The development of standards of making smart schools and the level of respecting to these standards in Tehran

The purpose of this study was developing standards of making smart schools and the level of respecting to these standards in the schools of Tehran. The study has a mixed design (quantitative and qualitative). In the quantitative section, it is a descriptive survey type. In the qualitative method, it uses documentary and inductive encoding when all the existing documents were studied first, the existing copies were read line by line (open decoding); and then, considering the written words in the documents, the general factors were extracted (canonic encoding); and eventually in the documentation of similarities and differences of the general factors, the main indices were extracted (selective encoding). The population included all 22 smart schools in Tehran in 5 educational districts (i.e. districts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) out of which 20 girls’ smart schools were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. The instrument was a researcher-made standardized check-list to evaluate the standards of having smart schools (direct observation, cooperation of principals, and the IT managers of the schools) and studying the current status of smart schools. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and single-group t-test. The results of data analysis showed that the current status of smart schools regarding instructional content and learning is below the standards; the status of the hardware infrastructures and trained teachers is higher than the standards; and the software infrastructure and management are at the average level

Legionella pneumophila strain 130b evades macrophage cell death independent of the effector SidF in the absence of flagellin

International audienceThe human pathogen Legionella pneumophila must evade host cell death signaling to enable replication in lung macrophages and to cause disease. After bacterial growth, however, L. pneumophila is thought to induce apoptosis during egress from macrophages. The bacterial effector protein, SidF, has been shown to control host cell survival and death by inhibiting pro-apoptotic BNIP3 and BCL-RAMBO signaling. Using live-cell imaging to follow the L. pneumophila-macrophage interaction, we now demonstrate that L. pneumophila evades host cell apoptosis independent of SidF. In the absence of SidF, L. pneumophila was able to replicate, cause loss of mitochondria membrane potential, kill macrophages, and establish infections in lungs of mice. Consistent with this, deletion of BNIP3 and BCL-RAMBO did not affect intracellular L. pneumophila replication, macrophage death rates, and in vivo bacterial virulence. Abrogating mitochondrial cell death by genetic deletion of the effectors of intrinsic apoptosis, BAX, and BAK, or the regulator of mitochondrial permeability transition pore formation, cyclophilin-D, did not affect bacterial growth or the initial killing of macrophages. Loss of BAX and BAK only marginally limited the ability of L. pneumophila to efficiently kill all macrophages over extended periods. L. pneumophila induced killing of macrophages was delayed in the absence of capsase-11 mediated pyroptosis. Together, our data demonstrate that L. pneumophila evades host cell death responses independently of SidF during replication and can induce pyroptosis to kill macrophages in a timely manner

Healthcare resource utilization and medical costs for children with interstitial lung diseases (chILD) in Europe

Background No data on healthcare utilisation and associated costs for the many rare entities of children's interstitial lung diseases (chILD) exist. This paper portrays healthcare utilisation structures among individuals with chILD, provides a pan-European estimate of a 3-month interval per-capita costs and delineates crucial cost drivers. Methods Based on longitudinal healthcare resource utilisation pattern of 445 children included in the Kids Lung Register diagnosed with chILD across 10 European countries, we delineated direct medical and non-medical costs of care per 3-month interval. Country-specific utilisation patterns were assessed with a children-tailored modification of the validated FIMA questionnaire and valued by German unit costs. Costs of care and their drivers were subsequently identified via gamma-distributed generalised linear regression models. Results During the 3 months prior to inclusion into the registry (baseline), the rate of hospital admissions and inpatient days was high. Unadjusted direct medical per capita costs (euro19 818) exceeded indirect (euro1 907) and direct non-medical costs (euro1 125) by far. Country-specific total costs ranged from euro8 713 in Italy to euro28 788 in Poland. Highest expenses were caused by the disease categories 'diffuse parenchymal lung disease (DPLD)-diffuse developmental disorders' (euro45 536) and 'DPLD-unclear in the non-neonate' (euro47 011). During a follow-up time of up to 5 years, direct medical costs dropped, whereas indirect costs and non-medical costs remained stable. Conclusions This is the first prospective, longitudinal study analysing healthcare resource utilisation and costs for chILD across different European countries. Our results indicate that chILD is associated with high utilisation of healthcare services, placing a substantial economic burden on health systems

Work functions, ionization potentials, and in-between: Scaling relations based on the image charge model

We revisit a model in which the ionization energy of a metal particle is associated with the work done by the image charge force in moving the electron from infinity to a small cut-off distance just outside the surface. We show that this model can be compactly, and productively, employed to study the size dependence of electron removal energies over the range encompassing bulk surfaces, finite clusters, and individual atoms. It accounts in a straightforward manner for the empirically known correlation between the atomic ionization potential (IP) and the metal work function (WF), IP/WF$\sim$2. We formulate simple expressions for the model parameters, requiring only a single property (the atomic polarizability or the nearest neighbor distance) as input. Without any additional adjustable parameters, the model yields both the IP and the WF within $\sim$10% for all metallic elements, as well as matches the size evolution of the ionization potentials of finite metal clusters for a large fraction of the experimental data. The parametrization takes advantage of a remarkably constant numerical correlation between the nearest-neighbor distance in a crystal, the cube root of the atomic polarizability, and the image force cutoff length. The paper also includes an analytical derivation of the relation of the outer radius of a cluster of close-packed spheres to its geometric structure.Comment: Original submission: 8 pages with 7 figures incorporated in the text. Revised submission (added one more paragraph about alloy work functions): 18 double spaced pages + 8 separate figures. Accepted for publication in PR

Assessing L2 Argumentation in the UAE Context

In this rapidly changing world, argumentation and critical thinking skills are undeniably crucial for new generations of Emirati students. These skills lay the groundwork for a competitive economy, which is a priority for the UAE in its Vision 2021. Specifically, today’s modern workplaces require workers to evaluate different propositions and develop their own after weighing up these various ideas, and thus the ability to defend arguments in English has become increasingly important for UAE university students in English-medium universities as well as their future professional contexts. Despite this importance, research regarding argumentation and the related critical thinking skills is sorely lacking in the UAE. This chapter delineates how written argumentation was assessed in a timed essay in a mandatory argumentative writing course taken by university freshmen in a government university in the UAE, and how the feedback gleaned from this common assessment was mapped to the teaching curriculum to shed light on the teaching effectiveness and to provide directions for future teaching

Agarose-Based biomaterials: Opportunities and challenges in cartilage tissue engineering

The lack of adequate blood/lymphatic vessels as well as low-potential articular cartilage regeneration underlines the necessity to search for alternative biomaterials. Owing to their unique features, such as reversible thermogelling behavior and tissue-like mechanical behavior, agarose-based biomaterials have played a key role in cartilage tissue repair. Accordingly, the need for fabricating novel highly efficient injectable agarose-based biomaterials as hydrogels for restoration of injured cartilage tissue has been recognized. In this review, the resources and conspicuous properties of the agarose-based biomaterials were reviewed. First, different types of signals together with their functionalities in the maintenance of cartilage homeostasis were explained. Then, various cellular signaling pathways and their significant role in cartilage tissue engineering were overviewed. Next, the molecular structure and its gelling behavior have been discussed. Eventually, the latest advancements, the lingering challenges, and future ahead of agarose derivatives from the cartilage regeneration perspective have been discussed. © 2020 by the authors

Identification and characterization of pathogenic viruses in aquatic animal using advanced techniques in order to develop rapid diagnostic kit (shrimp viral disease kit as well as TSV, HPV and MBV )

Shrimp production increasing rapidly in the world and in2013 the production reaches 4.2 MT. In Iran the shrimp production is under development and estimated in 1393, 20 thousand tons produced. In this regards the important subject is health and disease in shrimp farm. The white spot syndrome virus for second time appears in chabahar and damage many farms. Because the aquaculture activity expand in the world in national, regional and international scale, many emerge disease are endanger. In this regard the viral disease is very important and not only decrease the production but also has a side effect in business and national economy. For control and prevention the viral disease, the accurate methods such as PCR kit were developed. In this project the PCR methods with sensitivity, specificity and efficacy was designed and used for detection viral disease. Many viruses have several serotypes and in different area maybe new serotype induce the disease. For this reason, the specific kit will be design. Three viruses consist of MBV, TSV and IHHNV are very pathogenic in shrimp farm and need the specific PCR kit for detection them. In this project the MBV virus was identified and designs a new primer with Oligo software and the primer amplified a part of DNA with 185 bp in the gel. The specificity and sensitivity of primer were checked by IQ2000 Kit and the primer used for detection unknown samples

CovidCTNet: an open-source deep learning approach to diagnose covid-19 using small cohort of CT images

Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is highly contagious with limited treatment options. Early and accurate diagnosis of Covid-19 is crucial in reducing the spread of the disease and its accompanied mortality. Currently, detection by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the gold standard of outpatient and inpatient detection of Covid-19. RT-PCR is a rapid method; however, its accuracy in detection is only ~70�75. Another approved strategy is computed tomography (CT) imaging. CT imaging has a much higher sensitivity of ~80�98, but similar accuracy of 70. To enhance the accuracy of CT imaging detection, we developed an open-source framework, CovidCTNet, composed of a set of deep learning algorithms that accurately differentiates Covid-19 from community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and other lung diseases. CovidCTNet increases the accuracy of CT imaging detection to 95 compared to radiologists (70). CovidCTNet is designed to work with heterogeneous and small sample sizes independent of the CT imaging hardware. To facilitate the detection of Covid-19 globally and assist radiologists and physicians in the screening process, we are releasing all algorithms and model parameter details as open-source. Open-source sharing of CovidCTNet enables developers to rapidly improve and optimize services while preserving user privacy and data ownership. © 2021, The Author(s)