The need for social support in adult patients with cancer

Background: Patients with cancer experience many emotional and psychological burdens as they encounter different disease stages and receive treatments. Social support plays a crucial role in the patients' function, emotions, and symptoms. The present study aimed to evaluate the viewpoint of adult patients with cancer about the role of social support to caring for them, describe their common social support demands, and discuss their experience different components of social support current situation that are available for older adults with cancer. Methods: Samples were selected from all adult patients hospitalized for at least 24 hours in a cancer referral center to receive the appropriate treatments. Among them, 12 patients who accepted to participate in the study were interviewed using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. Data analysis was performed by the qualitative content analysis approach. Results: According to the patients’ experiences, major social support concepts could be categorized as emotional, informational, and instrumental supports. They believed that social support needed to be enhanced in these three aspects, which each of them consisted of different needs. Conclusion: Patients with cancer are demanding social support, which could improve their psychological well-being and their quality of life. The health care providers need to pay attention to this demand, identify this need, and support the patients, properly

The Role of Ischemia Reperfusion Damage on Renal Transplant, what are the new treatments?

How to Cite This Article: Otukesh H, Hoseini R, Rahimzadeh N, Hosseini S, Ahmadpoor P, Javadi Larijani F. The role of Ischemia reperfusion damage on renal transplant, what are the new treatments? J Ped. Nephrology 2013 July;1(1):1-7.Ischemia reperfusion damage usually occurs after renal transplantation. These injuries can stimulate the innate immune system, trigger an inflammatory response and ultimately activate the adaptive immune system. These events may result in rejection, graft fibrosis and chronic allograft nephropathy. Different mechanisms contribute to innate immune system activation following ischemia reperfusion injury in renal transplants. Some of these mechanisms are known and described by investigators while the remaining are still unknown. To clarify the precise mechanisms underlying the innate immune system activation and rejection progression helps us to plan therapeutic protocols to reduce immunologic responses to ischemic events and to improve the graft function and outcome. In this review, we will discuss how innate and adaptive immune systems are activated during an ischemic insult and thereafter discuss related therapeutic interventions to block the activating pathways. Keywords: Ischemia; Renal transplantation; Reperfusion

The Role of Antiepileptic Treatment in the Recurrence Rate of Seizures After First Attack: A Randomized Clinical Trial

How to Cite This Article: Assarzadegan F, Tabesh H, Hesami O, Derakhshanfar H, Beladi Moghadam N, Shoghli A, Beale A.D, Hosseini-Zijoud S.M. The Role of Antiepileptic Treatment in the Recurrence Rate of Seizures After First Attack: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Iran JChild Neurol. Spring 2015; 9(2):46-52.AbstractObjectiveEpilepsy is a serious, potentially life-shortening brain disorder that occurs in patients of all ages and races. A total of 2–4% of people have experienced seizures at least once in their lifetime. Although treatment usually begins after a seizure, it is an important question whether the first cases of seizure do need to be treated by antiepileptic drugs. In this manner, we compare the recurrence rates of epilepsy in first seizure patients treated with sodium valproic acid as an antiepileptic drug versus a placebo.Material & MethodsIn a randomized clinical trial study, 101 first seizure patients were randomly divided into two groups: one group was treated with antiepileptic drugs (sodium valproate 200mg, three times a day) and the other group was given a placebo.The recurrence rate of seizures was evaluated and compared between the groups after 6 months of follow up.ResultsEight recurrence cases were detected. All recurrence cases came from the placebo group, with four patients suffering an additional seizure after four months and between 4-6 month follow up. A comparison of recurrence rate detected a statistically significant difference between the drug group and placebo group.ConclusionOur data shows that the recurrences occurred only in the placebo group with the difference between the recurrence rates in the placebo versus drug-treated was significant. Our results suggest that drug therapy for people after their first seizure attack might reduce the probability of seizure recurrence

Design of a high-bandwidth tripod scanner for high speed atomic force microscopy

Tip-scanning high-speed atomic force microscopes (HS-AFMs) have several advantages over their sample-scanning counterparts. Firstly, they can be used on samples of almost arbitrary size since the high imaging bandwidth of the system is immune to the added mass of the sample and its holder. Depending on their layouts, they also enable the use of several tip-scanning HS-AFMs in combination. However, the need for tracking the cantilever with the readout laser makes designing tip-scanning HS-AFMs difficult. This often results in a reduced resonance frequency of the HS-AFM scanner, or a complex and large set of precision flexures. Here, we present a compact, simple HS-AFM designed for integrating the self-sensing cantilever into the tip-scanning configuration, so that the difficulty of tracking small cantilever by laser beam is avoided. The position of cantilever is placed to the end of whole structure, hence making the optical viewing of the cantilever possible. As the core component of proposed system, a high bandwidth tripod scanner is designed, with a scan size of 5.8 µm × 5.8 µm and a vertical travel range of 5.9 µm. The hysteresis of the piezoactuators in X- and Y-axes are linearized using input shaping technique. To reduce in-plane crosstalk and vibration-related dynamics, we implement both filters and compensators on a field programmable analog array. Based on these, images with 512 × 256 pixels are successfully obtained at scan rates up to 1024 lines/s, corresponding to a 4 mm/stip velocity

Dip coating of silica layer on melt-spun Finemet ribbons: surface morphology and electrical resistivity changes

In this study, melt-spun Finemet ribbons were coated by a thin layer of SiO2 using dip coating method. Amorphous ribbon prepared by melt spinning method and dip coating were done by using a solution of tetraethylen orthosilicate as a SiO2 precursor, ethanol as solvent and distilled water for hydrolysis. Different thicknesses of SiO2 layer, namely 304, 349, 451, 526 and 970 nm were obtained proportional to the number of dipping. Surface morphology and chemical composition of the coatings were analyzed by using Scanning Electron Microscope equipped with an energy dispersive spectroscope. The results clearly verified the presence of Si and O elements and confirmed the presence of silica layer on the surface of all coated ribbons. Microstructure and surface morphology of samples showed a smooth and brittle layer. Electrical resistivity of the samples was measured with a standard four-point probe device. The results confirmed an intense in increase of resistivity. Average value of electrical resistivity for coated samples was around 104 Ω-m compared to 10-6 Ω-m for Finemet ribbons. Capacity of the samples was evaluated by electronic parameter analyzer device in two different frequencies of 100 kHz and 1000 kHz. Impedance measurements of coated samples in 100 and 1000 kHz showed an increase about 70 and 10 times respectively

Studying biological membranes with extended range high-speed atomic force microscopy

High-speed atomic force microscopy has proven to be a valuable tool for the study of biomolecular systems at the nanoscale. Expanding its application to larger biological specimens such as membranes or cells has, however, proven difficult, often requiring fundamental changes in the AFM instrument. Here we show a way to utilize conventional AFM instrumentation with minor alterations to perform high-speed AFM imaging with a large scan range. Using a two-actuator design with adapted control systems, a 130 x 130 x 5 mu m scanner with nearly 100 kHz open-loop small-signal Z-bandwidth is implemented. This allows for high-speed imaging of biologically relevant samples as well as high-speed measurements of nanomechanical surface properties. We demonstrate the system performance by real-time imaging of the effect of charged polymer nanoparticles on the integrity of lipid membranes at high imaging speeds and peak force tapping measurements at 32 kHz peak force rate

A hybrid polymer/ceramic/semiconductor fabrication platform for high-sensitivity fluid-compatible MEMS devices with sealed integrated electronics

Active microelectromechanical systems can couple the nanomechanical domain with the electronic domain by integrating electronic sensing and actuation mechanisms into the micromechanical device. This enables very fast and sensitive measurements of force, acceleration, or the presence of biological analytes. In particular, strain sensors integrated onto MEMS cantilevers are widely used to transduce an applied force to an electrically measurable signal in applications like atomic force microscopy, mass sensing, or molecular detection. However, the high Young's moduli of traditional cantilever materials (silicon or silicon nitride) limit the thickness of the devices, and therefore the deflection sensitivity that can be obtained for a specific spring constant. Using softer materials such as polymers as the structural material of the MEMS device would overcome this problem. However, these materials are incompatible with high-temperature fabrication processes often required to fabricate high quality electronic strain sensors. We introduce a pioneering solution that seamlessly integrates the benefits of polymer MEMS technology with the remarkable sensitivity of strain sensors, even under high-temperature deposition conditions. Cantilevers made using this technology are inherently fluid compatible and have shown up to 6 times lower force noise than their conventional counterparts. We demonstrate the benefits and versatility of this polymer/ceramic/semiconductor multi-layer fabrication approach with the examples of self-sensing AFM cantilevers, and membrane surface stress sensors for biomolecule detection

Digitally controlled analog proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller for high-speed scanning probe microscopy

Nearly all scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) contain a feedback controller, which is used to move the scanner in the direction of the z-axis in order to maintain a constant setpoint based on the tip-sample interaction. The most frequently used feedback controller in SPMs is the proportional-integral (PI) controller. The bandwidth of the PI controller presents one of the speed limiting factors in high-speed SPMs, where higher bandwidths enable faster scanning speeds and higher imaging resolution. Most SPM systems use digital signal processor-based PI feedback controllers, which require analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters. These converters introduce additional feedback delays which limit the achievable imaging speed and resolution. In this paper, we present a digitally controlled analog proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. The controller implementation allows tunability of the PID gains over a large amplification and frequency range, while also providing precise control of the system and reproducibility of the gain parameters. By using the analog PID controller, we were able to perform successful atomic force microscopy imaging of a standard silicon calibration grating at line rates up to several kHz