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Purpose To investigate the correlation between choroidal biomarkers using enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) and indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) scoring for monitoring the activity of Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada (VKH). Methods Patients who were not in the acute phase of VKH were recruited. Simultaneous EDI-OCT and ICGA were captured in seven patients only at baseline, in six patients at the 3-month follow-up, and in two patients at both the 6- and 9-month follow-ups. Subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT), subfoveal choroidal area (SFCA), and choroidal vascular index (CVI) were measured on EDI-OCT using FIJI software and a denoising system. ICGA scoring was performed. Results Fifteen subjects with the median of 4-month follow-up were recruited. Forty-eight pairs of EDI-OCT and ICGA were investigated. In univariate analysis, ICGA scores were positively associated with SFCT, and SFCA, but negatively with CVI. The strength of correlation between ICGA scores and SFCT was strong (correlation coefficient: 0.91). In multivariate analysis, only SFCT remained significant (B: 2.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.9–3.0; P < 0.001). Conclusions SFCT can be an acceptable representative of the subclinical inflammatory activity of VKH. As an alternative to ICGA, SFCT functions better than SFCA and CVI.

The aim of the current paper is to identify the effective factors in forming the cyberloafing phenomenon and rank these factors. In the present study, a multiple attribute decision-making method has been used. The statistical population of this study consists of managers and employees of the Yazd Provincial Tax Administration, and 27 of them were selected based on accessibility. This research is applied and descriptive-analytical in terms of purpose and type. Based on the literature review, eighteen effective factors in the formation of cyberloafing were identified. Different MADM techniques, such as SAW, TOPSIS, ELECTRE, and TOXONOMY, were used to rank each factor. Finally, the Copeland fusion technique was used to reach a consensus on the execution of the mentioned techniques. Our investigations have shown that organizational policy factors, organizational commitment, and having a lot of leisure time had the most significant impact on the formation of the cyberloafing phenomenon. Also, interpersonal conflict, role overload, and belief in disorder had the least impact on the formation of the cyberloafing phenomenon. The current research is the first one conducted with this approach, especially in Iran, and its results can be considered by managers in other organizations as well.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant contributor to global mortality and disability, and there is still no specific drug available to treat cognitive deficits in survivors. Vanillic acid (VA), a bioactive phenolic compound, has shown protective effects in various models of neurodegeneration; however, its impact on TBI outcomes remains elusive. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate the possible role of VA in ameliorating TBI-induced cognitive decline and to reveal the mechanisms involved. TBI was induced using the Marmarou impact acceleration model to deliver an impact force of 300 g, and treatment with VA (50 mg/kg; P.O.) was initiated 30 minutes post-TBI. The cognitive performance, hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), oxidative stress markers, neurological function, cerebral edema, and morphological changes were assessed at scheduled points in time. TBI resulted in cognitive decline in the passive avoidance task, impaired LTP in the perforant path-dentate gyrus (PP-DG) pathway, increased hippocampal oxidative stress, cerebral edema, neurological deficits, and neuronal loss in the rat hippocampus. In contrast, acute VA administration mitigated all the aforementioned TBI outcomes. The data suggest that reducing synaptic plasticity impairment, regulating oxidative and antioxidant defense, alleviating cerebral edema, and preventing neuronal loss by VA can be at least partially attributed to its protection against TBI-induced cognitive decline.

Abstract Background To report a case of Pediatric-onset MS associated uveitis managed with local and systemic medications. Case presentation An 11-year-old boy who was diagnosed with Pediatric-onset MS (POMS) with the first presentation of left optic neuritis in another center, was referred to our clinic with the complaint of non-improved vision in the left eye despite receiving IV 5gr methylprednisolone. After the ophthalmologic examinations, the patient was diagnosed as bilateral POMS-associated intermediate uveitis, and local treatment with corticosteroid was administered to both eyes. He was continued on systemic therapy such as Rituximab and five sessions of plasmapheresis. After four months, the patient's vision improved from FC at 50cm to 9/10 in the left eye. The intensity of intraocular inflammation decreased in both eyes. In fluorescein angiography findings, the optic disc, as well as vascular leakage, subsided bilaterally. Conclusion Despite its rarity, POMS-associated uveitis presents a considerable challenge that necessitates the collaborative efforts of neurologists and ophthalmologists to achieve the most effective treatment outcomes.

The conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) is used in this paper for empirical Bayes (EB) analysis of road crash hotspots. EB is a well-known method for estimating the expected crash frequency of sites (e.g. road segments, intersections) and then prioritising these sites to identify a subset of high priority sites (e.g. hotspots) for additional safety audits/improvements. In contrast to the conventional EB approach, which employs a statistical model such as the negative binomial model (NB-EB) to model crash frequency data, the recently developed CGAN-EB approach uses a conditional generative adversarial network, a form of deep neural network, that can model any form of distributions of the crash frequency data. Previous research has shown that the CGAN-EB performs as well as or better than NB-EB, however that work considered only a small range of crash data characteristics and did not examine the spatial and temporal transferability. In this paper a series of simulation experiments are devised and carried out to assess the CGAN-EB performance across a wide range of conditions and compares it to the NB-EB. The simulation results show that CGAN-EB performs as well as NB-EB when conditions favor the NB-EB model (i.e. data conform to the assumptions of the NB model) and outperforms NB-EB in experiments reflecting conditions frequently encountered in practice (i.e. low sample mean crash rates, and when crash frequency does not follow a log-linear relationship with covariates). Also, temporal and spatial transferability of both approaches were evaluated using field data and both CGAN-EB and NB-EB approaches were found to have similar performance.

ABSTRACT Novel antimicrobial agents are needed to combat antimicrobial resistance. This study tested novel pentafluorosulfanyl-containing triclocarban analogs for their potential antibacterial efficacy. Standard procedures were used to produce pentafluorosulfanyl-containing triclocarban analogs. Twenty new compounds were tested against seven Gram-positive and Gram-negative indicator strains as well as 10 clinical isolates for their antibacterial and antibiofilm activity. Mechanistic investigations focused on damage to cell membrane, oxidizing reduced thiols, iron-sulfur clusters, and oxidative stress to explain the compounds’ activity. Safety profiles were assessed using cytotoxicity experiments in eukaryotic cell lines. Following screening, selected components had significantly better antibacterial and antibiofilm activity against Gram-positive bacteria in lower concentrations in comparison to ciprofloxacin and gentamycin. For instance, one compound had a minimum inhibitory concentration of

Abstract Continuous crystallization of lovastatin from a lovastatin-methanol solution and water as the anti-solvent in an impinging jet crystallizer is investigated using a computational fluid dynamics model. To capture the important phenomena, the model is coupled with micro-mixing, population balance, and related energy balance equations. It is implemented in OpenFOAM and validated against experimental data, where a fairly good agreement is found. The effects of key process parameters on the crystallization performance are also studied using the validated model. The results show that increasing the inlet jet velocity from 1 to 4 m/s yields a much narrower size distribution and 70% reduction in the mean crystal size. The four-fold increase in the inlet jet velocity also reduces the crystal production rate by one order of magnitude. Also, it is found that increasing the inlet supersaturation ratio from 6.8 to 8.8 nearly doubles the mean crystal size. Moreover, it results in a wider size distribution and a six-fold increase in the crystal production rate. The simulations also confirm that lower solution to anti-solvent mass flow ratios yield a wider size distribution, a larger mean crystal size and a higher crystal production rate. Increasing this ratio from 0.5 to 2 reduces the production rate by two orders of magnitude.

Abstract Purpose: This study aimed to compare macular vascular changes one and three months after treatment with either panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) or intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB). Methods: A total of 62 eyes with very severe non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy or early proliferative diabetic retinopathy without center-involved diabetic macular edema, were included in this retrospective study. Thirty-nine eyes were allocated to the PRP group, while 23 eyes were treated with IVB. Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) was performed to measure foveal avascular zone (FAZ) characteristics as well as the densities of superficial and deep capillary plexuses (SCP and DCP). Results: In the IVB group, the FAZ area and perimeter expanded at month one but returned to baseline level after three months. In the PRP group, however, the FAZ area and perimeter were rather steady. Changes in the FAZ area were significantly different between the treatment groups at month one (P = 0.02), but not at month three (P = 0.31). There was no significant difference in the change in FAZ circularity index between the two groups at each time point (P = 0.55 and P = 0.31). Similarly, changes in SCP density were not statistically significant between the two groups at both time points (all Ps > 0.05). A comparison of the two treatment arms based on the mean change in DCP density revealed a significant difference at month one, but not at month three (P = 0.01 and P = 0.49, respectively). Conclusion: Although bevacizumab and PRP have different short-term macular vascular responses, both therapies have the ability to normalize or stabilize vascular measures over time.

Weather conditions such as rainfall and freeze-thaw cycles affect the pavement performance of airports; therefore, methods such as using de-icing chemicals are considered in order to maintain the normal condition of the airport runway. In addition to the above factors, de-icing chemicals play an important role in pavement performance and the damage caused to it due to their chemical nature. Therefore, investigating the effect of de-icing chemicals and determining the appropriate material to maintain the airport's pavement is a priority for engineers. In this study, the effect of three de-icing chemicals, sodium chloride, potassium acetate, and ethylene glycol (at concentrations of 23.3%, 49%, and 69.07%, respectively) on skid resistance (The British Pendulum Test (BPT) and The Road Test Machine (RTM)) and the mechanical properties (Compressive Strength Test) of the concrete under Freezing and Thawing Cycle were investigated. The BPT test results showed that sodium chloride resulted in better skid resistance than other chemicals when the number of cycles is more than 100 cycles. This result was also obtained for all cycles in the RTM test. Also, ethylene glycol was not suitable for improving skid resistance based on BPT and RTM tests. Furthermore, the results of the compressive strength of concrete mixtures showed that the de-icing chemicals reduced the compressive strength of concrete mixtures. Based on all the results, sodium chloride had better results than other chemicals.

The aim of the current paper is to identify the effective factors in forming the cyberloafing phenomenon and rank these factors. In the present study, a multiple attribute decision-making method has been used. The statistical population of this study consists of managers and employees of the Yazd Provincial Tax Administration, and 27 of them were selected based on accessibility. This research is applied and descriptive-analytical in terms of purpose and type. Based on the literature review, eighteen effective factors in the formation of cyberloafing were identified. Different MADM techniques, such as SAW, TOPSIS, ELECTRE, and TOXONOMY, were used to rank each factor. Finally, the Copeland fusion technique was used to reach a consensus on the execution of the mentioned techniques. Our investigations have shown that organizational policy factors, organizational commitment, and having a lot of leisure time had the most significant impact on the formation of the cyberloafing phenomenon. Also, interpersonal conflict, role overload, and belief in disorder had the least impact on the formation of the cyberloafing phenomenon. The current research is the first one conducted with this approach, especially in Iran, and its results can be considered by managers in other organizations as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to adopt measures to make optimal use of rich sources of solar energy, considering the limit resources of fossil fuels and increasing demand for energy. Using solar collectors is one of the methods to collect solar energy. The aim of this study was an investigation and prediction of the effect of the collector's slope angle and plate type on the collector performance using artificial neural network (ANN) approaches. Two different ANN models, multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF), were applied to predict the performance parameters of solar collectors. The results indicated that the ANN-MLP and ANN-RBF models were acceptable, but the ANN-RBF model with structure of 2-16-5 had higher acceptability for prediction of output parameters at various input variables. The highest R and lowest root mean square error (RMSE) values in training set of ANN-RBF for air speed (AS) were obtained as 0.984 and 0.015, respectively. The results showed that increasing the slope angle from 0 to 60 caused to increase in the amount of received radiation by the collector, and so leading to an increase in the air temperature inside the collector. On the other hand, the maximum value of thermal power (TP) and collector efficiency (CE) for the porous plate were more than the simple plate by 28.2 % and 41.5 %, respectively.