Identification and quantification of dolichol and dolichoic acid in neuromelanin from substantia nigra of the human brain.

Neuromelanin (NM) isolated from the substantia nigra of the human brain is found to contain a series of dolichoic acids (dol-CA) containing 14–20 isoprene units. This is the first observation of dol-CA in a natural system. Using internally spiked nor-dolichol and nor-dolichoic acid standards, the concentrations of dolichol (dol) and dol-CA present in NM were determined. Remarkably, dol was only four times as abundant as dol-CA in NM. The distribution of dol-CA chains lengths in NM also differed from that of dol, suggesting that the enzyme(s) responsible for the conversion of dol to dol-CA prefer a dolichol substrate containing 19 isoprene units

Effectiveness of group emotional intelligence training on decreasing craving in patient with substance use disorder

Bio-psycho-social phenomenon of drug abuse is one of the most critical issues facing modern countries that many psychological variables can affect its severity. These variables can affect the duration and severity of substance abuse and can have some roles on these patients' recovery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of emotion-based intelligence training on craving reduction in patients treated with methadone. The research method was quasi experimental with pretest-posttest control group. 40 patients with drug use randomly were selected and matched into two experimental and control groups. The instrument included Tiffany craving questionnaire. Emotion-based intelligence training program was administered in twelve 90-minutes sessions for the experimental group. At the end of the study, the two groups completed the questionnaire as post-test. Data was analyzed using analysis of covariance. Analysis of variance represented the effect of intervention in reducing the craving (p<0.05) in patients of experimental group compared to those in control group. The results showed that emotion-based intelligence training has been able to help patients with substance abuse in dealing with situations that cause craving by raising emotion-based intelligence in them

Study of Operational and Maintenance Problems and Parameters of Extended Aeration Activated Sludge Process in Golestan Hospital Wastewater Treatment Plant, Ahvaz, and Their Solutions

Background:Hospital wastewater is among hazardous wastewater due to its composition of pathogens and toxic chemicals. Discharge of untreated hospital wastewater to environment is hazardous for human and environment. Aims of this study were to identify Operational and Maintenance problems of Extended Aeration Activated sludge process in Golestan Hospital wastewater treatment plant (WTP), Ahwaz, Iran, and to find their solutions. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Materials and Methods:Sampling period was 6 months of 2015. BOD5, COD, and TSS parameters analysed in the hospital WTP effluent. In addition, VLR, Qr/Q, MLSS, F/M, SVI, HRT, and &theta;c parameters measured in aeration tank, then operational and maintenance parameters calculated. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Results:Results shown that average of operation & maintenance parameters were: F/M = 0.35, HRT = 6 hour, Qr/Q = 64.28 %, VLR = 1.1 Kg BOD/m3.d, MLSS = 2819.36 mg/l, SVI = 144.89 ml/g, &theta;c = 10.93 days. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Conclusion:Results of operational and maintenance parameters shown that biological process behavior of the hospital WTP was Extended Aeration Activated Sludge in past years, but converted to conventional activated sludge process due to increase in hospital beds of clinical and out patients departments , which increased water consumption lead to increase wastewater flow rate. High flow rate lead to increase hydraulic load and diluting organic matter load, so hydraulic retention time and sludge age decreased

A note on the exclusion operator in multi-swarm PSO algorithms for dynamic environments

The exclusion operator is a key component in separating the search territory of each population in multi-population optimisation algorithms for unconstraint continues dynamic optimisation problems (DOPs) with the aim of maintaining the overall diversity of the population and avoiding redundant search. Although extensively used by the researchers, the role of exclusion has been barely studied in detail. Therefore, in this paper, we solely study the role of exclusion as a part of multi-population methods in DOPs. For this purpose, a comprehensive review of the various exclusion strategies reported in the literature is provided. Four strategies are also introduced to reduce the shortcomings of exclusion operator. Experimental results show that proposed strategies compared to other schemes such as reinitialized midpoint check, hill-valley detection with three checkpoints, and merging information of collided populations have the same or even higher ability to improve the performance of the multi-swarm PSO algorithms in moving peaks benchmark

A proposed fractional dynamic system and Monte Carlo-based back analysis for simulating the spreading profile of COVID-19

This paper presents a dynamic system for estimating the spreading profile of COVID-19 in Thailand, taking into account the effects of vaccination and social distancing. For this purpose, a compartmental network is built in which the population is divided into nine mutually exclusive nodes, including susceptible, insusceptible, exposed, infected, vaccinated, recovered, quarantined, hospitalized, and dead. The weight of edges denotes the interaction between the nodes, modeled by a series of conversion rates. Next, the compartmental network and corresponding rates are incorporated into a system of fractional partial differential equations to define the model governing the problem concerned. The fractional degree corresponding to each compartment is considered the node weight in the proposed network. Next, a Monte Carlo-based optimization method is proposed to fit the fractional compartmental network to the actual COVID-19 data of Thailand collected from the World Health Organization. Further, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on the node weights, i.e., fractional orders, to reveal their effect on the accuracy of the fit and model predictions. The results show that the flexibility of the model to adapt to the observed data is markedly improved by lowering the order of the differential equations from unity to a fractional order. The final results show that, assuming the current pandemic situation, the number of infected, recovered, and dead cases in Thailand will, respectively, reach 4300, $$4.5\times 10^6$$, and 36,000 by the end of 2021