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Key Clinical Message: Sclerotherapy is a convenient modality for the treatment of venous malformation. Ethanol as a sclerosing agent is easily available and cheap. Sclerotherapy for venous malformations has both functional as well as aesthetic outcome. The incidence of VMS is estimated to be 0.5% for all newborns. Here we present a series of three patients with vascular malformations who underwent sclerotherapy using 98% ethanol injection as sclerosing agent. Sclerotherapy is a convenient modality for treatment of venous malformation for functional as well as aesthetic management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major complications of diabetes is diabetic nephropathy, and often many patients suffer from diabetic nephropathy. That is why it is important to find the mechanisms that cause nephropathy and its treatment. This study was designed to examine the antidiabetic effects of biochanin A (BCA) and evaluate its effects on oxidative stress markers and the expression of transforming growth factor‐β1 (TGF‐β1) and protease‐activated receptors‐2 (PAR‐2) genes in the kidney of type 1 diabetic rats. After induction of diabetes using streptozotocin (STZ), 55 mg/kg bw dose, rats were randomly divided into four groups with six rats in each group as follows: normal group: normal control receiving normal saline and a single dose of citrate buffer daily; diabetic control group: diabetic control receiving 0.5% dimethyl sulfoxide daily; diabetic+BCA (10 mg/kg) group: diabetic rats receiving biochanin A at a dose of 10 mg/kg bw daily; diabetic+BCA (15 mg/kg) group: diabetic rats receiving biochanin A at a dose of 15 mg/kg bw daily. TGF‐β1 and PAR‐2 gene expression was assessed by real‐time. Spectrophotometric methods were used to measure biochemical factors: fast blood glucose (FBG), urea, creatinine, albumin, lipids profiles malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). The course of treatment in this study was 42 days. The results showed that in the diabetic control group, FBG, serum urea, creatinine, expression of TGF‐β1 and PAR‐2 genes, and the levels of MDA in kidney tissue significantly increased and SOD activity in kidney tissue and serum albumin significantly decreased compared to the normal group (p < 0.001). The results showed that administration of biochanin A (10 and 15 mg/kg) after 42 days significantly reduced the expression of TGF‐β1 and PAR‐2 genes and FBG, urea, creatinine in serum compared to the diabetic control group (p < 0.001), also significantly increased serum albumin compared to the diabetic control group (p < 0.001). The level of MDA and SOD activity in the tissues of diabetic rats that used biochanin A (10 and 15 mg/kg) was significantly reduced and increased, respectively, compared to the diabetic control group (p < 0.001). Also, the result showed that in the diabetic control group lipids profiles significantly is disturbed compared to the normal group (p < 0.001), the results also showed that biochanin A (10 and 15 mg/kg) administration could significantly improved the lipids profile compared to the control diabetic group (p < 0.001). It is noteworthy that it was found that the beneficial effects of the biochanin A were dose dependent. In conclusion, administration of biochanin A for 42 days has beneficial effect and improves diabetes and nephropathy in diabetic rats. So probably biochanin A can be used as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This study investigates the problem of event‐triggered distributed state estimation for discrete‐time, nonlinear systems with state saturation. A Kalman‐like filter is developed, and consensus is first achieved with respect to the prediction estimation. The accuracy of the computed estimation is then improved via two recursive equations. The filter gains are determined in each sensor node via utilization of only an upper bound for the common error covariance, thereby resulting in a lower computational burden. Finally, the boundedness of the estimation errors is analyzed, and a comparison of the simulation results demonstrates that the proposed filtering method outperforms a recent rival method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dendrimers have received more attention in all fields of research these days. In the present study, polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers were synthesized on the acrylic ultrafiltration membranes to minimize fouling as an important deficiency in the separation process. The antifouling activity of these dendrimers with different generations (G0‐3) was tested to restrict three macrolides (tylvalosin, tylosin, and tulathromycin) and two pleuromutilins (tiamulin and valnemulin) as veterinary antibiotic drugs with amine groups and positive charges at pH = 7 of the membrane surface. These compounds are risky for human consumption. Due to having several amine functional groups and branches, PAMAM dendrimers can be a great coating agent for antifouling. G3 PAMAM dendrimer‐coated membranes had the best performance (water flux: 130.7 L/m2·h, rejection of tulathromycin: 91.4%, flux recovery ratio: 86.3%). The function of this ultrafiltration process depended on pore size and also charge surface. A significant reduction for irreversible and reversible fouling was observed for this new ultrafiltration membrane (Fir: 14.5%, Fre: 21.9%). This observation was confirmed by the power law model. Three 5‐hour cycle ultrafiltration processes were carried out for veterinary antibiotic wastewater that showed 3.18% loss of initial water flux (for the third cycle), final cleaning efficiency of 96.82%, and tylvalosin rejection of 94.1%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, composite membranes were prepared by cross‐linking of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and glutaraldehyde (GA) on amidoximated ultrafiltration membrane. During this procedure, it was taken advantage of large‐area graphene oxide sheets as graphitic nets in the active layer. These membranes were used to remove an industrial textile dye (Chrysophenine GX) from wastewater. Optimum condition for membrane preparation was 1.5% wt. of PVA, 1.5% wt. of GA, and 0.3% wt. of graphene oxide sheets. Permeation results showed that electrostatic charges on membrane surface have easily converted from positive into negative ones. Contact angle was significantly decreased (63.5° to 28.8°). Final nanofiltration membrane showed lowest fouling rate during removing the industrial direct dye (flux recovery ratio: 96.60%, reversible fouling ratio: 23.82%, and irreversible fouling ratio: 3.39%). Pore size of this membrane was <8 nm, and Chrysophenine GX was eliminated by 98.5% with water permeability of 12.23 L/m2.h.bar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A carbon paste electrode modified with 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ionic liquid (BMIPF6) and CuO nanoparticles (CuO/NPs) (CPE/BMIPF6/CuO/NPs) was fabricated and used for square wave voltammetric analysis of levodopa in the presence of vitamin B6. The elemental analysis, SEM and XRD methods were used for characterization of synthesized CuO nanoparticle. CPE/BMIPF6/CuO/NPs exhibited high electrical conductivity toward the electro-oxidation of levodopa at a pH=7.0 as best experimental condition. Using CPE/BMIPF6/CuO/NPs the levodopa and vitamin B6 peaks are separated and oxidized at potentials of 0.565 V and 0.835 V, respectively; hence levodopa can be detected in the presence of vitamin B6. The electrochemical response shows a linear relationship from concentration of levodopa and vitamin B6 in the ranges of 0.06-1000 μM and 0.1-700.0 μM, respectively. Finally, CPE/BMIPF6/CuO/NPs were applied as high performance tool for determination of levodopa and vitamin B6 in real samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel thin-film composite (TFC) nanofiltration membrane containing hydrophilic organic additives was fabricated via interfacial polymerization. Three organic acids, i.e., lactic, maleic, and citric acid, served as aqueous-phase additives and their role in membrane structure and nanofiltration membrane flux enhancement was investigated. Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) analysis confirmed the presence of organic acids in the polyamide (PA) layer. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analyses were applied to investigate the membrane morphology. The more carboxylic functional groups present in the additive resulted in higher hydrophilicity and porosity and flux was enhanced significantly compared to the neat PA membrane, while salt rejection was influenced only to a minor extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to develop the water flux and antifouling properties of a polyamide (PA) nanofiltration membrane. A nascent PA membrane was prepared with an interfacial polymerization technique and modified with 2,5-diaminobenzene sulfonic acid (2,5-DABSA) as a second modification. The effects of the 2,5-DABSA monomer concentration and the modification time on the membrane performance were investigated. The chemical structure, morphology, roughness, hydrophilicity, molecular weight cutoff, and antifouling properties of the membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force spectroscopy, contact angle measurement, poly(ethylene glycol) tracers, and cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide filtration, respectively. The PA membrane with optimized performance was shown to have a greater than 44% higher water permeate flux with a change in the salt rejection in the order RNa2SO4 > RCaCl2 > RNaCl to RNa2SO4 > RNaCl > RCaCl2. The improvement of the hydrophilicity led to excellent antifouling properties in the new PA membranes and illustrated a promising and simple method for the fabrication of high-performance PA membranes. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43583. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road side units (RSUs) are considered to be one of the most important components in vehicular networks to send and receive data from other components inside the networks. Regarding the fact that vehicular network performance and vehicular environment coverage are highly related, the maximum coverage via RSUs improves the efficiency of vehicular networks. However, because of high costs of RSU placement, it would be impossible to have full coverage through RSUs. Hence, it would be necessary to optimally install a limited number of RSUs in the most appropriate locations. In this article, the problem of RSU placement is formulated to binary integer programming. The objective of the present study is to find locations which have higher impacts on efficiency of vehicular networks. The objective function is minimising the costs of RSU placement. Moreover, coverage of the most important locations by RSUs has been applied in the form of optimization constraints. The performance of the given mechanism has been assessed by real traces. Simulation results indicate that the method is able to find optimal locations of RSUs in highway and urban environments. Furthermore, the results show that by optimal RSU placement inside the environment, the performance of vehicular network is improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to prepare positively charged nanofiltration (NF) membranes to remove cations from aqueous solutions. A composite NF membrane was fabricated by the modification of a polysulfone ultrafiltration support. The active top layer was formed by the interfacial crosslinking polymerization of poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) with p-xylene dichloride (XDC). Then, it was quaternized by methyl iodide (MI) to form a perpetually positively charged layer. The chemical and morphological changes of the membrane surfaces were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy. To optimize the membrane operation, the PEI solution concentration, PEI coating time, XDC concentration, crosslinking time, and MI concentration were optimized. Consequently, high water flux (5.4 L m−2 h−1 bar−1) and CaCl2 rejection (94%) values were obtained for the composite membranes at 4 bars and 30°C. The rejections of the NF membrane for different salt solutions, obtained from pH testing, followed the order Na2SO4 < MgSO4 < NaCl < CaCl2. The molecular weight cutoff was calculated by the retention of poly(ethylene glycol) solutions with different molecular weights, and finally, the stoke radius was calculated as 1.47 nm. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41988. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-microphone binary mask speech enhancement (2mBMSE) has been of particular interest in recent literature and has shown promising results. Current 2mBMSE systems rely on spatial cues of speech and noise sources. Although these cues are helpful for directional noise sources, they lose their efficiency in diffuse noise fields. We propose a new system that is effective in both directional and diffuse noise conditions. The system exploits two features. The first determines whether a given time-frequency (T-F) unit of the input spectrum is dominated by a diffuse or directional source. A diffuse signal is certainly a noise signal, but a directional signal could correspond to a noise or speech source. The second feature discriminates between T-F units dominated by speech or directional noise signals. Speech enhancement is performed using a binary mask, calculated based on the proposed features. In both directional and diffuse noise fields, the proposed system segregates speech T-F units with hit rates above 85%. It outperforms previous solutions in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and perceptual evaluation of speech quality improvement, especially in diffuse noise conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heracleum persicum Desf. Ex Fischer (Apiaceae) is a native medicinal plant in the Iranian traditional medicine and also a safe and common dietary spice. The present pilot study aimed to investigate the impact of supplementation with H. persicum fruits on serum lipid concentrations in a group of patients with minimal coronary artery disease. Subjects who were diagnosed with <50% luminal narrowing in any of the major coronary arteries in coronary angiography were recruited for this trial and were randomized to receive either H. persicum hydroalcoholic fruit extract ( n = 15; 300 mg/day) or placebo ( n = 12) for a period of 6 months. Serum concentrations of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides were measured at baseline and at the end of study. No significant difference in concentrations of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was observed between H. persicum extract and placebo groups ( p > 0.05). However, serum triglycerides levels were reduced after H. persicum extract supplementation in a borderline significant manner ( p = 0.063). Short-term supplementation with H. persicum fruit extract might be used as an adjunctive treatment for patients with hypertriglyceridemia. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]