Wideband RCS reduction due to plasma generated by radioactive nuclei for cylindrical object.

Radar cross section reduction has been one of the most important research topics in recent years. Plasma-based stealth is a method of reducing the radar cross section, which dampens the electromagnetic waves and reduces the amount of return waves. In this paper, a coating of the radioactive nucleus [Formula: see text] on the surface of the cylinder with a radius of 10 cm is considered and the range of the emitted alpha particles and the electron density generated in the air are obtained using the Geant4 code under standard temperature and pressure conditions. By finite element method solution, the radar cross section of the conductive cylindrical object has been simulated and extracted in the presence and absence of plasma created by alpha-particles. The obtained results show a reduction of 5-8 dB [Formula: see text] in the radar cross section in the frequency range of 2-12 GHz for specific activity source of 1 Ci/[Formula: see text].

Effect of build direction dependent grain structure on fatigue crack growth of biomedical Co-29Cr-6Mo alloy processed by laser powder bed fusion.

Biomedical Co-29Cr-6Mo alloy is one of the alloys that are suitable for laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing and as an implant material is often used in situations of critical and cyclic loading. Thus, fatigue crack growth (FCG) behaviour and resistance of the alloy processed by LPBF are an important consideration for dental and orthopaedic applications. In this study, FCG testing has been conducted to evaluate how build direction (BD) dependent grain/cell structure in relation to crack growth direction (CD), either CD⊥BD or CD//BD, affects FCG behaviour. It has been found that the threshold stress intensity factor (ΔKTh) value is significantly higher and the values of c and m in Paris equation are slightly lower for CD//BD samples than the values for CD⊥BD samples, respectively. Failure analysis has revealed that the effects of the commonly known defect, lack of fusion, on both ΔKTh and FCG rate are weak. It has been identified that crack has mainly propagated in a transgranular and transcellular manner, consistent with the observation of the crack path being more torturous and with the higher crack growth resistance determined in CD//BD samples than in CD⊥BD samples. This will be further discussed linking the difference in the size of crack segment, which is BD and thus grain/cell length dependent, to the roughness-induced crack closure mechanism.

Developing an SDSS for optimal sustainable roof covering planning based on UHI variation at neighborhood scale.

Nowadays, academics have paid special attention to global warming, because it has several issues such as urban heat island (UHI) related to the quality of life. For this purpose, a spatial decision support system (SDSS) has been developed to investigate the effect of parcels' roof covering type on surface heat island (SHI) values and its variation at the neighborhood scale in Tehran, Iran. This SDSS, as the innovation of the present research, consists of two main steps including estimating the UHI value in the study area and adopting the optimum set of parcels to change their roofs' cover with three types of vegetation, high-albedo material, and flagstone. The first step is accomplished by aggregating various indices related to land cover obtained from Landsat 8 images. The aggregation is done by linear regression method (LRM) with an RMSE and R2 equal to 0.942 and 0.897, respectively. Then, the genetic algorithm was used to select the optimal subset, including 10% of the parcels in the area, to change their roof covering type based on minimizing the UHI's variation. The standard deviation obtained after the changes improved from 13.222 to 10.781 °C. The results indicate that to control UHI in the center of the region, it is necessary to inhibit UHI effects at the boundary of the study area with vegetation roof covering since flagstone and high-albedo materials have local effects on controlling the UHI effects.

Sulfur-Decorated Hyper-Cross-Linked Coal Tar: A Microporous Organic Polymer for Efficient and Expeditious Mercury Removal.

Hyper-cross-linked microporous organic polymers are a class of porous materials that have captured widespread attention owing to their high surface areas and wide range of monomeric sources. Balancing economy with performance is the initial hurdle when designing effective hyper-cross-linked microporous organic polymers. Herein, we demonstrated an inexpensive sulfurated solvent-knitted hyper-cross-linked microporous polymer scaffold, named sulfur-decorated hyper-cross-linked coal tar (CTHP-SES), utilizing coal tar as an aromatic monomer with numerous positions for potential chelation of toxic metals, particularly mercury, from water. The resulting material illustrated selective adsorption of mercury from both water (1037 mg g-1) and the gas phase (416 mg g-1) with rapid kinetics (183.67 mg min-1 g-1), good recyclability (4 runs), and excellent stability under both strong basic and acidic conditions. CTHP-SES was able to reduce the concentration of the Hg(II) solution from 1 mg L-1 to 32 µg L-1 after 10 min due in part to the promising distribution coefficient (Kd = 2.371 × 106 mL g-1). These results show that CTHP-SES offers a promising and practical platform to cope with a variety of environmental contaminations.

Medullary thyroid cancer is associated with high serum vitamin D level and polymorphism of vitamin D receptors.

BACKGROUND: Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy. Studies have observed an anti-cancer effect for vitamin D and found that polymorphisms of vitamin D receptors can influence the prevalence of various cancers. The present study investigated the serum level of vitamin D and FokI, BsmI and Tru9I polymorphisms of vitamin D receptors. METHODS: Forty patients with medullary thyroid cancer and 40 healthy controls were investigated. The genomic DNA of the subjects was extracted using saturated salt/proteinase K and investigated by PCR sequencing. Serum levels of vitamin D were evaluated by ELISA. The results were analyzed in SPSS and GraphPad Prism 5 software. RESULTS: The genotypic and allelic frequencies of FokI and BsmI polymorphisms showed no significant differences between test and control groups. For Tru9I polymorphism, Tt genotype and t allelic frequency in the test group were significantly different from those of the control group. Also, we found Tt genotype and t allelic frequency to be significantly associated with medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) type and the agressiveness of the disease. The average serum vitamin D level was 23.32 ng/mL and 18.95 ng/mL for patients and controls, respectively, and the difference between the two groups was statistically significant. Moreover, we found high serum vitamin D level to be associated with t allelic frequency. CONCLUSIONS: Unexpectedly, the mean serum vitamin D level of the test group was significantly higher than that of the control group. Tru9I polymorphism was found to be significantly correlated with the prevalence of medullary thyroid carcinoma.

Antibody-Mediated Resistance to Rhizomania Disease in Sugar Beet Hairy Roots.

Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated transformation of sugar beet hairy roots expressing single-chain variable fragment (scFv) was exploited to evaluate the efficacy of four antibody-based constructs for interfering with the Beet necrotic yellow vein virus infection. The scFv specific to a major coat protein of virus, p21, was targeted to various cellular compartments including the cytosol (pIC and pICC constructs), apoplast (pIA), and mitochondrion (pIM). After mechanical virus inoculation, most of the hairy root clones expressing scFv in the cytosol displayed low virus titers while the majority of transgenic hairy root clones accumulated antibody in outer membrane of mitochondria or apoplast were infected. This hairy root system provided an efficient and rapid approach to initially investigating root disease resistance like rhizomania prior to transform whole recalcitrant plants such as sugar beet.

Fluctuation relation for heat exchange in Markovian open quantum systems.

A fluctuation relation for the heat exchange of an open quantum system under a thermalizing Markovian dynamics is derived. We show that the probability that the system absorbs an amount of heat from its bath, at a given time interval, divided by the probability of the reverse process (releasing the same amount of heat to the bath) is given by an exponential factor which depends on the amount of heat and the difference between the temperatures of the system and the bath. Interestingly, this relation is akin to the standard form of the fluctuation relation (for forward-backward dynamics). We also argue that the probability of the violation of the second law of thermodynamics in the form of the Clausius statement (i.e., net heat transfer from a cold system to its hot bath) drops exponentially with both the amount of heat and the temperature differences of the baths.

Vaccination with human amniotic epithelial cells confer effective protection in a murine model of Colon adenocarcinoma.

As a prophylactic cancer vaccine, human amniotic membrane epithelial cells (hAECs) conferred effective protection in a murine model of colon cancer. The immunized mice mounted strong cross-protective CTL and antibody responses. Tumor burden was significantly reduced in tumor-bearing mice after immunization with hAECs. Placental cancer immunotherapy could be a promising approach for primary prevention of cancer. In spite of being the star of therapeutic strategies for cancer treatment, the results of immunotherapeutic approaches are still far from expectations. In this regard, primary prevention of cancer using prophylactic cancer vaccines has gained considerable attention. The immunologic similarities between cancer development and placentation have helped researchers to unravel molecular mechanisms responsible for carcinogenesis and to take advantage of stem cells from reproductive organs to elicit robust anti-cancer immune responses. Here, we showed that vaccination of mice with human amniotic membrane epithelial cells (hAECs) conferred effective protection against colon cancer and led to expansion of systemic and splenic cytotoxic T cell population and induction of cross-protective cytotoxic responses against tumor cells. Vaccinated mice mounted tumor-specific Th1 responses and produced cross-reactive antibodies against cell surface markers of cancer cells. Tumor burden was also significantly reduced in tumor-bearing mice immunized with hAECs. Our findings pave the way for potential future application of hAECs as an effective prophylactic cancer vaccine.

Molecular investigation of bacterial communities during the manufacturing and ripening of semi-hard Iranian Liqvan cheese.

Liqvan (or Lighvan) is a traditional Iranian cheese from the East Azerbaijan province of Iran, which is made of raw ewe's milk without the addition of a starter. The grazing pastures, environmental conditions and the ancient regional production methods allocate a distinctive microbial ecology to this type of cheese, and these factors are consequently associated with the quality of the product. In this study, the microbiota of the milk, curd and cheese has been investigated using culture independent approaches. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of the bacteria, 16S rRNA based high-throughput sequencing and enumeration of the live bacterial community by means of quantitative PCR (qPCR) have been used for this purpose. The results showed that the main bacterial population in the milk belonged to both microbial contaminants and lactic acid bacteria (LAB). However, both of these populations were totally replaced by LAB during ripening. The present survey contributes by describing the microbiota of this ancient cheese in more detail during fermentation and ripening.

Promising gene delivery system based on polyethylenimine-modified silica nanoparticles.

This article reports on the synthesis and full characterization of innovative silica-based nanoparticle composed of fumed silica as a core decorated with polyethylenimine (PEI) with different molecular weights (25, 10 and 1.8 kDa). Wide range of analytical, spectroscopic, and microscopic methods (TEM, DLS, ζ potential, elemental analysis (EA), TNBS and FTIR) were used to characterize the nanoparticles. Furthermore, transfection efficiency of these nanoparticles as non-viral vector was examined. The silica-PEI conjugates retained both the ability of PEI to fully condense plasmid DNA at low N/P ratios and suitable buffering capacity at the endosomal pH range. PEI-functionalized silica remarkably enhanced EGFP-N1 gene expression in murine neuroblastoma (Neuro-2A) cells up to 38 folds compared to PEI 25 kDa. Meanwhile the results of the cytotoxicity assays indicated that these silica-PEI conjugates have acceptable level of viability.

Cell-SELEX-based selection and characterization of a G-quadruplex DNA aptamer against mouse dendritic cells.

Targeting of dendritic cells (DCs) by aptamers increases antigen capture and presentation to the immune system. Our aim was to produce aptamers against DC molecules using the cell-SELEX procedure. For this purpose, 18 rounds of cell-SELEX were performed on mouse macrophage J774A.1 and CT26 as target and control cells, respectively. The selected aptamers were truncated and their binding to mouse macrophages, and immature and mature DCs analyzed. Two macrophage-specific aptamers, Seq6 and Seq7, were identified. A truncated form of Seq7, Seq7-4, 33 nucleotides in length and containing the G-quadruplex, bound macrophages and immature DCs with KD values in the nanomolar range. We anticipate that Seq7-4 has potential as a therapeutic tool in targeting of mouse macrophages and immature DCs to efficiently improve different immunotherapy approaches.

Proteomics screening of adenosine triphosphate-interacting proteins in the liver of diazinon-treated rats.

AIM: Diazinon (DZN) is one of the most important organophosphorus compounds used to control pests in agriculture in many countries. Several studies have shown that exposure to DZN may alter protein expression in the liver. In order to further investigate the mechanism of DZN toxicity, differentially expressed ATP-interacting proteins, following subacute exposure to toxin, were separated and identified in rat liver. MAIN METHODS: Male rats were equally divided into four groups: control (corn oil) and DZN (15 mg/kg) by gavage once a day for 4 weeks. After homogenization of liver tissue, lysates were incubated ATP-sepharose beads. After several washes, ATP-interacting proteins were eluted and separated on 2-D polyacrylamide gels. Deferentially expressed proteins were cut and identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization/time-of-flight and Mascot database. Identified proteins were classified according to their biological process using protein analysis through evolutionary relationships (PANTHER) Web site. KEY FINDING: In this work, we showed that several key proteins involved in biological processes such as antioxidant system, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and metabolism were differentially expressed after subacute exposure to DZN.

Identification of possible cytotoxicity mechanism of polyethylenimine by proteomics analysis.

Polyethylenimine (PEI) is a polycation widely used for successful gene delivery both in vitro and in vivo experiments. However, different studies showed that PEI could be cytotoxic to transfected cells, and the mechanism of toxicity is poorly understood. Identification of PEI-interacting proteins may help in understanding the toxicity pathways. In this study, we investigated proteins that could interact with PEI in human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (HT29). In order to identify the proteins interacting with PEI, PEI was immobilized to sepharose beads as solid matrix. The HT29 cell lysate were passed through the matrix. PEI-bound proteins were isolated, and further separation was performed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. After gel digestion, proteins were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight (TOF)/TOF mass spectrometry. Our data indicated that most of the identified PEI-interacting proteins such as shock proteins, glutathione-S-transferases, and protein disulfide isomerase are involved in apoptosis process in cells. Thus, although this is a preliminary experiment implicating the involvement of some proteins in PEI cytotoxicity, it could partly explain the mechanism of PEI cytotoxicity in cells.

Joint sparse representation of brain activity patterns in multi-task fMRI data.

A single-task functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment may only partially highlight alterations to functional brain networks affected by a particular disorder. Multivariate analysis across multiple fMRI tasks may increase the sensitivity of fMRI-based diagnosis. Prior research using multi-task analysis in fMRI, such as those that use joint independent component analysis (jICA), has mainly assumed that brain activity patterns evoked by different tasks are independent. This may not be valid in practice. Here, we use sparsity, which is a natural characteristic of fMRI data in the spatial domain, and propose a joint sparse representation analysis (jSRA) method to identify common information across different functional subtraction (contrast) images in data from a multi-task fMRI experiment. Sparse representation methods do not require independence, or that the brain activity patterns be nonoverlapping. We use functional subtraction images within the joint sparse representation analysis to generate joint activation sources and their corresponding sparse modulation profiles. We evaluate the use of sparse representation analysis to capture individual differences with simulated fMRI data and with experimental fMRI data. The experimental fMRI data was acquired from 16 young (age: 19-26) and 16 older (age: 57-73) adults obtained from multiple speech comprehension tasks within subjects, where an independent measure (namely, age in years) can be used to differentiate between groups. Simulation results show that this method yields greater sensitivity, precision, and higher Jaccard indexes (which measures similarity and diversity of the true and estimated brain activation sources) than does the jICA method. Moreover, superiority of the jSRA method in capturing individual differences was successfully demonstrated using experimental fMRI data.

Evaluation of Protein Ubiquitylation in Heart Tissue of Rats Exposed to Diazinon (an Organophosphate Insecticide) and Crocin (an Active Saffron Ingredient): Role of HIF-1α.

INTRODUCTION: Organophosphate compounds, such as diazinon (DZN), are widely used in agriculture and can lead to formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cardiovascular system. ROS are highly toxic since they can cause serious changes in proteins including ubiquitylation. Crocin (a carotenoid isolated from saffron), has protective effects against DZN cardiotoxicity. In this study level of total protein ubiquitylation as markers of oxidative stress and level of ubiquitin-HIF-1α and P53, known substrates of ubiquitylation, in rat hearts exposed to DZN and crocin were evaluated. METHODS: Rats were divided into 7 groups: corn oil (control), DZN (15 mg/kg/day, gavage), crocin (12.5, 25, 50 mg/kg/day, i. p.) plus DZN, vitamin E (200 IU/kg, i. p., 3 days a week) plus DZN and crocin (50 mg/kg/day, i. p.). Treatments were continued for 4 weeks. Total protein ubiquitylation, total HIF-1α and P53 were analyzed by western blotting. Total HIF-1α and P53 were purified by immunoprecipitation (IP) and ubiquitin- HIF-1α and P53 were analyzed by western blotting. RESULTS: Higher protein ubiquitylation levels were observed in DZN treated rats. Decrease in ubiquitin-HIF-1α was also shown, and leads to higher HIF-1α protein levels in DZN group. Crocin (50 mg/kg) and vit. E protected cells against DZN protein ubiquitylation. Significant differences were not observed between the ubiquitin - P53 and total P53 protein levels. CONCLUSION: Our results showed that ubiquitylation could be considered as a marker of oxidative stress in rats exposed to DZN. Increase in level of HIF-α may compensate adverse effect of DNZ in rat heart.

Tailor-made directional emission in nanoimprinted plasmonic-based light-emitting devices.

We demonstrate an enhanced and tailor-made directional emission of light-emitting devices using nanoimprinted hexagonal arrays of aluminum nanoparticles. Fourier microscopy reveals that the luminescence of the device is not only determined by the material properties of the organic dye molecules but is also strongly influenced by the coherent scattering resulting from periodically arranged metal nanoparticles. Emitters can couple to lattice-induced hybrid plasmonic-photonic modes sustained by plasmonic arrays. Such modes enhance the spatial coherence of an emitting layer, allowing the efficient beaming of the emission along narrow angular and spectral ranges. We show that tailoring the separation of the nanoparticles in the array yields an accurate angular distribution of the emission. This combination of large-area metal nanostructures fabricated by nanoimprint lithography and light-emitting devices is beneficial for the design and optimization of solid-state lighting systems.

Spiritual care in nursing: a concept analysis.

BACKGROUND: Around the world, spiritual care in nursing is a critical part of providing holistic care, but within our profession, there is a lack of certainty over the meaning of spirituality and delivery of spiritual care, including nurses thinking of spirituality as religion. METHODS: We adopted the eight-step Walker and Avant's concept analysis approach to provide a definition of the concept, searching and analysing international and national online databases. Inclusion criterion included that articles were published between 1950 and 2012 in English or Persian language. Finally, 151 articles and 7 books were included in the analysis. FINDINGS: The attributes of spiritual care are healing presence, therapeutic use of self, intuitive sense, exploration of the spiritual perspective, patient-centredness, meaning-centred therapeutic intervention and creation of a spiritually nurturing environment. Spiritual care is a subjective and dynamic concept, a unique aspect of care that integrates all the other aspects. It emerges in the context of nurses' awareness of the transcendent dimension of life and reflects a patient's reality. The provision of spiritual care leads to positive consequences such as healing for patients and promotion of spiritual awareness for nurses. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY: The conceptual definition of spiritual care provided in this study can help clinical nurses, educators and nurse managers to develop and implement evidence-based health policies, comprehensive staff training programmes and practical quality assessment guidelines to try to ensure that all nurses are competent to include relevant spiritual care in practice. CONCLUSION: A comprehensive definition of the concept of spiritual care ensued. The findings can facilitate further development of nursing knowledge and practice in spiritual care and facilitate correction of common misconceptions about the provision of spiritual care.

Identification and determination of the fatty acid composition of Quercus brantii growing in southwestern Iran by GC-MS.

This article reports the fatty acid composition of the oil extracts from Quercus brantii fruits growing in Kohgiloye va Boyer Ahmad province in southwestern Iran. The oil from Q. brantii fruits was extracted with hexane in Soxhlet apparatus and subsequently identified and determined by using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy. The results revealed that the major fatty acids were oleic acid (52.99-66.14%), linoleic acid (10.80-11.11%), palmitic acid (8.08-10.06%), stearic acid (0.74-1.57%), α-linolenic acid (0.19-0.35%), erucic acid (0.12-0.15%) and arachidic acid (0.12-0.13%). The total proportion of unsaturated and saturated oil was 64.60-77.27% and 9.17-11.75%, respectively. Results indicate that the fruits of Q. brantii contained 0.19-0.35% omega-3, 10.92-14.77% omega-6 and 53.14-66.26% omega-9. Therefore, Q. brantii can be introduced as rich sources of fatty acid in food dietary and medical health.

Quality of life of Iranian beta-thalassaemia major patients living on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea.

In the present study, the aim was to explore the quality of life of thalassaemia major (TM) patients according to age, sex, school performance, severity and complications of the disease. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. Quality of life was evaluated by 4 questionnaires; demographic characteristics, the short form 36 health survey (SF-36), Persian version of symptoms checklist-90-revised (SCL-90-R) and life satisfaction index (LSI). 687 (41.08%) of the eligible patients with TM completed the questionnaires. With the SF-36 questionnaire, 329 (47.9%) participants had an excellent level of physical functioning. With the SCL-90-R questionnaire, 446 (64.9%) participants had a global severity index of > 0.7, considered psychiatric patients, 141 (20.5%) patients had GSI between 0.4 and 0.7, considered suspected psychiatric patients and 100 (14.6%) participants had GSI of < 0.4, considered non-psychiatric patients. The mean score of LSI questionnaire was 20.50 (SD 5.95), range 2-37. Beta-TM patients are at risk of psychiatric symptoms and need appropriate psychiatric counselling.

Classification of individuals based on sparse representation of brain cognitive patterns: a functional MRI study.

Many neurological disorders can change patterns of brain activity observed in functional imaging studies. These functional differences may be useful for classification of individuals into diagnostic categories. However, due to the high dimensionality of the input feature space and small set of subjects that are usually available, classification based on fMRI data is not trivial. Here, we evaluate the use of a Sparse Representation Analysis method within a Fisher Linear Discriminant (FLD) classification method, taking functional patterns characteristic of different cognitive tasks as the data input. As a test dataset, with a clear 'gold-standard' classification, we attempt to classify individuals as young, or older, based only on functional activation patterns in a speech listening task. Thirty two young (age: 19-26) and older (age: 57-73) adults (16 each) were scanned while listening to noise and to sentences degraded with noise, half of which contained meaningful context that could be used to enhance intelligibility. Different functional contrast images were used within K-SVD to generate basis activation sources and their corresponding sparse modulation profiles. Sparse modulation profiles were used in a FLD framework to classify individuals into the young and older categories. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the general approach, and confirm the potential applicability of the proposed method for real-world diagnostic problems.