Search

Eggplant is an important vegetable that has long been cultivated in different parts of Iran. The major objectives of the eggplant breeding program are to improve fruit quality, increase yield performance through heterosis breeding, and introduce abilities of pest and disease resistance from wild relatives. In order to select suitable parents for breeding purposes, with respect to the genetic and morphological diversity of eggplant cultivars, it is necessary to have sufficient knowledge of genetic diversity and classification of germplasms.This experiment was conducted in a randomized block design at the Seed and Plant Improvement Institute (SPII) in Karaj, Iran. Here, morphological diversity was assessed among a collection of eggplants which comprised four Iranian lines and 13 non-Iranian genotypes. For this purpose, 16 morphological traits were analyzed in the plants. Given the weakness of morphological analysis in providing precise characterizations of genetic divergence, a molecular study was also carried out by using five Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers. In addition to the univariate analysis, the multi-descriptor variation was studied among the genotypes using two methods of multivariate analyses.The genotypes differed significantly in terms of the morphological traits. The multivariate analyses of morphological data indicated that eggplants from two different origins were clearly differentiated. Three main clusters were distinguished by a morphological UPGMA dendrogram in which non-Iranian genotypes, with the exception of 11,212, constituted cluster I and required the maximum number of days to flower, days to fruit set, and days to first harvest. Cluster II was identified with two Iranian lines BJ30, Y60, and one non-Iranian genotype (11,212) which showed the highest values of stem diameter, fruit diameter, fruit length, fruit length-to-width ratio, number of fruits per plant, and yield. Cluster III comprised two Iranian lines, D1 and D7, and showed the maximum plant height, number of internodes, number of nodes, number of leaves, number of stems, fruit weight, and fruits weight per plant. The highest and lowest intra-cluster genetic distances were observed in cluster I and cluster II, respectively. Based on SSR analysis, high levels of similarity were detected between several genotypes, namely, Y60 and 13,411; BJ30 and 1111; D7 and 13,521; 21,881 and 13,421.High levels of heterozygosity and polymorphism information content (PIC) were observed in this study. This not only indicated high levels of polymorphism and an equal distribution of the evaluated loci but also suggested that these genotypes can be considered for the development of diverse parental lines which are of interest in breeding programs.

Background Histopathology based on Hematoxylin-and-Eosin (H&E) staining is the gold standard for basal cell carcinoma (BCC) diagnosis but requires lengthy and laborious tissue preparation. Fluorescence confocal microscopy (FCM) enables fluorescence detection and high-resolution imaging in less time and with minimal tissue preparation. This work proposes a deep learning model for the computational staining of FCM images based on an unsupervised approach, which correlates color with H&E images. Methods In this study, we investigated the utility of FCM on BCC tissue sections stained with Acridine Orange (AO) and computationally colored to simulate H&E dyes. We adopted Cycle-consistent Generative Adversarial Network (CycleGAN), an unsupervised framework, for computational staining. The dataset consists of unpaired and unannotated thousands of FCM and H&E patches from whole slide images of BCC tissue sections. CycleGAN includes two forward and backward GANs that are coupled together and complete a cycle to ensure a reliable transformation between the two domains. In addition to the adversarial and cycle consistency constraints, a saliency constraint was employed to enhance the correct mapping direction between FCM and H&E images and avoid appearance distortions of the image content. Results The generated H&E-like images from FCM through this CycleGAN model were visually and quantitatively similar to real H&E images. Computationally stained images had skin tissue characteristics. The trained models showed a high performance in the structure preservation of the original image when comparing the source and reconstructed images. Quantitative metrics (by Fréchet Inception Distance) showed that CycleGAN could improve the similarity of training images by up to 63% after mapping images from a source domain to a target domain. Conclusion FCM could expand the application and usefulness of rapid tissue analysis. Thus, using the CycleGAN model for computational staining is beneficial for diagnostic applications while simplifying laboratory staining procedures. The proposed approach has significant potential in clinical computational staining and advanced computer-aided histology image analysis.

Quinoa is a traditional Andean seed crop highly tolerant to abiotic stresses. Since most seed crops cultivars are sensitive to drought stress, quinoa is considered as a valuable candidate for severe environmental conditions to which the plant is exposed. In this study we focused on the impact of hydropriming on drought tolerance in three quinoa cultivars (Q26, Q29 and Titicaca) in two arid regions of Iran. We observed that, under field conditions, quinoa responded to drought stress with a significant decrease in growth, yield component, seed yield and biochemical traits including photosynthetic pigments and relative water contents. In contrast, malondialdehyde, electrolyte leakage and proline concentration in all quinoa cultivars in both regions increased. However, seed priming significantly improved growth and seed yield. The results of the correlation analysis revealed that seed yield was highly positively related to pigments and proline concentration. Therefore, it could be suggested that these traits are efficient and reliable indicators for indirect selection of tolerant quinoa cultivars under drought stress conditions. In general, Q26 and Q29 were considered as superior cultivars for well-watered conditions and Titicaca cultivar was found relatively more drought tolerant than other cultivars. This study may contribute to the understanding of seed priming could be applied as an efficient approach to ameliorate the adverse effects of drought stress in quinoa cultivars.

Quinoa is considered as one of the newly emerged seed with high nutritional and biological aspects. The present research was done to study the biological activities of quinoa seeds. Quinoa seeds (cultivars; Giza1, Red Carina and Sajama) were obtained and their chemical properties were analyzed. Ethanoic extract was prepared and its total phenolic components (TPC), total flavonoid components (TFC), antioxidant and antimicrobial effects were studied. Saponin content was detected using the standard method. The highest contents of moisture, carbohydrate, protein, fat, fiber, ash and iron were found in cultivarSajama (7.23±0.61%), Giza1 (63.45±4.25%), Red Carina (18.11±1.62%), Sajama (10.19±0.98%), Red Carina (5.75±0.51%), Red Carina (5.98±0.46%) and cultivarGiza1 (26.80±2.51), respectively. The mean concentrations of saponin in cultivarGiza1 had the highest concentration of saponin (4.25±0.23 mg/g), while cultivarSajama had the lowest (1.84±0.12 mg/g). CultivarGiza1 had the highest TPC, TFC and antioxidant effects. CultivarGiza1 extract had the highest antibacterial effects. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of cultivarGiza1 (or Misr1) against L. monocytogenes and E. coli bacteria were 10 and 5 mg/ml, respectively, while those of C. quinoa Sajama against L. monocytogenes and E. coli were 80 and 40 mg/ml, respectively. The quinoa seeds are an appropriate alternative candidate of nutrients with high phenolic and flavonoid components and antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. High protein, carbohydrate, ash, fiber, iron, total phenol and flavonoid contents, low saponin concentration and considerable antibacterial and antioxidant effects of the quinoa seeds and particularly C. quinoa Giza1 make them suitable as alternative functional sources of nutrients with high biological effects for human nutrition.

Affecting daily lives of millions of people, Epilepsy is a common central nervous system (neurological) disorder where cell activity in brain is disturbed, causing recurrent seizures. Epilepsy can be treated commonly by medications. Be that as it may, medications do not always work as well as one may have hoped, and thus, some patients tend to resort to surgeries. The primary challenge in such surgeries, and by extension any other surgery where some part of brain may need to be disabled, disconnected or removed, is managing to pose no threat to the critical healthy textures adjacent or close to the part being operated on. Therefore, the precise localization of epileptic focus is a matter of vital importance in treating this condition. Various algorithms have been proposed to localize the brain sources and thus to determine the epileptic focus, however, none has yet been able to offer a solution to effectively address this issue. With EEG signal containing temporal information and fMRI carrying spatial information, it is hoped that the combination of the two can yield optimal results. In this case study, we first remove the artifacts caused by EEG gradients, and proceed to study the signal in and outside the scanner by localizing the brain sources. The simultaneous processing of EEG-fMRI enables us to make use of the temporal information in EEG to analyze fMRI. Epileptic foci are finally localized based on GLM method. This study has been conducted on 2 medication-resistant patients with epilepsy whose data was recorded in Iran National Brain Mapping Centre. The results suggest a significant improvement in localization accuracy compared to existing methods in the literature. Keywords: Simultaneous EEG-fMRI; Epilepsy; Independent Component Analysis (ICA); Blood-oxygen-level dependent imaging (BOLD); Generalized Linear Model (GLM)

Background: The natural radiation, which comes from the environment, is one of the most important cancer risk sources. Objectives: This study aimed to measure the natural background radiations (BRs) and estimate the annual effective dose (AED), as well as the health risks in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Iran. Methods: background radiations for both indoors and outdoors were measured using a Geiger-Muller detector (X5C plus) in eight cities. Five points were chosen in each city for the BR measurements, and in each point, five stations were randomly selected and measured. Results: The average outdoor and indoor dose rates were obtained 136.9 ± 12.5 and 149.3 ± 19.8 nSv.h-1, respectively. The mean AEDs for adults, children, and infants were 0.17, 0.19, and 0.22 mSv.y-1 resulting from the outdoor exposure, in that order, and these values for indoor irradiation were 0.73, 0.84, and 0.94 mSv.y-1. The percentage of excess lifetime cancer risks due to indoor exposure was 4.6% for whole populations and 3% for adults. The heritable effects risk for these groups were 0.17 and 0.073%, respectively. Conclusions: The findings of the present study indicated that the average value of BR dose rates was higher than the global value. The reason can be due to the high exposure levels of hot springs, igneous rock, and high altitudes in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province.

Introduction: The most important side effect after non-surgery cancer treatment (NSCT) is oral mucositis (OM) which degrades the quality of life. Using photobiomodulation (PBM), formerly known as low-level laser therapy (LLLT), in the prevention of NSCT-induced OM was widely studied. Hence, this review evaluates the efficacy of optical treatment parameters behind the working process of PBM in preventing NSCT-induced OM in preclinical studies.Methods: Using the PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases, the present study systematically reviewed existing preclinical studies for optical treatment parameters of PBM in preventing NSCTinduced OM in experimental models without restriction on the year of publication.Results: In total, 51 articles were recognized during the search of the literature, and only 16 research papers were included in this review, taking into consideration the inclusion as well as exclusion benchmarks. The reviewed studies showed that a consensus has yet to be reached on the optimal PBM treatment parameters in preventing NSCT-induced OM. However, a wavelength of 660 nm, a power density of 40 mW as well as fluence which ranged between 2 and 6 J/cm2 were mostly utilized in the included studies. Furthermore, the severity of NSCT-induced OM was reduced following PBM application with no reported severe side effects.Conclusion: The efficacy of PBM with the associated optical parameters is a promising strategy in preventing NSCT-induced OM. However, the optimal parameters of PBM need to be investigated. DOI: doi:10.34172/jlms.2021.54

In this study, radiation absorbed dose of 99mTc-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) in critical organs was calculated using Monte Carlo simulation. Ten child patients with genitourinary abnormalities were imaged using a series of planar, SPECT and MRI, after injection with 99mTc-DMSA. Patient-specific organ segmentation was performed on MRI and used as input in GATE. Organs with substantial uptake included kidneys, bladder and liver. The mean organ absorbed dose coefficients (mGy/MBq) were 0.063, 0.058, 0.018, 0.016, 0.013 and 0.010 for the right kidney, left kidney, bones, urinary bladder wall, liver and gonads, respectively. The absorbed dose coefficients in the remainder of the body was 0.012 mGy/MBq. The authors implemented an image-based Monte Carlo method for patient-specific 3D absorbed dose calculation. This study also demonstrates the possibility to obtain patient-specific attenuation map from MRI to be used for the simulations of radiation transport and energy deposition in phantom using Monte Carlo methods.

Affecting daily lives of millions of people, Epilepsy is a common central nervous system (neurological) disorder where cell activity in brain is disturbed, causing recurrent seizures. Epilepsy can be treated commonly by medications. Be that as it may, medications do not always work as well as one may have hoped, and thus, some patients tend to resort to surgeries. The primary challenge in such surgeries, and by extension any other surgery where some part of brain may need to be disabled, disconnected or removed, is managing to pose no threat to the critical healthy textures adjacent or close to the part being operated on. Therefore, the precise localization of epileptic focus is a matter of vital importance in treating this condition. Various algorithms have been proposed to localize the brain sources and thus to determine the epileptic focus, however, none has yet been able to offer a solution to effectively address this issue. With EEG signal containing temporal information and fMRI carrying spatial information, it is hoped that the combination of the two can yield optimal results. In this case study, we first remove the artifacts caused by EEG gradients, and proceed to study the signal in and outside the scanner by localizing the brain sources. The simultaneous processing of EEG-fMRI enables us to make use of the temporal information in EEG to analyze fMRI. Epileptic foci are finally localized based on GLM method. This study has been conducted on 2 medication-resistant patients with epilepsy whose data was recorded in Iran National Brain Mapping Centre. The results suggest a significant improvement in localization accuracy compared to existing methods in the literature. Keywords:Simultaneous EEG-fMRI; Epilepsy; Independent Component Analysis (ICA); Blood-oxygen-level dependent imaging (BOLD); Generalized Linear Model (GLM)

Banks play an important role as an intermediary in the financial system between the lenders and applicants of financial sources. They absorb the financial sources of customers and present them to applicants. Their financial relations are arranged on the basis of the credit rating of their applicants. The financing restrictions and complexity of banks relations and inherent risk of financing have made the banks to design a model to fund their financial sources and distribute their various risks. One of these models is financing by using syndicated loans. Since most of the big projects need a high amount of financial sources, the use and significance of syndicated loans is increasing. In this paper, we tried to examine the concept and structure of syndicated loans by using an analytical and descriptive model which explains the necessity of using this method in the legal and economic system of Iran. We concluded that the main reasons given for non-use of this method are the lack of adequate legislations in this field and the absence of information transparency in the contractual structure of such credits as well as the legal rules governing relations between syndicate members.

In this work, we briefly review a recently developed model to study the diffusion and rheology of associating polymers. The model describes successfully the experimental data, including an unexpected phenomenological superdiffusive scaling at distances which are larger than the molecular size. The understanding of the dynamics of associating polymers can have a big impact in applications such as biocompatible gels or self-healing materials.

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is one of the major opportunistic pathogens with increasing clinical significance, particularly in the Hospital setting. Objectives: The study aimed to analyze the antibiotic resistance determinants in multidrug-resistant A. baumannii (MDRAB) isolates collected after an outbreak, with regard to the infection prevention control (IPC) interventions to eradicate the outbreak. Methods: Thirty nine isolates of MDRAB were collected during six months of the study after the outbreak. Infection prevention control was successful only for the first three months after the intervention. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing and minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined by E-test. In addition, various resistance genes and the clonal relatedness of the isolates were performed by PCR and REP-PCR. Results: All isolates were MDRAB while being susceptible to colistin. The prevalence of blaADC, blaTEM, blaOXA24, blaVIM, and blaIMP was 82%, 100%, 70%, 61%, and 5%, respectively. blaOXA51, blaOXA23, and ISAba1 were detected in all isolates, but blaOXA58 was not. Moreover, ISAba1 was located upstream to blaOXA23 and blaADC in 100% and 38.4% of the isolates, respectively. The most prevalent AME was aadB (100%). Even though adeB and tetB efflux pumps were found in 100% and 95% of the isolates, respectively, tetA was not characterized. REP-PCR revealed five clusters of which, approximately 51% of the strains belonged to cluster C. Conclusions: Regarding the molecular approach, the effectiveness of IPC and epidemiological context has been identified. Stringent infection-control measures are urgent to restrict the outbreak.

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is one of the most consumed vegetables in the world. The eggplant glycoalkaloids (GAs) are toxic secondary metabolites that may have detrimental effects on human health, particularly if the magnitudes of GAs are higher than the recommended food safety level (200 mg per kg of fresh mass). In this study, the content of solasonine compound and the expression patterns of solasodine galactosyltransferase (SGT1) gene were assessed in different tissues (mature leaves, flower buds, young, mature, and physiologically ripe fruits) of two Iranian eggplant genotypes (D1 and J10) under field conditions. The maximum mass fraction of solasonine in D1 was detected in flower buds (135.63 µg/g), followed by leaf (113.29 µg/g), physiologically ripe fruit (74.74 µg/g), young fruit (61.33 µg/g), and mature fruit (21.55 µg/g). Comparing both genotypes, the genotype of bitter fruits (J10) contained higher mass fraction of solasonine, as one of the main factors for producing bitter flavour of the plant. Regarding the expression profiles of SGT1, in both genotypes, the activity of the gene was increased nearly parallel with the concentration of solasonine. In the J10 genotype, transcript level of the gene was significantly higher than the genotype of sweet fruits (D1). Although both D1 and J10 genotypes are possibly recommendable for human food consumption, D1 is more suitable for daily diet., Patlidžan (Solanum melongena L.) je jedna od najčešće konzumiranih vrsta povrća u svijetu. Glikoalkaloidi nastaju u patlidžanu kao toksični sekundarni metaboliti, a mogu štetno djelovati na zdravlje čovjeka, osobito ako je njihov udjel veći od preporučene maksimalne doze od 200 miligrama po kilogramu svježe mase. U ovom su radu ispitani udjel solasonina i ekspresija gena koji kodira za solasodin galaktoziltransferazu (SGT1) u različitim tkivima (zreli list, pupoljak, te nezreli, tehnološki zreli i fiziološki zreli plod) dvaju genotipova patlidžana (D1 i J10) uzgojenih na polju u Iranu. Najveći maseni udjel solasonina pronađen je u genotipu D1 i to u pupoljcima (135,63 μg/g), zatim u lišću (113,29 μg/g), fiziološki zrelom plodu (74,74 μg/g), nezrelom plodu (61,33 μg/g) i tehnološki zrelom plodu (21,55 μg/g). Usporedbom je genotipova utvrđeno da je plod genotipa J10, koji ima izraženiju gorčinu, sadržavao veći maseni udjel solasonina, jednog od glavnih čimbenika razvoja gorkog okusa biljaka. Aktivnost se gena SGT1 povećala u oba genotipa gotovo usporedno s povećanjem koncentracije solasonina. Transkripcija gena bila je bitno veća u genotipu J10 nego u D1. Iako se oba genotipa mogu preporučiti za konzumaciju, genotip D1 se pokazao prikladnijim za svakodnevnu uporabu.

Gafchromic films are utilized for two-dimensional dose distribution measurements, especially in radiotherapy. In this study, we investigated a close connection between energy and dose rate of Gafchromic EBT3 films irradiating with 6 MV and Co-60 photon beams over a broad dose range. EBT3 films were exposed to 6 MV and Co-60 photon beams using 4 and 2 Gy/min dose rates over a 10–400 cGy dose range. The films were scanned in red, green, and blue channels to obtain the optical density (OD)–dose curves. The OD–dose curves resulted from three-color scans for different photon energies and dose rates were compared by statistical independent t-test. For the radiations of Co-60 and 6 MV photon beams, the highest correlation was obtained between the 2 and 4 Gy/min dose rates with red and green channels, respectively. Moreover, the red channel had a greater OD response per dose value, following the green and blue channels. There was no significant difference between different photon energies’ (Co-60 and 6 MV) and dose rates’ (2 and 4 Gy/min) dependence on OD-dose response of EBT3 films over a broad domain of radiation dose, except for different photon energies in the blue channel. Our results revealed that the OD-dose response of EBT3 films is independent on photon energies (Co-60 and 6 MV) and dose rate (2 and 4 Gy/min) in the evaluated dose range (10–400 cGy). Therefore, the EBT3 films are suitable, consistent, and reliable instruments for dose measurements in radiotherapy.

Multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) type 2A, a dominant inherited syndrome caused by germline activating mutations in the RET protooncogene, is characterized by association of medullary thyroid carcinoma, pheochromocytoma and primary hyperparathyroidism. There is limited data on this disease in the Middle East region. In this paper, we present clinical and genetic studies of an Iranian patient and her family members. The patient was a 49-year old Iranian woman who presented with hypertension due to bilateral pheochromocytoma. She had history of a medullary carcinoma of thyroid which had been operated 28 years ago. Analysis of the RET gene in the family revealed a C634R mutation in codon 11 and 3 polymorphisms, G691S, S836S and S904S in codons 11, 14 and 15, respectively, that might have been important in modifying the clinical picture. Due to paucity of information on MEN type 2 in the area, this study can be helpful in portraying the clinical and cytogenetic characteristics of the disease in the region.