Platinum Nanoparticles in Biomedicine: Preparation, Anti-Cancer Activity, and Drug Delivery Vehicles

Cancer is the main cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, excluding infectious disease. Because of their lack of specificity in chemotherapy agents are used for cancer treatment, these agents have severe systemic side effects, and gradually lose their therapeutic effects because most cancers become multidrug resistant. Platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) are relatively new agents that are being tested in cancer therapy. This review covers the various methods for the preparation and physicochemical characterization of PtNPs. PtNPs have been shown to possess some intrinsic anticancer activity, probably due to their antioxidant action, which slows tumor growth. Targeting ligands can be attached to functionalized metal PtNPs to improve their tumor targeting ability. PtNPs-based therapeutic systems can enable the controlled release of drugs, to improve the efficiency and reduce the side effects of cancer therapy. Pt-based materials play a key role in clinical research. Thus, the diagnostic and medical industries are exploring the possibility of using PtNPs as a next-generation anticancer therapeutic agent. Although, biologically prepared nanomaterials exhibit high efficacy with low concentrations, several factors still need to be considered for clinical use of PtNPs such as the source of raw materials, stability, solubility, the method of production, biodistribution, accumulation, controlled release, cell-specific targeting, and toxicological issues to human beings. The development of PtNPs as an anticancer agent is one of the most valuable approaches for cancer treatment. The future of PtNPs in biomedical applications holds great promise, especially in the area of disease diagnosis, early detection, cellular and deep tissue imaging, drug/gene delivery, as well as multifunctional therapeutics

Quality perspective to waste management systems “Study of stakeholders”

Environmental aspects have been intentioned more in recent years and the wasteproblem has a great impact in this matter. Due to this fact, waste management systems havebeen developed and new waste treatment methods as well as waste recovery and reductionhave been introduced. These methods are focused on preserving the environment as a coreissue. Despite of high effort and investment in waste management system, the environment isfaced with large impact due to high amount of landfill. This problem is a worldwide issue andcan be seen both in developed and developing countries.In this research, quality and environmental management system planning in wastemanagement has been analysed through stakeholders’ analysis. Waste management systemshave been investigated in two cities, one in the Middle East and another in Scandinavia.Results of this research show that stakeholders’ analysis can be applied into qualitymanagement system planning in order to ensure municipalities and waste managementcompanies to set SMART quality objectives which meet all stakeholders’ requirements. Thisapproach is recommended to be used in technology transfer projects.Stakeholders- QE management model proposed in this research, defines the role ofstakeholders’ analysis into quality and environmental management system planning

The Effectiveness of Citizenship Education on Employees of Bojnourd Municipality and Its Effects on Social Responsibility, Social Skills and Environmental Skills

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of citizenship education on social responsibility, social skills and environmental skills of Bojnourd municipality employees in 2018. The present study is an applied research and the method is quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test and control group design. The statistical population is all 810 employees working in Bojnourd municipality and 60 employees were selected through simple random sampling.  They were divided into two groups of 30 people, experimental and control group. Then, pretest was taken from both groups, and after 12 sessions of citizenship education for the experimental group, post-test was taken from both groups.  For collecting pre-test and post-test data, Matson's social skills (1983), Imamqoli environmental behavior (2011) and accountability subscale NEO's five personality traits (1985) questionnaires were used. The validity of the questionnaires was of a formal and content type approved by the professors and experts. The reliability of Matson's social skills questionnaire was 0.859, the environmental behavior questionnaire 0.899 and the NEO five-personality trait questionnaire was 0.821. To analyze the collected data, descriptive statistics (frequency distribution, mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (confirmatory factor analysis) and SPSS 22 and PLS 3 software were used. Comparison of pre-test and post-test in the control group showed that there was no significant change in the data. By comparing the pre-test and post-test in the experimental group, the change of each factor was determined that all three variables had a more factor load in the post-test state. According to the results of factor analysis in the post-test stage on the experimental group, citizenship education had the greatest impact on social responsibility

Accuracy of Emergency Severity Index, Version 4 in emergency room patients’ classification

Introduction: Emergency Severity Index Version 4 (ESI v.4) is a validated triage tool for emergency departments, with an easy training system optimizing the allocation of limitedresources to emergency patients. The present study aimed to determine the outcomes of triagewith ESI v.4 method in all five levels of patients triage in emergency departments. Methods: In this retrospective observational-descriptive study, following the training coursesand implementation of triage with ESI v.4 method, the third quarter of 2008 was randomly selected for study. In this period, all patient files with their codes ending in zero were selectedequaling one-tenth of all files. Triage levels and outcomes were extracted and the obtaineddata from 1309 were expressed using descriptive statistics. Results: The mean age of the patients was 40.73 ± 21.37 years and 59.4% of the subjects weremales. Classification of patients by ESI v.4 level was as the following: 1 (4.0%), 2 (11.6%), 3 (52.8%), 4 (25.5%) and 5 (6.1%). Hospitalization rate by ESI v.4 level was as below: 1(80.76%), 2 (23.68%), 3 (25.75%), 4 (11.76%) and 5 (14.5%). Conclusion: The rate of hospitalization decreased from ESI level 1 to ESI level 5. Althoughthe findings of this study were in line with the previous reports, some discrepancies indicated the existing inaccuracy in out-patient hospitalization system in the evening and night shiftsand also at stage 5 triage level

Design, optimization and characterization of a novel antibacterial chitosan-based hydrogel dressing for promoting blood coagulation and full-thickness wound healing: A biochemical and biophysical study

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