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Pathogenic variants in the EPS8 gene result in nonsyndromic hearing loss. This gene encodes the EPS8 protein in cochlear inner hair cells and performs critical roles in stimulating actin polymerization and bundling. Thus far, only four pathogenic variations in EPS8 have been described. In this study, we report the fifth pathogenic variant in the EPS8 gene in an Iranian patient with DFNB102. Furthermore, we review literature cases with EPS8 mutations.

The objective of this study was to assess genotype by environment interaction for 21 physiological traits in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) parents and hybrids grown in Rodasht Agricultural Research Station in Iran by the additive main effects and multiplicative interaction model. The study comprised of 51 sugar beet genotypes [10 multigerm pollen parents, four monogerm seed parents and 36 F1 hybrids], evaluated at four environments in a randomized complete block design, with three replicates. The additive main effects and multiplicative interaction analyses revealed significant environment main effects with respect to all observed traits, except extraction coefficient of sugar. The additive main effects and multiplicative interaction stability values ranged from 0.009 (G17 for leaf Ca2+) to 9.698 (G09 for extraction coefficient of sugar). The parental forms 2 7233-P.29 (G38) and C CMS (G49) as well as hybrids 2(6)*C (G27) and 5*C (G33) are recommended for further inclusion in the breeding programs because of their stability and good average values of observed traits.

Cybersickness describes the nausea and discomfort that frequently emerges upon exposure to a virtual reality (VR) environment. The extent to which cybersickness leads to temporary constraints in cognitive functioning after VR exposure is a critical aspect of evaluating the risk to human safety where VR tasks are used for workforce training. Here, we examined whether VR exposure results in deteriorated cognitive spatial ability and attention, and if this possible deterioration is related to cybersickness. A standardized cognitive test battery consisting of Corsi blocks task (CBT), Manikin spatial task (MST), and color trails test (CTT-A and -B) was administered before and after participants were exposed to virtual reality (VR group), or engaged in interactive board games (control group). The performance of participants in CBT remained unchanged from pre-test to post-test in both groups, while performance in MST improved in the control and remained stable in VR group. Response times in CTT-A remained stable in the VR group but reduced significantly in the control group. Regarding CTT-B, participants from both groups became significantly faster in post-test. We did not observe any significant sex differences, or effects of past VR experience, across measures of cognitive performance or cybersickness. Crucially, no significant correlations were found between cognitive performance changes and cybersickness scores in any cases. The results provide encouragement for the use of VR in professional settings, suggesting that VR and cybersickness may minimally limit subsequent cognitive processing. However, it will be crucial to further examine the aftereffects in other cognitive functions.

A set of C3N4 samples has been prepared by using melamine, cyanuric acid and barbituric acid as the precursors. The materials were subjected both to physical and chemical characterization and were used as photocatalysts for the selective oxidation of aromatic alcohols in water suspension under UV and visible irradiation. The photoactivity of the materials versus the partial oxidation of four substituted benzyl alcohols was investigated. The type and position of the substituents in the aromatic molecule influenced conversion and selectivity to the corresponding aldehyde. The presence of barbituric and cyanuric acids in the preparation method has changed the graphitic-C3N4 structure, and therefore both the characteristics of the material and the ability of light to activate the surface of the photocatalyst. The most active material prepared in the presence of melamine and cyanuric acid showed a remarkable selectivity towards the aldehyde even under visible irradiation.

In this work, a simple microwave method was utilized to prepare ZnO sheet linked with Fe3O4@rGO core–shell and of Ag2CO3 through formation of the quadri-photocatalytic with high activity. The microstructure, morphology, spectroscopic, and magnetic characteristics of the prepared samples were assessed using XRD, SEM, PL, TEM, FT-IR, DLS, and VSM analysis. The photocatalytic activity of the material was evaluated for photodegradation of methylene blue dye under the UV and visible light with home-made photoreactor. The response surface method in a Box–Behnken design was utilized to design the experiments. The parameters affecting the efficiency of the degradation including, pH (5–9), photocatalyst dose (50–150mg), contact time (30–90min), and radiation power (30–60W) were studied and optimized. The optimum parameters were found to the initial concentration of 10ppm, after a reaction time of 63.65min, the amount of the catalyst of 150mg, the pH of 8.99, and 94.99% of degradation (in the radiation power of 45W).

s Background The widespread prevalence of COVID-19 has disrupted the social life, physical function, and daily activities of patients, leading to reduced quality of their lives. Because of the nature of this disease and its comprehensive impact on patients’ lives, a follow-up based on the conditions of these patients is necessary. This study was conducted to determine the impact of nurse education and telephone follow-up (telenursing) on the quality of life of COVID-19 patients. Methods This quasi-experimental study included 120 COVID-19 patients discharged from 22nd-Bahman Hospital in Khaf city and was conducted over 6 months from July 20, 2020, to December 20, 2020. The participants were selected by convenience sampling method and were assigned into two matching groups. The training was delivered through telenursing based on the quality of life criteria for 1 month in the intervention group. The controls did not receive any intervention. Both groups completed the 36-item SF health survey before and 1 month after the intervention. Results The two groups were not significantly different regarding the quality of life mean scores at baseline (p = 0.61). However, after the intervention, the mean and standard deviation of the total life quality score was significantly different between the control and intervention groups (63.62 ± 3.93 versus 72.62 ± 3.51, p Conclusions Telenursing improves the life quality of COVID-19 patients. Through appropriate policies, health managers may put on the agenda the implementation of telenursing for COVID-19 patients.

Energy state and environmental impacts of production systems are of main criteria to reach sustainability. In the present research, ostrich was compared with a broiler production system based on the criteria. The required data was gathered in Boukan Township, West Azerbaijan, Iran, by a questioner method. The total input energy in ostrich and broiler systems was calculated as 150,419.81 MJ (1 ton of bird year)−1 and 344,579.58 MJ (1 ton of bird year)−1, respectively. Diesel fuel and feed (41.39% and 36.95%, respectively) in broiler and electricity (45.87%) in the ostrich production system had the highest energy shares. Eleven impact categories were estimated by SimaPro software in the studied systems. Except for human toxicity, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity, the amounts of other environmental impacts in the ostrich production system were lower than those of the poultry production system. The amount of global warming indicator for the production of 1 ton of broiler chicken was 17,400 kg CO2 eq year−1 that was equal to 4350 kg CO2 eq period−1. This value was obtained as 1.68 × 104 kg CO2 eq year−1 for the production of ostrich meat. In both production systems, feed was the main factor responsible for almost all studied environmental impacts.

Over 10 years, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been considered as valuable and suitable cells for cell-based therapy applications, particularly in clinical trials. In any case, they are as yet not utilized routinely in clinics. At first, it was believed that MSCs play their roles, especially in regenerative medicine due to their differentiation and cell replacement properties. Interestingly, it is well-known that MSCs mainly exert their therapeutic effects through their vast bioactive factors. These findings turned scientists' consideration toward cell-free therapy concepts. From this point of view, MSCs can be considered as an arsenal of natural bioreactors in variety of therapeutic agents. MSCs inherently express various important therapeutic agents such as growth factors and cytokines that can be manufactured, handled and stored as a prepared-to-go biologic product. In this review, we provide a vision, highlight as well as discuss in order to introduce competitive natural robust bioreactor MSCs on the horizon.

Although dental ceramic restorations are biocompatible, they are not necessarily bioactive. They can be modified by bioactive glasses to exhibit bioactive behavior well adapted to the surrounded tissue. Such modification can be done using mixtures of dental ceramic/sol–gel-derived bioactive glass expected to prolong the life time of the fixed dental prosthesis by preventing the formation of secondary caries. In the current study, these mixtures with different compositions were sintered in the laboratory in order to simulate the oral condition in which the restoration is used. Biological behavior was evaluated by immersion of the specimens in simulated body fluid. The microstructural and thermal properties of the sintered specimens were studied using X-ray diffractometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy and dilatometry. One of the mixtures was used as a layering material on the dental ceramic, and its attachment to the substrate, fracture surface, micro-hardness, and bioactivity behavior was evaluated. Sintering enhanced the crystallinity of the mixtures and they exhibited a good bioactive behavior. In addition, applying one of the mixtures as coating on ceramic substrate was a successful process in which the product revealed acceptable properties.

In this paper MnFe2O4 nanoparticle was prepared by a hydrothermal method and characterized through X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy. Alternating gradient force magnetometer (AGFM) indicated ferromagnetic behavior of MnFe2O4 nanoparticles. The reductant agent, capping agent and surfactant effects on the size and morphology of MnFe2O4 nanoparticles were investigated. Photocatalytic properties of MnFe2O4 nanoparticle (band gap 1.35 eV) was measured by using the degradation of methylene blue under visible light irradiation (84 %). Also band gap of MnFe2O4 nanoparticles determined by UV–Vis spectrum (DRS).

In this work at the first step, ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles were synthesized via hydrothermal method. It was investigated that the size and morphology of ZnFe2O4 was affected by the ligand and reductant agent. 2-hydroxyacetophenone was used as a good capping agent to produce uniform rice-like nanostructure. The prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction pattern, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Alternating gradient force magnetometer was demonstrated ferromagnetic behavior of ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles. The photocatalytic behavior of ZnFe2O4 nanoparticle (band gap 2 eV) was evaluated using the degradation of Rhodamine B under visible light irradiation (81 %). A composite was obtained while the ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles were added to polystyrene. The influence of ZnFe2O4 on the thermal properties of polymer matrix was studied using thermogravimetry analysis. Thermal decomposition of the polystyrene was shifted towards higher temperature (60 °C) in the presence of the ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles.

Pyrano[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivatives were synthesized via one-pot, three-component condensation reaction of aromatic aldehydes, malononitrile, and barbituric acid in aqueous ethanol catalyzed by Ni2+ supported on hydroxyapatite-core–shell-γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles (γ-Fe2O3@HAp-Ni2+ NPs) as Lewis acid. The nontoxic nature and easy handling of the catalyst, environmentally friendly and facile work-up procedure, short reaction time, low catalyst loading, and high effectiveness to give products in good to excellent yield are advantages of this approach. Also, γ-Fe2O3@HAp-Ni2+ NPs can be easily recovered and reused for at least six runs.

In this study, the upper bound analysis of barrel compression test is presented by using a new velocity field obtained from the finite element technique. The new velocity field is presented, with bulging of free cylindrical surface taken into consideration. Since the finite element method is known as the powerful technique for simulation of practical metal forming processes, the new velocity field has been found more realistic than the previous assumed velocity fields. The application of new velocity field also leads to obtain significant satisfaction with the final shape of deformed billet of perfect plastic material in a wide range of billet height reduction. Influence of strain hardening on metal flow and compression load is investigated, in order to calculate the required load compressing the cylindrical billet of work-hardening material. As a result, the new analysis is modified for work-hardening material which satisfies the experimental results very well.

We investigated the effects of self-deflection on incoherent interaction between photovoltaic bright–bright soliton pairs in photorefractive crystals under steady-state condition in an unbiased series two-photon photorefractive crystal circuit in one dimension. The numerical schemes according to the Crank–Nicholson and Runge–Kutta methods are applied to simulate the propagation of incoherent interaction for studying self-deflection by considering the diffusion process with different normalized separation distances, different amplitude and different δ. We also offer some applications about this subject.

The conventional screening methods for salinity tolerance are time-consuming, labor-intensive and have low throughput screening rate. Molecular marker-quantitative trait association can be used to increase the efficiency of a breeding program, especially for salinity tolerance. This study was carried out to find marker-trait association using regression analysis between 13 morpho-physiological traits and 104 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers (from 18 SSR primer pairs) on a set of 168 genotype from 12 extreme salt tolerant and sensitive crossing parents (14 samples in each parent) during 2011 and 2012. The morpho-physiological traits included Ca2+, Na+ and K+ in leaf, quality related traits in root, root yield, sugar yield and white sugar yield which were field evaluated under saline and non-saline conditions in 2 years. Results of analysis of variance revealed a significant difference between genotypes for most of the studied traits in both environments. High estimates of broad-sense heritability with relatively low genetic advance were observed for ECS and MS (in stress conditions) and for ECS and α-N in root (in non-stress conditions). The result of regression analysis showed that in 2011, five markers [(FDSB1007 (c-284 bp), KWS (a-234 bp), SB06 (c-180 bp), FDSB502 (f-293 bp) and FDSB1027 (a-211 bp)] and in 2012, nine markers [KWS (f-250), KWS (h-266), USD29 (b-153), BQ588629 (f-196), SB07 (c-278), Bmb3 (b-268), SB04 (d-200), SB15 (d-164) and Bvm3 (e-131)] had significant effect on at least one trait in both environments. Two SSR markers (FDSB502 and Bmb3) were significantly associated with the key traits contributed to salinity tolerance such as leaf Na+ and leaf K+ and the highest root quality-related traits suggesting these as the appropriate markers to improve salinity tolerance of sugar beet. The efficiency of such markers in breeding programs for developing sugar beet cultivars with high salinity tolerance requires further investigation.

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), anodic polarization and scanning electron microscopy techniques were used to investigate the damage mechanism in the transpassive potential region of AISI 316 and AISI 316L solution-annealed stainless steels (SS) with different degrees of sensitization. Depending on the DC potential applied during EIS tests, the AC responses in the transpassive region included three different regions: the first one associated with anodic dissolution of the passive layer, the second one contributed to the dissolution at the area near grain boundaries, and the last one attributed to pitting corrosion. In addition, the fitting results to experimental data showed that as the DC bias during the EIS test increases the charge transfer resistance (R ct) decreases. Moreover, the R ct values decreased as the sensitization temperature increases but the AISI 316L SS samples exhibited a higher resistance to intergranular corrosion than 316 SS samples.

In this research, Ni2+ supported on hydroxyapatite-core-shell magnetic γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles (γ-Fe2O3@HAp-Ni2+) as a novel, efficient, reusable and heterogeneous catalyst was reported. In this protocol, we used this catalyst for the ring opening of epoxide with sodium azide in water. The catalyst can be readily isolated using an external magnet and no obvious loss of activity was observed when the catalyst was reused in seven consecutive runs. The mean size and the surface morphology of the nanoparticles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscope, vibrating sample magnetometry, X-ray powder diffraction and Fourier transform infrared techniques.