Stabilization or increasing slope stability is commonly accomplished with piles. In this paper, a response surface method considering soil spatial variability and the seismic condition is ...successively carried out to propose a reliability-based design for the slope stabilized by one row of piles. Eight configurations of cylindrical and rectangular cross-section pre-stressed concrete piles were designed. Additionally, a parametric study was carried out to examine the effect of various parameters on the pile response and slope stability. According to the research, stabilizing piles should be placed in the upper-middle part of the slope, intersecting the critical slip surface to reach the highest reliability index. This study showed the optimal position of the pile varies with the value of the seismic coefficient. It was found that increasing the pile length becomes unnecessary after a specific size. This research showed the relationship between safety factor, reliability index, and pile reaction force for slopes using probabilistic slope stability design charts. It is demonstrated that the proposed equation can accurately estimate the system reliability index, failure probability, factor of safety, and pile reaction force. Finally, the findings of the research were compared to results from another researcher, and the results of this study showed a reasonable level of agreement.
Graphical abstract
Abstract
Background
Obesity is a multifaceted condition that impacts individuals across various age, racial, and socioeconomic demographics, hence rendering them susceptible to a range of health ...complications and an increased risk of premature mortality. The frequency of obesity among adolescent females in Iran has exhibited an increase from 6 to 9%, while among boys, it has risen from 2 to 7%. Due to the increasing prevalence and advancements in technology, the primary objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a smartphone-based app that would serve as an educational tool for parents about the matter of childhood overweight and obesity. Additionally, the app aimed to enhance parents’ capacity to effectively address and manage their children’s weight-related concerns.
Methods
The design of the present study is of an applied-developmental type. In the first phase, the content of related smartphone-based app was determined based on the needs identified in similar studies and the findings of a researcher-made questionnaire. The versions of the app were designed in the android studio 3 programming environment, using the Java 8 programming language and SQLite database. Then, in order to evaluate the app’s usability, ease of access, and different features, the standard usability evaluation questionnaire and the user satisfaction questionnaire (QUIS) were completed by the users.
Results
The developed app has five main sections: the main page, recommendation section (with eight parts), charts over the time, child psychology, and reminders for each user. The designed app was given to 20 people including nutritionists and parents with children under 18 years of age for conducting usability evaluation. According to the scores of participants about the usability evaluation of the app, it can be concluded that groups participating in the study could use the program, and they rated the app at a “good” level. Overall performance of the app, screen capabilities, terms and information of the program, learnability, and general features are scored higher than 7.5 out of 9.
Conclusion
By using this app, people can become familiar with the causes and symptoms of weight imbalance and manage their weight as best as possible. This app can be considered as a model for designing and creating similar broader systems and programs for the prevention, management, treatment and care of diseases, which aim to help control diseases as much as possible and increase the quality of life and reduce complications for be patients.
In Parkinson's disease, dopamine‐containing nigrostriatal neurons undergo profound degeneration. Tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) is the rate‐limiting enzyme in dopamine biosynthesis. TH increases in vitro ...formation of reactive oxygen species, and previous animal studies have reported links between cytosolic dopamine build‐up and oxidative stress. To examine effects of increased TH activity in catecholaminergic neurons in vivo, we generated TH‐over‐expressing mice (TH‐HI) using a BAC‐transgenic approach that results in over‐expression of TH with endogenous patterns of expression. The transgenic mice were characterized by western blot, qPCR, and immunohistochemistry. Tissue contents of dopamine, its metabolites, and markers of oxidative stress were evaluated. TH‐HI mice had a 3‐fold increase in total and phosphorylated TH levels and an increased rate of dopamine synthesis. Coincident with elevated dopamine turnover, TH‐HI mice showed increased striatal production of H2O2 and reduced glutathione levels. In addition, TH‐HI mice had elevated striatal levels of the neurotoxic dopamine metabolites 3,4‐dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde and 5‐S‐cysteinyl‐dopamine and were more susceptible than wild‐type mice to the effects of amphetamine and methamphetamine. These results demonstrate that increased TH alone is sufficient to produce oxidative stress in vivo, build up autotoxic dopamine metabolites, and augment toxicity.
This paper investigates the effect of increased activity of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), the rate‐limiting enzyme in catecholamine synthesis, in a novel line of TH over‐expressing mice. Past studies suggest that in synucleinopathies, early pathological changes can result in decreased TH regulation and increased activity. Here, we show that increased TH activity is sufficient to increase H2O2 and elevate levels of cysteinylated dopamine (Cys‐DA) and 3,4‐dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde (DOPAL)—respective autotoxic products of enzymatic and spontaneous dopamine oxidation—coincident with increased dopamine turnover. These findings suggest that TH dysregulation could present a source of dopamine‐related oxidative stress unique to cells most vulnerable in Parkinson's disease. This article is accompanied by an Editorial Highlight by Elisa Greggio (https://doi.org/10.1111/jnc.15442).
The main purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze Positive and significant impact of defining employee performance criteria with the objectives: evaluation, empowerment and career ...development on the job performance of Keshavarzi Bank of Iran employees with regard to the mediating role of employee participation. The present study was based on the purpose of applied research and in terms of the method was a descriptive-survey study. A questionnaire was used to collect research data. The statistical population of the present study consisted of senior and middle managers of the Keshavarzi Bank of Iran who had at least 5 years of work experience. The number of these people in the initial studies was estimated at 483 and finally, using Cochran's formula, 215 people were selected as the sample size. After collecting data through a questionnaire, data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the development of performance criteria with the objectives of evaluating, empowering, and developing the career path of employees has a positive and significant effect on the job performance of employees of the Keshavarzi Bank of Iran. Supplementary results also showed that employee participation in the relationship between the three objectives of developing performance criteria and job performance of employees has an effective mediating role, so this effect in the relationship between performance criteria to develop a career path and job performance of employees with the path coefficient of 0.684 is very obvious. Accordingly, it can be said that since employee participation is the basis for the development of service organizations such as banks, by implementing measures related to employee participation and benefiting from employees' opinions in formulating performance criteria, preparations for achieving an effective performance management system. And thus accelerated the movement of the Keshavarzi Bank of Iran on the path of development.
Reinforced soil wall is a reliable system for stabilizing failure-susceptible soil masses as well as enhancing their bearing capacity. These walls are widely used in sustainable transportation ...infrastructures, bridge abutments, and road embankments, especially in seismic areas. This study proposed a new equation for predicting the reliability index of geosynthetic reinforced soil modular block (GRS-MB) wall considering soil spatial variability and other uncertainty sources. A synthetic database compiling 243 numerical modelings using Monte-Carlo simulation was generated for analysis via the response surface method (RSM). The seismic performance of the GRS-MB wall was validated by a fully instrumented shaking table test. According to data, acceleration at the height of 0.675 m above the foundation was about 20% greater than acceleration at 0.075 m. In addition, there was a stronger amplification near the modular concrete block facing on the physical model. The results revealed that the proposed equation, illustrated by a GRS-MB wall numerical example, estimated the reliability index accurately (96.7%). Also, factor of safety (FS), reliability index (RI), and the probability of failure (Pf) were interrelated with each other in these types of reinforced soil walls. A cumulative distribution function and relative frequency distribution were also constructed for predicting the stability of the GRS-MB wall.
Graphical Abstract
Self-care applications are effective in the control and treatment of disease symptoms. Today, the mobile phone is used as one of the tools that can help us in this regard. The present study attempts ...to develop and evaluate a functional self-care mobile-phone application for patients with skin and hair problems using treatment protocols of herbal medicine.
This study is a descriptive-applied type. At first, a questionnaire was prepared for data need assessment and also to determine the data items and required capabilities of the application. Based on the results, an application was designed using the Java programing language in the Android software environment. In the next step, the application was installed on the mobile phones of several specialists and patients, and the necessary corrections were made. Then, the final version of the application was evaluated.
The most critical data elements of the mobile application for skin and hair patients included the application's functionality, temperament survey, and clinical information. After considering users' feedback, the screen functionality, the application's information and idiom, and overall functionality of the application were evaluated and approved by the users.
By and large, the developed application could help the patients to receive the best and high-priority treatment protocols based on their own temperament.
Gas-dynamic virtual nozzles (GDVNs) play a vital role in delivering biomolecular samples during diffraction measurements at X-ray free-electron laser facilities. Recently, submicrometer resolution ...capabilities of two-photon polymerization 3D printing techniques opened the possibility to quickly fabricate gas-dynamic virtual nozzles with practically any geometry. In our previous work, we exploited this capability to print asymmetric gas-dynamic virtual nozzles that outperformed conventional symmetric designs, which naturally leads to the question of how to identify the optimal gas-dynamic virtual nozzle geometry. In this work, we develop a 3D computational fluid dynamics pipeline to investigate how the characteristics of microjets are affected by gas-dynamic virtual nozzle geometry, which will allow for further geometry optimizations and explorations. We used open-source software (OpenFOAM) and an efficient geometric volume-of-fluid method (
isoAdvector
) to affordably and accurately predict jet properties for different nozzle geometries. Computational resources were minimized by utilizing adaptive mesh refinement. The numerical simulation results showed acceptable agreement with the experimental data, with a relative error of about 10% for our test cases that compared bell- and cone-shaped sheath-gas cavities. In these test cases, we used a relatively low sheath gas flow rate (6 mg/min), but future work including the implementation of compressible flows will enable the investigation of higher flow rates and the study of asymmetric drip-to-jet transitions.
The treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) is a challenging situation for radiation oncologists and colorectal surgeons. Most current approaches recommend neoadjuvant fluorouracil or ...capecitabine-based chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery as a standard of care. Intensification of concurrent chemotherapy by adding oxaliplatin to fluorouracil or capecitabine backbone to get better outcomes is the matter that has remained unresolved. In this review, we searched Medline and Google Scholar databases and selected 28 prospective phase II and III clinical trials that addressed this question. We discussed the potential advantages and drawbacks of incorporating oxaliplatin into concurrent chemoradiation therapy. We tried to define whether adding oxaliplatin to concurrent chemoradiation with excellent performance and high-risk features benefits some subpopulations. The available literature suggests that by adding oxaliplatin there are some benefits in enhancing response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, however, without any translated improvements in long-term outcomes including overall and disease-free survival.
Mutations in the dopamine transporter gene (SLC6A3) have been implicated in many human diseases. Among these is the infantile parkinsonism-dystonia known as Dopamine Transporter Deficiency Syndrome ...(DTDS). Afflicted individuals have minimal to no functional dopamine transporter protein. This is primarily due to retention of misfolded disease-causing dopamine transporter variants. This results in a variety of severe motor symptoms in patients and the disease ultimately leads to death in adolescence or young adulthood. Though no treatment is currently available, pharmacological chaperones targeting the dopamine transporter have been shown to rescue select DTDS disease-causing variants. Previous work has identified two DAT pharmacological chaperones with moderate potency and efficacy: bupropion and ibogaine. In this study, we carried out structure-activity relationships (SARs) for bupropion and ibogaine with the goal of identifying the chemical features required for pharmacological chaperone activity. Our results show that the isoquinuclidine substituent of ibogaine and its analogs is an important feature for pharmacological chaperone efficacy. For bupropion, the secondary amine group is essential for pharmacological chaperone activity. Lastly, we describe additional ibogaine and bupropion analogs with varying chemical modifications and variable pharmacological chaperone efficacies at the dopamine transporter. Our results contribute to the design and refinement of future dopamine transporter pharmacological chaperones with improved efficacies and potencies.
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