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Intermittent Fasting (IF) has proved to have various positive effects on life span, diseases, and healing of tissues in rodents. We evaluated the protective effect of fasting in maintaining the ischemic zones in burn wounds.In this study, 20 rats were divided into two groups where the IF rats were deprived of food for three months. Burn wounds were created by burn comb model on the back of all rats. On days 3 and 21 after injury, five rats in each group were euthanized whereby samples were collected for histopathological, immunohistochemical (Bcl2, P53 and VEGF), and biochemical (MDA, TAC, HP) evaluations.Histopathological analysis revealed epithelial layer and zone of ischemia remained viable in the intermittent fasting group on day 3. On the 21st day, epithelialization, angiogenesis, inflammation, fibrocyte-fibroblast, and collagen density were different in the ischemic and necrotic zones between the control and intermittent fasting groups (p0.05). We found no statistical differences in Bcl2, P53, VEGF, MDA, TAC, and HP on day 3 between the intermittent fasting and control groups.Intermittent fasting before burn wounds reduces tissue damage caused by ischemia and enhanced the viability of cells in zone of stasis. It also accelerated wound healing by increasing epithelialization and collagen production in the skin and regulating inflammatory responses. This intervention appears to be related to better collagen arrangement and angiogenesis.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the cervical collar impact on the functional outcomes of patients after posterior cervical laminectomy and lateral mass screw fixation (PCLF) surgery.Overview of Literature: The safety and possible benefits of implementing rigid cervical collars subsequent to PCLF are insufficiently investigated.Methods: Patients who underwent PCLF and received postoperative cervical collars from 2018 to 2020 were included in this retrospective cohort study. Their data were compared with an age- and sex-matched group of subjects who did not receive collars after PCLF during the same period. Pain intensity (using the Visual Analog Scale), Neck Disability Index, and quality of life (using 36-item Short Form Health Survey) of the patients were compared at baseline, 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively.Results: A total of 36 patients who received cervical collars after surgery and 40 controls were included. At baseline and 1-month follow-up, there were no differences in pain intensity, functional status, and quality of life between the groups. However, at 3 months postoperatively, the quality of life of the subjects with no orthosis was higher than those who received cervical collars (p =0.01). At 6- and 12-month follow-up, there were no differences between the groups in pain intensity, functional status, and quality of life.Conclusions: No difference in the pain intensity and functional status of patients who used cervical collars and controls was shown in our study. Patients who did not wear cervical collars had a higher quality of life during the 3-month postoperative evaluation. Future prospective, well-controlled studies with longer follow-ups are needed to further investigate the effects of cervical orthosis on the clinical outcome of patients after PCLF.

In this cross-sectional study, we investigated work-related stress, gender-based and sexual harassment among police officers working in vulnerable areas in Stockholm. Data were collected from 152 police officers using a set of questionnaires. The results indicated that job stress in “impact on significant others” and “operational stress” were reported as the two most highly rated work-related stress in police officers. Female police officers rated higher stress in “impact on significant others” and “operational stress” compared to their male counterparts. Job experience was correlated with two stress subscales only in female officers. Working as patrol officers and more than one shift were negatively associated with some stress subscales among male officers. The male officers who had experience of sexual harassment reported higher “self-image” stress and “operational stress”, whereas the female officers had higher “self-image” and “confrontation with death” stress. After controlling for gender and job experience, sexual harassment had a significant relationship with “operational stress” and “self-image stress” in police officers.

Aim: In this study, novel hybrid structures of pyrimido-indole-oxadiazole were developed as MDM2 inhibitors for restoring the regular function of the p53. Materials & methods: A multistep chemical pathway was used to synthesize the derivatives. Nutlin-3a was used as a standard lead in molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Finally, cytotoxicity was evaluated against MCF-7 cancer cells versus Doxorubicin. Results: The most promising candidate was 12c, which had an NO2 group in the para position of the oxadiazole ring (IC50: 1.1 μM). A satisfactory result was obtained with the combined application of 12c and Doxorubicin (IC50 decreased to 0.63 μM), which could be potentially attributed to MDM2 inhibition. Conclusion: These hybrid structures can be further investigated as potential MDM2 inhibitors.

Binary Quadratic Program with Variable Partitioning Constraints The binary quadratic program with variable partitioning constraints is a very general class of optimization problems that is very difficult to solve because of the nonconvexity and integrality of the variables and is ubiquitous, among others, in network design, computer vision, and transportation and logistics. In their article, “A convex reformulation and an outer approximation for a large class of binary quadratic programs,” Rostami et al. show how to transform such a nonconvex challenging problem into a convex bilinear program with decomposable structure. The authors develop a branch-and-cut algorithm based on outer approximation cuts, in which the cuts are generated on the fly by efficiently solving separation subproblems. The results of their computational experiments on different problems confirm the efficacy of the solution methods in solving large-scale problem instances.

This meta-analysis aimed to synthesize the existing literature on how different parameters of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalogram (EEG) modulate the amplitudes of TMS-evoked potentials (TEPs).A comprehensive search was run in PubMed and completed by Google Scholar to find articles studying healthy participants who underwent single pulse TMS-EEG sessions over their left primary motor cortex (M1) or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The amplitudes of the most commonly investigated TEP peaks for DLPFC stimulation (positives: 25, 60, 185 ms, negatives: 40, 100 ms) and M1 stimulation (positives: 30, 55,180 ms and negatives: 15, 45, 100, 280 ms) were extracted from studies.Cohen's d effect sizes were obtained in five independent categories that were stratified based on the stimulation, recording, and analyzing parameters. The overall effect sizes and equivalent means and standard deviations were computed within every category.This meta-analysis spotlights the need to rigorously and systematically control for the critical parameters in recording and analyzing TMS-EEG data to make the outcomes of further studies more comparable to the current body of literature.The study demonstrates the possibility of reliably measuring TEPs by offering approximate ranges for every TEP peak in the most commonly targeted areas of DLPFC and M1.

This paper proposes for the first time the theoretical requirements that a fractional-order bilinear system with conformable derivative has to fulfil in order to satisfy different input-to-state stability (ISS) properties. Variants of ISS, namely ISS itself, integral ISS, exponential integral ISS, small-gain ISS, and strong integral ISS for the general class of conformable fractional-order bilinear systems are investigated providing a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for their existence and then compared. Finally, the correctness of the obtained theoretical results is verified by numericalexample.

Sex determination of date palm seedlings is the challengeable effort for breeders. Different studies based on molecular markers and genome sequencing have provided some insight in to the genetic regions related to sex determination in date palms in general. But due to differences in cultivar population structure and also cost of whole genome sequencing, we may need a more suitable approach in developing countries for this task. Therefore, we suggest using a combination of different available molecular markers and a computational approach to identify the genetic regions involved in sex differentiation in date palm cultivars. In this study we used twenty-three cultivars including 7 male and 16 female cultivars that were examined by 30 different dominant and co-dominant molecular markers which deal with different genomic regions. Grouping of the tree samples based on 178 loci resulted in genetic differentiation of the studied male and female palm trees. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) bi-plot also showed genetic difference within male and female trees. Heatmap plot specified those markers which differentiate date palm trees. SSR (simple sequence repeats) and IRAP (inter retrotransposon amplified polymorphism) markers provided sex linked markers for male cultivars. In present study, we introduced sex specific alleles for Iranian male date palm cultivars as a fast track in seedlings. Different association studies performed identified the candidate genetic regions which are significantly associated with sex differentiation in date palm cultivars.

α1-antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency is a common autosomal recessive hereditary disorder, with a high risk for the development of early onset panacinar emphysema. AAT produced primarily in the liver, functions to protect the lung from neutrophil protease; with AAT deficiency, unimpeded neutrophil proteases destroy the lung parenchyma. AAT is susceptible to oxidative damage resulting in an inability to inhibit its target proteases, neutrophil elastase and cathepsin G. The major sites of oxidative modification on the AAT molecule are methionine residues 351 and 358. We have previously demonstrated that an engineered variant of AAT that resists oxidation by modifying both protein surface methionines ( M351V, M358L) provides antiprotease protection despite oxidative stress. In mice, intravenous delivery of the modified AAT(AVL) variant via AAV serotype 8, AAV8hAAT(AVL), primarily to the liver resulted in long-term expression of an AAT that resists oxidative inactivation. In this study we evaluated the safety of intravenous administration of AAV8hAAT(AVL) in a dose escalating, blinded, placebo-controlled toxicology study in wildtype mice. The study assessed organ histology and clinical pathology findings of mice, intravenously administered AAV8hAAT(AVL) at 3 doses (5.0x1011, 5.0x1012 and 5.0x1013 gc/kg) compared to control mice injected intravenously with PBS. As previously demonstrated, administration of AAV8hAAT(AVL) resulted in dose-dependent expression of high, potentially therapeutic, levels of serum human AT protein that persist for at least 6 months. Antibodies against the AAV8 capsid were elicited as expected, but there were no antibodies detected against the AAT(AVL) protein generated by the AAV8hAAT(AVL) vector. There was no morbidity or mortality observed in the study. The data demonstrates that intravenous administration of AAV8hAAT(AVL) is safe with no significant adverse effects attributed to AAV8hAAT(AVL) vector at any dose. This study demonstrates that AAV8hAAT(AVL) has a safety profile consistent with the requirements for proceeding to a clinical study.

A new dc-dc converter with high voltage gain is proposed in this study. The proposed converter consists of two switches which are turned on and off simultaneously. Additionally, two Switched-Capacitor (SC) cells and one Energy Storage (ES) cell are utilized in the structure of the proposed converter. These result in high voltage gains at low values of the duty cycle. Besides, the voltage stress across the power devices is low and below half of the output voltage. Therefore, the MOSFET switches with low RDS-on and devices with reduced nominal voltage can be used in the proposed converter which in turn reduces the conduction and turn-on losses. The analysis of the voltage and current stresses of the devices is accomplished. The circuit performance is compared with other solutions in the literature in terms of voltage gain and normalized voltage stress of switches and diodes. Eventually, in order to verify the theoretical analysis, the experimental results are provided.

Epilepsy, a chronic disease of the central nervous system, is highly prevalent in malaria-endemic regions. Therefore, several studies have evaluated the associations between malaria infection and epilepsy development. A meta-analysis of observational studies published from inception to 10 May 2022 has been conducted to synthesize and pool the existing data on this topic. The relevant publications were systematically searched in PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Embase and Web of Science database collections. A random-effects meta-analysis model (REM) was utilized to generate the pooled odds ratio (OR) at 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The between-studies heterogeneity was assessed with I2, as well as several subgroups, meta-regression and sensitivity analysis were performed to identify the source of heterogeneity. Overall, 17 eligible studies containing 6285 cases and 13 909 healthy controls were included. The REM showed a significant positive association between malaria infection and epilepsy development (OR 2.36; 95% CI 1.44–3.88). In subgroup analyses, significant positive associations were observed in studies that: epilepsy was the outcome in the follow-up of patients with cerebral malaria (OR 7.10; 95% CI 3.50–14.38); used blood smear to diagnose malaria (OR 4.80; 95% CI 2.36–9.77); included only children (OR 3.92; 95% CI 1.81–8.50); published before 2010 (OR 6.39; 95% CI 4.25–9.62). Our findings indicated that patients with malaria, especially those with cerebral malaria, are at a high risk of epilepsy development; however, further well-designed and controlled studies are needed to verify the strength of the association.

Soil moisture (SM) has an important role in the earth's water cycle and is a key variable in water resources management. Considering the critical state of water resources in the Urmia Lake basin, northwest Iran, this study examined the potential for utilizing a variety of remote sensing data and products, in conjunction with a promising downscaling method, to monitor soil moisture with a reasonable spatial and temporal resolution, as a novel and effective tool for agricultural and water resource management. Accordingly, remote sensing products of surface soil moisture were scaled to MODIS's image scale (∼1 km) using the UCLA downscaling method and Temperature, Vegetation, Drought Index (TVDI) values obtained from the scattering space method. Results showed that the LPRM, ESA-CCI, and GLDAS downscaled images had the highest inverse correlation with the TVDI (best results) accordingly equal to −0.600, −0.787, and −0.630. Also, based on the evaluation of the obtained results with the ground stations data, the LPRM and the ESA-CCI downscaled images had the best statistical indices values accordingly in 2010 and 2014 that confirm the promising application of remote sensing soil moisture data (rLPRM (2010) = 0.92, MAELPRM (2010) = 4.14%, RMSELPRM (2010) = 6.39% and rESA-CCI (2014) = 0.7, MAEESA-CCI (2014) = 2.23%, RMSEESA-CCI (2014) = 2.59%).

In recent decades, global warming and sea level rise, population growth, and intensification of human activities, have directly affected the coasts and as such, their monitoring for the accretion and retreat are among the issues that are considered by the coastal countries. This study, compares two supervised classification algorithms for classifying Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for shoreline extraction. Median monthly images from 2020/01 to 2021/12 are taken and classified by Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. By validating the maps, it is found that the RF algorithm has better accuracy and as such by averaging the accuracy of all maps, the overall accuracy (OA) values of 97.18% and the kappa coefficient (KC) of 0.97, and the mean overall accuracy and kappa coefficient of maps from SVM algorithm of 85.15% and 0.79, respectively, is obtained. After extracting the shorelines, the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) is used to calculate the displacement rate. By calculating the Linear Regression Rate (LRR) factor, it is found that in 91% of transects (166 transects) we see the shoreline retreat to land. In 54% of them, the average rate of the retreat is 5.42 meters per year and in only 9% (16 transects) we see the accretion towards the sea.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: DCIS is the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer, accounting for about 15 to 30%. Proteome profile is used to detect biomarkers in the tissues of breast cancer patients by mass spectrometry. This study aimed to obtain the expression profile of DCIS proteome, and the expression profile of invasive biomarkers, and finally to introduce a dedicated biomarker panel to facilitate the prognosis and early detection for in situ breast cancer patients. METHODS AND MATERIALS: In this study, 10 patients with breast cancer (DCIS) were studied. Benign (marginal) and cancerous tissue samples were obtained from patients for proteomics experiments. Initially, all tissue proteins were extracted using standard methods, and the proteins were separated using two-dimensional electrophoresis. Then, the expression amount of the extracted proteins was determined by ITRAQ. The data were analysed by R software, and gene ontology was utilised for describing the protein in detail. RESULTS: 30 spots on gel electrophoresis were found in the tumor tissue group (sample), and 15 spots in the margin group (control) with P