Treatment of Iron-deficiency Anemia in Patients with Subclinical Hypothyroidism

Subclinical hypothyroidism is a health state that is associated with hypercholesterolemia, infertility, iron-deficiency anemia, and poor obstetric outcome. This article summarizes the results of a prospective clinical investigation of whether treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism and iron-deficiency anemia with a combination of levothyroxine plus iron salt would be superior to each treatment alone

Correction to: "Comparative repair capacity of knee osteochondral defects using regenerated silk fiber scaffolds and fibrin glue with/without autologous chondrocyes during 36 weeks in rabbit model (Cell and Tissue Research, (2016), 364, 3, (559-572), 10.1007/s00441-015-2355-9)

In this paper, figure 1 and its associated text were erroneously identical to that of another article from our group (Mobini et al., 2016, Journal of Biomaterial Application, SAGE publications). Unfortunately, copyright permission to re-use figure 1 and its related data were not requested. The authors would like to apologize for any confusion caused in this regard. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

The Catalytic Effect of Mn2O3 Nanoparticles on the Ignition Reaction of Pyrotechnic of Ammonium Nitrate(V)/Thiourea

The non-isothermal TG/DSC technique has been used to study the kinetic triplet and heat of ignition reaction of ammonium nitrate(V) (AN)/thiourea (TU) pyrotechnic in the presence of Mn2O3 catalyst nanoparticles under an argon atmosphere at different heating rates (5 K·min−1, 10 K·min−1, 15 K·min−1 and 20 K·min−1). The activation energies for the ignition reaction of AN/TU were calculated using the non-isothermal isoconversional Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) and Friedman equations for different conversion fraction (α) values in the range 0.1-0.9. The pre-exponential factor and kinetic model were determined by means of the compensation effect and the selected model was confirmed by a nonlinear fitting method. The average activation energies in the absence and presence of 5 wt.% Mn2O3 nanoparticles were 110.1 kJ·mol−1 to 117.3 kJ·mol−1 for the reaction model A3 (g(α) = [−ln(1−α)]1/3), and 86.5 kJ·mol−1 to 101.8 kJ·mol−1 for the reaction model A4 (g(α) = [−ln(1−α)]1/4). The evolved heat (ΔH) of ignition reaction in the presence of Mn2O3 was about 4 times that in the absence of the nano-sized Mn2O3

An Evaluation of New Indices of Postural Sway in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Reduced joint proprioception plays an important role in the initiation and progression of the knee osteoarthritis. The present study aims to evaluate postural sway in three different positions and analyze its trends using relative indices. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 34 patients with knee osteoarthritis and 12 healthy people using selective sampling and convenience sampling. In order to evaluate the static equilibrium indices, patients were asked to sit on the force plate in three positions; Comfort Double Leg Standing (CDLS), Romberg Standing (RS) and Near Tandem Standing (NTS). The relative values of   and  were used to determine the changes in postural sway in RS and NTS positions relative to CDLS. FINDINGS: In CDLS position, the range and the standard deviation of lateral position in patients (0.019 ± 0.010 and 0.003±0.001, respectively) was lower than healthy people (0.051 ± 0.039 and 0.012 ± 0.010, respectively). In this position, the displacement range in the anterior-posterior direction in patients (0.110 ± 0.029) was also lower than healthy people (0.130 ± 0.027). In RS position, standard deviation and the velocity of center of pressure displacement in the patients group (0.016 ± 0.006 and 0.012 ± 0.004, respectively) was significantly higher than healthy people (0.012 ± 0.003 and 0.009 ± 0.002, respectively). On the contrary, the ratio of  and values was higher in patients group. CONCLUSION: Results of the study demonstrated that patients with more difficult positions (RS, NTS) have more sways than those with CDLS, especially in the lateral direction. Therefore, balancing and strengthening exercises are especially important in the lateral direction and in challenging situations

Kinetic Study of the Thermal Decomposition of Potassium Chlorate Using the Non-isothermal TG/DSC Technique

The non-isothermal TG/DSC technique has been used to study the kinetic triplet of the thermal decomposition of potassium chlorate at different heating rates (5, 10, 15 and 20 °C•min−1). The DSC results showed two consecutive broad exothermic peaks after melting. The first peak contains a shoulder indicating the presence of at least two processes. The overlapped peaks were resolved by a peak fitting procedure, and the three resolved peaks were used for evaluation of the kinetic triplet for each step. The TG results also showed two consecutive mass losses after melting. The kinetics of the mass loss processes were studied using resolved DTG peaks. The activation energies were calculated using the KAS model-free method. The pre-exponential factor and the best kinetic model for each step were determined by means of the compensation effect, and the selected models were confirmed by the nonlinear model fitting method. The average activation energies obtained from the DSC results were 237.3, 293.8, and 231.3 kJ•mol−1 for the three consecutive steps of thermal decomposition of KClO3. The activation energies were 231.0 and 239.9 kJ•mol−1 for the first and second mass loss steps. The Avrami-Erofeev of Ax/y with the function of g(α) = [−ln(1−α)]x/y (x/y = 5/4 and 3/2) was the most probable model for describing the reaction steps

Prevalence, risk factors and molecular evaluation of hepatitis E virus infection among pregnant women resident in the northern shores of Persian Gulf, Iran

Background Although Iran is reported to be an endemic country for hepatitis E virus (HEV), data on the prevalence of HEV infection among pregnant women are scarce and the epidemiology of HEV is unknown in most parts of the country. Therefore, this study was conducted to elucidate the prevalence, risk factors and genotypic pattern of HEV infection among pregnant women resident in the northern shores of Persian Gulf. This is the first report on the epidemiology of HEV infection among pregnant women in this territory. Methods From October 2016 to May 2017, 1331 pregnant women participated in this study. The mean age ± SD of participants was 27.93±5.7 years with a range of 14–45 years. Serum samples of pregnant women were screened for the presence of anti-HEV total antibodies, anti-HEV IgG and anti-HEV IgM using commercially available ELISA kits (DIA.PRO, Milan, Italy). All anti-HEV IgG and anti-HEV IgM positive samples were tested for HEV RNA using two independent reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays, targeting ORF2 and ORF3 of HEV genome. In addition, 92 anti-HEV seronegative samples as well as 50 pooled seronegative samples were evaluated by two independent RT-PCR assays for validation of results. Results Of the 1331 pregnant women, 84 women (6.3%, 95% CI: 5.1%-7.7%) were positive for anti-HEV antibodies, of which 83 women had anti-HEV IgG, and 11 women (0.83%, 95% CI: 0.47%-1.47%) had anti-HEV IgM. The highest rate of HEV seroprevalence was observed among Afghan immigrants (68.0%), uneducated pregnant women (46.51%) and those residents in Bushehr city (8.75%). All anti-HEV IgG and/or IgM positive samples were found to be negative for HEV RNA. In addition, all of the evaluated anti-HEV seronegative samples were negative for HEV RNA. HEV seropositivity among pregnant women was statistically associated with age, ethnicity, place of residence, number of pregnancies, and level of education. So that, low education levels, Afghan, residence in Bushehr city, age group >34 years, and more parities were risk factors for exposure to HEV. In contrast, HEV seropositivity was not associated with stage of gestation, history of abortion, and time of sampling. Conclusion The northern shores of Persian Gulf in Iran, with HEV seroprevalence of 6.3%, can be classified as an endemic geographical region for hepatitis E, and residents of Bushehr city, Afghan immigrants and uneducated women are the main at-risk populations in this territory. © 2018 Farshadpour et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited