perforated caecal diverticulitis mimicking an acute appendicitis: a case report

Right iliac fossa pain, nausea and vomiting in young adults are common symptoms that require careful surgical assessment with acute appendicitis being a common cause. Uncommonly, other conditions can mimic this presentation such as caecal diverticulitis. This condition is often misdiagnosed due to lack of characteristic features and the commonest method of detection is an intraoperative one. Hereby, we describe a rare case of right iliac fossa pain in a 34-year-old female which mimicked an acute appendicitis. The ability to recognize such condition is vital as its management is different and worse outcome can be prevented by earlier detection and proper management

Malnutrition and medical nutrition therapy in hospitalized children: a case study of using national malnutrition screening tools in northeastern Iran

Background: Nationwide studies have focused only on prevalence of malnutrition in hospitalized children, while medical nutrition therapies and assessing nutritional interventions is neglected. Methods: This research was conducted in tertiary level children hospitals in the NorthEastern region of Iran for 1 year from 2016 to 2017. Five questions were included in the initial assessment form and, if there was even one positive response, nutritional interventions were prescribed for the patients. Results: A total of 65 children aged 65 5 years and hospitalized for 65 two days were included. 24.6% of patients had 2 &gt;BMI Z-score&gt;-2 at time of admission. At the beginning of the study, weight loss more than 10%, and appetite loss or decreased food intake was observed in 10.8% and 20% of the study population, respectively. Median BMI percentile of patients with nutritional intervention was 8.9 (0.1-98.7) at the beginning of the study and 12.7 (0.1-98.4) at discharge time which shows a significant difference (P=0.01). Conclusion: Medical nutrition therapy employed in this study prevented deterioration of nutritional status of children during hospitalization and was effective in stabilizing indices of nutritional status. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ahs.v19i1.31 Cite as: Malek A, Hashemi M, Anjomrooz M, Torabi P, B I. Malnutrition and medical nutrition therapy in hospitalized children: a case study of using national malnutrition screening tools in northeastern Iran. Afri Health Sci. 2019;19(1). 1566-1573. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ahs. v19i1.3

Non-destructive dielectric measurements and calibration for thin materials using waveguide-coaxial adaptors

This paper focuses on the calibration of apertures for rectangular waveguides using open-short-load (OSL) standards and transmission-line (TL) approaches. The reflection coefficients that were measured using both calibration techniques were compared with the coefficients acquired using the thru-reflect-line (TRL) method. In this study, analogous relationships between the results of OSL calibration and TL calibration were identified. In the OSL calibration method, the theoretical, open-standard values are calculated from quasi-static integral models. The proposed TL calibration procedure is a simple, rapid, broadband approach, and its results were validated by using the OSL calibration method and by comparing the results with the calculated integral admittance. The quasi-static integral models were used to convert the measured reflection coefficients to relative permittivities for the infinite samples and the thin, finite sample

Comparative study between measurement and predictions using geometrical optics and uniform theory of diffraction for case of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) in indoor environment

This paper describes the investigation and comparison of the accuracy of a deterministic model for a WLAN system in the indoor environment. The measurement system consisted of a spectrum analyzer and a log-periodic antenna. Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation (in furnished rooms) was investigated. All the measurement sites mentioned in this paper are located in the Division of Information Technology at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The furnished rooms mentioned above were a teaching laboratory and a computer laboratory. The measured path losses were compared with the results obtained using deterministic models, namely the geometrical optics model and the uniform theory of diffraction model with the aid of image theory. The predicted results showed good agreement with the measured data for the NLOS environment, with an absolute mean error that ranged between 1.61 and 3.07 dB

HIGH-LOW VOLTAGE RISK PREVENTION OF UAV ELECTRICAL GENERATION SYSTEM BASED BUCK- BOOST INVERTER

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