COVID 19 in a traumatic thoracic aortic injury patient

The number of traumatic thoracic aortic injuries being treated by endovascular procedures is on the rise. Coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected healthcare systems worldwide and was declared a global pandemic by the world health organization (WHO) in March 2020. In this study, we discuss a 37-year-old man with thoracic aorta trauma caused by a motor–vehicle accident that underwent Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) and was incidentally diagnosed with concurrent COVID-19. During this pandemic period, physicians should be on the lookout for COVID-19 with low thresholds for testing, as a timely diagnosis will improve patient outcomes and reduce the risk of transmission. A delay in diagnosis puts the patients at risk of not receiving effective treatment and may result in the transmission of infection to hospital staff, environment (i.e. operating rooms and equipment), and other members of the community

The maintenance effect of β-amyloid injection in the CA1 region of hippocampus on learning and spatial memory in adult male rats

Background: Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases that lead to the progressive loss of mental, behavioral and learning abilities. The aim of this study was to investigate the maintenance effect of β-amyloid1-42 (Aβ) injection in the CA1 region of hippocampus on learning and spatial memory of adult male rats using the Morris water maze test. Materials and Methods: In this study, 42 adult male Wistar rats were randomly divided into control (intact), sham (Aβ solvent) and Aβ-injected groups (5 μg/μl). The β-amyloid and its solvent were bilaterally injected into the CA1 region of rats' hippocampus. The first recipient group of Aβ and its solvent after 6, the second group after 11 and the third groups after 31 days were trained by the Morris water maze test. Results: During 4 training days and also in probe and visible tests, there was no significant difference between control and sham groups. The results of the learning steps in Aβ groups showed that traveled distance and escape latency to find the hidden platform was significantly increased compared with the sham groups, but there was no significant difference in the probe and visible tests between these groups. Conclusion: It seems that long exposure to Aβ can lead to more memory and learning loss in animals with Alzheimer

Antecedents of Career Development Success: Insights into 10 years of Research

This paper intends to review a flow of previous literature on the antecedents of career development success over ten years, from 2008 to 2018. A systematic literature review has been employed to extract the constitution of literature. A total of 41 relevant articles have been extracted from 16 different top ranked journals. Drawing on the literature, a conceptual model is provided as a clear depiction of what has been studied. Specifically, dependent, independents, mediators, and moderators variables are determined. The systematic literature review identifies six main themes; leadership, organizational and individual commitment, talent management, human resources management practices, career management strategy, and learning and development, determining antecedents of career development success. Literature in this area have offered much attention to both of the Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. The paper advances the career development literature by presenting one of the fewest attempt to systematically review antecedent of career development, with a conceptual framework

A Universal Anti-Spoofing Approach for Contactless Fingerprint Biometric Systems

With the increasing integration of smartphones into our daily lives, fingerphotos are becoming a potential contactless authentication method. While it offers convenience, it is also more vulnerable to spoofing using various presentation attack instruments (PAI). The contactless fingerprint is an emerging biometric authentication but has not yet been heavily investigated for anti-spoofing. While existing anti-spoofing approaches demonstrated fair results, they have encountered challenges in terms of universality and scalability to detect any unseen/unknown spoofed samples. To address this issue, we propose a universal presentation attack detection method for contactless fingerprints, despite having limited knowledge of presentation attack samples. We generated synthetic contactless fingerprints using StyleGAN from live finger photos and integrating them to train a semi-supervised ResNet-18 model. A novel joint loss function, combining the Arcface and Center loss, is introduced with a regularization to balance between the two loss functions and minimize the variations within the live samples while enhancing the inter-class variations between the deepfake and live samples. We also conducted a comprehensive comparison of different regularizations' impact on the joint loss function for presentation attack detection (PAD) and explored the performance of a modified ResNet-18 architecture with different activation functions (i.e., leaky ReLU and RelU) in conjunction with Arcface and center loss. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the model using unseen types of spoof attacks and live data. Our proposed method achieves a Bona Fide Classification Error Rate (BPCER) of 0.12\%, an Attack Presentation Classification Error Rate (APCER) of 0.63\%, and an Average Classification Error Rate (ACER) of 0.37\%

Predicting the theory of mind precursors based on parenting styles and language skills in preschool children

Objective The aim of this study was to examine the association between language skills and parenting styles and three levels of theory of mind in Iranian preschool children. Materials & Methods The sample consisted of 98 preschool Iranian children (aged 5-6) from Karaj province, Iran. While theory of mind test and test of language development (Told-p: 4) were administrated with children, their mothers were asked to answer a parenting style questionnaire. Results Multivariate regression analysis showed a differential relationship between three levels of theory of mind, language skills and parenting styles. The results indicated that the theory of mind were predicted by most of the language skills and permissiveness parenting styles (P < 0. 01). False belief understanding was predicted only by morphological completion (p < 0.01). In addition, word articulation and authoritative parenting style were observed to predict ability to understand second order theory of mind (R2 = 28%). Conclusion The pattern of relationships between language and theory of mind in Persian language seems similar to previous studies in other languages. Language may play a dual role in theory of mind, such that; whereas for the first (basic) and the third (advanced) levels of theory of mind, language skills (such as relational vocabulary, morphological completion and word articulation) are among of those important prerequisites, for the medium level (false belief), syntactical skills are mostly important. In addition, it seems that authoritative parenting styles could facilitate the development of higher-order abilities related to theory of mind. &nbsp

Prevalence and Management of Gastric Leakage After Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy: A Case Study in Modarres Hospital, Tehran, Iran

Background: Sleeve gastrectomy is an effective procedure for weight loss. However, some serious complications may occur during this operation such as strictures, bleeding, and leak. According to previous studies, the rate of leak was 1.06%. Using endoscopic stents have been hampered by some drawbacks the most important of which is repeated migration. The current study aimed to discuss the prevalence and management of leak after laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy operated at Modarres Hospital, Tehran, Iran.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on patients with morbid obesity undergone laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy at Modarres Hospital, Tehran, Iran. In addition to the patients’ demographic data; their leak complications, first symptoms and signs, WBC count, and method of management were extracted and collected from their medical files. Results: A total number of 1263 patients were enrolled in this study. Of them 8(0.63%) patients suffered from leak after the operation. The mean (SD) age of patients with leak was 32.33(6.02) year. The mean (SD) BMI of patients with leak was 45.75(2.07) kg/m2. The mean (SD) of WBC count of the patients with leak was 13680(7272.68). The symptoms of the patients began on different days (3-240 day). Management of the patients was different but most of the patients underwent endoscopic stent.Conclusion: It seems that stent insertion is a useful method for treatment of leak after sleeve gastrectomy, especially in immediate leak

Computed Tomography Angiography-Based Evaluation of Anatomical Variations of the Celiac Trunk and Renal Arteries

Background: The abdominal aorta and its main branches, such as the celiac trunk and the renal arteries are manipulated during various radiologic, surgical, and oncologic procedures. This study aimed at evaluating the anatomical pattern of these vessels to assist surgeons and radiologists reduce the risk of intra- as well as postoperative complications. Methods: A retrospective analysis of 536 Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) studies of living potential kidney donors was conducted from January 2012 to December 2018.Results: The anatomical variations of the celiac trunk was found in 9.5% of the cases. Among these cases, the most frequent variation was the Left Gastric Artery (LGA) as the first branch of the celiac trunk (80.4% of the cases). Gender was not overall significantly associated with the variations of the celiac trunk (P=0.670); however, there was a significant correlation between male gender and the most prevalent form of the celiac trunk variation (P=0.004). Variations of the renal artery occurred in 22.94% of the cases, with the left accessory renal artery being the most common variant (28.45% of the cases). Gender and the involved side (right / left) were not significantly related to the renal artery variations (P=1.000 & P=0.546, respectively). No concomitant variation of the celiac trunk and the renal artery was detected in our study. Conclusion: The anatomical variations of the celiac trunk and the renal arteries occur commonly; thus, the branching pattern of these arteries should be assessed prior to any procedure concerning them

Acute lower Limb Ischemia Caused by Fungal Infective Atrial Thrombus: A Case Report

Introduction: Septic thromboemboli have two consequences, ischemic and infection. In this paper we discuss a case with acute lower limb ischemia caused by fungal infective atrial thrombus. The patient underwent an anticoagulant therapy. Case presentation:                 A 43-year-old female patient who suffered from valvular heart disease (history of mitral and tricuspid valve replacement) was referred to the vascular surgery department of Modarres hospital with acute left limb ischemia. She underwent a successful emergency surgical thrombectomy. The pathological report of thrombus demonstrated fungal infection.  Conclusion: After surgical thrombectomy to control the acute lower limb ischemia, antimicrobial treatment of septic emboli is necessary

Context-specific gene regulatory networks subdivide intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Breast cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease with respect to molecular alterations and cellular composition making therapeutic and clinical outcome unpredictable. This diversity creates a significant challenge in developing tumor classifications that are clinically reliable with respect to prognosis prediction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This paper describes an unsupervised context analysis to infer context-specific gene regulatory networks from 1,614 samples obtained from publicly available gene expression data, an extension of a previously published methodology. We use the context-specific gene regulatory networks to classify the tumors into clinically relevant subgroups, and provide candidates for a finer sub-grouping of the previously known intrinsic tumors with a focus on Basal-like tumors. Our analysis of pathway enrichment in the key contexts provides an insight into the biological mechanism underlying the identified subtypes of breast cancer.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The use of context-specific gene regulatory networks to identify biological contexts from heterogenous breast cancer data set was able to identify genomic drivers for subgroups within the previously reported intrinsic subtypes. These subgroups (contexts) uphold the clinical relevant features for the intrinsic subtypes and were associated with increased survival differences compared to the intrinsic subtypes. We believe our computational approach led to the generation of novel rationalized hypotheses to explain mechanisms of disease progression within sub-contexts of breast cancer that could be therapeutically exploited once validated.</p

Unmet family planning needs among female refugees and asylum seekers in Germany – is free access to family planning services enough? Results of a cross-sectional study

Background: After the 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights, access to family planning services became a human right. Such a service is of central importance to women's empowerment and is empirically needed to provide adequate healthcare. For registered refugees and asylum seekers in Germany complementary family planning services, including all forms of contraception, are free of charge. Yet, the success of these services remains unclear. The aim of this study is to describe the current reproductive health status of female refugees and to provide an initial overview of their existing unmet family planning and contraception needs. Methods: Over the course of 2 years, from December 2015 to December 2017, a set of 50 female-only discussion groups were conducted in community shelters for registered refugees in Berlin. A total of 410 women between the ages of 14 and 74 participated. A convenience sampling strategy was then applied and a total of 307 semi-structured questionnaires covering 41 items related to demographic data and women's health were distributed to volunteering female participants over the age of 17. The statistical analysis of the questionnaires was performed using SPSS (IBM, PASW, Version 24). P-values less than or equal to 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Of the 307 participants, the majority were from Syria and Afghanistan (30% respectively). The mean age was 33 years (range: 18-63). On average, each woman had 2.5 births (range: 0-10). Twenty-four women (8%) were pregnant and fifty-four of the women (18%) were trying to become pregnant. The majority of women were classified as "requiring contraception" (n = 195; 63%) of which 183 gave further information on if and how they used family planning methods. The calculated unmet need for family planning in this group was 47%. Of the remaining 53% of the women who used contraception, many utilised "traditional" methods (34% withdrawal method; 8% calendar method) which have a pearl index of 4-18 and can therefore be classified as rather insufficient birth control methods. Intrauterine contraceptive devices were used by 30%. Conclusion: Our study revealed that despite the provision of complementary family planning services, there remains unmet family planning and education needs in the female refugee community in Berlin. This study indicates that there is a major access gap to these services. Further research needs to be carried out to evaluate the access gap and clearly identify and implement action plans to address possible causes such as language barriers, lack of childcare and traumatic experiences