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Affibody molecules are small protein scaffolds mostly based on triple-helical bundle protein domains. Many triple helix-based affibody proteins have shown prominent properties for tumor imaging and therapy. In our opinion, the structural organizations and the sizes of affibody molecules could be modified to increase their recognition abilities and binding affinities to human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2). Thereby, the purpose of this study was to design and characterize a novel platform of affibody molecule consisting of five separate helixes (encoding 99 amino acids with a duplicate of helixes 1 and 2 at N-terminus plus GGGC chelator peptide sequence at C-terminus) enable of binding to HER2 with higher avidity. Using in silico screening methods, the structure and the interactive potential of designed affibody was comparatively investigated. The molecular expression and production of the designed affibody in Escherichia coli cells was successfully examined and reported.

The effect of cinnamon and turmeric powders on performance, and blood parameters of broiler chickens under heat stress were investigated. 200 one-day-old male chicks (Ross 308) were used in a completely randomized design with four treatments and five replicates with 10 birds in each replicate. All birds were treated with heat stress (32οC) and were either fed no any supplement (control), or 0.5% turmeric, 0.5% cinnamon, and a blend of cinnamon and turmeric (0.25% each) when they were 25 to 42 days of age. We found that supplementation of turmeric, cinnamon, and their combination increased feed intake and body weight gain compared to control birds (P < 0.05). Blood uric acid concentration and lactate dehydrogenase activities decreased in the supplemented diets ‎ (P < 0.05). Blood malondialdehyde also decreased in all diets, but had the most striking reduction in the diets containing both turmeric and cinnamon (P < 0.05)‎. Blood aspartate aminotransferase, urea, and creatinine were not affected by the dietary treatments. Similarly, blood sodium, potassium, chlorine, hematocrit and rectal temperature were unchanged by the supplements (P > 0.05). In conclusion, dietary supplementation of cinnamon and turmeric either alone or together improve the performance of broiler chickens under heat stress by reducing lipid peroxidation.

Objectives: This study aimed to translate and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Children's Voice Handicap Index-10 for Parents (CVHI-10-P) in Persian for assessing voice-related quality of life in Persian-speaking children., Methods: The CVHI-10-P was translated into Persian and assessed for face and content validity by a panel of speech-language pathologists. The questionnaire was administered to 141 children aged 6-11 years, including 35 with voice disorders and 106 without. Reliability was measured using Cronbach's alpha, Spearman-Brown, and Guttman coefficients. Validity was evaluated through sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, precision, F-score metrics, and correlations with the Persian version of the Pediatric Voice Handicap Index (PVHI)., Results: The translated CVHI-10-P demonstrated high reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.944 for the total score. Significant differences in CVHI scores between children with and without voice disorders confirmed the questionnaire's ability to distinguish between these groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.974, indicating excellent diagnostic accuracy. Pearson's correlation showed strong associations between CVHI and PVHI scores across all dimensions., Conclusion: The Persian version of the CVHI-10-P is a reliable and valid tool for assessing the impact of voice disorders on the quality of life in Persian-speaking children. It offers a concise and effective means for parents to report their children's voice-related challenges., (Copyright © 2024 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This study aims to investigate the immediate effect of straw phonation on the phonation of Persian-speaking children with repaired cleft palate., Study Design: Quasi-experimental preintervention and postintervention., Methods: Seventeen children with repaired cleft palate and velopharyngeal dysfunction were investigated. A control group was established comprising children without a cleft palate (control group), carefully matched in terms of age and gender. All participants underwent straw phonation and assessment. The assessments were made two times: at baseline and immediately after straw phonation. Each participant performs straw phonation (a short straw measuring 3 mm in inner diameter and 20 cm in length) once for 3 minutes. The acoustic analysis including parameters, such as jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR), cepstral peak prominence (CPP) parameters, as well as the electroglottography (closed quotient [CQ]) analysis were performed at pretreatment and immediately after treatment., Results: Compared with the pretreatment values, after-treatment observation demonstrated a significant reduction in Jitter % and Shimmer %, and a significant enhancement in HNR and CPP among children with repaired cleft palate. There is no significant difference in intragroup data in the CPP and CQ in pretreatment., Conclusions: The proposed straw phonation technique results in an immediate positive change in the quality of voice in both groups. Moreover, assessments in the clinical group showed a significant decrease in shimmer and jitter perturbation, alongside elevated levels of HNR and CPP subsequent to straw phonation, irrespective of the phonatory task., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Premature infants (born before 37 weeks of gestational age) frequently experience feeding difficulties due to underdeveloped oral motor skills and poor chewing, swallowing, and breathing coordination. In order to improve oral feeding efficiency in these infants, Oral-Motor Stimulation (OMS) has been used in various studies. This systematic review study will aim to assess the effectiveness of OMS for oral feeding in preterm infants., Materials & Methods: The authors will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. They will conduct a search in electronic databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials in The Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), Medline via PubMed, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) for nursing and related healthcare texts without language restrictions from the first month of 1991 to the fifth month of 2024 to achieve the study objectives. All Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials (RCT) examining the effect of OMS on oral feeding in preterm infants will be included in this study., Results: The primary outcome of this systematic review will be oral feeding, and the secondary outcomes will include duration of hospitalization, weight gain, and feeding efficiency. Two independent reviewers will select and extract data for the study. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool (RoB2) will be used to evaluate potential biases in the study. Publication bias will be evaluated using funnel plots, Begg's, and Egger's tests. The degree of heterogeneity among the studies will be assessed using the I2 statistic and the χ2 test. Analyses of subgroups will also be carried out. All meta-analyses will be conducted using Stata V.14., Conclusion: This systematic review protocol for preterm infants will aim to promote evidence-based decision-making and support the development of clinical practice guidelines in preterm feeding., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2024 The Authors. Published by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.)

Objectives: This systematic review aims to explore the effectiveness of voice health education interventions among singers, particularly focusing on vocal hygiene treatment programs tailored for professional voice users., Study Design: Systematic review., Methods: Preferred Reporting Items on Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines were followed to conduct this systematic review. Comprehensive searches were conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and Cochrane Library databases. Four articles were selected for detailed review. The studies were evaluated using the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool for quality assessment., Results: The four reviewed studies primarily utilized the pretest-posttest design to examine the effectiveness of vocal hygiene interventions on singers' vocal health. Two studies investigated the effect of hydration as a treatment method, while the remaining two focused on vocal hygiene instruction. Significant improvements were observed in various vocal health parameters, including maximum phonation time, intensity, Dysphonia Severity Index, and number of daily vocal breaks taken., Conclusion: This systematic review provides valuable insights into the efficacy of vocal hygiene treatment programs for singers. The positive outcomes observed in the reviewed studies underscore the importance of voice health education tailored to singers' specific needs. However, the limited number of eligible studies and the common limitation of small sample sizes highlight the need for further research in this area. Vocal health practitioners, educators, and researchers can utilize the findings of this review to develop evidence-based vocal hygiene interventions that promote the well-being and longevity of singers' vocal performance careers., (Copyright © 2023 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Ultrasound research on speech production in normal speakers has long used quantitative measurements in different languages. However, no studies in this area have been conducted in the Persian language. This study investigated Persian speaking children scores on two single curve measures of tongue shape, based on midsagittal tongue shape data from ultrasound imaging., Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on four 7-8 years old Persian speaking children. The data for analysis was collected using an ultrasound machine in 2018-2019. The stimuli included a range of consonants including/p/,/t/,/f/,/k/and/s/in consonant-vowel sequences, with the vowels/a/and/i/. The measures do not require head stabilization. Statistical analyses were done using Linear mixed models in lmer software package of R version 3.6.2. The results were performed by Chi-squared and Tukey post hoc tests in R., Results: In all of the consonants, the mean of two single curve measures in the context of/i/was greater than the context of/a/. However, there was no significant effect of the vowel context on one measure for the/k/. Also, these measures were significantly different in each of the Persian consonants and they showed consistent patterns across all of the participants (P<0.001)., Conclusion: It seems the single curve measures are the valid value of tongue dorsum excursion for Persian speaking children. This study showed that measures of single curves are reliable for distinguish between consonants in vowel contexts and created robust results on lingual coarticulation of the consonants without the use of head stabilization., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to measure and compare temporal patterns of nasalization in Persian children with and without cleft palate in three vowel contexts., Methods: A Sample of 14 children with repaired cleft palates with or without cleft lip with moderate to severe hyper nasality and 14 children without cleft palate was chosen as subjects. The subjects were chosen from the ages of 4 to 12 years. The nasal onset interval, nasal offset interval and total nasalization duration were obtained from acoustic waveforms and spectrograms in three vowel contexts using Praat Software. For eliminating the effect of different speed of speech in the cleft palate group and control group, the ratio of nasalization duration was calculated., Results: Total nasalization duration are demonstrated by acoustic signals which shows the total significant different temporal patterns in children with cleft palate and without cleft palate and across the vowel contexts (P<0.000)., Conclusions: Longer nasalization durations in children with cleft palate in comparison to children without cleft palate show the delayed or deviant temporal patterns in children with cleft palate. The duration of nasalization reflecting temporal patterns of the oral-nasal acoustic impedance in children with cleft palate may have an influence on the perception of hyper nasality., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Hypernasality is a frequently occurring resonance disorder in children with cleft palate. In general, an operation is necessary to reduce the hypernasality and therefore an assessment of hypernasality is imperative to quantify the effect of the surgery and design the speech therapy sessions, which are crucial after surgery. In this paper, a new quantitative method is proposed to estimate hypernasality. The proposed method used the fact that an autoregressive (AR) model for vocal tract system of a patient with hypernasal speech is not accurate; because of the zeros appear in the frequency response of the vocal tract system. Therefore in our method, hypernasality was estimated by a quantity calculated from comparing the distance between the sequences of cepstrum coefficients extracted from AR model and autoregressive moving average model. K-means and Bayes theorem were utilized to classify the utterances of subjects by means of proposed index. We achieved the accuracy up to 81.12% on utterances and 97.14% on subjects. Since the proposed method needs only computer processing of speech data, compared with other clinical methods it provides a simple evaluation of hypernasality.