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To tackle global warming, a reliable storage system seems crucial due to unpredictability of renewable energy. As a result, storage units based on Phase Change Material (PCM) are found to be of great worth where latent heat transfer occurring in an almost isothermal condition lay the foundation for far more compact and easy-to-fabricate storage components. Despite their advantageous, one major drawback being weak thermal conductivity needs to be addressed. So, in this study a triplex-tube heat exchanger with tree-like and rectangular fins along with hybrid nanoparticles made of MoS2-TiO2 are put into perspective to dispose of this weakness and Galerkin Finite Element Method (GFEM) is applied using FlexPDE to analyze the solidification process and evaluate the influence of single and combined usage of fins and nanoparticles. Moreover, the credibility of this study and GFEM has been confirmed by an experimental work. The results unveiled that, while the combined usage of nanoparticles and tree-like fins gives the best result by lowering the solidification time by 78% compared to bare tube, tree-like fins claim the best performance taking 1700 s followed by rectangular fins with 3500 s if nanoparticles are out of reach.

People with beta-thalassemia major are more likely to acquire blood-borne viral infections due to the need for frequent blood transfusions. Of these viruses, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are of particular importance. In this study, the prevalence of HBV, HCV and their risk factors in beta-thalassemia major patients in East Azerbaijan province was investigated. The study was descriptive cross-sectional, and 116 beta-thalassemia major patients who received blood in Shahid Ghazi hospital and Children’s hospital in Tabriz city were studied. Data were collected by a questionnaire, and blood samples of patients in terms of serum markers HCV-Ab, HBsAg and HBs-Ab were analyzed by ELISA, and positive HCV-Ab results were confirmed by Real Time-PCR. Then using SPSS software version 22 and with the help of t-tests including Anova T-test, Man-Whitney U test, Independent sample t-test, chi-square and Fisher exact test, Statistical studies were performed. Of the 116 patients studied, no HBsAg positive cases were found. Four patients (3.4%) were positive for HCV-Ab, of which two patients (1.7%) became HCV-RNA positive after Real Time-PCR. There was a significant relationship between HCV-Ab positive and HCV-RNA positive (P = 0.000), blood transfusion intervals (P = 0.043), number of injected blood units (P = 0.001) and duration of blood transfusion (P = 0.006). The prevalence of HCV was lower in patients who started receiving blood after a blood donor screening program. HCV is less prevalent in thalassemia patients in East Azerbaijan province than in some studies in the country and various global statistics. After 1996, the prevalence of HCV in the thalassemia patient population has decreased significantly, and it seems that HCV infections since 1996 have been associated with various factors such as people’s jobs, position, behaviour in society, etc.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the antimicrobial resistance patterns and molecular frequency of blaGES-2 and blaoxa-48 genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii strains isolated from burn wound infection in Tehran, Iran. In this study, 50 isolates of A. baumannii and 48 isolates of P. aeruginosa were collected from the Burn Unit of Shahid Motahari Hospital at Tehran, Iran. Antibiotic susceptibility tests of all isolates were carried out using the disc diffusion method, and the production of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) in isolates was surveyed by the double disc synergy method and based on CLSI (2019 AST M100) criteria. Finally, the frequency of blaGES-2 and blaoxa-48 genes was surveyed by PCR. Antibiotic susceptibility tests showed that 48/48 (100%) of P. aeruginosa isolates and 49/50 (98%) of A. baumannii isolates were resistant to ceftriaxone and cefotaxime, respectively. Ceftazidime exhibited the lowest (26/48; 54.1%) resistance rates against P. aeruginosa isolates. The production of ESBLs was seen in 8/48 (16.6%) and 3/50 (6%) of P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii isolates, respectively. On the basis of conventional PCR and sequencing, the frequencies of the blaGES-2 gene among P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii was 87.5% and 58%, respectively. Moreover, blaoxa-48 gene was detected in 70.83% and 92% of P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii isolates, respectively. Results suggest that antibiotic-resistant A. baumannii and P. aeruginosa strains isolated from burn patients are frequently found; therefore, it is absolutely necessary to implement continuous screening and follow-up programmes for detecting antimicrobial resistance.

In this paper, mixed convection on MHD flow of casson nanofluid over a non-linearly permeable stretching sheet has been investigated and analyzed numerically. The effects of thermal radiation, chemical reaction, heat generation/absorption, viscous dissipation, suction and Joule heating are considered. The Brownian motion and thermophoresis phenomenon are used to model nanoparticles (Buongiorno's model). After converting PDEs governing the problem to ODEs, they have been solved by Runge-Kutta Fehlberg fourth-fifth order method. Obtained results of investigating the effects of different parameters changes on velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles are reported as diagrams. Fluid flow velocity reduction by increase in Hartman number (magnetic field parameter) is due to existence of Lorentz drag force against flow, flow velocity reduction due to increase in casson fluid parameter, increase in temperature profile due to increase in radiation parameter, and nanoparticle concentration profile reduction due to increase in chemical reaction parameter are some of valuable obtained results. Also, in final section of this paper effects of different parameters on skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are investigated that positive and ascending behavior for all three are reported. Keywords: Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), Casson nanofluid, Buongiorno's model, Thermal radiation, Chemical reaction, Heat generation/absorption, Suction, Joule heating effect

Arthrospira platensis is a valuable natural health supplement consisting of various types of vitamins, dietary minerals, and antioxidants. Although different studies have been conducted to explore the hidden benefits of this bacterium, its antimicrobial property has been poorly understood. To decipher this important feature, here, we extended our recently introduced optimization algorithm (Trader) for aligning amino acid sequences associated with the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) of Staphylococcus aureus and A.platensis. As a result, similar amino acid sequences were identified, and several candidate peptides were generated accordingly. The obtained peptides were then filtered based on their potential biochemical and biophysical properties, and their 3D structures were simulated based on homology modeling techniques. Next, to investigate how the generated peptides can interact with S. aureus proteins (i.e., heptameric state of the hly and homodimeric form of the arsB), molecular docking approaches were used. The results indicated that four peptides included better molecular interactions relative to the other generated ones in terms of the number/average length of hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. Based on the outcomes, it can be concluded that the antimicrobial property of A.platensis might be associated with its capability in disturbing the membrane of pathogens and their functions., 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 © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Accurate infectious disease models can help scientists understand how an ongoing disease epidemic spreads and forecast the course of epidemics more effectively. Considering various factors that affect the spread of a disease (e.g. geographical, social, domestic, and genetic), a class of individual-level models (ILMs) was developed to incorporate population heterogeneity. In these models, inferences are developed within a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) framework, obtaining posterior estimates of model parameters. The issues of bias of parameter estimates, and methods for bias correction, have been widely studied with respect to many of the most established and commonly used statistical models and associated methods of parameter estimation. However, these methods are not directly applicable to infectious disease data. This paper investigates circumstances in which ILM parameter estimates may be biased in some simple disease system scenarios. Further, we aim to compare the performance of bias-corrected estimates of ILM parameters, using simulation, with the posterior estimates of the parameter. We also discuss the factors that affect the performance of these estimators., 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 © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Protein-peptide interactions have attracted the attention of many drug discovery scientists due to their possible druggability features on most key biological activities such as regulating disease-related signaling pathways and enhancing the immune system's responses. Different studies have utilized some protein-peptide-specific docking algorithms/methods to predict protein-peptide interactions. However, the existing algorithms/methods suffer from two serious limitations which make them unsuitable for protein-peptide docking problems. First, it seems that the prevalent approaches require to be modified and remodeled for weighting the unbounded forces between a protein and a peptide. Second, they do not employ state-of-the-art search algorithms for detecting the 3D pose of a peptide relative to a protein. To address these restrictions, the present study aims to introduce a novel multi-objective algorithm, which first generates some potential 3D poses of a peptide, and then, improves them through its operators. The candidate solutions are further evaluated using Multi-Objective Pareto Front (MOPF) optimization concepts. To this end, van der Waals, electrostatic, solvation, and hydrogen bond energies between the atoms of a protein and designated peptide are computed. To evaluate the algorithm, it is first applied to the LEADS-PEP dataset containing 53 protein-peptide complexes with up to 53 rotatable branches/bonds and then compared with three popular/efficient algorithms. The obtained results indicate that the MOPF-based approaches which reduce the backbone RMSD between the original and predicted states, achieve significantly better results in terms of the success rate in predicting the near-native conditions. Besides, a comparison between the different types of search algorithms reveals that efficient ones like the multi-objective Trader/differential evolution algorithm can predict protein-peptide interactions better than the popular algorithms such as the multi-objective genetic/particle swarm optimization algorithms., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

People with beta-thalassemia major are more likely to acquire blood-borne viral infections due to the need for frequent blood transfusions. Of these viruses, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are of particular importance. In this study, the prevalence of HBV, HCV and their risk factors in beta-thalassemia major patients in East Azerbaijan province was investigated. The study was descriptive cross-sectional, and 116 beta-thalassemia major patients who received blood in Shahid Ghazi hospital and Children's hospital in Tabriz city were studied. Data were collected by a questionnaire, and blood samples of patients in terms of serum markers HCV-Ab, HBsAg and HBs-Ab were analyzed by ELISA, and positive HCV-Ab results were confirmed by Real Time-PCR. Then using SPSS software version 22 and with the help of t-tests including Anova T-test, Man-Whitney U test, Independent sample t-test, chi-square and Fisher exact test, Statistical studies were performed. Of the 116 patients studied, no HBsAg positive cases were found. Four patients (3.4%) were positive for HCV-Ab, of which two patients (1.7%) became HCV-RNA positive after Real Time-PCR. There was a significant relationship between HCV-Ab positive and HCV-RNA positive (P = 0.000), blood transfusion intervals (P = 0.043), number of injected blood units (P = 0.001) and duration of blood transfusion (P = 0.006). The prevalence of HCV was lower in patients who started receiving blood after a blood donor screening program. HCV is less prevalent in thalassemia patients in East Azerbaijan province than in some studies in the country and various global statistics. After 1996, the prevalence of HCV in the thalassemia patient population has decreased significantly, and it seems that HCV infections since 1996 have been associated with various factors such as people's jobs, position, behaviour in society, etc., (© 2021 The Author(s).)

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is one of the most widely prevalent metabolic disorders with no cure to date thus remains the most challenging task in the current drug discovery. Therefore, the only strategy to control diabetes prevalence is to develop novel efficacious therapeutics. Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors are currently used as anti-diabetic drugs for the inhibition of incretins. This study aims to construct the chemical feature based on pharmacophore models for dipeptidyl peptidase IV. The structure-based pharmacophore modeling has been employed to evaluate new inhibitors of DPP-4. A four-featured pharmacophore model was developed from crystal structure of DPP-4 enzyme with 4-(2-aminoethyl) benzenesulfonyl fluoride in its active site via pharmacophore constructing tool of Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) consisting F1 Hyd (hydrophobic region), F2 Hyd|Cat|Don (hydrophobic cationic and donor region), F3 Acc (acceptor region) and F4 Hyd (hydrophobic region). The generated pharmacophore model was used for virtual screening of in-house compound library (the available compounds which were used for initial screening to get the few compounds for the current studies). The resultant selected compounds, after virtual screening were further validated using in vitro assay. Furthermore, structure-activity relationship was carried out for the compounds possessing significant inhibition potential after docking studies. The binding free energy of analogs was evaluated via molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area (MM-GBSA) and Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA) methods using AMBER 16 as a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation package. Based on potential findings, we report that selected candidates are more likely to be used as DPP-4 inhibitors or as starting leads for the development of novel and potent DPP-4 inhibitors., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Monoclonal antibodies and vaccines have widely been studied for the immunotherapy of cancer, while their large size appears to limit their functionality in solid tumors, in large part due to unique properties of tumor microenvironment such as high pressure of tumor interstitial fluid. To tackle such limitations, smaller formats of antibodies have been developed, including antigen-binding fragments, single-chain variable fragments, single variable domain of camelid antibody (so-called nanobody (Nb) or VHH). Of these, Nbs offer great immunotherapy potentials because of their advantageous physicochemical and pharmacological features, including small size, high stability, and excellent tissue penetration. Besides, the therapeutic impacts of Nbs can be improved by their modifications and functionalizations (e.g., PEGylation and conjugation to the Fc domain, peptide tags, drugs, toxins, aptamers, and radionuclides). This review aims to provide comprehensive insights into key signaling networks of colorectal cancer and discuss Nb-based precision immunotherapy of colorectal cancer., 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 © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The aim of this study is to evaluate the antimicrobial resistance patterns and molecular frequency of bla GES-2 and bla oxa-48 genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii strains isolated from burn wound infection in Tehran, Iran. In this study, 50 isolates of A. baumannii and 48 isolates of P. aeruginosa were collected from the Burn Unit of Shahid Motahari Hospital at Tehran, Iran. Antibiotic susceptibility tests of all isolates were carried out using the disc diffusion method, and the production of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) in isolates was surveyed by the double disc synergy method and based on CLSI (2019 AST M100) criteria. Finally, the frequency of bla GES-2 and bla oxa-48 genes was surveyed by PCR. Antibiotic susceptibility tests showed that 48/48 (100%) of P. aeruginosa isolates and 49/50 (98%) of A. baumannii isolates were resistant to ceftriaxone and cefotaxime, respectively. Ceftazidime exhibited the lowest (26/48; 54.1%) resistance rates against P. aeruginosa isolates. The production of ESBLs was seen in 8/48 (16.6%) and 3/50 (6%) of P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii isolates, respectively. On the basis of conventional PCR and sequencing, the frequencies of the bla GES-2 gene among P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii was 87.5% and 58%, respectively. Moreover, bla oxa-48 gene was detected in 70.83% and 92% of P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii isolates, respectively. Results suggest that antibiotic-resistant A. baumannii and P. aeruginosa strains isolated from burn patients are frequently found; therefore, it is absolutely necessary to implement continuous screening and follow-up programmes for detecting antimicrobial resistance., (© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Modified Fe 3 O 4 magnetic nanoparticles (magnetic nanocarrier) technology have found the proper place in separation and purification techniques, such as protein and enzyme purification, mostly due to its easy and fast operational procedure by using an external permanent magnet. Herein, Fe 3 O 4 magnetic nanoparticles were prepared, and surface modification was performed with vanadate and phosphate salts to yield four various model of magnetic nanocarriers. Affinity ligands which are used for immobilization on the nanocarriers leading to the development of appropriative nanocarriers for the affinity separation of alkaline phosphatase from the bovine milk. The findings showed that the use of sodium hexametaphosphate affinity ligand attached to the carrier with an 18-atom linker leads to better separation of alkaline phosphatase from the bovine milk with 14.1-fold purification efficiency. All results confirmed that our designed nanocarriers can purify alkaline phosphatase using a fast and low-cost approach., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This research aims to characterization of soluble soybean polysaccharide (SSPS) and development of a biodegradable SSPS nanocomposites prepared using various concentrations of TiO 2 nanoparticles. 13 C NMR suggested that backbone of SSPS is rhamnogalacturonan [1→4)-α-GalAp-(1/2)-α Rhap(1→]. Weight average molecular weight, number average molecular weight (Mn) and polydispersity index (PDI) of SSPS were found to be 2.54×10 6 g/mol, 5.54×10 6 g/mol, and 4.5, respectively. The intrinsic viscosity of SSPS (0.33) was lower than most of hydrocolloids. With increasing TiO 2 concentration, the water solubility, moisture content and water-vapor permeability (WVP) of SSPS-based nanocomposite films decreased. TiO 2 addition led to an increase in the melting temperature to a maximum of 132°C for the SSPS nanocomposite with 5wt% TiO 2 . With increasing TiO 2 concentrations from 5 to 15wt%, the melting temperature declined from 24 to 19°C. There were no significant agglomerates when the TiO 2 concentrations were increased to 5wt%; however, when the concentration reached 15wt%, agglomerations were observed. With addition of TiO 2 nanoparticles, tensile strength increased but elongation at break decreased. SSPS-based nanocomposite films demonstrated a promising range of antimicrobial activity. The current research clearly introduces a new antimicrobial composite which is potentially useful to prevent and treat infections., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is present in more than 50% of patients referred to cardiac rehabilitation units. However, it has been under-recognized in patients after stroke and heart failure. Those with concurrent OSA have a worse clinical course. Early treatment of coexisting OSA with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) results in improved rehabilitation outcomes and quality of life. Possible mechanisms by which CPAP may improve recovery include decreased blood pressure fluctuations associated with apneas, and improved left ventricular function, cerebral blood flow, and oxygenation. Early screening and treatment of OSA should be integral components of patients entering cardiac rehabilitation units., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Different stages of sleep are associated with significant variability in cardiovascular function, which is mediated by marked changes in balance between 2 components of the autonomic system: parasympathetic and sympathetic. Autonomic control of circulation is essential in ensuring an adequate blood flow to vital organs through constant adjustments of arterial blood pressure, heart rate, and redistribution of blood flow. Fluctuations in components of the autonomic nervous system synchronize with electroencephalographic activity during arousal or different stages of sleep. As a result, these can lead to several cardiovascular consequences in those who have underlying heart disease or sleep-disordered breathing., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Unlabelled: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) commonly coexists with epilepsy, and treatment of OSA may decrease seizure frequency. However, it is unclear whether patients with medically refractory epilepsy have a higher incidence of OSA compared with well-controlled epilepsy patients and whether the two groups carry different risk factors., Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the presence of OSA in patients with refractory vs. well-controlled epilepsy and their associated risk factors. We also assessed the benefits of treatment of OSA with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in refractory epilepsy patients., Methods: We retrospectively reviewed data from patients who presented to the Jacobs Neurological Institute Comprehensive Epilepsy Center of University at Buffalo from 2007 to 2010., Results: There is a tendency for much higher incidence of OSA in our epilepsy population compared with the general population (15.2% vs. 4.41%). For patients with well-controlled epilepsy, older age, male gender, and higher seizure frequency were predictors of a diagnosis of OSA. However, in medically refractory epilepsy patients, diabetes and snoring predicted a diagnosis of OSA. Treatment of OSA with CPAP in refractory epilepsy patients improved their seizure control (p<0.02)., Conclusion: This study confirms that OSA is common in epilepsy patients and treatment of OSA can improve seizure control in medically refractory cases. Patients with refractory epilepsy who have diabetes are more likely to have OSA., (Copyright © 2012 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder with multifactorial pathogenesis. It has been proposed that rostral fluid displacement contributes to the pathogenesis of OSA. We hypothesized that if fluid shift is an important factor in OSA, then it would be more severe during the second one-half of the night when there is maximally displaced fluid rostrally., Methods: We prospectively enrolled 135 patients who underwent polysomnography. Neck and leg circumferences were measured to determine rostral fluid shift in recumbent position before and after sleep study. Breathing disturbance index (BDI) was derived for non-rapid eye movement sleep during the first and second one-half of the night in the same position., Results: Sixty-five patients with demonstrable rostral fluid shift overnight were included in the analyses. Thirty-two (age, 52.5 ± 2.2 years) had OSA with a mean BDI of 27 ± 3/h (range, 5-80/h), whereas the other 33 with mainly upper airway resistance syndrome (age, 48.7 ± 2.4 years) had a BDI of 13 ± 2/h. Patients in both groups were obese. There was a statistically significant increase in neck circumference in patients with OSA (41.5 ± 0.8 to 42.6 ± 0.7 cm, P < .0001) and without OSA (38.6 ± 0.6 to 40.2 ± 0.6 cm, P < .0001) overnight, with concomitant decreases in leg circumferences. In spite of the fluid shift, BDI did not change (18 ± 3/h and 20 ± 3/h) between the first and second one-half of the night., Conclusions: There is a significant fluid shift rostrally to the neck overnight in patients with and without OSA. However, this fluid shift is not associated with worsening of OSA, thus making it unlikely that fluid displacement is a contributing factor in the pathogenesis or severity of OSA.

We report a multispectroscopic, voltammetric and theoretical hybrid of QM/MM study of the interaction between double-stranded DNA containing both adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine alternating sequences and chloridazon (CHL) herbicide. The electrochemical behavior of CHL was studied by cyclic voltammetry on HMDE, and the interaction of ds-DNA with CHL was investigated by both cathodic differential pulse voltammetry (CDPV) at a hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE) and anodic differential pulse voltammetry (ADPV) at a glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The constant bonding of CHL-DNA complex that was obtained by UV/vis, CDPV and ADPV was 2.1×10(4), 5.1×10(4) and 2.6×10(4), respectively. The competition fluorescence studies revealed that the CHL quenches the fluorescence of DNA-ethidium bromide complex significantly and the apparent Stern-Volmer quenching constant has been estimated to be 1.71×10(4). Thermal denaturation study of DNA with CHL revealed the ΔTm of 8.0±0.2°C. Thermodynamic parameters, i.e., enthalpy (ΔH), entropy (ΔS°), and Gibbs free energy (ΔG) were 98.45 kJ mol(-1), 406.3 J mol(-1) and -22.627 kJ mol(-1), respectively. The ONIOM, based on the hybridization of QM/MM (DFT, 6.31++G(d,p)/UFF) methodology, was also performed using Gaussian 2003 package. The results revealed that the interaction is base sequence dependent, and the CHL has more interaction with ds-DNA via the GC base sequence. The results revealed that CHL may have an interaction with ds-DNA via the intercalation mode., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)