JORJANI BIOMEDICINE JOURNAL
Year:2016 | Volume:3 | Issue:2|Papers Count:9

Background and Objective: The industrial development along with the rising in human population has led to releasing considerable hazardous materials such as heavy metals into the environment. Environmental pollution by heavy metals can in turn threaten the human health. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the concentration levels of some heavy metals including; Cd, Pb, Cr and Cu, as well as to estimate the physico-chemical parameters of drinking water distribution network of Sanandaj city in 2014.Methods: In order to accomplish the present descriptive study, 18 samples were collected from the water distribution network of Sanandaj during 2014. The level of heavy metals were assayed by using a graphite furnace atomic absorption (Phoenix 986). The standard approaches mentioned in the standard method book were used to measure the fluoride, nitrate and hardness of water. The Pearson Correlation test was used to estimate the association between parameters.Results: The mean concentrations of Cd, Pb, Cr and Cu were found to be 0.0004, 0.011, 0.03, 0.3 mg/L respectively. Moreover, the mean levels of fluoride, nitrate, and total hardness were 0.11, 6.57, and 166 mg/L respectively. The level of Hazard Quotient in this study was lower than 1 (HQ<1).Conclusion: The concentration of all heavy metals in this study were lower than the national and international thresholds of drinking water. It is concluded that Sanandaj drinking water is safe to drink concerning health issues.

Background and Objective: Extinction coefficient is the unique value to each protein and can evaluate the type and purity of recombinant protein produced in laboratories and factories producing recombinant proteins. In this study, a simple method for calculating the extinction coefficient of recombinant protein Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF) is presented.Methods: G-CSF with concentration of 0.5 mg/ml was prepared from Arya Tina Gene. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) method was used to check the purity of the protein, then serial dilutions of 1.2 to 1.64 of the protein were prepared and using UV-VIS spectroscopy the optical density was measured.Results: Electrophoresis result as a single band of 18 kDa was observed. The results of UV-VIS spectroscopy of serial dilution were plotted as a distinct spectrograms and these were used to plot linear regression curve of the standard concentration of G-CSF.Conclusion: The results of this study shows the extinction coefficient equal to 0.81 M-1 cm-1 for recombinant G-CSF that was accordant with the number reports by international producers of G-CSF and suggests the correct method is used to calculate the physicochemical parameter.

Background and objectives: Investigating the mortality in a population has been considered as one of the appropriate methods of health detection. Although, there are some problems such as lack of confidence in accuracy measurement and quality of data collection. Establishment of death registration systems and using international classification codes of diseases, and also mortality data integrating by responsible organizations have solved great parts of the previous problems. In this study, considering a set of parameters, the study population was divided into two groups: deceased under one year (infants) and over one year (adults). Then both groups were clustered using the K-means method to identify different groups. Hidden models and useful patterns were also discovered using decision tree algorithms. Finally, a neural network algorithm was used to show the ranking of attributes in order of their importance.Methods: In this research, data of 12,865 deceased individuals in Golestan province since 2007 to 2009 is studied. The data has been obtained from the Health Center of Golestan province. The main characteristics used in this study are: deceased age, gender, cause of death, place of residence and place of death. K-means algorithm is used to cluster data. The decision tree algorithms and neural networks algorithm were also used for classification. Finally, results and rules were extracted. Due to different natures of causes of death in infants and adults, studying on these different groups is performed separately.Results: In clustering phase, the optimal number of clusters is obtained by Dunn index; eight clusters for infants and seven clusters for adults were obtained. Among four decision-tree algorithms (C5.0, QUEST, CHAID and CART), C5.0 algorithm with high correction rate, 77.37% in infants data and 96.86% in adults data was the best classifier algorithm. Age, gender and place of death were the most important variables that were detected by neural network algorithm.Conclusion: In the present study, the collected mortality data was clustered by considering the effective factors and the standard of International Classification of Diseases. The hidden patterns of mortality for infants and adults were extracted. Due to the explicit nature and the intelligibility of the decision tree algorithms, the results and extracted rules are very useful for specialists in this field.

Background & Objectives: Defect in Immune responses, such as immunosuppression is one of the major causes of AML pathogenesis and progression which could be targeted for immunotherapy of these patients. CD200 and IDO are immunoregulatory factors which are overexpressed in some solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Distinct researches have shown that CD200 and IDO expressions are associated with AML progression. In the current study, we simultaneously examined the expression of these molecules, as the two important factors including in immunosuppression, in the newly diagnosed and relapse AML patients to investigate their correlation with each other.Methods: In this study, 48 Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) samples of newly diagnosed and relapsed AML patients were tested and also 32 PBMCs of normal subjects were employed as normal controls. CD200 expression level was examined on the cells by Flowcytometry and quantitative real time RT-PCR was used to determine the IDO-1 gene expression. Finally data were analyzed statistically by Spss 17 software.Results: Our data showed that CD200 (P=0.02) and IDO-1 (P=0.44) were overexpressed in AML samples especially in relapsed patients. Comparison between FAB AML subgroups demonstrated no statistical differences regardingCD200 level but expression of IDO-1 was slightly increased only in M4 subgroup in comparison to M3 (P=0.01). Correlation analyses showed strong association between the expressions of CD200 and IDO-1 in all patients particularly in relapsed AML, whereas no significant correlation was found in normal subjects.Conclusion: According to the role and overexpression of CD200 and IDO-1 in AML patients and also their two-way correlation with T-reg lymphocytes in disease induction and progression, simultaneous assessment of these parameters are so valuable for more exact prognosis detection. Also inhibition of all these immunoregulatory pathways could be so useful for immunotherapy outcome, especially in relapsed AML.

Background and Objective: Discriminant analysis and logistic regression are classical methods for classifying data in several studies. However, these models do not lead in valid results due to not meeting all necessary assumptions. The purpose of this study was to classify the number of Children Ever Born (CEB) using decision tree model in order to present an efficient method to classify demographic data.Methods: In the present study, CART tree model with Gini splitting rule was fitted to classify the number of CEB in fertility behavior of at least once married 15-49 year-old women, in Semnan-2012. 405 women aged 15-49 years old comprised the survey sample.Results: Women in first and second birth cohorts who had married at an early age had 3 CEB while women who had married at an older age had 2 CEB. Women in third birth cohort who had married at an early age and were employed, had 2 CEB while unemployed women in this cohort whose type of marriages were familial and non-familial had 0 and 1 CEB respectively. Women in the third birth cohort who were married in older age had 1 CEB.Conclusion: Among important advantages of CART model are the simplicity in interpretation, using distribution-free measures, considering missing data and outliers for construction trees which has increased the usage of this method. Therefore, this method is a suitable way for classifying demographic data in comparison to other classical modeling methods in the conditions that necessary assumptions are not met.

The dialkyl- or alkyl/aryl esters of 1, 2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, which are known as Phthalates, are high-production volume synthetic chemicals and considered as environmental pollutants, due to high production and uses in community, plastics industry and common consuming products. Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is the most abundant phthalate in the environment. Human exposure with DEHP could be done via different chemical compounds including food packaging, household furnishings, nutritional supplements, cleaning materials and insecticides. Besides, exposure of human with phthalates occurs through different pathways such as direct contact and using Phthalate-containing products, and indirectly through leaching into other products, or general environmental contaminations. Historically, the diet has been considered the major source of phthalate exposure in the general population, but in all sources, pathways, and their relative contributions to human exposures are not well understood. Medical devices are other source of significant exposure in human. Furthermore, cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, nutritional supplements, herbal remedies and insecticides, may result in significant but poorly quantified human exposure with this compounds. In the present review article, we tried to discuss about metabolism of phthalates in human, toxicity, monitoring of phthalates in foods, environment, and cosmetic products and then metabolites of phthalates. Finally, evaluation of human exposure through biological control is discussed.

Background and Objective: &beta;-Thalassemia major is a chronic genetic disease which is determined with symptoms and signs of a chronic severe anemia. Children with &beta;-Thalassemia major have several risk factors for cognitive problems. The purpose of this study was to compare the cognitive function in & beta;-thalassemia major children and healthy counterparts.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 1391, using convenient sampling method in Zahedan and Shiraz cities. After matching children in terms of age, gender and city of residence, 40 children with & beta;-thalassemia major and 40 matched healthy 6-12 year old children were compared using the independent t-test and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Revision (WISC-R) in terms of verbal understanding, organizing perceptual and freedom from distraction. Data were expressed in descriptive ways and independent t-test was used to analyze data using spss 18 software.Results: Children with &beta;-Thalassemia major gained low scores in the areas of verbal understanding (P=0.01) and freedom from distraction (P=0.01) significantly in comparison to healthy counterparts, but no significant difference was observed in the area of organizing perceptual index (P=0.29) not difference between the two groups.Conclusion: Children with &beta;-Thalassemia major do not necessarily face cognitive decline and are slightly lower than their healthy counterparts and require more attention in the field of education, to improve the quality of their knowledge.

Background and objective: According to the high and increasing prevalence of internet addiction, and the fact that little research has been done on the predictors of internet addiction in Iran, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of predictor variables of mental health and personality subscales in internet addiction of students in medical and non-medical universities of Sanandaj in 2014.Methods: The Method of this research was correlation and the statistical population were all of medical and non-medical students of Sanandaj Universities in 2014. In this study, 250 students (125 female and 125 male), were randomly selected, and completed the checklist of mental health symptoms, NEO personality questionnaire, and internet addiction questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Pearson Correlation, stepwise regression, and T test by SPSS software version 20.Results: The results indicated that obsession-compulsion, openness, consciousness, aggression and somatization subscales had predictor roles in internet addiction, and totally 51 percent of variances predicted the internet addiction (F=29.97; P=0.001).Conclusion: The internet addiction of university students is dependent upon their mental health and personality, and one can predict the internet addiction of students via subscales of mental health and personality.