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Introduction: Liver dystemperament is one of the main concepts of Iranian Traditional Medicine. However, the significance of its diagnostic criteria is not clear. The purpose of this study is to determine the major and minor diagnostic criteria of liver dystemperament in Iranian Traditional Medicine. Methods: This study is a qualitative study based on a hybrid model or a combination of theoretical and empirical studies. At the theoretical stage, 11 books of the main texts of Iranian Traditional Medicine were reviewed and scientific databases were searched by the keywords "liver" and "temperament" (mizaj) in Persian and English. Then, in order to examine the diagnostic method and the importance of each of the criteria, a semi-structured face-to-face interview was conducted with 16 traditional medicine specialists. The data were analyzed through conventional content analysis. Then, the significance and diagnostic priority of each of the symptoms were assessed through a discussion group featuring 10-12 professors. Results: In this study, six major criteria and six minor criteria were identified for hot and cold dystemperament and eight major and ten minor criteria were identified for wet and dry liver dystemperament. Conclusion: This study is the first study to assess the importance of symptoms from the viewpoint of traditional medicine specialists and can be considered as an important step forward in integrating the methods of traditional Iranian medicine in terms of diagnosis and treatment. Further studies, as well as validation of the proposed diagnostic indicators and tools for liver dystemperament, are recommended.

Background: The effect of kind of dialysis solution on the control of blood pressure and adequacy and efficacy of hemodialysis is a most debated and controversial issue.Methods: Twenty six chronic hemodialized patients in Ghaem hemodialysis center, Mashhad, Iran, in winter of the year 2004, enrolled this study for one month. The patients were dialyzed with bicarbonate buffer and were dialyzed in the next month with acetate. The kind of membranes and the dialysis machines were the same in both months. Systolic and diastolic pressures were measured before and after hemodialysis in at least three hemodialysis sessions, and he means recorded. The mean of the body weight were also recorded. In the same sessions of hemodialysis by measuring the urea, before and after hemodialysis, urea reduction ratio (URR), was also calculated. Statistical analysis was done with paired student t test for paired measurement, and independent t test for evaluating the effect of the kind of dialysate buffer on the measured parameters.Results: There were no significant statistical differences between acetate and bicarbonate dialysis solution buffers in the control of diastolic blood pressure. But use of acetate buffer resulted in more significant systolic blood pressure reduction compared with bicarbonate buffer (p=0.045). When adequacy of hemodialysis were compared between two kinds of buffers there were no significant statistical differences between them. When the effect of dialysate sodium concentration in the range utilized in two buffers, was evaluated on the systolic and diastolic pressure reduction, no significant differences, between two types of buffers attributable to the difference between dialysates sodium concentrations were found.Conclusion: Hemodialysis with both, acetate and bicarbonate buffers results in significant reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, weight and urea ratio. Use of acetate buffer is more significantly associated with systolic blood pressure reduction compared to bicarbonate buffer (p=0.045), this effect is independent of the dialysate buffer sodium concentration.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: COVID-19 started in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and quickly became a global pandemic. According to studies, traditional medicine interventions along with conventional medicine protocols have been reported to be effective in prevention and treatment. The aim of this study was to summarize the recommendations of Persian medicine based on evidence in the prevention and treatment of symptoms of acute respiratory syndrome. METHODS: In this review article, keywords related to the symptoms of COVID-19 in Persian medicine sources, review and items related to the prevention and treatment of acute respiratory syndrome were extracted. Individual items with the keywords "Influenza" or "SARS" or "MERS" or "COVID-19" or "Coronavirus" or "Antiviral" or "Anti-inflammatory" or "Immune system" or "Antioxidant" were searched in the databases SID, Pubmed, Scopus, Cochrane, Web of science, Science direct, and Google scholar, and finally those with scientific evidence were presented in the form of auxiliary instructions for prevention and treatment. FINDINGS: A significant part of the recommendations of Persian medicine to prevent or control the symptoms of acute respiratory syndrome has practical clinical evidence. These include social distance, avoiding heavy meals, and using herbal remedies according to the specific conditions of the patients. CONCLUSION: According to the results of this study, the use of simple strategies of Persian medicine in preventing and improving the symptoms of acute respiratory syndrome caused by COVID-19 along with common medicine protocols, can help control the epidemic conditions. Also, many of these recommendations can be evaluated as useful research ideas in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, dynamic behavior of vibratory microprobe is studied based on the strain gradient theory. The microprobe is considered as a piezoelectric actuator attached to a variable cross-section bar. The equation of motion is derived based on the strain gradient theory and solved both analytically and numerically. For analytical approach, a combination of mode summation and Galerkin's technique is used. Moreover, a hybrid finite element/finite difference method is used to calculate the numerical results. Findings show that there is an excellent agreement between the analytical and numerical results. Furthermore, the obtained natural frequencies and dynamic displacements of this work are compared with those of the classical theory and the effects of size dependency on the dynamic behavior of microprobe are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]