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Coagulation factor VII (FVII) is a key enzyme of the extrinsic coagulation cascade that is predominantly produced by hepatocytes. The F7 gene mutations cause FVII deficiency with considerable molecular and phenotypic heterogeneity. We characterized the molecular alterations of the F7 gene and their corresponding mRNA transcripts in Iranian patients from eight unrelated families. The mutations were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-sequencing of all F7 gene exons, their flanking intronic sequences, as well as their corresponding cDNA fragments. Homozygous P303T, C91S and R304Q mutations were detected in patient 2, patient 5, and patient 6, respectively. Patient 7 was a compound heterozygote for S282R and H348R and patient 8 was a compound heterozygote for R304Q and IVS7+7A>G mutations. Furthermore, our investigation revealed three heterozygous individuals, patient 1 and patient 3 with the A244V mutation who were symptomatic and patient 4 with V(–39)I mutation who was also asymptomatic. The F7 mRNA expression analysis revealed that, except the transcript of V(–39)I, other mutation-harboring transcripts were expressed at detectable levels. In conclusion, this report reinforces the genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity of FVII deficiency. The findings of the mRNA study implied that decreased FVII protein activity subsequent to missense mutations does not completely reflect the degradation of mutation-harboring mRNA.

Background & Aim : Problem solving is a skill vital for life today and its learning is essential for everyone. Considering that the best way to achieve the correct habits of thinking and judgment is to use educational programs and to confront students with real issues, the aim of this study was to identify the effect of D’ zurilla & gold fried problem solving model’s training on problem solving skill of nursing students. Materials & Methods: It was a randomized controlled trial. The sample consisted of 43 undergraduate nursing students of the Hazrat Ftemeh School of nursing and midwifery of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences who participated voluntary and were randomly assigned into experimental(n= 20) and control (n=23) groups. The experimental group participated in six sessions of problem solving. Data was collected by the problem solving subscale of Bar-On emotional intelligence questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS-PC (v.11). Results : there was a significant difference between the mean scores of problem solving skills in the experimental group and control group immediately and two months after the intervention (p

Background & Aims: Nowadays the elderly population is growing all over the world. Diseases and conditions resulting from this evolutionary process can be costly to governments and cause many disabilities which severly affect the erderly’s quality of life. This study aims to determine the effect of self-care training program on quality of life of elderly. Material & Methods: It is a controlled randomized trial which was carried out on 60 elderly referred to Omid’s elderly care center in Borougen city. After convenience sampling, the elderly were randomly assigned to two groups of experimental (n=30) and control (n= 30) groups. The experimental group participated in a three months self- care training program. Data was collected by the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) and analyzed using SPSS-PC (v.11). Results: The findings showed a significant difference in the mean scores of quality of life between the experimental and control groups (P

Background and Objectives Salinity is one of the most important environmental stresses after drought stress in Iran, which has affected about 50% of agricultural lands with different intensities. The growth and development of crop plants in these areas are constantly exposed to salinity and other stresses at the same time, which causes morphological, physiological, and biochemical responses. Alleviating the negative effects of salinity in the crops is mainly done by agronomic and breeding methods. The use of appropriate microorganisms is one of the agronomic methods that can directly and/or indirectly reduce some limitations of salinity stress. In recent years, the necessity of biological study in rhizosphere microorganisms to improve nutrition and plant growth and, to control stress factors has been considered. Some species of Trichoderma fungi are known as plant growth stimulants in normal and stressful conditions. Since the bio-treatment of Trichoderma fungi for alleviation of salt stress in the Pinto bean has not been evaluated, so, the inoculation effects of different species of this fungus were studied on the plant growth and development under salinity conditions. Methodology A field split-plot experiment based on a randomized complete block design with three replications was carried out at the Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute in Karaj on Pinto bean Saleh 2 plants. The main factor (salinity) was in two levels of non-saline (ECe=1.1 dS m-1) soil and saline (ECe=6 dS m-1) soil, and the second factor with 11 levels, including; T. harzianum (MW718882), T. lixii (MW719563), T. ghanens (MW719590), T. virens (MW719876) and (MW719255) and their mutant isolates, namely NAS108 M1, NAS114-M17, ON545796, NAS115 M17, and NAS112M2, respectively, and the control treatment was without inoculation. Findings The results showed that the effect of salinity and the biopriming on the characteristics of emergence percentage, plant height, harvest index, number of pods, number of seeds per pod, seed weight, seed yield, biological yield, branching, seed protein, and leaf area was significant (p≤0.01). Also, the results showed that the interaction effect of salinity and biopriming on emergence percentage, plant height, seed yield, biological yield, seed protein, and leaf area was significant at p≤0.01, however, harvest index, the number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and the seed weight were not influenced by treatments interaction. All studied characteristics were significantly reduced under salt stress compared to the control. The decrease in yield component traits was more than vegetative traits. The biopriming of Trichoderma species except T. lixii improved all traits of growth, development, and seed protein of the plant in saline and non-saline conditions. T. harzianum, T. ghanens and T. atroviride and their mutants produced the highest salinity resistance induction. Among them, the effect of T. atroviride was more obvious in saline condition while its mutant was superior in non-saline condition. The symbiosis efficiency of Trichoderma with this plant shows that under non-saline condition the efficiency varies between 16 to 70%, and the lowest is in T. lixii (mutant) and the highest in T. atroviride (mutant). Also, except for T. atroviride, the index declined by salinity to the range of 3 to 58% for the rest of fungi. Conclusion In general, the results of the experiment showed that the growth and development of pinto beans are affected by salinity and inoculation by the Trichoderma species and their interactions. As a result, the effects of different Trichoderma species are not the same under saline and non-saline conditions. Although under salinity treatment, the potential of the fungi in supporting the vegetative traits, yield, and yield component decreased, however, the values of all traits in saline conditions were higher than that of control without inoculation. This article shows that choosing the right and sustainable fungal treatment can partially alleviate the effects of the moderate salinity in the pinto bean plants. Therefore, it is possible to optimize bean production by inducing salinity resistance by selecting suitable Trichoderma. Overall and according to the results, seed biopriming with Trichoderma species improves the vegetative and reproductive traits of pinto bean in saline and non-saline conditions, and the use of T. harzianum, T. ghanens, and T. atroviride along with their mutants is recommended to maximize of the plant yield in the field conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fusarium infection in carnation is the most important limiting factor for carnation production. We isolated 38 fungal isolates from infected carnation plants collected from Mahallat, Iran, and 15 Fusarium species were identified morphologically. Isolates of J14, k5, and k72 were the most pathogenic isolates in pathogenicity test on White Liberty cultivar. Molecular identification of J14, k5, and k72 isolates was done based on Elongation Factor 1-alpha (EF1-α) gene. To investigate the effect of Trichoderma and some of its mutants on reducing the Fusarium infection, six wild type isolates were examined. The species of T. harzianum, T. virense, and T. ghanens showed more inhabitation potential and were chosen for induced mutation via gamma irradiation at 250 Gy. The number of 270 mutants were screened morphologically and 60 mutants were screened using dual culture against J14, k5, and k72. Morphological and molecular identification of J14, k5, and k72 isolates recognized them as F. oxysporum. Three mutants, i.e. ThM7(67.17%), TgM1 (59.45%), and TvM17(57.55%) showed the highest efficacy and were selected. Evaluation test of efficacy in greenhouse by mixture of T. harzianum, T. virense and T. ghanens (TW) and mixture of mutant isolates ThM7, TgM1, and TvM17 (TM) showed that biological method had higher ability to control Fusarium infection on carnation plants in greenhouse condition, and mutation had no adverse effects on plants. The results of this experiment proved that the use of mutation in the Trichoderma genome with the use of gamma radiation could be an effective way to achieve isolates with better performance in this bio-control agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming that the bottom soil of the foundation is rigid and exibility effect is ignored, the seismic response of a structure is inuenced by its dynamic properties and soil exibility does not affect the mentioned response. Hence, considering the analytical results only based on the fixed base buildings can result in an unsafe structure design. Therefore, near-field earthquakes produce many seismic needs to force the structure to dissipate this input energy with relatively large displacements. Accordingly, the primary objective of the present paper is to determine the seismic response of the 3-, 5-, and 8-story steel buildings with the special moment frame system, considering the soil-structure interaction and panel zone modeling. To this end, selected records of the near- and far-field earthquakes were used to facilitate the nonlinear time history analysis of the structures, whose responses to earthquakes were compared in both of the mentioned states. The results showed that the average drift of all three structures under the effect of near-field earthquakes was two times larger than the drift of the structures under the effect of the far-field earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trichoderma species are known as effective agents used for biological control of plant pathogenic fungi. The Trichoderma harzianum and its mutant isolates were cultured and their traits including, mycelial growth, antagonistic activity and extracellular proteins and enzymes production (Chitinase and Cellulase) were investigated to select the most effective mutant isolates against plant pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani. Also, the purity and composition of enzyme-rich protein samples were evaluated under denaturing gel electrophoresis. This study clearly showed the possibility of improving mycelia growth rate (from 1.18 to 1.33 cm d-1), the antagonistic capability of Trichoderma (from 54.9% growth inhibition of R. solani to 66%), extracellular proteins and enzymes production for biological control of plant diseases through mutation with γ-radiation. Also, compared to wild type strain, protein production in the mutant isolates increased. Moreover, the highest specific chitinase enzyme activities were observed in mutant isolates T. h M8 (42.48 U mg-1) and T. h M15 (38.25 U mg-1). Trichoderma mutant of T. h M8 maintained higher mycelia growth rate and higher ability to inhibit growth of R. solani. The SDSPAGE profiles had several enzyme protein bands such as CelloBioHydrolases (CBHs), EndoGlucanases (EGs), β-Glucosidases (BGLs), endochitinases, and β-(1, 4)-N-acetyl glucoaminidases. SDS-PAGE analysis indicated the presence of different protein bands in the range of 10.5 to 245 KDa. Interestingly, expression of chitinase in 95 percent of mutants was higher than wild type of T. harzianum. The results showed that gamma mutation could increase the efficiency and amount of enzymes in T. harzianum, while these enzymes are involved in antagonistic properties of T. harzianum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new rod-like nanostructured Keggin-type amino acid-polyoxometalate hybrid material, (His)3PMo12O40 (His = histidine), was synthesized using nonionic microemulsion method. The water pools in the microemulsion system acted as nanoreactors for the reaction of histidinium hydrochloride and phosphomolybdic acid to produce nanostructured (His)3PMo12O40 hybrid material. A stoichiometric amount of histidinium ion as an organic species was substituted in the Keggin-type heteropoly acid, while its primary structure remained intact. The structural characterizations indicated the nanosized rod-like morphology of the product with the average diameter size of about 100 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic–inorganic halide perovskite solar cells have attracted considerable interest due to their high efficiency and low fabrication cost. Au and Ag are usually used as the back contact metals but have limitations such as Au is too expensive and Ag is unstable. Here, Pt, Au, Ni, Cu, Cr and Ag were studied as the back contact electrodes for perovskite solar cells. We looked at how the work function of metals can affect their photovoltaic characteristics. The compositional and electrical characterizations were studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The general trend observed was that the shunt resistance and open-circuit voltage of the devices decrease with the decreasing work function of the contact metal. The EIS measurements indicated that the internal resistance of the cell decreases when using spiro-OMeTAD in Au, Ag and Pt devices, whereas in the case of Ni, Cu and Cr devices, the internal resistance of the interface increases, indicating that spiro-OMeTAD is not a good HTM with these metal electrodes. Our results also showed that Cu and Ag were not stable in these devices and that the performance of the Ag device degraded faster than that of the Cu device. Efficiencies of 16.4%, 16.5%, 14.7%, 7.8%, 9.2% and 0.04% were obtained for the devices with Au, Ag, Pt, Ni, Cu and Cr, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]