The Effect of Implementing Panel Discussion on Speaking Skill of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Using practical vocabularies and phrases plays a prominent role in developing speaking skill.  The current research was designed to analyze the effect of implementing panel discussion on speaking skill of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. It was carried out at Ghasedak language institute in Astara among 70 intermediate male learners with the age range of 16-24 through a quasi-experimental research. The participants were assigned into two groups. One experimental group and the other labeled as control group. First, the pretest was administered to each group. The test was taken from the book “American File”. At the end of 10 weeks, a posttest of speaking was given to both experimental and control group. Then learners’ accuracy in simple past, simple present and present perfect and their fluency in using practical vocabularies and phrases were assessed. Results showed that teaching speaking based on panel discussion through CLT had a significant effect on learners' speaking skill

Albumin impact on clinical practice and complications of ischemic stroke in patients with stroke

Background: Cerebrovascular disease is the third common leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease in the United States. Also cerebrovascular disease is the most common neurological disease which can lead to complications or mortality. The incidence of ischemic stroke increases with age, and almost two thirds of cases occur in people over 65 years. Albumin as a blood thinner to reduce blood viscosity and sufficient vasodilation in response to low oxygen increases blood flow in ischemic and normal brain. The aim of this study was to investigate the Albumin impact on clinical practice and complications of ischemic stroke in patients with stroke.Methods: This is a randomized clinical study that has been done on 100 patients with ischemic stroke included 54 male and 46 female referred to Alavi hospital in Ardabil. Patients with inclusion criteria randomly divided in two similar sample size groups. For case group we prescribed albumin 20% and for control group normal-saline. NIHSS questionnaire completed for each patient based on their interview and medical documents in hospital according the specialist doctor idea. Collected data analysed by statistical methods in SPSS.19.Results: From all patients, 41% have HTN, 30% Diabetes, 32% ischemic stroke type cortical in branch MCA and 14% in brain stem. The highest risk factor for stroke was in people with high blood pressure. The mean of NIHSS in the end of third month after intervention in the patients with cortical ischemia in albumin group with 24.8±5.1 was lower than placebo group with 31.3±3 and this difference was statistically significant (p = 0.012).Conclusions: Results showed that in cortical ischemic stroke there was a significant relationship between receiving albumin and decreasing NISHH score. But there was no significant relationship between receiving albumin and decreasing NISHH score in Lacunar and brain stem stroke

Isolation and characterization of novel phage displayed scFv antibody for human tumor necrosis factor alpha and molecular docking analysis of their interactions

Introduction: Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) expression amplifies to excess amounts in several disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Although, Anti-TNF biologics have revolutionized the treatment of these autoimmune diseases, formation of anti-drug antibodies (ADA) has dramatically affected their use. The next generation antibodies (e.g. Fab, scFv) have not only reduced resulted immunogenicity, but also proved several benefits including better tumor penetration and more rapid blood clearance.This study highlights the use of phage display for identification of human single chain fragment antibody against disulfide-bonded TNF-α using phage display technology. Methods and Results: Using affinity selection procedures in this study, a scFv antibody clone was isolated from naïve Tomlinson I phage display library that specifically recognizes and binds to TNF-α. The TNF-α recombinant protein was expressed in genetically engineered Escherichia coli SHuffle® T7 Express, for the first time, which is able to express disulfide-bonded recombinant proteins into their correctly folded states. Conclusions: ELISA-based affinity characterization results indicated that the isolated novel 29.2 kDa scFv binds TNF-α with suitable affinity. In silico homology modeling study using ‘ModWeb’ as well as molecular docking study using Hex program confirmed the scFv and TNF-α interactions with a scFv-TNF- α binding energy of around -593 kj/mol which is well in agreement with our ELSIA results. The cloned scFv antibody may potentially be useful for research and therapeutic applications in the future

Effect of Nanomicelle Curcumin on Quality of Life and Sleep in Patients With Parkinson’s Disease: A Double-Blind, Randomized, and Placebo-Controlled Trial

Background: Considering the evidence indicating the neuronal protective effects of curcumin in previous studies, this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, and parallel-group trial was aimed at exploring the possible nanomicelle curcumin (SinaCurcumin®, nano-micellar soft gel)-mediated impact on sleep, fatigue, and quality of life (QoL) in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).Methods: A sample of 50 PD patients were recruited and randomly divided into experimental (25) and control groups (25). Sleep quality, fatigue, and QoL were assessed based on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), and the Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire–39 (PDQ-39), respectively, at the beginning and the end of the study. The groups were treated for three months by 80 mg of nano-micellar soft gel twice a day.Results: Nanomicelle curcumin significantly increased sleep quality and QoL compared with placebo (P values = 0.0001 and 0.0002, respectively) in PD patients. This significant difference has not influenced by the duration of the disease, the severity of disease progression (Hoehn & Yahr scale), and the cumulative dose of levodopa. This supplement did not have a significant effect on the fatigue severity of patients compared to placebo.Conclusion: It has proposed that the nanomicelle curcumin can be used to improve sleep quality and QoL in PD patients

In Vitro Selection of Foeniculum vulgare for Salt Tolerance

In vitro selection of Foeniculum vulgare for salt tolerance was undertaken by the use of somaclonal variation. In this idea, explants of root, hypocotyl and cotyledon of sterilized seedling were transferred to callus and regeneration media with concentrations of 0, 50, 100 and 150 mM of NaCl. After 4 weeks, calli induction, regeneration frequency and calli fresh and dry weights, in both control and stress conditions, were measured. The results showed that salinity caused a significant decrease in the callus induction and shoot regeneration of fennel. However, in the presence of 100 and 150 mM NaCl, the highest frequency of callus induction in hypocotyl and cotyledon explants was recorded on the media supplemented with 1 mg l-1 IAA (Indol-3-Acetic Acid) plus 1 mg l-1 2,4-D (2, 4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and 2 mg l-1 kinetin. Among different growth regulator treatments, the combination of 2 mg l-1 NAA (Naphtaleneacetic acid) and 0.5 mg l-1 kinetin was found to be the most effective for shoot regeneration under stress condition. The highest dose of NaCl (150 mM) inhibited callus induction and shoot regeneration compared to control with 41% and 96% respectively. The calli fresh and dry weights of all explants were decreased with the increas of NaCl concentration. The highest and the lowest of dry and fresh weight of calli were observed in 0 and 150 mM respectively

Morphological, Molecular and Phytochemical Variation in Some Thyme Genotypes

Thyme is an important medicinal plant in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industries. The first step for breeding of thyme is evaluating of genetic variation and relationship between thyme’s accessions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate morphology, chemical and molecular variation of 13 accessions of Thyme medicinal plant. ANOVA showed significant differences between accessions for total characterization tested. The dendrogram constructed on the basis of morphology similarities showed two major clusters. In order to evaluate the genetic variation, the genomic DNA was extracted using modified medicinal CTAB protocol. The evaluation of the of DNA quality was performed using electrophoresis. Twenty primers were used for PCR analysis and only 9 primers showed clear bands. Out of 149 bands, 83.22% were the polymorphism. The data were analyzed with SPSS and POPGENE programs and the dendrogram was drawn based on UPGMA and showed three major clusters. In order to evaluate the chemical variation, essential oil was obtained using Clevenger unit. ANOVA showed significant differences between accessions for total characterization test. Dendrogram for chemical variation showed two major clusters.Chemical and morphological traits’ matrices were formed using Statistical V5.5A software and were compared with genetic similarity matrices using GenAlex 6.1 software

An overview of the current status of engineered therapeutic monoclonal antibodies

Since the commercialization of the first therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) product in 1986, this class of biopharmaceutical products have grown significantly. Due to the enhanced antigen binding and reduced cellular toxicity, they result in more efficacy in treatment of variety of diseases. The global sales of mAbs which was 95.1 b$in 2017 have grown annually due to the dramatic increase in cancer and severe diseases rates and are estimated to reach 131.33 b$ by 2023, this represents a clear accelerating trend with more than 5.53% growth. In this review, we discuss some of these mAbs which have been approved by the FDA as well as others that are experiencing or being evaluated in clinical phases. Global sales of some monoclonal antibodies in 2016 are also considered, suggesting a significant increase in sales of mAbs over the years ahead. &nbsp

Classification of ECG signals using Hermite functions and MLP neural networks

Classification of heart arrhythmia is an important step in developing devices for monitoring the health of individuals. This paper proposes a three module system for classification of electrocardiogram (ECG) beats. These modules are: denoising module, feature extraction module and a classification module. In the first module the stationary wavelet transform (SWF) is used for noise reduction of the ECG signals. The feature extraction module extracts a balanced combination of the Hermit features and three timing interval feature. Then a number of multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks with different number of layers and eight training algorithms are designed. Seven files from the MIT/BIH arrhythmia database are selected as test data and the performances of the networks, for speed of convergence and accuracy classifications, are evaluated.  Generally all of the proposed algorisms have good training time, however, the resilient back propagation (RP) algorithm illustrated the best overall training time among the different training algorithms. The Conjugate gradient back propagation (CGP) algorithm shows the best recognition accuracy about 98.02% using a little amount of features

Production of a phage-displayed single chain variable fragment antibody against infectious bursal disease virus

Purpose: To develop specific single chain variable fragments (scFv) against infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) via phage display technology.Methods: Purified viruses were initially applied for iterative panning rounds of scFv phage display libraries. The binding ability of the selected scFv antibody fragments against the IBDV particles was analyzed by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) followed by blotting assays. Threedimensional (3D) structure of the selected scFv antibody fragment and VP3 protein were predicted through in silico analysis. Structural characterization of the antibody-antigen complexes was carried out by computational docking analysis.Results: The serological results obtained from the ELISA and blotting analysis showed that the selected clones produced specific scFv antibody fragments that were capable of effectively detecting infectious bursal disease (IBD) in the infected animal tissue. Biodiversity analysis by BstNI finger printing and nucleotide sequencing revealed that there was no major difference in nucleotide sequences of the selected clones. Further analysis demonstrated that this recombinant fragment of the antibody was able to bind to VP3 structural protein of IBDV with a molecular weight of ~30 kDa. Molecular docking results revealed that the binding energy of scFv to IBDV-VP3 was 545 kj/mol.Conclusion: The developed scFv antibody fragments possess great potentials for the diagnosis of IBD. The findings of the present study confirm the feasibility of using phage display technology for rapid production of antibodies against IBD diseases by applying naïve scFv libraries. Keywords: Antibody, Molecular docking, Phage display technology, Single chain variable fragment