Analysis of human B cell response to recombinant Leishmania LPG3

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the capability of recombinant Leishmania LPG3 and its fragments in the activation of B cells.MethodsIn the present study, human B cells were purified from peripheral blood of 10 adult healthy subjects using magnetic-activated cell sorting technique. Subsequently, purified B cells were treated with recombinant LPG3, and its N-terminal and C-terminal fragments at different concentrations (2, 10 and 20 μg/mL). B cell activation was assessed through expression of CD69 molecule by flow cytometry and secretion of IL-6, TNF-α and IL-10 cytokines via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay following treatment with recombinant antigens.ResultsOur results showed that while the recombinant LPG-3 could significantly increase the production of IL-6 and TNF-α (P < 0.05) in B cells, it had no effect on the secretion of IL-10 by B cells.ConclusionsOur study indicated that recombinant LPG-3 and especially its N-terminal fragment could stimulate B cell response as an important immune response component against leishmaniasis. Thus, it seems that it can be considered as an effective adjuvant in vaccine developments against leishmaniasis

Visual Attention in Active Vision Systems : Attending, Classifying and Manipulating Objects

This thesis has presented a computational model for the combination of bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms. Furthermore, the use for this model has been demonstrated in a variety of applications of machine and robotic vision. We have observed that an attentional mechanism is imperative in any active vision system, machine as well as biological, since it not only reduces the amount of information that needs to be further processed (for say recognition, action), but also by only processing the attended image regions, such tasks become more robust to large amounts of clutter and noise in the visual field. Using various feature channels such as color, orientation, texture, depth and symmetry, as input, the presented model is able with a pre-trained artificial neural network to modulate a saliency map for a particular top-down goal, e.g. visual search for a target object. More specifically it dynamically combines the unmodulated bottom-up saliency with the modulated top-down saliency, by means of a biologically and psychophysically motivated temporal differential equation. This way the system is for instance able to detect important bottom-up cues, even while in visual search mode (top-down) for a particular object. All the computational steps for yielding the final attentional map, that ranks regions in images according to their importance for the system, are shown to be biologically plausible. It has also been demonstrated that the presented attentional model facilitates tasks other than visual search. For instance, using the covert attentional peaks that the model returns, we can improve scene understanding and segmentation through clustering or scattering of the 2D/3D components of the scene, depending on the configuration of these attentional peaks and their relations to other attributes of the scene. More specifically this is performed by means of entropy optimization of the scence under varying cluster-configurations, i.e. different groupings of the various components of the scene. Qualitative experiments demonstrated the use of this attentional model on a robotic humanoid platform and in a real-time manner control the overt attention of the robot by specifying the saccadic movements of the robot head. These experiments also exposed another highly important aspect of the model; its temporal variability, as opposed to many other attentional (saliency) models that exclusively deal with static images. Here the dynamic aspects of the attentional mechanism proved to allow for a temporally varying trade-off between top-down and bottom-up influences depending on changes in the environment of the robot. The thesis has also lay forward systematic and quantitative large scale experiments on the actual benefits and uses of this kind of attentional model. To this end a simulated 2D environment was implemented, where the system could not “see” the entire environment and needed to perform overt shifts of attention (a simulated saccade) in order to perfom a visual search task for a pre-defined sought object. This allowed for a simple and rapid substitution of the core attentional-model of the system with comparative computational models designed by other researchers. Nine such contending models were tested and compared with the presented model, in a quantitative manner. Given certain asumptions these experiments showed that the attentional model presented in this work outperforms the other models in simple visualsearch tasks.QC 20111228</p

Effect of Maternal Anxiety during Third Trimester on Pregnancy Outcomes and Infants’ Mental Health

Background &amp;amp; Aim: The issue of children&apos;s mental health has been attracting widespread attention in recent years and the issue of parent-child mental health is particularly important. To investigate the effect of maternal anxiety on pregnancy outcome and also infants&apos; mental health were the main purposes of this article. Methods &amp;amp; Materials: In this comparative study, a total of 40 pregnant women were selected using random sampling method from Imam Khomeini hospital. First, The women completed the Ketel anxiety questionnaire during the third trimester of their pregnancies. Based on the results, 20 women were allocated in the anxious mothers&apos; group and the other 20 women were allocated in the calm mothers&apos; group. Then, birth indicators were measured in both groups at the time of birth. Finally, infants&apos; mental health indicators were measured using infants mental health measurement scale three months later. Data were analyzed using descriptive- inferential statistics (Chi-square and t-test) in SPSS. Results: The results showed that there were significant differences in anthropometric indexes between two groups (P&amp;lt;0.001). The rate of vaginal delivery was more in calm mothers than in the vexatious ones. Most of the calm mothers stated that they had wanted pregnancies. Mental health of the calm mothers&apos; newborns were significantly higher than the mental health of the other group&apos;s newborns (P&amp;lt;0.001). Conclusion: These findings illustrated that maternal mental status could affect pregnancy outcomes at birth and infants&apos; mental health third months after birth. &amp;nbsp; Key words: anxiety, infants&apos; mental health, pregnancy outcom

Relationship between sensory processing and motor skills in children with cerebral palsy

Introduction: Although movement disorders and abnormal postural are the main features of children with cerebral palsy but many of them have sensory problems too, so the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between sensory process and motor skills in children with cerebral palsy. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, 56 children with cerebral palsy aged 5 to 10 were studied. The gross motor function was assessed using the gross motor function classification system, manual ability was assessed using manual ability classification system, intensity of spasticity was evaluated using modified ashworth scale and sensory process was assessed by sensory profile questionnaire. Results: The results of this study showed that the gross motor function and manual ability of children with cerebral palsy are related to low muscle tone and tolerance, poor sensory registration, and sedentary, significantly. Findings also demonstrated a significant relationship between manual ability and oral sensory sensitive in children with cerebral palsy (p<0.01). Conclusion: According to the significant relationship between motor skills and sensory processing in children with cerebral palsy, it is recommended to evaluate both motor and sensory skills during the management and rehabilitation of these patient