Since Dec. 2019 the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has infected millions and claimed life of several hundred thousand worldwide. However, so far no approved vaccine or drug therapy is available for ...treatment of virus infection. Convalescent plasma has been considered a potential modality for COVID-19 infection. One hundred eighty-nine COVID-19 positive patients including 115 patients in plasma therapy group and 74 patients in control group, registered in the hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 infection, entered this multi-center clinical study. Comparison of outcomes including all-cause mortality, total hospitalization days and patients’ need for intubation between the two patient groups shows that total of 98 (98.2 %) of patients who received convalescent plasma were discharged from hospital which is substantially higher compared to 56 (78.7 %) patients in control group. Length of hospitalization days was significantly lower (9.54 days) in convalescent plasma group compared with that of control group (12.88 days). Only 8 patients (7%) in convalescent plasma group required intubation while that was 20 % in control group. This clinical study provides strong evidence to support the efficacy of convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19 patients and recommends this treatment for management of these patients. Clinical efficacy, immediate availability and potential cost effectiveness could be considered as main advantages of convalescent plasma therapy.
Breast cancer (BC) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer mortality in women. As the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway is involved in a wide range ...of physiological functions of cells including growth, proliferation, motility, and angiogenesis, any alteration in this axis could induce oncogenic features; therefore, numerous preclinical and clinical studies assessed agents able to inhibit the components of this pathway in BC patients. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzed all the registered clinical trials investigating safety and efficacy of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR axis inhibitors in BC. Of note, we found that the trends of PI3K inhibitors in recent years were superior as compared with the inhibitors of either AKT or mTOR. However, most of the trials entering phase III and IV used mTOR inhibitors (majorly Everolimus) followed by PI3K inhibitors (majorly Alpelisib) leading to the FDA approval of these drugs in the BC context. Despite favorable efficacies, our analysis shows that the majority of trials are utilizing PI3K pathway inhibitors in combination with hormone therapy and chemotherapy; implying monotherapy cannot yield huge clinical benefits, at least partly, due to the activation of compensatory mechanisms. To emphasize the beneficial effects of these inhibitors in combined-modal strategies, we also reviewed recent studies which investigated the conjugation of nanocarriers with PI3K inhibitors to reduce harmful toxicities, increase the local concentration, and improve their efficacies in the context of BC therapy.
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•Fast and accurate detection of antimicrobial resistance in pathogens is highly needed.•Nutrient consumption can be monitored by IR-ATR as a simple and rapid indicator of bacterial ...susceptibility to antibiotics.•Several combinations of bacteria and antibiotics were used to demonstrate the utility of this method.•Principal component analysis was used to demonstrate how susceptible and resistant strains can be distinguished.
Fast and accurate detection of antimicrobial resistance in pathogens remains a challenge, and with the increase in antimicrobial resistance due to mis- and overuse of antibiotics, it has become an urgent public health problem. We demonstrate how infrared attenuated total reflection (IR-ATR) can be used as a simple method for assessment of bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics. This is achieved by monitoring the metabolic activities of bacterial cells via nutrient consumption and using this as an indicator of bacterial viability. Principal component analysis of the obtained spectra provides a tool for fast and simple discrimination of antimicrobial resistance in the acquired data. We demonstrate this concept using four bacterial strains and four different antibiotics, showing that the change in glucose concentration in the growth medium after 2 h, as monitored by IR-ATR, can be used as a spectroscopic diagnostic technique, to reduce detection time and to improve quality in the assessment of antimicrobial resistance in pathogens.
The safety of hydrogen generation process is a major concern. This paper discusses the quantitative analyzes of the risk imposed on neighborhood from the operation of a hydrogen generator using ...natural gas reforming process. For this purpose, after hazard identification, the frequency of scenarios was estimated using generic data. Quantitative risk assessment was applied for consequence modeling and risk estimation. The results revealed that, jet fire caused by a full bore rupture in Desulphurization reactor has the highest fatality (26person) and affects the largest area of 5102 m2. The lethality radius, maximum radiation and safe distance of this incident were 140 m, 370 kW/m2 and 225 m respectively. A full bore rupture in Reformer can lead to the most dangerous flash fire. In this incident the concentration of released material in LFL zone (area of 1483.17 m2) and ½ LEL zone (area of 1970.74 m2) were 61,125 ppm and 40,000 ppm respectively. QRA is a credible method to assess the risks of hydrogen generation process.
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► The process safety of hydrogen generation was analyzed. ► The risk imposed on neighborhood was determined. ► The risk was quantitatively assessed. ► Validated technique and instrumentation were applied. ► The safety of a hydrogen generation unit using natural gas reforming was assessed.
Eating behavior is an essential aspect of life that can have long-term effects on health outcomes. Nutrition literacy is crucial for better health and well-being. It empowers individuals to make ...informed decisions about their nutrition and take control of their eating habits.
This study aimed to assess the relationship between nutritional literacy and eating behavior among nursing students at the nursing faculties of Ardabil University of medical sciences.
A cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in Ardabil province, northwest Iran. The study collected data through simple random sampling at nursing schools in Ardabil province, with 224 nursing students participating. The study collected data from a demographic information form, the nutritional literacy self-assessment questionnaire for students (NL-SF12), and the adult eating behavior questionnaire (AEBQ). The data were analyzed using SPSS version 14.0 software.
Based on the results, nutritional literacy explains 44% of the variance in eating behavior and shows significant explanatory power in two sub-scales of eating behavior. The adjusted R
values for food approach and food avoidance scales were 0.33 and 0.27, respectively.
Given the significant relationship between nutritional literacy and eating behaviors among nursing students, nursing faculty managers and health policymakers should develop new public health strategies to increase nutritional literacy among nursing students.
The aim of the present study was to first fabricate an electrospun PVC nanofiber web and then assess its applicability in sampling and measuring the concentration of airborne crystalline silica by ...comparing analysis results with a commercial PVC membrane filter under different ranges of airborne silica concentration. A filtration performance comparison was also made between an electrospun PVC web with nano-sized fibers and a commercial PVC membrane filter. Overall, the measured concentration of silica by the electrospun webs was 1.022 times higher than that of the commercial PVC filter in all studied ranges of silica concentration and the nanofiber media had higher filtration efficiency and lower pressure drop compared to the PVC membrane filter. This can be considered to be due to the lower fiber diameter and greater porosity (obtained from the 2D SEM image) of the electrospun nanofiber webs. This makes them suited for air pollutant sampling and determining its airborne concentration.
Within water resources management, surface water area (SWA) variation plays a vital role in hydrological processes as well as in agriculture, environmental ecosystems, and ecological processes. The ...monitoring of long-term spatiotemporal SWA changes is even more critical within highly populated regions that have an arid or semi-arid climate, such as Iran. This paper examined variations in SWA in Iran from 1990 to 2021 using about 18,000 Landsat 5, 7, and 8 satellite images through the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud processing platform. To this end, the performance of twelve water mapping rules (WMRs) within remotely-sensed imagery was also evaluated. Our findings revealed that (1) methods which provide a higher separation (derived from transformed divergence (TD) and Jefferies–Matusita (JM) distances) between the two target classes (water and non-water) result in higher classification accuracy (overall accuracy (OA) and user accuracy (UA) of each class). (2) Near-infrared (NIR)-based WMRs are more accurate than short-wave infrared (SWIR)-based methods for arid regions. (3) The SWA in Iran has an overall downward trend (observed by linear regression (LR) and sequential Mann–Kendall (SQMK) tests). (4) Of the five major water basins, only the Persian Gulf Basin had an upward trend. (5) While temperature has trended upward, the precipitation and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), a measure of the country’s greenness, have experienced a downward trend. (6) Precipitation showed the highest correlation with changes in SWA (r = 0.69). (7) Long-term changes in SWA were highly correlated (r = 0.98) with variations in the JRC world water map.
This paper proposes a novel graphene‐based optical microelectromechanical systems MEMS accelerometer that is dependent on the intensity modulation and optical properties of graphene. The designed ...sensing system includes a multilayer graphene finger, a laser diode (LD) light source, a photodiode, and integrated optical waveguides. The proposed accelerometer provides several advantages, such as negligible cross‐axis sensitivity, appropriate linearity behavior in the operation range, a relatively broad measurement range, and a significantly wider bandwidth when compared with other important contributions in the literature. Furthermore, the functional characteristics of the proposed device are designed analytically, and are then confirmed using numerical methods. Based on the simulation results, the functional characteristics are as follows: a mechanical sensitivity of 1,019 nm/g, an optical sensitivity of 145.7 %/g, a resonance frequency of 15,553 Hz, a bandwidth of 7 kHz, and a measurement range of ±10 g. Owing to the obtained functional characteristics, the proposed device is suitable for several applications in which high sensitivity and wide bandwidth are required simultaneously.
It seems qualitative measurements of subjective reactions are not appropriate indicators to assess the effect of noise on cognitive performance.
In this study, quantitative and combined indicators ...were applied to study the effect of noise on cognitive performance.
A total of 54 young subjects were included in this experimental study. The participants' mental workload and attention were evaluated under different levels of noise exposure including, background noise, 75, 85 and 95 dBA noise levels. The study subject's EEG signals were recorded for 10 minutes while they were performing the IVA test. The EEG signals were used to estimate the relative power of their brain frequency bands.
Results revealed that mental workload and visual/auditory attention is significantly reduced when the participants are exposed to noise at 95 dBA level (P < 0.05). Results also showed that with the rise in noise levels, the relative power of the Alpha band increases while the relative power of the Beta band decreases as compared to background noise. The most prominent change in the relative power of the Alpha and Beta bands occurs in the occipital and frontal regions of the brain respectively.
The application of new indicators, including brain signal analysis and power spectral density analysis, is strongly recommended in the assessment of cognitive performance during noise exposure. Further studies are suggested regarding the effects of other psychoacoustic parameters such as tonality, noise pitch (treble or bass) at extended exposure levels.
In April 2020, an association between multisystem inflammatory syndromes (MIS-C) was observed in children with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection (SARS-CoV-2). Most patients had ...heart involvement alone, and most patients had pericardial effusion. This study aimed to express and emphasize cardiac involvement in pediatric patients with respiratory symptoms who were diagnosed with COVID-19.
This study was conducted in July 2021 in Kerman province, Southeastern Iran, during a notable surge in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. The study included 904 pediatric patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Data collection involved a comprehensive assessment of clinical symptoms and manifestations. Patients with fever lasting more than five days were admitted to the hospital. Echocardiography was utilized for cardiac involvement diagnosis, with 47 patients undergoing this diagnostic procedure.
Of the 904 patients, most of them had high fevers (74%). Fifty-five patients had a fever for more than five days and were hospitalized. Of the 47 patients who underwent echocardiography, 45 (81%) had heart involvement. In 75% of patients, pericardial effusion was the only cardiac involvement. Patients with pericardial effusion were treated with dexamethasone up to 3 mg every 8 h for 72 h.
MIS-C has a wide range of clinical symptoms. In cases where the fever is prolonged and there are gastrointestinal symptoms, physicians have clinical suspicion to diagnose this syndrome. Most cases of pericardial effusion are alone and improve with treatment with glucocorticosteroids.
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