Comparing knowledge and opinions of medical and dental students in the field of pediatric anesthesia.

Background and Purpose: Dental treatment under general anesthesia (GA) is one of the common treatment methods today for dental treatment in children, so dentists' point of view in this field is very important. Therefore, the purpose of this study was evaluation the awareness and attitude of pediatric dentists and final-year dental students about dental treatment for children under GA. Methods: To conduct this study, 150 people, including 75 general dentists (GD) and 75 final-year dental students (FYDS), were randomly selected in Tehran. In this study, a researcher-made questionnaire containing 15 questions (7 awareness questions and 8 attitude questions) was used to evaluate the awareness and attitude of the participants. After extracting the raw results, statistical analysis of the results was done using SPSS-Ver. 22 software. Results: 60% of the participants (90 people) were men and the remaining 40% (60 people) were women. The results showed that the level of awareness of male dentists was significantly higher than that of female dentists (P = 0.015). In addition, although the awareness level of FYDS was lower than GD, this difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.130). The average level of awareness among different age groups had a significant difference (P = 0.009), so the age group of 36-45 years compared to the younger age groups (25-35 years) and the older age groups (36-45 and 55 -46 years), had a higher level of awareness. Conclusion: According to the findings, it can be concluded that it is necessary to use appropriate educational methods to improve the level of awareness and attitude of children's dentists.

Recent advances in pre-conditioned mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSCs) therapy in organ failure; a comprehensive review of preclinical studies.

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs)-based therapy brings the reassuring capability to regenerative medicine through their self-renewal and multilineage potency. Also, they secret a diversity of mediators, which are complicated in moderation of deregulated immune responses, and yielding angiogenesis in vivo. Nonetheless, MSCs may lose biological performance after procurement and prolonged expansion in vitro. Also, following transplantation and migration to target tissue, they encounter a harsh milieu accompanied by death signals because of the lack of proper tensegrity structure between the cells and matrix. Accordingly, pre-conditioning of MSCs is strongly suggested to upgrade their performances in vivo, leading to more favored transplantation efficacy in regenerative medicine. Indeed, MSCs ex vivo pre-conditioning by hypoxia, inflammatory stimulus, or other factors/conditions may stimulate their survival, proliferation, migration, exosome secretion, and pro-angiogenic and anti-inflammatory characteristics in vivo. In this review, we deliver an overview of the pre-conditioning methods that are considered a strategy for improving the therapeutic efficacy of MSCs in organ failures, in particular, renal, heart, lung, and liver.

Selective aptamer conjugation to silver-coated magnetite nanoparticles for magnetic solid-phase extraction of trace amounts of Pb2+ ions.

Herein, a novel aptamer-functionalized magnetic adsorbent was developed and combined with magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) for the specific enrichment of Pb2+ ions prior to flame atomic absorption spectrometric detection. First, silver-coated magnetite core-shell nanoparticles (Fe3O4@Ag MNPs) were synthesized by the chemical reduction of silver ions on the surface of magnetite nanoparticles. After that, the selective DNA aptamer against Pb2+ was conjugated on the surface of the synthesized nanoparticles to form aptamer-modified magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4@Ag-APT). The characterization of the prepared adsorbent was performed through SEM imaging, XRD, FT-IR, EDX, and DRS instruments. The influence of the various experimental parameters on the adsorption and desorption steps in MSPE was investigated via Taguchi experimental design to optimize different parameters. Under the optimized conditions, the Pb2+ calibration graph was linear in the range of 33-1000 µg L-1. The relative standard deviation (RSD%) of the method for six replicates containing 100 µg L-1 of Pb2+ ions was 0.34%. Furthermore, the limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were 10 µg L-1 and 33.3 µg L-1, respectively. Finally, the applicability of the proposed method was successfully confirmed by preconcentration and determination of trace amounts of Pb2+ ions in tap and seawater samples. We showed a proof of concept for Fe3O4@Ag-APT as an efficient bio-adsorbent, offering a promising strategy for the specific binding/removal of toxic heavy metal ions.

Synthesis of Functionalized Magnetite Titanium Dioxide Nanocomposite for Removal of Acid Fuchsine Dye.

OBJECTIVE: In this research, a novel magnetite titanium dioxide nanocomposite functionalized by amine groups (Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2-NH2) was synthesized and its ability for efficient removal of Acid Fuchsine as an anionic dye from aqueous solutions was investigated. METHOD: The core-shell structure of Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2 was prepared using Fe3O4 as magnetic core, tetra ethyl orthosilicate as silica and tetra butyl titanate as titanium source for shell. The synthesized nanocomposites (particle size lower than 44 nm) were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, DRS, SEM and TGA instruments. The various experimental parameters affecting dye removal efficiency were investigated and optimized using Taguchi fractional factorial design. RESULTS: The synthesized adsorbent showed the highest removal efficiency of Acid Fuchsine (99 %) at pH= 3.5, without salt addition and during stirring at contact times less than 10 minutes. The study of kinetic models at two concentration levels showed the fast dye sorption on the surface of proposed nanocomposites with pseudo second order kinetic model (R2=1). Also, the fitting of Acid Fuchsine sorption data to Freundlich, Langmuir and Temkin isotherms suggested that Freundlich model gave a better fitting than other models (R2=0.9936, n=2). CONCLUSION: Good chemical stability, excellent magnetic properties, very fast adsorption kinetics and high removal efficiency make the synthesized nanocomposite as a proper recoverable sorbent for removal of Acid Fuchsine dye from wastewaters.