An evaluation of technical and economic capacity of farmers of Rural Production Cooperatives. Case Study: Neishabour

The main objective of this article is to investigate the impact of cooperatives on the technical and economical empowering of farmers and agricultural development in the villages of Neishabour. The method of this research is analytical – descriptive and it has been carried out in 2013.  The statistical society is composed of 4685 members and non-members of cooperatives in twenty villages of Neishabour. The sample size via the Cochran formula and stratified sampling technique has been calculated to be 252.  Data collection has been performed through documentation and field study. For data analysis, the SPSS software package and the T-Student Test have been employed. The results of statistical analysis based on 13 economic indicators revealed that the average economic stability of the members is 2.64 which is slightly higher than 2.47; that is the average economic stability of non-members. Independent samples T-Test results between members and non-members revealed that the probability value is 0.004 which indicates that there exists a significant difference between average economic stability of members and non-members. The T-Test results with hypothetical mean of 3 and 4 showed that the majority of indicators are less than the average. Therefore, the impact of cooperatives in economic development is evaluated to be below the average limit and cooperatives could not play an important role in increasing the economic empowerment of farmers

Ultrasonic Thickness of Lateral Abdominal Wall Muscles in Response to Pelvic Floor Muscle Contraction in women with stress incontinency with and without Chronic Low Back Pain

Objective: Urinary Incontinence (UI) as a common lower urinary tract dysfunction , results from Pelvic Floor Muscle's (PFM) underactivity.Because of co-activation of PFM and the Lateral Abdominal Wall Muscles (LAWM), this study was aimed to investigate the changes in the ultrasonic thickness of the LAWM in response to PFM contraction in stress urinary incontinent (SUI)women with and without Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP). Materials & Methods: A total of 28 women, 10 healthy, 18 SUI with and without CLBP (9 in each group) participated in this quasi-experimental study. After collecting demographic information and assessment of PFM function, changes in ultrasonic thickness of right LAWM were measured in response to PFM contraction. One way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis and Pearson’s correlation tests were performed to analyze the data. Values of P<0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: No significant difference was found in thickness of the LAWM while PFM were at rest (P>0.05). There was a significant increase in thickness of the Traversus Abdominis Muscle (TrA) during PFM contraction in control group comparing experimental groups (P=0.03). Women in control group showed significantly higher PFM strength and more intravaginal pressure (P=0.001). Conclusion: Changes in ultrasonic thickness of the TrA during PFM contraction revealed disturbance of co-activation of the LAWM and the PFM in women with and without SUI CLBP

Research Paper: Effect of Strength and Endurance Training on the Pelvic Floor Muscles in Women With Stress Urinary Incontinence

Objective The aim of the study was to determine the effect of strength and endurance training on the pelvic floor muscles in women suffering from stress urinary incontinence using electromyography (EMG) biofeedback. Materials & Methods Forty women volunteers suffering from stress urinary incontinence participated in this quasi-experimental clinical trial (before and after). The strength and endurance of pelvic floor muscles were evaluated before and after the intervention using EMG biofeedback (MyoTrac Infiniti). The patients performed pelvic floor exercises twice a week for a ten-week program under the supervision of a physical therapist. All data were analyzed using paired t-test, regression analysis, and Pearson correlation coefficient using SPSS (version 11). Results It was found that the maximum strength and endurance levels in each patients&rsquo; pelvic floor muscles before and after the intervention were statistically significant (P<0.001). Conclusion The strength and endurance training of pelvic floor muscles using EMG biofeedback increased the pelvic floor muscle strength and endurance in women with stress urinary incontinence

Developing Novel Fabrication and Optimisation Strategies on Aggregation-Induced Emission Nanoprobe/Polyvinyl Alcohol Hydrogels for Bio-Applications

The current study describes a new technology, effective for readily preparing a fluorescent (FL) nanoprobe-based on hyperbranched polymer (HB) and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorogen with high brightness to ultimately develop FL hydrogels. We prepared the AIE nanoprobe using a microfluidic platform to mix hyperbranched polymers (HB, generations 2, 3, and 4) with AIE (TPE-2BA) under shear stress and different rotation speeds (0&ndash;5 K RPM) and explored the FL properties of the AIE nanoprobe. Our results reveal that the use of HB generation 4 exhibits 30-times higher FL intensity compared to the AIE alone and is significantly brighter and more stable compared to those that are prepared using HB generations 3 and 2. In contrast to traditional methods, which are expensive and time-consuming and involve polymerization and post-functionalization to develop FL hyperbranched molecules, our proposed method offers a one-step method to prepare an AIE-HB nanoprobe with excellent FL characteristics. We employed the nanoprobe to fabricate fluorescent injectable bioadhesive gel and a hydrogel microchip based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The addition of borax (50 mM) to the PVA + AIE nanoprobe results in the development of an injectable bioadhesive fluorescent gel with the ability to control AIEgen release for 300 min. When borax concentration increases two times (100 mM), the adhesion stress is more than two times bigger (7.1 mN/mm2) compared to that of gel alone (3.4 mN/mm2). Excellent dimensional stability and cell viability of the fluorescent microchip, along with its enhanced mechanical properties, proposes its potential applications in mechanobiology and understanding the impact of microstructure in cell studies

Microfluidic-Based Droplets for Advanced Regenerative Medicine: Current Challenges and Future Trends

Microfluidics is a promising approach for the facile and large-scale fabrication of monodispersed droplets for various applications in biomedicine. This technology has demonstrated great potential to address the limitations of regenerative medicine. Microfluidics provides safe, accurate, reliable, and cost-effective methods for encapsulating different stem cells, gametes, biomaterials, biomolecules, reagents, genes, and nanoparticles inside picoliter-sized droplets or droplet-derived microgels for different applications. Moreover, microenvironments made using such droplets can mimic niches of stem cells for cell therapy purposes, simulate native extracellular matrix (ECM) for tissue engineering applications, and remove challenges in cell encapsulation and three-dimensional (3D) culture methods. The fabrication of droplets using microfluidics also provides controllable microenvironments for manipulating gametes, fertilization, and embryo cultures for reproductive medicine. This review focuses on the relevant studies, and the latest progress in applying droplets in stem cell therapy, tissue engineering, reproductive biology, and gene therapy are separately evaluated. In the end, we discuss the challenges ahead in the field of microfluidics-based droplets for advanced regenerative medicine