Seismic performance assessment of latyan concrete buttress dam subjected to different records including reservior effects by finite element method

In order to design earthquake resistant dams and evaluate the safety of existing dams that will be exposed to future earthquakes, it is essential to have accurate and reliable analysis procedures to predict the stresses and deformations in dams subjected to earthquake ground motion. For a damwater- foundation system, the earthquake response is significantly influenced by the interaction of the dam with the impounded water and with the underlying foundation region, thus increasing the requirements for the analysis procedure to be used, and complicating what would otherwise have been considered a routine finite element analysis of a concrete cross-section. In this paper Latyan concrete buttress dam subjected to different records including reservoir effects by finite element method using ABAQUS.Keywords: correct dam; seismic; interaction; FEM; ABAQU

Intracellular ROS Protection Efficiency and Free Radical-Scavenging Activity of Curcumin

Curcumin has many pharmaceutical applications, many of which arise from its potent antioxidant properties. The present research examined the antioxidant activities of curcumin in polar solvents by a comparative study using ESR, reduction of ferric iron in aqueous medium and intracellular ROS/toxicity assays. ESR data indicated that the steric hindrance among adjacent big size groups within a galvinoxyl molecule limited the curcumin to scavenge galvinoxyl radicals effectively, while curcumin showed a powerful capacity for scavenging intracellular smaller oxidative molecules such as H2O2, HO•, ROO•. Cell viability and ROS assays demonstrated that curcumin was able to penetrate into the polar medium inside the cells and to protect them against the highly toxic and lethal effects of cumene hydroperoxide. Curcumin also showed good electron-transfer capability, with greater activity than trolox in aqueous solution. Curcumin can readily transfer electron or easily donate H-atom from two phenolic sites to scavenge free radicals. The excellent electron transfer capability of curcumin is because of its unique structure and different functional groups, including a β-diketone and several π electrons that have the capacity to conjugate between two phenyl rings. Therfore, since curcumin is inherently a lipophilic compound, because of its superb intracellular ROS scavenging activity, it can be used as an effective antioxidant for ROS protection within the polar cytoplasm

Hybrid nonlinear observer for battery state- of- charge estimation using nonmonotonic force measurements

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162783/4/adc238.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162783/3/adc238-sup-0001-supinfo.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162783/2/adc238_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162783/1/adc238-sup-0002-supinfo.pd

Staphylococcus aureus infections in children in an Iranian referral pediatric Hospital

Introduction. Staphylococcus aureus is associated with various infections ranging from skin and soft tissues such as surgical site infections and abscesses to lower respiratory tracts and blood- stream. The aim of this study was to evaluate underlying condi- tion of patients with S. aureus infections in an Iranian referral pediatric Hospital. Material and methods. Information was extracted retrospec- tively from the medical records of patients who were diagnosed with S. aureus infections. Data obtained about the study subjects included basic demographics, reason for admission, culture site, length of hospital stay, and methicillin susceptibility. Results. The underlyning condition of of patients with S.aureus infection during November 2011 and March 2013 were included in the study. The most frequent diagnosis in patients with S. aureus infection was jaundice (12%), abscess (10%), cellulitis (10%), wound infection (8%), septic arthritis (7%) and sezeire (5%). Wound was the most common infection sites among all subjects 34/98 (35%) following by blood (20/98, 20%) as well as skin and soft tissue (19/98, 19%). The proportion of MRSA infections among all S. aureus isolates was 79% (77/98) during the study period. In addition, 58/74 (78%) met the definition of Hospital-Associated Methicillin-Resistant S. aureus (HA- MRSA) infections and the rest; 20/24 patients (83%), were classified as Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant S. aureus (CA- MRSA). Conclusion. In our study, the high frequency of MRSA was found not only in HA S. aureus but also in CA S. aureus isolates; there- fore, the strategic goals to optimize antimicrobial use includin

Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection among cystic fibrosis and ICU patients in the referral Children Medical Hospital in Tehran, Iran

Introduction. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the important causes of hospital-acquired infections in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and considered as a major determinant of morbidity and mortality in patients affected by cystic fibrosis (CF). The aim of this study was to investigate clonal diversity among randomly picked P. aeruginosa isolates of CF and the other hospitalized patients in ICU. Methods. Cultivation, identification, and antimicrobial suscep- tibility testing of P. aeruginosa isolates were performed using standard techniques. The genetic similarity of the strains was investigated by amplification of the Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus-polymerase chain reaction (ERIC-PCR) sequence. Results and discussion. Among 49 isolates, sixteen were isolated from 11 patients affected by CF and 33 came from an epidemiologi- cal investigation of 25 P. aeruginosa infected patients of ICU. Five clusters were generated for all isolates analyzed through ERIC-PCR genotyping. Two major clusters (B and C) were discovered in P. aer- uginosa isolates of ICU and CF patients during the whole period of this study. Fifteen unique antibiogram patterns obtained from all iso- lates and multi-resistant P. aeruginosa (MRPA) were identified in 23 isolates (47%). MRPA isolates were detected in all clusters (except A) while pan-resistant isolates were recovered only in cluster C. The high prevalence of related or identical isolates in CF and non-CF patients can be due to transmission of particular domi- nant clones in ICU ward. Therefore, enhanced infection-control may become necessary to prevent further spread of clonal strains

A biophysical study on the mechanism of interactions of DOX or PTX with α-lactalbumin as a delivery carrier

© 2018, The Author(s). Doxorubicin and paclitaxel, two hydrophobic chemotherapeutic agents, are used in cancer therapies. Presence of hydrophobic patches and a flexible fold could probably make α-Lactalbumin a suitable carrier for hydrophobic drugs. In the present study, a variety of thermodynamic, spectroscopic, computational, and cellular techniques were applied to assess α-lactalbumin potential as a carrier for doxorubicin and paclitaxel. According to isothermal titration calorimetry data, the interaction between α-lactalbumin and doxorubicin or paclitaxel is spontaneous and the K (M−1) value for the interaction of α-lactalbumin and paclitaxel is higher than that for doxorubicin. Differential scanning calorimetry and anisotropy results indicated formation of α-lactalbumin complexes with doxorubicin or paclitaxel. Furthermore, molecular docking and dynamic studies revealed that TRPs are not involved in α-Lac’s interaction with Doxorubicin while TRP 60 interacts with paclitaxel. Based on Pace analysis to determine protein thermal stability, doxorubicin and paclitaxel induced higher and lower thermal stability in α-lactalbumin, respectively. Besides, fluorescence lifetime measurements reflected that the interaction between α-lactalbumin with doxorubicin or paclitaxel was of static nature. Therefore, the authors hypothesized that α-lactalbumin could serve as a carrier for doxorubicin and paclitaxel by reducing cytotoxicity and apoptosis which was demonstrated during our in vitro cell studies

Precise exogenous insertion and sequence replacements in poplar by simultaneous HDR overexpression and NHEJ suppression using CRISPR-Cas9

CRISPR-mediated genome editing has become a powerful tool for the genetic modification of biological traits. However, developing an efficient, site-specific, gene knock-in system based on homology-directed DNA repair (HDR) remains a significant challenge in plants, especially in woody species like poplar. Here, we show that simultaneous inhibition of non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) recombination cofactor XRCC4 and overexpression of HDR enhancer factors CtIP and MRE11 can improve HDR efficiency for gene knock-in. Using this approach, the BleoR gene was integrated onto the 3′ end of the MKK2 MAP kinase gene to generate a BleoR-MKK2 fusion protein. Based on fully edited nucleotides evaluated by TaqMan real-time PCR, the HDR-mediated knock-in efficiency was up to 48% when using XRCC4 silencing incorporated with a combination of CtIP and MRE11 overexpression compared with no HDR enhancement or NHEJ silencing. Furthermore, this combination of HDR enhancer overexpression and NHEJ repression also increased genome targeting efficiency and gave 7-fold fewer CRISPR-induced insertions and deletions (InDels), resulting in no functional effects on MKK2-based salt stress responses in poplar. Therefore, this approach may be useful not only in poplar and plants or crops but also in mammals for improving CRISPR-mediated gene knock-in efficiency

Comprehensive Techno-Economic Analysis of a Multi-Feedstock Biorefinery Plant in Oil-Rich Country: A Case Study of Iran

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordThe high energy consumption in Iran, particularly in the transportation sector, has contaminated large cities and jeopardized the society health. Therefore, in this study technical and economic features of the production of biodiesel plant in Iran from various wastes are investigated. Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method’s findings, the southern area of Iran is selected for establishing the biodiesel plant in Iran. The biorefinery, which includes three units of sewage sludge, edible waste oil and microalgae. The results of the economic evaluation show that the lowest costs of investment and production of biodiesel are related to microalgae units ($0.375/kg) and edible waste oil ($0.53/kg), respectively. Also, among all units, the lowest break even prices are related to biodiesel production ($1.17/kg) and the highest ATROR rate (29.16%) belongs to the microalgae unit. This indicates that this unit is more profitable than other units and the invested cost is returned to the investor in a shorter period of time (3.43 years). On the other hand, the results of sensitivity analysis show that the highest sensitivity of changes in the selling price of biodiesel and the cost of raw materials to ATROR to the microalgae and sludge unit. Therefore, the construction of a biorefinery in Iran has an economic justification

Effect of enhanced dissipation by shear flows on transient relaxation and probability density function in two dimensions

We report a non-perturbative study of the effects of shear flows on turbulence reduction in a decaying turbulence in two dimensions. By considering different initial power spectra and shear flows (zonal flows, streamers and zonal flows, and streamers combined), we demonstrate how shear flows rapidly generate small scales, leading to a fast damping of turbulence amplitude. In particular, a double exponential decrease in the turbulence amplitude is shown to occur due to an exponential increase in wavenumber. The scaling of the effective dissipation time scale se, previ- ously taken to be a hybrid time scale se / s2=3sg, is shown to depend on types of shear flow as X well as the initial power spectrum. Here, sX and sg are shearing and molecular diffusion times, respectively. Furthermore, we present time-dependent Probability Density Functions (PDFs) and discuss the effect of enhanced dissipation on PDFs and a dynamical time scale s(t), which repre- sents the time scale over which a system passes through statistically different states

Pancreatic Duct Cells in Human Islet Cell Preparations Are a Source of Angiogenic Cytokines Interleukin-8 and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

OBJECTIVE—Engraftment and function of human islet cell implants is considered to be dependent on their rapid and adequate revascularization. Studies with rodent islet grafts have shown that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression by β-cells can promote this process. The present work examines whether human islet preparations produce VEGF as well as interleukin (IL)-8, another angiogenic protein, and assesses the role of contaminating duct cells in VEGF and IL-8–mediated angiogenesis