Effect of antimicrobial peptides and monoterpenes on control of fire blight

Aim of study: Antimicrobial peptides and monoterpenes are safe compounds that have been used for control of many plant diseases. Herein, the effects of two recombinant antibacterial peptides (AMPs) were compared with two monoterpenes for control of Erwinia amylovora directly or via induction of plant defense enzyme guaiacol peroxidase (GPOD).Area of study: The experiments were performed at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Iran).Material and methods: The central composite design (CCD) method was used to study the effect of mixing the compounds and copper compound (Nordox) in controlling the pathogen. The resistance level was studied on shoots of tolerant (‘Dargazi’) and semi-susceptible (‘Spadona’) pear cultivars treated with the antibacterial compounds.Main results: Thanatin and 1,8-cineole showed the highest and lowest antibacterial effects. All treatments reduced E. amylovora pathogenicity on blossom. The CCD analysis revealed that the best reduction in colony number obtained by mixing Lfc, thanatin, thymol, 1,8-cineole and Nordox at concentrations of 32, 16, 24, 250 and 250 μg/mL. Thymol and 1,8-cineole at 500 μg/mL decreased disease severity significantly compared to that of AMPs. The level of GPOD enzyme in ‘Dargazi’ was higher than in ‘Spadona’. All treatments increased the GPOD levels in both cultivars. Furthermore, resistance level and GPOD ratio were negatively correlated.Research highlights: Antimicrobial peptides showed better effect on growth inhibition of E. amylovora than monoterpenes. Mixing of these peptides and monoterpens at special dosage enhanced their antimicrobial efficacy against E. amylovora; that could represent a new method in control of fire blight disease

Assessing the Durability of Coastal High-Performance Concrete (HPC) Structures Exposed to Biodegradables such as Algae and Moss.

Coastal High-Performance Concrete (HPC) structures face deterioration challenges from exposure to biodegradables like algae and moss. This study examined the durability of coastal HPC under these biodegradable influences, emphasizing their effects on various transport properties. Conducted over 2 years in the environmentally rigorous Bandar Anzali Ports, the research evaluated key HPC transport properties such as water absorption, Rapid Chloride Penetration Test (RCPT), Rapid Chloride Migration Test (RCMT), electrical resistivity, and freeze-thaw resistance. Experimental samples, replicating real-world coastal conditions, incorporated diverse algae and moss concentrations. The comprehensive testing indicated that algae and moss presence notably hastened HPC degradation. Samples exposed to these organisms demonstrated increased water absorption, evidenced by weight gain. Enhanced chloride penetration and migration were evident from RCPT and RCMT results, suggesting an elevated corrosion risk in the concrete structures. Moreover, a marked drop in electrical resistivity indicated reduced concrete capacity to impede electrical current, while freeze-thaw tests showed heightened damage vulnerability from cyclic freezing and thawing. In light of these findings, it's crucial to address the biodegradable impact on coastal HPC structures. Implementing strategies like routine cleaning and maintenance to reduce algae and moss, combined with appropriate surface treatments, can extend the lifespan of coastal concrete installations. These insights aid in creating resilient and sustainable concrete mixes specific to coastal applications, ensuring extended structure longevity and integrity.Journal of Civil Engineering and Materials Applicatio

Bladder Tumor in Women with Microscopic Hematuria: An Iranian Experience and a Review of the Literature

Aim. In this study we report our experience with microhematuria and its relation with bladder tumors in Iranian women. Materials and Methods. Overall 249 women were evaluated. Microscopic hematuria was defined as three or more red blood cells per high-power field on at least two different occasions. Patients with a history of gross hematuria or coagulation disorders, having organic diseases, urinary stones, urinary tract infections, nephrological diseases, and local lesions such as urethral caruncle were excluded from the study population. Final diagnosis of malignant tumors was done with cystoscopy and biopsy specimen pathological assessment in all cases. Results. Age for the study population was 49.7 ± 11.8 years. 95 (38%) of patients were identified during routine check up and presenting symptoms in other patients were frequency, dysuria, stress urge incontinence, urge incontinence, feeling of incomplete urine emptying, and flunk pain, respectively. Finally, 7 (2.8%) of study subjects were confirmed as having bladder tumors. One of tumor cases was diagnosed 24 months after initial assessments. Patients with bladder tumor were significantly older; more frequently had diverticulum in their bladder wall (P < .05). Conclusion. Female microscopic hematuria is relevant and deserves evaluations, especially in elderly patients. Patients whose reason for microhematuria would not be diagnosed at the initial evaluations should be followed

cGAN-Based High Dimensional IMU Sensor Data Generation for Therapeutic Activities

Human activity recognition is a core technology for applications such as rehabilitation, ambient health monitoring, and human-computer interactions. Wearable devices, particularly IMU sensors, can help us collect rich features of human movements that can be leveraged in activity recognition. Developing a robust classifier for activity recognition has always been of interest to researchers. One major problem is that there is usually a deficit of training data for some activities, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to develop a classifier. In this work, a novel GAN network called TheraGAN was developed to generate realistic IMU signals associated with a particular activity. The generated signal is of a 6-channel IMU. i.e., angular velocities and linear accelerations. Also, by introducing simple activities, which are meaningful subparts of a complex full-length activity, the generation process was facilitated for any activity with arbitrary length. To evaluate the generated signals, besides perceptual similarity metrics, they were applied along with real data to improve the accuracy of classifiers. The results show that the maximum increase in the f1-score belongs to the LSTM classifier by a 13.27% rise when generated data were added. This shows the validity of the generated data as well as TheraGAN as a tool to build more robust classifiers in case of imbalanced data problem

Cost-Effectiveness of Sorafenib for Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review

Introduction: Sorafenib is a multi-kinase inhibitor and decreases tumor cell proliferation. This study aimed to systematically review the existing evidence related to its cost-effectiveness.&nbsp; Methods and Results: EMBASE, MEDLINE, PUBMED, Google Scholar, and the Scopus database were searched and articles were selected on the basis of their correlation with the economic evaluations of Sorafenib. The quality of the selected studies was assessed using the Quality of Health Economic Studies instrument. This review revealed costs per quality-adjusted life years in the range of US $89,160 to$118,825, depending on whether the setting was first-line or second-line and which comparator is utilized. The results indicated that Sorafenib had not been considered as an appropriate treatment option for patients with metastasis Renal Cell Carcinoma (mRCC). Sorafenib was dominated (i.e. higher cost and lower efficacy) in comparison with Sunitinib in all cases. However, Sorafenib would be more cost-effective in comparison with bevacizumab plus interferon alfa in the treatment of mRCC.&nbsp; Conclusion: Sorafenib was more effective with higher cost than Best Supportive Care but Sorafenib was not cost-effective in view of current willingness to pay threshold

Evaluation of MARS for the spatial distribution modeling of carbon monoxide in an urban area

Spatial distribution modeling of CO in Tehran can lead to better air pollution management and control, and it is also suitable for exposure assessment and epidemiological studies. In this study MARS (Multi–variate Adaptive Regression Splines) is compared with typical interpolation techniques for spatial distribution modeling of hourly and daily CO concentrations in Tehran, Iran. The measured CO data in 2008 by 16 monitoring stations were used in this study. The Generalized Cross Validation (GCV) and Cross Validation techniques were utilized for the parameter optimization in the MARS and other techniques, respectively. Then the optimized techniques were compared based on the mean absolute of percentage error (MAPE). Although the Cokriging technique presented less MAPE than the Inverse Distance Weighting, Thin Plate Smooth Splines and Kriging techniques, MARS exhibited the least MAPE. In addition, the MARS modeling procedure is easy. Therefore, MARS has merit to be introduced as an appropriate method for spatial distribution modeling. The number of air pollution monitoring stations is very low (16 stations for 22 zones) and the distribution of stations is not suitable for spatial estimation, hence the level of errors was relatively high (more than 60%). Consequently, hourly and daily mapping of CO provides a limited picture of spatial patterns of CO in Tehran, but it is suitable for estimation of relative CO levels in different zones of Tehran. Hence, the map of mean annual CO concentration was generated by averaging daily CO distributions in 2008. It showed that the most polluted regions in Tehran are the central, eastern and southeastern parts, and mean annual CO concentration in these parts (zones 6, 12, 13, 14 and 15) is between 4.2 and 4.6 ppm

Numerical investigation of mixing by induced electrokinetic flow in T-micromixer with conductive curved arc plate

Mixing is essential in microdevices. Therefore, increasing the mixing efficiency has a significant influence on these devices. Using conductive obstacles with special geometry can improve the mixing quality of the micromixers. In this paper, a numerical study on the mixing caused by an induced-charge electrokinetic micromixer was carried out using a conductive plate with a curved arc shape instead of a conductive flat plate or other non-conductive obstacles for Newtonian fluids. This study also explored the effect of the different radius curves, span length, the number of curved arc plates in the channel, the pattern of arrangement, concavity direction, and the orientation angle against the flow on the mixing. Furthermore, the efficiency of the T-micromixer against a flow with a low diffusion coefficient was investigated. It should be noted that the considered channel is symmetric regarding to the middle horizontal plane and an addition of flat plate reflects a formation of symmetric flow structures that do not allow to improve the mixture process. While an addition of non-symmetric curved arc plates al-lows to increase the mixing by creating vortices. These vortices were created owing to the non-uniform distribution of induced zeta potential on the curved arc plate. A rise in the span length of the curved arc plate when the radius was constant improved the mixing. When three arc plates in one concavity direction were used, the mixing efficiency was 91.86%, and with a change in the concavity direction, the mixing efficiency increased to 95.44%. With a change in the orientation angle from 0 to 25, the mixing efficiency increased by 19.2%

Butyrylcholinesterase level in poisoned patients by phosphide compounds

Background: Metal phosphides are widely used as a rodenticide and insecticide and poisoning with these substances has a very high mortality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the butyrylcholinesterase (BuCh) level in poisoning with metal phosphides. Methods: In this case series study, 60 poisoned patients with zinc phosphide (ZnP) and aluminum phosphide (ALP) who was admitted to poisoning ward in Hamadan,&#160;Iran, enrolled in the study and BuCh level was measured. The sex, age, amount of ingestion, time of consumption, signs and symptoms, ECG and arterial blood gas (ABG) changes and clinical outcomes were evaluated. Results: Most (58.3) patients were males, the mean age was 32.76&#177;17.65 years. The average amount of ingestion was 7.5&#177;4.6 and 2.5&#177;2.96 gr for ZnP and ALP, respectively. Most signs and symptoms were hypotension (97), nausea and vomiting (82) and abdominal pain (32). The average amount of BuCh level in all patients was 5163.25&#177;2158.31 U/L, that's while in ZnP and ALP poisoned patients was 5608&#177;1577 U/L and 4721.46&#177;2562U/L respectively. The most dysrhythmia (26.7) was sinus tachycardia. Acidosis was seen in 33.3 of patients. 14 patients died after hospital admission, which caused a 23.3 fatality rate. Conclusion: Our results showed that, there was no significant change in BuCh level in poisoned patients with phosphide compounds

Exploration of Activation Fault Reliability in Quantized Systolic Array-Based DNN Accelerators

The stringent requirements for the Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) accelerator's reliability stand along with the need for reducing the computational burden on the hardware platforms, i.e. reducing the energy consumption and execution time as well as increasing the efficiency of DNN accelerators. Moreover, the growing demand for specialized DNN accelerators with tailored requirements, particularly for safety-critical applications, necessitates a comprehensive design space exploration to enable the development of efficient and robust accelerators that meet those requirements. Therefore, the trade-off between hardware performance, i.e. area and delay, and the reliability of the DNN accelerator implementation becomes critical and requires tools for analysis. This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for exploring and enabling a holistic assessment of the trilateral impact of quantization on model accuracy, activation fault reliability, and hardware efficiency. A fully automated framework is introduced that is capable of applying various quantization-aware techniques, fault injection, and hardware implementation, thus enabling the measurement of hardware parameters. Moreover, this paper proposes a novel lightweight protection technique integrated within the framework to ensure the dependable deployment of the final systolic-array-based FPGA implementation. The experiments on established benchmarks demonstrate the analysis flow and the profound implications of quantization on reliability, hardware performance, and network accuracy, particularly concerning the transient faults in the network's activations.Comment