faezeh almasi

Iranian animal-shaped pottery vessels dating back to about 1500 B.C. are good examples of emotional design in ancient Iran. These objects were functional vessels made inspired by different animals in real or abstract shapes. This research aims to evaluate the users’ emotional response to these vessels using the Kansei engineering approach. Understanding these emotional responses is significant as it helps in designing products inspired by these ancient objects that resonate better with users' emotional and psychological needs. With the cross-sectional and descriptive methodology, five animal-shaped vessels belonging to different historical periods and discovered from different places were selected. By choosing 15 kansei emotion words a questionnaire using the 5-point semantic differential method set, and participants were asked to answer a similar questionnaire for each vessel. The images of five objects were provided to all the participants and they had to answer the five questionnaires by looking at them. The number of participants was 51, ranging from 15 to 50 years old. For data analysis, the factor analysis method was used for clustering the Kansei words, and then ANOVA analysis was applied. Based on the analysis, the result shows that the attractiveness of animal-shaped vessels for participants depends on the form, indicating a preference for familiar forms derived from nature that are similar to mental images. Functionality is also an important aspect of this type of design. For designers, understanding these emotional responses can significantly enhance the design process, leading to products that better meet users' emotional and psychological needs.

Numerous medical conditions, including cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and more recently, COVID-19, show close linkage to inflammation as a complex pathophysiological process. In this review, we present a comprehensive outlook on microbial-derived anti-inflammatory compounds as remarkable biomedicine drugs, focusing on their efficiency, mode of action, and limitations. Various structures of microbial anti-inflammatory compounds are introduced, including Macrolactin, Lipopeptides, Pyrrol, Quinoline, Alkaloids, Carbazole derivatives, Bicyclic depsipeptides, Flavomannin, etc. The inhibitory effects on IL-5, IL-13, ICAM-1, and PTP1B expression, PGE2 release, and increasing TGF-b production are only reported for microbial-derived anti-inflammatory compounds. According to previous studies, some species of Bifidobacterium, Streptococcus, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Bacillus, Streptomyces, Salinispora, Micromonospora, Talaromyces, and Faecalibacterium are bacterial genera that can produce compounds with inhibitory effects on inflammation. Also, Penicillium, Pleosporales, Aspergillus, Eurotium, Ascomycota, Eurotium, Lasiodiplodia, and Graphostroma are fungal genera of fungal species with the ability to produce anti-inflammatory metabolites. Microbial-based approaches are among the main suggested natural resources that may be able to provide novel, applicable anti-inflammation drugs in the future. Furthermore, the efficiency of existing drugs could be modulated using these new microbial anti-inflammatory compounds. This will aid in the future development of novel bio-based medications to prevent and treat numerous debilitating inflammation-related diseases.

Disturbance of reactive species produced through various physiological and biochemical processes causes damages to the cells, leading to cell apoptosis. In addition to medical importance, compounds with antioxidant activity can prevent radical species linked damages in food industries.Antioxidants can be described as valuable food preservatives, which promote food nutritional values via preventing oxidation of various diverse contents,majorly lipids, in addition to food deterioration. Due to the high costs and dangerous effects on human health reported for synthetic antioxidants, the search for natural antioxidant compounds has increased. Therefore, the objective of the present review was to overview natural antioxidants from plants and microorganisms as well as their diversity and industrial uses.

Plants and microorganisms are significant natural sources of diverse antioxidants. Nevertheless, the vast diversity of microorganisms and their metabolites as well as their easier manipulations highlight the environmental-friendly antioxidant production techniques from microorganisms that must be revised, compared to plants or synthetic antioxidants. Phenolics and terpenoids are the dominant antioxidants produced in plants, while themicrobial antioxidants vary, including carotenoids, polyketides and polysaccharides. This review clearly highlights the competency of microbial bioactive metabolites as the alternative sources of bioactive antioxidants for future of food industries. Elucidating structural and physicochemical characteristics of microbial antioxidants enables the discovery of emerging antioxidants and their mechanisms of action, leading to the disclosure of various strategies in the industries.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease are chronic relapsing disorders in which their clinical activity and treatment response are evaluated by various indices. The response rate is unpredictable, and for its evaluation, we use invasive procedures like colonoscopy and blood samples to address this issue. The current study was designed to evaluate the accuracy of fecal calprotectin before and after treatment with anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

46 patients with IBD who were a candidate for anti-TNF therapies were evaluated and the correlation between fecal calprotectin and disease activity before and after 5 months of treatment was studied.

Fecal calprotectin and disease activity after treatment with anti-TNF correlate, but before treatment, there was no correlation in the patients with UC.

Fecal calprotectin not on its own but alongside other tests could be used for follow-up treatment.

The current study was designed to evaluate the role of semi-quantitative EUS- elastography (strain ratio) in staging malignant pancreatic lesions.

Pancreatic cancer is considered one of the most lethal malignancies with a survival rate of only 5% worldwide. Pancreatic lesions include a wide range of diagnoses from benign to malignant forms. Biopsy and pathological study are the gold standard for the differentiation of malignant lesions and staging of tumors. Recently, endoscopic ultrasound sonography (EUS) elastography has been noticed as a non-invasive diagnosis modality. Nevertheless, no evidence of its potential to determine different stages of malignant tumors is available.

This prospective study included 81 adult patients with a confirmed diagnosis of malignant pancreatic lesion in different clarified stages. All diagnoses were confirmed after endoscopic ultrasound sonography via pathological investigation of surgical specimens or needle biopsies. The results of EUS-elastography based on tumor size (T staging), involved lymph nodes (N staging), and metastasis (M staging) were compared with the gold standard.

The mean age of patients was 60.11±13.57 years. The mean SR elastography value was 52.78±48.97. Elastography could not significantly discriminate T stage, N stage, or M stage of tumors (p=0.57, p=0.92, p=0.11, respectively). Moreover, the Spearman rank correlation coefficients for the correlation between T staging, N staging, M staging and SR elastography were not significant (p=0.40, p=0.94, p=0.39, respectively).

The non-invasive modality EUS-elastography cannot replace the gold standard in staging tumors; however, EUSelastography seemed to differentiate benign lesions from malignant ones.

As of December 2019, a new strain of coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was discovered in Wuhan, China, following an epidemic of a fast-spreading viral respiratory disease, later called Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), which then lead to the present pandemic the world has come to know. Patients who tested positive for COVID-19 are mostly asymptomatic or present with mild self-limiting symptoms. While GI symptoms occur with less prevalence, they are increasingly being reported. A diagnosis of Covid-19 has increased dramatically in patients presenting with gastrointestinal symptoms suggesting that GI symptoms should be taken into serious consideration with patient diagnosis. Case 1: A 65-year-old man presented to the hospital emergency room with abdominal pain, Murphy's sign and chills without fever, subsequently diagnosed as acute acalculous cholecystitis with a positive COVID-19 rRT-PCR. Case 2: A 78-year-old woman presented to the hospital emergency room complaining of severe positional epigastric pain precipitated by lying supine, chills with no fever, being later diagnosed as acute pancreatitis and a positive COVID-19 rRT-PCR. It has become evident that the ACE2 receptor plays a significant role as the entry site into human cells for the virus. This receptor is generally expressed in respiratory cells, as well as the gastrointestinal tract, corresponding with extrapulmonary manifestations of COVID-19. Studies concluded that the origin of gastrointestinal symptoms could be caused by the interaction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with cells through the ACE2 receptor. The findings of the present study support this theory, as both patients presented with symptoms regarding tissues with high ACE2 expression.

The main complication of Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is post-ERCP pancreatitis (PEP).

Based on demographic characteristics and underlying issues and ERCP indication, patients are categorized as high risk or low risk. There have been no studies on the synergistic effects of NSAIDS and hydration therapy, separately sorted by the risk assessment of PEP in different groups of patients.

This study included 281 eligible participants after exclusion. According to demographic characteristics and co-morbidities, the patients were divided to high risk and low risk. The high-risk group was divided randomly into two subgroups and both of them received NSAIDs (100 mg rectal Diclofenac). One group received standard hydration (1.5mg/kg/hr), another the other received aggressive hydration (3mg/kg/h). The low-risk group received standard hydration. One of its subgroups received NSAIDs, while others did not. The efficacy of these preventions was compared across 4 subgroups.

The mean age was 59.85±17.17. Eight hours after ERCP, the amylase and lipase were significantly higher in the high-risk group with standard hydration (P=0.00). Amylase, lipase 8 hours, between two low risk subgroups, NSAIDs had no significant effect (P=0.38, P=0.95, respectively). After adjustment based on cannulation, manipulation and duration of time, the results had no change (P=0.64, P=0.19, P=0.61).

The aggressive hydration could significantly decrease the risk of PEP. However, the low-risk group was exposed to the lowest risk of PEP. NSAIDs could not help to decrease the rate PEP in the low-risk groups alone. Overall, it seems hydration and NSAIDs therapy had synergistic outcome in high-risk patients.

Nowadays, highly specific aptamers generated by cell SELEX technology (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) are being applied for early detection of cancer cells. Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA), over expressed in prostate cancer, is a highly specific marker and therefore can be used for diagnosis of the prostate cancer cells. The aim of the present study was to select single-stranded DNA aptamers against LNCap cells highly expressing PSMA, using cell–SELEX method which can be used as a diagnostic tool for the detection of prostate cancer cells.
After 10 rounds of cell-SELEX, DNA aptamers were isolated against PSMA using LNCaP cells as a target and PC-3 cell lines for counter SELEX. Five DNA aptamers with more than 70% affinity were selected up on flow cytometry analysis of positive clones.
Dissociation constants of two selected sequences (A12-B1) were estimated in the range of 33.78±3.77 and 57.49±2.214 pmol, respectively. Conserved secondary structures of A12 and B1 sequences suggest the necessity of these structures for binding with high affinity to native PSMA. Comparison of the secondary structures of our isolated aptamers and aptamer A10 obtained by protein SELEX showed similar stem-loop structures which could be responsible for the recognition of PSMA on LNCap cell surface.
Our results indicated that selected aptamers may turn out to be ideal candidates for the development of a detection tool and also can be used in targeted drug delivery for future smart drugs.