Prevalence of Hyponatremia in Intensive Care Unit Patients With Brain Injury in Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Kashan During 2012

Background: Hyponatremia is a common disorder in patients with brain injury. It can result in acute and chronic complications providing this electrolytic disorder is not diagnosed and treated in due time. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of hyponatremia in 95 patients with brain injury hospitalized in the intensive care unit in Shahid Beheshti hospital of Kashan University of Medical Sciences. Patients and Methods: This trans-sectional study was conducted on brain injury patients (brain traumas, brain hemorrhage, meningitis and brain tumors) during their six-month stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Shahid Beheshti hospital. The data was then analyzed after excluding cases of pseudohyponatremia. Results: Among the 95 patients with brain injury, mean age was 42.85 ± 22.59 years, while the hyponatremic patients had a mean age of 48.37 ± 24.03 years of which 69.5% were male and 30.5% were female. Prevalence and occurrence of hyponatremia were 31.6% and 9.29 ± 6.8 days, respectively. This study revealed no meaningful differences between age, sex, underlying disease and prevalence of hyponatremia. Conclusions: Our study showed an elevated frequency of hyponatremia in patients with brain injuries in the intensive care unit which demands effective approaches for accurate and timely diagnosis of this electrolyte disorder

Characterization of Iranian grapevine cultivars using microsatellite markers

Sixty-two grapevine (Vitis spp.) accessions from Iran and the USA were characterized at 9 highly polymorphic microsatellite loci using fluorescent primers and a capillary electrophoresis fragment sizing system. The number of alleles observed per locus ranged from 4 to 16 and heterozygosity values ranged from 0.47 to 0.86. Genetic similarity was estimated for each pair of accessions as the proportion of shared alleles. A phenogram constructed from genetic dissimilarity values revealed three clusters, one each for table grapes, wine grapes and rootstocks. The phenogram also revealed three clonal sets (Askari, Bidane and Yaghoti) as well as some synonyms and homonyms among Iranian table grape cultivars.

Evaluation of the Effect of Different Ferrule Designs on Fracture Resistance of Maxillary Incisors Restored with Bonded Posts and Cores

Introduction: In cases of severe hard tissue loss, 2 mm circumferential ferrule is difficult to achieve. So in these cases we should use different ferrule designs.This in vitro study investigated the effect of different ferrule designs on the fractureresistance of teeth restored with bonded post and cores.Materials and Methods: Forty freshly-extracted central incisors were endodontically treated. The teeth were randomly divided into four groups; group 1 were teeth with 2 mm circumferential ferrule above the CEJ, group 2 were teeth with 2 mm ferrule only on the palatal side of the teeth, group 3 consisted of teeth with 2 mm ferrule only on the facial side and group 4 were teeth with 2 mm ferrule on the palatal and facial side of teeth with interproximal concavities.All teeth were restored with fiber posts and composite cores. The specimen was mounted on a universal testing machine and compressive load was applied to the long axis of the specimen until failure occurred.Results: The fracture resistance was 533.79 ± 232.28 in group 1, 634.75± 133.35 in group 2, 828.90 ±118.27 in group 3 and 678.78± 160.20 in group 4. The post hoc analysis showed statistically significant difference between groups 1 and 3 .Conclusions: The results of this in vitro study showed that facial ferrule increases the fracture resistance of endodontically treated teeth restored with bonded post and cores

Bounded Verification with On-the-Fly Discrepancy Computation

Simulation-based verification algorithms can provide formal safety guarantees for nonlinear and hybrid systems. The previous algorithms rely on user provided model annotations called discrepancy function, which are crucial for computing reachtubes from simulations. In this paper, we eliminate this requirement by presenting an algorithm for computing piece-wise exponential discrepancy functions. The algorithm relies on computing local convergence or divergence rates of trajectories along a simulation using a coarse over-approximation of the reach set and bounding the maximal eigenvalue of the Jacobian over this over-approximation. The resulting discrepancy function preserves the soundness and the relative completeness of the verification algorithm. We also provide a coordinate transformation method to improve the local estimates for the convergence or divergence rates in practical examples. We extend the method to get the input-to-state discrepancy of nonlinear dynamical systems which can be used for compositional analysis. Our experiments show that the approach is effective in terms of running time for several benchmark problems, scales reasonably to larger dimensional systems, and compares favorably with respect to available tools for nonlinear models.Comment: 24 page

Trans- Obturator Tape (TOT) efficacy in management of stress urinary incontinence and the impact on quality of life: A study in 54 patients

Background: Stress urinary incontinence is a major confounding factor which impairs health quality in women. Some procedures cannot resolve it's impact on life quality. This study aims to assess a less common and newly method; use of transobturator tension- free vaginal tapes (TOT) in regard to short- term and long-term morbidity and impact on patient's quality of life (QOL). Methods: Fifty four patients diagnosed with urinary stress incontinence, underwent a transobturator tension free vaginal tape procedure with or whitout prolapse surgery. Pre and post operative quality of life assessed with Incontinence- specific Quality of Life questionnaire (I-QOL), and objective and subjective cure rate according to patients signs and symptoms before operation, early and late surgical complications like hemorrhage, Injury and/ or perforation of bladder, intestine, urethra and infection were mentioned. Results: The overall intraoperative and early post-operative complication rates were 5.5 and 3.7, respectively. No case of hematoma, bladder or bowel injury was seen. I-QOL scores were significantly higher after surgery. The mean I-QOL score were 23.6 and 64 before and after surgery respectively (p<0.0001). This improvement was independent of the concomitant pelvic floor repair surgery, menopause, underlying diseases, number of parity, body mass index (BMI) and age. The global rate of objective cure was 94.4 (p<0.0001). The majority of women were satisfied with the outcome. (subjective cure was 90.7- p<0.001). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the TOT approach in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence is a safe and effective procedure which promotes health quality of life

Favorable results after conservative management of 316 valproate intoxicated patients

Valproic acid (VPA) is an effective antiepileptic drug widely used worldwide. Despite several studies indicating the usefulness of intravenous L-carnitine in the treatment of VPA poisoning, this drug is not readily available in Iran. The aim of this study was to determine whether supportive care without antidote would result in acceptable outcomes in VPA poisoned patients. Materials and Methods: In an observational, retrospective, single-center case series, all patients &gt;12-year-old with VPA overdose who had referred to a tertiary center between 2009 and 2013 were consecutively enrolled. Patients� demographic and presenting features, physical examinations, clinical management, laboratory data, and outcomes were recorded. Results: A total of 316 patients were enrolled with pure VPA toxicity. The most common presenting signs/symptoms were drowsiness, nausea and vomiting, vertigo, and headache. In the course of the disease, 14 patients (4.4) were intubated and three (0.9) required hemodialysis with mean dialysis sessions of two. Fourteen patients were admitted to Intensive Care Unit, and seizures occurred in five. The initial level of consciousness was lower in patients with poor outcome. The median ingested dose of VPA in patients who required dialysis was significantly higher (20 vs. 6 g; P = 0.006). Multivariate analyses revealed that coma on presentation was associated with a worse outcome (P = 0.001; odds ratio = 61.5, 95 CI = 5.8-646.7). Conclusion: Prognosis of VPA poisoned patients appears to be good even with supportive care. According to our study, older age, ingestion of higher amounts of VPA and lower PCO2, HCO3, base excess, and CPK levels prone the patients to more severe toxicities in univariate analysis, but the main poor prognostic factor is coma on presentation in multivariate analysis. © 2015 Journal of Research in Medical Sciences

Mechanical properties of caco3 extracted from cockle shell with high density polyethylene (HDPE) for biomaterials in bone substitute application

This study was conducted to produce CaCO3 powder extracted from cockle shells as bioceramic materials which later combined with high density polyethylene (HDPE) as the polymer to produce composite as the final product. For CaCO3 clarification, the powder form of bioceramics was analyzed using FTIR, SEM and EDX analyses. Then, the composites produced were tested for mechanical properties via tensile and hardness tests. Firstly, the wasted cockle shells were all washed to remove dirts and soaked in regular water overnight before left to dry at room temperature. Then, they were all ground up between range 100 – 200 µm several times until the required size were obtained. The spectrum for FTIR showed identical result as previous work at reading 857.22cm-1 which represent vibrational bonds that can be attributed to the characteristics of external plane bending vibration of carbonate. After the confirmation, it was added to the melted HDPE to produce stronger composite via injection moulding method. Injection moulding process was to produce the sample into the shape of dumbbell to perform mechanical tests, tensile and hardness test with three parameters for each weight ratio. It could be concluded that pressure, velocity and temperature affecting the hardness of samples. In this research, the greatest value of Young’s modulus and maximum force which are 852.2 MPa and 271.457 kN, respectively. In conclusion, cockle shell could become great biomaterial as it provide good in mechanical properties. Furthermore, the source also abundantly available and with the fully usage of this waste to something more useful, it is able to reduce contamination to the earth. Then, the combination with any polymer is able to produce strong composite that could apply in any field. For this research, the composite is focus in biomaterial usage, especially in orthopaedic field for bone implant. For instance, CaCO3 are proved to be function at higher temperature, and further future works might be required to search the maximum temperature that this material could achieve

Energy performance and summer thermal comfort of traditional courtyard buildings in a desert climate

Courtyards have been traditionally used as a passive design strategy in desert climates. However, few studies have quantified the thermal performance of this building archetype. This paper explored the indoor and outdoor thermal conditions of a typical courtyard house in Iran. The study was performed in two phases. The first phase showed the effect of the position of the zones located in four sides of the courtyard on their indoor energy use and indoor thermal comfort. The results showed that the east and west sides of the courtyard require the highest cooling demand due to the solar radiation in summer time. Furthermore, maximum discomfort hours occurred in the east zone. In the second phase, hourly air temperature inside and outside of the courtyard were compared during the longest day of the year (21st of June). The results showed that inside of the courtyard was 1.2 °C cooler than the outside on average. Moreover, it was observed that the temperature fluctuations outside of the courtyard were higher than the inside. To sum up, the results showed that courtyards can provide a cooler microclimate in summer time