The present paper aims at reviewing different shielding methods used for patients in medical imaging and investigating their merits and demerits. These techniques are generally classified into two ...groups including in-plane and out-of-plane shielding. Bismuth (Bi) shielding is a conventional in-plane shielding method used during CT examinations to protect radiosensitive organs. This method has reduced radiosensitive organs dose by about 34–68% during different CT examinations. However, it causes considerable degrading effects on image quality and for this reason AAPM recommended against its application in 2017. Recently, another in-plane shielding, named Saba shielding, introduced wherein all the shortcomings and deficits of Bi shielding have been resolved or fixed. Saba shielding reduces radiosensitive organs dose by about 50% without degrading image quality. Out-of-plane shields can decrease the patient dose by more than 55%. However, due to the low dose of the scattered radiation received by out-of-plane organs, in the case of applying out-of-plane shields such as gonad or thyroid shields, the risk and benefit of their usage should be evaluated.
Thomson orange is an important citrus verity which cultivated and produced widely in the north and south of Iran. The extra part of this production is stored in the common storage for several ...monthsespecially in the north area. The role of storage and fruit coating are important due to maintain the nutritional value and enhancing the 'Thomson' orange storage life. The aim of this study is to investigate the possibility of maintaining the fruit quality using coating treatments in common storage. Results showed that, the juice percentage declined with decreasing of weight loss in all treatments, but the fruits which treated by freezer bag had the highest juice percentage (38.4%) and the lowest weight loss (1.04 g). Weight loss in Citrus fruit depended on the length and storage temperature during storage and usually increased on low moisture conditions. Therefore, fruits which packed by polyethylene bags were resistance to water loss through surface peel as well as during storage.
Interoduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a major health problem in some parts of Iran,which exists as zoonotic and anthroponotic forms in different foci of the country.Following an epidemic of ...cutaneous leishmaniasis in Bafgh city,(Yazd province, centeral Iran),this study was carried out to determine the ecology of sandflies,reservoir hosts and human infection in 2005. Methods: This descriptive-crosss section study was done in the year 2005. Sandflies were collected biweekly from fixed sites of human dwellings and rodent burrows using 30 sticky (oiled) paper traps from the beginning to the active season. Rodents were caught in 20 live traps baited with cucumber biweekly.500 households (2123 persons) in the Bafgh city were randomly selected.All members of the selected households were examined clinically in the end of each season and forms were completed for each households during a house - to - house visit. Results: A total of 1784 sandflies (252from indoors and 1532 from outdoors) were collected. Six species were identified including Phlebotomus papatasi, P.mongolensis, Sergentomyia sintoni, S.theodori, S.dentata, S. baghdadis. The predominant species were P. papatasi in indoors(87.3%)and S.sintoni in rodent burrows (53%) in the studied areas. 39 M. libycus and 3 R.opimus were collected and examined. Both M. libycus and R.opimus were found to be infected with leishmania major.In the population of 2123 individuals in the Bafgh city, prevalence of scars and ulcers was 1.8% and 0.9% respectively. Conclusion: Based on this survey, L.major is the principal agent, M. libycus ,R.opimus are the reservoir hosts and P.papatasi is the probable vector of ZCL in Bafgh city because about 87.3% of indoor sandflies were of these species. Leishmania major was isolated from the caught rodents
Nowadays, manufacturing environments are faced with globalization that urges new necessities for manufacturing systems. These necessities have been considered from different perspectives, and ...Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is the most popular and effective system. However, considering the rapid rate of manufacturing globalization, traditional and current CIM solutions can be criticized by major deficiencies such as high complexity for resource allocation over the globe, global facility sharing, and the absence of an efficient way to handle lifecycle issues. Recently, Virtual CIM (VCIM) has been introduced as an effective solution to extend the traditional CIM solutions. This paper has investigated recent pieces of research associated with VCIM/CIM field in accordance with the necessity of todays' globalized manufacturing environment. The paper shows the lack of traditional and current CIM/VCIM solutions and, then, proposes an effective solution to cover them. Due to the complexity of designing such systems, this paper exploits Axiomatic Design (AD) theory as a promising tool in this field. This theory is applied to validate the suggested architectural solution and verify its performance and implementational aspects. The implementation of the architectural solution is considered based on ISO standards. Finally, the results approved the feasibility of the suggested solution for manufacturing system and its Implementational aspects.
Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of heart failure and death in the world, and the transplantation of the heart is an effective and viable choice for treatment despite presenting many ...disadvantages (most notably, transplant heart availability). To overcome this problem, cardiac tissue engineering is considered a promising approach by using implantable artificial blood vessels, injectable gels, and cardiac patches (to name a few) made from biodegradable polymers. Biodegradable polymers are classified into two main categories: natural and synthetic polymers. Natural biodegradable polymers have some distinct advantages such as biodegradability, abundant availability, and renewability but have some significant drawbacks such as rapid degradation, insufficient electrical conductivity, immunological reaction, and poor mechanical properties for cardiac tissue engineering. Synthetic biodegradable polymers have some advantages such as strong mechanical properties, controlled structure, great processing flexibility, and usually no immunological concerns; however, they have some drawbacks such as a lack of cell attachment and possible low biocompatibility. Some applications have combined the best of both and exciting new natural/synthetic composites have been utilized. Recently, the use of nanostructured polymers and polymer nanocomposites has revolutionized the field of cardiac tissue engineering due to their enhanced mechanical, electrical, and surface properties promoting tissue growth. In this review, recent research on the use of biodegradable natural/synthetic nanocomposite polymers in cardiac tissue engineering is presented with forward looking thoughts provided for what is needed for the field to mature.
With continual rapid developments in the biomedical field and understanding of the important mechanisms and pharmacokinetics of biological molecules, controlled drug delivery systems (CDDSs) have ...been at the forefront over conventional drug delivery systems. Over the past several years, scientists have placed boundless energy and time into exploiting a wide variety of excipients, particularly diverse polymers, both natural and synthetic. More recently, the development of nano polymer blends has achieved noteworthy attention due to their amazing properties, such as biocompatibility, biodegradability and more importantly, their pivotal role in controlled and sustained drug release in vitro and in vivo. These compounds come with a number of effective benefits for improving problems of targeted or controlled drug and gene delivery systems; thus, they have been extensively used in medical and pharmaceutical applications. Additionally, they are quite attractive for wound dressings, textiles, tissue engineering, and biomedical prostheses. In this sense, some important and workable natural polymers (namely, chitosan (CS), starch and cellulose) and some applicable synthetic ones (such as poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly-glycolic acid (PGA)) have played an indispensable role over the last two decades for their therapeutic effects owing to their appealing and renewable biological properties. According to our data, this is the first review article highlighting CDDSs composed of diverse natural and synthetic nano biopolymers, blended for biological purposes, mostly over the past five years; other reviews have just briefly mentioned the use of such blended polymers. We, additionally, try to make comparisons between various nano blending systems in terms of improved sustained and controlled drug release behavior.
This study, for the first time, reports the synthesis of CuO- and Cu2O nanoparticles (NPs) using the Salvia hispanica extract by a high-gravity technique. The original green synthesis procedure led ...to the formation of nanoparticles with promising catalytic and biological properties. The synthesized nanoparticles were fully characterized and their catalytic activity was evaluated through a typical Azide-Alkyne Cycloaddition (AAC) reaction. The potential antibacterial activity against gram positive (S. aureus) and gram negative (E. coli) bacteria were investigated. It was shown that the antibacterial properties were independent of the NP morphology as well as of the texture of the synthesis media. As a result, the presently synthesized nanoparticles showed very good photocatalytic and catalytic activities in comparison with the literature. From a biological perspective, they showed lower cytotoxicity in comparison with the literature, and also showed higher antioxidant and antibacterial activities. Thus, these present green CuO and Cu2O nanoparticles deserve further attention to improve numerous medical applications.
We consider several approaches to a design of a regional-to-continent-scale automatic pollen monitoring network in Europe. Practical challenges related to the arrangement of such a network limit the ...range of possible solutions. A hierarchical network is discussed, highlighting the necessity of a few reference sites that follow an extended observations protocol and have corresponding capabilities.
Several theoretically rigorous approaches to a network design have been developed so far. However, before starting the process, a network purpose, a criterion of its performance, and a concept of the data usage should be formalized. For atmospheric composition monitoring, developments follow one of the two concepts: a network for direct representation of concentration fields and a network for model-based data assimilation, inverse problem solution, and forecasting. The current paper demonstrates the first approach, whereas the inverse problems are considered in a follow-up paper.
We discuss the approaches for the network design from theoretical and practical standpoints, formulate criteria for the network optimality, and consider practical constraints for an automatic pollen network. An application of the methodology is demonstrated for a prominent example of Germany's pollen monitoring network. The multi-step method includes (i) the network representativeness and (ii) redundancy evaluation followed by (iii) fidelity evaluation and improvement using synthetic data.
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•A problem of a network design for automatic pollen atmospheric monitoring in Europe is considered•The paper analyses the features of the network oriented to a direct usage of observations for downstream services•Factors influencing locations and the number of monitoring sites are considered from theoretical and practical standpoints•The existing pollen network in Germany is assessed and a new network for automatic monitors is constructed on its basis
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