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Fariba Ghassemi, 1–3 Shahab Sheibani, 4 Mojtaba Arjmand, 3 Hosein Poorbaygi, 4 Emad Kouhestani, 1 Siamak Sabour, 5 Farhad Samiei, 6 Akbar Beiki-Ardakani, 7 Mahmood Jabarvand, 1 Ali Sadeghi Tari 1 1Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Iran; 2Retina & Vitreous Service, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Iran; 3Ocular Oncology Service, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Iran; 4Radiation Application Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, Tehran, Iran; 5Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Centre, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, School of Health,Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Iran; 6Radiation Oncology Department, Cancer Institute, Imam Hospital and Medical Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 7Radiation Physics Department, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, ON, CanadaCorrespondence: Fariba GhassemiEye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Qazvin Square, Tehran 1336616351, IranTel +98-21-55421006Fax +98-21-55416134Email fariba.ghassemi@gmail.comBackground: To compare iodine-125 ( 125I) with ruthenium-106 ( 106Ru) episcleral plaque radiation therapy in terms of the effectiveness and non-inferiority for choroidal melanoma treatment.Objective: To report the non-inferiority of new made iodine-125 ( 125I) compared with ruthenium-106 ( 106Ru) episcleral plaque radiation.Patients and Methods: A retrospective, non-randomized comparative case series. In this series the patients treated with 125I and 106Ru episcleral plaques for choroidal melanoma between September 2013 and August 2017 at Farabi Hospital are compared. Local control of choroidal melanomas after 125I and 106Ru plaques implantation and vision changes are the main outcome measures.Results: A total of 35 patients were identified ( 125I = 15, 106Ru = 20). No significant difference between two groups in visual acuity, diameter and thickness changes were observed after treatment. Multivariate linear regression (MLR) analysis showed that final diameter was only, independently and significantly, correlated with the pre-treatment diameter of the tumor (β =  0.59, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.29, 1.34, P =  0.003). The same MLR analysis for the final thickness and visual acuity, after adjusting for age and sex showed no significant difference between two groups. A single patient treated with 106Ru had local tumor recurrence with no one in the 125I group. No statistical difference in the rate of ocular complications was observed.Conclusion: The treatment with our 125I plaques is as effective as 106Ru plaques in controlling choroidal melanoma tumor and preserving the vision during the two and half year of follow-up. The complication rates are alike. It means that the effectiveness of 125I is not only comparable to 106Ru but also superior when the outcome of the interest is the thickness of the tumors.Keywords: brachytherapy, choroidal melanoma, complication, local tumor control, 125I, radiation, 106Ru, tumor size, vision preservation

Objective: Lidocaine needs to be administered frequently as it has poor oral bioavailability and it lacks prolong duration of action thus the study was aimed at to devise, develop, and analyze a matrix system transdermal formulation with Lidocaine HCl to give a sustained release effect of drug for chronic pains with a goal to enhance the bioavailability, avoid multiple administration thus improving the patient compliance. Materials and Methods: The different concentrations of different polymers of different grades such as HPMC K15, HPMC K100, Oleic acid, Eudragit RS100 and Patchouli oil were used in different conjuction to get optimized preparation of transdermal patches. Different hydrophilic and hydrophobic polymeric ratios resulted in plasticization with PEG 400 by the solvent casting method. The designed patches were then tested for their physico-chemical properties, including thickness, clarity, uniform drug content in patches and folding endurance. The improved formulation was then assessed by drug-excipient compatibility, in-vitro release study and kinetic modeling. Results: Folding endurance and clarity of al patches was satisfied. Spectroscopic techniques using the Fourier transform in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum were used to rule out the interference of the polymers. In vitro release studies of Lidocaine were performed using a modified diffusion cell and phosphate buffer with a pH of 7.4, HCl loaded patches and it followed Higuchi and Korsmeyer Peppas model. In vivo drug release studies demonstrated the release up to 24h with release of 90.97% to 97.57%. Conclusion: The findings concluded that transdermal patches of Lidocaine HCl prepared by different grades of polymer were capable of exhibiting sustained release or controlled release of drug with defined stability. The developed patches had produced encouraging outcomes.

An elastoplastic phase field model is developed to investigate the role of lateral confinement on morphology of thin films grown heteroepitaxially on patterned substrates. Parameters of the model are chosen to represent InxGa1-xAs thin films growing on GaAs patterned with SiO2. We determined the effect of misfit strain on morphology of thin films grown in 0.5 μm patterns with non-uniform deposition flux. Growth of islands inside patterns can be controlled by non-uniformity of deposition flux, misfit strain between film and the substrate, and also strain energy relaxation due to plastic deformation. Our results show that the evolution of island morphology depends nonmonotonically on indium content and associated misfit strain due to coupling between the plastic relaxation and the confinements effects. Low indium concentration (0%-40%) causes formation of instabilities with relatively long wavelengths across the width of the pattern. Low surface diffusion (due to low indium concentration) and fewer islands across the pattern (due to small misfit strain) lead to formation and growth of islands near the walls driven by overflow flux. Further increase in indium concentration (40%-75%) increases the lattice mismatch and surface diffusivity of the film, and also activates plastic deformation mechanism, which leads to coalescence of islands usually away from the edges. By further increasing the indium concentration (up to 100%), plastic deformation relaxes most of the strain energy density of the film, which prevents formation of instabilities in the film. Hence, in this case, islands are only formed near the walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epithelial Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality among women all over the world. As chemotherapeutics has many side effects, researchers have focused on the potential use of medicinal plants as natural antitumor agents. Xanthium strumarium studied in this work as an herbal anticancer agent. This study aimed to evaluate the antitumor effect and metabolic alterations caused by the root extract of X. strumarium on human ovarian cancer cell line (A2780cp), using NMR-based metabolomics approaches. Cells were cultured and treated with different concentrations of the ethanolic plant extract. Antitumor activity determined by MTT assay and cell metabolites extracted for NMR spectroscopy. ¹H NMR spectroscopy was applied, and outliers were analyzed using multivariate statistical analysis techniques. The extract exhibited antitumor activity against ovarian cancer cells with an IC50 of 6 μg/ml after 48 hours of treatment. The most affected metabolic pathways in the experimental groups were limited to tyrosine metabolism, nucleotide metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, and glycerolipid metabolism. Our data showed that the ethanolic root extract of X. strumarium has antitumor activity on the ovarian cancer cells and can affect vital metabolic pathways. However, further studies required to validate this activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the studies on the integrated vendor-buyer inventory problem assume that the shipments are equal. In this paper, shipments are considered to be nonequal. Both demand and delivery times are also assumed to be stochastic. Moreover, unsatisfied demand can be backordered and lost, and a service level constraint is considered. The objective is to minimize both buyer and vendor costs at the same time. The problem is solved by an exact heuristic algorithm. To validate performance of the algorithm, the results are compared with those of the LINGO solver. Finally, a set of numerical problems are applied to compare the results in the integrated and independent forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systematic inflammatory disorder that may affect many tissues and organs, but principally attacks synovial joints and it is a common rheumatic disease with many subtypes. Nuclear Magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectrometers with high sensitivity, resolution and dynamic range has permitted the rapid, simultaneous investigation of complex mixtures of endogenous or exogenous components present in biological materials. Metabonomics is the systematic study of chemical finger print resulted from cell reactions and could be used as a new biomarker for early disease diagnosis. In the present investigation, we studied serum metabolic profile in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in order to find out the metabolic finger print pattern of the disease. Materials and methods: In our metabonomics study serum samples were collected from 16 patients with active RA, and from equal number of healthy subjects. They were evaluated during a one-year follow-up with the assessment of disease activity and 1H NMR spectroscopy of sera samples. In all the cases, the presence of active rheumatoid arthritis was shown by an increase in the T1 values of the synovium of the joints. We specified and classified all metabolites using PCA, PLSDA chemometrics methods. Chenomx (Trail Version) and ProMetab codes in Matlab software environments were used for our data analysis. Results were compared with the NMR metabolite data bank (www.metabolomics.ca). Anti-CCP, ANA and urea were also analyzed by ElISA and colorimetric methods respectively. Results: The most changes identified in this study were in the biosynthesis pathways of steroid hormones, biotin, fatty acids, amino acids (Leucine, Valin and isoleucine) and also linoleic acid. Conclusion: In rheumatoid arthritis disease, the activation of the immune system consumes larg amounts of energy. The main donor of free energy in cells is ATP, which is generated by both glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. Changes in amino acids and free fatty acids biosynthesis pathways confirm the high energy utilization. In this disease, the increase in free fatty acid metabolism leads to production of Acetyl CoA and ketone bodies. Since there are many diseases subtype in rheumatoid arthritis, more sensitive diagnostic method is required. The result of our investigation suggests that metabolome profiling method could be used as a new biomarker for early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The amounts of municipal waste are on the rise because of the urbanization and industrial development. If the Leachates are released into the water resources and soil, the biological balance of the environment will be disturbed. Once heavy metals are accumulated in the food chain, aquatic and human life are endangered. Objective: This laboratory research was conducted To evaluate the performance of activated sludge microbial populations in the removal of heavy metals of Compost Leachate. Materials and Methods: This study was a descriptive- applied one, which attempted to evaluate the performance of suspended and attached growth biological treatment. Raw leachate was sampled from organic fertilizer factory in Guilan and two series of batch reactor with attached and suspended growth were applied within 360 hours of aeration under lab conditions. BOD5, COD, MLSS were measured, according to standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater and heavy metals were analyzed by ICP-OES before and after aeration treatment. Results: The results showed that within 72 hour aeration, maximum efficiency of the attached growth system for the removal of BOD5 and COD were, respectively 80% and 78.28%. Efficiency of heavy metal removal within 48 horns of aeration for the attached growth system was subsequently Pb>Fe>Mn>Co>Zn>Hg>Mg>Cu>Cr>Ni>Cd>V and Pb>Mn>Fe>Zn>Cu>Mg>Co>Hg>Cr>Ni>V>Cd for suspended growth system. Conclusion: As revealed, the biological treatment systems with attached growth have an acceptable efficiency in the removal of heavy metals, BOD5 and COD of compost leachate. Conflict of interest: non declared [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The survival benefit from simultaneous liver-kidney transplantation (SLK) over liver transplant alone (LTA) in recipients with moderate renal dysfunction is not well understood. Moreover, the impact of deceased donor organ quality in SLK survival has not been well described in the literature. Methods: The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients was studied for adult recipients receiving LTA (N = 2700) or SLK (N = 1361) with moderate renal insufficiency between 2003 and 2013. The study cohort was stratified into 4 groups based on serum creatinine (

In this work, the photocatalytic degradation of Acid black 1721 (AB1721) in the presence of a novel photocatalyst (TiO2 - titanium dioxide) TiO2/CNT/BiOBr/Bi2S3 under visible light irradiation was investigated. The effect of different loadings of carbon nanotubes (CNT) (1%, 2%, 4%, 6% and 8%), BiOBr (10, 20, 30 and 40 wt.%) and Bi2S3 (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt.%) on the photocatalytic activities of the prepared nanocomposites was investigated. The structural properties of the nanocomposites have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS), Field-emission scanning electron microscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy. The results show that the photodegradation efficiency of TiO2/4-CNT/20-BiOBr/10-Bi2S3 photocatalyst was better than the samples. Results of DRS show a visible shift when TiO2/CNT was modified with BiOBr and Bi2S3. Also, PL spectra for all the prepared samples indicated that TiO2/4-CNT/20-BiOBr/10-Bi2S3 had the lowest recombining of electron and holes. The effect of independent variables including initial dye concentration (30, 60 and 90 mg/L), pH (3, 6 and 9), irradiation time (20, 30 and 40 min) and catalyst loading (0.5, 0.75 and 1 g/L) on dye removal was determined by response surface methodology. The optimum condition was AB1721 concentration of 30 mg/L, initial pH of 3, the reaction time of 40 min, and catalyst loading of 1 g/L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]