Background: Vesicoureteral Reflux (VUR) is the most common urologic anomaly in children. In spite of prescribing prophylactic antibiotics in children with VUR, in some cases breakthrough infection (BTI) occurs while receiving prophylactic antibiotics which may cause pyelonephritis that can ultimately lead in renal scarring.

Materials and Methods: In this discreptive-analytic study, 288 children with primary vesicoureteral reflux under Cotrimoxazole(2mg/kg) treatment have been under supervision for duration of at least one year. Based on the collected data, predictive effect of some factors like gender, mean age of VUR diagnosis, VUR grade, unilateral versus bilateral and presence of abnormal renal scar on the breakthrough infection under prophylactic treatment, were examined.

Results: Breakthrough infection while receiving prophylactic antibiotics was observed among 111(38.54%) patients consisting of 88 girls (79.28%) and 23 boys (20.72%). The moderate to high VUR grades (grade III-V), presence of renal scar and female gender were found to be the important risk factors for BTI. However, no statistically significant relationship between mean age of VUR diagnosis and unilateral versus bilateral VUR with BTI was found.

Conclusion: Results of the current study will help improving parents' and physicians' awareness of the risk factors associated with BTI which may potentially lead to renal damage.

Background: Nanomaterials have gained increasing attention because of their novel properties, including a large specific surface area and high reaction activity. This study was designed to investigate the cytotoxic effects of CuO nanopaticles on brain, spleen, and embryo NMRI pregnant mice.

Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, forty two female NMRI mice of (weighting 30±3.0 g) were randomly divided into six groups (four experimental groups, one sham group and one control group).The experimental mice on days 3 and 12 of pregnancy received CuO nanoparticle with concentrations 50, 100, 150, 200 mg/kg intraperitoneal injection. On day 17 pregnancy, brain, spleen and fetus weights were measured.Tissues for histopathological evaluation were stained with hematoxylin and eosin.

Results: Based on the macroscopic observations of embryos weight with increasing concentration of nanoparticle compared to control reduces its toxicity increased (p&le0.05). Spleen only at concentration of 600 mg/kg showed significant changes compared to control (p&le0.05). Histopathologic examination on brain and spleen following IP administration of CuO nanoparticle showed signs of cytotoxicity (congestion, necrosis, inflammatory cell infiltration, vacuolar degeneration) and (congestion, necrosis, increased hemosiderin) compared to control group, respectively.

Conclusion: The present study clearly showed that CuO-NPs can produce the histopathological abnormalities on brain and spleen tissues of NMRI mice in a dose-dependent manner.

Background: Maturation of oocytes and fertilization in vitro can be considered as one of the most important steps to treat infertility. In this study maturation medium was enriched with Platelet extraction (PL) which has high concentration of growth factors. Meiosis resumption and maturation was monitored after 18 hours of maturation.

Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, oocytes at germinal vesicle stage were obtained from mature NMRI female mice. Maturation medium was &alphaMEM and the control groups had 5-10% FBS and the medium in the experimental groups was enriched by 5, 10% PL and the combination of 5% PL and 5% FBS. Meiosis resumption and maturation were observed after 18 hours.

Results: The rate of matured oocytes in the experimental group 5% PL for both COC and DO group was significantly higher than the control groups (P<0.05). The maturation rate for 5% PL was 61% for the COC group and 72% for the DO group while this rate for 5% FBS control group was 53% and 50% respectively.

Conclusion: PL had a significant effect on meiosis resumption and maturation of oocyte at germinal vesicle stage. Based on these results, PL could be used as a maturation promoting factor.

Background: The neutrophil-activating protein (HP-NAP) of Helicobacter pylori is a protective antigen and a major virulence factor of this bacteria. Stimulating the immune system for helicobacter infection treatment could have an important role. The aim of study is to assess the effect of recombinant Neutrophil activating protein (Hp-NapA) of helicobacter pylori on proliferation and viability of peritoneal macrophages from BALB/c mice.

Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, recombinant Hp-NapA of helicobacter pylori was produced in vitro. Mice peritoneal macrophages were purified and cultured. Different concentrations of recombinant Hp-NapA was used for macrophages stimulation. MTT assay was performed to assess the viability and proliferation of macrophages.

Results: The results elucidated that the increasing effect of stimulation with recombinant Hp-NapA was significant at the dose of 30 µg/ml  (p=0.01). The rate of viabitity was significantly higher than control group at the doses of 30 and 60 µg/ml and in the concurrency series of recombinant protein with lipopolysaccharid, there was a statistically significarit increase in proliferation at just these doses.

Conclusion: According to our findings, recombinant Hp-NapA has a positive effect on proliferation, viability and function of peritoneal macrophages. Therefore, it is proposed that recombinant Hp-NapA can be studied as an immunomodulator for immunotherapy.

  Background: In various researches, ICA is used for detecting and removing eye artifacts but here, for innovation, ICA algorithm is used not only for detecting eye artifacts, but also for detecting brain signals of two conceptual categories of the words Danger and Information.

  Materials and Methods: In this descriptive- analytical study, recording is done by using a Micromed device and a 19-channel helmet in unipolar mode that the Cz electrode is selected as reference electrode. The statistical community included four men and four women in the age range of 25-30. In the designed task, three groups of traffic signs are considered in which two groups refered to the concept of danger and the other one refered to the concept of information.

  Results: For two of the eight volunteers, alpha waves were observed with a very high power from back of the head in the test time, but it was different in thinking time. According to this alpha waves, in changing the task from thinking to rest, it takes at least 3 and at most 5 seconds for two volunteers till they go to the absolute rest. For seven of the eight volunteers, danger and information signals well separated that these differences for five of the eight volunteers observed in the right hemisphere and for the other three volunteers in the left hemisphere.

  Conclusion: ICA algorithm as one of Blind Source Seperation (BSS) algorithms is suitable for recognizing the word’s concept and its place in the brain. Achieved results from this experiment are the same as the results from other methods like fMRI and methods based on electroencephalograph (EEG) in vowel imagination and covert speech.

  Background: Alpha-tocopherol, as a strong antioxidant, plays an important role in testraining free radicals. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Alpha-tocopherol on cell proliferation and restraining apoptosis in rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells.

  Materials and Methods: In this research study, the rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were extracted under sterile conditions using flashing-out method. At the end of the third passage, cells were divided into groups of control and Alpha-tocopherol with doses of 15 and 25 µM and were treated in the osteogenic media cell medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum, 10 mM β-glycerol phosphate, 10 nM dexamethasone and 50 µg/ml ascorbic 3-phosphate] for a period of 21 days. Then, cell proliferation, DNA damage, expression of Bcl-2 and Bax genes and the morphologic changes of the cells were investigated during the procedure of osteogenesis. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and means difference was considered significant at p<0.05.

  Results: Cell proliferation, the size of nuclei diameter and expression of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 gene showed a significant increase in mesenchymel stem cells treated with Alpha-tocopherol (p<0.05) in a dose dependent manner compared to the control cells. Also, cytoplasm extension was seen in the cells treated with Alpha-tocopherol, compared to the control group. Since Alpha-tocopherol causes a significant decrease in DNA damage and the expression of apoptotic Bax gene, compared to the control group, therefore it can suppress apoptosis in bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, in a dose dependent manner .

Background: The purpose of this research is to design a Brain-Computer Interface to discriminate the brain signals while the brain images four main directions. To be innovative, the subjects have imaged the aimed directions by power of imagination, and for the first time, the ICA algorithm has been used to detect the aimed signal and to eliminate the artifacts.

Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-ana alytic study, signals are recorded by using a Micromed device and a 19-channel helmet in unipolar mode. The statistical population included three persons in the age range of 25 to 30 and the designed task consisted of 24 slides of four main directions.

Results: Simulations have shown that the best classification accuracy was the outcome of the 2.5-second time windowing and the best choice for extracting features was the AR coefficients of 15 order. There was no significant difference between the classification accuracy of different implementation of the Artificial Neural Network classifier with different number of layers and neurons and different classification functions. In comparison with the Neural Network, the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) showed better classification accuracies.

Conclusion: The results of this research are in accordance with the results of the methods such as FMRI and methods based on the brain signals in vowel imagination. In this research, the best classification accuracy was obtained from the Linear Discriminant Analysis classifier by extracting the target signal from the output of the ICA algorithm and extracting the AR coefficients as feature and the 2.5-second time windowing. The Linear Discriminant Analysis classifier result the best classification accuracies.

Background: Few studies have investigated the possible ways to prevent lead induced defects during gestation and lactation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of melatonin as a hormone with antioxidant properties on oxidative stress in the hippocampus and learning and memory impairment induced by administration of lead.

Materials and Methods: Pregnant rats were exposed to treatments of control, lead acetate (0.2% solution in water), lead acetate + melatonin and melatonin (10 mg / kg by oral gavage) from gestation day 6 until weaning. 21 days after birth, the activities of several antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and catalase (CAT) as well as malondialdehyde levels in hippocampus of 23 male offspring rats were assayed. To behavioral studies, on postnatal day 30, 57 rats were trained 6 days in the Morris water maze and the probe test was performed 24 h later.

Results: The results showed that administration of lead during pregnancy and lactation could increase MDA levels and decrease glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase antioxidant enzymes activities in the hippocampus of male offspring. Also, this treatment significantly disrupted performance of the Morris water maze test and impaired learning and spatial memory in male offspring compared with control. Administration of melatonin attenuated lipid peroxidation and could improve learning and spatial memory deficits and the activity of antioxidant enzymes in lead exposure group.

Conclusion: Melatonin as a neuropotective drug can protect the hippocampus against the complications of lead exposure, in the course of development.

Background: Nuclear radiation emission by radionuclides causes the diseases, such as cancer or genetic anomalies. Therefore, the study of radioactivity in soil and food as well as calculating the risk of cancer seems essential for foods consumption.

Materials and Methods: In this research, nine different varieties of beans containing the grain of beans, areal part and their soil cultivated were collected. The specific activity of ²²⁶Ra, ²³²Th, ⁴⁰K and ¹³⁷Cs was determined for each sample employing gamma ray spectrometry method using high purity germanium detector with 30% relative efficiency.

Results: The absorbed dose rate in the air in one meter above the ground surface varied from 77.23 to 112.78 in nGy/h. The annual effective dose rate absorbed by adult person from the beans consumption in Iran is in the range of 122.14 to 905.86 in μSv/y. The cancer risk for the different varieties of beans varied from of 1.87 × 10^-5 to 1.59 ×10^-4 which is less than acceptable value as 10^-3.

Conclusion: The specific activities of radionuclides in soils samples are more than average of world wide range. The absorbed dose rate from bean consumption for the most of Varieties is more than of world average. Cancer risk resulted from bean consumption is less than acceptable value and consumption of bean has no risk for population health.

Background: Migraine is a chronic neurological disorder that leads patients to avoid any kind of activities. Since different factors are involved in migraine incidence and its triggers, so drugs are used to prevent or treat it are so variable. Also, combined medications are used to relieve migraine. This study examined the effectiveness of self-control training on quality of life in patients with migraine.

Materials and Methods: Statistic population of this study included all migraine patients in Ardabil in 2014(Estimation: N=1150) that 40 patients were selected by convenience sampling. Demographic and disease information questionnaire and quality of life questionnaire (SF-36) were used to collect data in clinical centers. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANCOVA) was used to analyze data, because present research was a experimental and clinical trial with pre-test and post-test with control group.

Results: The results showed that there is a significant difference between mean in quality of life in migraine patients and control subjects. It means that physical health and mental health of quality of life was different between control and experimental groups after self- control training.

Conclusion: Self-control training can be used to enhance quality of life in migraine patients. These results have important and effective applications in the treatment of migraine patients. Generally, specialists of clinical centers can use this method alongside other treatment interventions.

Abstract

Background: Amount of natural background   ionizing radiations in environment depends on kind of soil, stones and geographical conditions. Hot springs of Mahallat facilities are annually visited by many tourists. Determination of environmental radioactivity and excess lifetime cancer risk is very important.

Materials and Methods: In this research, twenty four samples of igneous and travertine rocks from a region (300 hectares) and four water samples of Mahallat hot springs were collected. The specific activities of radionuclides were determined for all samples by using gamma ray spectrometry method and employing high purity germanium detector with 30% relative efficiency.

Results: External and internal hazard indices for igneous rocks, water and two travertine samples varied from 0.00 to 0.71 and for two another travertine samples obtained from 8.17 to 22.50.  The average of annual gonadal dose equivalent (AGDE) was determined as 0.36 and 0.20 mSv/y and also the average of excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) was calculated as 0.23 × 10^-3 and 0.12×10^-3 for igneous and travertine rocks, respectively. Maximum acceptable value and world wide average of ELCR are 10^-3 and 0.29×10^-3, respectively.

Conclusion: The results of this research show that the hazard indices and ELCR for magma region are less than unity and world wide average respectively. Therefore; there is no consequence for people health. So, the radioactivity only around the orifice of hot springs where radium compositions are deposited, is more than maximum acceptable value.