Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells-Derived Exosomes Can Alleviate the Proctitis Model Through TLR4/NF-Κb Pathway

Background: Proctitis is a significant concern of inflammatory bowel diseases, especially ulcerative colitis. Exosomes are a new method for treating many diseases by their immunosuppressive and tissue-repairing potential. Here, we tried Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)-derived Exosomes for treating the proctitis model of rats. Materials and Methods: Rats were assigned into four groups: sham, control group, rectal, and intraperitoneal exosome injection. The proctitis model was induced by rectal administration of 4% acetic acid. The exosome was derived from human MSCs isolated from human umbilical cords. After seven days, rectum samples were assessed for histopathological, IHC, and PCR analysis. Results: The histopathologic scores, collagen deposition, and the expression of NF-κB, TLR4, TNFα, IL-6, and TGFβ were decreased in intraperitoneal exosome compared to controls. The result was not promising for the rectal administration of exosomes. Conclusion: Exosomes can suppress the inflammatory response in the proctitis model and improve the rectum's healing process. Exosomes can inhabit the NF-κB/TLR4 pathway and downstream pro-inflammatory cytokines. This study implicates the therapeutic benefits of exomes in treating proctitis

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BackgroundDisorders affecting the nervous system are diverse and include neurodevelopmental disorders, late-life neurodegeneration, and newly emergent conditions, such as cognitive impairment following COVID-19. Previous publications from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study estimated the burden of 15 neurological conditions in 2015 and 2016, but these analyses did not include neurodevelopmental disorders, as defined by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11, or a subset of cases of congenital, neonatal, and infectious conditions that cause neurological damage. Here, we estimate nervous system health loss caused by 37 unique conditions and their associated risk factors globally, regionally, and nationally from 1990 to 2021.MethodsWe estimated mortality, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), with corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs), by age and sex in 204 countries and territories, from 1990 to 2021. We included morbidity and deaths due to neurological conditions, for which health loss is directly due to damage to the CNS or peripheral nervous system. We also isolated neurological health loss from conditions for which nervous system morbidity is a consequence, but not the primary feature, including a subset of congenital conditions (ie, chromosomal anomalies and congenital birth defects), neonatal conditions (ie, jaundice, preterm birth, and sepsis), infectious diseases (ie, COVID-19, cystic echinococcosis, malaria, syphilis, and Zika virus disease), and diabetic neuropathy. By conducting a sequela-level analysis of the health outcomes for these conditions, only cases where nervous system damage occurred were included, and YLDs were recalculated to isolate the non-fatal burden directly attributable to nervous system health loss. A comorbidity correction was used to calculate total prevalence of all conditions that affect the nervous system combined.FindingsGlobally, the 37 conditions affecting the nervous system were collectively ranked as the leading group cause of DALYs in 2021 (443 million, 95% UI 378–521), affecting 3·40 billion (3·20–3·62) individuals (43·1%, 40·5–45·9 of the global population); global DALY counts attributed to these conditions increased by 18·2% (8·7–26·7) between 1990 and 2021. Age-standardised rates of deaths per 100 000 people attributed to these conditions decreased from 1990 to 2021 by 33·6% (27·6–38·8), and age-standardised rates of DALYs attributed to these conditions decreased by 27·0% (21·5–32·4). Age-standardised prevalence was almost stable, with a change of 1·5% (0·7–2·4). The ten conditions with the highest age-standardised DALYs in 2021 were stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, diabetic neuropathy, meningitis, epilepsy, neurological complications due to preterm birth, autism spectrum disorder, and nervous system cancer.InterpretationAs the leading cause of overall disease burden in the world, with increasing global DALY counts, effective prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies for disorders affecting the nervous system are needed

An EOQ model for imperfect quality items with partial backordering under screening errors

In practice, when a lot size received, an inspection process is necessary to identify the defective items. In addition, the inspection process itself is not error-free and it may contain misclassification errors. In this paper, an economic order quantity model for imperfect quality items with partial backordering under screening errors is studied. The objective is to maximize the expected annual profit by optimizing the order size and the maximum number of backorder units. Also, the aim of this paper is to develop a general and practical model that is more realistic in the competitive commercial situations. For authenticity of the developed model, a case study and a numerical example are illustrated, and the sensitivity analysis is also carried out

How Do Different Land Uses/Covers Contribute to Land Surface Temperature and Albedo?

Land surface temperature (LST) and land surface albedo (LSA) are the two key regional and global climate-controlling parameters; assessing their behavior would likely result in a better understanding of the appropriate adaptation strategies to mitigate the consequences of climate change. This study was conducted to explore the spatiotemporal variability in LST and LSA across different land use/cover (LULC) classes in northwest Iran. To do so, we first applied an object-oriented algorithm to the 10 m resolution Sentinel-2 images of summer 2019 to generate a LULC map of a 3284 km2 region in northwest Iran. Then, we computed the LST and LSA of each LULC class using the SEBAL algorithm, which was applied to the Landsat-8 images from the summer of 2019 and winter of 2020. The results showed that during the summer season, the maximum and minimum LSA values were associated with barren land (0.33) and water bodies (0.11), respectively; during the winter season, the maximum LSA value was observed for farmland and snow cover, and the minimum value was observed in forest areas (0.21). The maximum and minimum LST values in summer were acquired from rangeland (37 °C) and water bodies (24 °C), respectively; the maximum and minimum values of winter values were detected in forests (4.14 °C) and snow cover (−21.36 °C), respectively. Our results revealed that barren land and residential areas, having the maximum LSA in summer, were able to reduce the heating effects to some extent. Forest areas, due to their low LSA and high LST, particularly in winter, had a greater effect on regional warming compared with other LULC classes. Our study suggests that forests might not always mitigate the effects of global warming as much as we expect.Validerad;2023;Nivå 2;2023-01-01 (joosat);Licens full text: CC BY license</p

Evaluation of organizational health on different levels of youth affairs and sports Ministry

Background: Organizational health is a framework for the conceptualizing the general atmosphere of the organization. Objective: The aim of this study is to compare the organizational health in the Ministry pf youth affairs and sports of Iran in 2012. The research was conducted by descriptive survey method. The statistical population of the study was all experts working in the Ministry of Sports and Youth; they hold at least an associate degree and were 400 people. The sample size was estimated 200 according to the Morgan table. The sampling method was randomized stratification. OHI Hoy et al (1998) Organizational Health Questionnaire and 0.88 Cronbach&apos;s alpha coefficient was used for the data collection. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential tests such as ratio test (binomial), one way Variance and LSD test. Results: The results showed that in experts&apos; point of view organizational health of Youth and Sports Ministry are at an adequate level, there significant difference between the mean score of organizational health, the LSD test results also confirm this finding. The difference between high and intermediate and operational level of organization in terms of organizational health is significant, but in this regard, there is no significant difference between middle and operational levels. Conclusion: it is recommended to have in-service training courses for managers, especially middle and operational managers to enhance organizational health and to improve different organizational levels of workplace environment in the Ministry of sport

Intraspecific interactions in a high density leopard population

Although less studied than interspecific interactions, interactions among members of the same species can influence space use and temporal activity. Using techniques commonly applied to the analysis of interspecific interactions – multi-species occupancy modelling and the analysis of temporal activity patterns – we studied intraspecific interactions within a high density population of Persian leopards (Panthera pardus saxicolor) in Tandoureh National Park, northeastern Iran. Using camera trap data, we investigated spatiotemporal interactions between male leopards, lone female leopards and families (cubs / females with cubs). While we hypothesised that male and female leopards would display different temporal activity patterns, we did not predict spatial avoidance between these groups. We also predicted that leopard families would exhibit spatiotemporal avoidance from male leopards due to the risk of infanticide. Contrary to our expectations we did not find any evidence for spatial or temporal avoidance between leopard families and adult male leopards. Male and lone female leopards exhibited positive pairwise co-occurrence, consistent with reports of high overlap between male and female leopard home ranges. While a high level of overlap in temporal activity patterns was found between males/lone females and males/families, there was evidence for variation in the proportion of time each leopard group was active in particular periods of the diel cycle. Male leopards showed cathemeral activity, while lone females and families were more active during daylight hours. The application of these techniques to interactions within a species has improved understanding of the ecology and behaviour of this endangered solitary carnivore

Global age-sex-specific fertility, mortality, healthy life expectancy (HALE), and population estimates in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2019:a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Abstract Background: Accurate and up-to-date assessment of demographic metrics is crucial for understanding a wide range of social, economic, and public health issues that affect populations worldwide. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 produced updated and comprehensive demographic assessments of the key indicators of fertility, mortality, migration, and population for 204 countries and territories and selected subnational locations from 1950 to 2019. Methods: 8078 country-years of vital registration and sample registration data, 938 surveys, 349 censuses, and 238 other sources were identified and used to estimate age-specific fertility. Spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression (ST-GPR) was used to generate age-specific fertility rates for 5-year age groups between ages 15 and 49 years. With extensions to age groups 10–14 and 50–54 years, the total fertility rate (TFR) was then aggregated using the estimated age-specific fertility between ages 10 and 54 years. 7417 sources were used for under-5 mortality estimation and 7355 for adult mortality. ST-GPR was used to synthesise data sources after correction for known biases. Adult mortality was measured as the probability of death between ages 15 and 60 years based on vital registration, sample registration, and sibling histories, and was also estimated using ST-GPR. HIV-free life tables were then estimated using estimates of under-5 and adult mortality rates using a relational model life table system created for GBD, which closely tracks observed age-specific mortality rates from complete vital registration when available. Independent estimates of HIV-specific mortality generated by an epidemiological analysis of HIV prevalence surveys and antenatal clinic serosurveillance and other sources were incorporated into the estimates in countries with large epidemics. Annual and single-year age estimates of net migration and population for each country and territory were generated using a Bayesian hierarchical cohort component model that analysed estimated age-specific fertility and mortality rates along with 1250 censuses and 747 population registry years. We classified location-years into seven categories on the basis of the natural rate of increase in population (calculated by subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate) and the net migration rate. We computed healthy life expectancy (HALE) using years lived with disability (YLDs) per capita, life tables, and standard demographic methods. Uncertainty was propagated throughout the demographic estimation process, including fertility, mortality, and population, with 1000 draw-level estimates produced for each metric. Findings: The global TFR decreased from 2·72 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 2·66–2·79) in 2000 to 2·31 (2·17–2·46) in 2019. Global annual livebirths increased from 134·5 million (131·5–137·8) in 2000 to a peak of 139·6 million (133·0–146·9) in 2016. Global livebirths then declined to 135·3 million (127·2–144·1) in 2019. Of the 204 countries and territories included in this study, in 2019, 102 had a TFR lower than 2·1, which is considered a good approximation of replacement-level fertility. All countries in sub-Saharan Africa had TFRs above replacement level in 2019 and accounted for 27·1% (95% UI 26·4–27·8) of global livebirths. Global life expectancy at birth increased from 67·2 years (95% UI 66·8–67·6) in 2000 to 73·5 years (72·8–74·3) in 2019. The total number of deaths increased from 50·7 million (49·5–51·9) in 2000 to 56·5 million (53·7–59·2) in 2019. Under-5 deaths declined from 9·6 million (9·1–10·3) in 2000 to 5·0 million (4·3–6·0) in 2019. Global population increased by 25·7%, from 6·2 billion (6·0–6·3) in 2000 to 7·7 billion (7·5–8·0) in 2019. In 2019, 34 countries had negative natural rates of increase; in 17 of these, the population declined because immigration was not sufficient to counteract the negative rate of decline. Globally, HALE increased from 58·6 years (56·1–60·8) in 2000 to 63·5 years (60·8–66·1) in 2019. HALE increased in 202 of 204 countries and territories between 2000 and 2019. Interpretation: Over the past 20 years, fertility rates have been dropping steadily and life expectancy has been increasing, with few exceptions. Much of this change follows historical patterns linking social and economic determinants, such as those captured by the GBD Socio-demographic Index, with demographic outcomes. More recently, several countries have experienced a combination of low fertility and stagnating improvement in mortality rates, pushing more populations into the late stages of the demographic transition. Tracking demographic change and the emergence of new patterns will be essential for global health monitoring