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Shukur Wasman Smail,1 Esmaeil Babaei,2,3 Kawa Amin4 1Department of Biology, College of Science, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq; 2Department of Biology, School of Natural Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran; 3Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, Hawler Medical University, Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq; 4College of Medicine, University of Sulaimani, Sulaymaniyah, IraqCorrespondence: Shukur Wasman Smail, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq, Tel +9647504491092, Email shukur.smail@su.edu.krdPurpose: Oxidative stress (OS) and inflammation are pivotal points in the pathophysiology of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). This study aims to use routine laboratory and oxidative stress/antioxidative biomarkers as predictors for the mortality of the disease.Patients and Methods: This prospective cohort study, made up of 120 COVID-19 patients from emergency units in Erbil, Duhok, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniyah cities in Iraq, from May the 1st to May the 30th, 2021, and 60 healthy controls (HCs) (n = 60). The patients were re-categorized into mild (n = 54), severe (n = 40), and critical (n = 26) groups based on the clinical criteria. Following admission to the hospital, blood was directly collected for measuring routine laboratory biomarkers.Results: Neutrophils and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were higher in the critical group, while lymphocytes were lower in the severe and critical groups compared to the mild group. The CRP, ferritin, and D-dimer values were more elevated in severe and critical cases than in mild COVID-19 cases. The levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO), and copper were elevated, while the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity level and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) level were lower. However, vitamin C, glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and catalase activity levels were not changed in the COVID-19 groups compared to the HCs. NO and ferritin were predictors of ICU hospitalization; D-dimer, MDA, and NLR were predictors of mortality. NO, and NLR were predictors of SpO2 depression. Moreover, NO, and copper have both good diagnostic values, their cutoffs were 39.01 and 11.93, respectively.Conclusion: There is an association between immune dysregulation and oxidative imbalance. The biomarkers, that could be considered as predictors for the severity and mortality of COVID-19, are the NLR, NO, ferritin, and D-dimer. The age equal to and older than 50 has a poor prognosis in the Kurdish population.Graphical Abstract: Keywords: COVID-19, inflammation, mortality, oxidative stress, predictors

Shole Shahgheibi,1,* Roya Mardani,1,* Erfan Babaei,2 Parastoo Mardani,3 Masomeh Rezaie,1 Fariba Farhadifar,1 Daem Roshani,2 Mobin Naqshbandi,2 Ali Jalili2 1Deparment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran; 2Cancer & Immunology Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran; 3Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Payame Noor University, Sanandaj, Iran*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ali JaliliCancer & Immunology Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, IranTel +98 9 183771862Email Ali130@gmail.comBackground: Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a multifactorial condition, and the precise mechanism is still unknown. In the current study, we aimed to determine the relationship between the platelet (PLT) indices and CXC12 levels in patients with IUGR.Patients and Materials: In this study, 36 patients with IUGR and 36 healthy pregnant mothers were enrolled as the case and control groups, respectively. Gestational age for both groups was between 24 and 40 years. Blood samples were taken, and platelet indices were examined by a full-diff cell counter. Serum levels of CXCL12 were measured by ELISA, and the data were analyzed using an independent Student’s t-test.Results: In this study, we observed that the mean value of PLT count (154.3 ± 50 vs 236 ± 36) and plateletcrit (0.124 ± 0.038 vs 0.178 ± 0.021) were significantly lower in the case than the control group. In contrast, the mean platelet volume (7.94 ± 0.55 vs 7.62 ± 0.53) and platelet distribution width (17.57 ± 0.7 vs 16.96 ± 0.59) were significantly higher in the case than the control group. More importantly, we found that the serum levels of CXCL12 were significantly higher (5.3 ng/mL± 3.1 vs 2.8 ± 1.6) in the patients compared to the pregnancy controls.Conclusion: Our data show that platelet indices are changed in IUGR, and the levels of circulating CXCL12 are increased in patients with IUGR. These findings provide a base for further studies to better defining the pathophysiology of IUGR.Keywords: platelets, SDF-1, intrauterine growth restriction, CXCL12

In this paper, we introduced the concept of a soft hoop and we investigated some of their properties. Then, we established different types of intersections and unions of the family of soft hoops. We defined two operations ⊙ and → on the set of all soft hoops and we proved that with these operations, it is a hoop and also is a Heyting algebra. Finally we introduced a congruence relation on the set of all soft hoops and we investigated the quotient of it.

Maryam Tahmasebi Mirgani,1 Benedetta Isacchi,2 Majid Sadeghizadeh,1,* Fabio Marra,3 Anna Rita Bilia,2,* Seyed Javad Mowla,1 Farhood Najafi,4 Esmael Babaei51Department of Genetics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran; 2Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; 3Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence, Italy; 4Department of Resin and Additives, Institute for Color Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran; 5Department of Biology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran*These authors contributed equally to this workAbstract: Glioblastoma is an invasive tumor of the central nervous system. Tumor recurrence resulting from ineffective current treatments, mainly due to the blood–brain barrier, highlights the need for innovative therapeutic alternatives. The recent availability of nanotechnology represents a novel targeted strategy in cancer therapy. Natural products have received considerable attention for cancer therapy because of general lower side effects. Curcumin is a new candidate for anticancer treatment, but its low bioavailability and water solubility represent the main disadvantages of its use. Here, curcumin was efficiently encapsulated in a nontoxic nanocarrier, termed dendrosome, to overcome these problems. Dendrosomal curcumin was prepared as 142 nm spherical structures with constant physical and chemical stability. The inhibitory role of dendrosomal curcumin on the proliferation of U87MG cells, a cellular model of glioblastoma, was evaluated by considering master genes of pluripotency and regulatory miRNA (microribonucleic acid). Methylthiazol tetrazolium assay and flow cytometry were used to detect the antiproliferative effects of dendrosomal curcumin. Annexin-V-FLUOS and caspase assay were used to quantify apoptosis. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to analyze the expression of OCT4 (octamer binding protein 4) gene variants (OCT4A, OCT4B, and OCT4B1), SOX-2 (SRY [sex determining region Y]-box 2), Nanog, and miR-145. Dendrosomal curcumin efficiently suppresses U87MG cells growth with no cytotoxicity related to dendrosome. Additionally, the accumulation of cells in the SubG1 phase was observed in a time- and dose-dependent manner as well as higher rates of apoptosis after dendrosomal curcumin treatment. Conversely, nonneoplastic cells were not affected by this formulation. Dendrosomal curcumin significantly decreased the relative expression of OCT4A, OCT4B1, SOX-2, and Nanog along with noticeable overexpression of miR-145 as the upstream regulator. This suggests that dendrosomal curcumin reduces the proliferation of U87MG cells through the downregulation of OCT4 (octamer binding protein 4) variants and SOX-2 (SRY [sex determining region Y]-box 2) in an miR-145-dependent manner.Keywords: glioblastoma, pluripotency gene, miRNA, dendrosomal curcumin

In this study, PC/CuO ultrafiltration adsorptive mixed matrix membranes (AMMM) were synthesized using phase inversion method to remove lead (Pb (II)) and cadmium (Cd (II)) from a petrochemical plant synthetic effluent. The effects of CuO on pure water flux, hydrophilicity, porosity and membrane adsorption capacity were studied. FESEM and AFM tests were used to investigate the structure and surface roughness of the prepared membrane. The results showed that by increasing the loading of CuO in AMMM, the total porosity, average pore size, hydrophilicity, surface roughness and water flux increased. The heavy metal adsorption on PC/CuO-AMMMs were adequately interpreted by the Langmuir isotherm. Our findings showed that the membrane produced with the highest loading of CuO had the highest adsorption capacity and offers a maximum adsorption capacity of 22.9 and 21.6 g/m2 for lead and cadmium respectively. By placing the cation-saturated AMMMs in a regeneration solution, up to 95% and 94%, respectively, for lead and cadmium adsorption recovery was experienced. This indicates the reversibility of the fabricated membranes to remove lead and cadmium cations via a simple regeneration method in a multicycle process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purposes of a transformerless grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system consist of the reduction of leakage current, extraction of maximum power point (MPP), tracking of MPP (MPPT), controlling the active and reactive powers, and having the unity power factor. To achieve the above-mentioned aims, the following actions have been performed in this paper. First of all, a brief analysis of the transformerless PV system has been done by using the conventional full-bridge (FB) topologies with two bipolar and unipolar PWM techniques. Then, an effective solution has been also introduced to significantly reduce the leakage current in the conventional H5 FB topology. Moreover, a proper control method has been proposed by using the combination of the fractional opencircuit voltage (FOCV) and the model predictive control (MPC) strategies to extract the MPP from PV panels, control the injection of the reactive power to the gird and have the unity power factor. At last, the simulation results performed in PSCAD software will be used to prove the correct performance of the proposed control method in the improved H5 FB topology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new structure for cascade multilevel inverter is presented which consists of a series connection of several sub-multilevel units. Each sub-multilevel unit comprises of eight unidirectional switches, two bidirectional switches, and six DC voltage sources. For the proposed cascade topology, two algorithms are presented to produce all possible levels at the output voltage waveform. The required analysis of the voltage rating on the switches is provided. In order to verify the performance of the proposed inverter, the experimental results for a 15-level inverter are provided. The experimented 15-level inverter is compared with the other presented inverters in literature in terms of the number of DC voltage sources, switches, drivers, and blocked voltage by switches. The results of comparisons indicate that the experimented 15-level inverter requires lower power electronic elements. Moreover, the blocked voltage on the switches of the proposed topology is less than other topologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new topology for cascaded multilevel inverter based on quasi-Zsource converter is proposed. In the proposed topology the magnitude of output DC voltage is not limited to the sum of magnitude of DC voltage sources. Moreover, the reliability of the circuit due to capability of short circuit by Z-source network is increased. The quasi-Zsource converter in different modes is analyzed and the voltage gain is obtained. Also, the values of quasi-Z-source network components are designed. In the proposed topology, the number of DC voltage sources, the number of switches, installation area and cost in comparison with conventional multilevel inverters are significantly reduced. Three algorithms to determine the magnitude of DC voltage sources are proposed. Then the optimal structures for the minimum number of switches and DC voltage sources to generate the maximum voltage levels are presented. Moreover, the control method for the proposed topology is described. To verify the performance of the proposed topology, simulation and experimental results of proposed topology are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]