The first record of bobtail squid, Euprymna hyllebergi Nateewathana, 1997 (Cephalopoda:Sepiolidae) from the Persian Gulf, Iran

The family Sepiolidae comprises over 50 species in 14 genera. They are commonly known as bobtail squids with a worldwide distribution from tropical to temperate and sub-polar latitudes of all oceans (Nateewathana, 1997; Aungtonya et al., 2011). Euprymna hyllebergi belongs to the Sepiolidae family and Sepiolinae subfamily. This species has a wide distribution in the Eastern Indian Ocean, and has been recorded up to the depth of 47 meters in Andaman Sea, Thailand (Jereb and Roper, 2005). The family Sepiolidae, includes all bobtail squids with kidney-shape fins. Little is known about their biology, but they are common in tropical, temperate and sub polar waters of all oceans (Jereb and Roper, 2010). This is the first record of the bobtail squid, E. hyllebergi from the Persian Gulf. On 27th of March 2013 during a scuba diving session in Persian Gulf (Figure 1, coordinates: 54° 49’39.5”E, 26° 26’ 55.3”N) about 200 eggs of E. hyllebergi were collected at the depth of 40 meters in northern Persian Gulf. The eggs (Fig. 2a) were transferred to the Persian Gulf Shellfishes Research Center laboratory for further incubation and hatching

Energy conditions in f(R) gravity and Brans-Dicke theories

The equivalence between f(R) gravity and scalar-tensor theories is invoked to study the null, strong, weak and dominant energy conditions in Brans-Dicke theory. We consider the validity of the energy conditions in Brans-Dicke theory by invoking the energy conditions derived from a generic f(R) theory. The parameters involved are shown to be consistent with an accelerated expanding universe.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, to appear in IJMP

MicroRNA-129-1 acts as tumour suppressor and induces cell cycle arrest of GBM cancer cells through targeting IGF2BP3 and MAPK1

Background MicroRNA-129-1 (miR-129-1) seems to behave as a tumour suppressor since its decreased expression is associated with different tumours such as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). GBM is the most common form of brain tumours originating from glial cells. The impact of miR-129-1 downregulation on GBM pathogenesis has yet to be elucidated. Methods MiR-129-1 was overexpressed in GBM cells, and its effect on proliferation was investigated by cell cycle assay. MiR-129-1 predicted targets (CDK6, IGF1, HDAC2, IGF2BP3 and MAPK1) were also evaluated by western blot and luciferase assay. Results Restoration of miR-129-1 reduced cell proliferation and induced G1 accumulation, significantly. Several functional assays confirmed IGF2BP3, MAPK1 and CDK6 as targets of miR-129-1. Despite the fact that IGF1 expression can be suppressed by miR-129-1, through 30-untranslated region complementary sequence, we could not find any association between IGF1 expression and GBM. MiR-129-1 expression inversely correlates with CDK6, IGF2BP3 and MAPK1 in primary clinical samples. Conclusion This is the first study to propose miR129-1 as a negative regulator of IGF2BP3 and MAPK1 and also a cell cycle arrest inducer in GBM cells. Our data suggests miR-129-1 as a potential tumour suppressor and presents a rationale for the use of miR-129-1 as a novel strategy to improve treatment response in GBM

Investigation of Natural Effective Gamma Dose Rates case study: Ardabil Province in Iran

Gamma rays pose enough energy to form charged particles and adversely affect human health. Since, the external exposure of human beings to natural environmental gamma radiation normally exceeds that from all man-made sources combined, natural background gamma dose rates and corresponding annual effective doses were determined for selected cities of Ardabil province from 2009 to 2010. Outdoor gamma dose rates were measured using an Ion Chamber Survey Meter in 105 locations in selected districts. Average absorbed dose for Ardabil, Sar-Ein, Germy, Neer, Shourabil Recreational Lake, and Kosar were determined as 265, 219, 344, 233, 352, and 358 nSvh-1, respectively. Although dose rates recorded for Germi and Kosar are comparable with some areas with high natural radiation background, however, the dose rates in other districts are well below the levels reported for such locations. Average annual effective dose due to indoor and outdoor gamma radiation for Ardabil province was estimated to be 1.73 (1.35-2.39) mSv, which is on average 2 times higher than the world population weighted average

APEX-MODFLOW: A New integrated model to simulate hydrological processes in watershed systems

APEX (Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender) is an oft-used agroecosystem model but has limited use in groundwater-driven watersheds due to a simplistic representation of groundwater processes. This paper presents the linkage of APEX and the groundwater flow model MODFLOW into a single modeling code. The mapping of recharge, groundwater head, and groundwater-surface water interactions are handled internally via subroutines. The APEX-MODFLOW model is applied to three watersheds in the United States for testing code accuracy and hydrologic state variables and fluxes: the Animas River Watershed, Colorado and New Mexico (3543 km2); the Price River Watershed, Utah (4886 km2); and the Middle Bosque River Watershed, Texas (470 km2). Whereas the hydrology of the Animas River and Price River watersheds is driven by snowmelt and spring runoff, the hydrology of the Middle Bosque River Watershed is driven by summer thunderstorms. The model can be used for scenario analysis in groundwater-driven watersheds

Corneal Confocal Microscopy Detects Small Fibre Neuropathy in Patients with Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer and Nerve Regeneration in Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.

Published onlineThere are multiple neurological complications of cancer and its treatment. This study assessed the utility of the novel non-invasive ophthalmic technique of corneal confocal microscopy in identifying neuropathy in patients with upper gastrointestinal cancer before and after platinum based chemotherapy. In this study, 21 subjects with upper gastrointestinal (oesophageal or gastric) cancer and 21 healthy control subjects underwent assessment of neuropathy using the neuropathy disability score, quantitative sensory testing for vibration perception threshold, warm and cold sensation thresholds, cold and heat induced pain thresholds, nerve conduction studies and corneal confocal microscopy. Patients with gastro-oesophageal cancer had higher heat induced pain (P = 0.04) and warm sensation (P = 0.03) thresholds with a significantly reduced sural sensory (P<0.01) and peroneal motor (P<0.01) nerve conduction velocity, corneal nerve fibre density (CNFD), nerve branch density (CNBD) and nerve fibre length (CNFL) (P<0.0001). Furthermore, CNFD correlated significantly with the time from presentation with symptoms to commencing chemotherapy (r = -0.54, P = 0.02), and CNFL (r = -0.8, P<0.0001) and CNBD (r = 0.63, P = 0.003) were related to the severity of lymph node involvement. After the 3rd cycle of chemotherapy, there was no change in any measure of neuropathy, except for a significant increase in CNFL (P = 0.003). Corneal confocal microscopy detects a small fibre neuropathy in this cohort of patients with upper gastrointestinal cancer, which was related to disease severity. Furthermore, the increase in CNFL after the chemotherapy may indicate nerve regeneration

Look ahead to improve QoE in DASH streaming

[EN] When a video is encoded with constant quality, the resulting bitstream will have variable bitrate due to the inherent nature of the video encoding process. This paper proposes a video Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR) algorithm, called Look Ahead, which takes into account this bitrate variability in order to calculate, in real time, the appropriate quality level that minimizes the number of interruptions during the playback. The algorithm is based on the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) standard for on-demand video services. In fact, it has been implemented and integrated into ExoPlayer v2, the latest version of the library developed by Google to play DASH contents. The proposed algorithm is compared to the Müller and Segment Aware Rate Adaptation (SARA) algorithms as well as to the default ABR algorithm integrated into ExoPlayer. The comparison is carried out by using the most relevant parameters that affect the Quality of Experience (QoE) in video playback services, that is, number and duration of stalls, average quality of the video playback and number of representation switches. These parameters can be combined to define a QoE model. In this sense, this paper also proposes two new QoE models for the evaluation of ABR algorithms. One of them considers the bitrate of every segment of each representation, and the second is based on VMAF (Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion), a Video Quality Assessment (VQA) method developed by Netflix. The evaluations presented in the paper reflect: first, that Look Ahead outperforms the Müller, SARA and the ExoPlayer ABR algorithms in terms of number and duration of video playback stalls, with hardly decreasing the average video quality; and second, that the two QoE models proposed are more accurate than other similar models existing in the literature.This work is supported by the PAID-10-18 Program of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Ayudas para contratos de acceso al sistema espanol de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion, en estructuras de investigacion de la Universitat Politecnica de Valencia) and by the Project 20180810 from the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia ("Tecnologias de distribucion y procesado de informacion multimedia y QoE").Belda Ortega, R.; De Fez Lava, I.; Arce Vila, P.; Guerri Cebollada, JC. (2020). Look ahead to improve QoE in DASH streaming. Multimedia Tools and Applications. 79(33-34):25143-25170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-09214-9S25143251707933-34Akhshabi S, Narayanaswamy S, Begen AC, Dovrolis C (2012) An experimental evaluation of rate-adaptive video players over HTTP. Signal process. Image Commun 27(4):271–287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.image.2011.10.003Android Developers webpage, ExoPlayer. Available online at: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/exoplayer.html . Accessed: Jun. (2019)Bampis CG, Li Z, Bovik AC (2018) SpatioTemporal feature integration and model fusion for full reference video quality assessment. IEEE Trans on Circuits and Syst for Video Tech 29:2256–2270. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSVT.2018.2868262Barman N, Martini MG (2019) QoE modeling for HTTP adaptive video streaming - a survey and open challenges. IEEE Access 7:30831–30859. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2901778Belda R (2013) Algoritmo de adaptación DASH: Look Ahead. Master Thesis. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/33359 .Belda R, de Fez I, Arce P, Guerri J C (2018) Look ahead: a DASH adaptation algorithm. Proc. of the IEEE Int. Symp. On broadband multimed. Syst. And broadcast., Valencia, Spain: article no. 158. https://doi.org/10.1109/BMSB.2018.8436718 .Blender Foundation webpage. Available online at: https://www.blender.org/foundation . Accessed: Jun. (2019).Cortes C, Vapnik V (1995) Support-vector networks. Mach Learn 20-3:273–297. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022627411411DASH Industry forum webpage. Available online at: http://dashif.org . Accessed: Jun. (2019)Ghadiyaram D, Pan J, Bovik AC (2019) A subjective and objective study of stalling events in mobile streaming videos. IEEE Trans on Circuits and Syst for Video Technol 29(1):183–197. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSVT.2017.2768542Ghent University. 4G/LTE bandwidth logs. Available online at: http://users.ugent.be/~jvdrhoof/dataset-4g . Accessed: Jun. (2019).Github webpage. A DASH segment size aware rate adaptation model for DASH. Available online at: https://github.com/pari685/AStream . Accessed: Jun. (2019)GitHub website. Dashgen, Multimedia Communications Group. Available online at: https://github.com/comm-iteam/dashgen . Accessed: Jun. (2019).van der Hooft J, Petrangeli S, Wauters T, Huysegems R, Alface PR, Bostoen T, De Turck F (2016) HTTP/2-based adaptive streaming of HEVC video over 4G/LTE networks. IEEE Commun Lett 20(1):2177–2180. https://doi.org/10.1109/LCOMM.2016.2601087Huang TY, Johari R, McKeown N, Trunnell M, Watson M (2014) A buffer-based approach to rate adaptation: evidence from a large video streaming service. Proc. of the 2014 ACM Conf. On SIGCOMM, Chicago, IL, USA: 187-198. https://doi.org/10.1145/2619239.2626296Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications website. Look Ahead Demo. Available online at: https://lookahead.iteam.upv.es . Accessed: Jun. (2019)ISO/IEC 23009–1:2014 (2014) Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) - Part 1: media presentation description and segment formats.Juluri P, Tamarapalli V, Medhi D (2015) SARA: segment aware rate adaptation algorithm for dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP. Proc. of the IEEE Int. Conf. On Commun. Workshop (ICCW), London, UK: 1765-1770. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCW.2015.7247436 .Juluri P, Tamarapalli V, Medhi D (2016) QoE management in DASH systems using the segment aware rate adaptation algorithm. Proc. of the IEEE/IFIP Netw. Oper. And Manag. Symp. (NOMS), Istanbul, Turkey: 129-136. https://doi.org/10.1109/NOMS.2016.7502805 .Kua J, Armitage G, Branch P (2017) A survey of rate adaptation techniques for dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP. IEEE Commun Surv & Tutor 19(3):1842–1866. https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2017.2685630Lee S, Youn K, Chung K (2015) Adaptive video quality control scheme to improve QoE of MPEG DASH. Proc. of IEEE Int. Conf. On Consum. Electron. (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA: 126-127. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCE.2015.7066348 .Li S, Zhang F, Ma L, Ngan K (2011) Image quality assessment by separately evaluating detail losses and additive impairments. IEEE Trans. on Multimed. 13-5:935–949. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMM.2011.2152382Liu C, Bouazizi I, Gabbouj M (2011) Rate adaptation for adaptive HTTP streaming. Proc. of the second annual ACM Conf. On multimed. Syst. (MMSys), San Jose, CA, USA: 169-174. https://doi.org/10.1145/1943552.1943575 .Medium webpage (2016) Toward a practical perceptual video quality metric. Available online at: https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/toward-a-practical-perceptual-video-quality-metric-653f208b9652 . Accessed: Jun. 2019.Mobile Video Service Performance Study (2015) HUAWEI white paper. Available online at: http://www.ctiforum.com/uploadfile/2015/0701/20150701091255294.pdf .Mok RKP, Luo X, Chan EWW, Chang RKC (2012) QDASH: a QoE-aware DASH system. Proc. of multim. Syst. Conf. (MMSys), Chapel Hill, NC, USA: 11-22. https://doi.org/10.1145/2155555.2155558Moldovan C, Hagn K, Sieber C, Kellerer W, Hoßfeld T (2017) Keep calm and don’t switch: about the relationship between switches and quality in HAS. Proc. of the Int. Teletraffic Congr. (ITC), Genoa, Italy: pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.23919/ITC.2017.8065802Müller C, Lederer S, Timmerer C (2012) An evaluation of dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP in vehicular environments. Proc. of the 4th workshop on mob. Video (MoVid), Chapel Hill, NC, USA: 37-42. https://doi.org/10.1145/2151677.2151686Nguyen T, Vu T, Nguyen DV, Ngoc NP, and Thang TC (2015) QoE optimization for adaptive streaming with multiple VBR videos. Proc. of the Int. Conf. On comp., Manag. And Telecommun. (ComManTel), DaNang, Vietnam: 189-193. https://doi.org/10.1109/ComManTel.2015.7394285 .Qin Y, H. Shuai, Pattipati K R, Qian F, Sen S, Wang B, Yue C (2018) ABR Streaming of VBR-encoded videos: characterization, challenges, and solutions. Proc. of ACM CoNext 2018, Heraklion, Greece: 366–378. https://doi.org/10.1145/3281411.3281439 .Samain J, Carofiglio G, Muscariello L, Papalini M, Sardara M, Tortelli M, Rossi D (2017) Dynamic adaptive video streaming: towards a systematic comparison of ICN and TCP/IP. IEEE Trans on Multimed 19(10):2166–2181. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMM.2017.2733340Sheikh H, Bovik A (2006) Image information and visual quality. IEEE Trans on Image Process 15(2):430–444. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIP.2005.859378Shuai Y, Herfet T (2016). A buffer dynamic stabilizer for low-latency adaptive video streaming. Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Consum. Electron., Berlin: 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCE-Berlin.2016.7684742 .Tavakoli S, Egger S, Seufert M, Schatz R, Brunnström K, García N (2016) Perceptual quality of HTTP adaptive streaming strategies: cross-experimental analysis of multi-laboratory and crowdsourced subjective studies. IEEE Journal on Select Areas in Commun 34-8:2141–2153. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSAC.2016.2577361Yarnagula H K, Juluri P, Mehr S K, Tamarapalli V, Medhi D (2019) QoE for Mobile clients with segment-aware rate adaptation algorithm (SARA) for DASH video streaming. ACM trans. On multimed. Comput., Commun., and Appl. (TOMM) 15(2):article no. 36 https://doi.org/10.1145/3311749 .Yin X, Sekar V, Sinopoli B (2014) Toward a principled framework to design dynamic adaptive streaming algorithms over HTTP. Proc. of the 13th ACM workshop on hot topics in Netw. (HotNets), Los Angeles, CA, USA: 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1145/2670518.2673877 .YouTube webpage (2019) Youtube press. Available online at: https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press . Accessed: Jun. 2019.Youtube webpage, Google I/O ‘18: Building feature-rich media apps with ExoPlayer. Available online at: https://youtu.be/svdq1BWl4r8?t=2m . Published: May (2018)Yu L, Tillo T, Xiao J (2017) QoE-driven dynamic adaptive video streaming strategy with future information. IEEE Trans on Broadcast 63-3:523–534. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2017.2687698Zhao S, Li Z, Medhi D, Lai P, Liu S (2017) Study of user QoE improvement for dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH). Proc. of the Int. Conf. On Comput., network. And Commun. (ICNC): multimed. Comput. And Commun., Santa Clara, CA, USA: 566-570. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCNC.2017.7876191 .Zhou Y, Duan Y, Sun J, Guo Z (2014) Towards a simple and smooth rate adaption for VBR video in DASH. Proc. of the IEEE Vis. Commun. and Image Process. Conf, Valletta, pp 9–12. https://doi.org/10.1109/VCIP.2014.7051491Zhou C, Lin C-W, Guo Z (2016) mDASH: a Markov decision-based rate adaptation approach for dynamic HTTP streaming. IEEE Trans. on Multimed 18(4):738–751. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMM.2016.252265

Medical therapy versus percutaneous coronary intervention in ischemic heart disease: A cost-effectiveness analysis

Background: Ischemic heart disease is categorized into two acute and chronic groups, and its treatments include revascularization and medical therapy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the economic burden of medical therapy compared to percutaneous coronary intervention in ischemic heart disease. Methods: This study has been done in two steps. The first was a systematic review and meta-analysis to measure the effectiveness of two interventions and the second step was a cost-effectiveness analysis from the perspective of society. The data analysis included a meta-analysis and the Markov cohort simulation. RewMan v5 and tree age software were utilized. Uncertainties related to the model parameters were evaluated using one-way and two-way sensitivity analyses. Results: Regarding the effectiveness of interventions, the odd ratio of the quality of life in the medical therapy group (CI: 0.76-1.10) was 0.91 times the PCI group (p=0.34). This rate for mortality in medical therapy (CI: 0.52-9.68) was 2.23 times more than the PCI group; this result was not significant (p=0.02). In the cost-effectiveness analysis, the cost-effectiveness threshold was 16,482; ICER in increasing the QoL and reduction in the mortality rate was 25320.11 and 562.6691, respectively. Regarding the sensitivity analysis, the model was not sensitive in changing parameters in a specific domain. Conclusion: According to this study, PCI is more cost-effective than medical therapy in the reduction of mortality rate and in the field of increasing quality of life. MT strategy is more cost-effective than the PCI. This study considers controversies regarding the most appropriate treatment for patients with ischemic heart disease that is helpful for health policymakers, cardiologists and health managers. © 2020 Iran University of Medical Sciences. All Rights Reserved

Automated Quantification of Neuropad Improves Its Diagnostic Ability in Patients with Diabetic Neuropathy.

PublishedResearch Support, N.I.H., ExtramuralResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tNeuropad is currently a categorical visual screening test that identifies diabetic patients at risk of foot ulceration. The diagnostic performance of Neuropad was compared between the categorical and continuous (image-analysis (Sudometrics)) outputs to diagnose diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). 110 subjects with type 1 and 2 diabetes underwent assessment with Neuropad, Neuropathy Disability Score (NDS), peroneal motor nerve conduction velocity (PMNCV), sural nerve action potential (SNAP), Deep Breathing-Heart Rate Variability (DB-HRV), intraepidermal nerve fibre density (IENFD), and corneal confocal microscopy (CCM). 46/110 patients had DPN according to the Toronto consensus. The continuous output displayed high sensitivity and specificity for DB-HRV (91%, 83%), CNFD (88%, 78%), and SNAP (88%, 83%), whereas the categorical output showed high sensitivity but low specificity. The optimal cut-off points were 90% for the detection of autonomic dysfunction (DB-HRV) and 80% for small fibre neuropathy (CNFD). The diagnostic efficacy of the continuous Neuropad output for abnormal DB-HRV (AUC: 91%, P = 0.0003) and CNFD (AUC: 82%, P = 0.01) was better than for PMNCV (AUC: 60%). The categorical output showed no significant difference in diagnostic efficacy for these same measures. An image analysis algorithm generating a continuous output (Sudometrics) improved the diagnostic ability of Neuropad, particularly in detecting autonomic and small fibre neuropathy.National Institute of Health (NIH)Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF