Using Rasch rating scale model to reassess the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Scales in school children

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Item response theory (IRT) is extensively used to develop adaptive instruments of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). However, each IRT model has its own function to estimate item and category parameters, and hence different results may be found using the same response categories with different IRT models. The present study used the Rasch rating scale model (RSM) to examine and reassess the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the PedsQL^TM4.0 Generic Core Scales.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The PedsQL^TM4.0 Generic Core Scales was completed by 938 Iranian school children and their parents. Convergent, discriminant and construct validity of the instrument were assessed by classical test theory (CTT). The RSM was applied to investigate person and item reliability, item statistics and ordering of response categories.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The CTT method showed that the scaling success rate for convergent and discriminant validity were 100% in all domains with the exception of physical health in the child self-report. Moreover, confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor model similar to its original version. The RSM showed that 22 out of 23 items had acceptable infit and outfit statistics (<1.4, >0.6), person reliabilities were low, item reliabilities were high, and item difficulty ranged from -1.01 to 0.71 and -0.68 to 0.43 for child self-report and parent proxy-report, respectively. Also the RSM showed that successive response categories for all items were not located in the expected order.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study revealed that, in all domains, the five response categories did not perform adequately. It is not known whether this problem is a function of the meaning of the response choices in the Persian language or an artifact of a mostly healthy population that did not use the full range of the response categories. The response categories should be evaluated in further validation studies, especially in large samples of chronically ill patients.</p

Anti-platelet aggregation assay and chemical composition of essential oil from Allium atroviolaceum Boiss growing in Iran.

Plants belonging to genera Allium have widely been acquired as food and medicine. Their wide use was mainly due to the medicinal properties attributed to these plants over the centuries, lately supported by epidemiological and research studies. In this study, essential oil constituents of Allium atroviolaceum growing in Shahr-e-kord, Iran, were investigated through gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique. In this essential oil two major constituents were trisulfide, di-2-propenyl (26.85%) and diallyl disulphide (10.98%) while trans-2-(2- pentenyl) furan (0.02%) and Limonene (0.06%) have been identified in lower amounts. The in-vitro antiplatelet activity of essential oil was evaluated, using arachidonic acid (AA) and adenosine diphosphate (ADP) as the platelet aggregation inducers. The results showed that essential oil of Allium atroviolaceum with IC50; 0.25 mg/ml and 0.47 mg/ml inhibited in-vitro platelet aggregation induced by AA and ADP respectively

The effect of pre-pregnancy body mass index and gestational weight gain on pregnancy outcomes in urban care settings in Urmia-Iran

BACKGROUND: Nutritional status of women has been considered an important prognostic indicator of pregnancy outcomes. Few studies have evaluated patterns of weight gain and pre-pregnancy body mass index in developing regions where malnutrition and poor weight gain as well as maternal obesity have significant influences on the pregnancy outcome. This study aims to show effect of pregnancy body mass index and the corresponding gestational weight gain on the outcome of pregnancy. METHODS: On a prospective cross sectional study, two hundred and seventy women from urban areas of Northwest Iran were recruited for participation during their first eight weeks of pregnancy. Body mass index (BMI) was categorized and gestational weight gain was divided into two groups of normal and abnormal based on recommendations of Institute of Medicine (IOM) published in 1990. Chi square and one way ANOVA were used in the univariate analysis of the association between weight gain and corresponding adverse outcomes including cesarean, preterm labor and low neonatal birth weight. Adjusted odds ratios for adverse outcomes were determined by multiple logistic regression models, while controlling for the following factors: maternal age, parity, and education. RESULTS: Both pre-pregnancy BMI < 19 and abnormal weight gain during pregnancy were found to be associated with low neonatal birth weight defined as < 2500 g. Abnormal weight gain, during pregnancy was not related to an increased risk of preterm labor or cesarean delivery but it was highly associated with low birth weight (LBW)(P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Low pre-pregnancy BMI is an established risk factor for LBW. Abnormal gestational weight gain may further complicate the pregnancy as an additional risk factor for neonatal LBW. All women, regardless of their pre-pregnancy BMI may be at risk for abnormal weight gain and hence low birth weight. Pre-pregnancy and gestation nutritional assessments remain significant part of all prenatal visits

Evaluation of Anti-Platelet Aggregation Effect of Some Allium Species

Epidemiologic studies show that the cardiovascular diseases are associated with multiple factors such as raised serum total cholesterol, increased LDL, increased platelet aggregation, hypertension and smoking. In-vitro studies have confirmed the ability of some plants of Allium species to reduce these parameters. Therefore, we evaluated anti-platelet aggregation effect of some Allium species (Allium ampeloprasum, A. hirtifolium, A. haemanthoides, A. vavillovi, A. atroviolaceum, A. jesdianum, A. shelkovnikovii) using arachidonic acid (AA) and adenosine diphosphate (ADP) as platelet aggregation inducers. The screening results for methanolic extract of Allium species showed that the maximum effect of anti-platelet aggregation was related to A. atroviolaceum. This extract inhibited the in-vitro platelet aggregation induced by AA and ADP with IC50 values of 0.4881 (0.4826-0.4937) mg/ml and 0.4945 (0.4137-0.5911) mg/ml respectively. These results support the hypothesis that the dietary intake of Allium could be beneficial for prevention of cardiovascular diseases

The Use of Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) for the Treatment of Vascular Lesions

 According to the English literature, various lasers and light sources (i,g. argon ion lasers, pulsed KTP lasers, diode lasers and Nd:YAG lasers, pulsed dye laser(PDL), intense pulsed light sources (IPLS) are applicable for the treatment of different vascular lesions. These conditions are the most important indication for laser therapy. This review summarizes the current literature on IPL with regard to the treatment of vascular lesion

Assessment of Differential Item Functioning in Health-Related Outcomes: A Simulation and Empirical Analysis with Hierarchical Polytomous Data

Background. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two methods of detecting differential item functioning (DIF) in the presence of multilevel data and polytomously scored items. The assessment of DIF with multilevel data (e.g., patients nested within hospitals, hospitals nested within districts) from large-scale assessment programs has received considerable attention but very few studies evaluated the effect of hierarchical structure of data on DIF detection for polytomously scored items. Methods. The ordinal logistic regression (OLR) and hierarchical ordinal logistic regression (HOLR) were utilized to assess DIF in simulated and real multilevel polytomous data. Six factors (DIF magnitude, grouping variable, intraclass correlation coefficient, number of clusters, number of participants per cluster, and item discrimination parameter) with a fully crossed design were considered in the simulation study. Furthermore, data of Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) 4.0 collected from 576 healthy school children were analyzed. Results. Overall, results indicate that both methods performed equivalently in terms of controlling Type I error and detection power rates. Conclusions. The current study showed negligible difference between OLR and HOLR in detecting DIF with polytomously scored items in a hierarchical structure. Implications and considerations while analyzing real data were also discussed

Synthesis, antifungal activity and docking study of 2-amino-4Hbenzochromene-3-carbonitrile derivatives

Pathogenic fungi are associated with diseases ranging from simple dermatosis to life-threatening infections, particularly in immunocompromised patients. During the past two decades, resistance to established antifungal drugs has increased dramatically and has made it crucial to identify novel antimicrobial compounds. Here, we selected 12 new compounds of 2-amino-4H-benzochromene-3-carbonitrile drivetives (C1- C12) for synthesis by using nano-TiCl4.SiO2 as efficient and green catalyst, then nine of synthetic compounds were evaluated against different species of fungi, positive gram and negative gram of bacteria. Standard and clinical strains of antibiotics sensitive and resistant fungi and bacteria were cultured in appropriate media. Biological activity of the 2-amino-4H-benzochromene-3-carbonitrile derivatives against fungi and bacteries were estimated by the broth micro-dilution method as recommended by clinical and laboratory standard institute (CLSI). In addition minimal fangicidal and bactericial concenteration of the compounds were also determined. Considering our results showed that compound 2-amino-4-(4-methyl benzoate)-4H-benzo[f]chromen-3-carbonitrile (C9) had the most antifungal activity against Aspergillus clavatus, Candida glabarata, Candida dubliniensis, Candida albicans and Candida tropicalis at concentrations ranging from 8 to �128 mg/ mL. Also compounds 2-amino-4-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-4H-benzo[f]chromen-3-carbonitrile (C4) and 2- amino-4-(4-isopropylphenyl)-4H-benzo[f]chromen-3-carbonitrile (C3) had significant inhibitory activities against Epidermophyton floccosum following 2-amino-4-(4-methylbenzoate)-4H-benzo[f]chromen- 3-carbonitrile (C9), respectively. Docking simulation was performed to insert compounds C3, C4 and C9 in to CYP51 active site to determine the probable binding model

Targeting alternative splicing by RNAi: From the differential impact on splice variants to triggering artificial pre-mRNA splicing

Alternative splicing generates multiple transcript and protein isoforms from a single gene and controls transcript intracellular localization and stability by coupling to mRNA export and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). RNA interference (RNAi) is a potent mechanism to modulate gene expression. However, its interactions with alternative splicing are poorly understood. We used artificial microRNAs (amiRNAs, also termed shRNAmiR) to knockdown all splice variants of selected target genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. We found that splice variants, which vary by their protein-coding capacity, subcellular localization and sensitivity to NMD, are affected differentially by an amiRNA, although all of them contain the target site. Particular transcript isoforms escape amiRNA-mediated degradation due to their nuclear localization. The nuclear and NMD-sensitive isoforms mask RNAi action in alternatively spliced genes. Interestingly, Arabidopsis SPL genes, which undergo alternative splicing and are targets of miR156, are regulated in the same manner. Moreover, similar results were obtained in mammalian cells using siRNAs, indicating cross-kingdom conservation of these interactions among RNAi and splicing isoforms. Furthermore, we report that amiRNA can trigger artificial alternative splicing, thus expanding the RNAi functional repertoire. Our findings unveil novel interactions between different post-transcriptional processes in defining transcript fates and regulating gene expression.Fil: Fuchs, Armin. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Riegler, Stefan. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Ayatollahi, Zahra. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Cavallari, Nicola. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Giono, Luciana Eugenia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Nimeth, Barbara A.. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences ; AustriaFil: Mutanwad, Krishna V.. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences ; AustriaFil: Schweighofer, Alois. Universidad de Viena; AustriaFil: Lucyshyn, Doris. Universitat Fur Bodenkultur Wien; AustriaFil: Barta, Andrea. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences ; AustriaFil: Petrillo, Ezequiel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Kalyna, Maria. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences ; Austri