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Coronary artery disease (CAD) due to atherosclerosis is one of the important reasons for death worldwide. Recent evidence has suggested the essential role of inflammation in the progression of atherosclerosis. Interleukin (IL)-37 is a critical anti-inflammatory member of the IL-1 family which regulates the inflammatory processes. The aim of this study was to compare the serum levels of IL-37 in patients with CAD compared with the control group and its correlation with oxidative stress, cholesterol homeostasis, and inflammation in patients with CAD. A total of 42 patients with CAD and 42 sex-matched and age- matched controls who underwent coronary angiography were included in this study. The serum levels of IL-37 were evaluated via ELISA. Serum levels of biochemical risk factors were determined by enzymatic methods. Serum levels of IL-37 in the CAD group subjects were significantly lower than in the control group and IL-37 was significantly increased in men with CAD than in women with CAD. IL-37 significantly had an inverse correlation with IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, IL-32, high-sensitivity C reactive protein, oxidized low-density lipoprotein, and malondialdehyde. Also, IL-37 had a significantly positive correlation with ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay. In addition, IL-37 has positively correlated with ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 and G1 gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and serum levels of the FRAP. A receiver operating characteristic test displayed that IL-37 level ratios were a relatively significant CAD predictor. Our results indicated that decreased serum levels of IL-37 in patients with CAD and its relationship with inflammatory cytokines and reverse cholesterol transport genes are more likely to be associated in the inflammatory process with disease pathology.

Objectives: Ventricular septal defect (VSD) is the most common congenital heart disease (CHD) (40%). Traditionally, VSDs have been repaired surgically; however, recently VSD closure by device has been developed. This study aimed to compare these two methods in terms of effectiveness, outcomes, and complications. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on VSD patients who were treated by either surgery or trans catheter technique in Madani Heart Center from March 2011 to March 2017. The required data regarding effectiveness, outcomes, and complications were recorded based on the patient’s documents. The extracted data were analyzed by SPSS version 18.0. Results: A total of 93 patients were enrolled (43 patients in transcatheter [A] and 50 patients in open-heart surgery [B] group) in this study. The gender distribution was approximately the same. The mean age of group A was 10.55 years while it was 8.8 years for group B. The duration of ICU and hospital stay, total hospitalization cost, and frequency of blood products transfusion were significantly lower in group A than in group B. However, postoperative pacemaker insertion, arrhythmias, thromboembolism, and mortality rates did not show any significant difference between the two groups. The success rates in group A and B were 97.7% and 96%, respectively. Conclusions: The results of our study demonstrated that open-heart surgery, due to its nature, required longer hospital and ICU stay, higher cost, and higher blood transfusion rate than transcatheter therapy, but it was associated with similar complications and success rates. Therefore, device closure in appropriately selected patients is recommended as an alternative to the surgical approach.

Introduction: Overally the anomaly of the coronary arteries are rare. Its incidence according to angiographic, autopsy and echocardiographic findings, are about 1%, 0.29% and less than 0.1% respectively. Usually these are the incidental finding during angiography without clinical presentation. These anomalies may be accompanied by myocardial ischemia, arrhythmia, syncope and sudden death. Case Presentation: We present a 14-year-old Iranian boy who experienced chest pain and shortness of breath after engaging in physical activity. The right coronary artery (RCA) had an intramural and inter-arterial course and was proven to have originated from the left sinus of Valsalva by computed tomographic coronary angiography (CTCA). The RCA began adjunct to the ostium of the left main coronary artery and coursed intramural at first and then continued between the aorta and pulmonary artery. The patient underwent corrective surgery. The RCA was cut from origin and reanastomosd to the right coronary sinus after preparing the sinus. The patient recovered well and he was discharged with the ability to perform sports activity. One year Follow up of the patient was uneventful. Conclusions: Even though single ostium coronary artery abnormalities are uncommon, they have become more frequently identified in recent years using non-invasive techniques such transthoracic echocardiography, which is then followed by CT angiography or conventional angiography. These patients are susceptible to sudden death, so attention to symptoms of the patients and comprehensive approach to them can be lifesaving.

Chiral nanophotonic materials are promising candidates for biosensing applications because they focus light into nanometer dimensions, increasing their sensitivity to the molecular signatures of their surroundings. Recent advances in nanomaterial-enhanced chirality sensing provide detection limits as low as attomolar concentrations (10-18 M) for biomolecules and are relevant to the pharmaceutical industry, forensic drug testing, and medical applications that require high sensitivity. Here, we review the development of chiral nanomaterials and their application for detecting biomolecules, supramolecular structures, and other environmental stimuli. We discuss superchiral near-field generation in both dielectric and plasmonic metamaterials that are composed of chiral or achiral nanostructure arrays. These materials are also applicable for enhancing chiroptical signals from biomolecules. We review the plasmon-coupled circular dichroism mechanism observed for plasmonic nanoparticles and discuss how hotspot-enhanced plasmon-coupled circular dichroism applies to biosensing. We then review single-particle spectroscopic methods for achieving the ultimate goal of single-molecule chirality sensing. Finally, we discuss future outlooks of nanophotonic chiral systems.

Here, we report the preparation of hierarchical flower-like (Bi(Bi2S3)9I3)2/3 nanostructures that acts as a strong photocatalyst in the desulfurization of benzothiophene. We optimized the reaction time, type of capping agent and reflux temperature to tune the shape of porous flower-like (Bi(Bi2S3)9I3)2/3 nanostructures to achieve the highest desulfurization performance. We investigated the characteristic shape, size, purity, and optical response of the flower-shape nanostructures using XRD, EDS, FESEM, UV–Vis-DRS analysis. The flower-like (Bi(Bi2S3)9I3)2/3 nanostructures showed a significant photocatalytic property in desulfurization of benzothiophene as a model fuel. The hierarchical flower-like (Bi(Bi2S3)9I3)2/3 photocatalyst with an energy gap of 1.15 eV, exhibits a 92% photocatalytic desulfurization performance after 2 h of visible light irradiation. The (Bi(Bi2S3)9I3)2/3 nanostructures show a high photocatalytic reproducibility after 4 rounds of exposure. We proposed a photo-oxidation mechanism based on the active species scavenging, which revealed the role of photo-produced h+ and O2− species as essential in the photocatalytic desulfurization process. These findings provide a new prospect and design strategy for the development of efficient photocatalysts in desulfurization process.

Metallic nanoparticles supporting a localized surface plasmon resonance have emerged as promising platforms for nanoscopic labels, sensors, and (photo-) catalysts. To use nanoparticles in these capacities, and to gain mechanistic insight into the reactivity of inherently heterogeneous nanoparticles, single-particle characterization approaches are needed. Single-particle scattering spectroscopy has become an important, highly sensitive tool for localizing single plasmonic nanoparticles and studying their optical properties, local environment, and reactivity. In this review, we discuss approaches taken for collecting the scattered light from single particles, their advantages and disadvantages, and present some recent applications. We introduce techniques for the excitation and detection of single-particle scattering such as high-angle dark-field excitation, total internal reflection dark-field excitation, scanning near-field microscopy, and interferometric scattering. We also describe methods to achieve polarization-resolved excitation and detection. We then discuss different approaches for scanning, ratiometric, snapshot, and interferometric hyperspectral imaging techniques used to extract spectral information. Finally, we provide a brief overview of specialized setups for in situ measurements of nanoparticles in liquid systems and setups coupled to scanning tip microscopes.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease with high mortality worldwide. The reverse cholesterol transport pathway in macrophage plays an important role in the pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD) and is strongly controlled by regulatory factors. The microRNAs can promote or prevent the formation of atherosclerotic lesions by post-transcriptional regulation of vital genes in this pathway. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the expression levels of miR-27a, miR-329, ABCA1, and ABCG1 genes and serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and indices of oxidative stress in the patients with established CAD and controls. A total of 84 subjects (42 patients with CAD and 42 controls) were included in this study. Expression levels of miR-27a-3p, miR-329-3p, ABCA1, and ABCG1 genes in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and serum concentration of hs-CRP and ox-LDL were measured by real time-PCR and ELISA, respectively. Also, oxidative stress parameters in the serum were evaluated by ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) assays. ABCA1 and ABCG1 gene expression in PBMC and serum concentration of FRAP were significantly lower in the CAD group compared to the control group. Expression levels of miR-27a and miR-329 and serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and MDA were significantly higher in the CAD group compared to the control group. Serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and expression level of miR-27a have inversely related to ABCA1 and ABCG1 gene expression in all the subjects. An increase in the expression levels of miR-27a and miR-329 may lead to the progression of atherosclerosis plaque by downregulating the expression of ABCA1 and ABCG1 genes.

Single-particle spectroscopy is central to the characterization of plasmonic nanostructures and understanding of light-matter interactions in chiral nanosystems. Although chiral plasmonic nanostructures are generally characterized by their circular differential extinction and scattering, single-particle absorption studies can extend our understanding of light-matter interactions. Here, we introduce an experimental observation of photothermal chirality which originated from circular differential absorption of chiral plasmonic nanostructures. Using luminescence ratio thermometry, we identify the optical and photothermal handedness and an absolute temperature difference of 6 K under the right and left circularly polarized light. We observe a circular differential extinction parameter (

Aberrant expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can contribute to the pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD). In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression of lncRNA interferon γ-antisense 1 (IFNG-AS1), zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 2 antisense RNA 1 (ZEB2-AS1), and their direct target genes (IFN-γ and ZEB2, respectively) in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) from CAD and healthy individuals.We recruited 40 CAD patients and 40 healthy individuals. After doing some bioinformatics analyses, the expressions of IFNG-AS1/ ZEB2-AS1 lncRNAs and IFN-γ/ ZEB2 in PBMCs were measured using quantitative real-time PCR. The possible correlation between the putative lncRNAs and disease severity was also assessed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the predictive role of lncRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers in CAD patients. The expressions of IFNG-AS1 lncRNA as well as IFN-γ and ZEB2 genes were significantly reduced in CAD patients compared to healthy subjects. In contrast, the expression of ZEB2-AS1 was up-regulated in these patients. Linear regression analysis unveiled that there is a positive correlation between the expression of IFNG-AS1 and IFN-γ, also similarly, ZEB2-AS1 and ZEB2 in PBMCs of subjects. Moreover, the expression of IFNG-AS1 and ZEB2-AS1 correlated with the Gensini score. The area under the ROC curves ranged from 0.633-0.742 for ZEB2-AS1/ZEB2 and IFNG-AS1/IFN-γ, respectively.Our results indicated that the dysregulation of IFNG-AS1/IFN-γ and ZEB2-AS1/ZEB2 in PBMCs of CAD patients may be involved in CAD pathogenesis.

Array signal processing, as a versatile approach, can be used in both source separation and source localization applications. In the realm of the multi-channel blind source separation, time–frequency masking methods and data-dependent beamforming algorithms are commonly used, and the proposed approach in this paper employs a complementary combination of the two methods. Most mask-based approaches suffer from a basic problem: the use of a real-valued mask is not justified in some time–frequency blocks. Thus, we use both mask and spatial information of sources simultaneously to reduce interference and distortion in the separated sources. Moreover, a novel mixing matrix estimation is introduced in this paper that employs information extracted from binary/fuzzy clustering of a high-performance feature set. To employ the complementary combination in source separation approach, a criterion is used that splits time–frequency points into two groups. For the first group, masking method is used for separation, whereas for the second one, mixing matrix is employed. Experimental results show that the proposed source separation method is very promising in anechoic conditions, as well as in the low-reverberant ones. In comparison with other masking-based approaches, especially for the anechoic case, the results get much closer to the best theoretically achievable signal to distortion ratio.

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of vegetable oils on the antioxidant capacity, blood lipid components and immune responses in chickens raised in hot climate. In a completely randomized design, 300 chicks were assigned to four treatments and five replicates with 15 chicks per each. The highest concentration of malondialdehyde was found in broilers fed palm oil (p < 0.05). Chickens fed corn oil had the lowest and those fed flaxseed oil had the highest antioxidant enzymes activities (p < 0.05). The highest hepatic Alanine-transferase and Aspartate-transferase was found in chickens fed corn oil and the lowest levels in those received flaxseed and olive oils (p < 0.05). The highest hypersensitivity was in chickens fed palm oil and the lowest was for olive oil. The highest antibody titer against sheep red blood cells was found in chickens fed flaxseed oil and the lowest titer was for those received palm oil (p < 0.05). The highest triglyceride, cholesterol and very low density lipoprotein and the lowest high density lipoprotein was found in chickens fed palm oil and vice versa for flaxseed and olive oils. Olive and flaxseed oils had beneficial effects on antioxidant activity and lipid attributes and palm oil had detrimental effects on these parameters that related to the poultry health. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of vegetable oils on the antioxidant capacity, blood lipid components and immune responses in chickens raised in hot climate. In a completely randomized design, 300 chicks were assigned to four treatments and five replicates with 15 chicks per each. The highest concentration of malondialdehyde was found in broilers fed palm oil (p < 0.05). Chickens fed corn oil had the lowest and those fed flaxseed oil had the highest antioxidant enzymes activities (p < 0.05). The highest hepatic Alanine-transferase and Aspartate-transferase was found in chickens fed corn oil and the lowest levels in those received flaxseed and olive oils (p < 0.05). The highest hypersensitivity was in chickens fed palm oil and the lowest was for olive oil. The highest antibody titer against sheep red blood cells was found in chickens fed flaxseed oil and the lowest titer was for those received palm oil (p < 0.05). The highest triglyceride, cholesterol and very low density lipoprotein and the lowest high density lipoprotein was found in chickens fed palm oil and vice versa for flaxseed and olive oils. Olive and flaxseed oils had beneficial effects on antioxidant activity and lipid attributes and palm oil had detrimental effects on these parameters that related to the poultry health.

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is a chronic inflammatory disease caused by atherosclerosis and arteries become clogged due to plaque formation, fat accumulation, and various sorts of immune cells. IL-32 is a new proinflammatory cytokine, which enhances inflammation through inducing different inflammatory cytokines. The purpose of current research was to assess IL-32 serum levels in coronary artery disease subjects and its relationship with serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α. Forty-two subjects diagnosed with CAD and thirty-nine control subjects were enrolled in the research. Serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-32 were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). IL-32, TNF-α, and IL-6 serum levels were significantly higher by 2.7, 3.48, and 3.2-fold in the CAD subjects than in control subjects, respectively. Moreover, no significant difference was found in TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-32 serum levels with the clogged arteries number in the CAD group. TNF-α and IL-32 serum levels in the CAD subjects with cardiac arterial stenosis in one major vessel were significantly increased than CAD subjects with cardiac arterial stenosis in more than one major vessels. ROC curve analysis revealed that serum levels of IL-32, TNF-α, and IL-6 showed good abilities in predicting CAD. Also, Multiple logistic regression analyses suggested that TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-32, serum levels of LDL and ox-LDL were independently related to the presence of CAD, while HDL serum levels were not. TNF-α, IL-32, and IL-6 showed an increase in CAD group and serum levels of these cytokines showed good abilities in predicting CAD. Our data suggested the involvement of TNF-α and IL-32 in the early stage of CAD.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease with high mortality worldwide. The reverse cholesterol transport pathway in macrophage plays an important role in the pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD) and is strongly controlled by regulatory factors. The microRNAs can promote or prevent the formation of atherosclerotic lesions by post-transcriptional regulation of vital genes in this pathway. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the expression levels of miR-27a, miR-329, ABCA1, and ABCG1 genes and serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and indices of oxidative stress in the patients with established CAD and controls. A total of 84 subjects (42 patients with CAD and 42 controls) were included in this study. Expression levels of miR-27a-3p, miR-329-3p, ABCA1, and ABCG1 genes in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and serum concentration of hs-CRP and ox-LDL were measured by real time-PCR and ELISA, respectively. Also, oxidative stress parameters in the serum were evaluated by ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) assays. ABCA1 and ABCG1 gene expression in PBMC and serum concentration of FRAP were significantly lower in the CAD group compared to the control group. Expression levels of miR-27a and miR-329 and serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and MDA were significantly higher in the CAD group compared to the control group. Serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and expression level of miR-27a have inversely related to ABCA1 and ABCG1 gene expression in all the subjects. An increase in the expression levels of miR-27a and miR-329 may lead to the progression of atherosclerosis plaque by downregulating the expression of ABCA1 and ABCG1 genes.

We introduce for the first time a time-resolved temperature measurement technique which relies on temperature-jump luminescence thermometry using NaYF4:Yb3+:Er3+ upconverting nanocrystals. This new time-resolved technique is based on optical thermometry using upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) and does not have to infer temperature from changes in the optical properties of the heater or surrounding local environment. We have prepared gold-decorated UCNPs that function as a dual single-heater thermometer system. We measure the time-resolved temperature jump from nanocrystal clusters and compare our results to simulated thermal transfer data generated using finite element methods. The simulated data show that temperature dissipation follows a power law where the temperature change is inversely related to time. This result agrees with a thermal diffusion model where a semi-infinite medium is exposed to a sudden temperature change at its surface, but the simulated results do not agree that the heat transfer p...

The fuel source of many simple and combined-cycle power plants usually comes from a nearby natural gas transmission pipeline at a pressure from 50 to over 70 bar. The use of a turboex-pander instead of throttling equipment offers a promising alternative to regulate the pressure of natural gas introduced to the power plant. Specifically, it helps recover part of the available energy of the compressed gas in the transmission pipeline, increase the power output and efficiency of the gas turbine system, and decrease the fuel use and harmful emissions. In this paper, the addition of such a turboexpander in a gas pressure-reduction station is studied. The recovered power is then used to drive the compression of extra air added to the combustion chamber of a heavy-duty gas turbine. The performance of this configuration is analyzed for a wide range of ambient temperatures using energy and exergy analyses. Fuel energy recovered in this way increases the output power and the efficiency of the gas turbine system by a minimum of 2.5 MW and 0.25%, respectively. The exergy efficiency of the gas turbine system increases by approximately 0.36% and the annual CO2 emissions decrease by 1.3% per MW. Reza Shirmohammadi would like to acknowledge the Erasmus + International Credit Mobility (KA107-2020 project), Alianza 4 Universidades, and International Affairs at University of Tehran and Carlos III University of Madrid. Fontina Petrakopoulou would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Ramón y Cajal Programme, RYC-2016-20971).

In this paper, we measured the temperature dependence in the temporal response of the green emission for both the H band (2H11/2 → 4I15/2 transition) and the S band (4S3/2 → 4I15/2 transition) for β-NaYF4 nanocrystals and β-NaYF4 nanocrystals decorated with 10 nm gold nanoparticles and found that the emission is quenched with temperature. We measured the time-resolved green emission intensity for decorated upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) and observed a biexponential decay that has a dominant decay time of ∼30 μs and a longer decay time of ∼300 μs that is similar to the single-exponential decay observed for the undecorated UCNPs. The temperature dependence in the green emission for β-NaYF4 nanocrystals has a nonradiative quenching rate modeled with activation energy of 700 cm–1 assigned to multiphonon relaxation to Er3+ lower energy levels. We measured the steady-state emission from the H and S bands for temperatures between 300 and 450 K and obtained a linear relationship between calculated and measure...

For a nanostructure sitting on top of an AlGaN:Er