Search

Hydrogen has gained renewed and growing interest around the world in the recent decades as a high-quality and renewable energy carrier, owing primarily to advances in fuel cells as well as growing environmental concerns. Steam reforming of fossil-based resources is currently the main route to H2 production. The downside of this process, however, is generation of massive amounts of greenhouse gases including CO2 as the byproduct which in turn must be captured to fully exploit the potential of H2. Membrane separation technology has seen significant growth, breakthroughs, and advancements over the last few decades and could be the key component in achieving inexpensive and highly pure H2. However, only a few numbers of membrane materials can withstand the harsh conditions of H2 production through steam reforming. Polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based membranes show excellent chemical, thermal, and mechanical stabilities as well as high intrinsic H2/CO2 selectivity. The objective of this review is to overview the recent development of structurally modified, cross-linked, mixed matrix, and hollow fiber membranes based on PBI for the development of industrially applicable H2-selective membranes.

Water recycling is one of the most sustainable solutions to growing water scarcity challenges. However, wastewaters usually contain organic pollutants and often are at extreme pH, which complicates the treatment of these streams with conventional membranes. In this work, we report the synthesis of a robust membrane material that can withstand prolonged exposure to extreme pH (of 1 or 13 for 2 months). Polyamine thin film composite (TFC) membranes are prepared in situ by interfacial polymerization between 1,3,5-tris(bromomethyl)benzene (tBrMeB) and p-phenylenediamine (PPD). Contrary to conventional polyamide TFC membranes, enhanced pH stability is achieved by eliminating the carbonyl groups from the polymer network. The membranes showed pure water permeance and molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) of 0.28 ± 0.09 L m-2 h-2 bar-1 and 820 ± 132 g mol-1, respectively. The membrane performance is further enhanced by manipulating the monomer structures and replacing p-phenylenediamine with m-phenylenediamine, resulting in a higher permeance of 1.3 ± 0.3 L m-2 h-1 bar-1 and a lower MWCO of 566 ± 43 g mol-1. Given the ease of fabrication and excellent stability, this chemistry represents a step forward in the fabrication of robust membranes for industrial wastewater recycling.

Chicken feathers are major byproducts of the livestock processing industry with high potential in the feed sector. In this study, we present a new approach using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to detect the structural changes of feather keratin and its availability for enzymatic hydrolysis (AEH) induced by the thermal pressure hydrolysis (TPH) process. Compared to time-consuming in vitro measurement techniques, the proposed method provides rapid information about the structural changes during TPH which enables quick adaptation of TPH conditions as the quality of the incoming feather changes. By analyzing the FTIR spectra of raw and processed feathers, it was found that AEH negatively relates to the β-sheet content (represented by two IR peaks centered at 1635 and 1689 cm-1), while it positively relates to a new series of peaks centered around 1700 cm-1appearing after the TPH process. The proposed FTIR technique provides a reliable and rapid approach to determine the digestibility indicated by AEH of the processed feather and may be used in process control and optimization.

We aimed to inquire whether any seizure rescue medications are included in the in-flight medical emergency kits of the main airlines in the world. This data could help the airline authorities update their strategies in light of any shortcomings.First, we identified ten major airlines in the world. Then, we searched the Google engine with the following keywords: "name of the airline" and "in-flight medical emergency" or "first aid kit" or "emergency kit". In case there was no information on the web, we emailed the airlines and inquired about the contents of their in-flight medical emergency kits. We also investigated some of the major aviation organizations' websites [i.e., Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and International Air Transport Association (IATA)].None of the major airlines were equipped with easily applicable seizure rescue medications (i.e., buccal midazolam, a nasal spray of midazolam, or intranasal diazepam). The AsMA and ICAO recommend including injectable sedative anticonvulsant drugs in the in-flight medical emergency kits without any further specifications. The IATA does not provide specific recommendations for including seizure rescue medications in the in-flight medical emergency kits.A seizure is a significant in-flight medical emergency event. The use of easily applicable seizure rescue medications during prolonged or repeated seizures is significantly associated with fewer sequelae for the affected person. Easily applicable seizure rescue medications should be included in the in-flight medical emergency kits, and the cabin crew should receive training on how and when to use them.

The phenotypic diversity of the Iranian orchids has sharply decreased during the last 15 years and is currently threatened with local extinction and global climatic changes. Harvest of tuberous orchids has recently been raised in Iran owing to the high prices of orchid's tubers and international demand from neighboring countries. This has caused competition among orchid harvesters in the country so that the orchids are not even allowed to produce seeds. The present study was done aimed at protecting and identifying the phenotypic diversity within Orchis mascula genotypes in Abr forest, which is a natural habitat of Orchis mascula in Shahrood area, Northeast Iran. The morphological variability of 101 collected samples of early purple orchids was analyzed based on a total of 57 morphological traits. In terms of the quantitative traits, the highest and lowest coefficients of variation (CV%) were observed in the number of side tubers (200%) and petal length (14.43%), respectively. When it comes to the qualitative traits, the highest and lowest CVs were observed in lip color (70.90%) and the flower form on the stem (0%), respectively. Among the studied traits, 11 attributes showed a CV value of less than 20%. The highest positive correlations were observed between tuber fresh weight and tuber dry weight (r = 0.908). Applying principal component analysis (PCA) indicated three main components that explained 45.81% of the total variance. The clusters number four and seven could arguably be suitable sources of parents in breeding crosses for tuber fresh and dry weight traits. In summary, this study confirmed that Abr forest would be one of the rich diversity areas for Orchis mascula and our findings might be satisfactorily applied for breeding, conservation, domestication and development of new traits depending on different breeding purposes.

This work simulates the production of methyl crotonate from various industrial wastewaters. In the upstream process, wastewater is fermented into volatile fatty acids which are then converted into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) by means of mixed microbial cultures. In the downstream, PHA undergoes a series of thermolysis and esterification reactions to produce methyl crotonate. The origin of the wastewater was found to have a great influence on the composition of the PHA with the effluent of a candy bar factory producing a high polyhydroxybutyrate/polyhydroxyvalerate ratio of 86/14 in favour of methyl crotonate production. It was observed that the use of intracellular polyhydroxybutyrate, instead of purified, significantly lowers the number of separation steps and yet reduces the methyl crotonate recovery by only 20 %. An operating pressure higher than 18 bar led to more transesterification of polyhydroxybutyrate, producing byproducts instead of methyl crotonate. Finally, a 3 h reaction was found sufficient for completion of polyhydroxybutyrate conversion.

Since late 2019, the world and since early 2020, Iran has been experiencing a catastrophic pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2).1 This fatal virus has a high potential for person-to-person transmission; therefore, this deadly outbreak has caused massive job losses, various psychiatric problems, and increasing difficulties for all businesses worldwide.2-5 Production of scientific data and its timely dissemination are the essential elements of an effective response to any crisis including the current pandemic. The current study aimed to determine the early contributions of the Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences (IJMS) during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We retrieved all the IJMS publications in 2020 and divided the published articles into three main categories: clinical sciences, basic sciences, and editorials. We also identified and highlighted the studies related to COVID-19.

Separation in organic mixtures is challenging but inevitable in many chemical and pharmaceutical processes. A membrane-based technique known as organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) offers a sustainable and reliable solution due to its characteristics of low energy consumption and high efficiency. However, fabrication of a robust membrane that can maintain its separation performance in direct contact with organic solvents for a long period of time is challenging. The most common way to make a polymeric membrane resistant to organic solvents is to cross-link it with a three-dimensional network of polymer chains. However, selection of the right cross-linker for a particular polymer may not be very straightforward. Therefore, in this review, we aim to briefly introduce the common materials used for the fabrication of OSN membranes and demonstrate the state-of-art cross-linking procedures to improve the chemical stability of the membranes. This review may be helpful to researchers when selecting and modifying materials for the development of OSN membranes.

Design and fabrication of solvent resistant hollow fiber membranes with great mechanical and thermal stability are highly demanded for sustainable manufacturing in chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Herein, we propose a facile and novel acid doping procedure to synthesize highly stable and selective polybenzimidazole (PBI) hollow fibers for organic solvent nanofiltration for the first time. PBI hollow fibers were spun through a dry-jet wet-spinning method. Subsequently, the hollow fibers were acid doped with a 2 wt% H2SO4 solution so that the acid molecules form hydrogen bonds with the PBI backbone and build an integrated structure which becomes insoluble in organic solvents. Comprehensive characterizations were conducted to study the impact of acid doping on PBI hollow fibers. The acid doping not only reduced the molecular weight cut off (MWCO) of the fibers from 2000 g mol‒1 to 500 g mol‒1 but also significantly enhanced their chemical and mechanical stability, as well as flexibility. In addition, for the first time, the conventional solute‒rejection experiments utilized to determine the MWCO and pore size distribution of membranes in aqueous solutions were modified to estimate them in organic solvents. By using tetracycline/methanol and L-α-lecithin/hexane mixtures as feeds, the newly developed PBI hollow fibers showed rejections of > 98% and permeances of 3.5 and 7.1 L m−2h−1bar−1 towards methanol and hexane, respectively. Therefore, they have great potential for solvent recovery in food and pharmaceutical industries.

Polybenzimidazole (PBI) thin films were chemically crosslinked using 1,3,5-Tris(bromomethyl)benzene (TBB) to manipulate the microstructure of polymer chains and to achieve a high sieving ability for H2/CO2 separation. By changing the TBB concentration and TBB/PBI molar ratio in the crosslinking solutions, PBI films were modified with different degrees of crosslinking. The increment of crosslinking density in the membranes leads to a decrease in fractional free volume (FFV), indicating the tightening effect of the TBB crosslinking reaction on PBI films. The H2/CO2 mixed gas separation was conducted at 150 °C. The membrane with the highest crosslinking density and the lowest FFV possesses the best performance for H2/CO2 separation with a H2 permeability of 9.6 Barrer and a remarkable H2/CO2 selectivity of 24. It surpasses the Robeson's upper bound and some of other membranes, indicating its promise for hydrogen purification and CO2 capture at elevated temperatures.

While ventriculo-extracranial shunting procedures have been the standard treatment option for hydrocephalus for a long time, their long-term morbidity, including the development of post-shuntIn this retrospective longitudinal study, all patients with hydrocephalus who had ventriculo-peritoneal shunt insertion from 2014 to 2017 at Namazi Hospital, (Shiraz, Iran) were studied. Phone calls were made to all patients to obtain their postoperative seizure outcome and other data (e.g., sex, age at surgery, shunt insertion location, history of seizures before surgery, history of seizures after surgery, any other type of brain surgery, and the etiology of their hydrocephalus). The Pearson Chi Square was used for the analysis of binary variable (e.g., sex) differences, and theA total of 114 patients were included in the study. Overall, 68 (60%) patients had a frontal location of shunt insertion and 46 (40%) had a parietal site. Twenty-four (21%) patients reported experiencing

Recent evidence indicates a beneficial effect of Melissa officinalis (MO) intake on several chronic diseases. However, the effects of MO intake have not yet been systematically reviewed. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the effect of MO intake and focused on several cardiometabolic outcomes. MEDLINE, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched for MO-RCTs evaluating cardiometabolic outcomes. Random-effects meta-analyses estimated the pooled standardized mean differences (SMD) between intervention and control groups. Risk of bias was assessed with the Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing the risk of bias in RCTs. Seven RCTs were finally deemed eligible. MO intake was associated with a reduced total cholesterol (TC) (SMD: -0.26; 95% CI: -0.52, -0.01; I2 = 13.7%; k = 6) and a reduced systolic blood pressure (SBP) (SMD: -0.56; 95% CI: -0.85, -0.27; I2 = 00.0%; k = 3). MO intake was not associated with statistically significant changes in triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein, diastolic blood pressure, high sensitivity c-reactive protein levels, fasting blood sugar, HbA1c, insulin or high-density lipoprotein levels. No serious adverse events were reported. The risk of bias was high in a considerable amount of studies. Our study suggests that MO is a safe supplement with beneficial effects on TC and SBP. However, the findings of our study must be seen in the light of major limitations such as a low number of included studies and a serious risk of bias. High-quality RCTs are needed for firm conclusions concerning the effects of MO on cardiometabolic outcomes.

This study, for the first time, demonstrates a new double-crosslinking approach to manipulate the microstructure and gas separation performance of PBI membranes for H2/CO2 separation at 150 °C. The PBI membranes were firstly blended with sulfonated polyphenylsulfone (sPPSU) as an ionic-crosslinker and then α,α′-dibromo-p-xylene (DBX) as a covalent crosslinker with the aid of thermal annealing. Experiments show that PBI and sPPSU interact on the molecular level. Different from conventional blends, the PBI/sPPSU blend membranes show both enhanced chemical resistance and greater fractional free volume (FFV) after annealing at elevated temperatures because of chain motion and ionic crosslinking. As a result, the blend membranes maintain their high permeability after annealing. The DBX addition further improves the chemical resistance and tightens the inter-chain spacing that results in membranes with a small FFV and pore size. Consequently, the DBX cross-linked blend membranes retain their high gas pair selectivity at high temperatures. The 50/50 PBI/sPPSU blend membrane crosslinked by 0.7 wt% DBX at 300 °C possesses the best separation performance surpassing the Robeson's upper bound. It has an impressively H2 permeability of 46.2 Barrer and a high H2/CO2 selectivity of 9.9 at 150 °C.

Here, we report a novel and facile technique to fabricate solvent resistant thin film composite (TFC) membranes for organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN). It consists of two steps: (1) chemically crosslinking a polybenzimidazole (PBI) membrane with dibromo-p-xylene (DBX) and (2) exposing its top surface to polyethylenimine (PEI) and forming an ultrathin and robust PEI-DBX selective layer on top of the PBI substrate. Different from the conventional interfacial polymerization, the proposed method results in the DBX crosslinked PBI substrates with great porosity and rigidity and TFC membranes with high free volume. It also eliminates the usage of hexane and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) so that the fabrication process becomes greener, faster and more efficient. Besides, it improves the adhesion of the selective layer to the support layer significantly. The resulting membranes not only display good chemical stability in DMAc at 50 °C but also possess a molecular weight cut off (MWCO) of ~350 g mol−1 with pure ethanol, acetone, tetrahydrofuran and toluene permeances of 4.5, 14, 4 and 1 L m−2h−1bar−1, respectively. Given the ease of fabrication, outstanding stability and separation performance of the resultant membranes, the newly developed technique may be applicable to design next-generation OSN membranes for chemical and pharmaceutical industries involving the separation of organic solvents at elevated temperatures.

In this paper, we report a new technique to design highly stable and selective organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes with enhanced solvent permeance by manipulating the crosslinking reactions. The new technique consists of three steps: (1) membrane fabrication via non-solvent induced phase inversion by blending sulfonated polyphenylsulfone (sPPSU) and polybenzimidazole (PBI) polymers, followed by (2) crosslinking the PBI part using α,α′-dibromo-p-xylene (DBX) to make the membrane chemically stable, and (3) ionically crosslinking the sPPSU part with hyperbranched polyethylenimine (HPEI) to narrow down the membrane pore size without affecting the permeance significantly. Crosslinking reactions have been confirmed by FTIR and XPS analyses. The OSN performance of the double crosslinked membranes was determined by measuring the permeance of various organic solvents and the rejection rates of tetracycline (Mw = 444 g mol−1) as a model pharmaceutical. Depending on the testing solvents, the permeances ranged from 2 to 11.8 L m−2 h−1 bar−1, while the rejection rates of tetracycline varied from 67% to 97%. Considering the outstanding OSN performance and the great chemical stability in a wide range of solvent polarities, this novel double crosslinking technique represents a step forward in the fabrication of high performance OSN membranes.

This paper describes the formation of a new generation of organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes via one-step in-situ crosslinking method by casting a solution mixture of sulfonated polyphenylsulfone (sPPSU) and hyperbranched polyethylenimine (HPEI) through a non-solvent induced phase inversion process. Ionically cross-linking reactions took place between sPPSU and HPEI, and were confirmed by FTIR and XPS. The as-fabricated membranes showed good chemical stability in ethanol and isopropanol, and were evaluated in terms of pure ethanol permeability and rejection ability of different dyes with molecular weights ranging from 320 to 1017 g/mole in ethanol. The effects of HPEI concentration in dope solutions on OSN performance were firstly investigated, it was found that 0.3 wt% HPEI gave the highest permeance (7.96 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 ) and a rejection of 51% to Rose Bengal (Mw = 1017). To further improve the OSN performance, several post treatments including dip coating and pressure assisted coating were conducted using a 1.0 wt% HPEI solution in either water or ethanol. The coating under pressure showed the most effectiveness to enhance the crosslinking reaction and narrow the molecular weight cut off (MWCO). The resultant membrane had a MWCO of ≈ 600 g/mole, a rejection of 99.9% to Rose Bengal and an ethanol permeance of 1.47 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 . Compared to the un-modified sPPSU, all ionically cross-linked membranes possess much more stable rejections and permeance over a period of two weeks, especially for the membrane with the pressure assisted coating. These ionically cross-linked membranes may open up new strategies to design high performance OSN membranes due to the facile in-situ cross-linking method.

Cognitive radio (CR) is a promising solution to cope with the inefficient usage of the frequency spectrum. CR lets its users leverage empty or idle parts of spectrum opportunistically. The medium access control (MAC) sub-layer in CR based networks is playing a crucial role in controlling user’s access to the shared medium and their interaction with Primary Users as well. Coordination and controlling users’ access to common control channel (CCC) at MAC sublayer can be a challenging issue in this type of networks. High availability of this channel is very important and crucial, so designing a mechanism which contributes to this, is of great importance. The CCC’s limited capacity alongside a large number of contending nodes for it causes channel saturation and consequently, leads to its unavailability. The paper introduces a useful method to compute supported saturation capacity of the CCC. It also introduces a new access mode for CCC called “Channelization”, to improve saturation capacity for it. The effect of “Channelization” scheme is also investigated on average packet delay, and according to it desirable parameters for channelization is calculated. Analytical analysis alongside simulation result shows that the channelization method can have a great impact on the increasing saturation capacity, and lower average packet transmission delay.

Melissa officinalis is a plenteous source of antioxidant flavonols and flavonoids that contain health-promoting and antidiabetic properties, so this study was undertaken to provide the first assessment of the antidiabetic properties of hydroalcoholic extract of M. officinalis in type 2 diabetic patients. We did a randomized, placebo-controlled trial which included 62 patients, receiving either M. officinalis capsules (700 mg/d; n = 31) or the placebo (n = 31) twice daily for 12 weeks. There were significant differences in serum FBS (P = 0.007), HbA1c (P = 0.002), β-cell activity (P = 0.05), TG (P = 0.04), HDL-c (P = 0.05), hs-CRP (P = 0.001), and systolic blood pressure (P = 0.04) between the two groups at the end of the study; but total cholesterol, LDL-c, insulin, and HOMA-IR showed no significant changes between the groups. In M. officinalis group, there was a significant change in HDL-c (P = 0.009) and QUICKI (P = 0.005) compared with baseline values. No adverse effects were observed. It seems that M. officinalis is safe and effective in improvement of lipid profile, glycemic control, and reduction of inflammation.

In the present study a new mathematical model's outcome based on experimental data is considered to determine the diffusion coefficients in polystyrene/solvent systems as a function of solvent concentration. We used a calibrated Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) instrument to collect the spectra from a thin layer of polymer solution covered optically dense ZnSe crystal. The collected spectra were transferred to the components' concentration, using principal component regression analysis, representing the compositional change of the polymer solution during the time. Two approaches were employed to obtain the diffusion coefficients of seven solvents in polystyrene solutions: first, we considered whole range of polymer concentration to obtain the diffusion coefficient by fitting the diffusion model on experimental data. In the second approach only early stage of evaporation process was figured, considering vitrification phenomenon in the upper layers of polymer solution film. For all solvents, higher values of diffusion coefficients obtained using second approach, showing a satisfying agreement with the literature. As a concluding remark, vitrification is an important event taken place during mass transfer processes in which it should be considered to find a reliable value for diffusion coefficient.

In this paper, genetic programming (GP) as a novel approach for the explicit modeling the phase equilibria of polymer solutions is presented. The objective of this study is to develop robust model based on experimental data for prediction of solvent activity in polymer/solvent mixtures. Molecular weight, density, chemical structures of polymer and solvent, and concentration of polymer solution were considered as input parameters of the model. Activity of solvent is considered as output parameter of the model. Some statistical parameters were calculated in order to investigate the reliability of model. The results showed very well agreement with the experimental data with an average error of less than 3%.

Plant molecular breeding largely depends on the relationship between molecular markers and major traits. Herein, a total of 32,962 genomic simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were detected in the whole genome of chickpea with an average density of 94.93 SSRs/Mb. Chickpea chromosomes uniformity test indicated that the genomic SSRs (gSSRs) were steadily distributed across the genome. Moreover, 48,667 transcriptome sequences were analyzed and 1949 SSR-containing transcript assembly contigs (TACs) were identified. The analysis showed that di- and trinucleotide SSRs were the most frequent SSR motifs within the transcriptome sequences. Among them, AT and TTA and AG and TTC motifs within the transcriptome showed the highest frequencies among di- and trinucleotide repeat motifs, respectively. The SSRs-containing TACs were compared to the GenBank non-redundant database using BLASTX, and subsequently, gene ontology (GO) analysis was performed using QuickGO browser to reduce complexity and highlight biological processes associated with the SSRs-containing TACs. The identified SSRs-containing TACs were categorized into 35 enriched functional-related gene group. The mapping of characterized SSRs-containing TACs onto chickpea chromosomes was performed using BLASTN. The mapping result showed that, a total of 1798 SSRs-containing TACs were mapped onto the chickpea genome. Based on the functional analysis result, 249 and 242 of the mapped SSRs-containing TACs were found in the genes encoding for putative stress-related proteins and transcription factors, respectively. The results presented here can be applied to improve and speed up the chickpea breeding programs.

Melissa officinalis is a plenteous source of antioxidant flavonols and flavonoids that contain health-promoting and antidiabetic properties, so this study was undertaken to provide the first assessment of the antidiabetic properties of hydroalcoholic extract of M. officinalis in type 2 diabetic patients. We did a randomized, placebo-controlled trial which included 62 patients, receiving either M. officinalis capsules (700 mg/d; n = 31) or the placebo (n = 31) twice daily for 12 weeks. There were significant differences in serum FBS (P = 0.007), HbA

Genetic programming (GP) is an orderly method based on natural evolution rules for getting computers to regularly solve a problem. In the present study, GP is presented as a novel approach for modeling the gas sparging assisted microfiltration of oil-in-water emulsion process. The effects of gas flow rate (QG), oil concentration (Coil), transmembrane pressure (TMP), and liquid flow rate (QL) on the permeate flux and oil rejection were studied and the GP models were developed to predict the membrane performance. Coil and TMP showed significant effects on both permeate flux and rejection. An interaction between Coil and TMP was detected, at low Coil and high TMP, in which the permeate flux increased considerably. It was found that QL has a low effect on permeate flux, but its impact on rejection was significant. Increasing QL from 0.5 to 2.75 L/min led to a considerable increment in rejection; however, further increase in the liquid flow rate decreased the oil rejection. On the contrary, QG showed a...

Membrane filtration has become firmly established as a primary technology for ensuring treatment of oily wastewater. A detailed study on concentration polarization (CP) during microfiltration (MF) of oil-in-water emulsions was carried out in order to predict permeate flux decline. A two dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling was conducted using the finite difference method. A combination of molecular and shear-induced diffusion coefficient was employed to describe back-diffusion of oil droplets from the membrane wall toward the bulk. Evaluation of the proposed approach was carried out by comparing the results to the experimental data in which good agreement was observed almost in every operating condition. The effects of oil concentration, trans-membrane pressure (TMP), and cross-flow velocity (CFV) on the model precision were also studied. Finally, the growth rate of CP layer along the membrane length was predicted in different operating conditions, in which the obtained trend was found to be in agreement with the CP theory.

Background: Diagnosis of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) particularly in patients with epilepsy poses a challenge to physicians to care. This study is aimed at determining the frequency of depression and anxiety among Iranian patients with PNES. Materials and Methods: Sixty patients with PNES and one hundred age-and-sex matching healthy controls were enrolled in this study from January 2010 to January 2011. Patients had at least one psychogenic non-epileptic seizure recorded during video-EEG monitoring in an epilepsy care unit of Namazi Hospital, Shiraz, Iran. Demographic data were collected and Iranian validated versions of Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventory-2 questionnaires were used. Statistical analysis was conducted using Mann-Whitney U-test, Pearson’s chi-square test and independent T test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Of 60 PNES patients, 37 (61.7%) were female and 23 (38.3%) were male (P=0.767) and mean of the patients’ age was 24.9 ± 6.6 years (P=0.674). Among controls, 64 (64%) persons were female and 36 (36%) were male; mean age was 24.4 ± 2.1 years. Forty two patients (70%) and 36 controls (36%) had moderate to severe depression (P=0.001). Thirty eight patients (63.4%) and 10 controls (10%) had medium to high levels of anxiety (P=0.001). Conclusion: Frequency of depression and anxiety among patients with PNES is much higher than general population. Prompt diagnosis of these two common coexisting psychiatric disorders may help physicians for better evaluation and appropriate management of PNES patients. [GMJ. 2014;3(4):202-6]