Partial Purification and Characterization of Rhodanese from Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Liver

Cyanide is one of the most toxic substances present in a wide variety of food materials that are consumed by animals. Rhodanese, a ubiquitous enzyme, can catalyse the detoxification of cyanide by sulphuration reaction. In this study, rhodanese was partially purified and characterized from the liver tissue homogenate of the rainbow trout. The enzyme was active in a broad range of pH, from 5 to 12. The optimal activity was found at a high pH (pH 10.5), and the temperature optimum was 25°C. The enzyme was heat labile, losing > 50% of relative activity after only 5 min of incubation at 40°C. The Km values for KCN and Na2S2O3 as substrates were 36.81 mM and 19.84 mM, respectively. Studies on the enzyme with a number of cations showed that the activity of the enzyme was not affected by Sn2+, but Hg2+, Ba2+, Pb2+, and Ca2+ inhibited and Cu2+ activated the enzyme with a concentration-dependent manner

Critical assessment of Masson – Oursel comparative method

Masson – Ourcel comparative method is based on context/reality. He considers philosophical thoughts as a reality and input which should be groomed, fertilized and evolved in a context to be paid attention. By this way, he highly emphasizes on the importance and role of context and a historic attitude toward thoughts. Being influenced by positivism, he insists on components such historiography, humanism and preventing the intervention of presumptions. According to him, human should be totally considered in comparative studies free from color, race and thinking types. Although one can challenge his comparative method in different perspectives such as the status of positivism opponents, in present paper, we only address opinions by toward meta-history and structuralists who have done their best to degrade western thinking duals like contxt/reality as well as Quentin Skinners’ opinions as a critic of Masson – Oursel’s comparative method.Masson – Ourcel comparative method is based on context/realit

Detection of eight foodborne bacterial pathogens by oligonucleotide array hybridization

Background: Simultaneous and rapid detection of multiple foodborne bacterial pathogens is important for the prevention of foodborne illnesses. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of 16S rDNA and 23S rDNA sequences as targets for simultaneous detection of eight foodborne bacterial pathogens. Methods: Nineteen bacterial oligonucleotide probes were synthesized and applied to nylon membranes. Digoxygenin labeled 16S rDNA and 23S rDNA from bacteria were amplified by PCR using universal primers, and the amplicons were hybridized to the membrane array. Hybridization signals were visualized by NBT/BCIP color development. Results: The eight intestinal bacterial pathogens including Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, Vibrio cholerae, Shigella dysenteriae, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Enterococcus faecalis were appropriately detected in a panel of oligonucleotide array hybridization. The experimental results showed that the method could discriminate the bacterial pathogens successfully. The sensitivity of oligonucleotide array was 103 CFU/ml. Conclusion: This study showed that 16S rDNA and 23S rDNA genes had sufficient sequence diversity for species identification and were useful for monitoring the populations of foodborne pathogenic bacteria. Furthermore, results obtained in this study revealed that oligonucleotide array hybridization had a powerful capability to detect and identify the bacterial pathogens simultaneously

Classification of Mental Stress Levels by Analyzing fNIRS Signal Using Linear and Non-linear Features

Background: Mental stress is known as one of the main influential factors in development of different diseases including heart attack and stroke. Thus, quantification of stress level can be very important in preventing many diseases and in human health.Methods: The prefrontal cortex is involved in body regulation in response to stress. In this research, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals were recorded from FP2 position in the international electroencephalographic 10–20 system during a stressful mental arithmetic task to be calculated within a limited period of time. After extracting the brain’s hemodynamic response from fNIRS signal, different linear and nonlinear features were extracted from the signal which are then used for stress levels classification both individually and in combination.Results: In this study, the maximum accuracy of 88.72% was achieved in classification between high and low stress levels, and 96.92% was obtained for the stress and rest states.Conclusion: Our results showed that using the proposed linear and nonlinear features it is possible to effectively classify stress levels from fNIRS signals recorded from only one site in the prefrontal cortex. Comparing to other methods, it is shown that the proposed algorithm outperforms other previously reported methods using the nonlinear features extracted from the fNIRS signal. These results clearly show the potential of fNIRS signal as a useful tool for early diagnosis and quantify stress

Enhancement of Sleep Quality and Stability Using Acoustic Stimulation During Slow Wave Sleep

Background: One of the challenges today is that the quality of sleep has weakened by many external factors, which we are not even aware of and which directly affect sleep. Sleep quality has an essential role in maintaining the cognitive function and memory consolidation of individuals. So far, various studies have been done to improve the quality of sleep by using external electrical stimulation, vestibular and olfactory system stimulation.Methods: In this study, the increase in sleep quality was considered by simultaneous acoustic stimulation in a deep sleep to increase the density of slow oscillations. Slow oscillations are the important events recorded in electroencephalography (EEG) and hallmark deep sleep. Acoustic stimulation of pink noise with random frequency ranging from 0.8 to 1.1 Hz was used to improve sleep quality.Results: Eight healthy adults (mean age: 28.4±7.8 years) studied in 3 nights under 3 conditions: accommodation night, stimulation night (STIM) and no stimulation night (SHAM), in counter-balanced order. Significant characteristics of the objective and subjective quality of sleep have been extracted from the acquired EEG and compared in the last 2 nights. Also, the arousal and cyclic alternating pattern characteristics have been measured to assess sleep stability over 2 nights of STIM and SHAM.Conclusion: Our findings confirm this goal of the study that applying designed acoustic stimulation simultaneously in the slow wave sleep (SWS) stage increases the duration of deep sleep and ultimately improves overall sleep stability and quality

An Introduction to Avicenna’s thoughts on Educational Methods

The goal for this article is to express the views proposed by Avicenna regarding the methods for training and education. The current study has taken advantage of a qualitative approach with a qualitative-analytical method, and has analyzed and inferred the views held by Avicenna regarding education and civilizing methods. The educational methods inferred from his perspectives are as follows: The education method as in collective-cooperative, observation-experiment and examination (the opportunity for practical learning), the rewarding and punishment method for the learners and the rules and notes with that respect, modeling methods, repetition and practice of the learned materials, discussion and debate methods, questioning and answering methods, memorizing and retaining the information, ways to advise and guide the learners, game plays, self-discipline, moral refinement, and finally declaring love for the learners. Key Words: Moslem Scientist, Avicenna, Method, training.

A Research on Avicenna’s and Jahez’s Views about Educational Methods

The purpose of this paper is the recognition of the educational methods from Avicenna’s and Jahez’s views. The present study, is performed by using a qualitative approach and descriptive – analytical method, after evaluating available resources, a number of the educational methods are inferred from Avicenna’s and Jahez’s views. The findings show that the deduced training methods from their viewpoints have some similarities and differences. Using participatory, observation, experience and examination, reward and punishment, practice and repetition and helping learners methods are among the similarities; and the differences are also such that Avicenna has employed sampling, austerity and self-refinement, playing and kind expression methods, while Jahez has not taken notice of them; and instead, he has applied varying training courses and multisensory motivation in training process, when Avicenna has not considered such cases. Key words: Avicenna, Jahez, Islamic training, Educational methods

Effectiveness of iron supplementation (6- and 12- weeks) on hematological parameters among non-anemic iron deficient female students

Background and aim: According to the current protocols made by international organizations, the duration of iron supplementation depends on the severity of iron deficiency, ranging from 3 to 6 months in individuals with iron depletion and iron deficiency anemia, respectively. This study was performed to compare 6 and 12 weeks iron supplementations on iron status among a group of non-anemic iron deficient female students. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study 53 female students were selected. Students were divided into two groups. Control group were consisted of 30 students who had Hemoglobin level more than 12 ml/dl and serum ferritin level more than 23 ng/dl. Experimental group were 23 non-anemic iron deficient female students with ferritin level less than 23 ng/dl. Experimental group were orally given ferrous fumarate (containing 50 mg iron elemental) daily for three months. Blood samples were collected from experimental group in the beginning, 6 and 12 weeks after the study and for the case group samples were collected in the beginning and at the end of the study and the number of blood cells (CBC), ferritin level and total iron binding capacity (TIBC) were measured. Data were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance and Paired-t tests. Results: Blood hemoglobin and serum ferritin concentrations increased after 6 weeks of supplementation among supplemented group, and were remained almost constant until the 12th week (P>0.001). Changes in serum iron concentrations at the end of study were not statistically different between two groups. Similar trend was observed for TIBC. Conclusion: This study showed that 3-month iron supplementation among iron deficient subjects, as advised by WHO, did not further improve iron status in non anemic iron deficient females compared to 6-weeks daily supplementation of 50 mg elemental Iron. It is obvious that these results cannot be considered to anemic subject

Households' food expenditures in urban areas of Iran: An application of small area estimation

Background: A fundamental factor for human development is food, and inequalities in nutrition have been related to inequalities in health .The purpose of this study was to estimate Household Food Expenditure (HFE) in urban areas of Iran at district-level using small area estimation (SAE) methods.   Design and Methods: We used the Fay-Herriot model, the well-known area-level model of SAE. The main data was urban data of HFE collected by Statistical Centre of Iran at 2013. The environment of our study was urban area of Iran and study unit was household. Results: Findings showed that average number of room at each household, migration rate, proportion of male headed households(PMH) and Proportion of the active population`s employed at district level had a significant effect on HFE. Comparison between aggregated province estimates and estimates reported by SCI was not significant (P=0.609). The lowest and the highest HFE belong respectively to Pishva district with 27,067 thousand rials(TRs) and to Boyer-Ahmad district  with 85,175 TRs. Conclusions: Small-area estimation is advantageous for surveillance of HFE at the district level. This method allows documentation of geographic disparities and improves our understanding of the spatial distribution of HFE in urban areas of Iran

Serum Total Antioxidant Capacity of Epileptic Children before and after Monotherapy with Sodium Valproate, Carbamazepine,

Background: Brain is highly vulnerable to free radical damage due to a large quantity of mitochondria, a considerable amount of oxidizable polyunsaturated fatty acids, a ratio of high oxygen consumption, and less antioxidant capacity. The experimental and clinical data suggest a putative role of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of seizures and epileptic syndromes.Objectives: A case-control study was carried out to compare serum total antioxidant capacity in the newly diagnosed children with epilepsy and that of a control group of healthy children at the same age.Patients and Methods: A total of 130 participants (65 in each group) aged between 1 and 17 years participated in this study. Serum total antioxidant capacity was compared between two groups before drug administration. The effect of antiepileptic therapy on the serum total antioxidant capacity also was studied in children with epilepsy before and 3 months after antiepileptic drug administration. Serum total antioxidant capacity values were measured based on Erel's method using an automated commercial kit. This method is based on the bleaching of the characteristic color of a more stable 2,2’‑azinobis‑(3‑ethylbenzothiazoline‑6‑sulfonic acid) radical cation by antioxidants. The results were expressed in mmol Trolox equivalent/lResults: Serum total antioxidant capacity values was significantly lower in the patients group before drug administration [mean (SD): 1.31 (0.19) mmol/L] than that of the control group [mean (SD): 1.46 (0.21) mmol/L] (P < 0.001). In the patients group, no differences were found in the serum total antioxidant capacity before and 3 months after anticonvulsant monotherapy.Conclusion: Reduced serum total antioxidant capacity, and an increased vulnerability to oxidative stress should be considered in the children with epilepsy