The Oxidative Reaction of Potassium Permanganate with Mycolic Acids Leads to a Unique Diagnostic Pattern for Mycobacterium Tuberculosis

In an oxidative reaction, potassium permanganate reacts with the mycolic acid component of _M.tuberculosis_ and gives rise to a unique saponified pattern specific for _M.tuberculosis_. This brown orange pattern makes it possible to identify _M.tuberculosis_ in a typical laboratory sample. The method avoids the complexity of other methods with special regard to save time and costs

Neuroimaging Findings in First Unprovoked Seizures: A Multicentric Study in Tehran

How to Cite This Article: Molla Mohammadi M, Tonekaboni SH, Khatami AR, Azargashb E, Tavasoli A, Javadzadeh M, Zamani GR. Neuroimaging Findings in First Unprovoked Seizures: A Multicentric Study in Tehran. Iran J Child Neurol. 2013 Autumn; 7(4):24-31.ObjectiveSeizure is an emergency in pediatrics. It really matters to the parents of the involved child to have information about the causes, management and prognosis.First unprovoked seizures (FUS) are seizures that occur in patients without fever, trauma or infection. Due to the rapid improvement in diagnostic techniques in the last few decades, the etiology will be revealed and this term will no longer exist. This Study was designed to evaluate brain imaging findings in FUS patients. Materials & MethodsNinety-six children with FUS, who were admitted in three major children’s hospitals in Tehran, underwent brain imaging and were enrolled into the study.The decision about the type of imaging (CT or MRI) was based on the patient’s medical and financial conditions. An expert radiologist in the field of pediatric neuroimaging interpreted the images. ResultsAltogether, 27.1% had abnormal findings of which 29.2% were in the brain MRI group and 14.3% were in the brain CT scan group.Abnormal results were gliosis (10.4%), hemorrhage (4.2%), dysgenesis (2.1%), dysmyelination (7.3%), encephalomalacy (1%), atrophy (5.2%) and infarction (2.1%). In some patients, the lesions were in 2 or 3 sites and some had more than one type of lesion.There was no association between the duration, age and type of seizure and imaging abnormlities. However, we found an association between the location of the lesion and the type of seizure. ConclusionWe recommend brain imaging in all patients with FUS and apart from some exceptions, brain MRI is superior to CT. ReferencesJohnston MV. Siezure in childhood. In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, editors. Nelson text book of pediatrics. 18th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders; 2010. p. 2457-70.Bluestein JS, Moshe SL. First unprovoked seizure. In: Maria BL, editor. Currents in management in child neurology. 3rd ed. Hamilton: BC Decker; 2005. p. 89-92.Khodapanahandeh F, Hadizadeh H. Neuroimaging in children with first afebrile seizures: to order or not to order? Arch Iran Med 2006 Apr;9(2):156-8.Alawaneh H, Bataineh HA. Urgent neuroimaging in children with first nonfebrile seizures. Middle East JFam Med 2008 Feb;6(1):24-6.Shinnar S, O’Dell C, Mitnick R, Berg AT, Moshe SL. Neuroimaging abnormalities in children with an apparent first unprovoked seizure. Epilepsy Res 2001 Mar;43(3):261-9.Kalnin AJ, Fastenau PS, deGrauw TJ, Musick BS, Perkins SM, Johnson CS, et al. Magnetic resonance imaging findings in children with a first recognized seizure. Pediatr Neurol 2008 Dec;39(6):404-14.King MA, Newton MR, Jackson GD, Fitt GJ, Mitchell LA, Silvapulle MJ et al. Epileptology of the first-seizure presentation: a clinical, electroencephalographic, and magnetic resonance imaging study of 300 consecutive patients. Lancet 1998 Sep 26;352(9133):1007-11.Pohlmann-Eden B, Beghi E, CarnfieldC, Carnfield P. The first seizure and its management in adults and children. BMJ 2006 Feb;332(11):339-34.Raman S, Susan K, Joyce W. Paroxysmal disorders.In: Menkes J, editor. Child neurology. 7th ed. Philadelphia: Lipincott; 2006. p. 857-942.Wical B. The first unprovoked seizure.Gillette Children’sSpecialty Healthcare. A PediatricPerspective 1999 Mar;8(3).Bano S, Yadav SN.Neuroimaging in epilepsy.Medi-Focus2010 Apr-Sep;9(3&4):2-4.Rauch DA,Carr E, Harrington J.Inpatient brain MRI for new-onset seizures: utility and cost effectiveness.Clin Pediatr (Phila) 2008 Jun;47(5):457-60.Gaillard WD, Chiron C, Cross JH, Harvey AS, Kuzniecky R, Hertz-Pannier L et al. Guidelines for imaging infants and children with recent-onset epilepsy. Epilepsia 2009 Sep;50(9):2147-53.Barkovich AJ. Techniques and methods in pediatric neuroimaging. 4thed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams &Wilkins; 2005. p. 4-7.Doescher JS, deGrauw TJ, Musick BS, Dunn DW, Kalnin AJ, Egelhoff JC et al. Magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalic findings in a cohort of normal children with newly dignosed seizures. J Child Neurol 2006 Jun; 21(6):490-5. 

Akbari–Ganji Method for Solving Equations of Euler–Bernoulli Beam with Quintic Nonlinearity

open access articleIn many real word applications, beam has nonlinear transversely vibrations. Solving nonlinear beam systems is complicated because of the high dependency of the system variables and boundary conditions. It is important to have an accurate parametric analysis for understanding the nonlinear vibration characteristics. This paper presents an approximate solution of a nonlinear transversely vibrating beam with odd and even nonlinear terms using the Akbari–Ganji Method (AGM). This method is an effective approach to solve nonlinear differential equations. AGM is already used in the heat transfer science for solving differential equations, and in this research for the first time, it is applied to find the approximate solution of a nonlinear transversely vibrating beam. The advantage of creating new boundary conditions in this method in additional to predefined boundary conditions is checked for the proposed nonlinear case. To illustrate the applicability and accuracy of the AGM, the governing equation of transversely vibrating nonlinear beams is treated with different initial conditions. Since simply supported and clamped-clamped structures can be encountered in many engineering applications, these two boundary conditions are considered. The periodic response curves and the natural frequency are obtained by AGM and contrasted with the energy balance method (EBM) and the numerical solution. The results show that the present method has excellent agreements in contrast with numerical and EBM calculations. In most cases, AGM is applied straightforwardly to obtain the nonlinear frequency– amplitude relationship for dynamic behaviour of vibrating beams. The natural frequencies tested for various values of amplitude are clearly stated the AGM is an applicable method for the proposed nonlinear system. It is demonstrated that this technique saves computational time without compromising the accuracy of the solution. This approach can be easily extended to other nonlinear systems and is therefore widely applicable in engineering and other sciences

Mitochondrial mutations in protein coding genes of respiratory chain including complexes IV, V, and MT-TRNA genes are associated risk factors for congenital heart disease

Most studies aiming at unraveling the molecular events associated with cardiac congenital heart disease (CHD) have focused on the effect of mutations occurring in the nuclear genome. In recent years, a significant role has been attributed to mitochondria for correct heart development and maturation of cardiomyocytes. Moreover, numerous heart defects have been associated with nucleotide variations occurring in the mitochondrial genome, affecting mitochondrial functions and cardiac energy metabolism, including genes encoding for subunits of res-piratory chain complexes. Therefore, mutations in the mitochondrial genome may be a major cause of heart dis-ease, including CHD, and their identification and characterization can shed light on pathological mechanisms occurring during heart development. Here, we have analyzed mitochondrial genetic variants in previously re-ported mutational genome hotspots and the flanking regions of mt-ND1, mt-ND2, mt-COXI, mt-COXII, mt-ATPase8, mt-ATPase6, mt-COXIII, and mt-tRNAs (Ile, Gln, Met, Trp, Ala, Asn, Cys, Tyr, Ser, Asp, and Lys) en-coding genes by polymerase chain reaction-single stranded conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) in 200 pa-tients with CHD, undergoing cardiac surgery. A total of 23 mitochondrial variations (5 missense mutations, 8 synonymous variations, and 10 nucleotide changes in tRNA encoding genes) were identified and included 16 novel variants. Additionally, we showed that intracellular ATP was significantly reduced (P=0.002) in CHD pa-tients compared with healthy controls, suggesting that the mutations have an impact on mitochondrial energy production. Functional and structural alterations caused by the mitochondrial nucleotide variations in the gene products were studied in-silico and predicted to convey a predisposing risk factor for CHD. Further studies are necessary to better understand the mechanisms by which the alterations identified in the present study contribute to the development of CHD in patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Parametric resonance domain of a parametric excited screen machine

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed versionIn this paper the stable operation domain of a parametric resonance (PR) based screen machine is thoroughly investigated. The dynamic model of a screen with two differential equations coupled by a geometric nonlinearity is applied to study the structural motion. In order to address the strong nonlinearities in the equations of motion the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) is used to compute the longitudinal and transverse oscillations. Since, under excessive excitation, the contact of the vibration screen and loaded materials displays undesirable vibro-impact response, the HPM is applied under impact and non-impact operation conditions. By considering appropriate technological parameters, including the maximum amplitude desired, spring stiffness, screen mass, initial velocity and acceleration, the best domain of excitation is calculated. The results provide the optimal parameter domain for a new design of vibrating screen, where the parametric oscillations are excited and the analytically obtained steady oscillation regime is stable. The outcomes of this research respond to changes in the production quality and quantity required by customers and deliver a design guideline for engineers

Modeling the problem of courses timetabling in a small educational institute

In this paper, we will consider the problem of courses timetabling in a small educational institute. We will present the mathematical model considering six hard constraints (compelling constraints) and five soft constraints (constraints that are lot compelling, but regarding them results increasing the utility of timetable). To formulating the model we will use a type of goal programming. In this paper we will try to define decision variables, hard constraints, soft constraints and objective function in a step by step direction. Afterward we will test the model on a mathematical example

Akbari–Ganji Method for Solving Equations of Euler–Bernoulli Beam with Quintic Nonlinearity

In many real word applications, beam has nonlinear transversely vibrations. Solving nonlinear beam systems is complicated because of the high dependency of the system variables and boundary conditions. It is important to have an accurate parametric analysis for understanding the nonlinear vibration characteristics. This paper presents an approximate solution of a nonlinear transversely vibrating beam with odd and even nonlinear terms using the Akbari–Ganji Method (AGM). This method is an effective approach to solve nonlinear differential equations. AGM is already used in the heat transfer science for solving differential equations, and in this research for the first time, it is applied to find the approximate solution of a nonlinear transversely vibrating beam. The advantage of creating new boundary conditions in this method in additional to predefined boundary conditions is checked for the proposed nonlinear case. To illustrate the applicability and accuracy of the AGM, the governing equation of transversely vibrating nonlinear beams is treated with different initial conditions. Since simply supported and clamped-clamped structures can be encountered in many engineering applications, these two boundary conditions are considered. The periodic response curves and the natural frequency are obtained by AGM and contrasted with the energy balance method (EBM) and the numerical solution. The results show that the present method has excellent agreements in contrast with numerical and EBM calculations. In most cases, AGM is applied straightforwardly to obtain the nonlinear frequency– amplitude relationship for dynamic behaviour of vibrating beams. The natural frequencies tested for various values of amplitude are clearly stated the AGM is an applicable method for the proposed nonlinear system. It is demonstrated that this technique saves computational time without compromising the accuracy of the solution. This approach can be easily extended to other nonlinear systems and is therefore widely applicable in engineering and other sciences